e Catholic priest who lately devoted himself
to death by a lingering disease that he might solace and help others,
was thinking of the 'sweets' of heaven? No; the work was already heaven
to him and enough. Much less will the dying patriot be dreaming of
the praises of man or of an immortality of fame: the sense of duty, of
right, and trust in God will be sufficient, and as far as the mind can
reach, in that hour. If he were certain that there were no life to come,
he would not have wished to speak or act otherwise than he did in the
cause of truth or of humanity. Neither, on the other hand, will he
suppose that God has forsaken him or that the future is to be a mere
blank to him. The greatest act of faith, the only faith which cannot
pass away, is his who has not known, but yet has believed. A very few
among the sons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances,
past, present, or to come. He who has attained to such a temper of mind
has already present with him eternal life; he needs no arguments to
convince him of immortality; he has in him already a principle stronger
than death. He who serves man without the thought of reward is deemed
to be a more faithful servant than he who works for hire. May not the
service of God, which is the more disinterested, be in like manner
the higher? And although only a very few in the course of the world's
history--Christ himself being one of them--have attained to such a noble
conception of God and of the human soul, yet the ideal of them may be
present to us, and the remembrance of them be an example to us, and
their lives may shed a light on many dark places both of philosophy and
theology.

THE MYTHS OF PLATO.

The myths of Plato are a phenomenon unique in literature. There are four
longer ones: these occur in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Gorgias, and Republic.
That in the Republic is the most elaborate and finished of them. Three
of these greater myths, namely those contained in the Phaedo, the
Gorgias and the Republic, relate to the destiny of human souls in
a future life. The magnificent myth in the Phaedrus treats of the
immortality, or rather the eternity of the soul, in which is included
a former as well as a future state of existence. To these may be added,
(1) the myth, or rather fable, occurring in the Statesman, in which the
life of innocence is contrasted with the ordinary life of man and the
consciousness of evil: (2) the legend of the Island of Atlantis, an
ima