pass
through a time of trial and conflict first; in the language of religion
they must be converted or born again. Then they would see the world
transformed into a scene of heavenly beauty; a divine idea would
accompany them in all their thoughts and actions. Something too of the
recollections of childhood might float about them still; they might
regain that old simplicity which had been theirs in other days at their
first entrance on life. And although their love of one another was ever
present to them, they would acknowledge also a higher love of duty and
of God, which united them. And their happiness would depend upon their
preserving in them this principle--not losing the ideals of justice and
holiness and truth, but renewing them at the fountain of light. When
they have attained to this exalted state, let them marry (something too
may be conceded to the animal nature of man): or live together in holy
and innocent friendship. The poet might describe in eloquent words
the nature of such a union; how after many struggles the true love was
found: how the two passed their lives together in the service of God and
man; how their characters were reflected upon one another, and seemed
to grow more like year by year; how they read in one another's eyes the
thoughts, wishes, actions of the other; how they saw each other in God;
how in a figure they grew wings like doves, and were 'ready to fly away
together and be at rest.' And lastly, he might tell how, after a time
at no long intervals, first one and then the other fell asleep, and
'appeared to the unwise' to die, but were reunited in another state of
being, in which they saw justice and holiness and truth, not according
to the imperfect copies of them which are found in this world, but
justice absolute in existence absolute, and so of the rest. And they
would hold converse not only with each other, but with blessed souls
everywhere; and would be employed in the service of God, every soul
fulfilling his own nature and character, and would see into the wonders
of earth and heaven, and trace the works of creation to their author.

So, partly in jest but also 'with a certain degree of seriousness,'
we may appropriate to ourselves the words of Plato. The use of such a
parody, though very imperfect, is to transfer his thoughts to our sphere
of religion and feeling, to bring him nearer to us and us to him. Like
the Scriptures, Plato admits of endless applications, if we allow for