here are Christian schools, in which our sons may
acquire the same power, they must adopt many of the laws devised by the
heathen. If in the future we are rich enough to raise churches to the
Almighty, to the Virgin Mary and the great Saints, in any way worthy of
their sublime merits, we shall owe our skill to the famous architects of
heathen Hellas. We are indebted to the arts of the heathen for a thousand
things in daily use, beside numberless others that lend charm to
existence. Yes, my beloved, when we consider all they did for us we
cannot in justice withhold our tribute of gratitude and admiration.

"Nor can we doubt that the best of them were acceptable to the Almighty
himself, for he granted to them to see darkly and from afar what he has
brought nigh to us, and poured into our hearts by divine revelation. You
all know the name of Plato. He, from whom Salvation was hidden, saw
remotely, by presentiment as it were, many things which to us, the
Redeemed, are clear and plain and near. He perceived the relation of
earthly beauty and heavenly truth. The great gift of Love binds and
supports us all and Plato gave the name of the divine Eros, that is
divine love, to an inspired devotion to the Imperishable. He placed
goodness--the Good--at the top of the great scale of Ideas which he
constructed. The Good was, to him, the highest Idea and the uttermost of
which we can conceive:--Good, whose properties he made manifest by every
means his lofty and lucid mind could command. This heathen, my brethren
and sisters, was well worthy of the grace bestowed on us. Do justice then
to the blinded souls, justice in Plato's sense of the word; he calls the
virtue of reason Wisdom; the virtue of spirit Courage, and the virtue of
the senses Temperance. Well, well! 'Prove all things and hold fast that
which is good.' That is to say: consider what may be worth anything in
the works of the heathen that it may be duly preserved; but, on the other
hand, tread all that is idolatry in the dust, all that brings the unclean
thing among us, all that imperils our souls and bodies, or anything that
is high and pure in life; but do not forget, my beloved, all that the
heathen have done for us. Be temperate in all things; avoid excess of
zeal; for thus, and thus only, can we be just. 'It is not to hate, but to
love each other that we are here.' It was not a Christian but Sophocles,
one of the greatest of the heathen, who uttered those words, and he
s