king, insurmountable. To raise one's self above the
clamor of passion, the power of evil, the bondage of the flesh, is
acknowledged, in mournful language, to be a hopeless task. A cloud of
sadness shades the brow of Plato as he contemplates the fallen state of
man. In the "Phaedrus" he describes, in gorgeous imagery, the purity, and
beauty, and felicity of the soul in its anterior and primeval state,
when, charioteering through the highest arch of heaven in company with
the Deity, it contemplated the divine justice and beauty; but "this
happy life," says he, "we forfeited by our transgression." Allured by
strange affections, our souls forgot the sacred things that we were made
to contemplate and love--we _fell_. And now, in our fallen state, the
soul has lost its pristine beauty and excellence. It has become more
disfigured than was Glaucus, the seaman "whose primitive form was not
recognizable, so disfigured had he become by his long dwelling in the
sea."[960] To restore this lost image of the good,--to regain "this
primitive form," is not the work of man, but God. Man can not save
himself. "Virtue is not natural to man, neither is it to be learned, but
it comes by a divine influence. _Virtue, is the gift of God_."[961] He
needs a discipline, "an education which is divine." If he is saved from
the common wreck, it must be "by the special favor of Heaven."[962] He
must be delivered from sin, if ever delivered, by the interposition of
God.

[Footnote 960: "Republic," bk. x. ch. xi.]

[Footnote 961: "Meno."]

[Footnote 962: "Republic," bk. vi. ch. vi., vii.]

Plato was, in some way, able to discover the need of a Saviour, to
desire a Saviour, but he could not predict his appearing. Hints are
obscurely given of a Conqueror of sin, an Assuager of pain, an Averter
of evil in this life, and of the impending retributions of the future
life; but they are exceedingly indefinite and shadowy. In all instances
they are rather the language of _desire_, than of hope. Platonism
awakened in the heart of humanity a consciousness of sin and a profound
feeling of want--the want of a Redeemer from sin, a spiritual, a divine
Remedy for its moral malady--and it strove after some remedial power.
But it was equally conscious of failure and defeat. It could enlighten
the reason, but it could only act imperfectly on the will. Platonic was
a striking counterpart to Pauline experience prior to the apostle's
deliverance by the power and grace o