y school.
The other disciples taunted them with having a father who was a currier;
they were obliged to leave. The irritated father had no rest until he
had stirred up all the priests and all the sophists against me. They
persuaded the counsel of the five hundred that I was an impious fellow
who did not believe that the Moon, Mercury and Mars were gods. Indeed, I
used to think, as I think now, that there is only one God, master of all
nature. The judges handed me over to the poisoner of the republic; he
cut short my life by a few days: I died peacefully at the age of
seventy; and since that time I pass a happy life with all these great
men whom you see, and of whom I am the least."

After enjoying some time in conversation with Socrates, I went forward
with my guide into a grove situated above the thickets where all the
sages of antiquity seemed to be tasting sweet repose.

I saw a man of gentle, simple countenance, who seemed to me to be about
thirty-five years old. From afar he cast compassionate glances on these
piles of whitened bones, across which I had had to pass to reach the
sages' abode. I was astonished to find his feet swollen and bleeding,
his hands likewise, his side pierced, and his ribs flayed with whip
cuts. "Good Heavens!" I said to him, "is it possible for a just man, a
sage, to be in this state? I have just seen one who was treated in a
very hateful way, but there is no comparison between his torture and
yours. Wicked priests and wicked judges poisoned him; is it by priests
and judges that you have been so cruelly assassinated?"

He answered with much courtesy--"_Yes._"

"And who were these monsters?"

"_They were hypocrites._"

"Ah! that says everything; I understand by this single word that they
must have condemned you to death. Had you then proved to them, as
Socrates did, that the Moon was not a goddess, and that Mercury was not
a god?"

"_No, these planets were not in question. My compatriots did not know at
all what a planet is; they were all arrant ignoramuses. Their
superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks._"

"You wanted to teach them a new religion, then?"

"_Not at all; I said to them simply--'Love God with all your heart and
your fellow-creature as yourself, for that is man's whole duty.' Judge
if this precept is not as old as the universe; judge if I brought them a
new religion. I did not stop telling them that I had come not to destroy
the law but to fulfil