ir pomp of diction; how mean, how contemptible, are they,
compared with the Scripture! Is it possible that a book at once so
simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? Is it possible
that the Sacred Personage, whose history it contains, should be
himself a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an
enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity, in
his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What
sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses!
What presence of mind, what subtilety, what truth, in his replies!
How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where
the philosopher, who could so live and die, without weakness and
without ostentation? When Plato described his imaginary good man
loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest reward
of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the
resemblance was so striking that all the Fathers perceived it.

What prepossession, what blindness, must it be to compare the son
of Sophroniscus to the Son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion
there is between them! Socrates, dying without pain or ignominy,
easily supported his character to the last; and if his death,
however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted
whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a
vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals.
Others, however, had before put them in practice; he had only to
say what they had done, and reduce their examples to precepts.
Aristides had been _just_ before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas
gave up his life for his country before Socrates declared
patriotism to be a duty; the Spartans were a sober people before
Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue,
Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among
his compatriots, that pure and sublime morality of which he only
has given us both precept and example? The greatest wisdom was made
known amidst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the
most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on the earth.
The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends,
appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus,
expirin