SOCRATES AND CHRIST.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 131, 4 June 1900, Page 2

SOCRATES AND CHRIST.

Rev. Dr. Hosking preached at Mt. Eden Free Methodist Church yesterday on the words: "Behold a greater than Solomon Is .here."—Matt. xv. 43. The preacher said:—-If we substitute the name Socrates foe Solomon we may say that Christ was wiser and greater than the wisest and greatest of all the philosophers of antiquity, Socrates was born at Athens 469, and died SOD years before Christ. He was the son of a sculptor, and in his youthful days received the education prescribed by the laws. As a soldier he distinguished himself by saving the life of Xenophon, one of the greatest generals and statesmen of the day. The wife of Socrates, Xantippe, lives in history for her bad temper, and her husband regarded her temper as a trial of his patience and good-means of his culture. One day W» wife, after a wordy warfare, threw a bucket of water over him, which elicited the famous remark, "After thunder we usually get rain." Like all great men, he suffered by the envy and jealousy of his inferiors. He adopted n new style of teaching, known to-day as the Bocratic method. If consisted in proposing to his hearers a. »erte» a* questions in such a manner as to produce conviction of the truth of the proposition originally advanced. H« became one of the most notorious characters of Athens, At 70 years of age he was condemned by the national tribunal as guilty of not worshipping the gods the city worshipped, despising the national deities by introducing new ones, and corrupting the youth. His noble defence is preserved by Plato—"The Apology of Socrates." He dwelt in the conviction he held, that his mission was to benefit mankind; declared himself a public blessing to the Athenians; assured-his 500 judges that if his life were spared he wo\ild continue in the same course, and regarded death with pure indifference. He was condemned .on a majority of three voices and sentenced to death by taking poison. His last days were spent in a cell with his wife, children and friends, to whom he discoursed chiefly on the immortality of the soul. Before he took the hemlock to drink, he said: "I must pray the gods to prosper my journey from this to the other world." He begged them to be quiet that he may die in peace. He swallowed the poison, walked about the room until his limbs were benumbed, then lay on hie back and covered his, face, In a minute or two there was a slight movement; the attendants uncovered his face; his eyes were rigid in death. Thus passed the great hero and philosopher. What did he teach? He was a Theist, He taught the being of God, and recognised a great architect and builder of the universe. But he did not break away from popular polytheism. He taught that man should suffer rather than do wrong; that it is -better to be than to seem; and it is better for a wreng-doer to suffer punishment than escape it. The good waa identical with the beautiful; virtue and truth are synonymous; wickedness results from ignorance, and self-knowledge is the condition of practical excellence, Thus he has been called the "Fathe? of Ethics." He hoisted the first flag on the continent of practical ethicß. He taught that man had an inward voice, a monitor, which rebukes the bad and commends the good; an oracle jn the soul acts as a bridle and a spur, the secret of heavenly inspiration and the good genius of life. He taught the immortality of the soul, a judgment to come, final rewards and. punishments. But there were defects in his life and teaching. He was unconcerned about family life. He thanked the gods he was man and not beast, male and not female, Greek and not Bar* barian. He questioned the sanctity of female love. Plato represents him as teaching that weak children should be put to death, that healthy children should be reared by the State, and no mother should know her own child. He regarded a wife as an indispensable evil, and wedlock as an arrangement for efficient housekeeping. Man shoiild only stop short at moderation in popular vjoes. How different from the teaching of Christ, Who honoured home life and female love, cared for and blessed the children, sanctified wifehood, upheld social puritjv and allowed no moderation in vice. Socratest was narrow in his sympathies. Nationality was his highest thought. He regarded slavery as a necessity, and the poor should be the vassals of the rich.' Only his fellow-citigens were his fellow-men. Christ taught the "Brotherhood of Man." Mankind is a word that never passed the lips of Socrates, PJato, or Aristotle. Humanitas, before Christ, meant chiefly refined human nature or refined culture, Socrates taught that "a man's virtue consists in conquering his friend by doing- him good, and his enemy by doing- him harm." Hate must be meet with hate, and a raan who loves, his emmy is like a silly goat that kissed the fire and lost his beard. To kill an enemy is no murder. Christ taught "Love your enemies," a precept very iew Christians carry out. "Bless them that curse you," a precept I have never yet seen exercised even by ministers of religion, and "Pray for them that despitefully use you and. persecute you,," teaching that, we n9*«^ hear in "the prayers oi latter-day saints," and

more's the pity, Socrates has a great many unconscious followers in Christ' endom to-day. We don't learn Christianity from professing Christians, but from' Christ, But Christ was greater, holier, wiser, and more majestic than the son of Sophroniscus. "If the life, and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God." If we put the Galilean Peasant side by side with the Athenian sage, they stand before, us as striking contrasts, and we are bound to exclaim, "Vicisti Galilee,O Galilean, thou has conquered."