The Athens Post

TRIBUTE OF ROUSSEAU TO CHRIST.-The following eloquent tribute of Jean Jacques Rousseau to Jesus Christ, will be read with interest as coming from one who had no distinct belief in special Revelation:

"I confess that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me; the sanctity of the Gospel speaks to my heart. See the books of the philosophers, with all their pomp; how little they appear beside this! Can it be that a book at once so sublime and so simple, was the work of men? Can it be that He, whose history it is, was but a man himself? Is that the tone of the enthusiast, or of an ambitious sectary? What mildness! What purity in his manners! What touching grace in his instructions! What elevation in his maxims What profound wisdom in his discourses!-- What presence of mind, what subtlety. and what justness in his replies! What empire over his passions! Where is the man---where is the sage, who knows how to act, to suffer and to die. without ostentation? When Plato paints his imaginary just man, covered with all the opprobrium of crime, yet worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he paints in every trait Jesus Christ. The resemblance is so striking that all the Fathers perceived it, and that one cannot but be struck with it, What prejudices, what blindness must he have who dares to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What a distance from the one to the other!

Socrates, dying without pain, without ignominy, easily supports his character to the last; and if this placid death had not honored his life. we should have doubted whether Socrates, with all his genius, was anything more than a sophist. He discovered, it is said. the principles of morals: but others had already put them in practice. He but inculcated what they had done. He only presented their examples as lessons. Aristides had been just, before Socrates had declared what justice was. Leonidas had died for his country, before Socrates had made a duty of patriotism. Sparta was sober, before Socrates commended sobriety, Greece abounded in virtuous men, before he had defined virtue.- But where did Jesus find, among his own people, that pure and elevated morality, of which he alone has given both the lessons and the example? From the bosom of the most furious fanaticism was heard the loftiest wisdom, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues honored the vilest nations. The death of Socrates, philosophizing tranquility with his friends. is the mildest that one could desire--that of Jesus expiring in torture. scorned, railed-at, cursed by a whole people, is the most horrible that one could dread! Socrates. taking the poisoned cup, blesses him who presented it, and who weeps. Jesus, in the midst of terrible sufferings, prays for his enraged persecutors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher. the life and death of Jesus are those of a God!"