The attitude of Socrates is based upon courage,
generosity, simplicity. He knows that it is with fear that we
weight our melancholy sensibilities, that it is with meanness and
coldness that we poison life, that it is with complicated
conventional duties that we fetter our weakness. Socrates has no
personal ambitions, and thus he is rid of all envy and
uncharitableness; he sees the world as it is, a very bright and
brave place, teeming with interesting ideas and undetermined
problems. Where Christianity has advanced upon this--for it has
advanced splendidly and securely--is in interpreting life less
intellectually. The intellectual side of life is what Socrates
adores; the Christian faith is applicable to a far wider circle of
homely lives. Yet Christianity too, in spite of ecclesiasticism,
teems with ideas. Its essence is an unprejudiced freedom of soul.
Its problems are problems of character which the simplest child can
appreciate. But Christianity, too, is built upon a basis of joy.
"Freely ye have received, freely give," is its essential maxim.
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