I touch briefly on another important point Socrates was a true, honest, earnest seeker after truth. I give this high praise unreservedly. As such, he represents the best tendencies of Gentile thought. As an honest seeker he had the fitting reward. So far as his search was not impeded by moral causes to which I have alluded, it was successful. He apprehended and taught truths of infinite value. But note this; he had not, did not profess to have, definite convictions upon the most important of all truths. Mr. Jowett says deliberately,[164] and as I think truly, "Socrates cannot be proved to have believed in the immortality of the soul." His speculations concerning a future state of retribution, recorded doubtless with a considerable admixture of Platonism in the Phædo, are deeply interesting; but they are speculations only, resting partly on grounds of which he recognises the insufficiency, or of which we cannot doubt the unsoundness. Socrates gave what he found. He sought for life and immortality; he drew very near to the region where they are to be found; he prepared the spirit of man for their announcement; but he did not bring them to light That was the work of Him who at once declares the truth, and justifies its reception. And now, keeping these characteristics in mind, let me ask you to consider them in reference to our Lord's teaching. One of our most popular and graceful writers--the Dean of Westminster--has done good service to the truth by pointing out repeatedly the very conspicuous and utterly peculiar characteristic of the Saviour, that He is wholly devoid of national exclusiveness. This is the more striking since His birth and all the circumstances of His early life would naturally have imbued Him with the prejudices of the most exclusive of all nations: a nation which was intended to be exclusive, which could only fulfil its special mission by exclusiveness. Mr. Hutton puts this with his usual force, but somewhat harshly: "To trust in Him really, to believe that He can help us to reduce the vulgar chaos of our English life to any order resting on an eternal basis, is far easier if we believe that the very same mind is shining on our consciences which entered into the poorest of lots among nearly the most degraded generation of the most narrow-minded race that the world has ever known, and made it the birthplace of a new earth" (Essays, vol. i., p. 283). Christ speaks ever to man as man; His words find an echo in universal consciousness; in Him there is neither Jew nor Gentile, and, _note specially this point_, neither bond nor free.