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rather to rejoice at it. That they who had defiled their minds with vice, 
and given themselves up to sensual pleasures, and committed crimes against 
society, where secluded from the presence of God; whereas those who have 
preserved themselves from all vice, and imitated the purity of God, would 
find by death a road opened to them to the Divine Presence, whence they 
took their original. And as swans are said to sing before death, as sup- 
posing they have some insight into the good arising from death, so should 
every good man rejoice at the approach of death, leading to another and 
better state. Let each of you prepare for the appointed time. You, my 
friends, must all go, when God calls. Me the fates summon / 5 Alluding 
to a line of Euripides. 
When he had made an end of speaking, Crito asked him, “ in what 
manner he wished to be buried.” He replied, “ that is with me a matter of 
little, or no concern. Have I been so long discoursing, and not yet per¬ 
suaded, Crito, that when Socrates has drunk the poison, the soul of Socrates 
hath left the body to possess the joys of the blessed, and he himself is slipt 
away. Let it not be said, that Socrates is being buried, that Socrates is here 
deposited. For such an expression is doing wrong to me, my immortal 
part. Say rather, that here lies the carcase of what once belonged to 
Socrates, and do with it whatever you please / 5 He then drank off the 
poison. 
Xenophon, who was the pupil of Socrates, in recording the last words 
of Cyrus, shews how much he had imbibed the sublime notions respecting 
the soul and God from his master. He describes this amiable prince, when 
on his death-bed, thus addressing his family and friends: 
“ My dear children and disconsolate friends, think not that I shall be 
no more. While with you and about you, my soul has always been invi¬ 
sible, yet from my actions you were persuaded of its existence. My soul 
will still remain unseen; but conceive of it as existing. Never could I 
once imagine that the soul only lived while united to a mortal body, or that 
it died on being separated from it.” 
Anaxarchus of Cyprus was pounded to pieces in a tub. ct You 
may,” says this philosopher, “ beat to pieces the bag of Anaxarchus, but you 
cannot strike Anaxarchus himself.” 
Epicarmus asserts, “ that death could not destroy his spirit, it was 
immortal, and would happily live in heaven.” 
Thus, at the judgment seat of Nero, Thraseas told the emperor, 
