“What do you consider to
be the greatest blessing which you have reaped from your wealth?
One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me
tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and
cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world be-
low and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once
a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they
may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing
nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and
alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what
wrongs he has done to others. And when he finds that the sum of his transgres-
sions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and
he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet
hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age:
’Hope,’ he says, ’cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness,
and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;– hope which is
mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.”