Chapter VIII: Part 8

I hold it to have been a great thing, in the first place, that we had among us, at that awful moment when the public mind was meditating the question of submission to the tea tax, or resistance by arms, and at the more awful moment of the first appeal to arms,--that we had some among us who personally knew what war was. Washington, Putnam, Stark, Gates, Prescott, Montgomery, were soldiers already. So were hundreds of others of humbler rank, but not yet forgotten by the people whom they helped to save, who mustered to the camp of our first Revolutionary armies. These all had tasted a soldier's life. They had seen fire, they had felt the thrilling sensations, the quickened flow of blood to and from the heart, the mingled apprehension and hope, the hot haste, the burning thirst, the feverish rapture of battle, which he who has not felt is unconscious of one-half of the capacities and energies of his nature; which he who has felt, I am told, never forgets. They had slept in the woods on the withered leaves or the snow, and awoke to breakfast upon birch-bark and the tender tops of willow-trees. They had kept guard on the outposts on many a stormy night, knowing perfectly that the thicket half a pistol-shot off was full of French and Indian riflemen.

I say it was something that we had such men among us. They helped discipline our raw first levies. They knew what an army is, and what it needs, and how to provide for it. They could take that young volunteer of sixteen by the hand, sent by an Ipswich mother, who after looking upon her son equipped for battle from which he might not return, Spartan-like, bid him go and behave like a man--and many, many such shouldered a musket for Lexington and Bunker Hill--and assure him from their own personal knowledge that after the first fire he never would know fear again, even that of the last onset. But the long and peculiar wars of New England had done more than to furnish a few such officers and soldiers as these. They had formed that public sentiment upon the subject of war which re-united all the armies, fought all the battles, and won all the glory of the Revolution. The truth is that war in some form or another had been, from the first, one of the usages, one of the habits, of colonial life. It had been felt from the first to be just as necessary as planting or reaping--to be as likely to break out every day and every night as a thunder-shower in summer, and to break out as suddenly. There have been nations who boasted that their rivers or mountains never saw the smoke of an enemy's camp. Here the war-whoop awoke the sleep of the cradle; it startled the dying man on his pillow; it summoned young and old from the meeting-house, from the burial, and from the bridal ceremony, to the strife of death. The consequence was that the steady, composed, and reflecting courage which belongs to all the English race grew into a leading characteristic of New England; and a public sentiment was formed, pervading young and old and both sexes, which declared it lawful, necessary, and honorable to risk life and to shed blood for a great cause,--for our family, for our fires, for our God, for our country, for our religion. In such a cause it declared that the voice of God himself commanded to the field. The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself. It would not have hurried her sons to the Nile, or the foot of the Pyramids, or across the great raging sea of snows which rolled from Smolensko to Moscow, to set the stars of glory upon the glowing brow of ambition. But it was a courage which at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, at Bennington, and at Saratoga, had power to brace the spirit for the patriot's fight, and gloriously roll back the tide of menaced war from their homes, the soil of their birth, the graves of their fathers, and the everlasting hills of their freedom.

OF THE AMERICAN BAR

From the Address before the Cambridge Law School, 1845

Something such has, in all the past periods of our history, been one of the functions of the American bar. To vindicate the true interpretation of the charters of the colonies, to advise what forms of polity, what systems of jurisprudence, what degree and what mode of liberty these charters permitted,--to detect and expose that long succession of infringement which grew at last to the Stamp Act and Tea Tax, and compelled us to turn from broken charters to national independence,--to conduct the transcendent controversy which preceded the Revolution, that grand appeal to the reason of civilization,--this was the work of our first generation of lawyers: to construct the American constitutions: the higher praise of the second generation. I claim it in part for the sobriety and learning of the American bar; for the professional instinct towards the past; for the professional appreciation of order, forms, obedience, restraints; for the more than professional, the profound and wide intimacy with the history of all liberty, classical, mediaeval, and above all, of English liberty,--I claim it in part for the American bar that, springing into existence by revolution,--revolution, which more than anything and all things lacerates and discomposes the popular mind,--justifying that revolution only on a strong principle of natural right, with not one single element or agent of monarchy or aristocracy on our soil or in our blood,--I claim it for the bar that the constitutions of America so nobly closed the series of our victories! These constitutions owe to the bar more than their terse and exact expression and systematic arrangements: they owe to it in part, too, their elements of permanence; their felicitous reconciliation of universal and intense liberty with forms to enshrine and regulations to restrain it; their Anglo-Saxon sobriety and gravity conveyed in the genuine idiom, suggestive of the grandest civil achievements of that unequaled race. To interpret these constitutions, to administer and maintain them, this is the office of our age of the profession. Herein have we somewhat wherein to glory; hereby we come into the class and share in the dignity of founders of States, of restorers of States, of preservers of States.

I said and I repeat that while lawyers, and because we are lawyers, we are statesmen. We are by profession statesmen. And who may measure the value of this department of public duty? Doubtless in statesmanship there are many mansions, and large variety of conspicuous service. Doubtless to have wisely decided the question of war or peace,--to have adjusted by a skillful negotiation a thousand miles of unsettled boundary-line,--to have laid the corner-stone of some vast policy whereby the currency is corrected, the finances enriched, the measure of industrial fame filled,--are large achievements. And yet I do not know that I can point to one achievement of this department of American statesmanship which can take rank for its consequences of good above that single decision of the Supreme Court which adjudged that an act of legislature contrary to the Constitution is void, and that the judicial department is clothed with the power to ascertain the repugnancy and to pronounce the legal conclusion. That the framers of the Constitution intended this should be so is certain; but to have asserted it against the Congress and the Executive,--to have vindicated it by that easy yet adamantine demonstration than which the reasonings of the mathematics show nothing surer,--to have inscribed this vast truth of conservatism on the public mind, so that no demagogue, not in the last stage of intoxication, denies it,--this is an achievement of statesmanship of which a thousand years may not exhaust or reveal all the good.

DANIEL WEBSTER

From Eulogy delivered at Dartmouth College, 1853

Sometimes it has seemed to me that to enable one to appreciate with accuracy, as a psychological speculation, the intrinsic and absolute volume and texture of that brain,--the real rate and measure of those abilities,--it was better not to see or hear him, unless you could see or hear him frequently, and in various modes of exhibition; for undoubtedly there was something in his countenance and bearing so expressive of command,--something even in his conversational language when saying "Parva summisse et modica temperate," so exquisitely plausible, embodying the likeness at least of a rich truth, the forms at least of a large generalization, in an epithet,--an antithesis,--a pointed phrase,--a broad and peremptory thesis,--and something in his grander forthputting, when roused by a great subject or occasion exciting his reason and touching his moral sentiments and his heart, so difficult to be resisted, approaching so near, going so far beyond, the higher style of man, that although it left you a very good witness of his power of influencing others, you were not in the best condition immediately to pronounce on the quality or the source of the influence. You saw the flash and heard the peal, and felt the admiration and fear; but from what region it was launched, and by what divinity, and from what Olympian seat, you could not certainly yet tell. To do that you must, if you saw him at all, see him many times; compare him with himself and with others; follow his dazzling career from his father's house; observe from what competitors he won those laurels; study his discourses,--study them by the side of those of other great men of this country and time, and of other countries and times, conspicuous in the same fields of mental achievement,--look through the crystal water of the style down to the golden sands of the thought; analyze and contrast intellectual power somewhat; consider what kind and what quantity of it has been held by students of mind needful in order to great eminence in the higher mathematics, or metaphysics, or reason of the law; what capacity to analyze, through and through, to the primordial elements of the truths of that science; yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to control the wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and repressing one by another, thus producing, not a collection of intense and conflicting paradoxes, but _a code_, scientifically coherent and practically useful,--consider what description and what quantity of mind have been held needful by students of mind in order to conspicuous eminence--long maintained--in statesmanship; that great practical science, that great philosophical art, whose ends are the existence, happiness, and honor of a nation; whose truths are to be drawn from the widest survey of man,--of social man,--of the particular race and particular community for which a government is to be made or kept, or a policy to be provided; "philosophy in action," demanding at once or affording place for the highest speculative genius and the most skillful conduct of men and of affairs; and finally consider what degree and kind of mental power has been found to be required in order to influence the reason of an audience and a nation by speech,--not magnetizing the mere nervous or emotional nature by an effort of that nature, but operating on reason by reason--a great reputation in forensic and deliberative eloquence, maintained and advancing for a lifetime,--it is thus that we come to be sure that his intellectual power was as real and as uniform as its very happiest particular display had been imposing and remarkable.

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

(A.D. 347-407)

BY JOHN MALONE

A strong soldier of the Cross and from good fighting stock was that John of Antioch who, among the people that were first of the earth to bear the name of Christian, was called Chrysostom--"mouth of gold." His father Secundus, who died about the time of Chrysostom's birth, was a military commander in Syria under Constantine and Constantius II. John was born at Antioch, A.D. 347, when the Eastern Empire and the City of Constantine were new. His young mother Arethusa, a Christian, then but twenty years of age, devoted herself to widowhood and the education of her son in the city of his birth. The youth's early years were passed under her careful guidance, and at the age of twenty he entered on the study of oratory and philosophy under the celebrated Libanius. In 369 he became a baptized Christian and reader in the house of Melitius the bishop. The unhappy reigns of Valens and Valentinian, when neo-paganism in the West and in the Gothic settlement in the East began to work the Empire's fall, saw John devoted to an ascetic life, after the example of the monks and hermits who sheltered in the mountains about the gay and queenly city of his birth. His mother's grief and loneliness brought him back from his cave to an energetic career as an outspoken preacher of God's Word and the eternal profit of good stout-hearted workaday well-doing. He made himself dear to the people of Antioch, for he had eloquence such as had been unknown to Greeks since Demosthenes, and he shrank not from labor and self-denial. So they called him "golden-mouth," as the Indians call their tried men "straight-tongues." On the death of Nectarius, the successor of Gregory of Nazianzenus, Theophilus of Alexandria and Arcadius the Emperor made him Metropolitan of Constantinople, A.D. 397. All before this time he was laying about him with good ear-smiting Greek at vice and luxury, of which there was abundance both in palace and in hovel; and his elevation to an Imperial neighborhood did not stay him. He cleared Byzantium of pagan shows, gathered the relics of the martyrs, and sent missionaries to preach to the Goths in their own speech. Not many years of this kind of leadership were allowed him. Arcadius, well disposed but indolent, was under the rule of a willful woman; and when Chrysostom turned his swayful voice against her pet vanities, the vexed Eudoxia intrigued his deposition. In 403 John went to exile in Bithynia, with the words "The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away" upon his lips. A great earthquake so frightened the Imperial City and family that with one outcry they called Chrysostom back. When the fear of the infirm earth had worn away, Eudoxia remembered her enmity and took it back to nurse. So one day when John had said in his sword-like invective that "Herodias was raging again," she showed less mercy than the Baptist had obtained; for under the plea that his restoration had been unwarranted, the Metropolitan was sent to a forced wandering in the wilds of outer provinces, from which there returned of him only the venerated relics of a martyr. Driven from spot to spot, sometimes in chains, always under the prod of guarding spears, one day of September, 407, he dragged himself to the tomb of the martyr Basiliscus at Comana in Pontus, and laid his soul in the hands of God. Thirty years afterward, Theodosius the Younger brought the body back to Constantinople.

In person Chrysostom was small and spare. His life of rigorous fasting and toil made him still more slight and hollow-cheeked, but it is told that there was always a blaze of fire in the deep-set eyes. The work of Chrysostom was chiefly ecclesiastical oratory, in which no one of his own or later time surpassed him. First of the great Christian preachers after the Church came from the caves, he was not less able as a teacher. His letters, full of sweetness and firm honesty, his poetry, delicate and musical, and his philosophic essays, rich with the clear-cut jewels of dialectics, are worthy of his station in the first order of the Doctors of the Church.

[Signature: John Malone]

THAT REAL WEALTH IS FROM WITHIN

From the 'Treatise to prove that no one can harm the man who does
not injure himself'

What I undertake is to prove (only make no commotion) that no one of those who are wronged is wronged by another, but experiences this injury at his own hands.

But in order to make my argument plainer, let us first of all inquire what injustice is, and of what kind of things the material of it is wont to be composed; also what human virtue is, and what it is which ruins it; and further, what it is which seems to ruin it but really does not. For instance (for I must complete my argument by means of examples), each thing is subject to one evil which ruins it: iron to rust, wool to moth, flocks of sheep to wolves. The virtue of wine is injured when it ferments and turns sour; of honey when it loses its natural sweetness and is reduced to a bitter juice. Ears of corn are ruined by mildew and drought, the fruit and leaves and branches of vines by the mischievous host of locusts, other trees by the caterpillar, and irrational creatures by diseases of various kinds; and not to lengthen the list by going through all possible examples, our own flesh is subject to fevers and palsies and a crowd of other maladies. As then each one of these things is liable to that which ruins its virtue, let us now consider what it is which injures the human race, and what it is which ruins the virtue of a human being. Most men think that there are divers things which have this effect; for I must mention the erroneous opinions on the subject, and after confuting them, proceed to exhibit that which really does ruin our virtue, and to demonstrate clearly that no one could inflict this injury or bring this ruin upon us unless we betrayed ourselves. The multitude then, having erroneous opinions, imagine that there are many different things which ruin our virtue; some say it is poverty, others bodily disease, others loss of property, others calumny, others death, and they are perpetually bewailing and lamenting these things: and whilst they are commiserating the sufferers and shedding tears, they excitedly exclaim to one another, "What a calamity has befallen such and such a man! he has been deprived of all his fortune at a blow." Of another again one will say, "Such and such a man has been attacked by severe sickness and is despaired of by the physicians in attendance." Some bewail and lament the inmates of the prison, some those who have been expelled from their country and transported to the land of exile, others those who have been deprived of their freedom, others those who have been seized and made captives by enemies, others those who have been drowned, or burnt, or buried by the fall of a house, but no one mourns those who are living in wickedness; on the contrary, which is worse than all, they often congratulate them, a practice which is the cause of all manner of evils. Come then (only, as I exhorted you at the outset, do not make a commotion), let me prove that none of the things which have been mentioned injure the man who lives soberly, nor can ruin his virtue. For tell me, if a man has lost his all either at the hands of calumniators or of robbers, or has been stripped of his goods by knavish servants, what harm has the loss done to the virtue of the man?

But if it seems well, let me rather indicate in the first place what is the virtue of a man, beginning by dealing with the subject in the case of existences of another kind, so as to make it more intelligible and plain to the majority of readers.

What then is the virtue of a horse? is it to have a bridle studded with gold and girths to match, and a band of silken threads to fasten the housing, and clothes wrought in divers colors and gold tissue, and head-gear studded with jewels, and locks of hair plaited with gold cord? or is it to be swift and strong in its legs, and even in its paces, and to have hoofs suitable to a well-bred horse, and courage fitted for long journeys and warfare, and to be able to behave with calmness in the battle-field, and if a rout takes place, to save its rider? Is it not manifest that these are the things which constitute the virtue of the horse, not the others? Again, what should you say was the virtue of asses and mules? is it not the power of carrying burdens with contentment, and accomplishing journeys with ease, and having hoofs like rock? Shall we say that their outside trappings contribute anything to their own proper virtue? By no means. And what kind of vine shall we admire? one which abounds in leaves and branches, or one which is laden with fruit? Or what kind of virtue do we predicate of an olive? is it to have large boughs and great luxuriance of leaves, or to exhibit an abundance of its proper fruit dispersed over all parts of the tree? Well, let us act in the same way in the case of human beings also: let us determine what is the virtue of man, and let us regard that alone as an injury, which is destructive to it. What then is the virtue of man? Not riches, that thou shouldst fear poverty; nor health of body, that thou shouldst dread sickness; nor the opinion of the public, that thou shouldst view an evil reputation with alarm, nor life simply for its own sake, that death should be terrible to thee; nor liberty that thou shouldst avoid servitude: but carefulness in holding true doctrine, and rectitude in life. Of these things not even the devil himself will be able to rob a man, if he who possesses them guards them with the needful carefulness, and that most malicious and ferocious demon is aware of this.

Thus in no case will any one be able to injure a man who does not choose to injure himself; but if a man is not willing to be temperate, and to aid himself from his own resources, no one will ever be able to profit him. Therefore also that wonderful history of the Holy Scriptures, as in some lofty, large, and broad picture, has portrayed the lives of the men of old time, extending the narrative from Adam to the coming of Christ: and it exhibits to you both those who are vanquished and those who are crowned with victory in the contest, in order that it may instruct you by means of all examples that no one will be able to injure one who is not injured by himself, even if all the world were to kindle a fierce war against him. For it is not stress of circumstances, nor variation of seasons, nor insults of men in power, nor intrigues besetting thee like snow-storms, nor a crowd of calamities, nor a promiscuous collection of all the ills to which mankind is subject, which can disturb even slightly the man who is brave and temperate and watchful; just as on the contrary the indolent and supine man who is his own betrayer cannot be made better, even with the aid of innumerable ministrations.

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

ON ENCOURAGEMENT DURING ADVERSITY

From the 'Letters to Olympias'

To my Lady, the most reverend and divinely favored Deaconess Olympias, I John, Bishop, send greeting in the Lord: Come now, let me relieve the wound of thy despondency, and disperse the thoughts which gather this cloud of care around thee. For what is it which upsets thy mind, and why art thou sorrowful and dejected? Is it because of the fierce black storm which has overtaken the Church, enveloping all things in darkness as of a night without a moon, and is growing to a head every day, travailing to bring forth disastrous shipwrecks, and increasing the ruin of the world? I know all this as well as you; none shall gainsay it, and if you like I will form an image of the things now taking place so as to present the tragedy yet more distinctly to thee. We behold a sea upheaved from the very lowest depths, some sailors floating dead upon the waves, others engulfed by them, the planks of the ships breaking up, the sails torn to tatters, the masts sprung, the oars dashed out of the sailors' hands, the pilots seated on the deck, clasping their knees with their hands instead of grasping the rudder, bewailing the hopelessness of their situation with sharp cries and bitter lamentations, neither sky nor sea clearly visible, but all one deep and impenetrable darkness, so that no one can see his neighbor; whilst mighty is the roaring of the billows, and monsters of the sea attack the crews on every side.

But how much further shall I pursue the unattainable? for whatever image of our present evils I may seek, speech shrinks baffled from the attempt. Nevertheless, even when I look at these calamities I do not abandon the hope of better things, considering as I do who the Pilot is in all this--not one who gets the better of the storm by his art, but calms the raging waters by his rod. But if he does not effect this at the outset and speedily, such is his custom--he does not at the beginning put down these terrible evils; but when they have increased and come to extremities, and most persons are reduced to despair, then he works wondrously and beyond all expectation, thus manifesting his own power and training the patience of those who undergo these calamities. Do not therefore be cast down. For there is only one thing, Olympias, which is really terrible, only one real trial, and that is sin; and I have never ceased continually harping upon this theme: but as for all other things, plots, enmities, frauds, calumnies, insults, accusations, confiscation, exile, the keen sword of the enemy, the peril of the deep, warfare of the whole world, or anything else you like to name, they are but idle tales. For whatever the nature of these things may be, they are transitory and perishable, and operate in a mortal body without doing any injury to the vigilant soul. Therefore the blessed Paul, desiring to prove the insignificance both of the pleasures and sorrows relating to this life, declared the whole truth in one sentence when he said, "For the things which are seen are temporal." Why then dost thou fear temporal things which pass away like the stream of a river? For such is the nature of present things, whether they be pleasant or painful. And another prophet compared all human prosperity not to grass, but to another material even more flimsy, describing the whole of it "as the flower of grass." For he did not single out any one part of it, as wealth alone, or luxury alone, or power, or honor; but having comprised all the things which are esteemed splendid amongst men under the one designation of glory, he said, "All the glory of man is as the flower of grass."

Nevertheless, you will say, adversity is a terrible thing and grievous to be borne. Yet look at it again compared with another image, and then also learn to despise it. For the railing, and insults, and reproaches, and gibes, inflicted by enemies and their plots, are compared to a worn-out garment and moth-eaten wool, when God says, "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings, for they shall wax old as doth a garment, and like moth-eaten wool so shall they be consumed." Therefore let none of these things which are happening trouble thee; but ceasing to invoke the aid of this or that person, and to run after shadows (for such are human alliances), do thou persistently call upon Jesus whom thou servest, merely to bow his head and in a moment of time all these evils will be dissolved. But if thou hast already called upon him, and yet they have not been dissolved, such is the manner of God's dealing (for I will resume my former argument); he does not put down evils at the outset, but when they have grown to a head, when scarcely any form of the enemy's malice remains ungratified, then he suddenly converts all things to a state of tranquillity and conducts them to an unexpected settlement. For he is not only able to turn as many things as we expect and hope, to good, but many more, yea infinitely more. Wherefore also Paul saith, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Could he not, for example, have prevented the Three Children at the outset from falling into trial? But he did not choose to do this, thereby conferring great pain upon them. Therefore he suffered them to be delivered into the hands of barbarians, and the furnace to be heated to an immeasurable height and the wrath of the king to blaze even more fiercely than the furnace, and hands and feet to be bound with great severity, and they themselves to be cast into the fire; and then, when all they who beheld despaired of their rescue, suddenly and beyond all hope the wonder-working power of God, the supreme artificer, was displayed, and shone forth with exceeding splendor. For the fire was bound and the bondmen were released; and the furnace became a temple of prayer, a place of fountains and dew, of higher dignity than a royal court, and the very hairs of their head prevailed over that all-devouring element which gets the better even of iron and stone, and masters every kind of substance. And a solemn song of universal praise was instituted there by these holy men, inviting every kind of created thing to join in the wondrous melody: and they uttered hymns of thanksgiving to God for that they had been bound, and also burnt, as far at least as the malice of their enemies had power; that they had been exiles from their country, captives deprived of their liberty, wandering outcasts from city and home, sojourners in a strange and barbarous land: for all this was the outpouring of a grateful heart. And when the malicious devices of their enemies were perfected (for what further could they attempt after their death?) and the labors of the heroes were completed, and the garland of victory was woven, and their rewards were prepared, and nothing more was wanting for their renown, then at last their calamities were brought to an end, and he who caused the furnace to be kindled, and delivered them over to that great punishment, became himself the panegyrist of those holy heroes and the herald of God's marvelous deed, and everywhere throughout the world issued letters full of reverent praise, recording what had taken place, and becoming the faithful herald of the miracles wrought by the wonder-working God. For inasmuch as he had been an enemy and adversary, what he wrote was above suspicion even in the opinion of enemies.

Dost thou see the abundance of resource belonging to God? his extraordinary power, his loving-kindness and care? Be not therefore dismayed or troubled, but continue to give thanks to God for all things, praising and invoking him; beseeching and supplicating; even if countless tumults and troubles come upon thee, even if tempests are stirred up before thine eyes, let none of these things disturb thee. For our Master is not baffled by the difficulty, even if all things are reduced to the extremity of ruin. For it is possible for him to raise those who have fallen, to convert those who are in error, to set straight those who have been ensnared, to release those who have been laden with countless sins, and make them righteous, to quicken those who are dead, to restore lustre to decayed things, and freshness to those who have waxen old. For if he makes things which are not to come into being, and bestows existence on things which are nowhere by any means manifest, how much more will he rectify things which already exist!

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

CONCERNING THE STATUTES

From Homily VIII.

Knowing these things, let us take heed to our life: and let us not be earnest as to the goods that perish; neither as to the glory that goeth out; nor as to that body which groweth old; nor as to that beauty which is fading; nor as to that pleasure which is fleeting: but let us expend all our care about the soul, and let us provide for the welfare of this in every way. For to cure the body when diseased is not an easy matter to every one; but to cure a sick soul is easy to all: and the sickness of the body requires medicines, as well as money, for its healing; but the healing of the soul is a thing easy to procure, and devoid of expense. And the nature of the flesh is with much labor delivered from those wounds which are troublesome; for very often the knife must be applied, and medicines that are bitter; but with respect to the soul there is nothing of this kind. It suffices only to exercise the will and the desire, and all things are accomplished. And this hath been the work of God's providence. For inasmuch as from bodily sickness no great injury could arise (for though we were not diseased, yet death would in any case come, and destroy and dissolve the body); but everything depends upon the health of our souls; this being by far the more precious and necessary, he hath made the medicining of it easy, and void of expense or pain. What excuse therefore or what pardon shall we obtain, if when the body is sick, and money must be expended on its behalf, and physicians called in, and much anguish endured, we make this so much a matter of our care (though what might result from that sickness could be no great injury to us), and yet treat the soul with neglect? And this, when we are neither called upon to pay down money, nor to give others any trouble, nor to sustain any sufferings; but without any of all these things, by only choosing and willing, have it in our power to accomplish the entire amendment of it: and knowing assuredly that if we fail to do this, we shall sustain the extreme sentence, and punishments, and penalties, which are inexorable! For tell me, if any one promised to teach thee the healing art in a short space of time, without money or labor, wouldst thou not think him a benefactor? Wouldst thou not submit both to do and to suffer all things, whatsoever he who promised these things commanded? Behold now, it is permitted thee without labor to find a medicine for wounds, not of the body, but of the soul, and to restore it to a state of health without any suffering! Let us not be indifferent to the matter! For pray what is the pain of laying aside anger against one who hath aggrieved thee? It is a pain indeed to remember injuries, and not to be reconciled! What labor is it to pray, and to ask for a thousand good things from God, who is ready to give? What labor is it, not to speak evil of any one? What difficulty is there in being delivered from envy and ill-will? What trouble is it to love one's neighbor? What suffering is it not to utter shameful words, nor to revile, nor to insult another? What fatigue is it not to swear? for again I return to this same admonition. The labor of swearing is indeed exceedingly great. Oftentimes, whilst under the influence of anger or wrath, we have sworn, perhaps, that we would never be reconciled to those who have injured us.

I am now for the sixth day admonishing you in respect of this precept. Henceforth I am desirous to take leave of you, meaning to abstain from the subject, that ye may be on your guard. There will no longer be any excuse or allowance for you; for of right, indeed, if nothing had been said on this matter, it ought to have been amended of yourselves, for it is not a thing of an intricate nature, or that requires great preparation. But since ye have enjoyed the advantage of so much admonition and counsel, what excuse will ye have to offer, when ye stand accused before that dread tribunal and are required to give account of this transgression? It is impossible to invent any excuse; but of necessity you must either go hence amended, or if you have not amended, be punished, and abide the extremest penalty! Thinking therefore upon all these things, and departing hence with much anxiety about them, exhort ye one another, that the things spoken of during so many days may be kept with all watchfulness in your minds; so that whilst we are silent, ye instructing, edifying, exhorting one another, may exhibit great improvement: and having fulfilled all the other precepts may enjoy eternal crowns; which God grant we may all obtain through the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

(106-43 B.C.)

BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON

The outward life, the political career, of Marcus Tullius Cicero, is to nearly all students of history a tragic and pathetic story. He seems peculiarly unfitted to the people and the time in which his lot was cast. His enlightened love for the traditions of the past, his passionate sentiment of patriotism, his forceful eloquence as a debater in the Senate or as an orator in the Forum,--these qualities of a Burke or a Webster stand out violently dissevered from the lurid history of his time. This humane scholarly life was flung into the midst of the wildest century in all Rome's grim annals; the hundred years of civic turmoil and bloodshed, from the elder Gracchus's murder to the death of Cleopatra.

And yet such was the marvelous activity, the all-sided productiveness, of the Ciceronian intellect, that perhaps no human mind has ever so fully exploited all its powers. Moreover, in each intellectual field which he entered, the chances of time have removed nearly every Roman rival, leaving us no choice save to accept Cicero's guidance. There was many another orator, and history of eloquence. There were other practical treatises on rhetoric. Many a notable correspondence was actually preserved and published, though now lost. Even his free transcriptions from Greek philosophical treatises--hastily conned and perhaps imperfectly understood--have acquired, through the disappearance of the Greek scrolls themselves, an ill-deserved authority as to the tenets of the Epicurean and other schools.

Before and above all else, Cicero was a pleader. Out of that activity grew his ill-starred political activity, while his other literary tastes were essentially but a solace in times of enforced retirement. With the discussion of his oratory, therefore, we may best combine a rapid outline of his life.

By their common birthplace, Arpinum, and by a slight tie of kinship, Cicero was associated with Marius; and he began life, like Disraeli, with radical sympathies. He was the elder son of a wealthy Roman citizen, but no ancestor had ennobled the family by attaining curule office. After a most thorough course of training in Latin and Greek, Cicero began to "practice law." The pleader in ancient Rome was supposed to receive no fee, and even more than with us, found his profession the natural stepping-stone to political honors.

At the age of twenty-six, Cicero (in 80 B.C.) defended his first important client in a criminal case. In the closing days of the Sullan proscriptions, young Roscius, of Ameria in Umbria, was charged with murdering his own father in Rome. A pair of Roscius's kinsmen were probably the real culprits, and had arranged with Chrysogonus, a wealthy freedman and favorite of the Dictator, to insert the dead man's name among the outlawed victims and to divide the confiscated estate. The son was persecuted because he resisted this second outrage. Cicero says he is himself protected by his obscurity, though no other advocate has dared to plead for the unlucky youth. In our present text there are some audacious words aimed at Sulla's own measures: they were probably sharpened in a later revision. The case was won, against general expectation. Cicero may have played the hero that day: certainly the brief remainder of Sulla's life was spent by the young democratic pleader traveling in the East,--"for his health," as Plutarch adds, truly enough. At this time his style was chastened and his manner moderated by the teachers of Athens, and especially by Molo in Rhodes.

Cicero's quaestorship was passed in Sicily, 75-4 B.C. Here he knit close friendships with many Greek provincials, and did a creditable piece of archaeological work by rediscovering Archimedes's tomb. His impeachment of Verres for misgovernment in Sicily was in 70 B.C. This time the orator runs a less desperate risk. Since Sulla's death the old constitution has languidly revived. Speech was comparatively free and safe. The "knights" or wealthy middle class,--Cicero's own,--deprived by Sulla of the right to sit as the jurors in impeachment trials like Verres's, partially regain the privilege in this very year. The overwhelming mass of evidence made Verres flee into exile, and Hortensius, till then leader of the Roman bar, threw up the case in despair. Nevertheless Cicero published the stately series of orations he had prepared. They form the most vivid picture, and the deadliest indictments ever drawn, of Roman provincial government,--and of a ruthless art-collector. Cicero instantly became the foremost among lawyers. Moreover, this success made Cicero a leader in the time of reaction after Sulla, and hastened his elevation to posts where only men of sterner nature could be fully and permanently successful.

Pompey, born in the same year, was at this time leading the revolt against Sulla's measures. The attachment now formed, the warmer hearted Cicero never wholly threw off. The young general's later foreign victories are nowhere so generously set forth as in Cicero's too-rhetorical plea "for the Manilian Law," in 66 B.C. Pompey was then wintering in the East, after sweeping piracy in a single summer from the Mediterranean. This plea gave him the larger command against Mithridates. Despite the most extravagant laudation, however, Pompey remains, here as elsewhere, one of those large but vague and misty figures that stalk across the stage of history without ever once turning upon us a fully human face. Far more distinct than he, there looms above him the splendid triumphal pageant of Roman imperialism itself.

Cicero's unrivaled eloquence won him not only a golden shower of gifts and legacies, but also the praetorship and consulship at the earliest legal age. Perhaps some of the old nobles foresaw and prudently avoided the Catilinarian storm of 63 B.C. The common dangers of that year, and the pride of assured position, may have hastened the full transfer of Cicero's allegiance to the old senatorial faction. Tiberius Gracchus, boldly praised in January, has become for Cicero a notorious demagogue; his slayers instead are the undoubted patriots, in the famous harangues of November. These latter, by the way, were certainly under the file three years afterward,--and it is not likely that we read any Ciceronian speech just as it was delivered. If there be any thread of consistency in Cicero's public career, it must be sought in his long but vain hope to unite the nobility and the _equites_, in order to resist the growing proletariat.

The eager vanity with which Cicero seized the proud title "Father of the fatherland" is truly pathetic. The summary execution of the traitors may have been prompted by that physical timidity so often associated with the scholarly temperament. Whether needless or not, the act returned to plague him.

The happiest effort of the orator in his consular year was the famous plea for Murena. This consul-elect for 62 was a successful soldier. Catiline must be met in the spring "in the jaws of Etruria." Cicero's dearest friend, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a defeated candidate, accused Murena of bribery. The conditions of Roman politics, the character of Sulpicius, the tone of Cicero himself, bid us adjudge Murena probably guilty. Cicero had supported Sulpicius, but now feels it is no time to "go behind the returns," or to replace a bold soldier by a scholarly lawyer.

To win his case Cicero must heap ridicule upon his own profession in his friend's person, and upon Stoic philosophy, represented by Cato, Sulpicius's chief advocate. This he did so successfully that Cato himself exclaimed with a grim smile, "What a jester our consul is!" Cicero won his case--and kept his friends. This speech is cited _sixteen times_ by Quintilian, and is a model of forensic ingenuity, wit, and grace. Its patriotism may be plausibly defended, but hardly its moral standards.

The next year produced the famous and successful defense of Cluentius,--probably guilty of poisoning,--and also the most delightful of all Cicero's speeches, the oration for the poet Archias. Whether the old Greek's claim to Roman citizenship was beyond cavil we neither know nor greatly care. The legal argument is suspiciously brief. The praise of literature and the scholarly life, however, has re-echoed ever since, and still reaches all hearts. Brother Quintus, sitting in judgment as praetor, is pleasantly greeted.

This is the culmination in Cicero's career of success. Some boastful words uttered in these days make us doubt if he remembered Solon's and Sophocles's maxim, "Count no life happy before its close." The fast-growing power of Caesar presently made the two successful generals Pompey and Crassus his political tools. Cicero refused to enter, on similar conditions, the cabal later known as the "First Triumvirate." Caesar, about to depart for his long absence in Gaul, might well regard the patriotic and impulsive orator as the most serious source of possible opposition in his absence. Marcus refused, himself, to go along to Gaul a-soldiering, though Brother Quintus accepted a commission and served creditably. At last, reluctantly, Caesar suffered Cicero's personal enemy Clodius to bring forward a decree outlawing "those who had put Roman citizens to death without trial" (March, 58 B.C.). Cicero meekly withdrew from Rome, was condemned by name in absence, and his town house and villas pillaged.

As to the cowardice of this hasty retreat, none need use severer words than did the exile himself. It is the decisive event in his career. His uninterrupted success was ended. His pride could never recover fully from the hurt. Worst of all, he could never again pose, even before his own eyes, as the fearless hero-patriot. In short, Caesar, the consummate master of action and of men, had humanely but decisively crippled the erratic yet patriotic rhetorician.

In little more than a year the bad conduct of Clodius, the personal good-will of the "triumvirs," and the whirligig of politics, brought round Cicero's return from Greece. His wings were however effectively clipped. After a brief and slight flutter of independence, he made full, even abject, submission to the dominant Caesarian faction. This was in 56 B.C. The next five years, inglorious politically, were however full of activity in legal oratory and other literary work. In his eloquent defense of Caelius Rufus, charged with an attempt to poison Clodia, Cicero perforce whitewashes, or at least paints in far milder colors than of old, Catiline, Caelius's lifelong friend! A still less pleasing feature is the abusive attack on the famous and beautiful Clodia, probably the "Lesbia" of Catullus. (The unhappy young poet seems to have preceded Caelius in the fickle matron's favor.)

The events of the year 52 well illustrate the unfitness of Cicero for politics in such an age. Rome was full of street brawls, which Pompey could not check. The orator's old enemy Clodius, at the head of his bravos, was slain by a fellow ruffian Milo in January. At Milo's trial in April Cicero defended him, or attempted to do so. A court-room encircled by a yelling mob and guarded by Pompey's legions caused him to break down altogether. As afterward written out at leisure, the speech is a masterpiece of special pleading. The exiled Milo's criticism on it is well known: "I'm glad you never delivered it: I should not now be enjoying the mullets of Marseilles."

The year 51-50 Cicero spent, most unwillingly, as proconsular governor in far-off Cilicia. Though really humane and relatively honest, he accumulated in these few months a handsome sum in "gifts" from provincials and other perquisites. Even Cicero was a Roman.

Meantime the civil war had all but broken out at home. Cicero hesitated long, and the correspondence with Atticus contains exhaustive analyses of his motives and temptations. His naive selfishness and vanity at times in these letters seem even like self-caricature. Yet through it all glimmers a vein of real though bewildered patriotism. Still the craving for a triumph--he had fought some savage mountain clans in Asia Minor!--was hardly less dominant.

Repairing late and with many misgivings to Pompey's camp in Epirus, Cicero seems to have been there a "not unfeared, half-welcome" and critical guest. Illness is his excuse for absence from the decisive battle. He himself tells us little of these days. As Plutarch relates the tale, after Pompey's flight to Egypt Cicero refused the supreme command, and was thereupon threatened with death by young Gneius Pompey; but his life was saved by Cato.

One thing at least is undisputed. The last man to decide for Pompey's cause, he was the first to hurry back to Italy and crave Caesar's grace! For many months he waited in ignoble retirement, fearing the success of his deserted comrades even more than Caesar's victory. It is this action that gives the _coup de grace_ to Cicero's character as a hero. With whatever misgivings, he had chosen his side. Whatever disturbing threats of violent revenge after victory he heard in Pompey's camp, he awaited the decisive battle. Then there remained, for any brave man, only constancy in defeat--or a fall upon his sword.

Throughout Caesar's brief reign,--or long dictatorship,--from 48 to 44, Cicero is the most stately and the most obsequious of courtiers. For him who would plead for clemency, or return thanks for mercy accorded, at a despot's footstool, there are no more graceful models than the 'Pro Ligario' and the 'Pro Marcello.' Caesar himself realized, and wittily remarked, how irksome and hateful such a part must be to the older, vainer, more self-conscious man of the twain.

Midway in this period Cicero divorced his wife after thirty years of wedlock, seemingly from some dissatisfaction over her financial management, and soon after married a wealthy young ward. This is the least pleasing chapter of his private life, but perhaps the mortification and suffering it entailed were a sufficient penalty. His only daughter Tullia's death in 45 B.C. nearly broke the father's heart.

Whatever the reason, Cicero was certainly not in the secret of Caesar's assassination. Twice in letters to members of the conspiracy in later months he begins: "How I wish you had invited me to your glorious banquet on the Ides of March." "There would have been no remnants," he once adds. That is, Antony would not have been left alive.

We have now reached the last two years--perhaps the most creditable time--in Cicero's eventful life. This period runs from March 15th, 44 B.C., to December 7th, 43 B.C. It was one long struggle, first covert, then open, between Antony and the slayers of Caesar. Cicero's energy and eloquence soon made him the foremost voice in the Senate once more. For the first time since his exile, he is now speaking out courageously his own real sentiments. His public action is in harmony with his own convictions. The cause was not hopeless by any means, so far as the destruction of Antony would have been a final triumph. Indeed, that wild career seemed near its end, when Octavian's duplicity again threw the game into his rival's reckless hands. However, few students of history imagine that any effective restoration of senatorial government was possible. The peculiar pathos of Cicero's end, patriot as he was, is this: it removed one of the last great obstacles to the only stable and peaceful rule Rome could receive--the imperial throne of Augustus.

This last period is however among the most creditable, perhaps the most heroic, in Cicero's career. Its chief memorials are the fourteen extant orations against Antony. The comparative sincerity of these 'Philippics,' and the lack of private letters for much of this time, make them important historical documents. The only one which ranks among his greatest productions--perhaps the classic masterpiece of invective--is the 'Second Philippic.' This was never delivered at all, but published as a pamphlet. This unquestioned fact throws a curious light on passages like--"He is agitated, he perspires, he turns pale!" describing Antony at the (imaginary) delivery of the oration. The details of the behavior of Catiline and others may be hardly more authentic. The 'Ninth Philippic' is a heartfelt funeral eulogy on that same Sulpicius whom he had ridiculed in the 'Pro Murena.'

"The milestones into headstones turn,
And under each a friend."