Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon.
We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate
ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to
which profane doctrines have attained."

Those in the past who have found solace in its pages have not been
limited to any one country, creed, or condition in life. The
distinguished Cardinal Francis Barberini the elder occupied his last
years in translating the 'Meditations' into Italian; so that, as he
said, "the thoughts of the pious pagan might quicken the faith of the
faithful." He dedicated the work to his own soul, so that it "might
blush deeper than the scarlet of the cardinal robe as it looked upon the
nobility of the pagan." The venerable and learned English scholar Thomas
Gataker, of the religious faith of Cromwell and Milton, spent the last
years of his life in translating the work into Latin as the noblest
preparation for death. The book was the constant companion of Captain
John Smith, the discoverer of Virginia, who found in it "sweet
refreshment in his seasons of despondency." Jean Paul Richter speaks of
it as a vital help in "the deepest floods of adversity." The French
translator Pierron says that it exalted his soul into a serene region,
above all petty cares and rivalries. Montesquieu declares, in speaking
of Marcus Aurelius, "He produces such an effect upon our minds that we
think better of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion
of mankind." The great German historian Niebuhr says of the Emperor, as
revealed in this work, "I know of no other man who combined such
unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility with such conscientiousness
and severity toward himself." Renan declares the book to be "a veritable
gospel. It will never grow old, for it asserts no dogma. Though science
were to destroy God and the soul, the 'Meditations of Marcus Aurelius'
would remain forever young and immortally true." The eminent English
critic Matthew Arnold was found on the morning after the death of his
eldest son engaged in the perusal of his favorite Marcus Aurelius,
wherein alone he found comfort and consolation.

The 'Meditations of Marcus Aurelius' embrace not only moral reflections;
they include, as before remarked, speculations upon the origin and
evolution of the universe and of man. They rest upon a philosophy. This
philosophy is that of the Stoic school as broadly distinguished from the
Epicurean. Stoicism, at all tim