nd so it was with Cicero. Read his
works through from the beginning to the end, and you shall feel
that you are living with a man whom you might accompany across the
village green to church, should he be kind enough to stay with you over
the Sunday. The urbanity, the softness, the humanity, the sweetness are
all there. But you shall not find it to be so with Caesar, or Lucretius,
or with Virgil. When you read his philosophical treatises it is as
though you were discussing with some latter-day scholar the theories of
Plato or of Epicurus. He does not talk of them as though he believed in
them for his soul's guidance, nor do you expect it. All the interest
that you have in the conversation would be lost were you to find such
faith as that. You would avoid the man, as a pagan. The Stoic doctrine
would so shock you, when brought out for real wear, as to make you feel
yourself in the company of some mad Atheist--with a man for whose
welfare, early or late in life, church bells had never been rung. But
with a man who has his Plato simply by heart you can spend the long
summer day in sweet conversation. So it is with Cicero. You lie down
with him looking out upon the sea at Comae, or sit with him beneath the
plane-tree of Crassus, and listen while he tells you of this doctrine
and the other. So Arcesilas may be supposed to have said, and so
Carneades laid down the law. It was that and no more. But when he tells
you of the place assigned to you in heaven, and how you are to win it,
then he is in earnest.

We care in general but little for any teacher of religion who has not
struggled to live up to his own teaching. Cicero has told us of his
ideas of the Godhead, and has given us his theory as to those deeds by
which a man may hope to achieve the heaven in which that God will reward
with everlasting life those who have deserved such bliss. Love of
country comes first with him. It behooves, at any rate, a man to be
true to his country from first to last. And honesty and honor come
next--that "honestum" which carries him to something beyond the mere
integrity of the well-conducted tradesmen. Then family affection; then
friendship; and then that constant love for our fellow-creatures
which teaches us to do unto others as we would they should
do unto us. Running through these there are a dozen smaller virtues, but
each so mingled with the other as to have failed in obtaining a separate
place--dignity, manliness, truth, mercy, long-s