uffering, forgiveness,
and humanity.

Try him by these all round and see how he will come out of the fire. He
so loved his country that we may say that he lived for it entirely; that
from the first moment in which he began to study as a boy in Rome the
great profession of an advocate, to the last in which he gave his throat
to his murderers, there was not a moment in which his heart did not
throb for it.

In the defence of Amerinus and in the prosecution of Verres, his object
was to stop the proscriptions, to shame the bench, and to punish the
plunderers of the provinces. In driving out Catiline the same strong
feeling governed him. It was the same in Cilicia. The same patriotism
drove him to follow Pompey to the seat of war. The same filled him with
almost youthful energy when the final battle for the Republic came. It
has been said of him that he began life as a Liberal in attacking Sulla,
and that afterward he became a Conservative when he gained the
Consulship; that he opposed Caesar, and then flattered him, and then
rejoiced at his death. I think that they who have so accused him have
hardly striven to read his character amidst the changes of the time. A
Conservative he was always; but he wished to see that the things around
him were worth conserving. He was always opposed to Caesar, whose genius
and whose spirit were opposed to his own. But in order that something of
the Republic might be preserved, it became necessary to bear with Caesar.
For himself he would take nothing from Caesar, except permission to
breathe Italian air. He flattered him, as was the Roman custom. He had
to do that, or his presence would have been impossible--and he could
always do something by his presence. As far as love of country went,
which among virtues stood the first with him, he was pure and great.
There was not a moment in his career in which the feeling was not in his
heart--mixed indeed with personal ambition, as must be necessary, for
how shall a man show his love for his country except by his desire to
stand high in its counsels? To be called "Pater Patriae" by Cato was to
his ears the sweetest music he had ever heard.

Let us compare his honesty with that of the times in which he lived. All
the high rewards of the State were at his command, and he might so have
taken them as to have been safer, firmer, more powerful, by taking them;
but he took nothing. No gorgeous wealth from a Roman province stuck to
his hands. We think of