retius that "Dust thou art, to dust
returnest" is spoken of soul as well as body. The old Roman instinct for
ancestor-communion is too strong in him for that. But he acquiesces in
their doctrine in so far as shadowy existence in another world inspires
in him no pleasing hope. He displays no trace of the faith in the
supernatural which accompanies the Christian hope of happy immortality.
He contains none of the expressions of yearning for communion with the
divine, of self-abasement in the presence of the eternal, which belong
to Christian poetry. The flights of his muse rarely take him into the
realm of a divine love and providence. His aspirations are for things
achievable in this world: for faithfulness in friendship, for enduring
courage, for irreproachable patriotism,--in short, for ideal _human_
relations.

Horace's idealism is not Christian idealism, and is only in a limited
way even spiritual idealism. When he prays, it is likely to be for
others rather than himself, and for temporal blessings only: for the
success of Augustus at home and in the field, for prolongation of
Maecenas' life and happiness, for the weal of the State, for the
nurslings of his little flock, for health of body and contentment of
heart. His dwelling is not in the secret place of the Most High.
Philosophy, not religion, is his refuge and his fortress. In philosophy,
not in God, will he trust.

In a word, Horace is logical, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. He sees
no happy future after this life, is conscious of no providence watching
over him, is involved in no obligation to the beings of an eternal
world. He looks this world and the next, gods and men, directly in the
face, and expects other men to do the same. Life and its duties are for
him clear-cut. He is no propounder of problems, no searcher after hidden
purposes. He lacks almost absolutely the feverish aspiration and unrest
which characterize Christian and other humanitarian modes of thought and
sentiment, and whose manifestation is one of the best known features of
recent modern times, as it was of the earliest Christian experience.

But Christianity was a religion of men, and therefore human. If its
exaggerations were natural, its reservations and its reactions were also
natural. There were men whose admiration continued to be roused and
whose affections continued to be touched by Virgil and Horace. There
were men whose reason as well as whose instinct impelled them to employ