the Emperor's time and place will think the worse of him for
not adopting a view of this subject which educated and serious minds
were precisely the least likely to adopt. To such, Christianity
presented itself simply as a novelty opposed to religion and threatening
the State. The case of Justin may be cited as an instance of a
thoughtful and philosophic mind embracing Christianity in spite of the
strong presumption against it in minds of that class. But, not to speak
of the very wide difference between the steady, conservative Roman and
the volatile Greek, all the life-circumstances of Justin, a Palestinian
by birth, favored his adoption of the Christian faith; everything in the
life of Antoninus tended in the opposite direction. Justin embraced the
religion first on its philosophic side, where Antoninus was especially
fortified against it, having early come to an understanding with himself
on the deepest questions of the soul. His decisions on these questions
did not differ materially from those of the Gospel; they might, unknown
to himself, have been modified by a subtile atmospheric influence
derived from that source and acting on a nature so receptive of its
spirit. But the very fact, that he had in a measure anticipated the
teachings of the Gospel, precluded the chance of his being surprised
into acquiescence with the new religion by its moral beauty, if brought
fairly before him, which perhaps it never was; for it does not appear
that he read the Christian apologies framed in his day. What was best in
Christianity, as a system of doctrine,--its ethical precepts,--he had
already embraced; its substance he possessed; its external form he knew
only as opposition to institutions which he was bound by all the
sanctities of his office, by all the dignity of a Roman patrician, and
by all the currents of his life, to uphold. For the rest, the relation
of a mind like his to polytheism could be nothing more than the formal
acceptance of its symbols in the interest of piety, implying no
intellectual enslavement to its myths and traditions.

De Quincey calls attention to one merit of Antoninus, which, he says,
has been "utterly unnoticed hitherto by historians, but which will
hereafter obtain a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the steps
by which civilization has advanced and human nature been exalted. It is
this: Marcus Aurelius was the first great military leader who allowed
rights indefeasible, rights uncancelled