s "money-changers" a hundred years before, that infested the entrance
to every temple.

Many long consultations did the Emperor and his adopted son have
concerning the best policy to pursue. They could have issued an edict
and swept the wrongs out of existence, but they knew that folly sprouts
from a disordered brain, and so they did not treat a symptom: the
disease was ignorance, the symptom, superstition. For themselves they
kept an esoteric doctrine, and for the many they did what they could.

Twenty-three years of probation lay before Marcus Aurelius--years of
study, work, and patient endeavor. He shared in all the honors of the
Emperor and bore his part of the burden as well. Never did he thirst for
more power--the responsibilities of the situation saddened him--there
was so much to be done and he could do so little. Well does Dean Farrar
call him "a seeker after God."

The office of young Marcus Aurelius at first was that of Questor, which
literally means a messenger, but the word with the Romans meant more--an
emissary or an ambassador. When Marcus was eighteen he read to the
Senate all speeches and messages from the Emperor; and in a few years
more he wrote the messages as well as delivered them. And all the time
his education was being carried along by competent instructors.

One of these teachers, Fronto, has come down to us, his portrait well
etched on history's tablets, because he saved all the letters written
him by Marcus Aurelius; and his grandchildren published them in order to
show the excellence of true scientific teaching. That old Fronto was a
dear old dear, these letters do fully attest. When Marcus went away on a
little journey, even to Lorium, he wrote a letter to Fronto telling
about the trip--the sheep by the wayside, the dogs that herded them, the
shower they saw coming across the Campagna, and incidentally a little
freshman philosophy mixed in, for Fronto had cautioned his pupil always
to write out a great thought when it came, for fear he would never have
another. Marcus was a sprightly letter-writer, and must have been a
quick observer, and Fronto's gentle claims that he made the man are
worthy of consideration. As a literary exercise the daily theme,
prompted by love, can never be improved upon. The way to learn to write
is to write. And Pronto, who resorted to many little tricks in order to
get his pupil to express himself, was a teacher whose name should be
written high. The correspond