one instance, one out of many which history
and experience afford us, in which an honest and a good man has
endeavored to use for salutary purposes a faith in which he has not
himself participated. Does the bishop of to-day, when he calls upon his
clergy to pray for fine weather, believe that the Almighty will change
the ordained seasons, and cause his causes to be inoperative because
farmers are anxious for their hay or for their wheat? But he feels that
when men are in trouble it is well that they should hold communion with
the powers of heaven. So much also Cicero believed, and therefore spoke
as he did on this occasion. As to his own religious views, I shall say
something in a future chapter.

Then in a passage most beautiful for its language, though it is hardly
in accordance with our idea of the manner in which a man should speak of
himself, he explains his own ambition: "For all which, my
fellow-countrymen, I ask for no other recompense, no ornament or honor,
no monument but that this day may live in your memories. It is within
your breasts that I would garner and keep fresh my triumph, my glory,
the trophies of my exploits. No silent, voiceless statue, nothing which
can be bestowed upon the worthless, can give me delight. Only by your
remembrance can my fortunes be nurtured--by your good words, by the
records which you shall cause to be written, can they be strengthened
and perpetuated. I do think that this day, the memory of which, I trust,
may be eternal, will be famous in history because the city has been
preserved, and because my Consulship has been glorious."[207] He ends
the paragraph by an allusion to Pompey, admitting Pompey to a
brotherhood of patriotism and praise. We shall see how Pompey repaid
him.

How many things must have been astir in his mind when he spoke those
words of Pompey! In the next sentence he tells the people of his own
danger. He has taken care of their safety; it is for them to take care
of his.[208] But they, these Quirites, these Roman citizens, these
masters of the world, by whom everything was supposed to be governed,
could take care of no one; certainly not of themselves, as certainly not
of another. They could only vote, now this way and now that, as somebody
might tell them, or more probably as somebody might pay them. Pompey was
coming home, and would soon be the favorite. Cicero must have felt that
he had deserved much of Pompey, but was by no means sure that the debt
of