ere losing strength, this enticing faith, with
pleasure as its _summum bonum_, and with quietism as its ideal of human
life,[769] could hardly be a real stimulus to active virtue; the Roman
needed bracing, and this was not a tonic, but a sedative. Far more
valuable in every way, and far better suited to the best instincts of
the Roman character, was the rival creed of Stoicism, and I must devote
the rest of this lecture to the consideration of its religious aspect.

It was most fortunate for Rome that her best and ablest men in the
second century B.C. fell into the hands, not of Epicureans, but of
Stoics--into the hands, too, of a single Stoic of high standing, fine
character, and good sense. For destitute as the Roman was both in regard
to God and to Duty, he found in Stoicism an explanation of man's place
in the universe,--an explanation relating him directly to the Power
manifesting itself therein, and deriving from that relation a _binding_
principle of conduct and duty. This should make the religious character
of Stoicism at once apparent. It is perfectly true, as the late Mr.
Lecky said long ago,[770] that "Stoicism, taught by Panaetius of Rhodes,
and soon after by the Syrian Posidonius, became the true religion of the
educated classes. It furnished the principles of virtue, coloured the
noblest literature of the time, and guided all the developments of moral
enthusiasm." To this I only need to add that it woke in the mind an
entirely new idea of Deity, far transcending that of Roman _numina_ and
of Greek polytheism, and yet not incapable of being reconciled with
these; so that it might be taken as an inpouring of sudden light upon
old conceptions of the Power, glorifying and transfiguring them, rather
than, like the Epicurean faith, a bitter and contemptuous negation of
man's inherited religious instincts. But before we go on to consider
this illumination more closely, let me say a few words about Panaetius
the Stoic missionary, and Scipio Aemilianus, his most famous disciple.

Scipio, born 184, was a happy combination of the best Roman aristocratic
character and the receptive intelligence which for a Roman was the chief
result of a Greek liberal education. He had been educated by his famous
father, Aemilius Paulus, in a thoroughly healthy way; he was no mere
book-student, but a practical courageous Roman, with a solid mental
foundation of moral rectitude (_pietas_) fixed firmly in the traditions
and instincts of