,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, 'THOU MUST,'
The youth replies, 'I CAN.'"

One more trait of the character of Musonius will show how deeply
Epictetus respected him, and how much good he derived from him. In his
_Discourse on Ostentation_, Epictetus says that Rufus was in the habit
of remarking to his pupils, "If you have leisure to praise me, I can
have done you no good." "He used indeed so to address us that each one
of us, sitting there, thought that some one had been privately telling
tales against _him_ in particular, so completely did Rufus seize hold of
his characteristics, so vividly did he portray our individual faults."

Such was the man under whose teaching Epictetus grew to maturity, and it
was evidently a teaching which was wise and noble, even if it were
somewhat chilling and austere. It formed an epoch in the slave's life;
it remoulded his entire character; it was to him the source of blessings
so inestimable in their value that it is doubtful whether they were
counter-balanced by all the miseries of poverty, slavery, and contempt.
He would probably have admitted that it was _better_ for him to have
been sold into cruel slavery, than it would have been to grow up in
freedom, obscurity, and ignorance in his native Hierapolis. So that
Epictetus might have found, and did find, in his own person, an
additional argument in favour of Divine Providence: an additional proof
that God is kind and merciful to all men; an additional intensity of
conviction that, if our lots on earth are not equal, they are at least
dominated by a principle of justice and of wisdom, and each man, on the
whole, may gain that which is best for him, and that which most
honestly and most heartily he desires. Epictetus reminds us again and
again that we may have many, if not all, such advantages as the world
has to offer, _if we are willing to pay the price by which they are
obtained_. But if that price be a mean or a wicked one, and if we should
scorn ourselves were we ever tempted to pay it, then we must not even
cast one longing look of regret towards things which can only be got by
that which we deliberately refuse to give. Every good and just man may
gain, if not happiness, then something higher than happiness. Let no one
regard this as a mere phrase, for it is capable of a most