and virtue. Amid the frightful universality of moral corruption he
preserved a stainless conscience and a most pure soul; he thanked God in
language which breathes the most crystalline delicacy of sentiment and
language, that he had preserved uninjured the flower of his early life,
and that under the calm influences of his home in the country, and the
studies of philosophy, he had learnt to value chastity as the sacred
girdle of youth, to be retained and honoured to his latest years.
"Surely," says Mr. Carlyle, "a day is coming when it will be known again
what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush
of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable is the
duty laid on every creature in regard to these particulars. Well, if
such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come.
Magnanimity and depth of insight will never come; heroic purity of
heart and of eye; noble pious valour to amend us and the age of bronze
and lacquers, how can they ever come? The scandalous bronze-lacquer age
of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotencies, and mendacities will have
to run its course till the pit swallow it."

CHAPTER II.

THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius succeeded to the
throne, and, in accordance with the late Emperor's conditions, adopted
Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the
age of fifteen to the sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor
broke off the engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter
Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven years
afterwards, A.D. 146.

The long reign of Antoninus Pius is one of those happy periods that have
no history. An almost unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes
were lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged; confiscation
were rare, plots and executions were almost unknown. Throughout the
whole extent of his vast domain the people loved and valued their
Emperor, and the Emperor's one aim was to further, the happiness of his
people. He, too, like Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the
bee was good for the hive. He strove to live as the civil administrator,
of an unaggressive and united republic; he disliked war, did not value
the military title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph.

With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his private
relations a