ost wife, property, and
children, that he had lost nothing, because he carried in his own person
everything which he possessed. It led Seneca into all that is most
unnatural, all that is most fantastic, and all that is least sincere in
his writings; it was the bitter source of disgrace and failure in his
life. It comes out worst of all in his book _On Anger_. Aristotle had
said that "Anger was a good servant but a bad master;" Plato had
recognized the immense value and importance of the irascible element in
the moral constitution. Even Christian writers, in spite of Bishop
Butler, have often lost sight of this truth, and have forgotten that to
a noble nature "the hate of hate" and the "scorn of scorn" are as
indispensable as "the love of love." But Seneca almost gets angry
himself at the very notion of the wise man being angry and indignant
even against moral evil. No, he must not get angry, because it would
disturb his sublime calm; and, if he allowed himself to be angry at
wrong-doing, he would have to be angry all day long. This practical
Epicureanism, this idle acquiescence in the supposed incurability of
evil, poisoned all Seneca's career. "He had tutored himself," says
Professor Maurice, "to endure personal injuries without indulging an
anger; he had tutored himself to look upon all moral evil without anger.
If the doctrine is sound and the discipline desirable, we must be
content to take the whole result of them. If we will not do that, we
must resolve to hate oppression and wrong, _even at the cost of
philosophical composure"_ But repose is not to be our aim:--

"We have no right to bliss,
No title from the gods to welfare and repose."

It is one of the truths which seems to me most needed in the modern
religious world, that the type of a Christian's virtue must be very
miserable, and ordinary, and ineffectual, if he does not feel his whole
soul burn within him with an almost implacable moral indignation at the
sight of cruelty and injustice, of Pharisaic faithlessness and
social crimes.

I have thus freely criticised the radical defects of Stoicism, so far
as Seneca is its legitimate exponent; but I cannot consent to leave him
with the language of depreciation, and therefore here I will once more
endorse what an anonymous writer has said of him: "An unconscious
Christianity covers all his sentiments. If the fair fame of the man is
sullied, the aspiration to a higher life cannot be denied to the
p