here is not one of us without fault; no
man is found who can acquit himself; and he who calls himself
innocent does so with reference to a witness, and not to his
conscience.

--_Letters of Seneca_

[Illustration: SENECA]

True Americans and patriotic, who live in York State, often refer you to
the life of Red Jacket as proof that "Seneca" is an Iroquois Indian
word. The Indians, however, whom we call the Senecas never called
themselves thus until they took to strong water and became civilized.
Before that they were the Tsonnundawaonas. The Dutch traders, intent on
pelts and pelf, called them the Sinnekaas, meaning the valiant or the
beautiful. Then came that fateful day when the Reverend Peleg Spooner,
the discoverer of the Erie Canal, journeyed to Niagara Falls, and having
influence with the authorities at Washington, gave to towns along the
way these names: Troy, Rome, Ithaca, Syracuse, Ilion, Manlius, Homer,
Corfu, Palmyra, Utica, Delhi, Memphis and Marathon. He really exhausted
Grote's "History of Greece" and Gibbon's "Rome," revealing a most
depressing lack of humor. This classic flavor of the map of New York is
as surprising to English tourists as was the discovery to Hendrik Hudson
when, on sailing up the North River, he found on nearing Albany that the
river bore the same name as himself.

* * * * *

In the eighteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read of Paul
being brought before Gallio, Proconsul of Achaia. And the accusers,
clutching the bald and bow-legged bachelor by the collar, bawl out to
the Judge, "This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to law!"

And the little man is about to make reply, when Gallio says, with a
touch of impatience: "If indeed it were a matter of wrong or of wicked
villainy, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if
they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it
yourselves; I am not minded to be a judge of these matters!" And the
account concludes, "And he drove them from the judgment-seat."

That is to say, he gave Saint Paul a "nolle pros." Had Gallio wished to
be severe, he might have put the quietus on Christianity for all time,
for Saint Paul had all there was of it stowed in his valiant head and
heart.

Gallio was the elder brother of Seneca; his right name was Annaeus
Seneca, but he changed it to Junius Gallio, in