ROME AND CHRISTIANITY. MARCUS AURELIUS. TRANSLATED BY CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 1880. Copyright, 1880, By JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY. Franklin Press: Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, Avery, & Co., Boston ....

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I was proud and happy to receive from the curators of this noble institution an invitation to continue here an instruction inaugurated by my illustrious confrère and friend, Max Müller, the usefulness of which will be more and more appreciated. A broad and sincere thought always bears fruit. It is thirty years since the venerable Robert Hibbert made a legacy for the purpose of aiding the progress of enlightened Christianity, inseparable, according to his idea, from the prog

Ladies and Gentlemen,—At our last meeting we attempted to show the situation of the Roman Empire in regard to religious questions during the first century. There was in the vast gathering of populations which composed the empire a pressing want of religion, a true moral progress, which called for a pure worship without superstitious practices or bloody sacrifices; a tendency to Monotheism, which made the old mythological recitals appear ridiculous; a general sentiment of sympathy and of charity,

Almost always the nations created to play a part in universal civilization, like Judæa, Greece, and the Italy of the renaissance, exercise their full action upon the world, only after becoming victims to their own grandeur. They must first die; then the world lives on them, assimilates to itself that which they have created at the price of their fever and their sufferings. Nations ought to choose in fact between the long, tranquil, obscure destiny of that which lives for itself, and the troubled

Ladies and Gentlemen,—It is plain that the importance of the churches in the primitive Christian community was in proportion to their apostolic nobility. The guaranty of orthodoxy was in the succession of the bishops, by which the great churches were linked to the apostles. A direct line appeared to afford a very strong assurance of conformity of doctrine, and it was jealously maintained. Now, what can be said of a church founded by both Peter and Paul? It is clear that such a church ought to en

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I have accepted with great pleasure the invitation to address you in this illustrious institution devoted to the noblest researches of science and of true philosophy. I have dreamed since my childhood of this island, where I have so many friends, and which I visit so tardily. I am a Briton of France. In our old books, England is always called the Island of the Saints; and, in truth, all our saints of Armorican Brittany, those saints of doubtful orthodoxy, who, if they were