It is not my purpose to turn aside from the narrative in order to
indulge in moral reflections, because such reflections will come with
tenfold force if they are naturally suggested to the reader's mind by
the circumstances of the biography. But from first to last it will be
abundantly obvious to every thoughtful mind that alike the morality and
the philosophy of Paganism, as contrasted with the splendour of revealed
truth and the holiness of Christian life, are but as moonlight is to
sunlight. The Stoical philosophy may be compared to a torch which flings
a faint gleam here and there in the dusky recesses of a mighty cavern;
Christianity to the sun pouring into the inmost depths of the same
cavern its sevenfold illumination. The torch had a value and brightness
of its own, but compared with the dawning of that new glory it appears
to be dim and ineffectual, even though its brightness was a real
brightness, and had been drawn from the same etherial source.
CHAPTER I.
THE FAMILY AND EARLY YEARS OF SENECA.
The exact date of Seneca's birth is uncertain, but it took place in all
probability about seven years before the commencement of the Christian
era.
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