But this
earlier chapter has also a special value for the young. It offers a
picture which it would indeed be better for them and for us if they
could be induced to study. If even under
"That fierce light that beats upon the throne,"
the life of Marcus Aurelius shows no moral stain, it is still more
remarkable that the free and beautiful boyhood of this Roman prince had
early learnt to recognise only the excellences of his teachers, their
patience and firmness, their benevolence and sweetness, their integrity
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.
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