duty.  The work contains what has been called by a distinguished scholar “the common creed of wise men, from which all other views may well seem mere deflections on the side of an unwarranted credulity or of an exaggerated despair.”  From the pomp and circumstance of state surrounding him, from the manifold cares of his exalted rank, from the tumult of protracted wars, the Emperor retired into the pages of this book as into the sanctuary of his soul, and there found in sane and rational reflection the peace that the world could not give and could never take away.  The tone and temper of the work is unique among books of its class.  It is sweet yet dignified, courageous yet resigned, philosophical and speculative, yet above all, intensely practical.

Through all the ages from the time when the Emperor Diocletian prescribed a distinct ritual for Aurelius as one of the gods; from the time when the monks of the Middle Ages treasured the ‘Meditations’ as carefully as they kept their manuscripts of the Gospels, the work has been recognized as the precious life-blood of a master spirit.  An adequate English translation would constitute to-day a most valuable vade mecum of devotional feeling and of religious inspiration.  It would prove a strong moral tonic to hundreds of minds now sinking into agnosticism or materialism.

[Illustration:  MARCUS AURELIUS]

The distinguished French writer M. Martha observes that in the ‘Meditations of Marcus Aurelius’ “we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed.  One cannot read the book without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon.  We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to which profane doctrines have attained.”

Those in the past who have found solace in its pages have not been limited to any one country, creed, or condition in life.  The distinguished Cardinal Francis Barberini the elder occupied his last years in translating the ‘Meditations’ into Italian; so that, as he said, “the thoughts of the pious pagan might quicken the faith of the faithful.”  He dedicated the work to his own soul, so that it “might blush deeper than the scarlet of the cardinal robe as it looked upon the nobility of the pagan.”  The venerable and learned English scholar Thomas Gataker, of the religious faith of Cromwell and Milton, spent the last years of his life in translating the work into Latin as the noblest preparation for death.  The book was the constant companion of Captain John Smith, the discoverer of Virginia, who found in it “sweet refreshment in his seasons of despondency.”  Jean Paul Richter speaks of it as a vital help in “the deepest floods of adversity.”  The French translator Pierron says that it exalted his soul into a serene region, above all petty cares