himself as an able and accomplished monarch.  But he was proud, pedantic, and self-sufficient; and, like every other individual destitute of spiritual enlightenment, his character presented the most glaring inconsistencies; for he was at once a professed Stoic, and a devout Pagan.  This Prince could not brook the contempt with which the Christians treated his philosophy; neither could he tolerate the idea that they should be permitted to think for themselves.  He could conceive how an individual, yielding to the stern law of fate, could meet death with unconcern; but he did not understand how the Christians could glory in tribulation, and hail even martyrdom with a song of triumph.  Had he calmly reflected on the spirit displayed by the witnesses for the truth, he might have seen that they were partakers of a higher wisdom than his own; but the tenacity with which they adhered to their principles, only mortified his self-conceit, and roused his indignation.  It is remarkable that this philosophic Emperor was the most systematic and heartless of all the persecutors who had ever yet oppressed the Church.  When Nero lighted up his gardens with the flames which issued from the bodies of the dying Christians, he wished to transfer to them the odium of the burning of Rome, and he acted only with the caprice and cunning of a tyrant; and when Domitian promulgated his cruel edicts, he was haunted with the dread that the proscribed sect would raise up a rival Sovereign; but Marcus Aurelius could not plead even such miserable apologies.  He hated the Christians with the cool acerbity of a Stoic; and he took measures for their extirpation which betrayed at once his folly and his malevolence.  Disregarding the law of Trajan which required that they should not be officiously sought after, he encouraged spies and informers to harass them with accusations.  He caused them to be dragged before the tribunals of the magistrates; and, under pain of death, to be compelled to conform to the rites of idolatry.  With a refinement of cruelty unknown to his predecessors, he employed torture for the purpose of forcing them to recant.  If, in their agony, they gave way, and consented to sacrifice to the gods, they were released; if they remained firm, they were permitted to die in torment.  In his reign we read of new and hideous forms of punishment—­evidently instituted for the purpose of aggravating pain and terror.  The Christians were stretched upon the rack, and their joints were dislocated; their bodies, when lacerated with scourges, were laid on rough sea-shells, or on other most uncomfortable supports; they were torn to pieces by wild beasts; or they were roasted alive on heated iron chairs.  Ingenuity was called to the ignoble office of inventing new modes and new instruments of torture.