Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

78 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMcan only be overcome by habits which are opposite.The disposition to virtue, the germ of it, is planted inall men by nature. Mtisonius directed his instructionentirely to this practical end. The teacher of philosophyis to produce not assent but improvement. Hemust give his hearers the moral medicine which theyneed, and if he do so rightly, they will not have timeto wonder at his discourse, but will be entirely employedwith themselves and their conscience, and filledwith emotions of shame and repentance, and so willbe improved. His scope being so entirely practical,it is not new thoughts, or the accurate carrying outof a system, which can be expected from him. Hegenerally applies the well-known Stoic principles.His leading thought is man's inward freedom, whichis attached to two conditions, the right handling ofthat which is in our own power, and the giving ourselvesup to what is not in our power. In our poweris the use we make of the notions which our mindforms of things, and on it rest all virtue and happiness.All the rest is not in our power. That wemust leave to the course of the world ; throw in ourvote with God's, and give up contentedly children, orcountry, or body, or anything else. For instance, wemust court banishment as no evil, but feel at home inall the world; must not seek death, nor yet shrinkfrom it. It is the great praise of this man that, whenbanished by Nero at the time that Seneca was put todeath, he carried out in practice exactly what he hadtaught. He is supposed to have lived down to theend of Domitiau's reign, and seems fairly a specimenof what a good heathen might be in the worst times.The most illustrious of the Neostoics, the manwhose writings have had most weight with those who