Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

NEOSTOICISM AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 5 3the goods of outward life which he had lost ? Caesarand Cato agreed in the senate that death ended allthings, and that there was neither joy nor sorrowbeyond it, and the tragedian bearing Seneca's namecries: " After death is nothing, and death itself isnothing: then thou wilt be where the unborn are."There is profoundest pathos in the last words of theman whose great genius made him the second andfounder of this prodigious empire. Augustthroned in uncontested power, had complacentlyreviewed, on tablets of brass, as in presence of thhuman race, his acts during more than forty yearsting the pacific victories of a long prosperityAnd his dying comment on all these things whe turned to those who should presently close hyes, " Have I played my part well ? Vos valete etindite. All the world's a stage. Clap me as Imake my exit."In the midst of a people, emperor, senators, knights,jedmen, and slaves, who thought and acted just asthese leaders of thought and action had done, tha" great multitude' of whom the Roman historiaispeaks, died under the persecution of Nero for theifaith in an unseen world, and in a never-ending lif