Meditations
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'Let not thy peace,' says the Christian, 'be in the mouths
of men.' But it is to God's censure the Christian appeals,
the Roman to his own soul. The petty annoyances of injustice
or unkindness are looked on by each with the same magnanimity.
'Why doth a little thing said or done against thee make thee sorry?
It is no new thing; it is not the first, nor shall it
be the last, if thou live long. At best suffer patiently,
if thou canst not suffer joyously.' The Christian should
sorrow more for other men's malice than for our own wrongs;
but the Roman is inclined to wash his hands of the offender.
'Study to be patient in suffering and bearing other men's defaults
and all manner infirmities,' says the Christian; but the Roman would
never have thought to add, 'If all men were perfect, what had we
then to suffer of other men for God?' The virtue of suffering
in itself is an idea which does not meet us in the meditations.
Both alike realise that man is one of a great community.
'No man is sufficient to himself,' says the Christian;
'we must bear together, help together, comfort together.'
But while he sees a chief importance in zeal, in exalted
emotion that is, and avoidance of lukewarmness, the Roman
thought mainly of the duty to be done as well as might be,
and less of the feeling which should go with the doing of it.
To the saint as to the emperor, the world is a poor thing at best.
'Verily it is a misery to live upon the earth,' says the Christian;
few and evil are the days of man's life, which passeth away
suddenly as a shadow.
But there is one great difference between the two books we
are considering. The Imitation is addressed to others,
the meditations by the writer to himself. We learn nothing
from the Imitation of the author's own life, except in so far
as he may be assumed to have practised his own preachings;
the meditations reflect mood by mood the mind of him who wrote them.
In their intimacy and frankness lies their great charm.
These notes are not sermons; they are not even confessions.
There is always an air of self-consciousness in confessions;
in such revelations there is always a danger of
unctuousness or of vulgarity for the best of men.
St. Augus-tine is not always clear of offence, and John Bunyan
himself exaggerates venial peccadilloes into heinous sins.
But Marcus Aurelius is neither vulgar nor unctuous;
he extenuates nothing, but nothing sets down in malice.
He never poses before an audience; he may not be profound,
he is always sincere. And it is a lofty and serene soul
which is here disclosed before us. Vulgar vices seem to have no
temptation for him; this is not one tied and bound with chains
which he strives to break. The faults he detects in himself
are often such as most men would have no eyes to see.
To serve the divine spirit which is implanted within him,
a man must 'keep himself pure from all violent passion and
evil affection, from all rashness and vanity, and from all
manner of discontent, either in regard of the gods or men':
or, as he says elsewhere, 'unspotted by pleasure, undaunted by pain.'
Unwavering courtesy and consideration are his aims.
'Whatsoever any man either doth or saith, thou must be good;'
'doth any man offend? It is against himself that he doth offend:
why should it trouble thee?' The offender needs pity, not wrath;
those who must needs be corrected, should be treated with tact
and gentleness; and one must be always ready to learn better.
'The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.'
There are so many hints of offence forgiven, that we
may believe the notes followed sharp on the facts.
Perhaps he has fallen short of his aim, and thus seeks to call
his principles to mind, and to strengthen himself for the future.
That these sayings are not mere talk is plain from the story
of Avidius Cassius, who would have usurped his imperial throne.
Thus the emperor faithfully carries out his own principle, that evil
must be overcome with good. For each fault in others, Nature
(says he) has given us a counteracting virtue; 'as, for example,
against the unthankful, it hath given goodness and meekness,
as an antidote.'
One so gentle towards a foe was sure to be a good friend; and indeed
his pages are full of generous gratitude to those who had served him.
In his First Book he sets down to account all the debts due to his
kinsfolk and teachers. To his grandfather he owed his own gentle spirit,
to his father shamefastness and courage; he learnt of his mother to be
religious and bountiful and single-minded. Rusticus did not work in vain,
if he showed his pupil that his life ne
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