V. THE ANCIENTS W ERE the Gentile contemporaries and predecessors of St. Paul, the high men among the Greeks and the Romans, the men from whose words and deeds we remote moderns have not yet done learning, who were the salt of the Pagan earth, and whose saltness has not yet lost all its savor, - were the Brutuses and Cæsar and Cicero and the Scipios and Sylla and the Catos and Pompey and Paulus Æmilius, - were Pericles and Epaminondas and Miltiades and Plato and Dion and Timoleon and Socrates and Xenophon and Phocion and Alcibiades, - men whose greatness still feeds our thought, - were they gentlemen? It is a fine question, the brief consideration of which will bring us still further into the depths of our theme. Historically we find man elevated and enlarged under Christianity. He has become gradually imbued with certain great prolific ideas and sentiments: the Oneness and Pa ternity of God; the innateness of high, unselfish feelings, with a presentiment of their destined predominance in humanity; the sentiment of universal brotherhood; the exaltation of womanhood; the spirituality of man as an eternally living soul; -ideas and sentiments not only not prevalent among the Greeks and Romans, but not all of them apprehended by their highest minds, by Socrates and Plato, by Cicero * and Aurelius. Especially is belief in the spirituality and immortality of man incalculably ennobling. So grand, indeed, is the conception of an endless, ever-brightening life, that no earthly mind has the grasp and innocence to compass it in its entireness. Could any one attain to an absolute, perpetual realization of his own personal everlastingness, he would be as surely purged of all stain as a body that floated on the confines of the Sun's periphery would be of darkness. What the difference is between intellectual impression, or even conviction, and the practical verification, the daily incarnation, of a great idea like this, we may form some notion, by contrasting with a warm, working Pauline faith, the traditional, conventional Sunday Christianity of the listeners in the highest-priced pews in any of the churches of - New York or Philadelphia. * What a grand spiritual flash shot through the brain of Cicero, when he had such a sublime insight as to write, "Your father, Paulus, and others whom we speak of as dead, are still alive, while our present life, as compared to theirs, is death." More by imperceptible diffusion and infiltration, by slow almost unconscious permeation, than by intensity of action, have these generic feelings and principles, especially that of immortality, wrought upon the modern mind; and a primary effect of them being a recognition of man as man (above his mere citizenship or productive utility), and a consequent respect for and sympathy with mere manhood, they have gradually modified human intercourse and manners. It would be too much to say, that among the Greeks and the Romans there were no gentlemen, - although perhaps, bating a few very exceptional individuals, even that position might be maintained, but we are justified in affirming that the personal association even of their highest was not controlled by what at this day pervades in some degree all Christendom, namely, the gentlemanly, - a calmness and sweetness of spirit, fostered by independent manliness and the dignity of self-respect, made pliable and gracious by respect for others, -a gentle considerate bearing on all sides, that, giving security and tranquillity to each one, generates an atmosphere which, though breathed in its purest condition only by those who are favored both by education and temperament, tints the valleys and plains, as well as the heights of the social world with its delicate hue, and gives to the intercourse of Christendom a tone of more or less kindliness. In support of the position as to the absence of gentlemanly tone among the Ancients, I will cite two examples, taken from the very top of Pagan society. The first is a scene in the Roman Senate, thus related by Plutarch:"While Cato was warmly contesting his point with Cæsar, and the eyes of the whole Senate were upon the disputants, it is said that a billet was brought in and delivered to Cæsar. Cato immediately suspected him of some traitorous design; and it was moved in the Senate that the billet should be read aloud. Cæsar delivered it to Cato, who stood near him; and the latter had no sooner cast his eye upon it, than he perceived it to be in the handwriting of his own sister, Servilia, who was passionately in love with Cæsar, and by him had been seduced. He therefore threw it back to Cæsar, saying, Take it, you sot,' and went on with his discourse." Now, scenes of rudeness to match this though not exactly of the same character occur in Parliaments, Congresses, Cortezes, Chambers; but they pass not unnoticed. Within the walls where gather these assemblages, reigns a paramount law of decency and propriety, the violator of which is called to order, is obliged to apologize to the House, |