Evening star., 1925-07-07

Some years ago I remember seeing
major of the High School Cadets
who carried a small blue book in his
hand. 1t was not the manual of arms
relius."
He read it at such odd moments as
he had during the day and 1 thought
at the time that he must be a very
unusual young man. Since then he
has gone far, as any man is likely to
do who sincerely reads the golden Mar
Gus.
OF all the characters of antiquity
none Is better known today, and GER
tainiy none more revered, than this
Emperor Of Rome, called by Canon
Farrar "one of the humblest and one
OF the most enlightened of all ancient
seekers after God"
Marcus Aarelius Antoninus perse-
cuted the early Christians, including
st. Cecilia at Rome, and st. Polycarp
at Smyrna, yet Christians today ex-
emplify the Lords prayer in forgiving
the man, SO great was his worth.
Verissimus, "the most true" he was
called. after he had been adopted by
the Emperor Antoninus Plus, and this
feeling among men ever since has in.
terceded in his behalf.
Canon Farrar is one of his greatest
apologists. going to great lengths to
show, in his Seekers After God" that
Aurelius was an unfortunate victim
of his age.
1t seems to me that there is some
necessity for getting this particular
matter Strengthened out in the readers
mind before considering at any length
his Golden Book, for there has been
and still is much point made against
him as a prosecutor of Christians.
A no n c
latest edition speaks thus bitterly:
There is glaring inconsistency in
his character in the adoption of sc
|scruel and monstrous a course by one
who appears otherwise so admirable
In this single instance he is as bloody
and heartless as a Domitian. a Nero
or Caiigula; in all other things mer-
ciful, in this pitiless; in his general ad.
ministration, just and humane; in this
stngularly unjust and even Vindictive.
His policy in this instance
was utterly inconsistent with his gen
eral character"
\
Listen, then, to what Canon Farrar
has TO say:
That he was a cold -biooded and
virulent prosecutor Is utterly unlike
his whole character, essentially al
variance with his habitual clemency
alien TO the spirit which made him
interfere in every possible instance to
mitigate the severity of legal punish
ments, and may in short be regarded
as an assertion which is altogether
false.
who will believe that man who
during his reign, built and dedicated
but one single temple, and that a
temple of beneficence; that man who
SO far from showing any jealousy re
specting foreign religions allowed
honor 10 be paid to them all; that q
man whose writings breathe on every
page the inmost spirit of philanthropy
and tenderness, went out of his way
TO Join a persecution OF the most in
nocent, the most courageous and the
most inoffensiVe of subjects?
THE true state of the case seems
to have been this. The deep calam-
tiles in which, during the whole reign
of Marcus, the empire was involved
caused widespread distress and rous-
ed into peculiar fury the feelings of
the proVincials against men whose
atheism (for such they considered it
to be) had kindled the anger of the
gods.
ITO what extent is Marcus Aure-
lius to be condemned for the mar
tyrdoms which took place in his
reign? Not, l think, heavily or in
discriminatory, or with vehement
sweeping censure. Common justice
surely demands that we should not