GREAT THOUGHTS FROM LATIN

AUTHORS.

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.

FLOURISHED FROM ABOUT A.D. 350 TO A.D. 390.

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, a native of Antioch in Syria, was the last subject of Rome who composed a profane history in the Latin language. Of his personal history little is known; he was an officer in the army, accompanying Ursicinus, an able general of the Emperor Constantius, to the East in 350. We next find him accompanying Julian in his expedition against the Persians, having a narrow escape in the retreat of the Romans. His history extended from the accession of Nerva, A.D. 96, to the death of Valens, A.D. 378, comprising a period of 282 years. It was divided into thirty-one books, of which the first thirteen are iost. What remains includes the reign of Constantius from A.D. 353, and those of Gallus, Julianus, Jovianus, Valentinianus, and Valens.

FOLLY OF MEN.

Some imagining that they can best commend themselves to the Eternal by erecting statues to that great Being, earnestly devote themselves to these, as if they were certain to obtain more re

ward from senseless idols of brass than from the conscientious performance of honorable duties.

TRUTH IS SIMPLE.

The language of truth is unadorned and always simple.

We find the three great tragic writers of Greece speak of truth in the same way.

Shakespeare (" Measure for Measure," act v. sc. 1) says:-"Truth is truth

To the end of reckoning."

Matthew vi. 22:

"If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

MAN PARALYZED BY FATE.

The senses of men are usually blunted and deadened, when fate lays a heavy hand upon them.

THE MIND OF MAN IN SLEEP.

The mind freed from the shackles of the body, never resting, being under the impressions which cares and anxieties have made upon it, brings before us those night visions which we call fantasies.

Longfellow ("A Psalm of Life") expresses himself other

wise:

"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
'Life is but an empty Dream!'

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem."

But Byron ("The Dream," 1. 5) says:

"Dreams in their development have breath,
And tears and tortures and the touch of joy;
They have a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being."

Shakespeare (" Romeo and Juliet," act i. sc. 4) says:"I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;

Which is as thin of substance as the air;

And more inconstant than the wind, which wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south."

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.

Adrasteia, whom we also call Nemesis, very often (I wish it were always so!) acts as the avenger of the deeds of the impious and the rewarder of the righteous-being a certain sublime law of the Almighty placed over the minds of men, or as others define it, a self-existing guardian angel watching over each individual with uncontrolled power; which theologians of old, falsely assuming to be the daughter of Justice, maintain to look down on all things earthly from the abysses of eternity. She, as the directress of original causes, the arbitress and judge of events, rules over the urn containing the fates of men, turning cut at will the lots of life; and ending very differently at times from what she seemed to have intended, turns round our fates with endless changes. And binding with the indissoluble chain of necessity the pride of man, vainly puffed up, and causing the ups and downs of life, as she best knows to turn them; now she throws him down from his lofty seat, and again lifting the upright from the lowest bottom raises him to the pinnacle of fort

une.

EXCEPTIONS TO EVERY RULE.

But in the midst of thorns roses spring up, and amidst savage beasts some are tame.

So Psalm xxx. 5:

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

ALMOST ALL DIFFICULTIES MAY BE OVERCOME

BY PRUDENCE.

Almost all difficulties may be got the better of by prudent thought, revolving and pondering much in the mind.

MAN ABLE TO FORESEE GOOD AND BAD.

It is not wonderful that men sometimes are able to discern what is profitable and what is hurtful to them, since we regard their minds to be related to the heavenly beings.

THE GENIUS WATCHING OVER EACH.

His particular Genius, who was placed to watch over his life, was thought to have abandoned him, as he was on the point of leaving the world. For theologians say, that to all men, when they are born, certain divine beings are attached to direct their actions, though visible to very few, only to those who are distinguished by many virtuous qualities.

THE WILL OF HEAVEN.

No power or virtue of man could ever have deserved that, what has been fated, should not have taken place.

Shakespeare ("Henry VI.," Part III., act iv. sc. 3) says:

"What fates impose, that men must needs abide;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide."

So Psalm cxxxv. 5:

"For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places."