to

in general terms, laying special emphasis on the spirit she was to cultivate and manifest. She was, of course, to do nothing, in deference to her husband, which would violate the dictates of her own conscience. But, within this limit, she was to show all possible patience and meekness. She was counselled not to leave her husband, unless in extreme cases. She was reminded that she might perhaps be able, under God, to save him by her influence. But, oh! it is hard work this struggling after the Christian ideal of marriage-duty from only one side of the relationship. There is many a poor wife who would be only too glad reverence her husband"; but how is she to reverence a tyrant or a sot? How is she to yield herself to the guidance and counsel of a man who is constantly revealing his folly or his worldliness? Well, one thing at least if she is an Englishwoman-she can do. She can remember that she married of her own free will, and that duty does not cease to be duty merely because it becomes difficult. And she can remember also that, if her husband has sadly changed, Christ is still the same, and that her duty to Christ remains the same as ever-to govern her temper in presence of provocation, to cherish the spirit of forbearance and forgiveness, and to prevent her selfrespect from passing into pride. But ah! it is hard, uphill work and there is many a maiden who might save herself from the struggle and the misery, if only she would resolve to marry no man whom she cannot respect and love, and whose character and principles she cannot thoroughly trust.

STOICISM.

[Written November, 1877; revised September, 1885.]

"I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content" (avтáρκηs).—Philippians iv. 11.

WE have here an instance of that Baptism of Language, as we may call it, which naturally follows in the wake of Christianity. The word translated "content" means literally "self-sufficient " or " self-sufficing," and it was a favourite word with the old Stoic philosophers. According to the teaching of the Stoics, the "wise man was he who was independent of external circumstances, who was indifferent to pleasure and pain, who was above being moved by things over which he had no control, who, amid all events prosperous or adverse, kept himself perfectly calm, and who in every emergency was sufficient for himself." The man who set his heart on anything outside of himself was a slave; he was at the mercy of the varying accidents of life. But the man who had mastered his own desires, who had thoroughly conquered his own nature, and who found his satisfaction within himself, this man was free and lord of all things. "It is shameful," said the Stoic Seneca, who was himself a rich man, “it is

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shameful to depend for a happy life on silver and gold. Apply thyself rather to the true riches." And the Stoic Epictetus, who was himself a slave, represents some one as asking, "How is it possible, if I have nothing, if I am naked, homeless, foul, without a slave, without a country, to spend my life in happy calm?" And Epictetus replies with a lofty dignity-"Lo! God has sent me to show you in fact how it is possible. See, I have no country, no home, no wealth, no slaves, no bed, no wife, no children, nothing but the sky, and the earth, and one sorry cloak, and what is lacking to me?"

There was indeed a noble element in this old Stoic philosophy. At a time when the masses of men were sunk in selfish gratification, when the philosophy of thousands might have been summed up in the maxim of a degenerate Epicureanism, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!" it was something to find men declaring that the true object of human life was not wealth, or fame, or pleasure, but to "live according to nature," to submit without cringing to the inevitable, to have a mind independent of the mere accidents of life, and capable of meeting all events with a selfsustained serenity. There was at least in all this a protest in favour of the inherent dignity of the human soul. There was something grand in a man saying to himself, "I refuse to be made miserable with envy and discontent; I will not be dependent on the gratification which comes from things outside of myself; I have a power of will within me which makes me lord of myself and of my circumstances; I can shape my thoughts; I can crush my desires; I can form my own estimate of things; I can gird myself to endurance; I

can maintain the calm of my spirit; I may be in poverty, or disease, or pain, and I may not be able to obtain deliverance from these things, but one thing I can do I can cease to wish for deliverance. I can be a wise man, and, without murmuring or whining, can bear the part allotted to me in the great scheme of universal nature."

Now, the Apostle Paul was doubtless familiar with this ideal of Stoicism. Seneca lived at the same time as Paul. Tarsus, where Paul was born, was a great centre of philosophy, and the home of several wellknown Stoic teachers. The apostle's celebrated speech on Mars' Hill at Athens shows that he must have known something of Greek philosophy; and the words, “For we are also his offspring," on which Paul laid so much stress, are a quotation from Stoic poetry. And we can readily conceive that the nobler elements of this Stoic school would find an echo in the brave spirit of the apostle. We can see, too, that the man who began life as a Pharisee of " the straitest sect,” accustomed to self-denial and familiar with self-complacency, and who afterwards cast in his lot with the persecuted Nazarenes, and found in his new faith an inward compensation for all outward hardship, was in a position to estimate aright the Stoic ideal of "the wise man "sufficient for himself." The nobler side of this ideal would appeal to Paul's bravery and unworldliness, whilst his own experience would give him a keener insight into its dangers and its weakness. No doubt he felt that what was good and true in Stoicism could easily be taken up into the gospel; or, to speak more correctly, was already included in the Christian doctrine and the Christian ideal. And so here, writing

from his prison-lodging, in that very city of Rome which was the home of Seneca, Paul does not hesitate to use the favourite word of the Stoics, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be sufficient for myself." But, even as he adopts the word, he baptizes it into the name of Christ; he lifts it into a higher atmosphere; he explains the sense in which he is "self-sufficient

I can do all things in him who strengtheneth me." "In him who strengtheneth me"; here is the idea which Seneca would have spurned. The Stoic did not need strengthening from without; in and of himself he was strong.

Now, precisely here lay the radical weakness of Stoicism, the resolving of all wise character and life into strength of will. It would not, indeed, be true. to say that this philosophy was a stranger to religion and to religious motive. Many allusions to "God," or to "the gods," are to be found in the writings of the Stoics. Thus Seneca says, "No man is good without God," and he speaks of men as the children of God. And again he says: "It is best to endure what you cannot mend, and without murmuring to attend upon God, by whose ordering all things come to pass." Epictetus even calls upon men to join him in singing hymns of praise to God. He exhorts men to act worthily of their noble birth as the offspring of God. And, in language which might well shame many of us who call ourselves Christians, this poor heathen, who was both a slave and a cripple, says: "Dare to look up to God and say, Use me henceforth whereunto Thou wilt; I consent unto Thee; I am thine. I shrink from nothing that seemeth good to Thee. Lead me where Thou wilt, clothe me with what garments Thou wilt. Wouldst Thou that