Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Seneca: His Character and Environment
ing to the voices that spoke to them of something
more abiding than the fleeting affairs of this transi
tory life.
Seneca, too, was intensely human. He frequently
furnishes evidence of extraordinary mental strength
while now and then he sinks down in sheer ex
haustion. His mind ranges freely along the whole
scale of mental experiences; and though he dwell,
longest on the higher parts, he does not always do so.
The record of such an experience has an attraction for
many men. They see in it a counterpart of their
own struggles, and are rarely without hope that its
triumphs may be an earnest of their own.
The scholar in politics is a character of whom we
hear a good deal, but as a matter of fact, scholarship,
in the true sense of the w 7 ord, and successful politics,
as the world understands success, are a combination
that has rarely been made.
Again, an ecclesiastical
statesman, strictly speaking, is an equally rare phe
nomenon and has been since the days of the su
premacy of the Romish church. The greater the
success of the ecclesiastic in statecraft, the farther he
departed from the prescriptions of
least of the Gospel.
the church, or at
How often has the experience of
Wolsey been anticipated or repeated; and many men,
both laics and priests, have felt the truth of Shake
speare s thoughts, if they have not expressed them in
his words:
"
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies."
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