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Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

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THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH. 243bility, but he dies prematurely, and leaves thrule carried so temperately by four great sove-reigns successively adopted to empire at matage, in the untried hands <strong>of</strong> the heir <strong>of</strong> his bloa youth <strong>of</strong> nineteen, born in the purple. In ththe great Roman was wanting bothStoic greatness and to Roman duty. And it wa fatal error. During thirteen years this son othe most virtuous heathen shows himself the mostvicious <strong>of</strong> tyrants. At a single bound Rome passesfrom a ruler more j ust than Traj an to a ruler moreabandoned than Nero; and in the palace <strong>of</strong> MarcusAurelius endures an emperor who has a doubleharem <strong>of</strong> three hundred victims f who spares theblood <strong>of</strong> no senator, and respects the worth <strong>of</strong> no<strong>of</strong>ficer.When a revolution, similar to that which sweptaway Domitian, has removed Commodus, the Romanworld is not so fortunateas to find a secondTrajan to take his place. Three great <strong>of</strong>ficers whocommand in Syria, Illyricurn, and Britain, contendfor the prize, and when victory has determined infavour <strong>of</strong> Septimius Severus, he rules for eighteenyears with a force and capacity which may indeedbe compared with Trajan's, but with a deceit andmorseless severity all his own. At one tinforty senators are slaughtered for the cing looked with favour upon that pretender tthe empire who did not succeed. Nor is th aChampagny, Les Antonins, iii. 311.

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