Thither we must follow him; and, as it is our object not only to depict
a character but also to sketch the characteristics of a very memorable
age in the world's history, we must try to get a glimpse of the family
in the midst of which our young philosopher grew up, of the kind of
education which he received, and of the influences which were likely to
tell upon him during his childish and youthful years. Only by such means
shall we be able to judge of him aright. And it is worth while to try
and gain a right conception of the man, not only because he was very
eminent as a poet, an author, and a politician, not only because he
fills a very prominent place in the pages of the great historian, who
has drawn so immortal a picture of Rome under the Emperors; not only
because in him we can best study the inevitable signs which mark, even
in the works of men of genius, a degraded people and a decaying
literature; but because he was, as the title of this volume designates
him, a "SEEKER AFTER GOD." Whatever may have been the dark and
questionable actions of his life--and in this narrative we shall
endeavor to furnish a plain and unvarnished picture of the manner in
which he lived,--it is certain that, as a philosopher and as a moralist,
he furnishes us with the grandest and most eloquent series of truths to
which, unilluminated by Christianity, the thoughts of man have ever
attained. The purest and most exalted philosophic sect of antiquity was
"the sect of the Stoics;" and Stoicism never found a literary exponent
more ardent, more eloquent, or more enlightened than Lucius Annaeus
Seneca. So nearly, in fact, does he seem to have arrived at the truths
of Christianity, that to many it seemed a matter for marvel that he
could have known them without having heard them from inspired lips. He
is constantly cited with approbation by some of the most eminent
Christian fathers. Tertullian, Lactantius, even St. Augustine himself,
quote his words with marked admiration, and St. Jerome appeals to him as