Christ said of Himself on one occasion, "For distinctions I am come into
the world." Marius' criticism of the Emperor reached its climax in his
disgust at the amusements of the amphitheatre, which also Marcus
Aurelius accepted.

There follows a long account of Roman life and thought, with much
speculation as to the ideal commonwealth. That dream of the philosophers
remains for ever in the air, detached from actual experiences and
institutions, but Marius felt himself passing beyond it to something in
which it would be actually realised and visibly localised, "the unseen
Rome on high." Thus in correcting and supplementing the philosophies,
and in insisting upon some actual embodiment of them on the earth, he is
groping his way point by point to Christ. The late Dean Church has said:
"No one can read the wonderful sayings of Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus
Aurelius, without being impressed, abashed perhaps, by their grandeur.
No one can read them without wondering the next moment why they fell so
dead--how little response they seem to have awakened round them." It is
precisely at this point that the young Christian Church found its
opportunity. Pagan idealisms were indeed in the air. The Christian
idealism was being realised upon the earth, and it was this with which
Marius was now coming into contact.

So he goes on until he is led up to two curious houses. The first of
these was the house of Apuleius, where in a subtle and brilliant system
of ideas it seemed as if a ladder had been set up from earth to heaven.
But Marius discovered that what he wanted was the thing itself and not
its mere theory, a life of realised ideals and not a dialectic. The
second house was more curious still. Much pains is spent upon the
description of it with its "quiet signs of wealth, and of a noble
taste," in which both colour and form, alike of stones and flowers,