against the unthankful, it hath given goodness and meekness,
as an antidote.'

One so gentle towards a foe was sure to be a good friend; and indeed
his pages are full of generous gratitude to those who had served him.
In his First Book he sets down to account all the debts due to his
kinsfolk and teachers. To his grandfather he owed his own gentle spirit,
to his father shamefastness and courage; he learnt of his mother to be
religious and bountiful and single-minded. Rusticus did not work in vain,
if he showed his pupil that his life needed amending. Apollonius taught
him simplicity, reasonableness, gratitude, a love of true liberty.
So the list runs on; every one he had dealings with seems to have
given him something good, a sure proof of the goodness of his nature,
which thought no evil.

If his was that honest and true heart which is the Christian ideal,
this is the more wonderful in that he lacked the faith which makes
Christians strong. He could say, it is true, 'either there is a God,
and then all is well; or if all things go by chance and fortune,
yet mayest thou use thine own providence in those things that concern
thee properly; and then art thou well.' Or again, 'We must needs grant
that there is a nature that doth govern the universe.' But his own
part in the scheme of things is so small, that he does not hope for any
personal happiness beyond what a serene soul may win in this mortal life.
'0 my soul, the time I trust will be, when thou shalt be good, simple,
more open and visible, than that body by which it is enclosed;'
but this is said of the calm contentment with human lot which he hopes
to attain, not of a time when the trammels of the body shall be cast off.
For the rest, the world and its fame and wealth, 'all is vanity.'
The gods may perhaps have a particular care for him, but their especial