things--old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust,
and old books to read." Still, this can not be accepted without important
qualifications. The most recent books of history and science contain or
ought to contain, the most accurate information and the most trustworthy
conclusions. Moreover, while the books of other races and times have an
interest from their very distance, it must be admitted that many will
still more enjoy, and feel more at home with, those of our own century and
people.

Yet the oldest books of the world are remarkable and interesting on
account of their very age; and the works which have influenced the
opinions, or charmed the leisure hours, of millions of men in distant
times and far-away regions are well worth reading on that very account,
even if to us they seem scarcely to deserve their reputation. It is true
that to many, such works are accessible only in translations; but
translations, though they can never perhaps do justice to the original,
may yet be admirable in themselves. The Bible itself, which must stand
first in the list, is a conclusive case.

At the head of all non-Christian moralists, I must place the
_Enchiridion_ of Epictetus, certainly one of the noblest books in the
whole of literature; it has, moreover, been admirably translated. With
Epictetus, [2] I think must come Marcus Aurelius. The _Analects_ of
Confucius will, I believe, prove disappointing to most English readers,
but the effect it has produced on the most numerous race of men
constitutes in itself a peculiar interest. The _Ethics_ of Aristotle,
perhaps, appear to some disadvantage from the very fact that they have so
profoundly influenced our views of morality. The _Koran_, like the
_Analects_ of Confucius, will to most of us derive its principal interest
from the effect it has exercised, and still exercises, on so many millions