JOHN STUART MILL. 



In the matter of religion, as 

 generally understood, they were ap- 

 parently "birds of a feather," al- 

 though it is difficult to believe that 

 the mother of children could be an 

 atheist, when we remember the ex- 

 clamation of Eve, on the birth of 

 Cain an instinct common to wo- 

 mankind that she had "gotten a 

 man from the . Lord." God the 

 creator, preserver, and governor, was 

 a being which Mill did not in any 

 way recognize. His religion was 

 directed to his goddess' memory 

 (and memory only) ; and he almost 

 exhausted the English language in 

 her praises praises as were perhaps 

 never exceeded by the heathen, 

 when addressing their ordinary 

 deities. Indeed, he confessed his 

 inability to fill the place of her hiero- 

 phant. 



To both the Mills the following 

 prayer of the Pagan Epictetus would 

 have been simply an abomina- 

 tion : 



" If death overtakes me in such a 

 situation, it is enough for me if I can 

 stretch out my hands to God, and say, 

 ' The opportunities which I have re- 

 ceived from thee of comprehending and 

 obeying thy administration, I have not 

 neglected. As far as in me lay, I have 

 not dishonoured thee. See how I have 

 used my perceptions ; how my convic- 

 tions. Have I at any time found fault 

 with thee? Have I been discontented 

 at thy dispensations, or wished them 

 otherwise? Have I transgressed tha 

 relations of life? I thank thee that 

 thou hast brought me into being. I am 

 satisfied with the time that I ha7e en- 

 joyed the things which thou hast given 

 me. Receive them back again, and 

 distribute them as thou wilt ; for they 

 were all thine, and thou gavest them to 

 me.' " Boston Edition, 1865, p. 357. 



And the following letter from 

 another Pagan, Pliny the Consul, 

 would have been no less offensive to 

 them : 



" The lingering disorder of a friend of 

 mine gave me occasion lately to reflect, 

 that we are never so virtuous as when 

 afflicted with sickness. Where is the 



man who, under the pain of any distem- 

 per, is either solicited by avarice or en- 

 flamed with lust ? At such a season he 

 is neither the slave of love, nor the fool 

 of ambition ; he looks with indifference 

 upon the charms of wealth, and is con- 

 tented with ever so small a portion of it, 

 as being" upon the point of leaving even 

 that little. It is then he recollects there 

 are gods, and that he himself is but a 

 man : no mortal is then the object of his 

 envy, his admiration or his contempt ; 

 and having no malice to gratify, the tales 

 of slander excite not his attention ; his 

 dreams run only upon the refreshment 

 of baths and fountains. These are the 

 supreme objects of his thoughts and 

 wishes, while he resolves, if he should 

 recover, to pass the remainder of his 

 days disengaged from the cares and 

 business of the world ; that is, in inno- 

 cence and happiness. I may therefore 

 lay down to you and myself a short rule, 

 which the philosophers have endeavour- 

 ed to inculcate at the expense of many 

 words, and even many volumes, that 

 ' we should realize in health those reso- 

 lutions we form in sickness.' " Pliny, by 

 Melmoth. II., p. 48. 



This letter of Pliny is certainly 

 very interesting on the subject of 

 death, when he says, " It is then we 

 recollect there are gods " ; while 

 Marcus Aurelius says, " Since it is 

 possible that thou mayest* depart 

 this life this very moment, regulate 

 every act and thought accordingly" : 

 sentiments that would have no 

 meaning unless they referred to 

 what St. Paul says when he speaks 

 of men being, " through fear of 

 death, all their life-time subject to 

 bondage," in consequence of it be- 

 ing " appointed unto men once to 

 die, but after this the judgment." 

 Among the more intelligent of the 

 heathen, the fear of future punish- 

 ment was called superstition, and 

 was left to be spoken of by the more 

 ignorant of the people, however 

 much the others may have felt with- 

 out expressing it, or however much 

 they may have done to shake the 

 fear off them. And thus it was 

 that Plato says : 



" When a man is about to die. the 

 stories of future punishment, which he 



