The universe is
"accepted" by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or
exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is! Compare his fine
sentence: "If gods care not for me or my children, here is a
reason for it," with Job's cry: "Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him!" and you immediately see the difference I mean.
The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal destiny
the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and submitted to,
but the Christian God is there to be loved; and the difference of
emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and
the tropics, though the outcome in the way of accepting actual
conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much
the same.
"It is a man's duty," says Marcus Aurelius, "to comfort himself
and wait for the natural dissolution, and not to be vexed, but to
find refreshment solely in these thoughts--first that nothing
will happen to me which is not conformable to the nature of the
universe; and secondly that I need do nothing contrary to the God
and deity within me; for there is no man who can compel me to
transgress.
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