Meditations

INTRODUCTION

to be cheerful and courageous in all sudden chances and accidents, as in sicknesses: to love mildness, and moderation, and gravity: and to do my business, whatsoever it be, thoroughly, and without querulousness.

In the morning purpose, in the evening discuss the manner, what thou hast been this day, in word, work, and thought.’

But Marcus Aurelius knows that what the heart is full of, the man will do. ‘Such as thy thoughts and ordinary cogitations are,’ he says, ‘such will thy mind be in time.’

THE FIRST BOOK

To read with diligence; not to rest satisfied with a light and superficial knowledge, nor quickly to assent to things commonly spoken of:

‘If thou may not continually gather thyself together, namely sometimes do it, at least once a day, the morning or the evening.

‘Why doth a little thing said or done against thee make thee sorry? It is no new thing; it is not the first, nor shall it be the last, if thou live long. At best suffer patiently, if thou canst not suffer joyously.’

It is again instructive to note that Christian sages insisted on the same thing. Christians are taught that they are members of a worldwide brotherhood, where is neither Greek nor Hebrew, bond nor free and that they live their lives as fellow-workers with God.