The classics possess a peculiar charm, as models, I might say masters, of composition and form. In the contemplation of these august teachers we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished than any intermediate voice,--as the language of childhood still haunts us, when the utterances of later years are effaced from the mind. But they show the rudeness of the world's childhood, before passion yielded to the sway of reason and the affections. They want purity, righteousness, and that highest charm which is found in love to God and man. Not in the frigid philosophy of the Porch and the Academy are we to seek these; not in the marvellous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Olympian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and boastful eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. To these we give admiration; but they cannot be our highest teachers. In none of these is the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these classics has been in constant contention with the Sermon on the Mount, and with those two sublime commandments on which "hang all the law and the prophets."[161] The strife is still pending, and who shall say when it will end? Heathenism, which possessed itself of such Siren forms, is not yet exorcised. Even now it exerts a powerful sway, imbuing youth, coloring the thought of manhood, and haunting the meditation of age. Widening still in sphere, it embraces nations as well as individuals, until it seems to sit supreme. [161] Terence, taught, perhaps, by his own bitter experience as slave, has given expression to truth almost Christian, when he says,-- "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." _Heauton._, Act I. Sc. 1. And in the _Andria_,-- "Facile omnes perferre ac pati, Cum quibus erat cunque una: iis sese dedere: Eorum obsequi studiis: advorsus nemini: Nunquam præponens se illis." Act I. Sc. 1.