The schoolboy does not forget the victim of Verres, with the memorable cry which was to stay the descending fasces of the lictor, "I am a Roman citizen,"--nor those other words echoing through the dark Past, "How sweet and becoming to die for country!" Of little avail the nobler cry, "I am a man," or the Christian ejaculation, swelling the soul, "How sweet and becoming to die for duty!" The beautiful genius of Cicero, instinct at times with truth almost divine, did not ascend to that heaven where it is taught that all mankind are neighbors and kindred. To the love of universal man may be applied those words by which the great Roman elevated his selfish patriotism to virtue, when he said that _country alone embraced all the charities of all_.[75] Attach this admired phrase to the single idea of country, and you see how contracted are its charities, compared with that world-wide circle where our neighbor is the suffering man, though at the farthest pole. Such a sentiment would dry up those precious fountains now diffusing themselves in distant unenlightened lands, from the icy mountains of Greenland to the coral islands of the Pacific Sea. [75] "Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui, familiares; sed _omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est_." (De Offic., Lib. I. cap. 17.) It is curious to observe how Cicero puts aside that expression of true humanity which fell from Terence, "_Humani nihil a me alienum puto._" He says, "_Est enim difficilis cura rerum alienarum._" Ibid., Lib. I. cap. 9.