nation, says a modern preacher, "whose legendary and historic heroes could thrust their hand into the flame, and see it consumed without a nerve shrinking; or come from captivity on parole, advise their countrymen against a peace, and then go back to torture and certain death; or devote themselves by solemn self-sacrifice like the Decii. The world must bow before such men; for, unconsciously, here was a form of the spirit of the Cross-self-surrender, unconquerable fidelity to duty, sacrifice for others".[2] [Footnote 1: Macaulay.] [Footnote 2: F.W. Robertson, Sermons, i. 218.] Portions of three treatises by Cicero upon Political Philosophy have come down to us: 1. I De Republica'; a dialogue on Government, founded chiefly on the 'Republic' of Plato: 2. 'De Legibus'; a discussion on Law in the abstract, and on national systems of legislation 3. 'De Jure Civili'; of which last only a few fragments exist. His historical works have all perished. CHAPTER XII. CICERO'S RELIGION. It is difficult to separate Cicero's religion from his philosophy. In both he was a sceptic, but in the better sense of the word. His search after truth was in no sneering or incredulous spirit, but in that of a reverent inquirer. We must remember, in justice to him, that an earnest-minded man in his day could hardly take higher ground than that of the sceptic. The old polytheism was dying out in everything but in name, and there was nothing to take its place. His religious belief, so far as we can gather it, was rather negative than positive. In the speculative treatise which he has left us, 'On the Nature of the Gods', he examines all the current creeds of the day, but leaves his own quite undefined.