trouble is it to love one's neighbor? What suffering is it not to utter shameful words, nor to revile, nor to insult another? What fatigue is it not to swear? for again I return to this same admonition. The labor of swearing is indeed exceedingly great. Oftentimes, whilst under the influence of anger or wrath, we have sworn, perhaps, that we would never be reconciled to those who have injured us. I am now for the sixth day admonishing you in respect of this precept. Henceforth I am desirous to take leave of you, meaning to abstain from the subject, that ye may be on your guard. There will no longer be any excuse or allowance for you; for of right, indeed, if nothing had been said on this matter, it ought to have been amended of yourselves, for it is not a thing of an intricate nature, or that requires great preparation. But since ye have enjoyed the advantage of so much admonition and counsel, what excuse will ye have to offer, when ye stand accused before that dread tribunal and are required to give account of this transgression? It is impossible to invent any excuse; but of necessity you must either go hence amended, or if you have not amended, be punished, and abide the extremest penalty! Thinking therefore upon all these things, and departing hence with much anxiety about them, exhort ye one another, that the things spoken of during so many days may be kept with all watchfulness in your minds; so that whilst we are silent, ye instructing, edifying, exhorting one another, may exhibit great improvement: and having fulfilled all the other precepts may enjoy eternal crowns; which God grant we may all obtain through the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York. MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO (106-43 B.C.) BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON The outward life, the political career, of Marcus Tullius Cicero, is to nearly all students of history a tragic and pathetic story. He seems peculiarly unfitted to the people and the time in which his lot was cast. His enlightened love for the traditions of the past, his passionate sentiment of patriotism, his forceful eloquence as a debater in the Senate or as an orator in the Forum,--these qualities of a Burke or a Webster stand out violently dissevered from the lurid history of his time. This humane scholarly life was flung into the midst of the wildest century in all Rome's grim annals; the hundred years of civic turmoil and bloodshed, from the elder Gracchus's murder to the death of Cleopatra.