The persecution of the Churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A.D. 177. Shortly after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the North. It is said that, in despair of ever seeing him again, the chief men of Rome entreated him to address them his farewell admonitions, and that for three days he discoursed to them on philosophical questions. When he arrived at the seat of war, victory again crowned his arms. But Marcus was now getting old, and he was worn out with the toils, trials, and travels of his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties and bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia, either at Vienna or Sirmium, on March 17, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age and the twentieth of his reign. Death to him was no calamity. He was sadly aware that "there is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that he was a good and wise man, will there not be at last some one to say of him, 'Let us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this schoolmaster. It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceive that he tacitly condemns us.'... Thou wilt consider this when thou art dying, and wilt depart more contentedly by reflecting thus: 'I am going away _from a life in which even my associates, on behalf of whom I have striven, and cared, and prayed so much, themselves wish me to depart_, hoping perchance to get some little advantage by it.' Why then should a man cling to a longer stay here? _Do not, however, for this reason go away less kindly disposed to them, but preserving thy own character, and continuing friendly, and benevolent, and kind_" And dreading death far less than he dreaded any departure from the laws of virtue, he exclaims, "Come quickly, O Death, for fear that at last I should forget myself." This utterance has been well compared to the language which Bossuet put into the mouth of a Christian soul:--"O Death; thou dost not trouble my designs, thou accomplishest them. Haste, then, O favourable Death!... _Nunc Dimittis_." A nobler, a gentler, a purer, a sweeter soul,--a soul less elated by prosperity, or more constant in adversity--a soul more fitted by virtue, and chastity, and self-denial to enter into the eternal peace, never passed into the presence of its Heavenly Father. We are not surprised that all, whose means permitted it, possessed themselves of his statues, and that they were to be seen for years afterwards among the household gods of heathen families, who felt themselves more hopeful and more happy from the glorious sense of possibility which was inspired by the memory of one who, in the midst of difficulties, and breathing an atmosphere heavy with corruption, yet showed himself so wise, so great, so good a man.