imagination; and to suppose that such deeds required the impulse of the church to make them more common is to suppose that human nature itself changed with the change that came over religion. * Aristides i, 260. ** De Clementta ii, 6. The Roman historian, Tacitus, gives the following touching description of the behavior of the ancient Pagans in the presence of the suffering and distress caused by the great calamity in Smyrna: _The grandees of Rome displayed their humanity on this occasion; they threw open their doors, they ordered medicines to be distributed, and the physicians attended with assiduity in every quarter. The city of Rome recalled, in that juncture, an image of ancient manners, when, after a battle bravely fought, the sick and wounded were received with open arms, and relieved by the generosity of their country._ * And let it not be forgotten that it was from the Pagan Greeks we received the word _philanthropy_, which means the love of man, into our modern languages. Mr. Farrer quotes again many authorities to show that both in Athenian and Roman society there was a constant solicitude for the welfare of the poor: _In the best days of Athens none of her citizens were in want for the necessities of life; for the rich, according to Isocrates, regarding the poverty of their fellow citizens as a disgrace to themselves and the city, helped all who were in need, sending some abroad as traders, letting lands to others to cultivate at fair rents, and enabling others to engage in different occupations. The Areopagus, too, checked pauperism by providing public works._ ** * Annals iv, 62, 63. ** Areopagiticus 12, 21, 38. He also calls attention to the free schools; the exemption of orphans from the State charges; the maintenance at the public expense of the children of citizens killed in war; the daily payment of money from the treasury to the destitute and the wounded, and the public monthly dinners given by the rich for the benefit of the needy. Under the great Trajan, the like of whom never sat on Jewish or Christian throne, a monthly distribution of food was made to the children of the poor all over Italy, which was paid for by devoting to it a portion of the interest lent by the State to the owners of farms on mortgage. In Rome, there were, in every section of the city, medical officers, paid by the State, who devoted their whole time to the protection of the health of the citizens. One of the laws of Nerva required every one giving a banquet first to make a donation for the poor of his district. The sick and the poor have never failed to provoke sympathy and help in any age or country of the world, and for any one religion to claim all the 'good in the world as its own exclusive property, is enough to make all brave and honest minds recoil therefrom with horror and sorrow. But people never make such absurd claims except when they are in despair.