And where shall we all be when a few more of these fleeting years shall have passed away? Is it wise to live for this world alone, when life is such a vapor, and when we are so soon to be ushered into the dread scenes of eternity? There is a voice, solemn as the grave, coming up to us from all these past ages, saying, “Prepare to meet thy God.” “The sun is but a spark of fire, A transient meteor in the sky: The soul, immortal as its Sire, Shall never die.” The three sons of Constantine the Great were now dead. Neither of them left a male heir. Constantius had two cousins, of whom, during his whole life, he had always stood in great dread, lest they should aspire to the crown. He had caused them both to be arrested and imprisoned. Though thus held as captives, they were bound, as it were, with golden chains. A magnificent palace was assigned them, where they were provided with every luxury. They were, however, closely guarded, not being allowed to leave the spacious grounds of the palace. They were permitted to see such company only as the emperor would admit to their presence. At length, Constantius had appointed Gallus, the elder of these brothers, viceroy of the Eastern empire. Gallus took up his residence at Antioch, and immediately released his brother Julian, and received him at his court. Constantius, in a fit of jealousy and rage, caused Gallus to be assassinated. He also re-arrested Julian, and confined him for seven months in a castle at Milan, where the imprisoned prince daily expected to meet the doom of his brother. Through the intercession of Eusebia, the wife of Constantius, the life of Julian was spared. He was sent into honorable exile to the city of Athens. Julian had from childhood developed unusual scholarly and philosophic tastes. In the groves of the Academy at Athens he had devoted himself assiduously to the cultivation of Greek literature. When Constantius set out on his military expedition to the Euphrates, he named Julian as his heir to the throne, and also directed him to take charge of an army to beat back the barbarians who were ravaging the Valley of the Danube and the Rhine. As Julian, the man of books, the bashful, retiring scholar, received this appointment, he exclaimed, “O Plato, Plato! what a task for a philosopher!” Julian, enamoured of the classic literature of Greece and Rome, had become an actual worshipper at the idolatrous shrines of the pagans. He loved poetic dreamings, and revelled in the wild mythology of his ancestors. He was just one of those men whom we now politely call _conservative men_, or, more irreverently, _old fogies_. He clung to ancient superstitions and rotten abuses, and was quite opposed to the innovations and reforms which Christianity would introduce.