wrote Marcus Antoninus, summing it all up in two words; while the loving soul of Epictetus extended the sphere of mutual affection beyond this earth, holding that "the universe is but one great city, full of beloved ones, divine and human, by nature endeared to each other."[C] This sympathy of religions extends even to the loftiest virtues,--the forgiveness of injuries, the love of enemies and the overcoming of evil with good. "The wise man," said the Chinese Lao-tse, "avenges his injuries with benefits." "Hatred," says a Buddhist sacred book, the Dhammapada, "does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love; this is the eternal rule." "To overcome evil with good is good, and to resist evil by evil is evil," says a Mohammedan manual of ethics. "Turn not away from a sinner, but look on him with compassion," says Saadi's Gulistan. "If thine enemy hunger, give him bread to eat; if he thirst, give him water to drink," said the Hebrew proverb. "He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it," said Plato, and adds, "It is never right to return an injury." "No one will dare maintain," said Aristotle, "that it is better to do injustice than to bear it." "We should do good to our enemy," said Cleobulus, "and make him our friend." "Speak not evil to a friend, nor even to an enemy," said Pittacus, one of the Seven Wise Men. "It is more beautiful," said Valerius Maximus, "to overcome injury by the power of kindness than to oppose to it the obstinacy of hatred." Maximus Tyrius has a special chapter on the treatment of injuries, and concludes: "If he who injures does wrong, he who returns the injury does equally wrong." Plutarch, in his essay, "How to profit by our enemies," bids us sympathize with them in affliction and aid their needs. "A philosopher, when smitten, must love those who smite him, as if he were the father, the brother, of all men," said Epictetus. "It is peculiar to man," said Marcus Antoninus, "to love even those who do wrong.... Ask thyself daily to how many ill-minded persons thou hast shown a kind disposition." He compares the wise and humane soul to a spring of pure water which blesses even him who curses it; and the Oriental story likens such a soul to the sandal-wood tree, which imparts its fragrance even to the axe that cuts it down.[D]