It is his grand and original characteristic that he governed the Roman empire and himself with a constant moral solicitude, ever anxious to realize that ideal of personal virtue and general justice which he had conceived, and to which he aspired.

His conception, indeed, of virtue and justice was incomplete, and even false in certain cases; and in more than one instance, such as the persecution of the Christians, he committed acts quite contrary to the moral law which he intended to put in practice towards all men; but his respect for the moral law was profound, and his intention to shape his acts according to it, serious and sincere.

Let us cull a few phrases from that collection of his private thoughts, which he entitled _For Self,_ and which is really the most faithful picture man ever left of himself and the pains he took with himself.

"There is," says he, "relationship between all beings endowed with reason.

The world is like a superior city within which the other cities are but families.