We are told that a hundred and twenty persons
applied to Otho to be rewarded for killing Galba. That so many men
should contend for the honor of premeditated murder, is sufficiently
characteristic of the epoch. There was then no corruption, no brutal
passion, that had not its temple and its high priest. In the midst of
all this wickedness and vice there appeared a man, poor and humble,
who accomplished what no man ever did before, and what no man will
ever do again--he founded a moral and eternal civilization. Judaism
and the religion of Zoroaster were overthrown. The gods of Tyre and
Carthage were destroyed. The beliefs of Miltiades and of Pericles, of
Scipio and Seneca, were disavowed. The thousands that flocked annually
to worship the Eleusinian Ceres ceased their pilgrimage. Odin and his
disciples have all perished. The very language of Osiris, which was
afterwards spoken by the Ptolemies, is no longer known to his
descendants. The paganisms which still exist in the East are rapidly
yielding to the march of western intelligence. Christianity alone,
amidst all these ring and fallen fabrics, retains its original
vitality, for, like its author, it is imperishable."
"It is a curious thing what we call conversation," observed Mrs.
Wolston. "No sooner is one subject broached than another is
introduced; and we go on from one thing to another until the original
idea is lost sight of.
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