ETHICAL ADDRESSES. SEVENTH SERIES. LECTURES GIVEN BEFORE THE AMERICAN ETHICAL SOCIETIES. PHILADELPHIA: S. BURNS WESTON, 1305 Arch Street. CONTENTS. PAGE I THE WAGE-EARNERS' SELF-CULTURE CLUBS OF ST. LOUIS (A Sketch of Their History). I. Walter L. Sheldon THE WAGE-EARNERS' Self-CultuRE CLUBS OF ST. LOUIS MARCUS AURELIUS: A PHILOSOPHER ON THE THRONE* BY FELIX ADLER Of the five good emperors, as they are called, four had had their day-Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the elder Antonine, when, in the year 161 A. D., Marcus Antoninus, or Marcus Aurelius, as he is commonly styled, ascended the throne. It was a splendid and giddy height to which he was thus raised. The civilized world lay at his feet. The bounds of the empire at that time extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the West to the Euphrates in the East; from the African deserts to the Danube and the Rhine. Italy, Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Gaul, Britain and parts of Germany acknowledged the sway of the Roman eagle. And all the vast populations that thronged these lands lived in the sunlight of one man's presence, and their destiny, for good or ill, depended on his nod. Rarely has such power been concentrated in the hands of an individual. No wonder that it turned the feeble brain of some who possessed it-of Caligula, for instance, of whom it is related that, at his banquets, he used to chuckle with insane pleasure at the thought that, by a mere word, he could cause the necks of his guests to be wrung. Yes, the power of life and death, unlimited * An Address given before the Society for Ethical Culture of New York, March 13, 1898. |