germ of this feeling of clemency, which is one of the most beautiful attributes of the human heart. When Achilles restores to Priam the body of his son, he yields to the respect which the ancients entertained for the rites of burial. Yet he weeps also over the misfortunes of Priam, his enemy; and in the heroes of antiquity, this sentiment is entirely new. It is moreover to Homer that we are indebted for this beautiful allegory of the lame and timid virgins, although daughters of Jupiter, who follow at slow paces, Vengeance running before them, and alleviating the pains which their cruel predecessor has caused. Happy is the man who salutes ther with respect when they approach him: for they listen to him, and propitiate the favor of their father; but they demand of Jupiter, to send winged Vengeance on the footsteps of the wretch who dares to repel and disdain them.

If we consult the history of Rome, the fathers did not pardon their sons any more than the heroes of the Greek tragedy. In Roman society, paternity was rather a magistracy than a relation of affection. By degrees, however, their manners and sentiments became more refined. Philosophy in Greece, and more recently at Rome, endeavored to correct the gods of paganism; it moderated the inflexible power of the ancient Nemesis: goodness became one of the attributes of divinity, and for man, one of the degrees which enables him to approximate nearer to the Deity. "Do you wish then," said Seneca, the last interpreter of the pagan philosophy, "do you wish then to have the gods inexorable to the faults and errors of mortals, the gods who pursue the guilty, even to their ruin ?"

Thus, the ancient severity of the gods was by degrees mitigated. It was the same with men. There is in this respect a singular difference, that may be observed between the ancient and modern drama. Already in Euripides, who had introduced philosophical ideas on the stage, the heroes preached clemency and pardon, (mercy and forgiveness.) "Fools," exclaimed Theseus in The Suppliants, "do you know the calamities of human destiny? Life is a struggle: one is victorious to-day, another to-morrow. Destiny alone is always triumphant, implored by the unfortunate who demand happiness, adored by the rich who fear a reverse. It is for this reason that we should learn to pardon whoever does us an injustice, and not to seek a revenge which may be fatal

to our country." Certainly in thinking thus, Theseus is rather a disciple of Socrates than the companion of Hercules, and these sentiments of mutual indulgence are not of the heroic times.

In the new comedy of Menander, and in his imitators, whom we know by the imitations of Plautus and Terence, the improvement in morals became every day more apparent, and the paternal character especially partakes of this indulgence. We find in the fragments of Menander, and the comic writers of his school, many sentences which, far from agreeing with the antique severity of sententious poetry, express already all the tenderness which the father should feel for his son. "A good father," said Menander, "ought not to be angry with his son." But if the son is a spendthrift and a prodigal, should not the father be angry with him? "No:" says Menander, "give with a good grace to your son, whatever he wants, if you wish that he would take care of you in your old age, instead of desiring its end." Thus already in Menander, the fathers scold their sons, and become pacified, being overcome by their paternal tenderness; their anger, as he himself said, does not last longer than the quarrels of lovers.

When Plautus and Terence introduced the Greek comedy at Rome, they at the same time introduced those kind and indulgent fathers who seemed scarcely suited to the severity of Roman manners. But at this epoch Rome was prepared for the mildness of the new maxims which the two poets taught on the stage. It was the time of Scipio, when the old Latin barbarity was softened by the imitation of Greek civilization. Of the ancient Roman virtues, courage alone survived; but the chiefs began to avail themselves of the courage of the soldiery the most virtuous, like Scipio, for their glory; the bravest, like Marius and Sylla, for their ambition.

A play of Terence portrays the revolution which was accomplished at this time in Roman manners; it is the comedy, or rather the drama, of Héautontimorumenos, or the Selfexecutioner. Menedemus, the hero of this drama, wished to be severe with his son; he has driven him to desperation by his severities, and his son quits him and flies to Asia. From this moment Menedemus becomes miserable. He retires into the country, overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse. He lives there, all day working like a hireling to punish

himself for his cruelty towards his son. "Is it customary to be one's own executioner?" said his neighbor, Chremes, to him, who witnessed his sorrow, and the tortures which he inflicted upon himself. "Yes, I must be my own tormentor,' replied Menedemus sadly. "Why? What ails you? Tell me the cause of your sorrow." "Alas!" said Menedemus, "I have a son who is still very young. What do I say? I

have a son! I had a son; I do not know if I have him still." And then he relates to Chremes the day of the flight of his son, when, as soon as he heard this news, he returned to his house, sad, solitary, and with his mind overwhelmed with grief. "I sat myself down in despair. My slaves, pressing around me, were anxious to take off my sandals; some prepared my couch, others my supper; each one did his best to please me and to dispel my grief. And seeing this anxiety, I said to myself, Alas! so many people occupied in serving me! So many slaves to satisfy my desires! So much expense for me alone! and my only son, who ought to enjoy these goods as well as me, and more than me, I have driven away: I have rendered him wretched by my injustice.”

How pleasing to the Roman youth must have been the recital of the grief and the remorse of this father, who accused himself of too much severity towards his son! And what a blow given to the paternal power must have been the spectacle of a father himself repenting of the use which he had made of his authority!

By the side of this father, who repents of his rigor, Terence, as if endeavoring to break down the respect which was formerly attached to the paternal authority, has represented a father injudicious in the exercise of his power, who believed himself respected, and whom his sons and his slaves vie with each other in duping and deceiving. Chremes preaches the grand maxims of Roman authority, but his son, Clitiphon, contests them boldly. Fathers," says he, “ are truly unjust towards their children. It would be necessary, according to them, that we should be born old, and that we should not love the pleasures which are suitable to youth; they wish to govern us by the passions which they have now, and not by those which they had when they were young. If I had a son, he would have in me an indulgent father; for I wish that he would no more hesitate to confess to me his faults, than I would hesitate to pardon them." It is

true that, in this comedy, paternal authority is attacked at once by the remorse of Menedemus and by the reasonings of Clitiphon.

This son of Menedemus, so much pitied and so anxiously expected, very soon returns to Athens. In vain Chremes, with his ill-timed prudence, wishes that Menedemus should not hasten to cast himself on the neck of his son, and intimates to him that he ought to preserve his paternal dignity. Menedemus repels these attentions. "My son !" he exclaims, "is my son returned ?” "Yes," said Chremes. "Ah, carry me, that I may see him and embrace him.' "Wait," said Chremes; you will lose every thing if you show him first your kindness and affection." "No, no! I have been too "But

long severe; I wish to see him and embrace him." take care; he has with him an extravagant courtezan; he will ruin you." "Let him do what he wishes; let him take every thing; let him ruin me: I consent, provided I can only have him with me."

We love this anxiety of Menedemus to see and to embrace his son. But we must remark how far we are from the harshness of the old Roman manners. Paternal affection seems, in the Héautontimorumenos, to incline towards this tone of sentimental tenderness, which we find more recently in the comedies and dramas of the French Theatre of the eighteenth century. The paternal love of Menedemus has some of the characteristics of modern paternal love; it resembles what we call sensibility, or, more properly, instinct; it is impetuous, irresistible, impatient to satisfy itself at any price. It is curious to observe how, in the comedy of Menander and his Latin imitators, the paternal character passed quickly from the ancient austerity to an almost pathetic softness, without stopping at the proper degree of tenderness and firmness in which it really consists. In thus following the history of paternal love among the Greeks and Romans, we may say that its decline preceded its perfection.

When paternal love declined at Rome, into a languishing state of feebleness and imbecility, a milder and more elevated type of it appeared in the Gospel. The parable of the Prodigal Son is the most beautiful and touching lesson of paternal clemency which man has ever received. But even for the people of God this lesson was entirely new. The fathers in the Old Testament had not this paternal ten

derness as we see it represented in the parable of the Prodigal Son; and in this respect Jewish antiquity resembles Greek and Roman antiquity. Abraham goes to seek in the desert the place designated by God where he should sacrifice his son; he walks for three days, having with him his son, who innocently inquires where is the victim; and during these three days he is not troubled, nor does he express any sorrow. Jephthah sacrifices his daughter to the vow which he made to the Lord; and in these sacrifices, accomplished without murmuring by the people of God, as in those of Agamemnon and Idomeneus, faith controls paternal tenderness, and the father disappeared in the believer, as in the Brutuses and Manliuses of ancient Rome he disappeared in the citizen. In the early stages of society, institutions, whether religious or politic, subdued man until they had almost extinguished his natural affections; but, in proportion as institutions became milder and more lax in their discipline, the natural affections became more powerful. The beautiful and true point of civilization is that where the law, being at once merciful and wise, imposes upon the heart a rule which accords with the affections, and directs without restraining them. Such is the rule which the parable of the Prodigal Son seems to impose on paternal love. There, in fact, paternal love is infinite in its mercy; but the repentance of the son, foreseen by the father, takes from this love what would otherwise seem to be weak and culpable, and the father is at once just and merciful; just, because his son weeps over his faults; merciful, because he does not require a confession of his sins in order to pardon him.

It may be thought profane by some to compare the father of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel, with the Menedemus of Terence. But, seeking the most perfect type of paternal love, it is natural that we should find it in the Divine Book which has given to all the sentiments of man their rule and model; and if paternal love in the parable of the Prodigal Son, is more just and elevated than in the Menedemus of Terence, without being less touching and tender; if literary beauty is here allied with moral beauty, it is not astonishing. In literature, the beautiful and the good accord oftener than we believe in our days. We will quote a few verses of this parable of the Prodigal Son, so often repeated in the pul pit, and always with effect: "But when he was yet a great