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What then is the work of life?What the business of great men, that pass the stage of the world in seeming triumph as these men we call heroes have done?Is it to grow great in the mouth of fame and take up so many pages in history?Alas!That is no more than making a tale for the reading of posterity till it turns into fable and romance. Is it to furnish subjects to the poets, and live in their immortal rhymes as they call them?That is, in short, no more than to be hereafter turned into ballad and song and be sung by old women to quiet children, or at the corner of the street to gather crowds in aid of the pickpocket and the poor.
Or is their business rather to add virtue and piety to their glory, which alone will pass them into eternity and make them truly immortal?
What is glory without virtue?A great man without religion is no more than a great beast without a soul. What is honour without merit?And what can be called true merit but that which makes a person be a good man as well as a great man?
