really knows his duties, finds it an easy and beautiful task to win the
love of the people--an unthankful one to gain the applause of the great--
almost an impossibility to content both.

"Do not forget,--I say it again,--that kings and priests exist for the
people, and not the people for their kings and priests. Honor religion
for its own sake and as the most important means of securing the
obedience of the governed to their governors; but at the same time show
its promulgators that you look on them, not as receptacles, but as
servants, of the Deity. Hold fast, as the law commands, by what is old;
but never shut the gates of your kingdom against what is new, if better.
Bad men break at once with the old traditions; fools only care for what
is new and fresh; the narrowminded and the selfish privileged class cling
indiscriminately to all that is old, and pronounce progress to be a sin;
but the wise endeavor to retain all that has approved itself in the past,
to remove all that has become defective, and to adopt whatever is good,
from whatever source it may have sprung. Act thus, my son. The priests
will try to keep you back--the Greeks to urge you forward. Choose one
party or the other, but beware of indecision--of yielding to the one
to-day, to the other to-morrow. Between two stools a man falls to the
ground. Let the one party be your friends, the other your enemies; by
trying to please both, you will have both opposed to you. Human beings
hate the man who shows kindness to their enemies. In the last few
months, during which you have ruled independently, both parties have been
offended by your miserable indecision. The man who runs backwards and
forwards like a child, makes no progress, and is soon weary. I have till
now--till I felt that death was near--always encouraged the Greeks and
opposed the priests. In the active business of life, the clever, brave
Greeks seemed to me especially serviceable; at death, I want men who can
make me out a pass into the nether regions. The gods forgive me for not