"The sages of antiquity understood and proclaimed many moral truths of the highest value, some of them the same as those of the New Testament. The moral precepts of Seneca were given to the Romans at the same time with those of Christ. In an age when the highest intelligence coexisted in the empire with the most evil. Seneca's morals had no more influence upon the character of those who received and believed them than they had on the statues in the Pantheon. Seneca himself was accused of profligacy; and he was both the instructor and the victim of the worst of the Romans. The people believed his precepts and grew worse, while those who believed the teachings of the gospel in the same ages grew better and spread over the world. This is the vital point."    Walker.