Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/158

 ruption crept into the state; when senators became venal, and heroes selfish and ambitious, Rome fell from her ancient glory:—Degenerated from her great forefathers—plunged into licentiousness; sunk into a supine weakness.—She turned her arms against herself; destroyed her own powers, and no longer revered as the virtuous republic, giving laws to mankind. Her glory gradually diminished, 'till she fell, to rise no more.

"What a warning to nations! what a lesson to the princes of the present day!—Rome fell by corruption and licentiousness; by civil wars, and internal commotions;—by ambitious and self interested statesmen;—by the tribunes; by the men of the people, who, loudly crying for liberty, and, by factious intrigues, distracting the state, and interrupting the course of justice; by pretending patriotism, and by sowing sedition among the lower classes of men, ever ripe to trample upon all order, and assemble in tumultuous