Marcus and Lucilia are inconsolable. Their grief, I fear, will be lasting as it is violent. They have no resource but to plunge into affairs and drive away memory by some active and engrossing occupation. Yet they cannot always live abroad; they must at times return to themselves and join the company of their own thoughts. And then, memory is not to be put off; at such moments this faculty seems to constitute the mind more than any other. It becomes the mind itself. The past rises up in spite of ourselves, and overshadows the present. Whether its scenes have been prosperous or afflictive, but especially if they have been shameful, do they present themselves with all the vividness of the objects before us and the passing hour, and infinitely increase our pains. We in vain attempt to escape. We are prisoners in the hands of a giant. To forget is not in our power. The will is impotent. Theeffort to forget is often but an effort to remember. Fast as we fly, so fast the enemy of our peace pursues. Memory is a companion who never leaves us—or never leaves us long. It is the true Nemesis. Tartarean regions have no worse woes, nor the Hell of Christians, than memory inflicts upon those who have done evil. My friends struggle in vain. They have not done evil indeed, but they have suffered it. The sorest calamity that afflicts mortals has overtaken them; their choicest jewel has been torn from them; and they can no more drown the memory of their loss than they can take that faculty itself and tear it from their souls. Comfort cannot come from that quarter. It can come only from being re-possessed of that which has been lost hereafter, and from enjoying the hope of that felicity now. See how Marcus writes. After much else, he says,
'I miss you, Piso, and the conversations which we had together. I know not how it is, but your presence acted as a restraint upon my hot and impatient temper. Since your departure I have been little less than mad, and so far from being of service to Lucilia, she has been compelled to moderate her own grief in the hope to assuage mine. I have done nothing but rave, and curse my evil fortune. And can anything else be looked for? How should a man be otherwise than exasperated when the very thing he loves best in the wide universe is, without a moment's warning, snatched away from him? A man falls into a passion if his seal is stolen, or his rings, or his jewels, if his dwelling burns down, or his slaves run away or die by some pestilence. And why should he not much more when the providence of the gods, or the same power whatever it may be that gaveas a child, tears it from us again; and just then when we have so grown into it that it is like hewing us in two? I can believe in nothing but capricious chance. We live by chance, and so we die. Such events are otherwise inexplicable. For what reason can by the most ingenious be assigned for giving life for a few years to a being like Gallus, and who then, before he is more than just past the threshold of life, before a single power of his nature has put itself forth, but at the moment when he is bound to his parents by ties of love which never afterwards would be stronger—is struck dead? We can give no account of it. It is irreconcilable with the hypothesis of an intelligent and good Providence. It has all the features of chance upon it. A god could not have done it unless he had been the god of Tartarus. Dark Pluto might, or the avenging Furies, were they supreme. But away with all such dreams! The slaves who were his proper attendants, have been scourged and crucified. That at first gave me some relief; but already I repent it. So it is with me; I rush suddenly upon what at the moment I think right, and then as suddenly think and feel that I have done wrong, and so suffer. I see and experience nothing but suffering, whichever way I turn. Truly we are riddles. Piso, you cannot conceive of my loss. It was our only child—and the only one we shall ever know. I wish that I believed in the gods that I might curse them.'
And much more in the same frantic way. Time will blunt his grief; but it will bring him I fear no other or better comfort. He hopes for oblivion of his loss; but that can never be. He may cease to grieve as he grieves now; but he can never cease to remember. I trust tosee him again ere long, and turn his thoughts into a better channel.
I did not forget to keep my promise to the wife of Macer. In truth I had long regarded it as essential to our safety almost, certainly to our success, that this man, and others of the same character, should be restrained in some way in their course of mistaken zeal; and had long intended to use what influence to that end I might possess. Probus had promised to accompany me, and do what in him lay, to rescue religion from this peril at the hands of one of her best friends. He joined me toward the evening of the same day on which I had seen the wife of Macer, and we took our way toward his dwelling.
It was already past the hour of twilight when we reached the part of the city where Macer dwells, and entered the ruins among which his cabin stands. These ruins are those of extensive and magnificent baths destroyed a long time ago, and to this day remaining as the flames left them. At the rear of them, far from the street and concealed from it by arches and columns and fragments of wall, we were directed by the rays of a lamp streaming from a window, to the place we sought. We wound our way among these fallen or still standing masses of stone, which frequently hid from us the object of our search, till, as we found ourselves near the spot, we were arrested by the sound of a single voice uttering itself with vehemence and yet solemnity. We paused, but could not distinguish the words used; but the same conviction possessed us as to its cause. It was Macer at prayer. We moved nearer, so that, without disturbing the family, we might still make ourselves of the numberof hearers. His voice, loud and shrill, echoed among the ruins and conveyed to us, though at some distance, every word that he uttered. But for the noise of carriages and passengers it would have penetrated even to the streets. The words we caught were such as these—
—'If they hear thee not, O Lord, nor reverence thy messengers, but deny thee and turn upon those whom thou sendest the lip of scorn and the eye of pride, and will none of their teachings, and so do despite to the spirit of thy grace, and crucify the Lord afresh, then do thou, O Lord, come upon them as once upon the cities of the plain in the times of thine anger. Let fire from Heaven consume them. Let the earth yawn and swallow them up. Tear up the foundations of this modern Babylon; level to the earth her proud walls; and let her stand for a reproach, and a hissing, and a scorn; through all generations; so that men shall say as they pass by, lo! the fate of them that held to their idols rather than serve the living God; their proud palaces are now dwellings of dragons, and over her ruins the trees of the forest are now spreading their branches. But yet, O Lord, may this never be; but may a way of escape be made for them through thy mercy. And to this end may we thy servants, to whom thou hast given the sword of the spirit, gird it upon our sides, lift up our voices and spare not, day and night, morning and evening, in the public place, and at the corners of the streets; in all places, and in every presence, proclaiming the good news of salvation. Let not cowardice seal our lips. Whether before gentile or jew, emperor or slave, may we speak as becomes the Lord's anointed. Warmthe hearts of the cold and dead; put fire into them; fire from thine own altar. The world, O Lord, and its honors and vanities, seduce thine own servants from thee. They are afraid, they are cold, they are dead, and the enemy lifts himself up and triumphs. For this we would mourn and lament. Give us, O Lord, the courage and the zeal of thine early apostles and teachers so that no fear of tortures and death may make us traitors to Christ and thee.'
It was a long time that he went on in this strain, inveighing, with heat and violence, against all who withdrew their hand from the work, or abated their zeal. When he had ceased, and we stood waiting to judge whether the service were wholly ended, the voices of the whole family apparently, were joined together in a hymn of praise—Macer's now more gentle and subdued, as if to hear himself the tones of the children and of his wife who accompanied him. The burden of the hymn was also a prayer for a spirit of fidelity and a temper of patience, in the cause of truth and Christ. It was worship in the highest sense, and none within the dwelling could have joined more heartily than we did who stood without.
When it was ended, and with it evidently the evening service, we approached, and knocked for admittance. Macer appeared holding a light above his head, and perceiving who his guests were, gave us cordial welcome, at the same time showing us into his small apartment and placing stools for our accommodation. The room in which we were was small and vaulted, and built of stone in the most solid manner. I saw at once that it was one of the smaller rooms of the ancient bath, whichhad escaped entire destruction and now served as a comfortable habitation. A door on the inner side appeared to connect it with a number of similar apartments. A table in the centre and a few stools, a shelf on which were arranged the few articles which they possessed both for cooking and eating their food, constituted the furniture of the room. In the room next beyond I could see pallets of straw laid upon the floor, which served for beds. Macer, his wife, and six children, composed the family then present; the two elder sons being yet absent at their work, in the shop of Demetrius. The mother held at her breast an infant of a year or more; one of three years sprang again upon his father's lap, as he resumed his seat after our entrance, whence he had apparently been just dislodged; the rest, sitting in obscure parts of the room, were at first scarcely visible. The wife of Macer expressed heartily her pleasure at seeing us, and said even more by her flushed and animated countenance than by her words. The severe countenance of Macer himself relaxed and gave signs of satisfaction.
'I owe you, Piso,' he said, 'many thanks for mercies shown to my wife and my little ones here, and I am glad to see you among us. We are far apart enough as the world measures such things, but in Christ we are one. At such times as these, when the Prince of Darkness rules, we ought if ever to draw toward each other, that so we may make better our common defence. I greet you as a brother—I trust to love you as one.'
I told him that nothing should be wanting on my part toward a free and friendly intercourse; that from all I had heard of him I had conceived a high regard for him, and owed him more thanks for what he haddone in behalf of our religion, than he could me for any services I had rendered him.
'Me?' said he, and his head fell upon his bosom. 'What have I done for Christ to deserve the thanks of any? I have preached and I have prayed; I have opposed heresies and errors; I have wrestled with the enemies and corrupters of our faith within our own body and without; but the fruit seems nothing. The gentile is still omnipotent—heresy and error still abound.'
'Yes, Macer,' I replied, 'that is certainly so, and may be so for many years to come, but still we are gaining. He who can remember twenty years can count a great increase. After the testimony borne by the martyrs of the Decian persecution to their faith, and all the proof they gave of sincere attachment to the doctrine of Christ, crowds have entered the church, an hundred for every one whose blood then flowed.'
'And now,' said Macer, his eye kindling with its wild fires, 'the church is dead! The truest prayer that the Christian can now offer is, that it would please God to try us again as it were by fire! We slumber, Piso! The Christians are not now the Nazarites they were in the first age of the church. Divisions have crept in; tares have been sown with the wheat, and have come up, and are choking the true plants of God. I know not but that the signs of terror which are scaring the heavens ought rather to be hailed as tokens of love. Better a thousand perish on the rack or by the axe, than that the church itself faint away and die.'
'It will not do,' said Probus, 'always to depend upon such remedies of our sloth and heresies. Surely it were better to prosper in some other and happier way. All Ithink we can say of persecution, and of the oppositions of our enemies, is this, that if it be in the providence of God that they cannot be avoided, we have cause to bless him that their issue is good rather than evil; that they serve as tests by which the genuine is tried and proved; that they give the best and highest testimony to the world that man can give, of his sincerity; that they serve to bind together into one compact and invincible phalanx the disciples of our common master, however in many things they may divide and separate. But, were it not better, if we could attain an equal good without the suffering?'
'I believe that to be impossible,' said Macer. 'Since Jesus began his ministry, persecution has been the rod that has been laid upon the church without sparing, and the fruit has been abundant. Without it, like these foolish children, we might run riot in all iniquity.'
'I do not say that the rod has not been needed,' answered Probus, 'nor that good has not ensued; but only, that it would be better, wiser, and happier, to reach the same good without the rod; just as it is better when your children, without chastisement, fulfil your wishes and perform their tasks. We hope and trust that our children will grow up to such virtue, that they will no longer need the discipline of suffering to make them better. Ought we not to look and pray for a period to arrive in the history of the church, when men shall no longer need to be lashed and driven, but shall of themselves discern what is best and cleave to it?'
'That might indeed be better,' replied the other; 'but the time is not come for it yet. The church I say iscorrupt, and it cries out for another purging. Christians are already lording it over one another. The bishop of Rome sets himself up, as a lord, over subjects. A Roman Cæsar walks it not more proudly. What with his robes of state, and his seat of gold, and his golden rod, and his altar set out with vessels of gold and silver, and his long train of menials and subordinates, poor simple Macer, who learned of Christ, as he hopes, is at a loss to discern the follower of the lowly Jesus, but takes Felix, the Christian servant, for some Fronto of a Heathen temple! Were the power mine, as the will is, never would I stay for Aurelian, but my own arm should sweep from the places they pollute the worst enemies of the Saviour. Did Jesus die that Felix might flaunt his peacock's feathers in the face of Rome?'
'We cannot hope, Macer,' answered Probus, 'to grow up to perfection at once. I see and bewail the errors at which you point as well as you. But if, to remove them, we bring down the heavy arm of Rome upon our heads—the remedy may prove worse than the disease.'
'No. That could not be! Let those who with open eyes abuse the gifts of God, perish! If this faith cannot be maintained undefiled by Heathen additions, let it perish!'
'But God dealeth not so with us,' continued Probus; 'he beareth long and patiently. We are not destroyed because in the first years of our life we do not rise to all virtue, but are spared to fourscore. Ought we not to manifest a like patience and forbearance? By waiting patiently we shall see our faults, and one by one correct them. There is still some reason and discernment left among us. We are not all fools and blind. And thefaults which we correct ourselves, by our own action, and the conviction of our own minds acting freely and voluntarily, will be more truly corrected, than if we are but frightened away from them for a time by the terrors of the Roman sword. I think, Macer, and so thinks Piso, that, far from seeking to inflame the common mind, and so drawing upon us the evils which are now with reason apprehended, we should rather aim to ward them off.'
'Never!' cried Macer with utmost indignation. 'Shall the soldier of the cross shrink—'
'No, Macer, he need not shrink. Let him stand armed in panoply complete; prompt to serve, willing to die; but let him not wantonly provoke an enemy who may not only destroy him, that were a little thing, but, in the fury of the onset, thousands with him, and, perhaps, with them the very faith for which they die! The Christian is not guiltless who—though it be in the cause of Christ—rushes upon unnecessary death. You, Macer, are not only a Christian and soldier of Jesus Christ, but a man, who, having received life from the Creator, have no right wantonly to throw it away. You are a husband, and you are bound to live for your wife;—these are your children, and you are bound to live for them.'
'He,' said Macer, solemnly, 'who hateth not father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sister, yea and his own life also, cannot be my disciple.'
'Yes,' replied Probus, 'that is true; we are to be ready and willing to suffer for Christ and truth; but not to seek it. He who seeks martyrdom is no martyr. Selfish passions have then mingled their impure current with that of love to God, and the sacrifice is not withoutspot and blemish. Jesus did not so; nor his first followers. When the Lord was persecuted in one city, he staid not there to inflame it more and more; he fled to another. Paul and Peter and Barnabas stood ever for their rights; they suffered not wrong willingly. When the ark of truth is intrusted to few hands, they must bear it forward boldly, but with care, else are they at a blow cut off, and the ark with its precious burden borne away and lost—or miracles alone can rescue it. But when the time comes that no prudence or care will avail, then they may not refuse the issue, but must show that life is nothing in comparison of truth and God.'
'Probus,' said Macer, 'I like not your timid counsels. 'Tis not by such that Christ's cause shall ever advance, or that period ever come when he, the long-looked and waited for, shall descend, and the millenial reign begin. Life is nothing to me and less than nothing. I hold it as dirt and dross. And if by throwing it away I can add such a commentary to my preaching as shall strike a single Pagan heart, I shall not have died in vain; and if the blood that shall flow from these veins, may serve but as a purge, to carry off the foul humors that now fester and rage in the body of the church, thrice happy shall I be to see it flow. And for these—let them be as the women and children of other times, and hold not back when their master calls. Arria! do thou set before thee St. Blandina, and if the Lord let thee be as her, thou wilt have cause to bless his name.'
'Never, Macer, would I shrink from any trial to which the Lord in his wisdom might call me—that you know. But has not Probus uttered a truth, when he says, that we are not innocent, and never glorious, whenwe seek death? that he who seeks martyrdom is no martyr? Listen, Macer, to the wisdom of Probus and the noble Piso. Did you not promise that you would patiently hear them?'
'Woman—I have heard them—their words are naught, stark naught, or worse. Where would have been the blessed gospel at this hour, had it been committed to such counsels? Even under Nero would it have died for want of those who were willing to die for it. I am a soldier of the cross, whose very vocation it is to fight and die. And if I may but die, blessed Jesus, for thee! then may I hope that thou wilt deal mercifully with thy servant at thy judgment-seat. I hear thy voice ever sounding in my ear, reproving me for my cowardice. Have patience with me, and I will give thee all. And if labor, and torture, and death, would but cancel sin!—But alas! even they may not suffice.'
'Then, dear father,' said one of his daughters who had drawn near and seated herself at his knee, while the others had gathered round, 'then will we add ourselves to the sacrifice.'
'Would you?' said Macer—in an absent, musing way—as if some other thought were occupying him.
Thinking that his love of his children, evidently a very strong affection in him, might be made to act as a restraint, I said, 'that I feared he greatly exposed his little family to unnecessary danger. Already had his dwelling been once assailed, and the people were now ripe for any violence. This group of little ones can ill encounter a rude and furious mob.'
'They can die, can they not?' said Macer. 'Is thatdifficult, or impossible? If the Lord need them, they are his. I can ask no happier lot for them than that by death they may glorify God. And what is it to die so, more than in another way? Let them die in their beds, and whom do they benefit? They die then to themselves, and no one is the gainer; let them die by the sword of Varus, or by the stones of the populace, and then they become themselves stones in the foundation of that temple of God, of which Jesus is the chief corner-stone, and they are glorious forever. What say you, Cicer, will you die for Christ?'
The little fellow hid his head in his father's bosom at this sudden appeal, but soon drew it out and said,
'I would rather die for you, father.'
'Ah!' said Macer, 'how am I punished in my children! Cicer, would you not die for Christ?'
'I would die for him if you wish it.'
'Macer,' said Probus, 'do you not see how God has bound you and this family into one? and he surely requires you not to separate yourself, their natural protector, from them forever; still less, to involve them in all the sufferings which, taking the course you do, may come upon them at any hour.'
'Probus! their death would give me more pleasure than their life, dying for Christ. I love them now and here, fondly as ever parent loved his children,—but what is now, and here? Nothing. The suffering of an hour or of a moment joins us together again, where suffering shall be no more, and death no more. To-morrow! yes, to-morrow! would I that the wrath of these idol-worshippers might be turned against us. Rome must be roused; she sleeps the sleep of death;and the church sleeps it too; both need that they who are for the Lord should stand forth, and, not waiting to be attacked, themselves assail the enemy, who need but to be assailed with the zeal and courage of men, who were once to be found in the church, to be driven at all points.'
'But, father,' said the daughter who had spoken before, 'other Christians think not so. They believe for the most part, as I hear, with Probus and Piso, that on no account should we provoke the gentiles, or give them cause of complaint against us; they think that to do so would greatly harm us; that our duty is to go on the even tenor of our way, worshipping God after our own doctrine, and in our own manner, and claiming and exercising all our rights as citizens, but abstaining from every act that might rouse their anger, or needlessly irritate them—irritated, necessarily, almost beyond bearing, by the wide and increasing prosperity of our faith, and the daily falling away of the temple worshippers. Would it be right, dearest father, to do that which others approved not, and the effect of which might be, not only to draw down evil upon your and our heads, but upon thousands of others? We cannot separate ourselves from our brethren; if one suffer all will suffer—'
'Ælia, my daughter, there is a judge within the breast, whom I am bound to obey rather than any other counsellor, either man or woman. I cannot believe, because another believes, a certain truth. Neither can I act in a certain way because others hold it their duty to act so. I must obey the inward voice, and no other. If I abandon this, I am lost—I am on the desert without sun, moon or stars to guide me. All the powers ofthe earth could not bribe nor drag me from that which I hold to be the true order of conduct for me; shown by the finger of God to be such.'
'But, father,' continued the daughter, pursuing her object, 'are we not too lately entered among the Christians to take upon us a course which they condemn? It is but yesterday that we were among the enemies of this faith. Are we to-day to assume the part of leaders? Would not modesty teach us a different lesson?'
'Modesty has nothing to do with truth,' said Macer. 'He who is wholly a Christian to-day, is all that he can be to-morrow, or next year. I am as old in faith and zeal as Piso, Probus, or Felix. No one can believe more, or more heartily, by believing longer. Nay, it is they who are newly saved who are most sensible to the blessing. Custom in religion as in other things dulls the soul. Were I a Christian much longer before God called me to serve him by suffering or death, I fear I should be then spiritually dead, and so worse than before I believed. Let it be to-morrow, O Lord, that I shall glorify thee!'
It was plain that little impression was to be made upon the mind of Macer. But we ceased not to urge him farther, his wife and elder children uniting with us in importunate entreaty and expostulation. But all in vain. In his stern and honest enthusiasm he believed all prudence, cowardice; all calculation, worldliness; all moderation and temperance, treason to the church and Christ. Yet none of the natural current of the affections seemed to be dried up or poisoned. No one could be more bound to his wife and children; and, toward us, though in our talk we spared him not, he ever maintained the same frank and open manner—yielding never an inch of ground, and uttering himself with an earnestness and fury such as I never saw in another; but, soon as he had ceased speaking, subsiding into a gentleness that seemed almost that of a woman, and playfully sporting with the little boy that he held on his knee.
Soon as our conversation was ended, Macer, turning to his wife, exclaimed,
'But what hinders that we should set before our visiters such hospitality as our poor house affords? Arria, have we not such as may well enough entertain Christians?'
Ælia, at a word from her mother, and accompanied by her sister, immediately busied themselves in the simple rites of hospitality, and soon covered the table which stood in the centre of the room with bread, lettuces, figs, and a flask of wine. While they were thus engaged, I could not but observe the difference in appearance of the two elder sisters, who, with equal alacrity, were setting out the provisions for our repast. One was clad like the others of the family in the garments common to the poor. The other—she who had spoken—was arrayed, not richly, but almost so, or, I should rather say, fancifully, and with studied regard to effect. While I was wondering at this, and seeking in my own mind for its explanation, I was interrupted in my thoughts by Macer.
'Thanks to Aurelian, Piso, we are able, though poor, as you see, and dwelling in these almost subterranean vaults, to live above the fear of absolute want. But especially are we indebted for many of our comforts, and for such luxury as this flask of Massican, to my partlygentile daughter, Ælia, whom you behold moving among us, as if by her attire she were not of us—but Cicer's heart is not truer—and who will, despite her faith and her father's bidding, dance and sing for the merriment of these idolaters. Never before, I believe, had Christian preacher a dancing-girl for a daughter.'
A deep blush passed over the features of the daughter as she answered,
'But, father, you know that in my judgment—and whose in this matter is so to be trusted?—I am in no way injured by my art, and it adds somewhat to the common stock. I see not why I need be any the less a Christian, because I dance; especially, as with me, it is but one of the forms of labor. Were it forbidden by our faith, or could it be shown to be to me an evil, I would cease. But most sure I am it is neither. Let me now appeal to Probus for my justification, and to Piso.'
'Doubtless,' said Probus, 'those Christians are right who abstain from the theatres, the amphitheatres, the circuses, and from the places of public amusement where sights and sounds meet ear and eye such as the pure should never hear or see, and such as none can hear or see and maintain their purity. The soul is damaged in spite of herself. But for these arts of music and dancing, practised for the harmless entertainment of those who feast their friends,—where alone I warrant Ælia is found—who can doubt that she is right? Were not the reception of the religion of Christ compatible with indulgence in innocent amusement, or the practice of harmless arts such as these, few, I fear, would receive it. Christianity condemns many things, which, by Pagans, are held to be allowable, but not everything.'
'Willingly would I abandon my art,' said Ælia,' did I perceive it to injure the soul; or could I in other ways buy bread for our household. So dearly do I prize this new-found faith, that for its sake, were it to be retained in no other way, would I relinquish it, and sink into the deeper poverty that would then be ours, or drudge at some humbler toil.'
'Do it, do it, Ælia,' said Macer; 'and the Lord will love thee all the more. 'Tis the only spot on thy white and glistering robes. The Lord loves not more than I to see thee wheeling and waving to and fro, to supply mirth to those, who, mayhap, would crucify thee the next hour, as others crucified thy master.'
Tears fell from the eyes of the fair girl as she answered,
'Father, it shall be as you wish. Not willingly, but by constraint, have I labored as I have. God will not forsake us, and will, I cannot doubt, open some new path of labor for me—if indeed the disorders of the times do not first scatter or destroy us.'
I here said to Macer and his daughter, that there need be no hesitation about abandoning the employment in question, from any doubt concerning a future occupation; if Ælia would but accompany her mother, when next she went to visit Julia, I could assure her of obtaining there all she could desire.
At this the little boy, whom Macer held, clapped his hands and cried out with joy—'Ah! then will Ælia be always with us and go away no more;' and flying to his sister was caught by her in her arms.
The joy diffused throughout the little circle at this news was great. All were glad that Ælia was to danceand sing no more, for all wished her at home, and her profession had kept her absent almost every day. The table was now spread, and we sat down to the frugal repast, Macer first offering a prayer to God.
'It is singular,' said he, when we were seated,'that in my Heathen estate, I ever asked the blessing of the gods before I ate. Nay, and notwithstanding the abominations of my life, was often within the temples a worshipper. I verily believe there are many Christians who pray less than the Heathen, and less after they become Christian than before.'
'I can readily believe it,' said Probus. 'False religions multiply outward acts; and for the reason, that they make religion to consist in them. A true faith, which places religion in the inward disposition, not in services, will diminish them. More prayers were said, and more rites performed in the temple of Jupiter, where my father was priest, than the Christian church, where I serve, ever witnesses. But what then? With the Pagan worshipper religion ended when the service closed, and he turned from the temple to the world. With the Christian, the highest service only then commences when he leaves the church. Religion, with him, is virtuous action, more than it is meditation or prayer. He prays without ceasing, not by uttering without cessation the language of prayer, but by living holily. Every act of every hour, which is done conscientiously is a prayer, as well as the words we speak, and is more pleasing to God, for the reason that practice is better than mere profession—doing better than saying.'
'That is just, Probus,' replied Macer. 'When I prayed as an idolater, it was because I believed that thegods required such outward acknowledgment, and that some evil or other might befall me through their vengeance, if I did not. But when I had ended that duty I had ended my religion, and my vices went on none the less prosperously. Often indeed my prayers were for special favors,—wealth, or success in some affair—and when, after wearying myself with repeating them a thousand times, the favors were not bestowed, how have I left the temple in a rage, cursing the gods I had just been worshipping, and swearing never more to propitiate them by prayer or sacrifice. Sometimes I repented of such violence, but oftener kept my word and tried some other god. You, Probus, were, I may believe, of a more even temper?'
'Yes, perhaps so. My father was one of the most patient and gentle of men, and religious after the manner of our remoter ancestors of the days of the republic. He was my instructor; and from him I learned truths which were sufficient for my happiness under ordinary circumstances. I was a devout and constant worshipper of the gods. My every-day life may then have been as pure as it has been since I have been a Christian; and my prayers as many or more. The instincts of my nature, which carried up the soul toward some great and infinite being, which I could not resist, kept me within the bounds of that prudent and virtuous life which I believed would be most acceptable to them. But when a day of heavy and insupportable calamity came upon me, and I was made to look after the foundations of what I had been believing, I found there were none. I was like a ship tossed about by the storms, without rudderor pilot. I then knew not whether there were gods or not; or if there were any, who, among the multiplicity worshipped in Rome, the true ones were. In my grief, I railed at the heavens and their rulers, for not revealing themselves to us in our darkness and weakness; and cursed them for their cruelty. Soon after I became a Christian. The difference between my state then, and now, is this. I believed then; but it was merely instinctive. I could give no reason to myself nor to others for my faith. It was something and yet nothing. Now, I have somewhat to stand upon. I can prove to myself, and to others, my religion, as well as other things. I have knowledge as well as blind belief. It is good to believe in something, and in some sort, though one can give no account of his faith; but it is better to believe in that which we know, as we know other things. I have now, as a Christian, the same strength of belief in God, providence, and futurity, that I have in any facts attested by history. Jesus has announced them or confirmed them, and they are susceptible of proof. I differed from you, Macer, in this; that I cursed not the gods in my passion, or caprice; I was for years and years their humble, and contented, and patient worshipper. I rebelled not till I suffered cruel disappointment, and in my faith could find no consolation or light. One real sorrow, by which the foundations of my earthly peace were all broken up, revealed to me the nothingness of my so called religion. Into what a new world, Macer, has our new faith introduced us! I am now happier than ever I was, even with my wife and children around me.'
'Some of our neighbors,' said Auria, 'wonder what it is that makes us so light of heart, notwithstanding ourpoverty and the dangers to which we are so often exposed. I tell them that they, who, like us, believe in the providence of a God, who is always near us and within us, and in the long reign with Christ as soon as death is past, have nothing to fear. That which they esteem the greatest evil of all, is, to us, an absolute gain. Upon this they either silently wonder, or laugh and deride. However, many too believe.'
'Probus, we are all ready to be offered up,' the enthusiast rejoined. 'God's mercy to me is beyond all power of mine to describe, in that he has touched and converted the hearts of every one under my roof. Now if to this mercy he will but add one more, that we may glorify him by our death as well as in our life, the cup of his servant will be full and running over.'
Probus did not choose again to engage with his convert upon that theme, knowing him to be beyond the reach of influence and control. We could not but marvel to see to what extent he had infused his own enthusiasm into his family. His wife indeed and elder daughters would willingly see him calmer and less violent when abroad, but like him, being by nature of warm temperament, they are like him Christians warm and zealous beyond almost any whom I have seen. They are as yet also so recently transferred from their Heathen to their Christian state, that their sight is still dazzled, and they see not objects in their true shapes and proportions. In their joy they seem to others, and perhaps often are, greatly extravagant in the expression of their feelings and opinions.
When our temperate repast was ended, Macer again prayed, and we then separated. Our visit proved whollyineffectual as to the purpose we had in view, but by no means so when I consider the acquaintance which it thus gave me with a family in the very humblest condition, who yet were holding and equally prizing the same opinions, at which, after so much research and labor, I had myself arrived. I perceived in this power of Christianity to adapt itself to minds so different in their slate of previous preparation, and in their ability to examine and sift a question which was offered to them; in the facility and quickness with which it seized both upon the understanding and the affections; in the deep convictions which it produced of its own truth and excellence, and the scorn and horror with which it filled the mind for its former superstitions—I saw in this an element of strength, and of dominion, such as even I had hardly conceived, and which assures me that this religion is destined to a universal empire. Not more certainly do all men need it than they will have it. When in this manner, with everything against it, in the habits, lives, and prejudices of men—with itself almost against itself in its strictness and uncompromising morality—it nevertheless forces its way into minds of every variety of character, and diffuses wherever it goes the same inward happiness;—its success under such circumstances is at once an argument for its truth, and an assurance that it will pause in its progress not till it shall have subdued the world to its dominion.
Julia was deeply interested in all that I told her of the family of Macer, and will make them all her special charge. Ælia will I hope become in some capacity a member of our household.
I ought to tell you that we have often of late been at the Gardens, where we have seen both Livia and Aurelian. Livia is the same, but the Emperor is changed. A gloomy horror seems to sit upon him, which both indisposes him to converse as formerly, and others to converse with him. Especially has he shown himself averse to discussion of any point that concerns the Christians, at least with me. When I would willingly have drawn him that way, he has shrunk from it with an expression of distaste, or with more expressive silence, or the dark language of his terrific frown. For me however he has no terrors, and I have resolved to break through all the barriers he chooses to set up around him, and learn if I can what his feelings and purposes precisely are. One conversation may reveal them in such a way, as may make it sufficiently plain what part he means to act, and what measure of truth there may be in the current rumors; in which, for my own part, I cannot bring myself to place much reliance. I doubt even concerning the death of Aurelia, whether, even if it has taken place, it is not to be traced to some cause other than her religion.
A day has passed. I have seen the Emperor, as I was resolved to do, and now I no longer doubt what his designs are, nor that they are dark as they have been represented; yea, and darker, even as night is darker than day.
Upon reaching the palace, I was told that the Emperor was exercising at the hippodrome, toward which I then bent my steps. It lies at some distance from the palace, concealed from it by intervening groves. Soonas I came in sight of it, I beheld Aurelian upon his favorite horse running the course as if contending for a prize, plying, the while, the fierce animal he bestrode with the lash, as if he were some laggard who needed rousing to his work. Swifter than the wind he flew by me, how many times I know not, without noting apparently that any one was present beside the attendant slaves; nor did he cease till the horse, spent and exhausted, no longer obeyed the will of even the Emperor of the world. Many a noble charger has he in this manner rode till he has fallen dead. So long used has this man been to the terrific game of war, and the scenes and sights which that reveals, stirring to their depths all the direst passions of our nature, that now, at home and at peace, life grows stale and flat, and needs the artificial stimulants which violent and extreme modes of action can alone supply. The death of a horse on the course, answers now for a legion slain in battle; an unruly, or disobedient, or idle slave hewn in two, affords the relief which the execution of prisoners has been accustomed to yield. Weary of inaction, he pants for the day to arrive when, having completed the designs he has set on foot in the city, he shall again join the army, now accumulating in huge masses in Thrace, and once more find himself in the East, on the way to new conquests and fresh slaughter.
As he threw himself from his horse, now breathing hard and scarcely supporting himself, the foam rolling from him like snow, he saluted me in his usual manner.
'A fair and fortunate day to you, Piso! And what may be the news in the city? I have rode fast and far, but have heard nothing. I come back empty as I went out, save the heat which I have put into my veins. Thishorse is he I was seen upon from the walls of Palmyra by your and other traitor eyes. But for first passing through the better part of my leg and then the saddle, the arrow that hit me then had been the death of him. But death is not for him, nor he for death; he and his rider are something alike, and will long be so, if auguries ever speak truth. And if there be not truth in auguries, Piso, where is it to be found among mortals? These three mornings have I rode him to see if in this manner he could be destroyed, but thou seest how it issues; I should destroy myself before him. But what, I say, is the news? How does the lady Julia? and the Queen?'
Replying first to these last inquiries, I then said that there was little news I believed in the city. The only thing, perhaps, that could be treated as news, was the general uneasiness of the Christians.
'Ah! They are uneasy? By the gods, not wholly without reason. Were it not for them I had now been, not here chafing my horse and myself on a hippodrome, but tearing up instead the hard sands of the Syrian deserts. They weigh upon me like a nightmare! They are a visible curse of the gods upon the state—but, being seen, it can be removed. I reckon not you among this tribe, Piso, when I speak of them. What purpose is imputed?'
'Rumor varies. No distinct purpose is named, but rather a general one of abridging some of their liberties—suppressing their worship, and silencing their priests.'
'Goes it no further?'
'Not with many; for the people are still willing to believe that Aurelian will inflict no needless suffering. They see you great in war, severe in the chastisement of the enemies of the state, and just in the punishmentinflicted upon domestic rebels; and they conceive that in regard to this simple people you will not go beyond the rigor I have just named.'
'Truly they give me credit,' replied Aurelian, 'for what I scarcely deserve. But an Emperor can never hear the truth. Piso! they will find themselves deceived. One or the other must fall—Helenism or Christianity! I knew not, till my late return from the East, the ravages made by this modern superstition, not only throughout Rome, but the world. In this direction I have for many years been blind. I have had eyes only for the distant enemies of my country, and the glories of the battle-field. But now, upon resting here a space in the heart of the empire, I find that heart eaten out and gone; the religion of ancient Rome, which was its very life, decaying, and almost dead, through the rank growth of this overshadowing poison-tree that has shot up at its side. It must be cut up by the roots—the branches hewn away—the leaves stripped and scattered to the winds—nay, the very least fibre that lurks below the surface with life in it, must be wrenched out and consumed. We must do thus by the Christians and their faith, or they will do so by us.'
'I am hardly willing,' I replied, 'to believe what I have heard; nor will I believe it. It were an act, so mad and unwise, as well as so cruel, that I will not believe it though coming from the lips of Aurelian!'
'It is true, Piso, as the light of yonder sun! But if thou wilt not believe, wait a day or two and proof enough shall thou have—proof that shall cure thy infidelity in a river of Christian blood.'
'Still, Aurelian,' I answered. 'I believe not: norwill, till that river shall run down before my eyes red and thick as the Orontes!'
'How, Piso, is this? I thought you knew me!'
'In part I am sure I do. I know you neither to be a madman nor a fool, both which in one would you be to attempt what you have now threatened.'
'Young Piso, you are bold!'
'I make no boast of courage,' I replied; 'I know that in familiar speech with Aurelian, I need not fear him. Surely you would not converse on such a subject with a slave or a flatterer. A Piso can be neither. I can speak, or I can be silent; but if I speak—'
'Say on, say on, in the name of the gods!'
'What I would say to Aurelian then is this, that slaughter as he may, the Christians cannot be exterminated; that though he decimated, first Rome and then the empire, there would still be left a seed that would spring up and bear its proper harvest. Nay, Aurelian, though you halved the empire, you could not win your game. The Christians are more than you deem them.'
'Be it so,' replied the Emperor; 'nevertheless I will try. But they are not so many as you rate them at, neither by a direct nor an indirect enumeration.'
'Let that pass, then,' I answered. 'Let them be a half, a quarter, a tenth part of what I believe them to be, it will be the same; they cannot be exterminated. Soon as the work of death is done, that of life will begin again, and the growth will be the more rank for the blood spilled around. Outside of the tenth part, Aurelian, that now openly professes this new religion, there lies another equal number of those who do not openly profess it, but do so either secretly, or else view it with favor and with thedesire to accept it. Your violence, inflicted upon the open believers, reaches not them, for they are an invisible multitude; but no sooner has it fallen and done its work of ruin, than this other multitude slowly reveals itself, and stands forth heirs and professors of the persecuted faith, and ready, like those who went before them, to live for it and die for it.'
'What you say may be so,' answered Aurelian; 'I had thought not of it. Nevertheless, I will try.'
'Moreover,' I continued, 'in every time of persecution, there are those—sincere believers, but timid—who dare not meet the threatened horrors. These deny not their faith, but they shrink from sight; they for a season disappear; their hearts worship as ever, but their tongues are silent; and search as they may, your emissaries of blood cannot find them. But soon as the storm is over-past, then do they come forth again, as insects from the leaves that sheltered them from the storm, and fill again the forsaken churches.'
'Nevertheless I will try for them.'
'Then will you be, Aurelian, as one that sheds blood, because he will shed it—seeing that the end at which you aim cannot in such way be reached. Confiscation, imprisonment, scourging, fires, torture, and death, will all be in vain; and with no more prospect that by such oppression Christianity can be annihilated, than there would be of rooting out poppies from your fields when as you struck off the heads or tore up the old roots, the ripe seeds were scattered abroad over the soil, a thousand for every parent stalk that fell. You will drench yourself in the blood of the innocent, only that you may do it—while no effect shall follow.'
'Let it be so then; even so. Still I will not forbear. But this I know, Piso, that when a disaffection has broken out in a legion, and I have caused the half thereof, or its tenth, to be drawn forth and cut to pieces by the other part, the danger has disappeared. The physic has been bitter, but it has cured the patient! I am a good surgeon; and well used to letting blood. I know the wonders it works and shall try it now, not doubting to see some good effects. When poison is in the veins, let out the blood, and the new that comes in is wholesome. Rome is poisoned!'
'Great Emperor,' I replied, 'you know nothing, allow me to say, whereof you affirm. You know not the Christians, and how can you deem them poison to the state? A purer brotherhood never has the world seen. I am but of late one among them, and it is but a few months since I thought of them as you now do. But I knew nothing of them. Now I know them. And knowledge has placed them before me in another light. If, Aurelian—'
'I know nothing of them, Piso, it is true; and I wish to know nothing—nothing more, than that they are Christians! that they deny the good gods! that they aim at the overthrow of the religion of the state—that religion under whose fostering care Rome has grown up to her giant size—that they are fire-brands of discord and quarrel in Rome and throughout the world! Greater would my name be, could I extirpate this accursed tribe than it would be for triumphing over both the East and West, or though I gained the whole world.'
'Aurelian,' I replied, 'this is not the language I used to hear from your lips. Another spirit possesses you and it is not hard to tell whence it comes.'
'You would say—from Fronto.'
'I would. There is the rank poison, that has turned the blood in the veins of one, whom justice and wisdom once ruled, into its own accursed substance.'
'I and Rome, Piso,' said Aurelian, 'owe much to Fronto. I confess that his spirit now possesses me. He has roused the latent piety into action and life, which I received with my mother's milk, but which, the gods forgive me! carried away by ambition, had well nigh gone quite out in my soul. My mother—dost thou know it?—was a priestess of Apollo, and never did god or goddess so work by unseen influence to gain a mortal's heart, as did she to fill mine with reverence of the deities of heaven—specially of the great god of light. I was early a wayward child. When a soldier in the legions I now command, my life was what a soldier's is—a life of action, hardship, peril, and blood. The deities of Heaven soon became to me as if they were not. And so it has been for well nigh all the years of my life. But, the gods be thanked, Fronto has redeemed me! and since I have worn this diadem have I toiled, Rome can testify with what zeal, to restore to her gods their lost honors—to purge her worship of the foul corruptions that were bringing it into contempt—and raise it higher than ever in the honor of the people, by the magnificence of the temples I have built; by the gifts I have lavished upon them; by the ample riches wherewith I have endowed the priesthood. And more than once, while this work has been achieving, has the form of my revered parent, beautiful in the dazzling robes of her office, stood by my bedside—whether in dream, or in vision, or in actual presence, I cannot tell—and blessed me for mypious enterprise—"The gods be thanked," the lips have said, or seemed to say, "that thy youth lasts not always but that age has come, and with it second childhood in thy reverence of the gods, whose worship it was mine to put into thy infant heart. Go on thy way, my son! Build up the fallen altars, and lay low the aspiring fanes of the wicked. Finish what thou hast begun, and all time shall pronounce thee greatest of the great." Should I disobey the warning? The gods forbid! and save me from such impiety. I am now, Piso, doubly armed for the work I have taken in hand—first by the zeal of the pious Fronto, and second, by the manifest finger of Heaven pointing the way I should go. And, please the Almighty Ruler! I will enter upon it, and it shall not be for want of a determined will and of eyes too used to the shedding of blood to be frightened now though an ocean full were spilled before them, if this race be not utterly swept from the face of the earth, from the suckling to the silver head, from the beggar to the prince—and from Rome all around to the four winds, as far as her almighty arms can reach.'
My heart sunk within me as he spoke, and my knees trembled under me. I knew the power and spirit of the man, and I now saw that superstition had claimed him for her own; that he would go about his work of death and ruin, armed with his own cruel and bloody mind, and urged behind by the fiercer spirit still of Pagan bigotry. It seemed to me, in spite of what I had just said myself, and thought I believed, as if the death-note of Christianity had now been rung in my ear. The voice of Aurelian as he spoke had lost its usual sharpness,and fallen into a lower tone full of meaning, and which said to me that his very inmost soul was pouring itself out, with the awful words he used. I felt utterly helpless and undone—like an ant in the pathway of a giant—incapable of resistance or escape. I suppose all this was visible in my countenance. I said nothing; and Aurelian, after pausing a moment, went on.
'Think me not, Piso, to be using the words of an idle braggart in what I have said. Who has known Aurelian, when once he has threatened death, to hold back his hand? But I will give thee earnest of my truth!'
'I require it not, Aurelian. I question not thy truth.'
'I will give it notwithstanding, Piso. What will you think—you will think as you ever have of me—if I should say that already, and upon one of my own house, infected with this hell-begotten atheism, has the axe already fallen!'
Hearing the horrible truth from his own lips, it seemed as if I had never heard it before. I hardly had believed it.
'Tyrant!' I exclaimed, 'it cannot be! What, Aurelia?'
'Yes, Aurelia! Keep thy young blood cool, Piso. Yes, Aurelia! Ere I struck at others, it behoved me to reprove my own. It was no easy service, as you may guess, but it must be done. And not only was Aurelia herself pertinaciously wedded to this fatal mischief, but she was subduing the manly mind of Mucapor too, who, had he been successfully wrought upon, were as good as dead to me and to Rome—and he is one whom our legions cannot spare. We have Christians more than enough already in our ranks: a Christian general was not to be borne. This was additional matter of accusation against Aurelia, and made it right that she shoulddie. But she had her free choice of life, honor, rank, riches, and, added to all, Mucapor, whose equal Rome does not hold, if she would but take them. One word spoken and they were all her own; with no small chance that she should one day be what Livia is. But that one word her obstinate superstition would not let her speak.'
'No, Aurelian; there is that in the Christian superstition that always forbids the uttering of that one word. Death to the Christian is but another word for life. Apostacy is the true death. You have destroyed the body of Aurelia, but her virtuous soul is already with God, and it is you who have girded upon her brow a garland that shall never fade. Of that much may you make your boast.'
'Piso, I bear with you, and shall; but there is no other in Rome who might say so much.'
'Nay, nay, Aurelian, there I believe you better than you make yourself. To him who is already the victim of the axe or the beasts do you never deny the liberty of the tongue,—such as it then is.'
'Upon Piso, and he the husband of Julia, I can inflict no evil, nor permit it done.'
'I would take shelter, Aurelian, neither behind my own name, my father's, nor my wife's. I am a Christian—and such fate as may befall the rest, I would share. Yet not willingly, for life and happiness are dear to me as to you—and they are dear to all these innocent multitudes whom you do now, in the exercise of despotic power, doom to a sudden and abhorred death. Bethink yourself, Aurelian, before it be too late—'
'I have bethought myself of it all,' he replied—'and were the suffering ten times more, and the blood to bepoured out a thousand times more, I would draw back not one step. The die has been cast; it has come up as it is, and so must be the game. I listen to no appeal.'
'Not from me,' I replied; 'but surely you will not deny a hearing to what these people may say in their own defence. That were neither just nor merciful; nor were it like Aurelian. There is much which by their proper organs they might say to place before you their faith in the light of truth. You have heard what you have received concerning it, chiefly from the lips of Fronto; and can he know what he has never learned? or tell it unperverted by prejudices black as night?'
'I have already said,' rejoined the Emperor, 'that I would hear them, and I will. But it can avail them no more than words uttered in the breath of the tempest that is raging up from the north. Hear them! This day have I already heard them—from one of those madmen of theirs who plague the streets of Rome. Passing early by the temple of Æsculapius—that one which stands not an arrow's flight from the column of Trajan—I came upon a dense crowd of all sorts of persons listening to a gaunt figure of a man who spoke to them. Soon as I came against him, and paused on my horse for the crowd to make way, the wild beast who was declaiming, shouted at me at the top of his voice, calling on me to 'hear the word of God which he would speak to me.' Knowing him by such jargon to be a Christian, I did as he desired, and there stood, while he, for my especial instruction, laid bare the iniquities and follies of the Roman worship; sent the priesthood and all who entered their temples to the infernal regions; and prophesied against Rome—which he termed Babylon—that ere so many centuries were gone, her walls would lie even with the ground, her temples moulder in ruins, her language become extinct, and her people confounded with other nations and lost. And all this because, I, whom he now called, if I remember the names aright, Ahaz and now Nebuchadnezzar, oppressed the children of God and held them in captivity: while in the same breath he bid me come on with my chains, gibbets, beasts, crosses, and fires, for they were ready, and would rejoice to bear their testimony in the cause of Christ. As I turned to resume my way, his words were; 'Go on, thou man of pride and blood; go on thy way! The gates of hell swing open for thee! Already the arm of the Lord is bared against thee! the winged lightning struggles in his hand to smite thee! I hear thy cry for mercy which no one answers—' and more, till I was beyond the reach of his owl's voice. There was an appeal, Piso, from this people! What think you of it?'
'He whom you heard,' I replied, 'I know, and know him to be honest and true; as loyal a subject too as Rome holds. He is led away by his hot and hasty temper both to do and say what injures not only him, but all who are joined with him, and the cause he defends. He offends the Christians hardly less than others. Judge not all by him. He stands alone. If you would hear one whom all alike confide in, and who may fitly represent the feelings and principles of the whole body of Christians, summon Probus. From him may you learn without exaggeration or concealment, without reproach of others or undue boasting of themselves, what the Christians are in their doctrines and their lives, as citizensof Rome and loyal subjects of Aurelian, and what, as citizens of heaven and loyal followers of Jesus Christ.'
The Emperor promised to consider it. He had no other reason to deny such favor, but the tedium of listening to what could profit neither him nor others.
We then turned toward the palace, where I saw Livia; now as silent and sad as, when in Palmyra, she was lively and gay. Not that Aurelian abates the least of his worship, but that the gloom which overshadows him imparts itself to her, and that knowing what has befallen Aurelia, she cannot but feel it to be a possible thing for the blow to fall elsewhere and nearer. Yet is there the same outward show as ever. The palace is still thronged, with not Rome only, but by strangers from all quarters of the empire, anxious to pay their homage at once to the Empress of Rome, to the most beautiful woman in the world—such is the language—and to a daughter of the far-famed Zenobia.
The city is now crowded with travelers of all nations, so much so that the inns can scarce receive them; and hardly ever before was private hospitality so put to all its resources. With all, and everywhere, in the streets, at the public baths, in the porticos, at the private or public banquet, the Christians are the one absorbing topic. And, at least, this good comes with the evil, that thus the character of this religion, as compared with that of Rome and other faiths, is made known to thousands who might otherwise never have heard of it, or have felt interest enough in it to examine its claims. It leads to a large demand for, and sale of, our sacred books. The copyists can hardly supply them so fast as they are wanted. For in the case of any dispute or conversation,it is common to hear the books themselves referred to, and then to be called in as witnesses for or against a statement made. And pleasant enough is it to see how clear the general voice is on our side—especially with the strangers—how indignant they are, for the most part, that violence, to the extreme of another Decian persecution, should be so much as dreamed of. Would that the same could be said of our citizens and countrymen! A large proportion of them indeed embrace the same liberal sentiments, but a greater part, if not for extreme violence, are yet for oppression and suppression; and I dare not say how many, for all that Aurelian himself designs. Among the lower orders, especially, a ferocious and blood-thirsty spirit breaks out in a thousand ways that fills the bosom both with grief and terror.
The clouds are gathering over us, Fausta, heavy and black with the tempest pent up within. The thunders are rolling in the distance, and each hour coming nearer and nearer. Whom the lightnings shall strike—how vain to conjecture! Would to God that Julia were anywhere but here! For, to you I may say it, I cannot trust Aurelian—yes—Aurelian himself I may; but not Aurelian the tool of Fronto. Farewell.