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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12671 ***
+
+AN EASTER DISCIPLE
+
+The Chronicle of Quintus, the Roman Knight
+
+By
+
+ARTHUR BENTON SANFORD
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORY OF ABSENT ONES
+
+WHO HAVE ENTERED INTO LIFE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+      An Opening Word
+
+   I. A Roman Quest
+
+  II. In Solomon's Porch
+
+ III. Christ Himself the Witness to Immortality
+
+  IV. Cicero or Christ?
+
+   V. The Vision of the Risen Christ
+
+  VI. Christ's Witnesses at Rome
+
+
+
+
+AN OPENING WORD
+
+Many voices had been speaking of eternal life, before the days of
+the Son of man.  Especially pronounced had been the teachings of
+the Egyptians that there is another world.   In their Acadian hymns
+the Chaldaeans had dimly foretold a future life.  The belief of the
+Parsees, as expressed in their Zend-Avesta, had included a place of
+darkness for the evil soul and a reward for the good in the realm
+of light.  The Hindus had declared, in their Rig-Veda, their
+beautiful conception of the immortality of the soul, and had
+written of a future "imperishable world, where there is eternal
+light and glory."  The Grecian and Roman mythologies had voiced
+their hope of blessedness for the shades of the departed.
+Everywhere serious men had been asking as to the experiences beyond
+the grave.  It was as if the Eastern world had become a vast
+parliament chamber, wherein the nations were proclaiming their
+different doctrines as to a future life.
+
+In the midst of these varying and uncertain voices, Christ spoke
+his authoritative message.  There was no wavering in his tone.
+What the Oriental philosophers were guessing, he revealed; what the
+Hebrew prophets had foreshadowed in their holy writings, he
+unfolded in full light.  The ancient Vedic hymns, the oracles of
+Greece, the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, anticipating by two
+thousand years the Hebrew exodus--all these are naught compared
+with the words of that inspired Teacher who spoke in Palestine.
+
+In addition, Christ was himself the vital evidence of the
+resurrection which he taught.  Against the assaults of doubt his
+unique teachings are buttressed forevermore by his own return from
+the land of silence.  In a short week after his words to Martha at
+Bethany he had become, through his own rare experience, the
+resurrection and the life.  Not the dead Buddha, nor the departed
+Zoroaster, nor the vanished  Pythagoras  ever came back through the
+opened door of the sepulcher, wearing the grave clothes of those
+who sleep.  Human fancy had never dreamed of such a rapturous
+denouement for faiths other than Christianity.  The resurrection of
+the Lord is the crowning narrative with which the Gospels close.
+It is a risen Christ who repairs the wastage of human decay and
+death.  A voice above all those from Ind or Persia or the Nile
+speaks henceforth in Judaea and the world concerning immortality.
+The superlative Easter argument is the risen Christ himself.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A ROMAN QUEST
+
+"If one might only have a guide to the truth."--_Seneca_.
+
+
+On Scopus, the high mountain north of Jerusalem, the Roman camp was
+pitched, that last autumn in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  A
+few years further on, if the warriors of the Emperor Tiberius could
+then have foreseen the future, Titus was to quarter his famous
+legions on that vantage point; and from its elevation he was to
+hurl himself as a resistless battering ram against the Holy City.
+But, on this autumn day, when these chronicles begin, no blare of
+trumpets was summoning the Roman soldiery to arms; only the feet of
+the camp sentinels, as they walked their appointed rounds, broke
+the quiet of the sunlit afternoon.
+
+That lithesome, cultivated, serious-minded young knight, Quintus
+Cornelius Benignus, is standing on the height which overlooks the
+great metropolis.  He is the son of Marcus Cornelius Magnus, that
+Roman noble who is the intimate associate of the reigning Caesar,
+and who has been a luxurious resident on the Palatine Hill since
+his distinguished proconsulship in Africa.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+NOTE.--It is not from any time-marked Hebrew roll that this story
+of Quintus is now taken.  He was of Roman blood, and his record is,
+rather, to be found in the Latin literature of his time.  Well it
+is when some new leaf is discovered among the musty folios,
+reciting the saintly character and the triumphs of those who lived
+when Christianity was new.  This record shows the worth of
+consecrated life and service in the days when the luxurious Roman
+state most needed a Christian citizenship.  But the lesson is none
+the less for these last days, when the hope of the world is in the
+creed of Quintus.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+By the side of Quintus is his fellow soldier Aulus.  They had spent
+their boyhood together among the scenes of Rome; now they are
+companions still, on this last Roman expedition to the district of
+Judaea.  While the common soldiery are throwing their  dice  in
+the  camp thoroughfare, these are speaking of more serious things.
+The picture on which they look from lofty Scopus includes the
+shining roofs of Jerusalem, the wooded Mount of Olives, and the far
+landscape to the south and west; its undulations and brilliant
+colorings no Roman artist might put upon the canvas.
+
+With the autumn haze covering the extended panorama, Quintus says
+first to his comrade:
+
+"What the fates have in store for me, here in the city of
+Hierosolyma, I am much wondering.  The day before our trireme
+sailed from Brundisium for Tyrus I made a visit to the augur's
+tent.  His prediction was that my journey hither would be followed
+by strange consequences.  The flight of the birds through the air
+did not reveal to him just what was to occur; but that something
+eventful was to take place he was very sure.  What is to be my
+fortune?"
+
+"Your lot it may be," answers Aulus, "to perform some daring deed,
+here in our Jewish campaign; and on your return to Rome you may
+receive a great reward from the hand of Tiberius."
+
+"In my mind this has been," replies Quintus; "before I left Rome I
+had an audience with our divine Caesar, and he was pleased to say
+that my fidelity here might bring me special recompense.  Yet would
+that be satisfying?  I have seen the triumphal processions in the
+streets of Rome, when heroes have been acclaimed; I have heard our
+statesmen in the Senate hall, and prize the joys of oratory; I have
+been served all my days by slaves in my father's palace, and know
+the sweetness of the Falernian wine in the banquet room.  A
+proconsulate, if I might come to that dignity, would be a high
+honor to write in my life story.  But, my dear Aulus, would there
+be content in this?  My restless soul seems crying out for some
+better gift from the gods."
+
+"It cannot be," continues Aulus.  "that your heart's love is
+involved.  When our military movements bring the Roman knights to
+Palaestina, in their pride of birth they do not wed the black-eyed
+daughters of the Jews.  On your earlier expedition to Egypt you met
+a princess of the land, but were not let to espouse that swarthy
+maiden of the Nile.  The reward of love cannot be the experience of
+which the augur spoke at Brundisium."
+
+"Not so," says Quintus in response; "as I was leaving Rome, it was
+the beautiful Lucretia who sent me forth with her rare farewell.
+For my return from Palaestina she is now waiting; and under the
+blue skies of Italia we are to wed.  I have been wondering,"
+Quintus adds further, "if the augur, watching the flight of birds
+there at Brundisium.  could mean that I am to fall by death, here
+in Palaestina.  We have not come for battle, but to guard the
+peace.  Yet it is easy for Atropos, that cruel fate, to clip the
+slender thread of life and send men on to die land of shades.  If
+this was what the augur meant, no Roman in the days of Tiberius has
+ever set forth upon a more serious adventure."
+
+"You are given to melancholy, this autumn afternoon, my comrade
+Quintus," the other says; "you are feeling that sadness which comes
+to men when the Dryads move over the earth and touch the leaves
+into crimson and gold and brown."
+
+"Not so," answers Quintus; "but I am remembering that I have come
+into a land where a strange Teacher is speaking to men of a future
+life.  Yet are men to live again?  I have seen the marble tombs on
+the Appia Via where the Scipios, the Metelli, and so many more of
+our great Romans lie asleep.  Shall I soon follow them?  Is it an
+endless slumber?  What is it that the new Rabbi from Nazareth
+means, when in the city yonder he speaks of another life?"
+
+"A fig for your weird autumn fancy," responds Aulus; "down to the
+streets of Hierosolyma we will go, and among their novel sights we
+will forget your serious meditations."
+
+
+They walk that afternoon as sightseers through the crowded Jewish
+emporium.  The shops remind them, with all their contrasts, of the
+marts of Rome, for men always and everywhere have the trader's
+passion.  In the narrow streets of Jerusalem they see the stir of
+many activities.  The workman is hammering his brass; the shoemaker
+shapes his sandals; the flax spinner is winding his thread; the
+scribe sits on his mat, and is ready for his writing.  In the shops
+they see costly merchandise for sale--silks and jewels, fine linens
+and perfumes, delicious foods and drinks.  These have been imported
+from far Arabia and India; they have been brought from distant
+Persia and Media.  With all their variety, no taste, however
+fitful, need go unsatisfied.
+
+What a motley crowd is on the streets!  They hear the Aramaic
+speech of Palestine, which Quintus has been taught by his Athenian
+tutor, and their ears also catch the accents  of other  foreign
+tongues.  They meet traders from western Zidon, sailors from Crete,
+bearded Idumaeans from beyond Judaea, and scholars from far
+Alexandria.  Magnificent Jerusalem it is!  Yet destined soon to
+fall.  For the day draws near when the Roman Titus shall weep on
+Scopus over its fading splendors and then shall smite it to the
+dust.
+
+One purchase only does Quintus make.  In a shop where Egyptian
+wares are sold he says to Aulus:
+
+"Look on this scarab, this sacred beetle, which has been shaped by
+some workman down in Thebae on the Nile.  We may be sure that no
+people believes more intensely in a future life.  What compliment
+they pay this physical frame of men when they hold that embalmment
+restores to the soul its former body!  After the judgment of
+Osiris, if their lives be true, the worthy shall enjoy the
+companionship of the great god forever.  No other people wears such
+a visible emblem of their faith in another life.  I will buy this
+scarab for an amulet against accident and evil."
+
+
+But where had the workman gone who once had shaped that token of
+immortality?  Whither had vanished his carver's skill?  Where had
+disappeared his projects and his dreams?  Quintus is not thinking
+of any proconsulship he may win, or even of the love light in the
+eyes of Lucretia, as he climbs again the heights of Scopus.  Rather
+he is meditating on the departed maker of scarabs--and on the
+destiny of the soul.  For ages the philosophers have been
+speculating about the future life.  Familiar is Quintus with the
+views of Laelius and Seneca, among the Roman inquirers, and with
+the teachings of the great Grecians who have spoken in classic
+Athens.  But now the question leaps to the front.  Quintus is in
+the city where Ayran travelers and Persian magi and Egyptian
+priests are busy telling their theories of immortality.  He is in
+the very streets, besides, where a sandaled Teacher from Nazareth
+is declaring that the dead shall live again.  If but half is true
+that this strange Man is reputed to have said, no priest of Jupiter
+has ever uttered at Rome so luminous a word.  Can it be that
+Quintus himself shall see this Christus and hear his message?  If
+so, his will be in very truth a momentous quest.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN SOLOMON'S PORCH
+
+"Give me new consolation, great and strong, of which I nave never
+heard or read."--_Pliny_.
+
+
+With increasing frequency Christ was now speaking his prophecies of
+the life immortal.  In his earlier ministry he had been dwelling
+upon the presence of the divine kingdom in the earth, the practical
+conditions for membership therein, and the inclusion of Gentile as
+well as Jew in the gracious provision.  Novel were his words.
+Whoever had heard his discourse on the Mount or the parable of the
+lost sheep was rich beyond the modern sons of men.  But now, in the
+closing period of his stay with mortals, he was more frequently
+foretelling the life to come.  Like a footworn traveler drawing
+near the homeland, he was keenly anticipating his return to the
+spirit world.  Those who listened to him heard majestic intimations
+of a celestial country which eye had not beheld.  Nor is it to be
+thought that the Gospels, in their restricted pages, have recorded
+half his words concerning the heavenly land.
+
+Now comes the opportunity for Quintus himself to hear this new
+Teacher of the Jews.  A messenger from Pilate, sent on an errand to
+the headquarters at Scopus, brings the tidings that Christ is in
+Jerusalem as a visitor at the Feast of Dedication.  Favored are
+those who hear through the years the world's commanding voices;
+beyond estimate is the high privilege now granted Quintus.
+
+"I will hasten in to Hierosolyma," he says to Aulus, who is
+detained by camp duties; "I will hear him for myself; and I will
+bring you back report as to this latest prophet of immortality."
+
+
+With his soldier's cloak about him, in protection against the
+winter's chill, Quintus is away to Jerusalem.  The national Feast
+of Dedication attracts his notice.  A courteous Hebrew explains to
+him that the joyful festival commemorates the cleansing of the
+Temple after its profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes, two hundred
+years before.  The procession of pious Jews, carrying their palm
+branches and marching to the heights of Moriah, the chanting of the
+great Hallel within the imposing fane, the ascription of praise to
+Jehovah all impress the keen-eyed soldier.
+
+The enthusiasm of it all!  Though of other blood, Quintus clearly
+feels the thrill of patriotism that stirs the multitude about him;
+and he understands in some measure their impatient waiting for the
+coming prince who shall deliver Israel.
+
+
+But is this all?  Instead it is only the beginning of the wonders
+which the serious Quintus is to witness.  Forth he passes to the
+eastern cloister of the Temple, known then among the Jews as
+Solomon's Porch, in memory of their illustrious king.  The
+bystanders tell Quintus that it is built of a fragment of the first
+Temple which Nebuchadnezzar had left standing.  As the soldier
+looks down the far-reaching aisle, he sees a quadruple row of white
+Corinthian columns, one hundred and sixty in number, and extending
+a length of many hundred feet.  The vista is most amazing.
+Accustomed though he has been all his days to the magnificence of
+the Roman architecture, he yields in willing admiration to the
+splendors of the Solomonic porch.
+
+Then--he sees the Christ!  Walking through that forest of massive
+columns is the superlative Jew of his times, and of all times.  For
+now--when the voices of that winter day are still, and Solomon's
+Porch has vanished where stood those blessed feet--there is no
+earthly measurement by which to estimate the Man whom Quintus saw.
+
+
+Among the throng that surround him hostile Pharisees challenge him
+to tell them plainly if he be the foretold Messiah.  With impatient
+hearts they have waited long for their redemption.  Let him say if
+their deliverer has now come.  Then shall they throw off the yoke
+of the detested Roman rule and renew their ancient monarchy with
+enlarging influence and increasing splendors.
+
+Memorable words in answer does Quintus hear.  The Stranger  puts
+aside  the thought of the Jewish struggle for an earthly throne,
+and turns in his fancy to the quiet pastures where feed the flocks.
+He is a guardian Shepherd; Israel and all the world besides are his
+cherished sheep.  Those who are truly his shall hear his guiding
+voice, and shall follow him.  They shall never perish.  From the
+hand of the Shepherd no vandal shall steal his own away.  How the
+words thrill!  Sometimes Quintus has seen in the Judaean pastures
+the keeper with his flocks, and knows how unchanging is his
+fidelity.  It is as if this watcher in his devotion is anticipating
+the faithfulness of the greater Shepherd.  How entrancing is the
+lesson to this seeking soldier from beyond the Adriatic!
+
+Then does the Christ add another word more surprising than the
+rest.  To men who are his sheep he makes a promise that compasses
+the furthest limit of the eternities.  Of such he says: "Unto those
+who follow me I will give the Life of the Ages.  Beyond the tomb
+they are to live on forevermore."  Nor to the Jews alone, amid the
+maze of those Corinthian columns, does the coming Shepherd speak.
+The listening Roman soldier, wearing the armor of the empire on the
+Tiber, comes within the circle of his promise.  Into the face of
+Quintus he looks and benignly says: "There are other sheep not of
+the Jewish pasture, to whom I shall give this unending life.  I
+covet your great empire as my own.  O soldier of the Caesars,
+follow after me!"
+
+
+Back to the camp on Scopus the soldier goes, moved to his deepest
+soul.  Impossible it seems to longer worship the Roman gods.  When
+he has described to Aulus the Feast of Dedication, he repeats the
+words he has heard in the Temple cloister, and says in deepest
+seriousness:
+
+"Most unearthly is the Man on whom I have looked to-day.  In his
+speech a divine patience, kindness, and dignity combine.  As for
+the words he spoke, I cannot tell their moving power.  The sayings
+of our noblest Romans are feeble in the comparison.  Never have I
+heard another speak as he has done about a future world.  Truly, an
+unequaled Man is this new Teacher who is abroad in Judaea."
+
+Sleep is of little consequence that night.  Is the word of the
+augur at Brundisium beginning to be fulfilled?  In his tent Quintus
+is wondering through the long hours if, among his people on the
+Tiber, the Shepherd shall not find some sheep to whom he will give
+the unending life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+CHRIST HIMSELF THE WITNESS TO IMMORTALITY
+
+"He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine
+prophets had foretold."--_Josephus_.
+
+
+How often have men missed the sight of great historic occurrences,
+in their attention to the routine of life!  So it was that Quintus
+did not witness the tragic events of that Passover week on which
+human destiny was to turn.  To Tyre on the Great Sea he had gone,
+to arrange for the landing of a new quota of troops from
+Brundisium.  The commander at Scopus had chosen him for the
+responsible mission, in token of his especial fitness.  The
+compliment was pleasing.  But in his absence he was ever thinking
+of the promise made by the Teacher in Solomon's Porch, that the
+sheep who followed him should have eternal life.
+
+Astir was all Jerusalem, when the knight returned to Scopus.  It
+was on the morning after the Lord's resurrection.  That Roman
+centurion who had been at Calvary reviewed for Quintus the fateful
+happenings.  With pomp reminding of a Roman triumph the Christ had
+entered David's city; after four days Iscariot had betrayed him
+with a kiss; for blasphemy Pilatus, the procurator, had sentenced
+him to the cross; they had put on him a scarlet robe in mockery;
+they had hung him between two robbers on the hill of Golgotha; a
+brutal soldier now at Scopus had won by lot his seamless robe, and
+was jauntily displaying it as a trophy; an uncanny darkness had
+covered the Judaean sky; the soldier Longinus had pierced the
+sufferer's side; they had buried the dead Christ in the garden tomb
+of the Arimathaean Joseph.  Monumental events were these--all new
+to Quintus, but destined to be written indelibly in the calendars
+of Christendom.
+
+"More than this," continues the centurion, "an amazing rumor is now
+abroad in the city that yesterday the dead Christus awoke from his
+sleep and has been five times seen by his amazed disciples.  When I
+beheld him yield up the ghost, I hailed his death as that of a
+devout man, but little did I think that he was a God and would
+return from the tomb.  The report says he has now come back.  On
+swift wing the rumor has flown through Jerusalem and even into
+Pilate's palace."
+
+
+Down from the heights of Scopus the hurrying feet of Quintus carry
+him to Jerusalem.  Doubts and wonderings and half-beliefs fill his
+mind.  What if by any shadow of possibility the prediction of the
+strange Teacher has been fulfilled, that he should return from the
+dead on the third day?  Finding his way to Joseph's garden, Quintus
+stands by an empty sepulcher.  There is a group of wondering
+visitors near, and among them is one whose inviting face leads
+Quintus to accost him.  Not frightened by the sword and armor of
+the Roman knight, but assured by his candid look, the other answers
+in the Aramaic which both can speak:
+
+"Johannes is my name.  Till three years ago I was a fisherman, up
+on the waters of Gennesaret.  Since then I have been a disciple of
+this Man from Galilee.  In his company I have heard surprising
+words and have felt a heavenly influence.  He was no ordinary
+Teacher.  He was indeed from above."
+
+"Is it true," asks Quintus in breathless words, "that your Master
+has risen from the grave?  I have been away in Tyrus.  Now in the
+Roman camp on Scopus I have heard that he has come forth from the
+sepulcher.  What means such a marvelous report?"
+
+"Yes, it is all true," John answers with his face aglow; "this is
+the very sepulcher where our Lord was laid.  Your own sentries kept
+guard before the tomb securely sealed.  But on the morning of
+yesterday there was a shaking of the earth; some angelic visitants
+rolled away the stone door of the grave; and our immortal Christus
+came forth again.
+
+"Astounding," Quintus interrupts in a whirl of words; "but did he
+make any promise of another life for men, before he was put to
+death?"
+
+"He truly did," replies the disciple; "when we had eaten the
+Passover supper with him, he spoke a word more marvelous than any
+of your Roman teachers has ever uttered.  Into the spirit world he
+said he was departing, to make ready a room in the Father's ample
+house for those who were his own; and on his return he would take
+them to be with himself.  Ever since our sad-hearted band have been
+comforting themselves with this last promise in the upper room."
+
+"None of our Roman gods has ever promised such a future." responds
+Quintus; "but is this all?"
+
+"No," answers the disciple; "on his cross our Christus spoke again
+about another experience for men.  By his side was Dysmas, the
+crucified robber, grieving for his faults and asking comfort.  When
+the cross pain and thirst were over, our Lord replied, the outlaw
+should walk with him among the bowers of the beautiful Paradise
+beyond this world's horizon.  It was enough.  In this consolation
+the tortured Dysmas passed on, with a smile of peace upon his face."
+
+"Have you more wonders to tell?" presses Quintus, in his eagerness,
+while the story of the cross begins to compel his judgment and call
+for his heart's surrender.
+
+Then, the consummation!  In ecstatic words John tells of the one
+final and overmastering proof, in the thought of the eleven
+disciples;
+
+"Greatest of all, we have ourselves seen our Friend again.  Five
+times already has he showed himself.  First, Mary of Magdala saw
+him under the trees of the garden, and spoke with him; then the
+other women met him and fell at his feet; next our fellow disciple
+Petros saw him; then two of our band walked with him to outlying
+Emmaus, and knew him as he broke bread at the journey's end; and
+then last evening, he came to ten of us in the Passover room and
+spoke his peace on us.
+
+"Perhaps you have all seen a spectral form which has no real
+existence," remonstrates Quintus, while all the time he is yielding
+himself to the compelling story.
+
+"It cannot be," responds the convincing John; "there have been too
+many witnesses for that.  We have seen the very wound made by the
+spear of Longinus; we have heard his familiar voice; we have
+received his blessing.  Our number is our evidence; it cannot be
+possible that all of us have been deceived.  It is surely he, O
+Roman soldier, unless the senses of the women and of ten honest men
+are far astray.  No other teacher of the East has ever come back
+from the sepulcher.  Look and see for yourself.  Yonder is Joseph's
+empty tomb.  The Christus is himself the evidence."
+
+
+What can Quintus do, in the face of such proof as this?  He returns
+to Scopus in wildest tumult.  Little does he say to Aulus, his
+chosen friend.  The company of Longinus or the centurion he does
+not seek.  The time has come--as it comes to all--when he must
+commune with himself, and make the decision confronting every soul
+that has heard the resurrection story.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+CICERO OR CHRIST?
+
+"The name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of
+men."--_Origen_.
+
+
+Shall men believe in a future life because of Christ's return from
+the grave?  Is his established resurrection at Jerusalem the
+climacteric proof for immortality?  The problem is inescapable.
+Every man is himself a judge; before every man the accumulated
+evidence passes; for every man it is doomsday when he stands at the
+point of decision.
+
+In his sore perplexity Quintus says to himself that night, when he
+has returned from his interview with the disciple John: "My soul is
+like a traveler who halts at the point where two roads meet.  Great
+issues depend upon his choice.  But while he hesitates may the
+immortals, who watch over the destinies of men, guide his feet
+aright."
+
+Clearly defined are the alternatives before the Roman soldier.  On
+the one hand are his ancestral beliefs, long established and deeply
+cherished by the nation.  Nor does any man quickly toss aside the
+faith of his fathers.  If belief is waning in the primitive
+mythologies, and if the social life of the Empire is moved by
+unrest and despair, the problem is to find a greater satisfaction.
+There have been spoken many beautiful words by the Roman scholars
+which are sweet premonitions of immortality.  Does not Quintus
+remember that Cicero likens to heaven a port prepared, and prays
+that he may sail thither with full-spread sails?  And if the gifted
+Cicero has just gone tragically out of life, let it be hoped that
+he has reached the harbor.
+
+But on the other hand are the challenging and captivating words of
+Christ.  Had he only spoken of the future life as an enthusiastic
+Teacher, and then had passed to the perpetual slumber of the grave
+like other philosophers of the time, he would be remembered long.
+But, when he had spoken his words concerning immortality, he had
+added, "I myself shall surely come back again."  From the evidence
+which Quintus has heard in Jerusalem he has now fulfilled his
+prediction.  He has put to scorn the fidelity of the Roman
+sentinels at the tomb of Joseph; he has reversed the laws of
+nature; he has appeared again, in unique proof that there is to be
+a resurrection of the dead.  Wide is the difference between Cicero
+and the Christ.  The one has spoken a mere opinion, so beautiful in
+its phrase that it shall pass down into the future literature of
+men.  The other has spoken a revelation, and then has returned to
+prove that revelation true.  Which shall it be--Cicero or the
+Christ?
+
+But to accept the Jewish Teacher means earthly loss.  As he keeps
+guard with himself through the night hours Quintus is wondering if
+he shall incur the hostility of his father Marcus and shall be
+forced to sacrifice his estates on the Palatine.  He fancies also
+the grief of the fair Lucretia when she learns that he has chosen
+an alien faith.  And he remembers, further, that in the choice of
+the Christus he is joining a company on whom the Eastern world is
+already casting its withering contempt.  Cicero or the Christus.
+Which shall it be?
+
+
+There are no struggles like the night wrestlings of the soul in
+matters of religion.  What words can measure the divers arguments,
+the opposing considerations, the conflicting emotions that shape
+human choice?  Quintus stands at the point where soon--in the
+progress of the new faith--Saul from Tarsus, Clement of Rome, and
+so many more of the great spirits of that first era are to stand.
+The wrestlings of the night!  Then foul demons are abroad; and then
+God's good angels are descending the ladders of the sky.
+
+Soon comes a great moment.  While the soul of Quintus is in wild
+commotion, there falls upon him a mighty force which is not of
+earth.  Coming he knows not whence, but not invading the department
+of his will, it impels him to the Christ.  Transformed is this
+Roman knight, who has been taught the doctrines of the Latin cult,
+and whose nation can only feel disdain for a Galilaean who proposes
+to revolutionize the ages.  The words of the augur at Brundisium
+are having in truth a strange fulfillment.
+
+As if the Man were present on whom he had looked in the Porch of
+Solomon.  Quintus speaks his choice for the long eternities:
+
+"Happen what may, I take thee, O Christus, for my Lord and Master.
+I sacrifice my Roman knighthood for thee, if it shall be required.
+I choose thee, because thou hast risen from the dead and hast
+proven that there is another life for men."
+
+Not Cicero, but Christ!  The Roman knight has made the great
+decision.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE VISION OF THE RISEN CHRIST
+
+"After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at
+once."--_Paul_.
+
+
+Once for himself was Quintus to see the Lord, before his departure
+heavenward.  When midnight hours afterward came to him in Italy,
+the memory of that vision was golden.  When, among the temples of
+the gods in pagan Rome, men challenged his belief, his sufficient
+answer was: "With mine own eyes I have seen the risen Teacher who
+has revealed immortality to men."  So did the first disciples of
+the faith who bore its weightiest burdens, enjoy its highest
+privilege.
+
+It was the disciple John who told Quintus of the opportunity to see
+the risen Lord.  In an hour of fellowship at Jerusalem--when the
+knight had confessed his new allegiance--John spoke of the Master's
+wish.  The disciples who were in the city and its environs were to
+gather in Galilee with those from that upper district.  Once more
+would their Lord show himself to all who believed on him, and would
+speak with them.  Nor did Quintus ever cease to rejoice that he was
+reckoned worthy to look that day on the Conqueror of death.
+
+With light feet the Jerusalem company, some six score in number,
+made the journey north to Galilee.  One subject only was on their
+lips, as they followed the road through Samaria to Kurn Hattin,
+near the Sea of Tiberias.  Here the Lord at the opening of his
+mission had spoken his nine blessings to needy mortals; most
+fitting it now was that on this memorable hillside he should utter
+his farewell to those who had come to believe on him.  Thus would
+the circle of his teachings end where it had begun.  Bright was the
+picture.  The glint of the sunlight on the Galilaean sea so near at
+hand, with the uncounted flowers of the spring-time that covered
+the lower plains, lent a charm to the scene that Quintus remembered
+always.
+
+
+At the outset the Roman convert is impressed with the goodly number
+of those first disciples.  They are not twelve or six score, but
+many more.  They greet each other with the salutation, "Peace be to
+you," and then they rapturously add, "To-day we shall see our
+Lord."  In that intimacy which should always mark the followers of
+Christ, they give Quintus their welcome; and at once he feels
+himself among a congenial brotherhood.
+
+One is by name Nicodemus, a member of the Great Sanhedrin.  Another
+is one Bartimaeus, from southern Jericho, whose finger tips have
+been his eyes, till the Lord has healed his blindness.  A third has
+been a demoniac among the hills of the Gergesenes, and has been a
+wandering and truculent challenge to his times.  A woman is there
+from Jacob's well, with Salome and Susanna and the virgin mother
+herself.  They are from southern Bethlehem; they have come from the
+wild hills of Peraea, beyond the Jordan; many are from Galilee,
+where Christ has found so many devoted followers.  All these, as
+well as the immortal eleven who have composed the inner circle of
+the Master's associates.
+
+Two other peculiar disciples does Quintus see, both of whom have
+been raised from the dead.  Lazarus has come, who has so often
+welcomed the Lord to his home in Bethany; and with him are the
+sisters, of whom one has heard the Teacher say.  "Whosoever liveth
+and believeth in me shall never die."  The other is a young
+vineyard keeper from the neighboring village of Nain, whom Christ
+has restored.  His word to Quintus is:
+
+"Last year I sickened with a fever and passed through the door of
+death.  They were carrying me out for burial, and my widowed mother
+was weeping as one weeps who has lost her only son.  The Master
+halted the mourners, and called me back to earth.  I have never
+told of the wonders which I saw in the spirit world; it would not
+be lawful.  But I have been in the great spaces beyond the stars,
+and know that the tomb is only a resting place for a little sleep."
+
+"How many disciples are there here?" Quintus asks of the good John.
+To which question the other answers:
+
+"Over a half thousand.  It has been our Master's wish that every
+disciple of his throughout the land should come to this meeting
+place.  Unto all he would show himself once more, before he returns
+to the upper life.  So they shall have a glad memory of his face,
+and shall be strengthened in their coming tribulations by the hope
+of immortality."
+
+Then suddenly--the risen Lord has come!  The marvel of it!  The
+splendor of it!  While the five hundred are talking together, the
+air grows luminous with his presence.  Out of the invisible he
+appears.  As suddenly he comes as Aurora in her chariot drives up
+the eastern sky and brings in the shining day.  When the company
+have fallen on their faces and have adored their Master, in the
+hush that follows he gives them a great commission:
+
+"You are to go forth." he says, "and herald my gospel to the world.
+Let there be no laggards in your company.  It is a lifelong charge.
+There is a task for Petrus and Johannes, for Philippus and
+Mattheus, and for all.  You are to look for disciples everywhere.
+You are to proclaim the message of repentance.  You are to give
+them the waters of baptism, in the name of the God triune.  You are
+to declare to sad-hearted men the promise of eternal life, until I
+shall come again to take men to myself."
+
+That honorable commission!  It was in coming days to stir the souls
+of apostles and quicken the feet of missioners and fire with zeal
+earth's coming reformers.  Nor does Quintus forget that he too has
+his charge.   In the city on the Tiber is to be his task.  To his
+home circle, to priests in the temples of the gods, and even to the
+royal Tiberius he is to herald the gospel of the resurrection.  His
+vision of the risen Lord is the measure of his opportunity.
+
+Then the Master looks into his very face, and remembers him as the
+Roman knight he had seen in the Porch of Solomon.  The half
+thousand disciples on Kurn Hattin prostrate themselves to the
+earth; and in their acclaim the soldier joins his voice, "Rabboni!
+Rabboni!  Our great Master!"  Then departs the Christ, and back to
+their homes they go, evermore to comfort themselves with the vision
+of their risen Lord.
+
+
+Soon afterward their Rabboni goes from earth.  Out beyond the hill
+of Olivet he walks one day with his eleven.  In their last words
+together he reminds them again that they are to be his heralds to
+the eastern world.  A cloud gathers above their heads, like some
+halting chariot, and he is gone forever from human sight.  Yet only
+in the distance it seems a cloud.  For John afterward says to
+Quintus that it was in reality a phalanx of ten thousand angels,
+robed in whiteness and sent to convoy the Son of God to glory
+everlasting.
+
+With Quintus that visit to Kurn Hattin shaped all his future.  His
+Master's countenance had seemed to him more wonderful than any face
+which the gifted Phidias had ever carved in stone.  But never in
+after days could he worthily tell to Lucretia the vision he had
+seen.  Only in one poor sentence could he sum it up: "I have seen
+for myself the risen and ascending Lord."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+CHRIST'S WITNESSES AT ROME
+
+"A great multitude."--_Tacitus_.
+
+
+With jubilation Quintus sees again the shores of Italy rise over
+the Adriatic, and finds himself once more in his beloved Rome.  The
+center of magnificence and power it seems.  Alter clamorous public
+greetings in the Forum, there comes another welcome which happens
+only in a returning soldier's life.  In the palace of Marcus the
+kindred of Quintus are gathered, and Lucretia also is in the
+circle, to hear his great adventure.
+
+"How wonderful it seems," the knight begins: "so many times have
+your faces come to me in my dreams, but now I am fully awake and
+see them once again.  Hail to you all!  When I was sailing away
+from Brundisium, the augur foretold for me an unusual experience.
+In the Jewish life beyond the Sea I have learned much, if that were
+the fulfillment.  But, most of all, I have come back with a new
+religious faith.  In Judaea, as you must have heard, a certain
+Galilaean has called himself the Son of the one true God.  He has
+spoken of a future life for men; and he has now risen from the
+grave, after his torture on a cross, to prove his doctrine true.  I
+now believe in him, as the interpreter of the future life.
+Forevermore he is my High Priest, and not the great pontifex in the
+temple of your Jupiter."
+
+Brave words they are.  There in the great hall of Marcus, with the
+sunlight shining on the gorgeous palaces of the Caesars, the Temple
+of Apollo, and all else which crowns the Palatine, the noble
+Quintus confesses his new belief.  Come what will the consequences!
+
+Then, while they hear in amazement, he further says; "Most inviting
+is this new creed.  Our wise Roman scholars, as well as those in
+Greece, have only been guessers about the future life.  But the
+Christus speaks as one who has come from the heavens.  Those who
+keep his commandments are to dwell with him forevermore in eternal
+joy.  Everywhere through Judaea men are becoming his followers, and
+the wide world is to believe on him.  Perhaps you also, my
+cherished ones, will come to accept his teaching of the future
+life."
+
+So Quintus speaks, with his vibrant voice and with a strange light
+on his face.  Wonderingly they hear the tidings that he brings--the
+recital of the greatest happening that can ever befall a man.  Not
+deriding their valiant soldier, and not withholding their wealth of
+love from one who has come safely back to them, they watch the
+changes in his life.
+
+"I do not care," he says, "to loiter in the baths of Agrippa and to
+hear from the idlers there the gossip of the hour.  The
+gladiatorial struggles in the Circus Maximus and the comedies in
+the theaters have lost for me their relish.  For the civic rewards
+which Tiberius gives his favored ones I have no wish.  Senatorships
+and proconsulships are like the dust in the apothecaries' scales.
+I have seen the risen Lord!"
+
+Influential is such a life on the home group of Quintus.  With his
+pride of birth and his great properties, Marcus becomes a believer.
+A conversion it is which is the surprise of Rome.  The rare
+Lucretia, as well, receives the truth.  At times, before she has
+called herself a disciple, Quintus escorts her to the worship of
+the Roman Christians.  Their captivating speech, their holy love
+for one another, their rapturous faces move her deepest heart.
+Till, one day, when Quintus has been telling her of the womanhood
+in Judaea which the Christ has ennobled, she replies:
+
+"I believe it all, O Quintus.  Of late into my heart an untold
+peace has come.  All things are changed for me.  The sunlight is on
+the hills!"  It is her open confession.  Lucretia is thenceforth
+enrolled among the Roman saints of whom the world was not worthy,
+and who looked for the life to come.
+
+
+In the fellowship of the Roman church--already founded and rapidly
+enlarging--Quintus finds his pleasure.  A few are Jews from the
+ghetto beyond the Tiber, till the persecution of Claudius drives
+them forth.  More are of the varied nationalities met in that
+commercial and luxurious center.  Most are of plebeian blood.
+There are smiths and mechanics; there are stone cutters, workers in
+mosaics, and decorators.  There are slaves from the very palace of
+Tiberius.  There is Amon from Egypt, who sells his jewelry down in
+the Nova Via.  There is Polemon, the Grecian shopkeeper, in the
+Clivus Victoriae.  There is Onesimus, the servant of Philemon, from
+Colossae.  There are Amplias and Epaenetus and Stachys, the
+particular friends of the Gentile apostle.  There is, as well,
+Pomponia Graecina, that woman of noble blood, who accepts the
+Christ.  An ever-increasing company it is.
+
+In their assemblies, on the first day of the week, Quintus has his
+influential place.  He listens to the reading of the older
+Scriptures; he celebrates with the gathered company the eucharistic
+suppers and agapae; he keeps with them the Easter celebration, in
+memory of Him who shall give them eternal life.  In emblem of their
+faith the sign of the fish is on their evening lamps.  Theirs is a
+sterling citizenship.  The wanton metropolis of the Caesars is
+blessed immeasurably by the company of these who follow the risen
+Lord.
+
+It is after the midcentury that the great Paulus, having met with
+shipwreck on Melita, draws near to Rome.  Quintus leads the company
+that goes out southward forty miles, to welcome the Christian
+traveler.   At Appii Forum, that common town with its bargemen and
+its tavern keepers, they give the kiss of welcome to a little bent
+and gray-haired Jew, who shall go down into history as Christ's
+most illustrious apostle.  The faithful Luke is his companion.
+Along the famous highway of the Via Appia, where emperors and
+warriors, scholars and Oriental tradesmen have walked, Quintus
+escorts their guest.  Past the tombs of the Roman great, by
+uncounted statues, past suburban villas they go, until, through the
+Porta Appia, the holy prisoner, chained to a Roman guard, finds
+himself in the city of the Caesars.
+
+One rare privilege the Roman knight then envoys.  In his hired
+house, near the Pretorian camp, Paul speaks without interruption
+his words of grace.  The doctrines he had before written to the
+Roman church he now explains; the wish he had made to see them face
+to face now expresses itself in words of love.  The flood tides of
+his eloquence move resistlessly on, as he interprets the new faith
+and speaks of Him who is to give them eternal life.  Quintus is
+enriched by his frequent association with the peerless soul.  Nor
+did he have a prouder thing to say, in the days to come, than to
+declare, "I heard great Paulus tell of the life immortal."
+
+But how fares our knight when persecution comes?  Through the years
+he has been bravely declaring the Christian doctrine of the eternal
+life to priests in the temples, to Roman nobles, to all most
+hostile.  But his wealth and social standing, as well as the
+emperor's favor, now insure his safety.  His father Marcus has long
+since passed on, in hope of the heavenly life.  Having wedded the
+graceful Lucretia, when an apostle was in Rome to speak their
+nuptials, he has her efficient counsel in the testing times.
+
+"Look! look! Lucretia," he cries, one evening; "through the lower
+city the flames are running like unbridled horses.  There is danger
+that all Rome may go to ashes."
+
+For nine long days they watch the sweep of the lurid flames.  The
+light shines out like a signal torch, to mark an emperor's folly.
+Then the undeserved charge that they have lit the flames brings on
+the martyrdom of the Roman Christians.  Sometimes Quintus and
+Lucretia are able to soften the trials of the sufferers, by
+permission of the capricious Nero.  To old Chilo, the Grecian,
+before he meets his doom, they unfold the promise of eternal reward
+in the Father's house.  The hope of immortality they carry to those
+who go to the lions, at the emperor's whimsical command.  And the
+glorious company of martyrs passes singing to the skies, because of
+their consoling words.
+
+Down into the dungeon of the Mamertine they are permitted once to
+go, to visit Paulus.  But he needs not their consolation.  Rather
+he is the comforter.  With the poise of a conqueror he bids them
+not to mourn for him: he is going to the Lord in the unending life.
+Over their bowed heads he stretches his aged hands, in apostolic
+benediction.  Soon ends his imprisonment.  At _Tre Fontane_, in a
+few days more, his weary body rests; but his immortal spirit mounts
+beyond the stars.
+
+
+At last the Christian knight comes to the crossing.  The prediction
+of the augur at Brundisium has been strikingly fulfilled.  Matured
+in all the graces, he is like the ripened Chian clusters that await
+the vintager in the autumn days.  The friends of Quintus have gone
+before; as the old century wanes, the old man is to follow them.
+
+"My time has come to go," he says one day; "the portals of eternal
+life and joy I see swinging open wide.  I shall pass through the
+gates, because my ascended Lord has gone in before me to prepare my
+dwelling place.  With him as my Teacher I believe in the life
+immortal."
+
+
+In the Roman catacombs, those most remarkable testimonies to the
+eternal life, his resting place may be found.  The sign of the fish
+is on his stone.  Its time-eaten inscription is still legible,
+among the many which tell of the early Christian expectation and of
+all future Christian hope:
+
+
+"HERE RESTS THE DUST OF QUINTUS, OF NOBLE BLOOD; IN THE FAITH OF
+THE ASCENDED LORD HE HAS ENTERED UPON THE ETERNAL LIFE."
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12671 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12671 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12671)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Easter Disciple, by Arthur Benton Sanford
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: An Easter Disciple
+
+Author: Arthur Benton Sanford
+
+Release Date: June 21, 2004  [eBook #12671]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EASTER DISCIPLE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+AN EASTER DISCIPLE
+
+The Chronicle of Quintus, the Roman Knight
+
+By
+
+ARTHUR BENTON SANFORD
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORY OF ABSENT ONES
+
+WHO HAVE ENTERED INTO LIFE
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+      An Opening Word
+
+   I. A Roman Quest
+
+  II. In Solomon's Porch
+
+ III. Christ Himself the Witness to Immortality
+
+  IV. Cicero or Christ?
+
+   V. The Vision of the Risen Christ
+
+  VI. Christ's Witnesses at Rome
+
+
+
+
+AN OPENING WORD
+
+Many voices had been speaking of eternal life, before the days of
+the Son of man.  Especially pronounced had been the teachings of
+the Egyptians that there is another world.   In their Acadian hymns
+the Chaldaeans had dimly foretold a future life.  The belief of the
+Parsees, as expressed in their Zend-Avesta, had included a place of
+darkness for the evil soul and a reward for the good in the realm
+of light.  The Hindus had declared, in their Rig-Veda, their
+beautiful conception of the immortality of the soul, and had
+written of a future "imperishable world, where there is eternal
+light and glory."  The Grecian and Roman mythologies had voiced
+their hope of blessedness for the shades of the departed.
+Everywhere serious men had been asking as to the experiences beyond
+the grave.  It was as if the Eastern world had become a vast
+parliament chamber, wherein the nations were proclaiming their
+different doctrines as to a future life.
+
+In the midst of these varying and uncertain voices, Christ spoke
+his authoritative message.  There was no wavering in his tone.
+What the Oriental philosophers were guessing, he revealed; what the
+Hebrew prophets had foreshadowed in their holy writings, he
+unfolded in full light.  The ancient Vedic hymns, the oracles of
+Greece, the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, anticipating by two
+thousand years the Hebrew exodus--all these are naught compared
+with the words of that inspired Teacher who spoke in Palestine.
+
+In addition, Christ was himself the vital evidence of the
+resurrection which he taught.  Against the assaults of doubt his
+unique teachings are buttressed forevermore by his own return from
+the land of silence.  In a short week after his words to Martha at
+Bethany he had become, through his own rare experience, the
+resurrection and the life.  Not the dead Buddha, nor the departed
+Zoroaster, nor the vanished  Pythagoras  ever came back through the
+opened door of the sepulcher, wearing the grave clothes of those
+who sleep.  Human fancy had never dreamed of such a rapturous
+denouement for faiths other than Christianity.  The resurrection of
+the Lord is the crowning narrative with which the Gospels close.
+It is a risen Christ who repairs the wastage of human decay and
+death.  A voice above all those from Ind or Persia or the Nile
+speaks henceforth in Judaea and the world concerning immortality.
+The superlative Easter argument is the risen Christ himself.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A ROMAN QUEST
+
+"If one might only have a guide to the truth."--_Seneca_.
+
+
+On Scopus, the high mountain north of Jerusalem, the Roman camp was
+pitched, that last autumn in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  A
+few years further on, if the warriors of the Emperor Tiberius could
+then have foreseen the future, Titus was to quarter his famous
+legions on that vantage point; and from its elevation he was to
+hurl himself as a resistless battering ram against the Holy City.
+But, on this autumn day, when these chronicles begin, no blare of
+trumpets was summoning the Roman soldiery to arms; only the feet of
+the camp sentinels, as they walked their appointed rounds, broke
+the quiet of the sunlit afternoon.
+
+That lithesome, cultivated, serious-minded young knight, Quintus
+Cornelius Benignus, is standing on the height which overlooks the
+great metropolis.  He is the son of Marcus Cornelius Magnus, that
+Roman noble who is the intimate associate of the reigning Caesar,
+and who has been a luxurious resident on the Palatine Hill since
+his distinguished proconsulship in Africa.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+NOTE.--It is not from any time-marked Hebrew roll that this story
+of Quintus is now taken.  He was of Roman blood, and his record is,
+rather, to be found in the Latin literature of his time.  Well it
+is when some new leaf is discovered among the musty folios,
+reciting the saintly character and the triumphs of those who lived
+when Christianity was new.  This record shows the worth of
+consecrated life and service in the days when the luxurious Roman
+state most needed a Christian citizenship.  But the lesson is none
+the less for these last days, when the hope of the world is in the
+creed of Quintus.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+By the side of Quintus is his fellow soldier Aulus.  They had spent
+their boyhood together among the scenes of Rome; now they are
+companions still, on this last Roman expedition to the district of
+Judaea.  While the common soldiery are throwing their  dice  in
+the  camp thoroughfare, these are speaking of more serious things.
+The picture on which they look from lofty Scopus includes the
+shining roofs of Jerusalem, the wooded Mount of Olives, and the far
+landscape to the south and west; its undulations and brilliant
+colorings no Roman artist might put upon the canvas.
+
+With the autumn haze covering the extended panorama, Quintus says
+first to his comrade:
+
+"What the fates have in store for me, here in the city of
+Hierosolyma, I am much wondering.  The day before our trireme
+sailed from Brundisium for Tyrus I made a visit to the augur's
+tent.  His prediction was that my journey hither would be followed
+by strange consequences.  The flight of the birds through the air
+did not reveal to him just what was to occur; but that something
+eventful was to take place he was very sure.  What is to be my
+fortune?"
+
+"Your lot it may be," answers Aulus, "to perform some daring deed,
+here in our Jewish campaign; and on your return to Rome you may
+receive a great reward from the hand of Tiberius."
+
+"In my mind this has been," replies Quintus; "before I left Rome I
+had an audience with our divine Caesar, and he was pleased to say
+that my fidelity here might bring me special recompense.  Yet would
+that be satisfying?  I have seen the triumphal processions in the
+streets of Rome, when heroes have been acclaimed; I have heard our
+statesmen in the Senate hall, and prize the joys of oratory; I have
+been served all my days by slaves in my father's palace, and know
+the sweetness of the Falernian wine in the banquet room.  A
+proconsulate, if I might come to that dignity, would be a high
+honor to write in my life story.  But, my dear Aulus, would there
+be content in this?  My restless soul seems crying out for some
+better gift from the gods."
+
+"It cannot be," continues Aulus.  "that your heart's love is
+involved.  When our military movements bring the Roman knights to
+Palaestina, in their pride of birth they do not wed the black-eyed
+daughters of the Jews.  On your earlier expedition to Egypt you met
+a princess of the land, but were not let to espouse that swarthy
+maiden of the Nile.  The reward of love cannot be the experience of
+which the augur spoke at Brundisium."
+
+"Not so," says Quintus in response; "as I was leaving Rome, it was
+the beautiful Lucretia who sent me forth with her rare farewell.
+For my return from Palaestina she is now waiting; and under the
+blue skies of Italia we are to wed.  I have been wondering,"
+Quintus adds further, "if the augur, watching the flight of birds
+there at Brundisium.  could mean that I am to fall by death, here
+in Palaestina.  We have not come for battle, but to guard the
+peace.  Yet it is easy for Atropos, that cruel fate, to clip the
+slender thread of life and send men on to die land of shades.  If
+this was what the augur meant, no Roman in the days of Tiberius has
+ever set forth upon a more serious adventure."
+
+"You are given to melancholy, this autumn afternoon, my comrade
+Quintus," the other says; "you are feeling that sadness which comes
+to men when the Dryads move over the earth and touch the leaves
+into crimson and gold and brown."
+
+"Not so," answers Quintus; "but I am remembering that I have come
+into a land where a strange Teacher is speaking to men of a future
+life.  Yet are men to live again?  I have seen the marble tombs on
+the Appia Via where the Scipios, the Metelli, and so many more of
+our great Romans lie asleep.  Shall I soon follow them?  Is it an
+endless slumber?  What is it that the new Rabbi from Nazareth
+means, when in the city yonder he speaks of another life?"
+
+"A fig for your weird autumn fancy," responds Aulus; "down to the
+streets of Hierosolyma we will go, and among their novel sights we
+will forget your serious meditations."
+
+
+They walk that afternoon as sightseers through the crowded Jewish
+emporium.  The shops remind them, with all their contrasts, of the
+marts of Rome, for men always and everywhere have the trader's
+passion.  In the narrow streets of Jerusalem they see the stir of
+many activities.  The workman is hammering his brass; the shoemaker
+shapes his sandals; the flax spinner is winding his thread; the
+scribe sits on his mat, and is ready for his writing.  In the shops
+they see costly merchandise for sale--silks and jewels, fine linens
+and perfumes, delicious foods and drinks.  These have been imported
+from far Arabia and India; they have been brought from distant
+Persia and Media.  With all their variety, no taste, however
+fitful, need go unsatisfied.
+
+What a motley crowd is on the streets!  They hear the Aramaic
+speech of Palestine, which Quintus has been taught by his Athenian
+tutor, and their ears also catch the accents  of other  foreign
+tongues.  They meet traders from western Zidon, sailors from Crete,
+bearded Idumaeans from beyond Judaea, and scholars from far
+Alexandria.  Magnificent Jerusalem it is!  Yet destined soon to
+fall.  For the day draws near when the Roman Titus shall weep on
+Scopus over its fading splendors and then shall smite it to the
+dust.
+
+One purchase only does Quintus make.  In a shop where Egyptian
+wares are sold he says to Aulus:
+
+"Look on this scarab, this sacred beetle, which has been shaped by
+some workman down in Thebae on the Nile.  We may be sure that no
+people believes more intensely in a future life.  What compliment
+they pay this physical frame of men when they hold that embalmment
+restores to the soul its former body!  After the judgment of
+Osiris, if their lives be true, the worthy shall enjoy the
+companionship of the great god forever.  No other people wears such
+a visible emblem of their faith in another life.  I will buy this
+scarab for an amulet against accident and evil."
+
+
+But where had the workman gone who once had shaped that token of
+immortality?  Whither had vanished his carver's skill?  Where had
+disappeared his projects and his dreams?  Quintus is not thinking
+of any proconsulship he may win, or even of the love light in the
+eyes of Lucretia, as he climbs again the heights of Scopus.  Rather
+he is meditating on the departed maker of scarabs--and on the
+destiny of the soul.  For ages the philosophers have been
+speculating about the future life.  Familiar is Quintus with the
+views of Laelius and Seneca, among the Roman inquirers, and with
+the teachings of the great Grecians who have spoken in classic
+Athens.  But now the question leaps to the front.  Quintus is in
+the city where Ayran travelers and Persian magi and Egyptian
+priests are busy telling their theories of immortality.  He is in
+the very streets, besides, where a sandaled Teacher from Nazareth
+is declaring that the dead shall live again.  If but half is true
+that this strange Man is reputed to have said, no priest of Jupiter
+has ever uttered at Rome so luminous a word.  Can it be that
+Quintus himself shall see this Christus and hear his message?  If
+so, his will be in very truth a momentous quest.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN SOLOMON'S PORCH
+
+"Give me new consolation, great and strong, of which I nave never
+heard or read."--_Pliny_.
+
+
+With increasing frequency Christ was now speaking his prophecies of
+the life immortal.  In his earlier ministry he had been dwelling
+upon the presence of the divine kingdom in the earth, the practical
+conditions for membership therein, and the inclusion of Gentile as
+well as Jew in the gracious provision.  Novel were his words.
+Whoever had heard his discourse on the Mount or the parable of the
+lost sheep was rich beyond the modern sons of men.  But now, in the
+closing period of his stay with mortals, he was more frequently
+foretelling the life to come.  Like a footworn traveler drawing
+near the homeland, he was keenly anticipating his return to the
+spirit world.  Those who listened to him heard majestic intimations
+of a celestial country which eye had not beheld.  Nor is it to be
+thought that the Gospels, in their restricted pages, have recorded
+half his words concerning the heavenly land.
+
+Now comes the opportunity for Quintus himself to hear this new
+Teacher of the Jews.  A messenger from Pilate, sent on an errand to
+the headquarters at Scopus, brings the tidings that Christ is in
+Jerusalem as a visitor at the Feast of Dedication.  Favored are
+those who hear through the years the world's commanding voices;
+beyond estimate is the high privilege now granted Quintus.
+
+"I will hasten in to Hierosolyma," he says to Aulus, who is
+detained by camp duties; "I will hear him for myself; and I will
+bring you back report as to this latest prophet of immortality."
+
+
+With his soldier's cloak about him, in protection against the
+winter's chill, Quintus is away to Jerusalem.  The national Feast
+of Dedication attracts his notice.  A courteous Hebrew explains to
+him that the joyful festival commemorates the cleansing of the
+Temple after its profanation by Antiochus Epiphanes, two hundred
+years before.  The procession of pious Jews, carrying their palm
+branches and marching to the heights of Moriah, the chanting of the
+great Hallel within the imposing fane, the ascription of praise to
+Jehovah all impress the keen-eyed soldier.
+
+The enthusiasm of it all!  Though of other blood, Quintus clearly
+feels the thrill of patriotism that stirs the multitude about him;
+and he understands in some measure their impatient waiting for the
+coming prince who shall deliver Israel.
+
+
+But is this all?  Instead it is only the beginning of the wonders
+which the serious Quintus is to witness.  Forth he passes to the
+eastern cloister of the Temple, known then among the Jews as
+Solomon's Porch, in memory of their illustrious king.  The
+bystanders tell Quintus that it is built of a fragment of the first
+Temple which Nebuchadnezzar had left standing.  As the soldier
+looks down the far-reaching aisle, he sees a quadruple row of white
+Corinthian columns, one hundred and sixty in number, and extending
+a length of many hundred feet.  The vista is most amazing.
+Accustomed though he has been all his days to the magnificence of
+the Roman architecture, he yields in willing admiration to the
+splendors of the Solomonic porch.
+
+Then--he sees the Christ!  Walking through that forest of massive
+columns is the superlative Jew of his times, and of all times.  For
+now--when the voices of that winter day are still, and Solomon's
+Porch has vanished where stood those blessed feet--there is no
+earthly measurement by which to estimate the Man whom Quintus saw.
+
+
+Among the throng that surround him hostile Pharisees challenge him
+to tell them plainly if he be the foretold Messiah.  With impatient
+hearts they have waited long for their redemption.  Let him say if
+their deliverer has now come.  Then shall they throw off the yoke
+of the detested Roman rule and renew their ancient monarchy with
+enlarging influence and increasing splendors.
+
+Memorable words in answer does Quintus hear.  The Stranger  puts
+aside  the thought of the Jewish struggle for an earthly throne,
+and turns in his fancy to the quiet pastures where feed the flocks.
+He is a guardian Shepherd; Israel and all the world besides are his
+cherished sheep.  Those who are truly his shall hear his guiding
+voice, and shall follow him.  They shall never perish.  From the
+hand of the Shepherd no vandal shall steal his own away.  How the
+words thrill!  Sometimes Quintus has seen in the Judaean pastures
+the keeper with his flocks, and knows how unchanging is his
+fidelity.  It is as if this watcher in his devotion is anticipating
+the faithfulness of the greater Shepherd.  How entrancing is the
+lesson to this seeking soldier from beyond the Adriatic!
+
+Then does the Christ add another word more surprising than the
+rest.  To men who are his sheep he makes a promise that compasses
+the furthest limit of the eternities.  Of such he says: "Unto those
+who follow me I will give the Life of the Ages.  Beyond the tomb
+they are to live on forevermore."  Nor to the Jews alone, amid the
+maze of those Corinthian columns, does the coming Shepherd speak.
+The listening Roman soldier, wearing the armor of the empire on the
+Tiber, comes within the circle of his promise.  Into the face of
+Quintus he looks and benignly says: "There are other sheep not of
+the Jewish pasture, to whom I shall give this unending life.  I
+covet your great empire as my own.  O soldier of the Caesars,
+follow after me!"
+
+
+Back to the camp on Scopus the soldier goes, moved to his deepest
+soul.  Impossible it seems to longer worship the Roman gods.  When
+he has described to Aulus the Feast of Dedication, he repeats the
+words he has heard in the Temple cloister, and says in deepest
+seriousness:
+
+"Most unearthly is the Man on whom I have looked to-day.  In his
+speech a divine patience, kindness, and dignity combine.  As for
+the words he spoke, I cannot tell their moving power.  The sayings
+of our noblest Romans are feeble in the comparison.  Never have I
+heard another speak as he has done about a future world.  Truly, an
+unequaled Man is this new Teacher who is abroad in Judaea."
+
+Sleep is of little consequence that night.  Is the word of the
+augur at Brundisium beginning to be fulfilled?  In his tent Quintus
+is wondering through the long hours if, among his people on the
+Tiber, the Shepherd shall not find some sheep to whom he will give
+the unending life.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+CHRIST HIMSELF THE WITNESS TO IMMORTALITY
+
+"He appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine
+prophets had foretold."--_Josephus_.
+
+
+How often have men missed the sight of great historic occurrences,
+in their attention to the routine of life!  So it was that Quintus
+did not witness the tragic events of that Passover week on which
+human destiny was to turn.  To Tyre on the Great Sea he had gone,
+to arrange for the landing of a new quota of troops from
+Brundisium.  The commander at Scopus had chosen him for the
+responsible mission, in token of his especial fitness.  The
+compliment was pleasing.  But in his absence he was ever thinking
+of the promise made by the Teacher in Solomon's Porch, that the
+sheep who followed him should have eternal life.
+
+Astir was all Jerusalem, when the knight returned to Scopus.  It
+was on the morning after the Lord's resurrection.  That Roman
+centurion who had been at Calvary reviewed for Quintus the fateful
+happenings.  With pomp reminding of a Roman triumph the Christ had
+entered David's city; after four days Iscariot had betrayed him
+with a kiss; for blasphemy Pilatus, the procurator, had sentenced
+him to the cross; they had put on him a scarlet robe in mockery;
+they had hung him between two robbers on the hill of Golgotha; a
+brutal soldier now at Scopus had won by lot his seamless robe, and
+was jauntily displaying it as a trophy; an uncanny darkness had
+covered the Judaean sky; the soldier Longinus had pierced the
+sufferer's side; they had buried the dead Christ in the garden tomb
+of the Arimathaean Joseph.  Monumental events were these--all new
+to Quintus, but destined to be written indelibly in the calendars
+of Christendom.
+
+"More than this," continues the centurion, "an amazing rumor is now
+abroad in the city that yesterday the dead Christus awoke from his
+sleep and has been five times seen by his amazed disciples.  When I
+beheld him yield up the ghost, I hailed his death as that of a
+devout man, but little did I think that he was a God and would
+return from the tomb.  The report says he has now come back.  On
+swift wing the rumor has flown through Jerusalem and even into
+Pilate's palace."
+
+
+Down from the heights of Scopus the hurrying feet of Quintus carry
+him to Jerusalem.  Doubts and wonderings and half-beliefs fill his
+mind.  What if by any shadow of possibility the prediction of the
+strange Teacher has been fulfilled, that he should return from the
+dead on the third day?  Finding his way to Joseph's garden, Quintus
+stands by an empty sepulcher.  There is a group of wondering
+visitors near, and among them is one whose inviting face leads
+Quintus to accost him.  Not frightened by the sword and armor of
+the Roman knight, but assured by his candid look, the other answers
+in the Aramaic which both can speak:
+
+"Johannes is my name.  Till three years ago I was a fisherman, up
+on the waters of Gennesaret.  Since then I have been a disciple of
+this Man from Galilee.  In his company I have heard surprising
+words and have felt a heavenly influence.  He was no ordinary
+Teacher.  He was indeed from above."
+
+"Is it true," asks Quintus in breathless words, "that your Master
+has risen from the grave?  I have been away in Tyrus.  Now in the
+Roman camp on Scopus I have heard that he has come forth from the
+sepulcher.  What means such a marvelous report?"
+
+"Yes, it is all true," John answers with his face aglow; "this is
+the very sepulcher where our Lord was laid.  Your own sentries kept
+guard before the tomb securely sealed.  But on the morning of
+yesterday there was a shaking of the earth; some angelic visitants
+rolled away the stone door of the grave; and our immortal Christus
+came forth again.
+
+"Astounding," Quintus interrupts in a whirl of words; "but did he
+make any promise of another life for men, before he was put to
+death?"
+
+"He truly did," replies the disciple; "when we had eaten the
+Passover supper with him, he spoke a word more marvelous than any
+of your Roman teachers has ever uttered.  Into the spirit world he
+said he was departing, to make ready a room in the Father's ample
+house for those who were his own; and on his return he would take
+them to be with himself.  Ever since our sad-hearted band have been
+comforting themselves with this last promise in the upper room."
+
+"None of our Roman gods has ever promised such a future." responds
+Quintus; "but is this all?"
+
+"No," answers the disciple; "on his cross our Christus spoke again
+about another experience for men.  By his side was Dysmas, the
+crucified robber, grieving for his faults and asking comfort.  When
+the cross pain and thirst were over, our Lord replied, the outlaw
+should walk with him among the bowers of the beautiful Paradise
+beyond this world's horizon.  It was enough.  In this consolation
+the tortured Dysmas passed on, with a smile of peace upon his face."
+
+"Have you more wonders to tell?" presses Quintus, in his eagerness,
+while the story of the cross begins to compel his judgment and call
+for his heart's surrender.
+
+Then, the consummation!  In ecstatic words John tells of the one
+final and overmastering proof, in the thought of the eleven
+disciples;
+
+"Greatest of all, we have ourselves seen our Friend again.  Five
+times already has he showed himself.  First, Mary of Magdala saw
+him under the trees of the garden, and spoke with him; then the
+other women met him and fell at his feet; next our fellow disciple
+Petros saw him; then two of our band walked with him to outlying
+Emmaus, and knew him as he broke bread at the journey's end; and
+then last evening, he came to ten of us in the Passover room and
+spoke his peace on us.
+
+"Perhaps you have all seen a spectral form which has no real
+existence," remonstrates Quintus, while all the time he is yielding
+himself to the compelling story.
+
+"It cannot be," responds the convincing John; "there have been too
+many witnesses for that.  We have seen the very wound made by the
+spear of Longinus; we have heard his familiar voice; we have
+received his blessing.  Our number is our evidence; it cannot be
+possible that all of us have been deceived.  It is surely he, O
+Roman soldier, unless the senses of the women and of ten honest men
+are far astray.  No other teacher of the East has ever come back
+from the sepulcher.  Look and see for yourself.  Yonder is Joseph's
+empty tomb.  The Christus is himself the evidence."
+
+
+What can Quintus do, in the face of such proof as this?  He returns
+to Scopus in wildest tumult.  Little does he say to Aulus, his
+chosen friend.  The company of Longinus or the centurion he does
+not seek.  The time has come--as it comes to all--when he must
+commune with himself, and make the decision confronting every soul
+that has heard the resurrection story.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+CICERO OR CHRIST?
+
+"The name of Jesus can still remove distractions from the minds of
+men."--_Origen_.
+
+
+Shall men believe in a future life because of Christ's return from
+the grave?  Is his established resurrection at Jerusalem the
+climacteric proof for immortality?  The problem is inescapable.
+Every man is himself a judge; before every man the accumulated
+evidence passes; for every man it is doomsday when he stands at the
+point of decision.
+
+In his sore perplexity Quintus says to himself that night, when he
+has returned from his interview with the disciple John: "My soul is
+like a traveler who halts at the point where two roads meet.  Great
+issues depend upon his choice.  But while he hesitates may the
+immortals, who watch over the destinies of men, guide his feet
+aright."
+
+Clearly defined are the alternatives before the Roman soldier.  On
+the one hand are his ancestral beliefs, long established and deeply
+cherished by the nation.  Nor does any man quickly toss aside the
+faith of his fathers.  If belief is waning in the primitive
+mythologies, and if the social life of the Empire is moved by
+unrest and despair, the problem is to find a greater satisfaction.
+There have been spoken many beautiful words by the Roman scholars
+which are sweet premonitions of immortality.  Does not Quintus
+remember that Cicero likens to heaven a port prepared, and prays
+that he may sail thither with full-spread sails?  And if the gifted
+Cicero has just gone tragically out of life, let it be hoped that
+he has reached the harbor.
+
+But on the other hand are the challenging and captivating words of
+Christ.  Had he only spoken of the future life as an enthusiastic
+Teacher, and then had passed to the perpetual slumber of the grave
+like other philosophers of the time, he would be remembered long.
+But, when he had spoken his words concerning immortality, he had
+added, "I myself shall surely come back again."  From the evidence
+which Quintus has heard in Jerusalem he has now fulfilled his
+prediction.  He has put to scorn the fidelity of the Roman
+sentinels at the tomb of Joseph; he has reversed the laws of
+nature; he has appeared again, in unique proof that there is to be
+a resurrection of the dead.  Wide is the difference between Cicero
+and the Christ.  The one has spoken a mere opinion, so beautiful in
+its phrase that it shall pass down into the future literature of
+men.  The other has spoken a revelation, and then has returned to
+prove that revelation true.  Which shall it be--Cicero or the
+Christ?
+
+But to accept the Jewish Teacher means earthly loss.  As he keeps
+guard with himself through the night hours Quintus is wondering if
+he shall incur the hostility of his father Marcus and shall be
+forced to sacrifice his estates on the Palatine.  He fancies also
+the grief of the fair Lucretia when she learns that he has chosen
+an alien faith.  And he remembers, further, that in the choice of
+the Christus he is joining a company on whom the Eastern world is
+already casting its withering contempt.  Cicero or the Christus.
+Which shall it be?
+
+
+There are no struggles like the night wrestlings of the soul in
+matters of religion.  What words can measure the divers arguments,
+the opposing considerations, the conflicting emotions that shape
+human choice?  Quintus stands at the point where soon--in the
+progress of the new faith--Saul from Tarsus, Clement of Rome, and
+so many more of the great spirits of that first era are to stand.
+The wrestlings of the night!  Then foul demons are abroad; and then
+God's good angels are descending the ladders of the sky.
+
+Soon comes a great moment.  While the soul of Quintus is in wild
+commotion, there falls upon him a mighty force which is not of
+earth.  Coming he knows not whence, but not invading the department
+of his will, it impels him to the Christ.  Transformed is this
+Roman knight, who has been taught the doctrines of the Latin cult,
+and whose nation can only feel disdain for a Galilaean who proposes
+to revolutionize the ages.  The words of the augur at Brundisium
+are having in truth a strange fulfillment.
+
+As if the Man were present on whom he had looked in the Porch of
+Solomon.  Quintus speaks his choice for the long eternities:
+
+"Happen what may, I take thee, O Christus, for my Lord and Master.
+I sacrifice my Roman knighthood for thee, if it shall be required.
+I choose thee, because thou hast risen from the dead and hast
+proven that there is another life for men."
+
+Not Cicero, but Christ!  The Roman knight has made the great
+decision.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE VISION OF THE RISEN CHRIST
+
+"After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at
+once."--_Paul_.
+
+
+Once for himself was Quintus to see the Lord, before his departure
+heavenward.  When midnight hours afterward came to him in Italy,
+the memory of that vision was golden.  When, among the temples of
+the gods in pagan Rome, men challenged his belief, his sufficient
+answer was: "With mine own eyes I have seen the risen Teacher who
+has revealed immortality to men."  So did the first disciples of
+the faith who bore its weightiest burdens, enjoy its highest
+privilege.
+
+It was the disciple John who told Quintus of the opportunity to see
+the risen Lord.  In an hour of fellowship at Jerusalem--when the
+knight had confessed his new allegiance--John spoke of the Master's
+wish.  The disciples who were in the city and its environs were to
+gather in Galilee with those from that upper district.  Once more
+would their Lord show himself to all who believed on him, and would
+speak with them.  Nor did Quintus ever cease to rejoice that he was
+reckoned worthy to look that day on the Conqueror of death.
+
+With light feet the Jerusalem company, some six score in number,
+made the journey north to Galilee.  One subject only was on their
+lips, as they followed the road through Samaria to Kurn Hattin,
+near the Sea of Tiberias.  Here the Lord at the opening of his
+mission had spoken his nine blessings to needy mortals; most
+fitting it now was that on this memorable hillside he should utter
+his farewell to those who had come to believe on him.  Thus would
+the circle of his teachings end where it had begun.  Bright was the
+picture.  The glint of the sunlight on the Galilaean sea so near at
+hand, with the uncounted flowers of the spring-time that covered
+the lower plains, lent a charm to the scene that Quintus remembered
+always.
+
+
+At the outset the Roman convert is impressed with the goodly number
+of those first disciples.  They are not twelve or six score, but
+many more.  They greet each other with the salutation, "Peace be to
+you," and then they rapturously add, "To-day we shall see our
+Lord."  In that intimacy which should always mark the followers of
+Christ, they give Quintus their welcome; and at once he feels
+himself among a congenial brotherhood.
+
+One is by name Nicodemus, a member of the Great Sanhedrin.  Another
+is one Bartimaeus, from southern Jericho, whose finger tips have
+been his eyes, till the Lord has healed his blindness.  A third has
+been a demoniac among the hills of the Gergesenes, and has been a
+wandering and truculent challenge to his times.  A woman is there
+from Jacob's well, with Salome and Susanna and the virgin mother
+herself.  They are from southern Bethlehem; they have come from the
+wild hills of Peraea, beyond the Jordan; many are from Galilee,
+where Christ has found so many devoted followers.  All these, as
+well as the immortal eleven who have composed the inner circle of
+the Master's associates.
+
+Two other peculiar disciples does Quintus see, both of whom have
+been raised from the dead.  Lazarus has come, who has so often
+welcomed the Lord to his home in Bethany; and with him are the
+sisters, of whom one has heard the Teacher say.  "Whosoever liveth
+and believeth in me shall never die."  The other is a young
+vineyard keeper from the neighboring village of Nain, whom Christ
+has restored.  His word to Quintus is:
+
+"Last year I sickened with a fever and passed through the door of
+death.  They were carrying me out for burial, and my widowed mother
+was weeping as one weeps who has lost her only son.  The Master
+halted the mourners, and called me back to earth.  I have never
+told of the wonders which I saw in the spirit world; it would not
+be lawful.  But I have been in the great spaces beyond the stars,
+and know that the tomb is only a resting place for a little sleep."
+
+"How many disciples are there here?" Quintus asks of the good John.
+To which question the other answers:
+
+"Over a half thousand.  It has been our Master's wish that every
+disciple of his throughout the land should come to this meeting
+place.  Unto all he would show himself once more, before he returns
+to the upper life.  So they shall have a glad memory of his face,
+and shall be strengthened in their coming tribulations by the hope
+of immortality."
+
+Then suddenly--the risen Lord has come!  The marvel of it!  The
+splendor of it!  While the five hundred are talking together, the
+air grows luminous with his presence.  Out of the invisible he
+appears.  As suddenly he comes as Aurora in her chariot drives up
+the eastern sky and brings in the shining day.  When the company
+have fallen on their faces and have adored their Master, in the
+hush that follows he gives them a great commission:
+
+"You are to go forth." he says, "and herald my gospel to the world.
+Let there be no laggards in your company.  It is a lifelong charge.
+There is a task for Petrus and Johannes, for Philippus and
+Mattheus, and for all.  You are to look for disciples everywhere.
+You are to proclaim the message of repentance.  You are to give
+them the waters of baptism, in the name of the God triune.  You are
+to declare to sad-hearted men the promise of eternal life, until I
+shall come again to take men to myself."
+
+That honorable commission!  It was in coming days to stir the souls
+of apostles and quicken the feet of missioners and fire with zeal
+earth's coming reformers.  Nor does Quintus forget that he too has
+his charge.   In the city on the Tiber is to be his task.  To his
+home circle, to priests in the temples of the gods, and even to the
+royal Tiberius he is to herald the gospel of the resurrection.  His
+vision of the risen Lord is the measure of his opportunity.
+
+Then the Master looks into his very face, and remembers him as the
+Roman knight he had seen in the Porch of Solomon.  The half
+thousand disciples on Kurn Hattin prostrate themselves to the
+earth; and in their acclaim the soldier joins his voice, "Rabboni!
+Rabboni!  Our great Master!"  Then departs the Christ, and back to
+their homes they go, evermore to comfort themselves with the vision
+of their risen Lord.
+
+
+Soon afterward their Rabboni goes from earth.  Out beyond the hill
+of Olivet he walks one day with his eleven.  In their last words
+together he reminds them again that they are to be his heralds to
+the eastern world.  A cloud gathers above their heads, like some
+halting chariot, and he is gone forever from human sight.  Yet only
+in the distance it seems a cloud.  For John afterward says to
+Quintus that it was in reality a phalanx of ten thousand angels,
+robed in whiteness and sent to convoy the Son of God to glory
+everlasting.
+
+With Quintus that visit to Kurn Hattin shaped all his future.  His
+Master's countenance had seemed to him more wonderful than any face
+which the gifted Phidias had ever carved in stone.  But never in
+after days could he worthily tell to Lucretia the vision he had
+seen.  Only in one poor sentence could he sum it up: "I have seen
+for myself the risen and ascending Lord."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+CHRIST'S WITNESSES AT ROME
+
+"A great multitude."--_Tacitus_.
+
+
+With jubilation Quintus sees again the shores of Italy rise over
+the Adriatic, and finds himself once more in his beloved Rome.  The
+center of magnificence and power it seems.  Alter clamorous public
+greetings in the Forum, there comes another welcome which happens
+only in a returning soldier's life.  In the palace of Marcus the
+kindred of Quintus are gathered, and Lucretia also is in the
+circle, to hear his great adventure.
+
+"How wonderful it seems," the knight begins: "so many times have
+your faces come to me in my dreams, but now I am fully awake and
+see them once again.  Hail to you all!  When I was sailing away
+from Brundisium, the augur foretold for me an unusual experience.
+In the Jewish life beyond the Sea I have learned much, if that were
+the fulfillment.  But, most of all, I have come back with a new
+religious faith.  In Judaea, as you must have heard, a certain
+Galilaean has called himself the Son of the one true God.  He has
+spoken of a future life for men; and he has now risen from the
+grave, after his torture on a cross, to prove his doctrine true.  I
+now believe in him, as the interpreter of the future life.
+Forevermore he is my High Priest, and not the great pontifex in the
+temple of your Jupiter."
+
+Brave words they are.  There in the great hall of Marcus, with the
+sunlight shining on the gorgeous palaces of the Caesars, the Temple
+of Apollo, and all else which crowns the Palatine, the noble
+Quintus confesses his new belief.  Come what will the consequences!
+
+Then, while they hear in amazement, he further says; "Most inviting
+is this new creed.  Our wise Roman scholars, as well as those in
+Greece, have only been guessers about the future life.  But the
+Christus speaks as one who has come from the heavens.  Those who
+keep his commandments are to dwell with him forevermore in eternal
+joy.  Everywhere through Judaea men are becoming his followers, and
+the wide world is to believe on him.  Perhaps you also, my
+cherished ones, will come to accept his teaching of the future
+life."
+
+So Quintus speaks, with his vibrant voice and with a strange light
+on his face.  Wonderingly they hear the tidings that he brings--the
+recital of the greatest happening that can ever befall a man.  Not
+deriding their valiant soldier, and not withholding their wealth of
+love from one who has come safely back to them, they watch the
+changes in his life.
+
+"I do not care," he says, "to loiter in the baths of Agrippa and to
+hear from the idlers there the gossip of the hour.  The
+gladiatorial struggles in the Circus Maximus and the comedies in
+the theaters have lost for me their relish.  For the civic rewards
+which Tiberius gives his favored ones I have no wish.  Senatorships
+and proconsulships are like the dust in the apothecaries' scales.
+I have seen the risen Lord!"
+
+Influential is such a life on the home group of Quintus.  With his
+pride of birth and his great properties, Marcus becomes a believer.
+A conversion it is which is the surprise of Rome.  The rare
+Lucretia, as well, receives the truth.  At times, before she has
+called herself a disciple, Quintus escorts her to the worship of
+the Roman Christians.  Their captivating speech, their holy love
+for one another, their rapturous faces move her deepest heart.
+Till, one day, when Quintus has been telling her of the womanhood
+in Judaea which the Christ has ennobled, she replies:
+
+"I believe it all, O Quintus.  Of late into my heart an untold
+peace has come.  All things are changed for me.  The sunlight is on
+the hills!"  It is her open confession.  Lucretia is thenceforth
+enrolled among the Roman saints of whom the world was not worthy,
+and who looked for the life to come.
+
+
+In the fellowship of the Roman church--already founded and rapidly
+enlarging--Quintus finds his pleasure.  A few are Jews from the
+ghetto beyond the Tiber, till the persecution of Claudius drives
+them forth.  More are of the varied nationalities met in that
+commercial and luxurious center.  Most are of plebeian blood.
+There are smiths and mechanics; there are stone cutters, workers in
+mosaics, and decorators.  There are slaves from the very palace of
+Tiberius.  There is Amon from Egypt, who sells his jewelry down in
+the Nova Via.  There is Polemon, the Grecian shopkeeper, in the
+Clivus Victoriae.  There is Onesimus, the servant of Philemon, from
+Colossae.  There are Amplias and Epaenetus and Stachys, the
+particular friends of the Gentile apostle.  There is, as well,
+Pomponia Graecina, that woman of noble blood, who accepts the
+Christ.  An ever-increasing company it is.
+
+In their assemblies, on the first day of the week, Quintus has his
+influential place.  He listens to the reading of the older
+Scriptures; he celebrates with the gathered company the eucharistic
+suppers and agapae; he keeps with them the Easter celebration, in
+memory of Him who shall give them eternal life.  In emblem of their
+faith the sign of the fish is on their evening lamps.  Theirs is a
+sterling citizenship.  The wanton metropolis of the Caesars is
+blessed immeasurably by the company of these who follow the risen
+Lord.
+
+It is after the midcentury that the great Paulus, having met with
+shipwreck on Melita, draws near to Rome.  Quintus leads the company
+that goes out southward forty miles, to welcome the Christian
+traveler.   At Appii Forum, that common town with its bargemen and
+its tavern keepers, they give the kiss of welcome to a little bent
+and gray-haired Jew, who shall go down into history as Christ's
+most illustrious apostle.  The faithful Luke is his companion.
+Along the famous highway of the Via Appia, where emperors and
+warriors, scholars and Oriental tradesmen have walked, Quintus
+escorts their guest.  Past the tombs of the Roman great, by
+uncounted statues, past suburban villas they go, until, through the
+Porta Appia, the holy prisoner, chained to a Roman guard, finds
+himself in the city of the Caesars.
+
+One rare privilege the Roman knight then envoys.  In his hired
+house, near the Pretorian camp, Paul speaks without interruption
+his words of grace.  The doctrines he had before written to the
+Roman church he now explains; the wish he had made to see them face
+to face now expresses itself in words of love.  The flood tides of
+his eloquence move resistlessly on, as he interprets the new faith
+and speaks of Him who is to give them eternal life.  Quintus is
+enriched by his frequent association with the peerless soul.  Nor
+did he have a prouder thing to say, in the days to come, than to
+declare, "I heard great Paulus tell of the life immortal."
+
+But how fares our knight when persecution comes?  Through the years
+he has been bravely declaring the Christian doctrine of the eternal
+life to priests in the temples, to Roman nobles, to all most
+hostile.  But his wealth and social standing, as well as the
+emperor's favor, now insure his safety.  His father Marcus has long
+since passed on, in hope of the heavenly life.  Having wedded the
+graceful Lucretia, when an apostle was in Rome to speak their
+nuptials, he has her efficient counsel in the testing times.
+
+"Look! look! Lucretia," he cries, one evening; "through the lower
+city the flames are running like unbridled horses.  There is danger
+that all Rome may go to ashes."
+
+For nine long days they watch the sweep of the lurid flames.  The
+light shines out like a signal torch, to mark an emperor's folly.
+Then the undeserved charge that they have lit the flames brings on
+the martyrdom of the Roman Christians.  Sometimes Quintus and
+Lucretia are able to soften the trials of the sufferers, by
+permission of the capricious Nero.  To old Chilo, the Grecian,
+before he meets his doom, they unfold the promise of eternal reward
+in the Father's house.  The hope of immortality they carry to those
+who go to the lions, at the emperor's whimsical command.  And the
+glorious company of martyrs passes singing to the skies, because of
+their consoling words.
+
+Down into the dungeon of the Mamertine they are permitted once to
+go, to visit Paulus.  But he needs not their consolation.  Rather
+he is the comforter.  With the poise of a conqueror he bids them
+not to mourn for him: he is going to the Lord in the unending life.
+Over their bowed heads he stretches his aged hands, in apostolic
+benediction.  Soon ends his imprisonment.  At _Tre Fontane_, in a
+few days more, his weary body rests; but his immortal spirit mounts
+beyond the stars.
+
+
+At last the Christian knight comes to the crossing.  The prediction
+of the augur at Brundisium has been strikingly fulfilled.  Matured
+in all the graces, he is like the ripened Chian clusters that await
+the vintager in the autumn days.  The friends of Quintus have gone
+before; as the old century wanes, the old man is to follow them.
+
+"My time has come to go," he says one day; "the portals of eternal
+life and joy I see swinging open wide.  I shall pass through the
+gates, because my ascended Lord has gone in before me to prepare my
+dwelling place.  With him as my Teacher I believe in the life
+immortal."
+
+
+In the Roman catacombs, those most remarkable testimonies to the
+eternal life, his resting place may be found.  The sign of the fish
+is on his stone.  Its time-eaten inscription is still legible,
+among the many which tell of the early Christian expectation and of
+all future Christian hope:
+
+
+"HERE RESTS THE DUST OF QUINTUS, OF NOBLE BLOOD; IN THE FAITH OF
+THE ASCENDED LORD HE HAS ENTERED UPON THE ETERNAL LIFE."
+
+
+
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