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+Project Gutenberg’s Callista by John Henry Cardinal Newman
+
+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: Callista
+
+Author: John Henry Cardinal Newman
+
+Release Date: December 13, 2009 [Ebook #30664]
+Last Updated: June 25, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALLISTA ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CALLISTA
+
+                      A TALE OF THE THIRD CENTURY
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                        JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN
+
+
+            “Love thy God, and love Him only,
+            And thy breast will ne’er be lonely.
+            In that One Great Spirit meet
+            All things mighty, grave, and sweet.
+            Vainly strives the soul to mingle
+            With a being of our kind;
+            Vainly hearts with hearts are twined:
+            For the deepest still is single.
+            An impalpable resistance
+            Holds like natures still at distance.
+            Mortal: love that Holy One,
+              Or dwell for aye alone.”
+                          DE VERE
+
+
+_NEW IMPRESSION_
+
+
+LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
+NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
+1904
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   _To_
+
+                       _HENRY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE._
+
+_To you alone, who have known me so long, and who love me so well, could I
+venture to offer a trifle like this. But you will recognise the author in
+his work, and take pleasure in the recognition._
+
+                                                                _J. H. N._
+
+
+
+
+
+                              ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+
+
+It is hardly necessary to say that the following Tale is a simple fiction
+from beginning to end. It has little in it of actual history, and not much
+claim to antiquarian research; yet it has required more reading than may
+appear at first sight.
+
+It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view,
+the feelings and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period
+to which it belongs, and it has been undertaken as the nearest approach
+which the Author could make to a more important work suggested to him from
+a high ecclesiastical quarter.
+
+_September 13, 1855._
+
+
+
+
+                      POSTSCRIPTS TO LATER EDITIONS.
+
+
+_February 8, 1856._—Since the volume has been in print, the Author finds
+that his name has got abroad. This gives him reason to add, that he wrote
+great part of Chapters I., IV., and V., and sketched the character and
+fortunes of Juba, in the early spring of 1848. He did no more till the end
+of last July, when he suddenly resumed the thread of his tale, and has
+been successful so far as this, that he has brought it to an end.
+
+Without being able to lay his finger upon instances in point, he has some
+misgiving lest, from a confusion between ancient histories and modern
+travels, there should be inaccuracies, antiquarian or geographical, in
+certain of his minor statements, which carry with them authority when they
+cease to be anonymous.
+
+
+
+_February 2, 1881.—October, 1888._—In a tale such as this, which professes
+in the very first sentence of its Advertisement to be simple fiction from
+beginning to end, details may be allowably filled up by the writer’s
+imagination and coloured by his personal opinions and beliefs, the only
+rule binding on him being this—that he has no right to contravene
+acknowledged historical facts. Thus it is that Walter Scott exercises a
+poet’s licence in drawing his Queen Elizabeth and his Claverhouse, and the
+author of “Romola” has no misgivings in even imputing hypothetical motives
+and intentions to Savonarola. Who, again, would quarrel with Mr. Lockhart,
+writing in Scotland, for excluding Pope, or Bishops, or sacrificial rites
+from his interesting Tale of Valerius?
+
+Such was the understanding, as to what I might do and what I might not,
+with which I wrote this story; and to make it clearer, I added in the
+later editions of this Advertisement, that it was written “from a Catholic
+point of view;” while in the earlier, bearing in mind the interests of
+historical truth, and the anachronism which I had ventured on at page 82
+in the date of Arnobius and Lactantius, I said that I had not “admitted
+any actual interference with known facts without notice,” questions of
+religious controversy, when I said it, not even coming into my thoughts. I
+did not consider my Tale to be in any sense controversial, but to be
+specially addressed to Catholic readers, and for their edification.
+
+This being so, it was with no little surprise I found myself lately
+accused of want of truth, because I have followed great authorities in
+attributing to Christians of the middle of the third century what is
+certainly to be found in the fourth,—devotions, representations, and
+doctrines, declaratory of the high dignity of the Blessed Virgin. If I had
+left out all mention of these, I should have been simply untrue to my idea
+and apprehension of Primitive Christianity. To what positive and certain
+facts do I run counter in so doing, even granting that I am indulging my
+imagination? But I have allowed myself no such indulgence; I gave good
+reasons long ago, in my “Letter to Dr. Pusey” (pp. 53–76), for what I
+believe on this matter and for what I have in “Callista” described.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS.
+
+
+   CHAP.                                                          PAGE
+      I.   SICCA VENERIA                                             1
+     II.   CHRISTIANITY IN SICCA                                    14
+    III.   AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE                                  25
+     IV.   JUBA                                                     30
+      V.   JUCUNDUS AT SUPPER                                       39
+     VI.   GOTHS AND CHRISTIANS                                     51
+    VII.   PERSECUTION IN THE OFFING                                64
+   VIII.   THE NEW GENERATION                                       80
+     IX.   JUCUNDUS BAITS HIS TRAP                                  92
+      X.   THE DIVINE CALLISTA                                     111
+     XI.   CALLISTA’S PREACHING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT               122
+    XII.   A DEATH                                                 135
+   XIII.   AND RESURRECTION                                        145
+    XIV.   A SMALL CLOUD                                           159
+     XV.   A VISITATION                                            168
+    XVI.   WORSE AND WORSE                                         178
+   XVII.   CHRISTIANOS AD LEONES                                   189
+  XVIII.   AGELLIUS FLITS                                          199
+    XIX.   A PASSAGE OF ARMS                                       212
+     XX.   HE SHALL NOT LOSE HIS REWARD                            226
+    XXI.   STARTLING RUMOURS                                       235
+   XXII.   JUCUNDUS PROPOUNDS HIS VIEW OF THE SITUATION            239
+  XXIII.   GURTA                                                   256
+   XXIV.   A MOTHER’S BLESSING                                     266
+    XXV.   CALLISTA IN DURANCE                                     274
+   XXVI.   WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN?                                   281
+  XXVII.   AM I A CHRISTIAN?                                       291
+ XXVIII.   A SICK CALL                                             305
+   XXIX.   CONVERSION                                              317
+    XXX.   TORRES VEDRAS                                           329
+   XXXI.   THE BAPTISM                                             343
+  XXXII.   THE IMPERIAL RESCRIPT                                   352
+ XXXIII.   A GOOD CONFESSION                                       357
+  XXXIV.   THE MARTYRDOM                                           366
+   XXXV.   THE CORPO SANTO                                         371
+  XXXVI.   LUX PERPETUA SANCTIS TUIS, DOMINE                       377
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CALLISTA;
+
+
+                       A TALE OF THE THIRD CENTURY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+
+                              SICCA VENERIA.
+
+
+In no province of the vast Roman empire, as it existed in the middle of
+the third century, did Nature wear a richer or a more joyous garb than she
+displayed in Proconsular Africa, a territory of which Carthage was the
+metropolis, and Sicca might be considered the centre. The latter city,
+which was the seat of a Roman colony, lay upon a precipitous or steep
+bank, which led up along a chain of hills to a mountainous track in the
+direction of the north and east. In striking contrast with this wild and
+barren region was the view presented by the west and south, where for many
+miles stretched a smiling champaign, exuberantly wooded, and varied with a
+thousand hues, till it was terminated at length by the successive tiers of
+the Atlas, and the dim and fantastic forms of the Numidian mountains. The
+immediate neighbourhood of the city was occupied by gardens, vineyards,
+corn-fields, and meadows, crossed or encircled here by noble avenues of
+trees or the remains of primeval forests, there by the clustering groves
+which wealth and luxury had created. This spacious plain, though level
+when compared with the northern heights by which the city was backed, and
+the peaks and crags which skirted the southern and western horizon, was
+discovered, as light and shadow travelled with the sun, to be diversified
+with hill and dale, upland and hollow; while orange gardens, orchards,
+olive and palm plantations held their appropriate sites on the slopes or
+the bottoms. Through the mass of green, which extended still more thickly
+from the west round to the north, might be seen at intervals two solid
+causeways tracking their persevering course to the Mediterranean coast,
+the one to the ancient rival of Rome, the other to Hippo Regius in
+Numidia. Tourists might have complained of the absence of water from the
+scene; but the native peasant would have explained to them that the eye
+alone had reason to be discontented, and that the thick foliage and the
+uneven surface did but conceal what mother earth with no niggard bounty
+supplied. The Bagradas, issuing from the spurs of the Atlas, made up in
+depth what it wanted in breadth of bed, and ploughed the rich and yielding
+mould with its rapid stream, till, after passing Sicca in its way, it fell
+into the sea near Carthage. It was but the largest of a multitude of
+others, most of them tributaries to it, deepening as much as they
+increased it. While channels had been cut from the larger rills for the
+irrigation of the open land, brooks, which sprang up in the gravel which
+lay against the hills, had been artificially banked with cut stones or
+paved with pebbles; and where neither springs nor rivulets were to be
+found, wells had been dug, sometimes to the vast depth of as much as 200
+fathoms, with such effect that the spurting column of water had in some
+instances drowned the zealous workmen who had been the first to reach it.
+And, while such were the resources of less favoured localities or seasons,
+profuse rains descended over the whole region for one half of the year,
+and the thick summer dews compensated by night for the daily tribute
+extorted by an African sun.
+
+At various distances over the undulating surface, and through the woods,
+were seen the villas and the hamlets of that happy land. It was an age
+when the pride of architecture had been indulged to the full; edifices,
+public and private, mansions and temples, ran off far away from each
+market-town or borough, as from a centre, some of stone or marble, but
+most of them of that composite of fine earth, rammed tight by means of
+frames, for which the Saracens were afterwards famous, and of which
+specimens remain to this day, as hard in surface, as sharp at the angles,
+as when they first were finished. Every here and there, on hill or crag,
+crowned with basilicas and temples, radiant in the sun, might be seen the
+cities of the province or of its neighbourhood, Thibursicumber, Thugga,
+Laribus, Siguessa, Sufetula, and many others; while in the far distance,
+on an elevated table-land under the Atlas, might be discerned the Colonia
+Scillitana, famous about fifty years before the date of which we write for
+the martyrdom of Speratus and his companions, who were beheaded at the
+order of the proconsul for refusing to swear by the genius of Rome and the
+emperor.
+
+If the spectator now takes his stand, not in Sicca itself, but about a
+quarter of a mile to the south-east, on the hill or knoll on which was
+placed the cottage of Agellius, the city itself will enter into the
+picture. Its name, Sicca Veneria, if it be derived (as some suppose) from
+the Succoth benoth, or “tents of the daughters,” mentioned by the inspired
+writer as an object of pagan worship in Samaria, shows that it owed its
+foundation to the Phœnician colonists of the country. At any rate, the
+Punic deities retained their hold upon the place; the temples of the
+Tyrian Hercules and of Saturn, the scene of annual human sacrifices, were
+conspicuous in its outline, though these and all other religious buildings
+in it looked small beside the mysterious antique shrine devoted to the
+sensual rites of the Syrian Astarte. Public baths and a theatre, a
+capitol, imitative of Rome, a gymnasium, the long outline of a portico, an
+equestrian statue in brass of the Emperor Severus, were grouped together
+above the streets of a city, which, narrow and winding, ran up and down
+across the hill. In its centre an extraordinary spring threw up
+incessantly several tons of water every minute, and was inclosed by the
+superstitious gratitude of the inhabitants with the peristylium of a
+sacred place. At the extreme back, towards the north, which could not be
+seen from the point of view where we last stationed ourselves, there was a
+sheer descent of rock, bestowing on the city, when it was seen at a
+distance on the Mediterranean side, the same bold and striking appearance
+which attaches to Castro Giovanni, the ancient Enna, in the heart of
+Sicily.
+
+And now, withdrawing our eyes from the panorama, whether in its distant or
+nearer objects, if we would at length contemplate the spot itself from
+which we have been last surveying it, we shall find almost as much to
+repay attention, and to elicit admiration. We stand in the midst of a farm
+of some wealthy proprietor, consisting of a number of fields and gardens,
+separated from each other by hedges of cactus or the aloe. At the foot of
+the hill, which sloped down on the side furthest from Sicca to one of the
+tributaries of the rich and turbid river of which we have spoken, a large
+yard or garden, intersected with a hundred artificial rills, was devoted
+to the cultivation of the beautiful and odoriferous _khennah_. A thick
+grove of palms seemed to triumph in the refreshment of the water’s side,
+and lifted up their thankful boughs towards heaven. The barley harvest in
+the fields which lay higher up the hill was over, or at least was
+finishing; and all that remained of the crop was the incessant and
+importunate chirping of the _cicadæ_, and the rude booths of reeds and
+bulrushes, now left to wither, in which the peasant boys found shelter
+from the sun, while in an earlier month they frightened from the grain the
+myriads of linnets, goldfinches, and other small birds who, as in other
+countries, contested with the human proprietor the possession of it. On
+the south-western slope lies a neat and carefully dressed vineyard, the
+vine-stakes of which, dwarfish as they are, already cast long shadows on
+the eastern side. Slaves are scattered over it, testifying to the
+scorching power of the sun by their broad _petasus_, and to its oppressive
+heat by the scanty _subligarium_, which reached from the belt or girdle to
+the knees. They are engaged in cutting off useless twigs to which the last
+showers of spring have given birth, and are twisting those which promise
+fruit into positions where they will be safe both from the breeze and from
+the sun. Everything gives token of that gracious and happy season which
+the great Latin poets have hymned in their beautiful but heathen strains;
+when, after the heavy rains, and raw mists, and piercing winds, and fitful
+sun-gleams of a long six months, the mighty mother manifests herself anew,
+and pours out the resources of her innermost being for the life and
+enjoyment of every portion of the vast whole;—or, to apply the lines of a
+modern bard—
+
+          “When the bare earth, till now
+  Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned,
+  Brings forth the tender grass, whose verdure clads
+  Her universal face with pleasant green;
+  Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flower,
+  Opening their various colours, and make gay
+  Her bosom, swelling sweet; and, these scarce blown,
+  Forth flourishes the clustering vine, forth creeps
+  The swelling gourd, up stands the corny reed
+  Embattled in her fields, and the humble shrub,
+  And bush with frizzled hair implicit; last
+  Rise, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
+  Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gem
+  Their blossoms; with high woods the hills are crowned
+  With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side
+  With borders long the rivers; that earth now
+  Seems like to heaven, a seat where gods might dwell,
+  Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
+  Her sacred shades.”
+
+A snatch from some old Greek chant, with something of plaintiveness in the
+tone, issues from the thicket just across the mule-path, cut deep in the
+earth, which reaches from the city gate to the streamlet; and a youth, who
+had the appearance of the assistant bailiff or _procurator_ of the farm,
+leaped from it, and went over to the labourers, who were busy with the
+vines. His eyes and hair and the cast of his features spoke of Europe; his
+manner had something of shyness and reserve, rather than of rusticity; and
+he wore a simple red tunic with half sleeves, descending to the knee, and
+tightened round him by a belt. His legs and feet were protected by boots
+which came half up his calf. He addressed one of the slaves, and his voice
+was gentle and cheerful.
+
+“Ah, Sansar!” he cried, “I don’t like your way of managing these branches
+so well as my own; but it is a difficult thing to move an old fellow like
+you. You never fasten together the shoots which you don’t cut off, they
+are flying about quite wild, and the first ox that passes through the
+field next month for the ploughing will break them off.”
+
+He spoke in Latin; the man understood it, and answered him in the same
+language, though with deviations from purity of accent and syntax, not
+without parallel in the _talkee-talkee_ of the West Indian negro.
+
+“Ay, ay, master,” he said, “ay, ay; but it’s all a mistake to use the
+plough at all. The fork does the work much better, and no fear for the
+grape. I hide the tendril under the leaf against the sun, which is the
+only enemy we have to consider.”
+
+“Ah! but the fork does not raise so much dust as the plough and the heavy
+cattle which draw it,” returned Agellius; “and the said dust does more for
+the protection of the tendril than the shade of the leaf.”
+
+“But those huge beasts,” retorted the slave, “turn up great ridges, and
+destroy the yard.”
+
+“It’s no good arguing with an old vinedresser, who had formed his theory
+before I was born,” said Agellius good-humouredly; and he passed on into a
+garden beyond.
+
+Here were other indications of the happy month through which the year was
+now travelling. The garden, so to call it, was a space of several acres in
+extent; it was one large bed of roses, and preparation was making for
+extracting their essence, for which various parts of that country are to
+this day celebrated. Here was another set of labourers, and a man of
+middle age was surveying them at his leisure. His business-like, severe,
+and off-hand manner bespoke the _villicus_ or bailiff himself.
+
+“Always here,” said he, “as if you were a slave, not a Roman, my good
+fellow; yet slaves have their Saturnalia; always serving, not worshipping
+the all-bounteous and all-blessed. Why are you not taking holiday in the
+town?”
+
+“Why should I, sir?” asked Agellius; “don’t you recollect old Hiempsal’s
+saying about ‘one foot in the slipper, and one in the shoe.’ Nothing would
+be done well if I were a town-goer. You engaged me, I suppose, to be here,
+not there.”
+
+“Ah!” answered he, “but at this season the empire, the genius of Rome, the
+customs of the country, demand it, and above all the great goddess Astarte
+and her genial, jocund month. ‘Parturit almus ager;’ you know the verse;
+do not be out of tune with Nature, nor clash and jar with the great system
+of the universe.”
+
+A cloud of confusion, or of distress, passed over Agellius’s face. He
+seemed as if he wished to speak; at length he merely said, “It’s a fault
+on the right side in a servant, I suppose.”
+
+“I know the way of your people,” Vitricus replied, “Corybantians,
+Phrygians, Jews, what do you call yourselves? There are so many fantastic
+religions now-a-days. Hang yourself outright at your house-door, if you
+are tired of living—and you are a sensible fellow. How can any man, whose
+head sits right upon his shoulders, say that life is worth having, and not
+worth enjoying?”
+
+“I am a quiet being,” answered Agellius, “I like the country, which you
+think so tame, and care little for the flaunting town. Tastes differ.”
+
+“Town! you need not go to Sicca,” answered the bailiff, “all Sicca is out
+of town. It has poured into the fields, and groves, and river side. Lift
+up your eyes, man alive, open your ears, and let pleasure flow in. Be
+passive under the sweet breath of the goddess, and she will fill you with
+ecstasy.”
+
+It was as Vitricus had said; the solemn feast-days of Astarte were in
+course of celebration; of Astarte, the well-known divinity of Carthage and
+its dependent cities, whom Heliogabalus had lately introduced to Rome, who
+in her different aspects was at once Urania, Juno, and Aphrodite,
+according as she embodied the idea of the philosopher, the statesman, or
+the vulgar; lofty and intellectual as Urania, majestic and commanding as
+Juno, seductive as the goddess of sensuality and excess.
+
+“There goes the son of as good and frank a soldier as ever brandished
+pilum,” said Vitricus to himself, “till in his last years some infernal
+god took umbrage at him, and saddled him and his with one of those absurd
+superstitions which are as plentiful here as serpents. He indeed was too
+old himself to get much harm from it; but it shows its sour nature in
+these young shoots. A good servant, but the plague’s in his bones, and he
+will rot.”
+
+His subordinate’s reflections were of a different character: “The very air
+breathes sin to-day,” he cried; “oh that I did not find the taint of the
+city in these works of God! Alas! sweet Nature, the child of the Almighty,
+is made to do the fiend’s work, and does it better than the town. O ye
+beautiful trees and fair flowers, O bright sun and balmy air, what a
+bondage ye are in, and how do ye groan till you are redeemed from it! Ye
+are bond-slaves, but not willingly, as man is; but how will you ever be
+turned to nobler purpose? How is this vast, this solid establishment of
+error, the incubus of many thousand years, ever to have an end? You
+yourselves, dear ones, will come to nought first. Anyhow, the public way
+is no place for me this evening. They’ll soon be back from their accursed
+revelry.”
+
+A sound of horns and voices had been heard from time to time through the
+woods, as if proceeding from parties dispersed through them; and in the
+growing twilight might be seen lights, glancing and wandering through the
+foliage. The cottage in which Agellius dwelt was on the other side of the
+hollow bridle-way which crossed the hill. To make for home he had first to
+walk some little distance along it; and scarcely had he descended into it
+for that purpose, when he found himself in the front of a band of
+revellers, who were returning from some scene of impious festivity. They
+were arrayed in holiday guise, as far as they studied dress at all; the
+symbols of idolatry were on their foreheads and arms; some of them were
+intoxicated, and most of them were women.
+
+“Why have you not been worshipping, young fellow?” said one.
+
+“Comely built,” said another, “but struck by the furies. I know the cut of
+him.”
+
+“By Astarte,” said a third, “he’s one of those sly Gnostics! I have seen
+the chap before, with his hangdog look. He is one of Pluto’s whelps, first
+cousin to Cerberus, and his name’s Channibal.”
+
+On which they all began to shout out, “I say, Channibal, Channibal, here’s
+a lad that knows you. Old fellow, come along with us;” and the speaker
+made a dash at him.
+
+On this Agellius, who was slowly making his way past them on the broken
+and steep path, leapt up in two or three steps to the ridge, and went away
+in security; when one woman cried out, “O the toad, I know him now; he is
+a wizard; he eats little children; didn’t you see him make that sign? it’s
+a charm. My sister did it; the fool left me to be one of them. She was
+ever doing so” (mimicking the sign of the cross). “He’s a Christian,
+blight him! he’ll turn us into beasts.”
+
+“Cerberus, bite him!” said another, “he sucks blood;” and taking up a
+stone, she made it whiz past his ear as he disappeared from view. A
+general scream of contempt and hatred followed. “Where’s the ass’s head?
+put out the lights, put out the lights! gibbet him! that’s why he has not
+been with honest people down in the vale.” And then they struck up a
+blasphemous song, the sentiments of which we are not going even to
+conceive, much less to attempt in words.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+                          CHRISTIANITY IN SICCA.
+
+
+The revellers went on their way; Agellius went on his, and made for his
+lowly and lonely cottage. He was the elder of the two sons of a Roman
+legionary of the Secunda Italica, who had settled with them in Sicca,
+where he lost their mother, and died, having in his old age become a
+Christian. The fortitude of some confessors at Carthage in the persecution
+of Severus had been the initial cause of his conversion. He had been
+posted as one of their guards, and had attended them to the scene of their
+martyrdom, in addition to the civil force, to whom in the proconsulate the
+administration of the law was committed. Therefore, happily for him, it
+could not fall to his duty to be their executioner, a function which,
+however revolting to his feelings, he might not have had courage to
+decline. He remained a pagan, though he could not shake off the impression
+which the martyrs had made upon him; and, after completing his time of
+service, he retired to the protection of some great friends in Sicca, his
+brother’s home already. Here he took a second wife of the old Numidian
+stock, and supported himself by the produce of a small piece of land which
+had been given to him for life by the imperial government. If trial were
+necessary in order to keep alive the good seed which had been sown in his
+heart, he found a never-failing supply of that article in the companion of
+his declining years. In the hey-day of her youth she might have been
+fitted to throw a sort of sunshine, or rather torchlight, on a military
+carouse; but now, when poor Strabo, a man well to do in the world, looking
+for peace, had fallen under her arts, he found he had surrendered his
+freedom to a malignant, profligate woman, whose passions made her better
+company for evil spirits than for an invalided soldier. Indeed, as time
+went on, the popular belief, which she rather encouraged, went to the
+extent that she actually did hold an intercourse with the unseen world;
+and certainly she matured in a hatred towards God and man, which would
+naturally follow, and not unnaturally betoken, such intercourse. The more,
+then, she inflicted on him her proficiency in these amiable
+characteristics, the more he looked out for some consolation elsewhere;
+and the more she involved herself in the guilt or the repute of unlawful
+arts, the more was he drawn to that religion, where alone to commune with
+the invisible is to hold intercourse with heaven, not with hell. Whether
+so great a trial supplied a more human inducement for looking towards
+Christianity, it is impossible to say. Most men, certainly Roman soldiers,
+may be considered to act on mixed motives; but so it was in fact, that, on
+his becoming in his last years a Christian, he found, perhaps discovered,
+to his great satisfaction, that the Church did not oblige him to continue
+or renew a tie which bound him to so much misery, and that he might end
+his days in a tranquillity which his past life required, and his wife’s
+presence would have precluded. He made a good end; he had been allowed to
+take the blessed sacrament from the altar to his own home on the last time
+he had been able to attend a _synaxis_ of the faithful, and thus had
+communicated at least six months within his decease; and the priest who
+anointed him at the beginning of his last illness also took his
+confession. He died, begging forgiveness of all whom he had injured, and
+giving large alms to the poor. This was about the year 236, in the midst
+of that long peace of the Church, which was broken at length by the Decian
+persecution.
+
+This peace of well-nigh fifty years had necessarily a peculiar, and not a
+happy effect upon the Christians of the proconsulate. They multiplied in
+the greater and the maritime cities, and made their way into positions of
+importance, whether in trade or the governmental departments; they
+extended their family connections, and were on good terms with the
+heathen. Whatever jealousy might be still cherished against the Christian
+name, nevertheless, individual Christians were treated with civility, and
+recognised as citizens; though among the populace there would be
+occasions, at the time of the more solemn pagan feasts, when accidental
+outbursts might be expected of the antipathy latent in the community, as
+we have been recording in the foregoing chapter. Men of sense, however,
+began to understand them better, and to be more just to the reasonableness
+of their faith. This would lead them to scorn Christianity less, but it
+would lead them to fear it more. It was no longer a matter merely for the
+populace to insult, but for government deliberately to put down. The
+prevailing and still growing unbelief among the lower classes of the
+population did but make a religion more formidable, which, as heathen
+statesmen felt, was able to wield the weapons of enthusiasm and zeal with
+a force and success unknown even to the most fortunate impostors among the
+Oriental or Egyptian hierophants. The philosophical schools were impressed
+with similar apprehensions, and had now for fifty years been employed in
+creating and systematising a new intellectual basis for the received
+paganism.
+
+But, while the signs of the times led to the anticipation that a struggle
+was impending between the heads of the state religion and of the new
+worship which was taking its place, the great body of Christians, laymen
+and ecclesiastics, were on better and better terms, individually, with the
+members of society, or what is now called the public; and without losing
+their faith or those embers of charity which favourable circumstances
+would promptly rekindle, were, it must be confessed, in a state of
+considerable relaxation; they often were on the brink of deplorable sins,
+and sometimes fell over the brink. And many would join the Church on
+inferior motives as soon as no great temporal disadvantage attached to the
+act; or the families of Christian parents might grow up with so little of
+moral or religious education as to make it difficult to say why they
+called themselves members of a divine religion. Mixed marriages would
+increase both the scandal and the confusion.
+
+“A long repose,” says St. Cyprian, speaking of this very period, “had
+corrupted the discipline which had come down to us. Every one was applying
+himself to the increase of wealth; and, forgetting both the conduct of the
+faithful under the Apostles, and what ought to be their conduct in every
+age, with insatiable eagerness for gain devoted himself to the multiplying
+of possessions. The priests were wanting in religious devotedness, the
+ministers in entireness of faith; there was no mercy in works, no
+discipline in manners. Men wore their beards disfigured, and woman dyed
+their faces. Their eyes were changed from what God made them, and a lying
+colour was passed upon the hair. The hearts of the simple were misled by
+treacherous artifices, and brethren became entangled in seductive snares.
+Ties of marriage were formed with unbelievers; members of Christ abandoned
+to the heathen. Not only rash swearing was heard, but even false; persons
+in high place were swollen with contemptuousness; poisoned reproaches fell
+from their mouths, and men were sundered by unabating quarrels. Numerous
+bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and example to others, despising
+their sacred calling, engaged themselves in secular vocations,
+relinquished their sees, deserted their people, strayed among foreign
+provinces, hunted the markets for mercantile profits, and tried to amass
+large sums of money, while they had brethren starving within the Church;
+took possession of estates by fraudulent proceedings, and multiplied their
+gains by accumulated usuries.”(1)
+
+The relaxation which would extend the profession of Christianity in the
+larger cities would contract or extinguish it in remote or country places.
+There would be little zeal to keep up Churches, which could not be served
+without an effort or without secular loss. Carthage, Utica, Hippo,
+Milevis, or Curubis, was a more attractive residence than the towns with
+uncouth African names, which amaze the ecclesiastical student in the Acts
+of the Councils. Vocations became scarce; sees remained vacant;
+congregations died out. This was pretty much the case with the Church and
+see of Sicca. At the time of which we write, history preserves no record
+of any bishop as exercising his pastoral functions in that city. In matter
+of fact there was none. The last bishop, an amiable old man, had in the
+course of years acquired a considerable extent of arable land, and
+employed himself principally, for lack of more spiritual occupation, in
+reaping, stacking, selling, and sending off his wheat for the Roman
+market. His deacon had been celebrated in early youth for his boldness in
+the chase, and took part in the capture of lions and panthers (an act of
+charity towards the peasants round Sicca) for the Roman amphitheatre. No
+priests were to be found, and the bishop became _parochus_ till his death.
+Afterwards infants and catechumens lost baptism; parents lost faith, or at
+least love; wanderers lost repentance and conversion. For a while there
+was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more
+humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there
+had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the
+clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse
+of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the
+flourishing old days of the African Church. And the result was, that in
+the year 250 it was difficult to say of whom the Church of Sicca
+consisted. There was no bishop, no priest, no deacon. There was the old
+_mansionarius_ or sacristan; there were two or three pious women, married
+or single, who owed their religion to good mothers; there were some slaves
+who kept to their faith, no one knew how or why; there were a vast many
+persons who ought to be Catholics, but were heretics, or nothing at all,
+or all but pagans, and sure to become pagans on the asking; there were
+Agellius and his brother Juba, and how far these two had a claim to the
+Christian name we now proceed to explain.
+
+They were about the ages of seven and eight when their father died, and
+they fell under the guardianship of their uncle, whose residence at Sicca
+had been one of the reasons which determined Strabo to settle there. This
+man, being possessed of some capital, drove a thriving trade in idols,
+large and small, amulets, and the like instruments of the established
+superstition. His father had come to Carthage in the service of one of the
+assessors of the proconsul of the day; and his son, finding competition
+ran too high to give him prospect of remuneration in the metropolis, had
+opened his statue-shop in Sicca. Those modern arts which enable an English
+town in this day to be so fertile in the production of ware of this
+description for the markets of the pagan East, were then unknown; and
+Jucundus depended on certain artists whom he imported, especially on two
+Greeks, brother and sister, who came from some isle on the Asian coast,
+for the supply of his trade. He was a good-natured man, self-indulgent,
+positive, and warmly attached to the reigning paganism, both as being the
+law of the land and the vital principle of the state; and, while he was
+really kind to his orphan nephews, he simply abominated, as in duty bound,
+the idiotic cant and impudent fee-fa-fum, to which, in his infallible
+judgment, poor old Strabo had betrayed his children. He would have
+restored them, you may be quite sure, to their country and to their
+country’s gods, had they acquiesced in the restoration: but in different
+ways these little chaps, and he shook his head as he said it, were
+difficult to deal with. Agellius had a very positive opinion of his own on
+the matter; and as for Juba, though he had no opinion at all, yet he had
+an equally positive aversion to have thrust on him by another any opinion
+at all, even in favour of paganism. He had remained in his catechumen
+state since he grew up, because he found himself in it; and though nothing
+would make him go forward in his profession of Christianity, no earthly
+power would be able to make him go back. So there he was, like a mule,
+struck fast in the door of the Church, and feeling a gratification in his
+independence of mind. However, whatever his profession might be, still, as
+time went on, he plainly took after his step-mother, renewed his
+intercourse with her after his father’s death, and at length went so far
+as to avow that he believed in nothing but the devil, if even he believed
+in him. It was scarcely safe, however, to affirm that the senses of this
+hopeful lad were his own.
+
+Agellius, on the other hand, when a boy of six years old, had insisted on
+receiving baptism; had perplexed his father by a manifestation of zeal to
+which the old man was a stranger; and had made the good bishop lose the
+corn-fleet which was starting for Italy from his importunity to learn the
+Catechism. Baptized he was, confirmed, communicated; but a boy’s nature is
+variable, and by the time Agellius had reached adolescence, the gracious
+impulses of his childhood had in some measure faded away, though he still
+retained his faith in its first keenness and vigour. But he had no one to
+keep him up to his duty; no exhortations, no example, no sympathy. His
+father’s friends had taken him up so far as this, that by an extraordinary
+favour they had got him a lease for some years of the property which
+Strabo, a veteran soldier, had held of the imperial government. The care
+of this small property fell upon him, and another and more serious charge
+was added to it. The long prosperity of the province had increased the
+opulence and enlarged the upper class of Sicca. Officials, contractors,
+and servants of the government had made fortunes, and raised villas in the
+neighbourhood of the city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or
+from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases
+of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial _res privata_ or
+privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or
+beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such
+persons, who had had a place in the _officium_ of the quæstor, or rather
+procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. His
+property adjoined the cottage of the latter; and, having first employed
+the youth from recollection of his father, he confided to him the place of
+under-bailiff from the talents he showed for farm-business.
+
+Such was his position at the early age of twenty-two; but honourable as it
+was in itself, and from the mode in which it was obtained, no one would
+consider it adapted, under the circumstances, to counteract the religious
+languor and coldness which had grown upon him. And in truth he did not
+know where he stood further than that he was firm in faith, as we have
+said, and had shrunk from a boy upwards, from the vice and immorality
+which was the very atmosphere of Sicca. He might any day be betrayed into
+some fatal inconsistency, which would either lead him into sin, or oblige
+him abruptly to retrace his steps, and find a truer and safer position. He
+was not generally known to be a Christian, at least for certain, though he
+was seen to keep clear of the established religion. It was not that he
+hid, so much as that the world did not care to know, what he believed. In
+that day there were many rites and worships which kept to themselves—many
+forms of moroseness or misanthropy, as they were considered, which
+withdrew their votaries from the public ceremonial. The Catholic faith
+seemed to the multitude to be one of these; it was only in critical times,
+when some idolatrous act was insisted on by the magistrate, that the
+specific nature of Christianity was tested and detected. Then at length it
+was seen to differ from all other religious varieties by that irrational
+and disgusting obstinacy, as it was felt to be, which had rather suffer
+torments and lose life than submit to some graceful, or touching, or at
+least trifling observance which the tradition of ages had sanctioned.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+
+                         AGELLIUS IN HIS COTTAGE.
+
+
+The cottage for which Agellius was making, when last we had sight of him,
+was a small brick house consisting of one room, with a loft over it, and a
+kitchen on the side, not very unlike that holy habitation which once
+contained the Eternal Word in human form with His Virgin Mother, and
+Joseph, their guardian. It was situated on the declivity of the hill, and,
+unlike the gardens of Italy, the space before it was ornamented with a
+plot of turf. A noble palm on one side, in spite of its distance from the
+water, and a group of orange-trees on the other, formed a foreground to
+the rich landscape which was described in our opening chapter. The borders
+and beds were gay with the lily, the bacchar, amber-coloured and purple,
+the golden abrotomus, the red chelidonium, and the variegated iris.
+Against the wall of the house were trained pomegranates, with their
+crimson blossoms, the star-like pothos or jessamine, and the symbolical
+passionflower, which well became a Christian dwelling.
+
+And it was an intimation of what would be found within; for on one side of
+the room was rudely painted a red cross, with doves about it, as is found
+in early Christian shrines to this day. So long had been the peace of the
+Church, that the tradition of persecution seemed to have been lost; and
+Christians allowed themselves in the profession of their faith at home,
+cautious as they might be in public places; as freely as now in England,
+where we do not scruple to raise crucifixes within our churches and
+houses, though we shrink from doing so within sight of the hundred cabs
+and omnibuses which rattle past them. Under the cross were two or three
+pictures, or rather sketches. In the centre stood the Blessed Virgin with
+hands spread out in prayer, attended by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul
+on her right and left. Under this representation was rudely scratched upon
+the wall the word, “Advocata,” a title which the earliest antiquity
+bestows upon her. On a small shelf was placed a case with two or three
+rolls or sheets of parchment in it. The appearance of them spoke of use
+indeed, but of reverential treatment. These were the Psalms, the Gospel
+according to St. Luke, and St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, in the old
+Latin version. The Gospel was handsomely covered, and ornamented with
+gold.
+
+The apartment was otherwise furnished with such implements and materials
+as might be expected in the cottage of a countryman: one or two stools and
+benches for sitting, a table, and in one corner a heap of dried leaves and
+rushes, with a large crimson coverlet, for rest at night. Elsewhere were
+two millstones fixed in a frame, with a handle attached to the rim of one
+of them, for grinding corn. Then again, garden tools; boxes of seeds; a
+vessel containing syrup for assuaging the sting of the scorpion; the
+_asir-rese_ or _anagallis_, a potent medicine of the class of poisons,
+which was taken in wine for the same mischance. It hung from the beams,
+with a large bunch of _atsirtiphua_, a sort of camomile, smaller in the
+flower and more fragrant than our own, which was used as a febrifuge.
+Thence, too, hung a plentiful gathering of dried grapes, of the kind
+called _duracinæ_; and near the door a bough of the green _bargut_ or
+_psyllium_, to drive away the smaller insects.
+
+Poor Agellius felt the contrast between the ungodly turmoil from which he
+had escaped, and the deep stillness into which he now had entered; but
+neither satisfied him quite. There was no repose out of doors, and no
+relief within. He was lonely at home, lonely in the crowd. He needed the
+sympathy of his kind; hearts which might beat with his heart; friends with
+whom he might share his joys and griefs; advisers whom he might consult;
+minds like his own, who would understand him—minds unlike his own, who
+would succour and respond to him. A very great trial certainly this, in
+which the soul is flung back upon itself; and that especially in the case
+of the young, for whom memory and experience do so little, and wayward and
+excited feelings do so much. Great gain had it been for Agellius, even in
+its natural effect, putting aside higher benefits, to have been able to
+recur to sacramental confession; but to confession he had never been,
+though once or twice he had attended the public _homologesis_ of the
+Church. Shall we wonder that the poor youth began to be despondent and
+impatient under his trial? Shall we not feel for him, though we may be
+sorry for him, should it turn out that he was looking restlessly into
+every corner of the small world of acquaintance in which his lot lay, for
+those with whom he could converse easily, and interchange speculation,
+argument, aspiration, and affection?
+
+“No one cares for me,” he said, as he sat down on his rustic bench. “I am
+nothing to any one; I am a hermit, like Elias or John, without the call to
+be one. Yet even Elias felt the burden of being one against many; even
+John asked at length in expostulation, ‘Art Thou He that shall come?’ Am I
+for ever to have the knowledge, without the consolation, of the truth? am
+I for ever to belong to a great divine society, yet never see the face of
+any of its members?”
+
+He paused in his thoughts, as if drinking in the full taste and measure of
+his unhappiness. And then his reflections took a turn, and he said,
+suddenly, “Why do I not leave Sicca? What binds me to my father’s farm? I
+am young, and my interest in it will soon expire. What keeps me from
+Carthage, Hippo, Cirtha, where Christians are so many?” But here he
+stopped as suddenly as he had begun; and a strange feeling, half pang,
+half thrill, went through his heart. And he felt unwilling to pursue his
+thought, or to answer the question which he had asked; and he settled into
+a dull, stagnant condition of mind, in which he seemed hardly to think at
+all.
+
+Be of good cheer, solitary one, though thou art not a hero yet! There is
+One that cares for thee, and loves thee, more than thou canst feel, love,
+or care for thyself. Cast all thy care upon Him. He sees thee, and is
+watching thee; He is hanging over thee, and smiles in compassion at thy
+troubles. His angel, who is thine, is whispering good thoughts to thee. He
+knows thy weakness; He foresees thy errors; but He holds thee by thy right
+hand, and thou shalt not, canst not escape Him. By thy faith, which thou
+hast so simply, resolutely retained in the midst of idolatry; by thy
+purity, which, like some fair flower, thou hast cherished in the midst of
+pollution, He will remember thee in thy evil hour, and thine enemy shall
+not prevail against thee!
+
+What means that smile upon Agellius’s face? It is the response of the
+child to the loving parent. He knows not why, but the cloud is past. He
+signs himself with the holy cross, and sweet reviving thoughts enliven
+him. He names the sacred Name, and it is like ointment poured out upon his
+soul. He rises; he kneels down under the dread symbol of his salvation;
+and he begins his evening prayer.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+                                  JUBA.
+
+
+There was more of heart, less of effort, less of mechanical habit, in
+Agellius’s prayers that night, than there had been for a long while
+before. He got up, struck a light, and communicated it to his small
+earthen lamp. Its pale rays feebly searched the room and discovered at the
+other end of it Juba, who had silently opened the door, and sat down near
+it, while his brother was employed upon his devotions. The countenance of
+the latter fell, for he was not to go to sleep with the resignation and
+peace which had just before been poured into his breast. Yet why should he
+complain? we receive consolation in this world for the very purpose of
+preparing us against trouble to come. Juba was a tall, swarthy,
+wild-looking youth. He was holding his head on one side as he sat, and his
+face towards the roof; he nodded obliquely, arched his eyebrows, pursed up
+his lips, and crossed his arms, while he gave utterance to a strange,
+half-whispered laugh.
+
+“He, he, he!” he cried; “so you are on your knees, Agellius.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t I be at this hour,” answered Agellius, “and before I go to
+bed?”
+
+“O, every one to his taste, of course,” said Juba; “but to an unprejudiced
+mind there is something unworthy in the act.”
+
+“Why, Juba?” said his brother somewhat sharply; “don’t you profess any
+religion at all?”
+
+“Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t,” answered Juba; “but never shall it be
+a bowing and scraping, crawling and cringing religion. You may take your
+oath of that.”
+
+“What ails you to come here at this time of night?” asked Agellius; “who
+asked for your company?”
+
+“I will come just when I please,” said the other, “and go when I please. I
+won’t give an account of my actions to any one, God or man, devil or
+priest, much less to you. What right have you to ask me?”
+
+“Then,” said Agellius, “you’ll never get peace or comfort as long as you
+live, that I can tell you, let alone the life to come.”
+
+Juba kept silent for awhile, and bit his nails with a smile on his face,
+and his eyes looking askance upon the ground. “I want no more than I have;
+I am well content,” he said.
+
+“Contented with yourself,” retorted Agellius.
+
+“Of course,” Juba replied; “whom ought one to wish rather to content?”
+
+“I suppose, your Creator.”
+
+“Creator,” answered Juba, tossing back his head with an air of
+superiority; “Creator;—that, I consider, is an assumption.”
+
+“O, my dear brother,” cried Agellius, “don’t go on in that dreadful way!”
+
+“ ‘Go on!’ who began? Is one man to lay down the law, and not the other
+too? Is it so generally received, this belief of a Creator? Who have
+brought in the belief? The Christians. ’Tis the Christians that began it.
+The world went on very well without it before their rise. And now, who
+began the dispute but you?”
+
+“Well, if I did,” answered Agellius; “but I didn’t. You began in coming
+here; what in the world are you come for? by what right do you disturb me
+at this hour?”
+
+There was no appearance of anger in Juba; he seemed as free from feeling
+of every kind, from what is called _heart_, as if he had been a stone. In
+answer to his brother’s question, he quietly said, “I have been down
+there,” pointing in the direction of the woods.
+
+An expression of sharp anguish passed over his brother’s face, and for a
+moment he was silent. At length he said, “You don’t mean to say you have
+been down to poor mother?”
+
+“I do,” said Juba.
+
+There was again a silence for a little while; then Agellius renewed the
+conversation. “You have fallen off sadly, Juba, in the course of the last
+several years.”
+
+Juba tossed his head, and crossed his legs.
+
+“At one time I thought you would have been baptized,” his brother
+continued.
+
+“That was my weakness,” answered Juba; “it was a weak moment: it was just
+after the old bishop’s death. He had been kind to me as a child; and he
+said some womanish words to me, and it was excusable in me.”
+
+“Oh that you had yielded to your wish!” cried Agellius.
+
+Juba looked superior. “The fit passed,” he said. “I have come to a juster
+view of things. It is not every one who has the strength of mind. I
+consider that a logical head comes to a very different conclusion;” and he
+began wagging his own, to the right and left, as if it were coming to a
+great many.
+
+“Well,” said Agellius, gaping, and desiring at least to come to a
+conclusion of the altercation, “what brings you here so late?”
+
+“I was on my way to Jucundus,” he answered, “and have been delayed by the
+Succoth-benoth in the grove across the river.”
+
+Here they were thrown back upon their controversy. Agellius turned quite
+white. “My poor fellow,” he said, “what were you there for?”
+
+“To see the world,” answered Juba; “it’s unmanly not to see it. Why
+shouldn’t I see it? It was good fun. I despise them all, fools and idiots.
+There they were, scampering about, or lying like hogs, all in liquor. Apes
+and swine! However, I will do as others do, if I please. I will be as
+drunk as they, when I see good. I am my own master, and it would be no
+kind of harm.”
+
+“No harm! why, is it no harm to become an ape or a hog?”
+
+“You don’t take just views of human nature,” answered Juba, with a
+self-satisfied air. “Our first duty is to seek our own happiness. If a man
+thinks it happier to be a hog, why, let him be a hog,” and he laughed.
+“This is where you are narrow-minded. I shall seek my own happiness, and
+try this way, if I please.”
+
+“Happiness!” cried Agellius; “where have you been picking up all this
+stuff? Can you call such detestable filth happiness?”
+
+“What do you know about such matters?” asked Juba. “Did you ever see them?
+Did you ever try them? You would be twice the man you are if you had. You
+will not be a man till you do. You are carried off your legs in your own
+way. I’d rather get drunk every day than fall down on all fours as you do,
+crawling on your stomach like a worm, and whining like a hound that has
+been beaten.”
+
+“Now, as I live, you shan’t stop here one instant longer!” cried out
+Agellius, starting up. “Be off with you! get away! what do you come here
+to blaspheme for? who wants you? who asked for you? Go! go, I say! take
+yourself off! Why don’t you go? Keep your ribaldry for others.”
+
+“I am as good as you any day,” said Juba.
+
+“I don’t set myself up,” answered Agellius, “but it’s impossible to
+confound Christian and unbeliever as you do.”
+
+“Christian and unbeliever!” said Juba, slowly. “I suppose, when they are
+a-courting each other, they _are_ confounded.” He looked hard at Agellius,
+as if he thought he had hit a blot. Then he continued, “If I _were_ a
+Christian, I’d be so in earnest: else I’d be an honest heathen.”
+
+Agellius coloured somewhat, and sat down, as if under embarrassment.
+
+“I despise you,” said Juba; “you have not the pluck to be a Christian. Be
+consistent, and fizz upon a stake; but you’re not made of that stuff.
+You’re even afraid of uncle. Nay, you can be caught by those painted
+wares, about which, when it suits your purpose, you can be so grave. I
+despise you,” he continued, “I despise you, and the whole kit of you.
+What’s the difference between you and another? Your people say, ‘Earth’s a
+vanity, life’s a dream, riches a deceit, pleasure a snare. Fratres
+charissimi, the time is short;’ but who love earth and life and riches and
+pleasure better than they? You are all of you as fond of the world, as set
+upon gain, as chary of reputation, as ambitious of power, as the jolly old
+heathen, who, you say, is going the way of the pit.”
+
+“It is one thing to have a conscience,” answered Agellius; “another thing
+to act upon it. The conscience of these poor people is darkened. You had a
+conscience once.”
+
+“Conscience, conscience,” said Juba. “Yes, certainly, once I had a
+conscience. Yes, and once I had a bad chill, and went about chattering and
+shivering; and once I had a game leg, and then I went limping; and so, you
+see, I once on a time had a conscience. O yes, I have had many consciences
+before now—white, black, yellow, and green; they were all bad; but they
+are all gone, and now I have none.”
+
+Agellius said nothing; his one wish, as may be supposed, was to get rid of
+so unwelcome a visitor.
+
+“The truth is,” continued Juba, with the air of a teacher—“the truth is,
+that religion was a fashion with me, which is now gone by. It was the
+complexion of a particular stage of my life. I was neither the better nor
+the worse for it. It was an accident, like the bloom on my face, which
+soon,” he said, spreading his fingers over his dirty-coloured cheeks, and
+stroking them, “which soon will disappear. I acted according to the
+feeling, while it lasted; but I can no more recall it than my first teeth,
+or the down on my chin. It’s among the things that were.”
+
+Agellius still keeping silence from weariness and disgust, he looked at
+him in a significant way, and said, slowly, “I see how it is; I have
+penetration enough to perceive that you don’t believe a bit more about
+religion than I do.”
+
+“You must not say that under my roof,” cried Agellius, feeling he must not
+let his brother’s charge pass without a protest. “Many are my sins, but
+unbelief is not one of them.”
+
+Juba tossed his head. “I think I can see through a stone slab as well as
+any one,” he said. “It is as I have said; but you’re too proud to confess
+it. It’s part of your hypocrisy.”
+
+“Well,” said Agellius coldly, “let’s have done. It’s getting late, Juba;
+you’ll be missed at home. Jucundus will be inquiring for you, and some of
+those revelling friends of yours may do you a mischief by the way. Why, my
+good fellow,” he continued, in surprise, “you have no leggings. The
+scorpions will catch hold of you to a certainty in the dark. Come, let me
+tie some straw wisps about you.”
+
+“No fear of scorpions for me,” answered Juba; “I have some real good
+amulets for the occasion, which even _boola-kog_ and _uffah_ will
+respect.”
+
+Saying this, he passed out of the room as unceremoniously as he had
+entered it, and took the direction of the city, talking to himself, and
+singing snatches of wild airs as he went along, throwing back and shaking
+his head, and now and then uttering a sharp internal laugh. Disdaining to
+follow the ordinary path, he dived down into the thick and wet grass, and
+scrambled through the ravine, which the public road crossed before it
+ascended the hill. Meanwhile he accompanied his quickened pace with a
+louder strain, and it ran as follows:—
+
+  “The little black Moor is the mate for me,
+  When the night is dark, and the earth is free,
+  Under the limbs of the broad yew-tree.
+
+  “’Twas Father Cham that planted that yew,
+  And he fed it fat with the bloody dew
+  Of a score of brats, as his lineage grew.
+
+  “Footing and flaunting it, all in the night,
+  Each lock flings fire, each heel strikes light;
+  No lamps need they, whose breath is bright.”
+
+Here he was interrupted by a sudden growl, which sounded almost under his
+feet, and some wild animal was seen to slink away. Juba showed no
+surprise; he had taken out a small metal idol, and whispering some words
+to it, had presented it to the animal. He clambered up the bank, gained
+the city gate, and made his way for his uncle’s dwelling, which was near
+the temple of Astarte.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+
+                           JUCUNDUS AT SUPPER.
+
+
+The house of Jucundus was closed for the night when Juba reached it, or
+you would see, were you his companion, that it was one of the most showy
+shops in Sicca. It was the image-store of the place, and set out for sale,
+not articles of statuary alone, but of metal, of mosaic work, and of
+jewellery, as far as they were dedicated to the service of paganism. It
+was bright with the many colours adopted in the embellishment of images,
+and the many lights which silver and gold, brass and ivory, alabaster,
+gypsum, talc, and glass reflected. Shelves and cabinets were laden with
+wares; both the precious material, and the elaborated trinket. All tastes
+were suited, the popular and the refined, the fashion of the day and the
+love of the antique, the classical and the barbarian devotion. There you
+might see the rude symbols of invisible powers, which, originating in
+deficiency of art, had been perpetuated by reverence for the past: the
+mysterious cube of marble sacred among the Arabs, the pillar which was the
+emblem of Mercury or Bacchus, the broad-based cone of Heliogabalus, the
+pyramid of Paphos, and the tile or brick of Juno.
+
+There, too, were the unmeaning blocks of stone with human heads, which
+were to be dressed out in rich robes, and to simulate the human form.
+There were other articles besides, as portable as these were unmanageable:
+little Junos, Mercuries, Dianas, and Fortunas, for the bosom or the
+girdle. Household gods were there, and the objects of personal devotion:
+Minerva or Vesta, with handsome niches or shrines in which they might
+reside. There, too, were the brass crowns, or _nimbi_ which were intended
+to protect the heads of the gods from bats and birds. There you might buy,
+were you a heathen, rings with heads on them of Jupiter, Mars, the Sun,
+Serapis, and above all Astarte. You would find there the rings and signets
+of the Basilidians; amulets too of wood or ivory: figures of demons,
+preternaturally ugly; little skeletons, and other superstitious devices.
+It would be hard, indeed, if you could not be pleased, whatever your
+religious denomination—unless indeed you were determined to reject all the
+appliances and objects of idolatry indiscriminately—and in that case you
+would rejoice that it was night when you arrived there, and, in
+particular, that darkness swallowed up other appliances and objects of
+pagan worship, which to darkness were due by a particular title, and by
+darkness were best shrouded, till the coming of that day when all things,
+good and evil, shall be made light.
+
+The shop, as we have said, was closed, concealed from view by large
+lumbering shutters, and made secure by heavy bars of wood. So we must
+enter by the passage or vestibule on the right side, and that will conduct
+us into a modest _atrium_, with an _impluvium_ on one side, and on the
+other the _triclinium_ or supper-room, backing the shop. Jucundus had been
+pleasantly engaged in a small supper-party; and, mindful that a
+_symposium_ should lie within the number of the Graces and of the Muses,
+he had confined his guests to two, the young Greek Aristo, who was one of
+his principal artists, and Cornelius the son of a freedman of a Roman of
+distinction, who had lately got a place in one of the _scrinia_ of the
+proconsular _officium_, and had migrated into the province from the
+imperial city where he had spent his best days.
+
+The dinner had not been altogether suitable to modern ideas of good
+living. The grapes from Tacape, and the dates from the lake Tritonis, the
+white and black figs, the nectarines and peaches, and the watermelons,
+address themselves to the imagination of an Englishman, as well as of an
+African of the third century. So also might the liquor derived from the
+sap or honey of the Getulian palm, and the sweet wine, called _melilotus_,
+made from the poetical fruit found upon the coast of the Syrtis. He would
+have been struck, too, with the sweetness of the mutton; but he would have
+asked what the sheep’s tails were before he tasted them, and found how
+like marrow the firm substance ate of which they consisted. He would have
+felt he ought to admire the roes of mullets, pressed and dried, from
+Mauritania; but he would have thought twice before he tried the lion
+cutlets though they had the flavour of veal, and the additional _goût_ of
+being imperial property, and poached from a preserve. But when he saw the
+indigenous dish, the very haggis and cock-a-leekie of Africa, in the shape
+of—(alas! alas! it _must_ be said, with whatever apology for its
+introduction)—in shape, then, of a delicate puppy, served up with
+tomatoes, with its head between its fore-paws, we consider he would have
+risen from the unholy table, and thought he had fallen upon the
+hospitality of some sorceress of the neighbouring forest. However, to that
+festive board our Briton was not invited, for he had some previous
+engagement that evening, either of painting himself with woad, or of
+hiding himself to the chin in the fens; so that nothing occurred to
+disturb the harmony of the party, and the good humour and easy
+conversation which was the effect of such excellent cheer.
+
+Cornelius had been present at the Secular Games in the foregoing year, and
+was full of them, of Rome, and of himself in connection with it, as became
+so genuine a cockney of the imperial period. He was full of the high
+patriotic thoughts which so solemn a celebration had kindled within him.
+“O great Rome!” he said, “thou art first, and there is no second. In that
+wonderful pageant which these eyes saw last year was embodied her majesty,
+was promised her eternity. We die, she lives. I say, _let_ a man die. It’s
+well for him to take hemlock, or open a vein, after having seen the
+Secular Games. What was there to live for? I felt it; life was gone; its
+best gifts flat and insipid after that great day. Excellent—Tauromenian, I
+suppose? We know it in Rome. Fill up my cup. I drink to the genius of the
+emperor.”
+
+He was full of his subject, and soon resumed it. “Fancy the Campus Martius
+lighted up from one end to the other. It was the finest thing in the
+world. A large plain, covered, not with streets, not with woods, but
+broken and crossed with superb buildings in the midst of groves, avenues
+of trees, and green grass, down to the water’s edge. There’s nothing that
+isn’t there. Do you want the grandest temples in the world, the most
+spacious porticoes, the longest racecourses? there they are. Do you want
+_gymnasia_? there they are. Do you want arches, statues, obelisks? you
+find them there. There you have at one end the stupendous mausoleum of
+Augustus, cased with white marble, and just across the river the huge
+towering mound of Hadrian. At the other end you have the noble Pantheon of
+Agrippa, with its splendid Syracusan columns, and its dome glittering with
+silver tiles. Hard by are the baths of Alexander, with their beautiful
+groves. Ah! my good friend! I shall have no time to drink if I go on.
+Beyond are the numerous chapels and fanes which fringe the base of the
+Capitoline hill; the tall column of Antoninus comes next, with its
+adjacent basilica, where is kept the authentic list of the provinces of
+the empire, and of the governors, each a king in power and dominion, who
+are sent out to them. Well, I am now only beginning. Fancy, I say, this
+magnificent region all lighted up; every temple to and fro, every bath,
+every grove, gleaming with innumerable lamps and torches. No, not even the
+gods of Olympus have anything that comes near it. Rome is the greatest of
+all divinities. In the dead of night all was alive; then it was, when
+nature sleeps exhausted, Rome began the solemn sacrifices to commemorate
+her thousand years. On the banks of the Tiber, which had seen Æneas land,
+and Romulus ascend to the gods, the clear red flame shot up as the victims
+burned. The music of ten thousand horns and flutes burst forth, and the
+sacred dances began upon the greensward. I am too old to dance; but, I
+protest, even I stood up and threw off. We danced through three nights,
+dancing the old millenary out, dancing the new millenary in. We were all
+Romans, no strangers, no slaves. It was a solemn family feast, the feast
+of all the Romans.”
+
+“Then we came in for the feast,” said Aristo; “for Caracalla gave Roman
+citizenship to all freemen all over the world. We are all of us Romans,
+recollect, Cornelius.”
+
+“Ah! that was another matter—a condescension,” answered Cornelius. “Yes,
+in a certain sense, I grant it; but it was a political act.”
+
+“I warrant you,” retorted Aristo, “most political. We were to be fleeced,
+do you see? so your imperial government made us Romans, that we might have
+the taxes of Romans, and that in addition to our own. You’ve taxed us
+double; and as for the privilege of citizenship, much it is, by Hercules,
+when every snob has it who can wear a _pileus_ or cherish his hair.”
+
+“Ah! but you should have seen the procession from the Capitol,” continued
+Cornelius, “on, I think, the second day; from the Capitol to the Circus,
+all down the Via Sacra. Hosts of strangers there, and provincials from the
+four corners of the earth, but not in the procession. There you saw, all
+in one _coup-d’œil_, the real good blood of Rome, the young blood of the
+new generation, and promise of the future; the sons of patrician and
+consular families, of imperators, orators, conquerors, statesmen. They
+rode at the head of the procession, fine young fellows, six abreast; and
+still more of them on foot. Then came the running horses and the chariots,
+the boxers, the wrestlers, and other combatants, all ready for the
+competition. The whole school of gladiators then turned out, boys and all,
+with their masters, dressed in red tunics, and splendidly armed. They
+formed three bands, and they went forward gaily, dancing and singing the
+Pyrrhic. By-the-bye, a thousand pair of gladiators fought during the
+games—a round thousand, and such clean-made, well-built fellows, and they
+came against each other so gallantly! You should have seen it; _I_ can’t go
+through it. There was a lot of satyrs, jumping and frisking, in burlesque
+of the martial dances which preceded them. There was a crowd of trumpeters
+and horn-blowers; ministers of the sacrifices with their victims, bulls
+and rams, dressed up with gay wreaths; drivers, butchers, haruspices,
+heralds; images of gods with their cars of ivory or silver, drawn by tame
+lions and elephants. I can’t recollect the order. O! but the grandest
+thing of all was the Carmen, sung by twenty-seven noble youths, and as
+many noble maidens, taken for the purpose from the bosoms of their
+families to propitiate the gods of Rome. The flamens, augurs, colleges of
+priests, it was endless. Last of all came the emperor himself.”
+
+“That’s the late man,” observed Jucundus, “Philip; no bad riddance his
+death, if all’s true that’s said of him.”
+
+“All emperors are good in their time and way,” answered Cornelius; “Philip
+was good then, and Decius is good now;—whom the gods preserve!”
+
+“True,” said Aristo, “I understand; an emperor cannot do wrong, except in
+dying, and then everything goes wrong with him. His death is his first bad
+deed; he ought to be ashamed of it; it somehow turns all his great virtues
+into vices.”
+
+“Ah! no one was so good an emperor as our man, Gordianus,” said Jucundus,
+“a princely old man, living and dead; patron of trade and of the arts;
+such villas! he had enormous revenues. Poor old gentleman! and his son
+too. I never shall forget the day when the news came that he was gone. Let
+me see, it was shortly after that old fool Strabo’s death—I mean my
+brother; a good thirteen years ago. All Africa was in tears; there was no
+one like Gordianus.”
+
+“That’s old world philosophy,” said Aristo; “Jucundus, you must go to
+school. Don’t you see that all that is, is right; and all that was, is
+wrong? ‘Te nos facimus, Fortuna, deam,’ says your poet; well, I drink ‘to
+the fortunes of Rome,’—while it lasts.”
+
+“You’re a young man,” answered Cornelius, “a very young man, and a Greek.
+Greeks never understand Rome. It’s most difficult to understand us. It’s a
+science. Look at this medal, young gentleman; it was one of those struck
+at the games. Is it not grand? ‘Novum sæculum,’ and on the reverse,
+‘Æternitati.’ Always changing, always imperishable. Emperors rise and
+fall; Rome remains. The eternal city! Isn’t this good philosophy?”
+
+“Truly, a most beautiful medal,” said Aristo, examining it, and handing it
+on to his host. “You might make an amulet of it, Jucundus. But as to
+eternity, why, that is a very great word; and, if I mistake not, other
+states have been eternal before Rome. Ten centuries is a very respectable
+eternity; be content, Rome is eternal already, and may die without
+prejudice to the medal.”
+
+“Blaspheme not,” replied Cornelius: “Rome is healthier, more full of life,
+and promises more, than at any former time, you may rely upon it. ‘Novum
+sæculum!’ she has the age of the eagle, and will but cast her feathers to
+begin a fresh thousand.”
+
+“But Egypt,” interposed Aristo, “if old Herodotus speaks true, scarcely
+had a beginning. Up and up, the higher you go, the more dynasties of
+Egyptian kings do you find. And we hear strange reports of the nations in
+the far east, beyond the Ganges.”
+
+“But I tell you, man,” rejoined Cornelius, “Rome is a city of kings. That
+one city, in this one year, has as many kings at once as those of all the
+kings of all the dynasties of Egypt put together. Sesostris, and the rest
+of them, what are they to imperators, prefects, proconsuls, _vicarii_, and
+_rationales_? Look back at Lucullus, Cæsar, Pompey, Sylla, Titus, Trajan.
+What’s old Cheops’ pyramid to the Flavian amphitheatre? What is the
+many-gated Thebes to Nero’s golden house, while it was? What the grandest
+palace of Sesostris or Ptolemy but a second-rate villa of any one of ten
+thousand Roman citizens? Our houses stand on acres of ground, they ascend
+as high as the Tower of Babylon; they swarm with columns like a forest;
+they pullulate into statues and pictures. The walls, pavements, and
+ceilings are dazzling from the lustre of the rarest marble, red and
+yellow, green and mottled. Fountains of perfumed water shoot aloft from
+the floor, and fish swim in rocky channels round about the room, waiting
+to be caught and killed for the banquet. We dine; and we feast on the head
+of the ostrich, the brains of the peacock, the liver of the bream, the
+milk of the murena, and the tongue of the flamingo. A flight of doves,
+nightingales, beccaficoes are concentrated into one dish. On great
+occasions we eat a phœnix. Our saucepans are of silver, our dishes of
+gold, our vases of onyx, and our cups of precious stones. Hangings and
+carpets of Tyrian purple are around us and beneath us, and we lie on ivory
+couches. The choicest wines of Greece and Italy crown our goblets, and
+exotic flowers crown our heads. In come troops of dancers from Lydia, or
+pantomimes from Alexandria, to entertain both eye and mind; or our noble
+dames and maidens take a place at our tables; they wash in asses’ milk,
+they dress by mirrors as large as fish-ponds, and they glitter from head
+to foot with combs, brooches, necklaces, collars, ear-rings, armlets,
+bracelets, finger-rings, girdles, stomachers, and anklets, all of diamond
+and emerald. Our slaves may be counted by thousands, and they come from
+all parts of the world. Everything rare and precious is brought to Rome:
+the gum of Arabia, the nard of Assyria, the papyrus of Egypt, the
+citron-wood of Mauretania, the bronze of Ægina, the pearls of Britain, the
+cloth of gold of Phrygia, the fine webs of Cos, the embroidery of Babylon,
+the silks of Persia, the lion-skins of Getulia, the wool of Miletus, the
+plaids of Gaul. Thus we live, an imperial people, who do nothing but enjoy
+themselves and keep festival the whole year; and at length we die—and then
+we burn: we burn—in stacks of cinnamon and cassia, and in shrouds of
+_asbestos_, making emphatically a good end of it. Such are we Romans, a
+great people. Why, we are honoured wherever we go. There’s my master,
+there’s myself; as we came here from Italy, I protest we were nearly
+worshipped as demi-gods.”
+
+“And perhaps some fine morning,” said Aristo, “Rome herself will burn in
+cinnamon and cassia, and in all her burnished Corinthian brass and scarlet
+bravery, the old mother following her children to the funeral pyre. One
+has heard something of Babylon, and its drained moat, and the soldiers of
+the Persian.”
+
+A pause occurred in the conversation as one of Jucundus’s slaves entered
+with fresh wine, larger goblets, and a vase of snow from the Atlas.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+                          GOTHS AND CHRISTIANS.
+
+
+Cornelius was full of his subject, and did not attend to the Greek. “The
+wild-beasts hunts,” he continued, “ah, those hunts during the games,
+Aristo! they were a spectacle for the gods. Twenty-two elephants, ten
+panthers, ten hyænas (by-the-bye, a new beast, not strange, however, to
+you here, I suppose), ten camelopards, a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros—I
+can’t go through the list. Fancy the circus planted throughout for the
+occasion, and turned into a park, and then another set of wild animals,
+Getes and Sarmatians, Celts and Goths, sent in against them, to hunt down,
+capture and kill them, or to be killed themselves.”
+
+“Ah, the Goths!” answered Aristo; “those fellows give you trouble, though,
+now and then. Perhaps they will give you more. There is a report in the
+prætorium to-day that they have crossed the Danube.”
+
+“Yes, they _will_ give us trouble,” said Cornelius, drily; “they _have_
+given us trouble, and they will give us more. The Samnites gave us
+trouble, and our friends of Carthage here, and Jugurtha, and Mithridates;
+trouble, yes, that is the long and the short of it; they will give us
+trouble. Is trouble a new thing to Rome?” he asked, stretching out his
+arm, as if he were making a speech after dinner, and giving a toast.
+
+“The Goths give trouble, and take a bribe,” retorted Aristo; “this is what
+trouble means in their case: it’s a troublesome fellow who hammers at our
+door till we pay his reckoning. It is troublesome to raise the means to
+buy them off. And the example of these troublesome savages is catching; it
+was lately rumoured that the Carpians had been asking the same terms for
+keeping quiet.”
+
+“It would ill become the majesty of Rome to soil her fingers with the
+blood of such vermin,” said Cornelius; “she ignores them.”
+
+“And therefore she most majestically bleeds us instead,” answered Aristo,
+“that she may have treasure to give them. We are not so troublesome as
+they; the more’s the pity. No offence to you, however, or to the emperor,
+or to great Rome, Cornelius. We are over our cups; it’s only a game of
+politics, you know, like chess or the _cottabus_. Maro bids you ‘parcere
+subjectis, et debellare superbos;’ but you have changed your manners. You
+coax the Goths and bully the poor African.”
+
+“Africa can show fight, too,” interposed Jucundus, who had been calmly
+listening and enjoying his own wine; “witness Thysdrus. That was giving
+every rapacious Quæstor a lesson that he may go too far, and find a dagger
+when he demands a purse.”
+
+He was alluding to the revolt of Africa, which led to the downfall of the
+tyrant Maximin and the exaltation of the Gordians, when the native
+landlords armed their peasantry, killed the imperial officer, and raised
+the standard of rebellion in the neighbouring town from impatience of
+exactions under which they suffered.
+
+“No offence, I say, Cornelius, no offence to eternal Rome,” said Aristo,
+“but you have explained to us why you weigh so heavy on us. I’ve always
+heard it was a fortune at Rome for a man to have found out a new tax.
+Vespasian did his best; but now you tax our smoke, and our very shadow;
+and Pescennius threatened to tax the air we breathe. We’ll play at
+riddles, and you shall solve the following:—Say who is she that eats her
+own limbs, and grows eternal upon them? Ah, the Goths will take the
+measure of her eternity!”
+
+“The Goths!” said Jucundus, who was warming into conversational life, “the
+Goths! no fear of the Goths; but,” and he nodded significantly, “look at
+home; we have more to fear indoors than abroad.”
+
+“He means the prætorians,” said Cornelius to Aristo, condescendingly; “I
+grant you that there have been several untoward affairs; we have had our
+problem, but it’s a thing of the past, it never can come again. I venture
+to say that the power of the prætorians is at an end. That murder of the
+two emperors the other day was the worst job they ever did; it has turned
+the public opinion of the whole world against them. I have no fear of the
+prætorians.”
+
+“I don’t mean prætorians more than Goths,” said Jucundus; “no, give me the
+old weapons, the old maxims of Rome, and I defy the scythe of Saturn. Do
+the soldiers march under the old ensign? do they swear by the old gods? do
+they interchange the good old signals and watchwords? do they worship the
+fortune of Rome; then I say we are safe. But do we take to new ways? do we
+trifle with religion? do we make light of Jupiter, Mars, Romulus, the
+augurs, and the ancilia? then I say, not all our shows and games, our
+elephants, hyænas, and hippopotamuses, will do us any good. It was not the
+best thing, no, not the best thing that the soldiers did, when they
+invested that Philip with the purple. But he is dead and gone.” And he sat
+up and leant on his elbow.
+
+“Ah! but it will be all set right now,” said Cornelius, “_you’ll_ see.”
+
+“He’d be a reformer, that Philip,” continued Jucundus, “and put down an
+enormity. Well, they call it an enormity; let it be an enormity. He’d put
+it down; but why? there’s the point; why? It’s no secret at all,” and his
+voice grew angry, “that that hoary-headed Atheist Fabian was at the bottom
+of it; Fabian, the Christian. I hate reforms.”
+
+“Well, we had long wished to do it,” answered Cornelius, “but could not
+manage it. Alexander attempted it near twenty years ago. It’s what
+philosophers have always aimed at.”
+
+“The gods consume philosophers and the Christians together!” said Jucundus
+devoutly. “There’s little to choose between them, except that the
+Christians are the filthier animal of the two. But both are ruining the
+most glorious political structure that the world ever saw. I am not
+over-fond of Alexander either.”
+
+“Thank you in the name of philosophy,” said the Greek.
+
+“And thank you in the name of the Christians,” chimed in Juba.
+
+“That’s good!” cried Jucundus; “the first word that hopeful youth has
+spoken since he came in, and he takes on him to call himself a Christian.”
+
+“I’ve a right to do so, if I choose,” said Juba; “I’ve a right to be a
+Christian.”
+
+“Right! O yes, right! ha, ha!” answered Jucundus, “right! Jove help the
+lad! by all manner of means. Of course, you have a right to go _in malam
+rem_ in whatever way you please.”
+
+“I am my own master,” said Juba; “my father was a Christian. I suppose it
+depends on myself to follow him or not, according to my fancy, and as long
+as I think fit.”
+
+“Fancy! think fit!” answered Jucundus, “you pompous little mule! Yes, go
+and be a Christian, my dear child, as your doting father went. Go, like
+him, to the priest of their mysteries; be spit on, stripped, dipped; feed
+on little boys’ marrow and brains; worship the ass; and learn all the foul
+magic of the sect. And then be delated and taken up, and torn to shreds on
+the rack, or thrown to the lions and so go to Tartarus, if Tartarus there
+be, in the way you think fit. You’ll harm none but yourself, my boy. I
+don’t fear such as you, but the deeper heads.”
+
+Juba stood up with a look of offended dignity, and, as on former
+occasions, tossed the head which had been by implication disparaged. “I
+despise you,” he said.
+
+“Well, but you are hard on the Christians,” said Aristo. “I have heard
+them maintain that their superstition, if adopted, would be the salvation
+of Rome. They maintain that the old religion is gone or going out; that
+something new is wanted to keep the empire together; and that their
+worship is just fitted to the times.”
+
+“All I say to the vipers,” said Jucundus, “is, ‘Let well alone. We did
+well enough without you; we did well enough till you sprang up.’ A plague
+on their insolence; as if Jew or Egyptian could do aught for us when Numa
+and the Sibyl fail. That is what I say, Let Rome be true to herself and
+nothing can harm her; let her shift her foundation, and I would not buy
+her for this water-melon,” he said, taking a suck at it. “Rome alone can
+harm Rome. Recollect old Horace, ‘Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.’ He was
+a prophet. If she falls, it is by her own hand.”
+
+“I agree,” said Cornelius; “certainly, to set up any new worship is
+treason; not a doubt of it. The gods keep us from such ingratitude! We
+have grown great by means of them, and they are part and parcel of the law
+of Rome. But there is no great chance of our forgetting this; Decius
+won’t; that’s a fact. You will see. Time will show; perhaps to-morrow,
+perhaps next day,” he added, mysteriously.
+
+“Why in the world should you have this frantic dread of these poor
+scarecrows of Christians,” said Aristo, “all because they hold an opinion?
+Why are you not afraid of the bats and the moles? It’s an opinion: there
+have been other opinions before them, and there will be other opinions
+after. Let them alone and they’ll die away; make a hubbub about them and
+they’ll spread.”
+
+“Spread?” cried Jucundus, who was under the twofold excitement of personal
+feeling and of wine, “spread, they’ll spread? yes, they’ll spread. Yes,
+grow, like scorpions, twenty at a birth. The country already swarms with
+them; they are as many as frogs or grasshoppers; they start up everywhere
+under one’s nose, when one least expects them. The air breeds them like
+plague-flies; the wind drifts them like locusts. No one’s safe; any one
+may be a Christian; it’s an epidemic. Great Jove! _I_ may be a Christian
+before I know where I am. Heaven and earth! is it not monstrous?” he
+continued, with increasing fierceness. “Yes, Jucundus, my poor man, you
+may wake and find yourself a Christian, without knowing it, against your
+will. Ah! my friends, pity me! I may find myself a beast, and obliged to
+suck blood and live among the tombs as if I liked it, without power to
+tell you how I loathe it, all through their sorcery. By the genius of Rome
+something must be done. I say, no one is safe. You call on your friend; he
+is sitting in the dark, unwashed, uncombed, undressed. What is the matter?
+Ah! his son has turned Christian. Your wedding-day is fixed, you are
+expecting your bride; she does not come; why? she will not have you; she
+has become a Christian. Where’s young Nomentanus? Who has seen Nomentanus?
+in the forum, or the campus, in the circus, in the bath? Has he caught the
+plague or got a sunstroke? Nothing of the kind; the Christians have caught
+hold of him. Young and old, rich and poor, my lady in her litter and her
+slave, modest maid and Lydia at the Thermæ, nothing comes amiss to them.
+All confidence is gone; there’s no one we can reckon on. I go to my
+tailor’s: ‘Nergal,’ I say to him, ‘Nergal, I want a new tunic,’ The
+wretched hypocrite bows, and runs to and fro, and unpacks his stuffs and
+cloths, like another man. A word in your ear. The man’s a Christian,
+dressed up like a tailor. They have no dress of their own. If I were
+emperor, I’d make the sneaking curs wear a badge, I would; a dog’s collar,
+a fox’s tail, or a pair of ass’s ears. Then we should know friends from
+foes when we meet them.”
+
+“We should think that dangerous,” said Cornelius; “however, you are taking
+it too much to heart; you are making too much of them, my good friend.
+They have not even got the present, and you are giving them the future,
+which is just what they want.”
+
+“If Jucundus will listen to me,” said Aristo, “I could satisfy him that
+the Christians are actually falling off. They once were numerous in this
+very place; now there are hardly any. They have been declining for these
+fifty years; the danger from them is past. Do you want to know how to
+revive them? Put out an imperial edict, forbid them, denounce them. Do you
+want them to drop away like autumn leaves? Take no notice of them.”
+
+“I can’t deny that in Italy they _have_ grown,” said Cornelius; “they
+_have_ grown in numbers and in wealth, and they intermarry with us. Thus
+the upper class becomes to a certain extent infected. We may find it
+necessary to repress them; but, as you would repress vermin, without
+fearing them.”
+
+“The worshippers of the gods are the many, and the Christians are the
+few,” persisted Aristo; “if the two parties intermarry, the weaker will
+get the worst of it. You will find the statues of the gods gradually
+creeping back into the Christian chapel; and a man must be an honest
+fellow who buys our images, eh, Jucundus?”
+
+“Well, Aristo,” said the paterfamilias, whose violence never lasted long,
+“if your sister’s bright eyes win back my poor Agellius you will have
+something more to say for yourself than, at present, I grant.”
+
+“I see,” said Cornelius, gravely, “I begin to understand it. I could not
+make out why our good host had such great fear for the stability of Rome.
+But it is one of those things which the experience of life has taught me.
+I have often seen it in the imperial city itself. Whenever you find a man
+show special earnestness against these fanatics, depend on it there is
+something that touches him personally in the matter. There was a very
+great man, the present Flamen Dialis, for whom I have unbounded respect;
+for a long time I was at a loss to conceive why a person of his weight,
+sound, sensible, well-judging, should have such a fear of the Christians.
+One day he made an oration against them in the senate-house; he wanted to
+send them to the rack. But the secret came out; the good man was on the
+rack himself about his daughter, who persisted in calling herself a
+Christian, and refused to paint her face or go to the amphitheatre. To be
+sure, a most trying affair this for the old gentleman. The venerable Pater
+Patratus, too, what suppers he gave! a fine specimen of the Lucullus type;
+yet he was always advocating the lictor and the _commentariensis_ in the
+instance of the Christian. No wonder; his wife and son were disgracing him
+in the eyes of the whole world by frequenting the meetings of these
+Christians. However, I agree with Decius, they must be put down. They are
+not formidable, but they are an eyesore.”
+
+Here the rushing of the water-clock which measured time in the
+neighbouring square, ceased, signifying thereby that the night was getting
+on. Juba had already crept into the dark closet which served him for a
+sleeping-place; had taken off his sandals, and loosened his belt; had
+wrapt the serpent he had about him round his neck, and was breathing
+heavily. Jucundus made the parting libation, and Cornelius took his leave.
+Aristo rose too; and Jucundus, accompanying them to the entrance, paid the
+not uncommon penalty of his potations, for the wine mounted to his head,
+and he returned into the room, and sat him down again with an impression
+that Aristo was still at table.
+
+“My dear boy,” he said, “Agellius is but a wet Christian; that’s all, not
+obstinate, like his brother there. ’Twas his father; the less we say about
+him the better; he’s gone. The Furies make his bed for him! an odious set!
+Their priests, little ugly men. I saw one when I was a boy at Carthage. So
+unlike your noble Roman Saliares, or your fine portly priest of Isis, clad
+in white, breathing odours like spring flowers; men who enjoyed this life,
+not like that sour hypocrite. He was as black as an Ethiopian, and as
+withered as a Saracen, and he never looked you in the face. And, after
+all, the fellow must die for his religion, rather than put a few grains of
+golden incense on the altar of great Jove. Jove’s the god for me; a
+glorious, handsome, curly god—but they are all good, all the gods are
+good. There’s Bacchus, he’s a good, comfortable god, though a sly,
+treacherous fellow—a treacherous fellow. There’s Ceres, too; Pomona; the
+Muses; Astarte, too, as they call her here; all good;—and Apollo, though
+he’s somewhat too hot in this season, and too free with his bow. He gave
+me a bad fever once. Ah! life’s precious, most precious; so I felt it
+then, when I was all but gone to Pluto. Life never returns, it’s like
+water spilt; you can’t gather it up. It is dispersed into the elements, to
+the four winds. Ah! there’s something more there than I can tell; more
+than all your philosophers can determine.”
+
+He seemed to think awhile, and began again: “Enjoyment’s the great rule;
+ask yourself, ‘Have I made the most of things?’ that’s what I say to the
+rising generation. Many and many’s the time when I have not turned them to
+the best account. Oh, if I had now to begin life again, how many things
+should I correct! I might have done better this evening. Those abominable
+pears! I might have known they would not be worth the eating. Mutton, that
+was all well; doves, good again; crane, kid; well, I don’t see that I
+could have done much better.”
+
+After a few minutes he got up half asleep, and put out all the lights but
+one small lamp, with which he made his way into his own bed-closet. “All
+is vanity,” he continued, with a slow, grave utterance, “all is vanity but
+eating and drinking. It does not pay to serve the gods except for this.
+What’s fame? what’s glory? what’s power? smoke. I’ve often thought the hog
+is the only really wise animal. We should be happier if we were all hogs.
+Hogs keep the end of life steadily in view; that’s why those toads of
+Christians will not eat them, lest they should get like them. Quiet,
+respectable, sensible enjoyment; not riot, or revel, or excess, or
+quarrelling. Life is short.” And with this undeniable sentiment he fell
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+                        PERSECUTION IN THE OFFING.
+
+
+Next morning, as Jucundus was dusting and polishing his statues and other
+articles of taste and devotion, supplying the gaps in their ranks, and
+grouping a number of new ones which had come in from his workmen, Juba
+strutted into the shop, and indulged himself from time to time in an
+inward laugh or snigger at the various specimens of idolatry which grinned
+or frowned or frisked or languished on all sides of him.
+
+“Don’t sneer at that Anubis,” said his uncle; “it is the work of the
+divine Callista.”
+
+“That, I suppose, is why she brings into existence so many demons,”
+answered Juba; “nothing more can be done in the divine line; like the
+queen who fell in love with a baboon.”
+
+“Now I come to think,” retorted Jucundus, “that god of hers is something
+like _you_. She must be in love with you, Juba.”
+
+The youth, as was usual with him, tossed his head with an air of lofty
+displeasure; at length he said, “And why should she not fall in love with
+me, pray?”
+
+“Why, because you are too good or too bad to need her plastic hand. She
+could not make anything out of you. ‘Non ex quovis ligno.’ But she’d be
+doing a good work if she wiled back your brother.”
+
+“_He_ does not want wiling any more than I,” said Juba, “_I_ dare say!
+he’s no Christian.”
+
+“What’s that?” said his uncle, looking round at him in surprise; “Agellius
+no Christian?”
+
+“Not a bit of it,” answered Juba; “rest assured. I taxed him with it only
+last night; let him alone, _he’ll_ come round. He’s too proud to change,
+that’s all. Preach to him, entreat him, worry him, try to turn him, work
+at the bit, whip him, and he will turn restive, start aside, or run away;
+but let him have his head, pretend not to look, seem indifferent to the
+whole matter, and he will quietly sit down in the midst of your images
+there. Callista has an easy task; she’ll bribe him to do what he would
+else do for nothing.”
+
+“The very best news I have heard since your silly old father died,” cried
+Jucundus; “the very best—if true. Juba, I’ll give you an handsome present
+the first sow your brother sacrifices to Ceres. Ha, ha, what fine fun to
+see the young farmer over his cups at the Nundinæ! Ha, ha, no Christian!
+bravo, Juba! ha, ha, I’ll make you a present, I say, an Apollo to teach
+you manners, or a Mercury to give you wit.”
+
+“It’s quite true,” said Juba; “he would not be thinking of Callista, if he
+were thinking of his saints and angels.”
+
+“Ha, ha! to be sure!” returned Jucundus; “to be sure! yet why shouldn’t he
+worship a handsome Greek girl as well as any of those mummies and death’s
+heads and bogies of his, which I should blush to put up here alongside
+even of Anubis, or a scarabæus?”
+
+“Mother thinks she is not altogether the girl you take her for,” said his
+nephew.
+
+“No matter, no matter,” answered Jucundus, “no matter at all; she may be a
+Lais or Phryne for me; the surer to make a man of him.”
+
+“Why,” said Juba, “mother thinks her head is turning in the opposite way.
+D’you see? Strange, isn’t it?” he added, annoyed himself yet not unwilling
+to annoy his uncle.
+
+“Hm!” exclaimed Jucundus, making a wry face and looking round at him, as
+if to say, “What on earth is going to turn up now?”
+
+“To tell the truth,” said Juba, gloomily, “I did once think of her myself.
+I don’t see why I have not as much right to do so as Agellius, if I
+please. So I thought old mother might do something for me; and I asked her
+for a charm or love potion, which would bring her from her brother down to
+the forest yonder. Gurta took to it kindly, for she has a mortal hatred of
+Callista, because of her good looks, though she won’t say so, and because
+she’s a Greek! and she liked the notion of humbling the haughty minx. So
+she began one of the most tremendous spells,” he shrieked out with a
+laugh, “one of the most tremendous spells in her whole budget. All and
+everything in the most exact religious way: wine, milk, blood, meal, wax,
+old rags, gods, Numidian as well as Punic; such names; one must be
+barbarian to boot, as well as witch, to pronounce them: a score of things
+there were besides. And then to see the old woman, with her streaming grey
+hair, twinkling eyes, and grim look, twirl about as some flute girl at a
+banquet; it was enough to dance down, not only the moon, but the whole
+milky way. But it did not dance down Callista; at which mother got savage,
+and protested that Callista was a Christian.”
+
+Jucundus looked much perplexed. “Medius fidius!” he said, “why, unless we
+look sharp, she will be converting him the wrong way;” and he began pacing
+up and down the small room.
+
+Juba on his part began singing—
+
+  “Gurta the witch would have part in the jest;
+  Though lame as a gull, by his highness possessed,
+  She shouldered her crutch, and danced with the rest.
+
+  “Sporting and snorting, deep in the night,
+  Their beards flashing fire, and their hoofs striking light,
+  And their tails whisking round in the heat of their flight.”
+
+By this time Jucundus had recovered from the qualm which Juba’s
+intelligence had caused him, and he cried out, “Cease your rubbish; old
+Gurta’s jealous; I know her spite; Christian is the most blackguard word
+in her vocabulary, its Barbar for toad or adder. I see it all; no,
+Callista, the divine Callista, must take in hand this piece of wax, sing a
+charm, and mould him into a Vertumnus. She’ll show herself the more potent
+witch of the two. The new emperor too will help the incantation.”
+
+“What! something is coming?” asked Juba, with a grin.
+
+“Coming, boy? yes, I warrant you,” answered his uncle. “_We’ll_ make them
+squeak. If gentle means don’t do, then we’ll just throw in another
+ingredient or two: an axe, or a wild cat, or a firebrand.”
+
+“Take care what you are about, if you deal with Agellius,” said Juba.
+“He’s a sawney, but you must not drive him to bay. Don’t threaten; keep to
+the other line; he’s weak-hearted.”
+
+“Only as a background to bring out the painting; the Muse singing, all in
+light, relieved by sardix or sepia. It _must_ come; but perhaps Agellius
+will come first.”
+
+
+
+It was indeed as Jucundus had hinted; a new policy, a new era was coming
+upon Christianity, together with the new emperor. Christians had hitherto
+been for the most part the objects of popular fury rather than of imperial
+jealousy. Nero, indeed, from his very love of cruelty, had taken pleasure
+in torturing them: but statesmen and philosophers, though at times
+perplexed and inconsistent, yet on the whole had despised them; and the
+superstition of priests and people, with their “Christianos ad leones,”
+had been the most formidable enemy of the faith. Accordingly, atrocious as
+the persecution had been at times, it had been conducted on no plan, and
+had been local and fitful. But even this trial had been suspended, with
+but few interruptions, during the last thirty, nay, fifty years. So
+favourable a state of things had been more or less brought about by a
+succession of emperors, who had shown an actual leaning to Christianity.
+While the vigorous rule of the five good emperors, as they are called, had
+had many passages in its history of an adverse character, those who
+followed after, being untaught in the traditions, and strangers to the
+spirit of old Rome, foreigners, or adventurers, or sensualists, were
+protectors of the new religion. The favourite mistress of Commodus is even
+said to have been a Christian; so is the nurse of Caracalla. The wretched
+Heliogabalus, by his taste for Oriental superstitions, both weakened the
+influence of the established hierarchy, and encouraged the toleration of a
+faith which came from Palestine. The virtuous Alexander, who followed him,
+was a philosopher more than a statesman; and, in pursuance of the
+syncretism which he had adopted, placed the images of Abraham and our Lord
+among the objects of devotion which his private chapel contained. What is
+told us of the Emperor Philip is still more to the point: the gravest
+authorities report that he was actually a Christian; and, since it cannot
+be doubted that Christians were persuaded of the fact, the leaning of his
+government must have been emphatically in their favour to account for such
+a belief. In consequence, Christians showed themselves without fear; they
+emerged from the catacombs, and built churches in public view; and, though
+in certain localities, as in the instance of Africa, they had suffered
+from the contact of the world, they spread far and wide, and faith became
+the instrument at least of political power, even where it was wanting in
+charity, or momentarily disowned by cowardice. In a word, though Celsus a
+hundred years before had pronounced “a man weak who should hope to unite
+the three portions of the earth in a common religion,” that common
+Catholic faith had been found, and a principle of empire was created which
+had never before existed. The phenomenon could not be mistaken; and the
+Roman statesman saw he had to deal with a rival. Nor must we suppose,
+because on the surface of the history we read so much of the vicissitudes
+of imperial power, and of the profligacy of its possessors, that the
+fabric of government was not sustained by traditions of the strongest
+temper, and by officials of the highest sagacity. It was the age of
+lawyers and politicians; and they saw more and more clearly that if
+Christianity was not to revolutionize the empire, they must follow out the
+line of action which Trajan and Antoninus had pointed out.
+
+Decius then had scarcely assumed the purple, when he commenced that new
+policy against the Church which was reserved to Diocletian, fifty years
+later, to carry out to its own final refutation. He entered on his power
+at the end of the year 249; and on the January 20th following, the day on
+which the Church still celebrates the event, St. Fabian, Bishop of Rome,
+obtained the crown of martyrdom. He had been pope for the unusually long
+space of fourteen years, having been elected in consequence of one of
+those remarkable interpositions of Divine Providence of which we now and
+then read in the first centuries of the Church. He had come up to Rome
+from the country, in order to be present at the election of a successor to
+Pope Anteros. A dove was seen to settle on his head, and the assembly rose
+up and forced him, to his surprise, upon the episcopal throne. After
+bringing back the relics of St. Pontian, his martyred predecessor, from
+Sardinia, and having become the apostle of great part of Gaul, he seemed
+destined to end his history in the same happy quiet and obscurity in which
+he had lived; but it did not become a pope of that primitive time to die
+upon his bed, and he was reserved at length to inaugurate in his own
+person, as chief pastor of the Church, a fresh company of martyrs.
+
+Suddenly an edict appeared for the extermination of the name and religion
+of Christ. It was addressed to the proconsuls and other governors of
+provinces; and alleged or implied that the emperors, Decius and his son,
+being determined to give peace to their subjects, found the Christians
+alone an impediment to the fulfilment of their purpose; and that, by
+reason of the enmity which those sectaries entertained towards the gods of
+Rome,—an enmity which was bringing down upon the world multiplied
+misfortunes. Desirous, then, above all things, of appeasing the divine
+anger, they made an irrevocable ordinance that every Christian, without
+exception of rank, sex, or age, should be obliged to sacrifice. Those who
+refused were to be thrown into prison, and in the first instance submitted
+to moderate punishments. If they conformed to the established religion,
+they were to be rewarded; if not, they were to be drowned, burned alive,
+exposed to the beasts, hung upon the trees, or otherwise put to death.
+This edict was read in the camp of the prætorians, posted up in the
+Capitol, and sent over the empire by government couriers. The authorities
+in each province were themselves threatened with heavy penalties, if they
+did not succeed in frightening or tormenting the Christians into the
+profession of paganism.
+
+St. Fabian, as we have said, was the first-fruits of the persecution, and
+eighteen months passed before his successor could be appointed. In the
+course of the next two months St. Pionius was burned alive at Smyrna, and
+St. Nestor crucified in Pamphylia. At Carthage some perplexity and delay
+were occasioned by the absence of the proconsul. St. Cyprian, its bishop,
+took advantage of the delay, and retired into a place of concealment. The
+populace had joined with the imperial government in seeking his life, and
+had cried out furiously in the circus, demanding him “ad leonem,” for the
+lion. A panic seized the Christian body, and for a while there were far
+more persons found to compromise their faith than to confess it. It seemed
+as if Aristo’s anticipation was justified, that Christianity was losing
+its hold upon the mind of its subjects, and that nothing more was needed
+for those who had feared it, than to let it die a natural death. And at
+Sicca the Roman officials, as far as ever they dared, seemed to act on
+this view. Here Christians did no harm, they made no show, and there was
+little or nothing in the place to provoke the anger of the mob or to
+necessitate the interference of the magistrate. The proconsul’s absence
+from Carthage was both an encouragement and an excuse for delay; and hence
+it was that, though we are towards the middle of the year 250, and the
+edict was published at Rome at its commencement, the good people of Sicca
+had, as we have said, little knowledge of what was taking place in the
+political world, and whispered about vague presages of an intended
+measure, which had been in some places in operation for many months.
+Communication with the seat of government was not so very frequent or
+rapid in those days, and public curiosity had not been stimulated by the
+facilities of gratifying it. And thus we must account for a phenomenon,
+which we uphold to be a fact in the instance of Sicca, in the early summer
+of A.D. 250, even though it prove unaccountable, and history has nothing
+to say about it, and in spite of the _Acta Diurna_.
+
+The case, indeed, is different now. In these times, newspapers, railroads,
+and magnetic telegraphs make us independent of government messengers. The
+proceedings at Rome would have been generally and accurately known in a
+few seconds; and then, by way of urging forward the magistracy, a question
+of course would have been asked in the parliament of Carthage by the
+member for Sicca, or Laribus, or Thugga, or by some one of the pagani, or
+country party, whether the popular report was true, that an edict had been
+promulgated at Rome against the Christians, and what steps had been taken
+by the local authorities throughout the proconsulate to carry out its
+provisions. And then the “Colonia Siccensis” would have presented some
+good or bad reason for the delay: that it arose from the absence of the
+proconsul from the seat of government, or from the unaccountable loss of
+the despatch on its way from the coast; or, perhaps, on the other hand,
+the under-secretary would have maintained, amid the cheers of his
+supporters, that the edict had been promulgated and carried out at Sicca
+to the full, that crowds of Christians had at once sacrificed, and that,
+in short, there was no one to punish; assertions which at that moment were
+too likely to be verified by the event.
+
+In truth, there were many reasons to make the magistrates, both Roman and
+native, unwilling to proceed in the matter, till they were obliged. No
+doubt they one and all detested Christianity, and would have put it down,
+if they could; but the question was, when they came to the point, _what_
+they should put down. If, indeed, they could have got hold of the
+ringleaders, the bishops of the Church, they would have tortured and
+smashed them _con amore_, as you would kill a wasp; and with the greater
+warmth and satisfaction, just because it was so difficult to get at them.
+Those bishops were a set of fellows as mischievous as they were cowardly;
+they would not come out and be killed, but they skulked in the desert, and
+hid in masquerade. But why should gentlemen in office, opulent and happy,
+set about worrying a handful of idiots, old, or poor, or boys, or women,
+or obscure, or amiable and well-meaning men, who were but a remnant of a
+former generation, and as little connected with the fanatics of Carthage,
+Alexandria, or Rome, as the English freemasons may seem to be with their
+namesakes on the continent? True, Christianity was a secret society, and
+an illegal religion; but would it cease to be so when those harmless or
+respectable inhabitants of the place had been mounted on the rack or the
+gibbet?
+
+And then, too, it was a most dangerous thing to open the door to popular
+excitement;—who would be able to shut it? Once rouse the populace, and it
+was all over with the place. It could not be denied that the bigoted and
+ignorant majority, not only of the common people, but of the better
+classes, was steeped in a bitter prejudice, and an intense, though latent,
+hatred of Christianity. Besides the antipathy which arose from the
+extremely different views of life and duty taken by pagans and Christians,
+which would give a natural impulse to persecution in the hearts of the
+former, there were the many persons who wished to curry favour at Rome
+with the government, and had an eye to preferment or reward. There was the
+pagan interest, extended and powerful, of that numerous class which was
+attached to the established religions by habit, position, interest, or the
+prospect of advantage. There were all the great institutions or
+establishments of the place; the law courts, the schools of grammar and
+rhetoric, the philosophic _exedræ_ and lecture-rooms, the theatre, the
+amphitheatre, the market—all were, for one reason or another, opposed to
+Christianity; and who could tell where they would stop in their onward
+course, if they were set in motion? “Quieta non movenda” was the motto of
+the local government, native and imperial, and that the more, because it
+was an age of revolutions, and they might be most unpleasantly compromised
+or embarrassed by the direction which the movement took. Besides, Decius
+was not immortal; in the last twelve years eight emperors had been cut
+off, six of them in a few months; and who could tell but the successor of
+the present might revert to the policy of Philip, and feel no thanks to
+those who had suddenly left it for a policy of blood.
+
+In this cautious course they would be powerfully supported by the
+influence of personal considerations. The Roman _officia_, the city
+magistrates, the heads of the established religions, the lawyers, and the
+philosophers, all would have punished the Christians, if they could; but
+they could not agree whom to punish. They would have agreed with great
+satisfaction, as we have said, to inflict condign and capital punishment
+upon the heads of the sect; and they would have had no objection, if
+driven to do something, to get hold of some strangers or slaves, who might
+be a sort of scapegoats for the rest; but it was impossible, when they
+once began to persecute, to make distinctions, and not a few of them had
+relations who were Christians, or at least were on that border-land which
+the mob might mistake for the domain of Christianity—Marcionites,
+Tertullianists, Montanists, or Gnostics. When once the cry of “the gods of
+Rome” was fairly up, it would apply to tolerated religions as well as to
+illicit, and an unhappy votary of Isis or Mithras might suffer, merely
+because there were few Christians forthcoming. A duumvir of the place had
+a daughter whom he had turned out of his house for receiving baptism, and
+who had taken refuge at Vacca. Several of the decurions, the _tabularius_
+of the district, the _scriba_, one of the exactors, who lived in Sicca,
+various of the retired gentry, whom we spoke of in a former chapter, and
+various _attachés_ of the prætorium, were in not dissimilar circumstances.
+Nay, the priest of Esculapius had a wife, whom he was very fond of, who,
+though she promised to keep quiet, if things continued as they were,
+nevertheless had the madness to vow that, if there were any severe
+proceedings instituted against her people, she would at once come forward,
+confess herself a Christian, and throw water, instead of incense, upon the
+sacrificial flame. Not to speak of the venerable man’s tenderness for her,
+such an exposure would seriously compromise his respectability, and, as he
+was infirm and apoplectic, it was a question whether Esculapius himself
+could save him from the shock which would be the consequence.
+
+The same sort of feeling operated with our good friend Jucundus. He was
+attached to his nephew; but, be it said without disrespect to him, he was
+more attached to his own reputation; and, while he would have been
+seriously annoyed at seeing Agellius exposed to one of the panthers of the
+neighbouring forest, or hung up by the feet, with the blood streaming from
+his nose and mouth, as one of the dogs or kids of the market, he would
+have disliked the _éclat_ of the thing still more. He felt both anger and
+alarm at the prospect; he was conscious he did not understand his nephew,
+or (to use a common phrase) know where to find him; he was aware that a
+great deal of tact was necessary to manage him; and he had an instinctive
+feeling that Juba was right in saying that it would not do to threaten him
+with the utmost severity of the law. He considered Callista’s hold on him
+was the most promising quarter of the horizon; so he came to a resolution
+to do as little as he could personally, but to hold Agellius’s head, as
+far as he could, steadily in the direction of that lady, and to see what
+came of it. As to Juba’s assurance that Agellius was not a Christian at
+heart, it was too good news to be true; but still it might be only an
+anticipation of what would be, when the sun of Greece shone out upon him,
+and dispersed the remaining mists of Oriental superstition.
+
+In this state of mind the old gentleman determined one afternoon to leave
+his shop to the care of a slave, and to walk down to his nephew, to judge
+for himself of his state of mind; to bait his hook with Callista, and to
+see if Agellius bit. There was no time to be lost, for the publication of
+the edict might be made any day; and then disasters might ensue which no
+skill could remedy.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+                           THE NEW GENERATION.
+
+
+Jucundus, then, set out to see how the land lay with his nephew, and to do
+what he could to prosper the tillage. His way led him by the temple of
+Mercury, which at that time subserved the purpose of a boy’s school, and
+was connected with some academical buildings, the property of the city,
+which lay beyond it. It cannot be said that our friend was any warm patron
+of literature or education, though he had not neglected the schooling of
+his nephews. Letters seemed to him in fact to unsettle the mind; and he
+had never known much good come of them. Rhetoricians and philosophers did
+not know where they stood, or what were their bearings. They did not know
+what they held, and what they did not. He knew his own position perfectly
+well, and, though the words “belief” or “knowledge” did not come into his
+religious vocabulary, he could at once, without hesitation, state what he
+professed and maintained. He stood upon the established order of things,
+on the traditions of Rome, and the laws of the empire; but as to Greek
+sophists and declaimers, he thought very much as old Cato did about them.
+The Greeks were a very clever people, unrivalled in the fine arts; let
+them keep to their strong point; they were inimitable with the chisel, the
+brush, the trowel, and the fingers; but he was not prepared to think much
+of their _calamus_ or _stylus_, poetry excepted. What did they ever do but
+subvert received principles without substituting any others? And then they
+were so likely to take some odd turn themselves; you never could be sure
+of them. Socrates, their patriarch, what was he after all but a culprit, a
+convict, who had been obliged to drink hemlock, dying under the hands of
+justice? Was this a reputable end, a respectable commencement of the
+philosophic family? It was very well for Plato or Xenophon to throw a veil
+of romance over the transaction, but this was the plain matter of fact.
+Then Anaxagoras had been driven out of Athens for his revolutionary
+notions; and Diogenes had been accused, like the Christians, of atheism.
+The case had been the same in more recent times. There had been that
+madman, Apollonius, roaming about the world; Apuleius, too, their
+neighbour, fifty years before, a man of respectable station, a gentleman,
+but a follower of the Greek philosophy, a dabbler in magic, and a
+pretender to miracles. And so, in fact, of letters generally; as in their
+own country Minucius, a contemporary of Apuleius, became a Christian.
+Such, too, had been his friend Octavius; such Cæcilius, who even became
+one of the priests of the sect, and seduced others from the religion he
+had left. One of them had been the public talk for several years, and he
+too originally a rhetorician, Thascius Cyprianus of Carthage. It was the
+one thing which gave him some misgiving about that little Callista, that
+she was a Greek.
+
+As he passed the temple, the metal plate was sounding as a signal for the
+termination of the school, and on looking towards the portico with an
+ill-natured curiosity, he saw a young acquaintance of his, a youth of
+about twenty, coming out of it, leading a boy of about half that age, with
+his satchel thrown over his shoulder.
+
+“Well, Arnobius,”(2) he cried, “how does rhetoric proceed? are we to take
+the law line, or turn professor? Who’s the boy? some younger brother?”
+
+“I’ve taken pity on the little fool,” answered Arnobius; “these
+schoolmasters are a savage lot. I suffered enough from them myself, and
+‘miseris succurrere disco.’ So I took him from under the roof of friend
+Rupilius, and he’s under my tutelage. How did he treat thee, boy?”
+
+“He treated me like a slave or a Christian,” answered he.
+
+“He deserved it, I’ll warrant,” said Jucundus; “a pert, forward imp. ’Twas
+Gete against Briton. Much good comes of schooling! He’s a wicked one
+already. Ah, the new generation! I don’t know where the world’s going.”
+
+“Tell the gentleman,” said Arnobius, “what he did first to you, my boy.”
+
+“As the good gentleman says,” answered the boy, “first I did something to
+him, and then he did something to me.”
+
+“I told you so,” said Jucundus; “a sensible boy, after all; but the
+schoolmaster had the best of it, I’ll wager.”
+
+“First,” answered he, “I grinned in his face, and he took off his wooden
+shoe, and knocked out one of my teeth.”
+
+“Good,” said Jucundus, “the justice of Pythagoras. Zaleuchus could not
+have done better. The mouth sins, and the mouth suffers.”
+
+“Next,” continued he, “I talked in school-time to my chum; and Rupilius
+put a gag in my jaws, and kept them open for an hour.”
+
+“The very Rhadamanthus of schoolmasters!” cried Jucundus: “and thereupon
+you struck up a chant, divine though inarticulate, like the statue of
+Memnon.”
+
+“Then,” said the boy, “I could not say my Virgil, and he tore the shirt
+from off my back, and gave it me with the leather.”
+
+“Ay,” answered Jucundus, “ ‘arma virumque’ branded on your hide.”
+
+“Afterwards I ate his dinner for him,” continued the boy, “and then he
+screwed my head, and kept me without food for two days.”
+
+“Your throat, you mean,” said Jucundus; “a cautious man! lest you should
+steal a draught or two of good strong air.”
+
+“And lastly,” said he, “I did not bring my pence, and then he tied my
+hands to a gibbet, and hung me up _in terrorem_.”
+
+“There I came in,” said Arnobius; “he seemed a pretty boy, so I cut him
+down, paid his æra, and took him home.”
+
+“And now he is your pupil?” asked Jucundus.
+
+“Not yet,” answered Arnobius; “he is still a day-scholar of the old
+wolf’s; one is like another; he could not change for the better: but I am
+his bully, and shall tutorize him some day. He’s a sharp lad, isn’t he,
+Firmian?” turning to the boy; “a great hand at composition for his years;
+better than I am, who never shall write Latin decently. Yet what can I do?
+I must profess and teach, for Rome is the only place for the law, and
+these city professorships are not to be despised.”
+
+“Whom are you attending here?” asked Jucundus, drily.
+
+“You are the only man in Sicca who needs to ask the question. What! not
+know the great Polemo of Rhodes, the friend of Plotinus, the pupil of
+Theagenes, the disciple of Thrasyllus, the hearer of Nicomachus, who was
+of the school of Secundus, the doctor of the new Pythagoreans? Not feel
+the presence in Sicca of Polemo, the most celebrated, the most intolerable
+of men? That, however, is not his title, but the ‘godlike,’ or the
+‘oracular,’ or the ‘portentous,’ or something else as impressive. Every
+one goes to him. He is the rage. I should not have a chance of success if
+I could not say that I had attended his lectures; though I’d be bound our
+little Firmian here would deliver as good. He’s the very cariophyllus of
+human nature. He comes to the schools in a litter of cedar, ornamented
+with silver and covered with a lion’s skin, slaves carrying him, and a
+crowd of friends attending, with the state of a proconsul. He is dressed
+in the most exact style; his pallium is of the finest wool, white, picked
+out with purple; his tresses flow with unguent, his fingers glitter with
+rings, and he smells like Idalium. As soon as he puts foot on earth, a
+great hubbub of congratulation and homage breaks forth. He takes no
+notice; his favourite pupils form a circle round him, and conduct him into
+one of the _exedræ_, till the dial shows the time for lecture. Here he
+sits in silence, looking at nothing, or at the wall opposite him, talking
+to himself, a hum of admiration filling the room. Presently one of his
+pupils, as if he were præco to the duumvir, cries out, ‘Hush, gentlemen,
+hush! the godlike’—no, it is not that. I’ve not got it. What _is_ his
+title? ‘the Bottomless,’ that’s it—‘the Bottomless speaks.’ A dead silence
+ensues; a clear voice and a measured elocution are the sure token that it
+is the outpouring of the oracle. ‘Pray,’ says the little man, ‘pray, which
+existed first, the egg or the chick? Did the chick lay the egg, or the egg
+hatch the chick?’ Then there ensues a whispering, a disputing, and after a
+while a dead silence. At the end of a quarter of an hour or so, our præco
+speaks again, and this time to the oracle. ‘Bottomless man,’ he says, ‘I
+have to represent to you that no one of the present company finds himself
+equal to answer the question, which your condescension has proposed to our
+consideration!’ On this there is a fresh silence, and at length a fresh
+_effatum_ from the hierophant: ‘Which comes first, the egg or the chick?
+The egg comes first in relation to the causativity of the chick, and the
+chick comes first in relation to the causativity of the egg,’ on which
+there is a burst of applause; the ring of adorers is broken through, and
+the shrinking professor is carried in the arms or on the shoulders of the
+literary crowd to his chair in the lecture-room.”
+
+Much as there was in Arnobius’s description which gratified Jucundus’s
+prejudices, he had suspicions of his young acquaintance, and was not in
+the humour to be pleased unreservedly with those who satirized anything
+whatever that was established, or was appointed by government, even
+affectation and pretence. He said something about the wisdom of ages, the
+reverence due to authority, the institutions of Rome, and the magistrates
+of Sicca. “Do not go after novelties,” he said to Arnobius; “make a daily
+libation to Jove, the preserver, and to the genius of the emperor, and
+then let other things take their course.”
+
+“But you don’t mean I must believe all this man says, because the
+decurions have put him here?” cried Arnobius. “Here is this Polemo saying
+that Proteus is matter, and that minerals and vegetables are his flock;
+that Proserpine is the vital influence, and Ceres the efficacy of the
+heavenly bodies; that there are mundane spirits, and supramundane; and
+then his doctrine about triads, monads, and progressions of the celestial
+gods?”
+
+“Hm!” said Jucundus; “they did not say so when I went to school; but keep
+to my rule, my boy, and swear by the genius of Rome and the emperor.”
+
+“I don’t believe in god or goddess, emperor or Rome, or in any philosophy,
+or in any religion at all,” said Arnobius.
+
+“What!” cried Jucundus, “you’re not going to desert the gods of your
+ancestors?”
+
+“Ancestors?” said Arnobius; “I’ve no ancestors. I’m not African certainly,
+not Punic, not Libophœnician, not Canaanite, not Numidian, not Gætulian.
+I’m half Greek, but what the other half is I don’t know. My good old
+gaffer, you’re one of the old world. I believe nothing. Who can? There is
+such a racket and whirl of religions on all sides of me that I am sick of
+the subject.”
+
+“Ah, the rising generation!” groaned Jucundus; “you young men! I cannot
+prophesy what you will become, when we old fellows are removed from the
+scene. Perhaps you’re a Christian?”
+
+Arnobius laughed. “At least I can give you comfort on that head, old
+grandfather. A pretty Christian _I_ should make, indeed! seeing visions,
+to be sure, and rejoicing in the rack and dungeon! I wish to enjoy life; I
+see wealth, power, rank, and pleasure to be worth living for, and I see
+nothing else.”
+
+“Well said, my lad,” cried Jucundus, “well said; stick to that. I declare
+you frightened me. Give up all visions, speculations, conjectures,
+fancies, novelties, discoveries; nothing comes of them but confusion.”
+
+“No, no,” answered the youth; “I’m not so wild as you seem to think,
+Jucundus. It is true I don’t believe one single word about the gods; but
+in their worship was I born, and in their worship I will die.”
+
+“Admirable!” cried Jucundus in a transport; “well, I’m surprised; you have
+taken me by surprise. You’re a fine fellow; you are a boy after my heart.
+I’ve a good mind to adopt you.”
+
+“You see I can’t believe one syllable of all the priests’ trash,” said
+Arnobius; “who does? not they. I don’t believe in Jupiter or Juno, or in
+Astarte or in Isis; but where shall I go for anything better? or why need
+I seek anything good or bad in that line? Nothing’s known anywhere, and
+life would go while I attempted what is impossible. No, better stay where
+I am; I may go further, and gain a loss for my pains. So you see I am for
+myself, and for the genius of Rome.”
+
+“That’s the true principle,” answered the delighted Jucundus. “Why,
+really, for so young a man, surprising! Where _did_ you get so much good
+sense, my dear fellow? _I’ve_ seen very little of you. Well, this I’ll
+say, you are a youth of most mature mind. To be sure! Well! Such youths
+are rare now-a-days. I congratulate you with all my heart on your strong
+sense and your admirable wisdom. Who’d have thought it? I’ve always, to
+tell the truth, had a little suspicion of you; but you’ve come out nobly.
+Capital! I don’t wish you to believe in the gods if you can’t; but it’s
+your duty, dear boy, your duty to Rome to maintain them, and to rally
+round them when attacked.” Then with a changed voice, he added, “Ah, that
+a young friend of mine had your view of the matter!” and then, fearing he
+had said too much, he stopped abruptly.
+
+“You mean Agellius,” said Arnobius. “You’ve heard, by-the-bye,” he
+continued in a lower tone, “what’s the talk in the Capitol, that at Rome
+they are proceeding on a new plan against the Christians with great
+success. They don’t put to death, at least at once; they keep in prison,
+and threaten the torture. It’s surprising how many come over.”
+
+“The Furies seize them!” exclaimed Jucundus: “they deserve everything bad,
+always excepting my poor boy. So they are cheating the hangman by giving
+up their atheism, the vile reptiles, giving in to a threat. However,” he
+added gravely, “I wish threats would answer with Agellius; but I greatly
+fear that menace would only make him stubborn. That stubbornness of a
+Christian! O Arnobius!” he said, shaking his head and looking solemn,
+“it’s a visitation from the gods, a sort of _nympholepsia_.”
+
+“It’s going out,” said Arnobius, “mark my words; the frenzy is dying. It’s
+only wonderful it should have lasted for three centuries. The report runs
+that in some places, when the edict was published, the Christians did not
+wait for a summons, but swept up to the temples to sacrifice, like a shoal
+of tunnies. The magistrates were obliged to take so many a day; and, as
+the days went on, none so eager to bring over the rest as those who have
+already become honest men. Nay, not a few of their mystic or esoteric
+class have conformed.”
+
+“If so, unless Agellius looks sharp,” said Jucundus, “his sect will give
+him up before he gives up his sect. Christianity will be converted before
+him.”
+
+“Oh, don’t fear for him!” said Arnobius; “I knew him at school. Boys
+differ; some are bold and open. They like to be men, and to dare the deeds
+of men; they talk freely, and take their swing in broad day. Others are
+shy, reserved, bashful, and are afraid to do what they love quite as much
+as the others. Agellius never could rub off this shame, and it has taken
+this turn. He’s sure to outgrow it in a year or two. I should not wonder
+if, when once he had got over it, he went into the opposite fault. You’ll
+find him a drinker and a swaggerer and a spendthrift before many years are
+over.”
+
+“Well, that’s good news,” said Jucundus; “I mean, I am glad you think he
+will shake off these fancies. I don’t believe they sit very close to him
+myself.”
+
+He walked on for a while in silence; then he said, “That seems a sharp
+child, Arnobius. Could he do me a service if I wanted it? Does he know
+Agellius?”
+
+“Know him?” answered the other; “yes, and his farm too. He has rambled
+round Sicca, many is the mile. And he knows the short cuts, and the blind
+ways, and safe circuits.”
+
+“What’s the boy’s name?” asked Jucundus.
+
+“Firmian,” answered Arnobius. “Firmian Lactantius.”
+
+“I say, Firmian,” said Jucundus to him, “where are you to be found of a
+day, my boy?”
+
+“At class morning and afternoon,” answered Firmian, “sleeping in the
+porticoes in midday, nowhere in the evening, and roosting with Arnobius at
+night.”
+
+“And you can keep a secret, should it so happen?” asked Jucundus, “and do
+an errand, if I gave you one?”
+
+“I’ll give him the stick worse than Rupilius, if he does not,” said
+Arnobius.
+
+“A bargain,” cried Jucundus; and, waving his hand to them, he stept
+through the city gate, and they returned to their afternoon amusements.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+                         JUCUNDUS BAITS HIS TRAP.
+
+
+Agellius is busily employed upon his farm. While the enemies of his faith
+are laying their toils for him and his brethren in the imperial city, in
+the proconsular _officium_, and in the municipal curia,—while Jucundus is
+scheming against him personally in another way and with other
+intentions,—the unconscious object of these machinations is busy about his
+master’s crops, housing the corn in caves or pits, distilling the roses,
+irrigating the _khennah_, and training and sheltering the vines. And he
+does so, not only from a sense of duty, but the more assiduously, because
+he finds in constant employment a protection against himself, against idle
+thoughts, wayward wishes, discontent, and despondency. It is doubtless
+very strange to the reader how any one who professed himself a Christian
+in good earnest should be open to the imputation of resting his hopes and
+his heart in the tents of paganism; but we do not see why Agellius has not
+quite as much right to be inconsistent in one way as Christians of the
+present time in another, and perhaps he has more to say for himself than
+they. They have not had the trial of solitude, nor the consequent
+temptation to which he has been exposed, of seeking relief from his own
+thoughts in the company of unbelievers. When a boy he had received his
+education at that school in the Temple of Mercury of which we heard in the
+foregoing chapter; and though happily he had preserved himself from the
+contagion of idolatry and sin, he had on that very account formed no
+friendships with his schoolfellows. Whether there were any Christians
+there besides himself he did not know; but while the worst of his
+schoolfellows were what heathen boys may be supposed to be, the lightest
+censure which could be passed on any was that they were greedy, or
+quarrelsome, or otherwise unamiable. He had learned there enough to open
+his mind, and to give him materials for thinking, and instruments for
+reflecting on his own religion, and for drawing out into shape his own
+reflections. He had received just that discipline which makes solitude
+most pleasant to the old, and most insupportable to the young. He had got
+a thousand questions which needed answers, a thousand feelings which
+needed sympathy. He wanted to know whether his guesses, his perplexities,
+his trials of mind, were peculiar to himself, or how far they were shared
+by others, and what they were worth. He had capabilities for intellectual
+enjoyment unexercised, and a thirst after knowledge unsatisfied. And the
+channels of supernatural assistance were removed from him at a time when
+nature was most impetuous and most clamorous.
+
+It was under circumstances such as these that two young Greeks, brother
+and sister, the brother older, the sister younger, than Agellius, came to
+Sicca at the invitation of Jucundus, who wanted them for his trade. His
+nephew in time got acquainted with them, and found in them what he had
+sought in vain elsewhere. It is not that they were oracles of wisdom or
+repositories of philosophical learning; their age and their calling
+forbade it, nor did he require it. For an oracle, of course, he would have
+looked in another direction; but he desiderated something more on a level
+with himself, and that they abundantly supplied. He found, from his
+conversations with them, that a great number of the questions which had
+been a difficulty to him had already been agitated in the schools of
+Greece. He found what solutions were possible, what the hinge was on which
+questions turned, what the issue to which they led, and what the principle
+which lay at the bottom of them. He began better to understand the
+position of Christianity in the world of thought, and the view which was
+taken of it by the advocates of other religions or philosophies. He gained
+some insight into its logic, and advanced, without knowing it, in the
+investigation of its evidences.
+
+Nor was this all; he acquired by means of his new friends a great deal
+also of secular knowledge as well as philosophical. He learned much of the
+history of foreign countries, especially of Greece, of its heroes and
+sages, its poets and its statesmen, of Alexander, of the Syro-Macedonic
+empire, of the Jews, and of the series of conquests through which Rome
+advanced to universal dominion.
+
+To impart knowledge is as interesting as to acquire it; and Agellius was
+called upon to give as well as to take. The brother and sister, without
+showing any great religious earnestness, were curious to know about
+Christianity, and listened with the more patience that they had no special
+attachment to any other worship. In the debates which ensued, though there
+was no agreement, there was the pleasure of mental exercise and
+excitement; he found enough to tell them without touching upon the more
+sacred mysteries; and while he never felt his personal faith at all
+endangered by their free conversation, his charity, or at least his
+good-will and his gratitude, led him to hope, or even to think, that they
+were in the way of conversion themselves. In this thought he was aided by
+his own innocence and simplicity; and though, on looking back afterwards
+to this eventful season, he recognized many trivial occurrences which
+ought to have put him on his guard, yet he had no suspicion at the time
+that those who conversed so winningly, and sustained so gracefully and
+happily the commerce of thought and sentiment, might in their actual
+state, nay, in their governing principles, be in utter contrariety to
+himself when the veil was removed from off their hearts.
+
+Nor was it in serious matters alone, but still more on lighter occasions
+of intercourse, that Aristo and Callista were attractive to the solitary
+Agellius. She had a sweet thrilling voice, and accompanied herself on the
+lyre. She could act the _improvisatrice_, and her expressive features were
+a running commentary on the varied meaning, the sunshine and the shade, of
+her ode or her epic. She could relate how the profane Pentheus and the
+self-glorious Hippolytus gave a lesson to the world of the feebleness of
+human virtue when it placed itself in opposition to divine power. She
+could teach how the chaste Diana manifests herself to the simple shepherd
+Endymion, not to the great or learned; and how Tithonus, the spouse of the
+Morn, adumbrates the fate of those who revel in their youth, as if it were
+to last for ever; and who, when old, do nothing but talk of the days when
+they were young, wearying others with tales of “their amours or their
+exploits, like grasshoppers that show their vigour only by their
+chirping.”(3) The very allegories which sickened and irritated Arnobius
+when spouted out by Polemo, touched the very chords of poor Agellius’s
+heart when breathed forth from the lips of the beautiful Greek.
+
+She could act also; and suddenly, when conversation flagged or suggested
+it, she could throw herself into the part of Medea or Antigone, with a
+force and truth which far surpassed the effect produced by the male and
+masked representations of those characters at the theatre. Brother and
+sister were Œdipus and Antigone, Electra and Orestes, Cassandra and the
+Chorus. Once or twice they attempted a scene in Menander; but there was
+something which made Agellius shrink from the comedy, beautiful as it was,
+and clever as was the representation. Callista could act Thais as truly as
+Iphigenia, but Agellius could not listen as composedly. There are certain
+most delicate instincts and perceptions in us which act as first
+principles, and which, once effaced, can never, except from some
+supernatural source, be restored to the mind. When men are in a state of
+nature, these are sinned against, and vanish very soon, at so early a date
+in the history of the individual that perhaps he does not recollect that
+he ever possessed them; and since, like other first principles, they are
+but very partially capable of proof, a general scepticism prevails both as
+to their existence and their truth. The Greeks, partly from the vivacity
+of their intellect, partly from their passion for the beautiful, lost
+these celestial adumbrations sooner than other nations. When a collision
+arose on such matters between Agellius and his friends, Callista kept
+silence; but Aristo was not slow to express his wonder that the young
+Christian should think customs or practices wrong which, in his view of
+the matter, were as unblamable and natural as eating, drinking, or
+sleeping. His own face became almost satirical as Agellius’s became grave;
+however, he was too companionable and good-natured to force another to be
+happy in his own way; he imputed to the extravagance of his friend’s
+religion what in any but a Christian he would have called moroseness and
+misanthropy; and he bade his sister give over representations which,
+instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain.
+
+This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure
+of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the
+suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of
+the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow
+thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their
+apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of
+the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning
+voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its
+most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a
+sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to
+overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista
+might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing
+more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his
+offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his
+severely virtuous censors.
+
+But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we
+are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary
+for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history.
+His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which
+had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact,
+and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit
+for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a
+moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his
+dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of
+the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a
+currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common
+vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of
+each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately
+preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the
+high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which
+it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm
+and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius’s heart beat
+when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the
+very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast,
+though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it.
+
+“My dear Agellius,” said Jucundus, “it would be a most suitable
+proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my
+way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging
+example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike
+any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall
+find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near
+me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon
+makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you,
+Agellius, I assure you.”
+
+“It strikes me,” Agellius began, “that perhaps you may think it
+inconsistent in me taking such a step, but—”
+
+“Ay, ay, that’s the rub,” thought Jucundus; then aloud, “Inconsistent, my
+boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call
+it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius—she town, you
+country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh
+and Arcadian. You’ll be quite the talk of the place.”
+
+“That’s just what I don’t want to be,” said Agellius. “I mean to say,” he
+continued, “that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of
+Callista—”
+
+“Of course, of course,” interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba,
+and was afraid of the workings of Agellius’s human respect; “but who knows
+you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I’ll be bound
+they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the
+gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the
+contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove,
+and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it
+extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it
+again and again. Don’t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you
+have anything whatever to get over.”
+
+Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived,
+and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. “My dear uncle,” said the
+youth, “you are reproaching me.”
+
+“Not a bit of it,” said Jucundus, confidently, “not a shadow of reproach;
+why should I reproach you? We can’t be wise all at once; _I_ had my
+follies once, as you may have had yours. It’s natural you should grow more
+attached to things as they are,—things as they are, you know,—as time goes
+on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You’ve been
+a little headstrong, I can’t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but
+‘nuces pueris,’ as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion.
+Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I
+suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there.”
+
+It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to
+practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had
+had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and
+forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his
+trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different
+way from what his uncle wished and intended.
+
+Jucundus proceeded—“First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You
+have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went
+out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say ‘strictly
+speaking’; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite.
+Well, my dear Agellius, I don’t recommend this ceremonial to you. You’d
+have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and
+to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there’s fire, too, and water, and
+frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think
+undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We
+put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex
+coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties
+buy each other, and become each other’s property. Well, every man to his
+taste; but for me, I don’t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own
+master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit
+yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little
+of? Don’t look surprised: it’s common sense. It’s very well to buy _her_;
+but to be bought, that’s quite another matter. And I don’t know that you
+can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a
+citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know
+perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which
+made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but
+that measure has never been carried out in fact. You’d have very great
+difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after
+all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where’s your proof she is a
+freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you’re
+offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can’t do
+impossibilities—you can’t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to
+have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the
+law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being
+a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don’t
+start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what
+she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I’m coming to my point.
+There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for
+you. It’s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage
+here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any
+way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man
+and wife _præscriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in
+this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as
+time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if
+not,”—and he shrugged his shoulders—“no harm’s done; you are both free.”
+
+Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on
+his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation.
+
+“Listen, listen, my dear boy!” cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what
+he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; “listen, just one moment,
+Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you!
+What _is_ the matter? I’m not treating her ill, I’m not indeed. I have not
+had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless
+you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her;
+you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she’s a
+stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything
+about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident
+will have none.”
+
+“O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus!” cried Agellius, “is it
+possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do?” and he
+burst into tears. “Is it conceivable,” he said, with energy, “that you are
+in earnest in recommending me—I say in recommending me—a marriage which
+really would be no marriage at all?”
+
+“Here is some very great mistake,” said Jucundus, angrily; “it arises,
+Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I
+recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess
+I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked
+to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish
+you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of
+something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have
+only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don’t do
+me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You
+_must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a
+world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your
+proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought
+you didn’t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established
+ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your
+meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he’ll
+come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without.”
+
+“O Jucundus!” said the poor fellow, “am I then come to this?” and he could
+say no more.
+
+His distress was not greater than his uncle’s disappointment, perplexity,
+and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius,
+and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable
+impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more
+he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a
+great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he
+understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour
+humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he
+deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely
+disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of
+his nephew’s welfare; what other motive could he have? “Let Agellius go to
+the crows,” he thought, “if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for
+a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the
+_cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hyæna’s breakfast in
+the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for
+the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly
+concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse.
+No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single
+customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of
+his nephew. But a man can’t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of
+expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on
+everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It’s his
+abominable pride, that’s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved
+worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with
+his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could
+put his back up. He’s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he’d give
+his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista;
+he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he’d rather be
+burned than say, I’ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I
+coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius,” he said aloud,
+“I’m going back.”
+
+Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of
+them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely
+attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many
+acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to
+the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his
+respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of
+his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility
+to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles,
+had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his
+passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each
+other’s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius’s
+place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of
+the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it
+is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to
+urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him.
+The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and
+made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between
+them was her _bonâ fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he
+literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might
+marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the
+only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If
+she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the
+Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What
+had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever
+girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses
+of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument
+on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards
+Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance,
+refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly
+grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are
+thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you;
+and therefore you begin as follows:—
+
+“I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who
+are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does
+indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my
+behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a
+boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You
+took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our
+misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista
+very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me
+that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk
+together, and understand each other.”
+
+Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to
+be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he
+caught at his apology. “Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius,”
+he answered. “Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this
+question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don’t begin looking queer
+again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details.
+He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon
+come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come,
+show me round your fields,” he continued, “and let me see how you will be
+able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it
+was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say
+so before now, and all the circumstances.
+
+“He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so
+happened that Julia Clara’s estates were just then in the market. An
+enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my
+time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the
+purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the
+whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res
+privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are
+under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at
+once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very
+considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into
+his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell
+his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was
+proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any
+money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the
+spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa
+instantly to Strabo; not an hour’s delay after I heard of it. The sale was
+at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the
+thing was done.
+
+“I venture to say there’s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I
+am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to
+outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a
+thorough-going Roman! Well, well,—here! ease me through this gate,
+Agellius; I don’t know what’s come to the gate since I was here.
+Indeed!—yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is
+delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop
+for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I’ll give you an
+image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won’t have it?
+I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh,
+what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from
+your labourers. Ha, ha, ha!”
+
+And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as
+he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards,
+assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very
+short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before
+the ensuing calends.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X.
+
+
+                           THE DIVINE CALLISTA.
+
+
+The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to
+Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of
+the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his
+apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason
+for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange
+sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to
+dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized.
+No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should
+not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become
+a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his
+reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience.
+Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to
+repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo.
+But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he
+must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing
+else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths,
+unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish
+that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put
+away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he
+to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and
+relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek
+friends?
+
+We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set
+out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he
+was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista
+would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He
+could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not
+to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he
+meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural
+influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not
+justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something
+higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her,
+which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on
+anything merely natural or human,—a sympathy the more remarkable from the
+contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And
+hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away,
+and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold.
+
+And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led
+the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was
+glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous
+buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well
+that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to
+a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in
+it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from
+experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer
+be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him
+to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against
+what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation?
+Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the
+great Apostle’s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to
+idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor
+priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with
+timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage.
+Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men,
+Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a
+Christian’s heart and a Christian’s hope.
+
+Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience—nay,
+a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination—the
+actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of
+Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue “a fire, a world of iniquity,
+untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison;” and surely what he says
+applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they
+are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into
+the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise
+you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its
+porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights—not
+here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest
+hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the
+corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the
+rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in
+paintings—the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of
+corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor
+escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the
+right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the
+temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to
+music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you
+are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of
+religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you
+shrink from and abjure.
+
+It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous
+tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the
+myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an
+early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have
+vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast
+forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then,
+gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody
+plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities.
+Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write
+that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to
+its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of
+the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in
+correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable
+pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene,
+though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is
+unnecessarily passing.
+
+He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making
+his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it
+looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates,
+Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or
+carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the
+private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received
+from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make,
+and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister.
+She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak
+much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work,
+Aristo speaks:—
+
+“Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista,
+what can he be coming for?”
+
+“Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble,
+of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits
+of gods.”
+
+“You are sharp enough, my little sister,” answered Aristo, “to know
+perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous of purchasing.”
+
+Callista laughed carelessly, but made no reply.
+
+“Come, child,” Aristo continued, “don’t be cruel to him. Wreath a garland
+for him by the time he comes. He’s well to do, and modest withal, and
+needs encouragement.”
+
+“He’s well enough,” said Callista.
+
+“I say he’s a fellow too well off to be despised as a lover,” proceeded
+her brother, “and it would be a merit with the gods to rid him of his
+superstition.”
+
+“Not much of a Christian,” she made answer, “if he is set upon me.”
+
+“For whose sake has he been coming here so often, mine or yours,
+Callista?”
+
+“I am tired of such engagements,” she replied. She went on with her
+painting, and several times seemed as if she would have spoken, but did
+not. Then, without interrupting her work, she said calmly, “Time was, it
+gratified my conceit and my feelings to have hangers on. Indeed, without
+them, how should we have had means to come here? But there’s a weariness
+in all things.”
+
+“A weariness! Where is this bad humour to end?” cried Aristo; “it has been
+a long fit; shake it off while you can, or it will be too much for you.
+What can you mean? a weariness! You are over young to bid youth farewell.
+Aching hearts for aching bones. So young and so perverse! We must take
+things as the gods give them. You will ask for them in vain when you are
+old. One day above, another day beneath; one while young, another while
+old. Enjoy life while you have it in your hand.” He had said this as he
+worked. Then he stopped, and turned round to her, with his graving-tool in
+his hand. “Recollect old Lesbia, how she used to squeak out to me, with
+her nodding head and trembling limbs”—here he mimicked the old crone—“ ‘My
+boy, take your pleasure while you can. I can’t take pleasure—my day is
+over; but I don’t reproach myself. I had a merry time of it while it
+lasted. Time stops for no one, but I did my best; I don’t reproach
+myself.’ There’s the true philosopher, though a slave; more outspoken than
+Æsop, more practical than Epictetus.”
+
+Callista began singing to herself:—
+
+        “I wander by that river’s brink
+          Which circles Pluto’s drear domain;
+        I feel the chill night breeze, and think
+          Of joys which ne’er shall be again.
+
+        “I count the weeds that fringe the shore,
+          Each sluggish wave that rolls and rolls;
+        I hear the ever-splashing oar
+          Of Charon, ferryman of souls.
+
+“Heigho!” she continued, “little regret, but much dread. The young have to
+fear more than the old have to mourn over. The future outweighs the past.
+Life is not so sweet as death is bitter. It is hard to quit the light, the
+light of heaven.”
+
+“Callistidion!” he said, impatiently; “my girl, this is preposterous. How
+long is this to go on? We must take you to Carthage; there is more trade
+there, if we can get it; and it will be on the bright, far-resounding sea.
+And I will turn rhetorician, and you shall feed my classes.”
+
+“O beautiful, divine light,” she continued, “what a loss! O, to think that
+one day I must lose you for ever! At home I used to lie awake at night
+longing for the morning, and crying out for the god of day. It was like
+choice wine to me, a cup of Chian, the first streaks of the Aurora, and I
+could hardly bear his bright coming, when he came to me like Semele, for
+rapture. How gloriously did he shoot over the hills! and then anon he
+rested awhile on the snowy summit of Olympus, as in some luminous shrine,
+gladdening the Phrygian plain. Fair, bright-haired god! thou art my
+worship, if Callista worships aught: but somehow I worship nothing now. I
+am weary.”
+
+“Well,” said her brother in a soothing tone, “it is a change. That light,
+elastic air, that transparent heaven, that fresh temperate breeze, that
+majestic sea! Africa is not Greece; O, the difference! That’s it,
+Callista; it is the _nostalgia_; you are home-sick.”
+
+“It may be so,” she said; “I do not well know what I would have. Yes, the
+poisonous dews, the heavy heat, the hideous beasts, the green
+fever-gendering swamps. This vast thickly-wooded plain, like some
+mysterious labyrinth, oppresses and disquiets me with its very richness.
+The luxuriant foliage, the tall, rank plants, the deep, close lanes, I do
+not see my way through them, and I pant for breath. I only breathe freely
+on this hill. O, how unlike Greece, with the clear, soft, delicate
+colouring of its mountains, and the pure azure or the purple of its
+waters!”
+
+“But, my dear Callista,” interrupted her brother, “recollect you are not
+in those oppressive, gloomy forests, but in Sicca, and no one asks you to
+penetrate them. And if you want mountains, I think those on the horizon
+are bare enough.”
+
+“And the race of man,” she continued, “is worse than all. Where is the
+genius of our bright land? where its intelligence, playfulness, grace, and
+noble bearing? Here hearts are as black as brows, and smiles as
+treacherous as the adders of the wood. The natives are crafty and
+remorseless; they never relax; they have no cheerfulness or mirth; their
+very love is a furnace, and their sole ecstasy is revenge.”
+
+“No country like home to any of us,” said Aristo; “yet here you are. Habit
+would be a second nature if you were here long enough; your feelings would
+become acclimated, and would find a new home. People get to like the
+darkness of the extreme north in course of time. The painted Britons, the
+Cimmerians, the Hyperboreans, are content never to see the sun at all,
+which is your god. Here your own god reigns; why quarrel with him?”
+
+“The sun of Greece is light,” answered Callista; “the sun of Africa is
+fire. I am no fire-worshipper.”
+
+“I suspect even Styx and Phlegethon are tolerable, at length,” said her
+brother, “if Phlegethon and Styx there be, as the poets tell us.”
+
+“The cold, foggy Styx is the north,” said Callista, “and the south is the
+scorching, blasting Phlegethon, and Greece, clear, sweet, and sunny, is
+the Elysian fields.” And she continued her improvisations:—
+
+        “Where are the islands of the blest?
+          They stud the Ægean sea;
+        And where the deep Elysian rest?
+        It haunts the vale where Peneus strong
+        Pours his incessant stream along,
+        While craggy ridge and mountain bare
+        Cut keenly through the liquid air,
+        And, in their own pure tints arrayed,
+        Scorn earth’s green robes which change and fade,
+        And stand in beauty undecayed,
+          Guards of the bold and free.”
+
+“A lower flight, if you please, just now,” said Aristo, interrupting her.
+“I do really wish a serious word with you about Agellius. He’s a fellow I
+can’t help liking, in spite of his misanthropy. Let me plead his cause.
+Like him or not yourself, still he has a full purse; and you will do a
+service to yourself and to the gods of Greece, and to him too, if you will
+smile on him. Smile on him at least for a time; we will go to Carthage
+when you are tired. His looks have very little in them of a Christian
+left; you may blow it away with your breath.”
+
+“One might do worse than be a Christian,” she answered slowly, “if all is
+true that I have heard of them.”
+
+Aristo started up in irritation. “By all the gods of Olympus,” he said,
+“this is intolerable! If a man wants a tormentor, I commend him to a girl
+like you. What has ailed thee some time past, you silly child? What have I
+done to you that you should have got so cross and contrary and so hard to
+please?”
+
+“I mean,” she said, “if I were a Christian, life would be more bearable.”
+
+“Bearable!” he echoed; “bearable! ye gods! more bearable to have Styx and
+Tartarus, the Furies and their snakes, in this world as well as in the
+next? to have evil within and without, to hate one’s self and to be hated
+of all men! to live the life of an ass, and to die the death of a dog!
+Bearable! But hark! I hear Agellius’s step on the staircase. Callista,
+dear Callista, be yourself. Listen to reason.”
+
+But Callista would not listen to reason, if her brother was its
+embodiment; but went on with her singing:—
+
+        “For what is Afric but the home
+          Of burning Phlegethon?
+        What the low beach and silent gloom,
+        And chilling mists of that dull river,
+        Along whose bank the thin ghosts shiver,
+        The thin, wan ghosts that once were men,
+        But Tauris, isle of moor and fen;
+        Or, dimly traced by seaman’s ken,
+          The pale-cliffed Albion?”
+
+Here she stopped, looked down, and busied herself with her work.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+                CALLISTA’S PREACHING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+
+It is undeniably a solemn moment, under any circumstances, and requires a
+strong heart, when any one deliberately surrenders himself, soul and body,
+to the keeping of another while life shall last; and this, or something
+like this, reserving the supreme claim of duty to the Creator, is the
+matrimonial contract. In individual cases it may be made without thought
+or distress, but surveyed objectively, and as carried out into a
+sufficient range of instances, it is so tremendous an undertaking that
+nature seems to sink under its responsibilities. When the Christian binds
+himself by vows to a religious life, he makes a surrender to Him who is
+all-perfect, and whom he may unreservedly trust. Moreover, looking at that
+surrender on its human side, he has the safeguard of distinct _provisos_
+and regulations, and of the principles of theology, to secure him against
+tyranny on the part of his superiors. But what shall be his encouragement
+to make himself over, without condition or stipulation, as an absolute
+property, to a fallible being, and that not for a season, but for life?
+The mind shrinks from such a sacrifice, and demands that, as religion
+enjoins it, religion should sanction and bless it. It instinctively
+desires that either the bond should be dissoluble, or that the subjects of
+it should be sacramentally strengthened to maintain it. “So help me God,”
+the formula of every oath, is emphatically necessary here.
+
+But Agellius is contemplating a superhuman engagement without superhuman
+assistance; and that in a state of society in which public opinion, which
+in some sense compensates for the absence of religion, supplied human
+motives, not for, but against keeping it, and with one who had given no
+indication that she understood what marriage meant. No wonder then, that,
+in spite of his simplicity, his sanguine temperament, and his delusion,
+the more he thought of the step he had taken, the more unsatisfactory he
+found it, and the nearer he grew to the time when he must open the subject
+with Aristo, the less he felt able to do so. In consequence he was in a
+distress of mind, as he ascended the staircase which led to his friend’s
+lodging, to which his anxiety, as he mounted the hill on the other side of
+the city, was tranquillity itself; and, except that he was coming by
+engagement, he would have turned back, and for the time at least have put
+the whole subject from his thoughts. Yet even then, as often as Callista
+rose in his mind’s eye, his scruples and misgivings vanished before the
+beauty of that image, as mists before the sun; and when he actually stood
+in her sweet presence, it seemed as if some secret emanation from her
+flowed in upon his heart, and he stood breathless and giddy under the
+intensity of the fascination.
+
+However, the reader must not suppose that in the third century of our era
+such negotiations as that which now seems to be on the point of coming off
+between Callista and Agellius, were embellished with those transcendental
+sentiments and that magnificent ceremonial with which chivalry has
+invested them in these latter ages. There was little occasion then for
+fine speaking or exquisite deportment; and if there had been, we, who are
+the narrators of these hitherto unrecorded transactions, should have been
+utterly unable to do justice to them. At that time of day the Christian
+had too much simplicity, the heathen too little of real delicacy, to
+indulge in the sublimities of modern love-making, at least as it is found
+in novels; and in the case before us both gentleman and lady will be
+thought, we consider, sadly matter-of-fact, or rather semi-barbarous, by
+the votaries of what is just now called European civilization.
+
+On Agellius’s entering the room, Aristo was pacing to and fro in some
+discomposure; however, he ran up to his friend, embraced him, and, looking
+at him with significance, congratulated him on his good looks. “There is
+more fire in your eye,” he said, “dear Agellius, and more eloquence in the
+turn of your lip, than I have ever yet seen. A new spirit is in you. So
+you are determined to come out of your solitude? That you should have been
+able to exist in it so long is the wonderment to me.”
+
+Agellius had recovered himself, yet he dared not look again on Callista.
+“Do not jest, Aristo,” he said; “I am come, as you know, to talk to you
+about your sister. I have brought her a present of flowers; they are my
+best present, or rather not mine, but the birth of the opening year, as
+fair and fragrant as herself.”
+
+“We will offer them to our Pallas Athene,” said his friend, “to whom we
+artists are especially devout.” And he would have led Agellius on, and
+made him place them in her niche in the opposite wall.
+
+“I am more serious than you are,” said Agellius; “and I have brought the
+best my garden contains as an offering to your sister. _She_ will not
+think I bring them for any other purpose. Where are you going?” he
+continued, as he saw his friend take down his broad _petasus_.
+
+“Why,” answered Aristo, “since I am so poor an interpreter of your
+meaning, you can dispense with me altogether. I will leave you to speak
+for yourself, and meanwhile will go and see what old Dromo has to tell,
+before the sun is too high in the heavens.”
+
+Saying this, with a half-imploring, half-satirical look at his sister, he
+set off to the barber’s at the Forum.
+
+Agellius took up the flowers, and laid them on the table before her, as
+she sat at work. “Do you accept my flowers, Callista?” he asked.
+
+“Fair and fragrant, like myself, are they?” she made reply. “Give them to
+me.” She took them, and bent over them. “The blushing rose,” she said,
+gravely, “the stately lily, the royal carnation, the golden moly, the
+purple amaranth, the green bryon, the diosanthos, the sertula, the sweet
+modest saliunca, fit emblems of Callista. Well, in a few hours they will
+have faded; yes, they will get more and more like her.”
+
+She paused and looked him steadily in the face, and then continued:
+“Agellius, I once had a slave who belonged to your religion. She had been
+born in a Christian family, and came into my possession on her master’s
+death. She was unlike any one I have seen before or since; she cared for
+nothing, yet was not morose or peevish or hard-hearted. She died young in
+my service. Shortly before her end she had a dream. She saw a company of
+bright shades, clothed in white, like the hours which circle round the god
+of day. They were crowned with flowers, and they said to each other,
+‘_She_ ought to have a token too.’ So they took her hand, and led her to a
+most beautiful lady, as stately as Juno and as sweet as Ariadne, so
+radiant in countenance that they themselves suddenly looked like
+Ethiopians by the side of her. She, too, was crowned with flowers, and
+these so dazzling that they might be the stars of heaven or the gems of
+Asia for what Chione could tell. And that fair goddess (angel you call
+her) said, ‘My dear, here is something for you from my Son. He sends you
+by me a red rose for your love, a white lily for your chastity, purple
+violets to strew your grave, and green palms to flourish over it.’ Is this
+the reason why you give me flowers, Agellius, that I may rank with Chione?
+and is this their interpretation?”
+
+“Callista,” he answered, “it is my heart’s most fervent wish, it is my
+mind’s vivid anticipation, that the day may come when you will receive
+such a crown, nay, a brighter one.”
+
+“And you are come, of course, to philosophize to me, and to put me in the
+way of dying like Chione,” she made answer. “I implore your pardon. You
+are offering me flowers, it seems, not for a bridal wreath, but for a
+funeral urn.”
+
+“Is it wonderful,” said Agellius, “that the two wishes should have gone
+together in my heart; and that while I trusted and prayed that you might
+have the same Master in heaven as I have myself, I also hoped you would
+have the same service, the same aims, the same home upon earth?”
+
+“And that you should speak one word for your Master and two for yourself!”
+she retorted.
+
+“It has been by feeling how much you could be to me,” he answered, “that I
+have been led to think how much my Master may be doing for you already,
+and how much in time to come you might do for Him. Callista, do not urge
+me with your Greek subtlety, or expect me to analyze my feelings more
+precisely than I have the ability to do. May I calmly tell you the state
+of my mind, as I do know it, and will you patiently listen?”
+
+She signified her willingness, and he continued—“This only I know,” he
+said, “what I have experienced ever since I first heard you converse, that
+there is between you and me a unity of thought so strange that I should
+have deemed it could not have been, before I found it actually to exist,
+between any two persons whatever; and which, widely as we are separated in
+opinion and habit, and differently as we have been brought up, is to me
+inexplicable. I find it difficult to explain what I mean; we disagree
+certainly on the most important subjects, yet there is an unaccountable
+correspondence in the views we take of things, in our impressions, in the
+line in which our minds move, and the issues to which they come, in our
+judgment of what is great and little, and the manner in which objects
+affect our feelings. When I speak to my uncle, when I speak to your
+brother, I do not understand them, nor they me. We are moving in different
+spheres, and I am solitary, however much they talk. But to my
+astonishment, I find between you and me one language. Is it wonderful
+that, in proportion to my astonishment, I am led to refer it to one cause,
+and think that one Master Hand must have engraven those lines on the soul
+of each of us? Is it wonderful that I should fancy that He who has made us
+alike has made us for each other, and that the very same persuasives by
+which I bring you to cast your eyes on me, may draw you also to cast
+yourself in adoration at the feet of my Master?”
+
+For an instant tears seemed about to start from Callista’s eyes, but she
+repressed the emotion, if it were such, and answered with impetuosity,
+“Your Master! who is your Master? what know I of your Master? what have
+you ever told me of your Master? I suppose it is an esoteric doctrine
+which I am not worthy to know; but so it is, here you have been again and
+again, and talked freely of many things, yet I am in as much darkness
+about your Master as if I had never seen you. I know He died; I know too
+that Christians say He lives. In some fortunate island, I suppose; for,
+when I have asked, you have got rid of the subject as best you could. You
+have talked about your law and your various duties, and what you consider
+right, and what is forbidden, and of some of the old writers of your sect,
+and of the Jews before them; but if, as you imply, my wants and
+aspirations are the same as yours, what have you done towards satisfying
+them? what have you done for that Master towards whom you now propose to
+lead me? No!” she continued, starting up, “you have watched those wants
+and aspirations for yourself, not for Him; you have taken interest in
+them, you have cherished them, as if you were the author, you the object
+of them. You profess to believe in One True God, and to reject every
+other; and now you are implying that the Hand, the Shadow of that God is
+on my mind and heart. Who is this God? where? how? in what? O Agellius,
+you have stood in the way of Him, ready to speak for yourself, using Him
+as a means to an end.”
+
+“O Callista,” said Agellius, in an agitated voice, when he could speak,
+“do my ears hear aright? do you really wish to be taught who the true God
+is?”
+
+“No, mistake me not,” she cried passionately, “I have no such wish. I
+could not be of your religion. Ye Gods! how have I been deceived! I
+thought every Christian was like Chione. I thought there could not be a
+cold Christian. Chione spoke as if a Christian’s first thoughts were
+goodwill to others; as if his state were of such blessedness, that his
+dearest heart’s wish was to bring others into it. Here is a man who, so
+far from feeling himself blest, thinks I can bless him! comes to me—me,
+Callista, a herb of the field, a poor weed, exposed to every wind of
+heaven, and shrivelling before the fierce sun—to me he comes to repose his
+heart upon. But as for any blessedness he has to show me, why, since he
+does not feel any himself, no wonder he has none to give away. I thought a
+Christian was superior to time and place; but all is hollow. Alas, alas, I
+am young in life to feel the force of that saying, with which sages go out
+of it, ‘Vanity and hollowness!’ Agellius, when I first heard you were a
+Christian, how my heart beat! I thought of her who was gone; and at first
+I thought I saw her in you, as if there had been some magical sympathy
+between you and her; and I hoped that from you I might have learned more
+of that strange strength which my nature needs, and which she told me she
+possessed. Your words, your manner, your looks were altogether different
+from others who came near me. But so it was; you came, and you went, and
+came again; I thought it reserve, I thought it timidity, I thought it the
+caution of a persecuted sect; but O, my disappointment, when first I saw
+in you indications that you were thinking of me only as others think, and
+felt towards me as others may feel; that you were aiming at me, not at
+your God; that you had much to tell of yourself, but nothing of Him! Time
+was I might have been led to worship you, Agellius; you have hindered it
+by worshipping _me_.”
+
+It is not often, we suppose, that such deep offence is given to a lady by
+the sort of admiration of which Agellius had been guilty in the case of
+Callista; however, startled as he might be, and startled and stung he was,
+there was too much earnestness in her distress, too much of truth in her
+representations, too much which came home to his heart and conscience, to
+allow of his being affronted or irritated. She had but supplied the true
+interpretation of the misgiving which had haunted him that morning, from
+the time he set out till the moment of his entering the room. Jucundus
+some days back had readily acquiesced in his assurance that he was not
+inconsistent; but Callista had not been so indulgent, though really more
+merciful. There was a pause in the conversation, or rather in her
+outpouring; each had bitter thoughts, and silently devoured them. At
+length, she began again:—
+
+“So the religion of Chione is a dream; now for four years I had hoped it
+was a reality. All things again are vanity; I had hoped there was
+something somewhere more than I could see; but there is nothing. Here am I
+a living, breathing woman, with an over-flowing heart, with keen
+affections, with a yearning after some object which may possess me. I
+cannot exist without something to rest upon. I cannot fall back upon that
+drear, forlorn state, which philosophers call wisdom, and moralists call
+virtue. I cannot enrol myself a votary of that cold Moon, whose arrows do
+but freeze me. I cannot sympathize in that majestic band of sisters whom
+Rome has placed under the tutelage of Vesta. I must have something to
+love; love is my life. Why do you come to me, Agellius, with your
+every-day gallantry. Can you compete with the noble Grecian forms which
+have passed before my eyes? Is your voice more manly, are its tones more
+eloquent, than those which have thrilled through my ears since I ceased to
+be a child? Can you add perfume to the feast by your wit, or pour sunshine
+over grot and rushing stream by your smile? _What_ can you give me? There
+was one thing which I thought you _could_ have given me, better than
+anything else; but it is a shadow. You have nothing to give. You have
+thrown me back upon my dreary, dismal self, and the deep wounds of my
+memory.... Poor, poor Agellius! but it was not his fault, it could not be
+helped,” she continued, as if in thought; “it could not be helped; for, if
+he had nothing to give, how could he give it? After all, he wanted
+something to love, just as I did; and he could find nothing better than
+me.... And they thought to persuade her to spend herself upon him, as she
+had spent herself upon others. Yes, it was Jucundus and Aristo—my brother,
+even my own brother. They thought not of _me_.” Here her tears gushed out
+violently, and she abandoned herself to a burst of emotion. “They were
+thinking of _him_. I had hoped he could lead me to what was higher; but
+woe, woe!” she cried, wringing her hands, “they thought I was only fit to
+bring him low. Well; after all, _is_ Callista really good for much more
+than the work they have set her to do?”
+
+She was absorbed in her own misery in an intense sense of degradation, in
+a keen consciousness of the bondage of nature, in a despair of ever
+finding what alone could give meaning to her existence, and an object to
+her intellect and affections. And Agellius on the other hand, what
+surprise, remorse, and humiliation came upon him! It was a strange
+contrast, the complaint of nature unregenerate on the one hand, the
+self-reproach of nature regenerate and lapsing on the other. At last he
+spoke, and they were his last words.
+
+“Callista,” he said, “whatever injury I may have unwillingly inflicted
+upon you, you at least have returned me good for evil, and have made
+yourself my benefactress. Certainly, I now know myself better than I did;
+and He who has made use of you as His instrument of mercy towards me, will
+not forget to reward you tenfold. One word will I say for myself; nay, not
+for myself, but for my Master. Do not for an instant suppose that what you
+thought of the Christian religion is not true. It reveals a present God,
+who satisfies every affection of the heart, yet keeps it pure. I serve a
+Master,” he continued, blushing from modesty and earnestness as he spoke,
+“I serve a Master whose love is stronger than created love. God help my
+inconsistency! but I never meant to love you as I love Him. You are
+destined for His love. I commit you to Him, your true Lord, whom I never
+ought to have rivalled, for whom I ought simply to have pleaded. Though I
+am not worthy to approach you, I shall trace you at a distance, who knows
+where? perhaps even to the prison and to the arena of those who confess
+the Saviour of men, and dare to suffer and die for His name. And now,
+farewell; to His keeping and that of His holy martyrs I commit you.”
+
+He did not trust himself to look at her as he turned to the door, and left
+the room.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+                                 A DEATH.
+
+
+The first stages of repentance are but a fever, in which there is
+restlessness and thirst, hot and cold fits, vague, dreary dreams, long
+darkness which seems destined never to have a morning, effort without
+result, and collapse without reaction. These symptoms had already
+manifested themselves in Agellius; he spoke calmly to Callista, and
+sustained himself by the claims of the moment; but no sooner had he left
+the room and was thrown upon himself, than his self-possession left him,
+and he fell into an agony, or rather anarchy of tumultuous feelings. Then
+rose up before his mind a hundred evil spectres, not less scaring and more
+real than the dreams of the delirious. He thought of the singular favour
+which had been shown him in his reception into the Christian fold, and
+that at so early a date; of the myriads all around who continued in
+heathenism as they had been born, and of his utter insensibility to his
+own privilege. He felt how much would be required of him, and how little
+hitherto had been forthcoming. He thought of the parable of the barren
+fig-tree, and the question was whispered in his ear whether it would not
+be fulfilled in him. He asked himself in what his heart and his conduct
+differed from the condition of a fairly virtuous heathen. And then he
+thought of Callista in contrast with himself, as having done more with the
+mite which she possessed than he had done with many pounds. He felt that
+Tyre and Sidon were rising up against him in her person; or rather how the
+saying seemed about to be verified in her, that strangers should sit down
+in the kingdom from far countries, while those who were the heirs should
+be thrust out. He had been rebuked by one to whom he rather ought to have
+brought self-knowledge and compunction, and she was sensitively alive to
+his want of charity. She had felt bitterly that she was left in ignorance
+and sin by one who had what she had not. She had accused him of being
+zealous enough to win her to himself, when he had shown no zeal at all to
+win her to her Maker. If she was brought to the truth at length, there
+would be no thanks to him for the happy change; yet on the other hand,
+though he had predicted it, alas! was it likely that it would be granted?
+Had she not had her opportunity, which was lost because he had not
+improved it? Yes, she had with a deliberate mind and in set words put
+aside and taken leave of that which she once desired and hoped might have
+been her own, sorrowfully indeed, but peremptorily, as firmly persisting
+in rejecting it, as she might have persisted in maintaining it; and, if
+she died in infidelity, horrible thought! would not the burden lie on him,
+and was this to be the token of the love which he pretended to entertain
+for her?
+
+What was he living for? what was the work he had set himself to do? Did he
+live to plant flowers, or to rear fruit, to maintain himself and to make
+money? Was that a time to pride himself on vineyards and oliveyards, when,
+like Eliseus, he was one among myriads who were in unbelief? Ah, the
+difference between a saint and him? Of what good was he on earth; why
+should not he die? why so chary of his life? why preserve his wretched
+life at all? Could he not do more by giving it than by keeping it? Might
+it not have been given him perchance for the very purpose that he might
+sacrifice it for Him who had given it? He had been timid about making a
+profession of his faith, which might have led to prison and death; but
+perhaps the very object of his life in the divine purpose, the very reason
+of his birth, had been that, as soon as he was grown, he should die for
+the truth. He might have been cut off by disease; he was not; and why,
+except that he might merit in his death, and that what, in the ordinary
+course of things, was a mere suffering, might in his case be an act of
+service? His death might have been the conversion of thousands, of
+Callista; and the fewness of his days here would have been his claim to a
+blessed eternity hereafter.
+
+Nor Callista alone; he had natural friends, with nearer claims upon his
+charity. Had he been other than he was, he might have prevailed with his
+uncle; at least he might have taught him to respect the Christian Faith
+and Name, and restrained him from daring to attempt, for he now saw that
+it was an attempt, to seduce him into sin. He might have lodged a good
+seed in his heart, which in the hour of sickness might have germinated.
+And his brother again had learned to despise him; indeed he had raised in
+every one who came near him the suspicion that he was not really a
+Christian, that he was an apostate (he could not help uttering a cry of
+anguish as he used the word), an apostate from that which was his real
+life and supreme worship.
+
+Why did he not at once go into the Basilica or the Gymnasium, and proclaim
+himself a Christian? There were rumours abroad that the new emperor was
+beginning a new policy towards his religion; let him inaugurate it in
+Agellius. Might he not thus perchance wash out his sin? He would be led
+into the amphitheatre, as his betters had been led before him; the crowds
+would yell, and the lion would be let loose upon him. He would confront
+the edict, tear it down, be seized by the apparitor, and hurried to the
+rack or the slow fire. Callista would hear of it, and would learn at
+length he was not quite the craven and the recreant which she thought him.
+
+Then his thoughts took a turn. Callista! what was Callista to him? Why
+should he think of her, when she was girding him to martyrdom? Was she to
+be the motive which was to animate him, and her praise his reward? Alas,
+alas! could he gain heaven by pleasing a heathen? “But to whom then,” he
+continued, “am I to look up? who is to give me sympathy? who is to
+encourage, to advise me? O my Father, pity me! a feeble child, a poor,
+outcast, wandering sheep, away from the fold, torn by the briars and
+thorns, and no one to bind his wounds and retrace his steps for him. Why
+am I thus alone in the world? why am I without a pastor and guide? Ah, was
+not this my fault in remaining in Sicca? I have no tie here; let me go to
+Carthage, or to Tagaste, or to Madaura, or to Hippo. I am not fit to walk
+the world by myself; I am too simple, and am no match for its artifices.”
+
+Here another thought took possession of him, which had as yet but crossed
+his mind, and it made him colour up with confusion and terror. “They were
+laying a plot for me,” he said, “my uncle and Aristo; and it is Callista
+who has defeated it.” And as he spoke, he felt how much he owed to her,
+and how dangerous too it was to think of his debt. Yet it would not be
+wrong to pray for her; she had marred the device of which she was to have
+been the agent. “Laqueus contritus est, et nos liberati sumus:” the net
+was broken and he was delivered. She had refused his devotion, that he
+might give it to his God; and now he would only think of her, and whisper
+her name, when he was kneeling before the Blessed Mary, his advocate. O
+that that second and better Eve, who brought salvation into the world, as
+our first mother brought death, O that she might bear Callista’s name in
+remembrance, and get it written in the Book of life!
+
+It was high noon; and all this time Agellius was walking in his present
+excited mood, without covering to his head, under the burning rays of the
+sun, not knowing which way he went, and retracing his steps, as he
+wandered about at random, with a vague notion he was going homewards. The
+few persons whom he met, creeping about under the shadow of the lofty
+houses, or under the porticoes of the temples, looked at him with wonder,
+and thought him furious or deranged. The shafts of the sun were not so hot
+as his own thoughts, or as the blood which shot to and fro so fiercely in
+his veins; but they were working fearfully on his physical frame, though
+they could not increase the fever of his mind. He had come to the Forum;
+the market people were crouching under their booths or the shelter of
+their baskets. The riffraff of the city, who lived by their wits, or by
+odd jobs, or on the windfalls of the market; lazy fellows who did nothing,
+who did not move till hunger urged them, like the brute; half-idiotic
+chewers of opium, ragged or rather naked children, the butcher boys and
+scavengers of the temples, lay at their length at the mouth of the caverns
+formed by the precipitous rock, or under the Arch of Triumph, or amid the
+columns of the Gymnasium and the Heracleum, or in the doorways of the
+shops. A scattering of beggars were lying, poor creatures, on their backs
+in the blazing sun, reckless of the awful maladies, the fits, the
+seizures, and the sudden death, which might be the consequence.
+
+Numbers out of this mixed multitude were asleep; some were looking with
+dull listless eyes at the still scene, or at any accidental movements
+which might vary it. They saw a figure coming nearer and nearer and wildly
+passing by. Just then Agellius was diverted from his painful meditations
+by hearing one of these fellows say to another, as he roused from a sort
+of doze, “That’s one of them. We know them all, but very poor pickings can
+be got out of them; but he has more than most. They’re a low set in
+Sicca.” And then the man cried out, “Look sharp, young chap! the Furies
+are at your heels, and the Fates are going before you. Look there at the
+emperor; he is looking at you, as grim and sour as you could wish him.” He
+spoke of the equestrian statue of Severus before the Basilica on the
+right; and, attracted by his words, Agellius went up to a board which was
+fixed to its base. It was an imperial edict, and it ran as follows:—
+
+“Cneius Trajanus Decius, Augustus; and Quintus Herennius Etruscus Decius,
+Cæsar; Emperors, unconquerable and pious; by united council these:—
+
+“Whereas we have experienced the benefits and the gifts of the gods, and
+do also enjoy the victory which they have given us over our enemies, and
+moreover salubrity of seasons, and abundance in the fruits of the earth;
+
+“Therefore, acknowledging the aforesaid as our benefactors and the
+providers of those things which are necessary for the commonwealth, we
+make this our decree, that every class of the state, freemen and slaves,
+the army and civilians, offer to the gods expiatory sacrifices, falling
+down in supplication before them;
+
+“And if any one shall presume to disobey this our divine command, which we
+unite in promulgating, we order that man to be thrown into chains, and to
+be subjected to various tortures;
+
+“And should he thereupon be persuaded to reverse his disobedience, he
+shall receive from us no slight honours;
+
+“But should he hold out in opposition, first he shall have many tortures,
+and then shall be executed by the sword, or thrown into the deep sea, or
+given as a prey to birds and dogs;
+
+“And more than all if such a person be a professor of the Christian
+religion.
+
+“Farewell, and live happy.”
+
+The old man in the fable called on Death, and Death made his appearance.
+We are very far indeed from meaning that Agellius uttered random words, or
+spoke impatiently, when he just now expressed a wish to have the
+opportunity of dying for the Faith. Nevertheless, what now met his eyes
+and was transmitted through them, sentence by sentence, into his mind, was
+not certainly of a nature to calm the tumult which was busy in breast and
+brain; a sickness came over him, and he staggered away. The words of the
+edict still met his eyes, and were of a bright red colour. The sun was
+right before him, but the letters were in the sun, and the sun in his
+brain. He reeled and fell heavily on the pavement. No notice was taken of
+the occurrence by the spectators around him. They lazily or curiously
+looked on, and waited to see if he would recover.
+
+How long he lay there he could not tell, when he came to himself; if it
+could really be said to be coming to himself to have the power of motion,
+and an instinct that he must move, and move in one direction. He managed
+to rise and lean against the pedestal of the statue, and its shade by this
+time protected him. Then an intense desire came upon him to get home, and
+that desire gave him a temporary preternatural strength. It came upon him
+as a duty to leave Sicca for his cottage, and he set off. He had a
+confused notion that he must do his duty, and go straight forward, and
+turn neither to the right, nor the left, and stop nowhere, but move on
+steadily for his true home. But next an impression came upon him that he
+was running away from persecution, and that this ought not to be, and that
+he ought to face the enemy, or at least not to hide from him, but meekly
+wait for him.
+
+As he went along the narrow streets which led down the hill towards the
+city gate this thought came so powerfully upon him that at length he sat
+down on a stone which projected from an open shop, and thought of
+surrendering himself. He felt the benefit of the rest, and this he fancied
+to be the calm of conscience consequent upon self-surrender and
+resignation. It was a fruiterer’s stall, and the owner, seeing his
+exhaustion, offered him some slices of a water-melon for his refreshment.
+He ate one of them, and then again a vague feeling came on him that he was
+in danger of idolatry, and must protest against idolatry, and that he
+ought not to remain in the neighbourhood of temptation. So, throwing down
+the small coin which was sufficient for payment, he continued his journey.
+The rest and the refreshment of the fruit, and the continued shade which
+the narrow street allowed him, allayed the fever, and for the time
+recruited him, and he moved on languidly. The sun, however, was still high
+in heaven, and when he got beyond the city beat down upon his head from a
+cloudless sky. He painfully toiled up the ascent which led to his cottage.
+He had nearly gained the gate of his homestead; he saw his old household
+slave, born in his father’s house, a Christian like himself, coming to
+meet him. A dizziness came over him, he lost his senses, and fell down
+helplessly upon the bank.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+                            AND RESURRECTION.
+
+
+Jucundus was quite as much amused as provoked at the result of the
+delicate negotiation in which he had entangled his nephew. It was a
+gratification to him to find that its ill success had been owing in no
+respect to any fault on the side of Agellius. He had done his part without
+shrinking, and the view which he, Jucundus, had taken of his state of
+mind, was satisfactorily confirmed. He had nothing to fear from Agellius,
+and though he had failed in securing the guarantee which he had hoped for
+his attachment to things as they were, yet in the process of failure it
+had been proved that his nephew might be trusted without it. And it was a
+question, whether a girl so full of whims and caprices as Callista might
+after all have done him any permanent good. The absurd notion, indeed, of
+her having a leaning for Christianity had been refuted by her conduct on
+the occasion; still, who could rely on a clever and accomplished Greek?
+There were secret societies and conspiracies in abundance, and she might
+have involved so weak and innocent a fellow in some plans against the
+government, now or at a future time; or might have alienated him from his
+uncle, or in some way or other made a fool of him, if she had consented to
+have him for her slave. Why she had rejected so eligible a suitor it was
+now useless and idle to inquire; it might be that the haughty or greedy
+Greek had required him to bid higher for her favourable notice. If the
+negotiation had taken such a turn, then indeed there was still more
+gratifying evidence of Agellius having broken from his fantastic and
+peevish superstition.
+
+Still, however, he was not without anxiety, now that the severe measures
+directed against the Christians were in progress. No overt act, indeed,
+beyond the publication of the edict, had been taken in Sicca—probably
+would be taken at all. The worst was, that something must be done to make
+a show; he could have wished that some of the multitude of townspeople,
+half suspected of Christianity, had stood firm, and suffered themselves to
+be tortured and executed. One or two would have been enough; but the
+magistracy got no credit with the central government for zeal and activity
+if no Christians were made an example of. Yet still it was a question
+whether the strong acts at Carthage and elsewhere would not suffice,
+though the lesser towns did nothing. At least, while the populace was
+quiet, there was nothing to press for severity. There were no rich
+Christians in Sicca to tempt the cupidity of the informer or of the
+magistrate; no political partisans among them, who had made enemies with
+this or that class of the community. But, supposing a bad feeling to rise
+in the populace, supposing the magistrates to have ill-wishers and
+rivals—and what men in power had not?—who might be glad to catch them
+tripping, and make a case against them at Rome, why, it must be confessed
+that Agellius was nearly the only victim who could be pitched upon. He
+wished Callista no harm, but, if a Christian must be found and held up _in
+terrorem_, he would rather it was a person like her, without connections
+and home, than the member of any decent family of Sicca, whose fair fame
+would be compromised by a catastrophe. However, she was _not_ a Christian,
+and Agellius _was_, at least by profession; and his fear was lest Juba
+should be right in his estimate of his brother’s character. Juba had said
+that Agellius could be as obstinate as he was ordinarily indolent and
+yielding, and Jucundus dreaded lest, if he were rudely charged with
+Christianity, and bidden to renounce it under pain of punishment, he would
+rebel against the tyrannical order, and go to prison and to death out of
+sheer perverseness or sense of honour.
+
+With these perplexities before him, he could find nothing better than the
+following plan of action, which had been in his mind for some time. While
+the edict remained inoperative, he would do nothing at all, and let
+Agellius go on with his country occupations, which would keep him out of
+the way. But if any disposition appeared of a popular commotion, or a
+movement on the part of the magistracy, he determined to get possession of
+Agellius, and forcibly confine him in his own house in Sicca. He hoped
+that in the case of one so young, so uncommitted, he should have influence
+with the municipal authorities, or at the prætorium, or in the camp (for
+the camp and the prætorium were under different jurisdictions in the
+proconsulate), to shelter Agellius from a public inquiry into his
+religious tenets, or if this could not be, to smuggle him out of the city.
+He was ready to affirm solemnly that his nephew was no Christian, though
+he was touched in the head, and, from an affection parallel to
+hydrophobia, to which the disciples of Galen ought to turn their
+attention, was sent into convulsions on the sight of an altar. His father,
+indeed, was a malignant old atheist—there was no harm in being angry with
+the dead—but it was very hard the son should suffer for his father’s
+offence. If he must be judged of by his parents, let him rather have the
+advantage of the thorough loyalty and religiousness of his mother, a most
+zealous old lady, in high repute in the neighbourhood of Sicca for her
+theurgic knowledge, a staunch friend of the imperial government, which had
+before now been indebted to her for important information, and as staunch
+a hater of the Christians. Such was the plan of proceedings resolved on by
+Jucundus before he received the news of his nephew’s serious malady. It
+did not reach him till many days after; and then he did not go to see him,
+first, lest he should be supposed to be in communication with him, next,
+as having no respect for that romantic sort of generosity which risks the
+chances of contagion for the absurd ceremony of paying a compliment.
+
+It was thus that Jucundus addressed himself to the present state of
+affairs, and anticipated the chances of the future. As to Aristo, he had
+very little personal interest in the matter. His sister might have
+thwarted him in affairs which lay nearer his heart than the moral
+emancipation of Agellius; and as she generally complied with his
+suggestions and wishes, whatever they were, he did not grudge her her
+liberty of action in this instance. Nor had the occurrence which had taken
+place any great visible effect upon Callista herself. She had lost her
+right to be indignant with her brother, and she resigned or rather
+abandoned herself to her destiny. Her better feelings had been brought out
+for the moment in her conversation with Agellius; but they were not
+ordinary ones. True, she was tired, but she was the slave of the world;
+and Agellius had only made her more sceptical than before that there was
+any service better. So at least she said to herself; she said it was
+fantastic to go elsewhere for good, and that, if life was short, then, as
+her brother said, it was necessary to make the most of it.
+
+
+
+And meanwhile, what of Agellius himself? Why, it will be some little time
+before Agellius will be in a condition to moralize upon anything. His
+faithful slave half-carried, half-drew him into the cottage, and stretched
+him upon his bed. Then, having sufficient skill for the ordinary illnesses
+of the country, though this was more than an ordinary fever, he drew blood
+from him, gave him a draught of herbs, and left him to the slow but safe
+processes of nature to restore him. It could not be affirmed that he was
+not in considerable danger of life, yet youth carries hope with it, and
+his attendant had little to fear for his recovery. For some days certainly
+Agellius had no apprehension of anything, except of restlessness and
+distress, of sleepless nights, or dreary, miserable dreams. At length one
+morning, as he was lying on his back with his eyes shut, it came into his
+mind to ask himself whether Sunday would ever come. He had been accustomed
+upon the first day of the week to say some particular prayers and psalms,
+and unite himself in spirit with his brethren beyond seas. And then he
+tried to remember the last Sunday; and the more he thought, the less he
+could remember it, till he began to think that months had gone without a
+Sunday. This he was certain of, that he had lost reckoning, for he had
+made no notches for the days for a long while past, and unless his slave
+Asper knew, there was no one to tell him. Here he got so puzzled, that it
+was like one of the bad dreams which had worried him. He felt it affect
+his head, and he was obliged to give up the inquiry.
+
+From this time his sleep was better and more refreshing for several days;
+he was more collected when he was awake, and was able to ask himself why
+he lay there, and what had happened to him. Then gradually his memory
+began to return like the dawning of the day; the cause and the
+circumstances of his recent visit to the city, point after point came up,
+and he felt first wonder, and then certainty. He recollected the Forum,
+and then the edict; a solemn, overpowering emotion here seized him, and
+for a while he dared not think more. When he recovered, and tried to
+pursue the events of the day, he found himself unequal to the task; all
+was dark, except that he had some vague remembrance of thirsting, and some
+one giving him to drink, and then his saying with the Psalmist,
+“Transivimus per ignem et aquam.”
+
+He opened his eyes and looked about him. He was at home. There was some
+one at the bed-head whom he could not see hanging over him, and he was too
+weak to raise himself and so command a view of him. He waited patiently,
+being too feeble to have any great anxiety on the subject. Presently a
+voice addressed him: “You are recovering, my son,” it said.
+
+“Who are _you_?” said Agellius abruptly. The person spoken to applied his
+mouth to Agellius’s ear, and uttered lowly several sacred names.
+
+Agellius would have started up had he been strong enough; he could but
+sink down upon his rushes in agitation.
+
+“Be content to know no more at present,” said the stranger, “praise God,
+as I do. You know enough for your present strength. It is your act of
+obedience for the day.”
+
+It was a deep, clear, peaceful, authoritative voice. In his present state,
+as we have said, it cost Agellius no great effort to mortify curiosity;
+and the accents of that voice soothed him, and the mystery employed his
+mind, and had something pleasing and attractive in it. Moreover, about the
+main point there was no mystery, and could be no mistake, that he was in
+the hands of a Christian ecclesiastic.
+
+The stranger occupied himself for a time with a book of prayers which he
+carried about him, and then again with the duties of a sick-bed. He
+sprinkled vinegar over Agellius’s face and about the room, and supplied
+him with the refreshment of cooling fruit. He kept the flies from
+tormenting him, and did his best so to arrange his posture that he might
+suffer least from his long lying. In the morning and evening he let in the
+air, and he excluded the sultry noon. In these various occupations he was
+from time to time removed to a distance from the patient, who thus had an
+opportunity of observing him. The stranger was of middle height, upright,
+and well proportioned; he was dressed in a peasant’s or slave’s dark
+tunic. His face was rather round than long; his hair black, yet with the
+promise of greyness, with what might be baldness in the crown, or a
+priest’s tonsure. His short beard curled round his chin; his complexion
+was very clear. But the most striking point about him was his eyes; they
+were of a light or greyish blue, transparent, and shining like precious
+stones.
+
+From the day that they first interchanged words, the priest said some
+short prayers from time to time with Agellius—the Lord’s Prayer, and
+portions of the Psalms. Afterwards, when he was well enough to converse,
+Agellius was struck with the inexpressible peculiarity of his manner. It
+was self-collected, serene, gentle, tender, unobtrusive, unstudied. It
+enabled him to say things severe and even stern, without startling,
+offending, or repelling the hearer. He spoke very little about himself,
+though from time to time points of detail were elicited of his history in
+the course of conversation. He said that his name was Cæcilius. Asper,
+when he entered the room, would kneel down and offer to kiss the
+stranger’s sandal, though the latter generally managed to prevent it.
+
+Cæcilius did not speak much about himself; but Agellius, on the other
+hand, found it a relief to tell out his own history, and reflect upon and
+describe his own feelings. As he lay on his bed, he half soliloquized,
+half addressed himself to the stranger. Sometimes he required an answer;
+sometimes he seemed to require none. Once he asked suddenly, after a long
+silence, whether a man could be baptized twice; and when the priest
+answered distinctly in the negative, Agellius replied that if so, he
+thought it would be best never to be baptized till the hour of death. It
+was a question, he said, which had perplexed him a good deal, but he never
+had had any one to converse with on the subject.
+
+Cæcilius answered, “But how could you promise yourself that you would be
+able to obtain the sacrament at the last moment? The water and the
+administrator might come just too late; and then where would you be, my
+son? And then again, how do you know you would wish it? Is your will
+simply in your own power? ‘Carpe diem;’ take God’s gift while you can.”
+
+“The benefit is so immense,” answered Agellius, “that one would wish, if
+one could, to enter into the unseen world without losing its fulness. This
+cannot be, if a long time elapses between baptism and death.”
+
+“You are, then, of the number of those,” said Cæcilius, “who would cheat
+their Maker of His claim on their life, provided they could (as it is
+said) in their last moment cheat the devil.”
+
+Agellius continuing silent, Cæcilius added, “You want to enjoy this world,
+and to inherit the next; is it so?”
+
+“I am puzzled, my head is weak, father; I do not see my way to speak.”
+Presently he said, “Sin after baptism is so awful a matter; there is no
+second laver for sin; and then again, to sin against baptism is so great a
+sin.”
+
+The priest said, “In baptism God becomes your Father; your own God; your
+worship; your love—can you give up this great gift all through your life?
+Would you live ‘without God in this world’?”
+
+Tears came into Agellius’s eyes, and his throat became oppressed. At last
+he said, distinctly and tenderly, “No.”
+
+After a while the priest said, “I suppose what you fear is the fire of
+judgment, and the prison; not lest you should fall away and be lost.”
+
+“I know, my dear father,” answered the sick youth, “that I have no right
+to reckon on anything, or promise myself anything; yet somehow I have
+never feared hell—though I ought, I know I ought; but I have not. I
+deserve the worst, but somehow I have thought that God would lead me on.
+He ever has done so.”
+
+“Then you fear the fire of judgment,” said Cæcilius; “you’d put off
+baptism for fear of that fire.”
+
+“I did not say I _would_,” answered Agellius; “I wanted _you_ to explain
+the thing to me.”
+
+“Which would you rather, Agellius, be without God here, or suffer the fire
+there?”
+
+Agellius smiled; he said faintly, “I take Him for my portion here _and_
+there: _He_ will be in the fire with me.”
+
+Agellius lay quiet for some hours, and seemed asleep. Suddenly he began
+again, “I was baptized when I was only six years old. I’m glad you do not
+think it was wilful in me, and wrong. I cannot tell what took me,” he
+presently continued. “It was a fervour; I have had nothing of the kind
+since. What does our Lord say? I can’t remember: ‘Novissima pejora
+prioribus.’ ”
+
+He continued the train of thought another day, or rather the course of his
+argument; for on the thought itself his mind seemed ever to be working.
+“My spring is gone,” he said, “and I have no summer. Nay, I have had no
+spring; it was a day, not a season. It came, and it went; where am I now?
+Can spring ever return? I wish to begin again in right earnest.”
+
+“Thank God, my son, for this great mercy,” said Cæcilius, “that, though
+you have relaxed, you have never severed yourself from the peace of the
+Church, you have not denied your God.”
+
+Agellius sighed bitterly. “O my father,” he said, “ ‘Erravi, sicut ovis
+quæ periit.’ I have been very near denying Him, at least by outward act.
+You do not know me; you cannot know what has come on me lately. And I dare
+not look back on it, my heart is so weak. My father, how am I to repent of
+what is past, when I dare not think of it? To think of it is to renew the
+sin.”
+
+“ ‘Puer meus, noli timere,’ ” answered the priest; “ ‘si transieris per
+ignem, odor ejus non erit in te.’ In penance, the grace of God carries you
+without harm through thoughts and words which _would_ harm you apart from
+it.”
+
+“Ah, penance!” said Agellius; “I recollect the catechism. What is it,
+father? a new grace, I know; a plank after baptism. May I have it?”
+
+“You are not strong enough yet to think of these things, Agellius,”
+answered Cæcilius. “Please God, you shall get well. Then you shall review
+all your life, and bring it out in order before Him; and He, through me,
+will wipe away all that has been amiss. Praise Him who has spared you for
+this.”
+
+It was too much for the patient in his weak state; he could but shed happy
+tears.
+
+Another day he had sat up in bed. He looked at his hands, from which the
+skin was peeling; he felt his lips, and it was with them the same; and his
+hair seemed coming off also. He smiled and said, “Renovabitur, ut aquila,
+juventus mea.”
+
+Cæcilius responded, as before, with sacred words which were new to
+Agellius: “ ‘Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fortitudinem; assument pennas,
+sicut aquilæ,’ ‘Sursum corda!’ you must soar, Agellius.”
+
+“ ‘Sursum corda!’ ” answered he; “I know those words. They are old
+friends; where have I heard them? I can’t recollect; but they are in my
+earliest memories. Ah! but, my father, my heart is below, not above. I
+want to tell you all. I want to tell you about one who has enthralled my
+heart; who has divided it with my True Love. But I daren’t speak of her,
+as I have said; I dare not speak, lest I be carried away. O, I blush to
+say it; she is a heathen! May God save her soul! Will He come to me, and
+not to her? ‘Investigabiles viæ ejus.’ ”
+
+He remained silent for some time; then he said, “Father, I mean to
+dedicate myself to God, simply, absolutely, with His grace. I will be His,
+and He shall be mine. No one shall come between us. But O this weak
+heart!”
+
+“Keep your good resolves till you are stronger,” said the priest. “It is
+easy to make them on a sick-bed. You must first reckon the charges.”
+
+Agellius smiled. “I know the passage, father,” he said, and he repeated
+the sacred words: “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and
+mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
+own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
+
+Another time Agellius said: “The Martyrs; surely the old bishop used to
+say something about the Martyrs. He spoke of a second baptism, and called
+it a baptism of blood; and said, ‘Might his soul be with the Martyrs!’
+Father, would not this wash out every thing, as the first?”
+
+It was now Cæcilius who smiled, and his eyes shone like the sapphires of
+the Holy City; and he seemed the ideal of him who, when
+
+            “Called upon to face
+  Some awful moment to which heaven has joined
+  Great issues, good or bad for humankind,
+  Is happy as a lover, and attired
+  With sudden brightness, like a man inspired.”
+
+However, he soon controlled himself, and said, “Quo ego vado, non potes me
+modo sequi; sequeris autem postea.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+                              A SMALL CLOUD.
+
+
+This sort of intercourse, growing in frequency and fulness, went on for
+about a week, till Agellius was able to walk with support, and to leave
+the cottage. The priest and his own slave took him between them, and
+seated him one evening in sight of the glorious prospect, traversed by the
+long shadow of the far mountains, behind which the sun was making its way.
+The air was filled with a thousand odours; the brilliant colouring of the
+western heavens was contrasted with the more sober but varied tints of the
+rich country. The wheat and barley harvest was over; but the beans were
+late, and still stood in the fields. The olives and chestnut-trees were
+full of fruit; the early fig was supplying the markets with food; and the
+numerous vineyards were patiently awaiting the suns of the next month
+slowly to perfect their present promise. The beautiful scene had a moral
+dignity, from its associations with human sustenance and well-being. The
+inexpressible calmness of evening was flung, like a robe, over it. Its
+sweetness was too much for one who had been confined to the monotony of a
+sick-room, and was still an invalid. He sat silent, and in tears. It was
+life from the dead; and he felt he had risen to a different life. And thus
+he came out evening after evening convalescent, gradually and surely
+advancing to perfect restoration of his health.
+
+One evening he said, after feeding his eyes and thoughts for some time
+with the prospect, “ ‘Mansueti hereditabunt terram.’ They alone have real
+enjoyment of this earth who believe in its Maker. Every breath of air
+seems to whisper how good He is to me.”
+
+Cæcilius answered, “These sights are the shadows of that fairer Paradise
+which is our home, where there is no beast of prey, no venomous reptile,
+no sin. My child, should _I_ not feel this more than you? Those who are
+shut up in crowded cities see but the work of man, which is evil. It is
+the compensation of my flight from Carthage that I am brought before the
+face of God.”
+
+“The heathen worship all this, as if God Himself,” said Agellius; “how
+strange it seems to me that any one can forget the Creator in His works!”
+
+Cæcilius was silent for a moment, and sighed; he then said, “You have ever
+been a Christian, Agellius.”
+
+“And you have not, my father?” answered he; “well, you have earned that
+grace which came to me freely.”
+
+“Agellius,” said the priest, “it comes freely to all; and is only merited
+when it has already prevailed. Yet I think you earned it too, else why the
+difference between you and your brother?”
+
+“What do you know of us?” asked Agellius quickly.
+
+“Not a great deal,” answered he, “yet something. Three or four years back
+an effort was made to rekindle the Christian spirit in these parts, and to
+do something for the churches of the proconsulate, and to fill up the
+vacant sees. Nothing has come of it as yet; but steps were taken towards
+it: one was to obtain a recovery of the Christians who remained in them. I
+was sent here for that purpose, and in this way heard of you and your
+brother. When my life was threatened by the persecution, and I had to
+flee, I thought of your cottage. I was obliged to act secretly, as we did
+not know friends from foes.”
+
+“You were led here for other purposes towards _me_, my father,” said
+Agellius; “yet you cannot have a safer refuge. There is nothing to
+disturb, nothing to cause suspicion here. In this harvest time numbers of
+strangers pour in from the mountains, of various races; there is nothing
+to distinguish you from one of them, and my brother is away convoying some
+grain to Carthage. Persecution drove you hither, but you have not been
+suffered to be idle, my father, you have brought home a wanderer.” He
+added, after a pause, “I am well enough to go to confession to you now.
+May it be this evening?”
+
+“It will be well,” answered Cæcilius; “how long I shall still be here, I
+cannot tell. I am expecting my trusty messenger with despatches. It is now
+three days since he was here. However, this I say without misgiving, we do
+not part for long. What do you here longer? you must come to me. I must
+prepare you, and send you back to Sicca, to collect and restore this
+scattered flock.”
+
+Agellius turned, and leaned against the priest’s shoulder, and laughed. “I
+am laughing,” he said, “not from lightness of mind, but from the depth of
+surprise and of joy that you should so think of me. It was a dream which
+once I had; but impossible! you do not think that I, weak I, shall ever be
+able to do more than save my own soul?”
+
+“You will save your own soul by saving the souls of others,” said
+Cæcilius; “my child, I could tell you more things if I thought it good for
+you.”
+
+“But, my father, I have so weak, so soft a heart,” cried Agellius; “what
+am I to do with myself? I am not of the temper of which heroes are made.”
+
+“ ‘Virtus in infirmitate perficitur,’ ” said the priest. “What! are you to
+do _any_ thing of yourself? or are you to be simply the instrument of
+Another? We shall have the same termination, you and myself, but you long
+after me.”
+
+“Ah, father, because _you_ will burn out so much more quickly!” said
+Agellius.
+
+“I think,” said Cæcilius, “I see my messenger; there is some one who has
+made his way by stealth into the garden, or at least not by the beaten
+way.”
+
+There _was_ a visitor, as Cæcilius had said; however, it was not his
+messenger, but Juba, who approached, looking with great curiosity at
+Cæcilius, and absorbed in the sight. Cæcilius in turn regarded him
+steadfastly, and then said to Agellius, “It is your brother.”
+
+“What brings you here, Juba?” said the latter.
+
+“I have been away on a distant errand,” said Juba; “and find you have been
+ill. Is this your nurse?” he eyed him almost sternly, and added, “’Tis a
+Christian priest.”
+
+“Has Agellius no acquaintance but Christians?” asked Cæcilius.
+
+“Acquaintance! O surely!” answered Juba; “agreeable, innocent, sweet
+acquaintance of another sort; myself to begin with. My lad,” he continued,
+“you did not rise to their price, but you did your best.”
+
+“Juba,” said his brother, “if you have any business here, say it, and have
+done. I am not strong enough to hold any altercation with you.”
+
+“Business!” said Juba, “I can find quite business enough here, if I
+choose. This is a priest of the Christians. I am sure of it.”
+
+Cæcilius looked at him with such calmness and benevolence, that at length
+Juba turned away his eyes with something of irritation. He said, “If I
+_am_ a priest, I am here to claim you as one of my children.”
+
+Juba winced, but said scornfully, “You are mistaken there, father; speak
+to those who own you. I am a free man.”
+
+“My son,” Cæcilius answered, “you have been under instruction; it is your
+duty to go forward, not back.”
+
+“What do you know about me?” said Juba; “he has been telling.”
+
+“Your face, your manner, your voice, tells a tale; I need no information
+from others. I have heard of you years ago; now I see you.”
+
+“What do you see in me?” said Juba.
+
+“I see pride in bodily shape, treading down faith and conviction,” said
+Cæcilius.
+
+Juba neighed rather than laughed, so fierce and scornful was its
+expression. “What you slaves call pride,” he said, “I call dignity.”
+
+“You believe in a God, Creator of heaven and earth, as certainly as I do,”
+said the priest, “but you deliberately set yourself against Him.”
+
+Juba smiled. “I am as free,” he said, “in _my_ place, as He in His.”
+
+“You mean,” answered Cæcilius, “free to do wrong, and free to suffer for
+it.”
+
+“You may call it wrong, and call it suffering,” replied Juba; “but for me,
+_I_ do not call wrong what He calls wrong; and if He puts me to pain, it
+is because He is the stronger.”
+
+The priest stopped awhile; there was no emotion on either side. It was
+strange to see them so passionless, so antagonistic, like St. Michael and
+his adversary.
+
+“There is that within you,” said Cæcilius, “which speaks as I speak. That
+inward voice takes the part of the Creator, and condemns you.”
+
+“_He_ put it there,” said Juba; “and _I_ will take care to put it out.”
+
+“Then He will have justice as well as power on His side,” said the priest.
+
+“I will never fawn or crouch,” said Juba; “I will be lord and master in my
+own soul. Every faculty shall be mine; there shall be no divided
+allegiance.”
+
+Cæcilius paused again; he said at length, “My son, my soul tells me, or
+rather my Maker tells me, and your Maker, that some heavy judgment is
+impending over you. Do penance while you may.”
+
+“Tell your forebodings to women and children,” said Juba; “I am prepared
+for anything. I will not be crushed.”
+
+Agellius was not strong enough to bear a part in such a scene. “Father,”
+he said, “it is his way, but don’t believe him. He has better thoughts.
+Away with you, Juba, you are not wanted here.”
+
+“Agellius,” said the priest, “such words are not strange to me. I am not
+young, and have seen much of the world; and my very office and position
+elicits blasphemies from others from time to time. I knew a man who
+carried out his bad thoughts and words into act. Abjuring his Maker, he
+abandoned himself to the service of the evil one. He betrayed his brethren
+to death. He lived on year after year, and became old. He was smitten with
+illness; then I first saw him. I made him contemplate a picture; it was
+the picture of the Good Shepherd. I dwelt on the vain efforts of the poor
+sheep to get out of the fold; its irrational aversion to its home, and its
+desperate resolution to force a way through the prickly fence. It was
+pierced and torn with the sharp aloe; at last it lay imprisoned in its
+stern embrace, motionless and bleeding. Then the Shepherd, though He had
+to wound His own hands in the work, disengaged it, and brought it back.
+God has His own times; His power went along with the picture, and the man
+was moved. I said, ‘_This_ is His return for your enmity: He is determined
+to have you, cost Him what it will.’ I need not go through the many things
+that followed, but the issue may be told in few words. He came back; he
+lived a life of penance at the Church’s door; he received the peace of the
+Church in immediate prospect of the persecution, and has within the last
+ten days died a martyr’s death.”
+
+Juba had listened as if he was constrained against his will. When the
+priest stopped he started, and began to speak impetuously, and unlike his
+ordinary tone. He placed his hands violently against his ears. “Stop!” he
+said, “no more. _I_ will not betray them; no: I _need_ not betray them;”
+he laughed; “the black moor does the work himself. Look,” he cried,
+seizing the priest’s arm, and pointing to a part of the forest, which
+happened to be to windward. “You are in their number, priest, who can
+foretell the destinies of others, and are blind to their own. Read there,
+the task is not hard, your coming fortunes.”
+
+His finger was directed to a spot where, amid the thick foliage, the gleam
+of a pool or of a marsh was visible. The various waters round about
+issuing from the gravel, or drained from the nightly damps, had run into a
+hollow, filled with the decaying vegetation of former years, and were
+languidly filtered out into a brook, more healthy than the vast reservoir
+itself. Its banks were bordered with a deep, broad layer of mud, a
+transition substance between the rich vegetable matter which it once had
+been, and the multitudinous world of insect life which it was becoming. A
+cloud or mist at this time was hanging over it, high in air. A harsh and
+shrill sound, a whizzing or a chirping, proceeded from that cloud to the
+ear of the attentive listener. What these indications portended was plain.
+“There,” said Juba, “is what will tell more against you than imperial
+edict, informer, or proconsular apparitor; and no work of mine.”
+
+He turned down the bank and disappeared. Agellius and his guest looked at
+each other in dismay. “It is the locusts,” they whispered to each other,
+as they went back into the cottage.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+                              A VISITATION.
+
+
+The plague of locusts, one of the most awful visitations to which the
+countries included in the Roman empire were exposed, extended from the
+Atlantic to Ethiopia, from Arabia to India, and from the Nile and Red Sea
+to Greece and the north of Asia Minor. Instances are recorded in history
+of clouds of the devastating insect crossing the Black Sea to Poland, and
+the Mediterranean to Lombardy. It is as numerous in its species as it is
+wide in its range of territory. Brood follows brood, with a sort of family
+likeness, yet with distinct attributes, as we read in the prophets of the
+Old Testament, from whom Bochart tells us it is possible to enumerate as
+many as ten kinds. It wakens into existence and activity as early as the
+month of March; but instances are not wanting, as in our present history,
+of its appearance as late as June. Even one flight comprises myriads upon
+myriads passing imagination, to which the drops of rain or the sands of
+the sea are the only fit comparison; and hence it is almost a proverbial
+mode of expression in the East (as may be illustrated by the sacred pages
+to which we just now referred), by way of describing a vast invading army,
+to liken it to the locusts. So dense are they, when upon the wing, that it
+is no exaggeration to say that they hide the sun, from which circumstance
+indeed their name in Arabic is derived. And so ubiquitous are they when
+they have alighted on the earth, that they simply cover or clothe its
+surface.
+
+This last characteristic is stated in the sacred account of the plagues of
+Egypt, where their faculty of devastation is also mentioned. The
+corrupting fly and the bruising and prostrating hail had preceded them in
+that series of visitations, but _they_ came to do the work of ruin more
+thoroughly. For not only the crops and fruits, but the foliage of the
+forest itself, nay, the small twigs and the bark of the trees are the
+victims of their curious and energetic rapacity. They have been known even
+to gnaw the door-posts of the houses. Nor do they execute their task in so
+slovenly a way, that, as they have succeeded other plagues so they may
+have successors themselves. They take pains to spoil what they leave. Like
+the Harpies, they smear every thing that they touch with a miserable
+slime, which has the effect of a virus in corroding, or, as some say, in
+scorching and burning it. And then, as if all this were little, when they
+can do nothing else, they die;—as if out of sheer malevolence to man, for
+the poisonous elements of their nature are then let loose, and dispersed
+abroad, and create a pestilence; and they manage to destroy many more by
+their death than in their life.
+
+Such are the locusts,—whose existence the ancient heretics brought forward
+as their palmary proof that there was an evil creator, and of whom an
+Arabian writer shows his national horror, when he says that they have the
+head of a horse, the eyes of an elephant, the neck of a bull, the horns of
+a stag, the breast of a lion, the belly of a scorpion, the wings of an
+eagle, the legs of a camel, the feet of an ostrich, and the tail of a
+serpent.
+
+And now they are rushing upon a considerable tract of that beautiful
+region of which we have spoken with such admiration. The swarm to which
+Juba pointed grew and grew till it became a compact body, as much as a
+furlong square; yet it was but the vanguard of a series of similar hosts,
+formed one after another out of the hot mould or sand, rising into the air
+like clouds, enlarging into a dusky canopy, and then discharged against
+the fruitful plain. At length the huge innumerous mass was put into
+motion, and began its career, darkening the face of day. As became an
+instrument of divine power, it seemed to have no volition of its own; it
+was set off, it drifted, with the wind, and thus made northwards, straight
+for Sicca. Thus they advanced, host after host, for a time wafted on the
+air, and gradually declining to the earth, while fresh broods were carried
+over the first, and neared the earth, after a longer flight, in their
+turn. For twelve miles did they extend from front to rear, and their
+whizzing and hissing could be heard for six miles on every side of them.
+The bright sun, though hidden by them, illumined their bodies, and was
+reflected from their quivering wings; and as they heavily fell earthward,
+they seemed like the innumerable flakes of a yellow-coloured snow. And
+like snow did they descend, a living carpet, or rather pall, upon fields,
+crops, gardens, copses, groves, orchards, vineyards, olive woods,
+orangeries, palm plantations, and the deep forests, sparing nothing within
+their reach, and where there was nothing to devour, lying helpless in
+drifts, or crawling forward obstinately, as they best might, with the hope
+of prey. They could spare their hundred thousand soldiers twice or thrice
+over, and not miss them; their masses filled the bottoms of the ravines
+and hollow ways, impeding the traveller as he rode forward on his journey,
+and trampled by thousands under his horse-hoofs. In vain was all this
+overthrow and waste by the road-side; in vain their loss in river, pool,
+and watercourse. The poor peasants hastily dug pits and trenches as their
+enemy came on; in vain they filled them from the wells or with lighted
+stubble. Heavily and thickly did the locusts fall: they were lavish of
+their lives; they choked the flame and the water, which destroyed them the
+while, and the vast living hostile armament still moved on.
+
+They moved right on like soldiers in their ranks, stopping at nothing, and
+straggling for nothing: they carried a broad furrow or wheal all across
+the country, black and loathsome, while it was as green and smiling on
+each side of them and in front, as it had been before they came. Before
+them, in the language of prophets, was a paradise; and behind them a
+desert. They are daunted by nothing; they surmount walls and hedges, and
+enter enclosed gardens or inhabited houses. A rare and experimental
+vineyard has been planted in a sheltered grove. The high winds of Africa
+will not commonly allow the light trellis or the slim pole; but here the
+lofty poplar of Campania has been possible, on which the vine plant mounts
+so many yards into the air, that the poor grape-gatherers bargain for a
+funeral pile and a tomb as one of the conditions of their engagement. The
+locusts have done what the winds and lightning could not do, and the whole
+promise of the vintage, leaves and all, is gone, and the slender stems are
+left bare. There is another yard, less uncommon, but still tended with
+more than common care; each plant is kept within due bounds by a circular
+trench round it, and by upright canes on which it is to trail; in an hour
+the solicitude and long toil of the vine-dresser are lost, and his pride
+humbled. There is a smiling farm; another sort of vine, of remarkable
+character, is found against the farm-house. This vine springs from one
+root, and has clothed and matted with its many branches the four walls;
+the whole of it is covered thick with long clusters, which another month
+will ripen:—on every grape and leaf there is a locust. Into the dry caves
+and pits, carefully strewed with straw, the harvest-men have (safely, as
+they thought just now) been lodging the far-famed African wheat. One grain
+or root shoots up into ten, twenty, fifty, eighty, nay, three or four
+hundred stalks: sometimes the stalks have two ears apiece, and these again
+shoot into a number of lesser ones. These stores are intended for the
+Roman populace, but the locusts have been beforehand with them. The small
+patches of ground belonging to the poor peasants up and down the country,
+for raising the turnips, garlic, barley, watermelons, on which they live,
+are the prey of these glutton invaders as much as the choicest vines and
+olives. Nor have they any reverence for the villa of the civic decurion or
+the Roman official. The neatly arranged kitchen-garden, with its cherries,
+plums, peaches, and apricots, is a waste; as the slaves sit round, in the
+kitchen in the first court, at their coarse evening meal, the room is
+filled with the invading force, and news comes to them that the enemy has
+fallen upon the apples and pears in the basement, and is at the same time
+plundering and sacking the preserves of quince and pomegranate, and
+revelling in the jars of precious oil of Cyprus and Mendes in the
+store-rooms.
+
+They come up to the walls of Sicca, and are flung against them into the
+ditch. Not a moment’s hesitation or delay; they recover their footing,
+they climb up the wood or stucco, they surmount the parapet, or they have
+entered in at the windows, filling the apartments, and the most private
+and luxurious chambers, not one or two, like stragglers at forage or
+rioters after a victory, but in order of battle, and with the array of an
+army. Choice plants or flowers about the _impluvia_ and _xysti_, for
+ornament or refreshment, myrtles, oranges, pomegranates, the rose and the
+carnation, have disappeared. They dim the bright marbles of the walls and
+the gilding of the ceilings. They enter the triclinium in the midst of the
+banquet; they crawl over the viands and spoil what they do not devour.
+Unrelaxed by success and by enjoyment, onward they go; a secret mysterious
+instinct keeps them together, as if they had a king over them. They move
+along the floor in so strange an order that they seem to be a tesselated
+pavement themselves, and to be the artificial embellishment of the place;
+so true are their lines, and so perfect is the pattern they describe.
+Onward they go, to the market, to the temple sacrifices, to the baker’s
+stores, to the cook-shops, to the confectioner’s, to the druggists;
+nothing comes amiss to them; wherever man has aught to eat or drink, there
+are they, reckless of death, strong of appetite, certain of conquest.
+
+They have passed on; the men of Sicca sadly congratulate themselves, and
+begin to look about them, and to sum up their losses. Being the
+proprietors of the neighbouring districts, or the purchasers of its
+produce, they lament over the devastation, not because the fair country is
+disfigured, but because income is becoming scanty, and prices are becoming
+high. How is a population of many thousands to be fed? where is the grain,
+where the melons, the figs, the dates, the gourds, the beans, the grapes,
+to sustain and solace the multitudes in their lanes, caverns, and garrets?
+This is another weighty consideration for the class well-to-do in the
+world. The taxes, too, and contributions, the capitation tax, the
+percentage upon corn, the various articles of revenues due to Rome, how
+are they to be paid? How are cattle to be provided for the sacrifices and
+for the tables of the wealthy? One-half, at least, of the supply of Sicca
+is cut off. No longer slaves are seen coming into the city from the
+country in troops with their baskets on their shoulders, or beating
+forward the horse, or mule, or ox, overladen with its burden, or driving
+in the dangerous cow, or the unresisting sheep. The animation of the place
+is gone; a gloom hangs over the Forum; and if its frequenters are still
+merry there is something of sullenness and recklessness in their mirth.
+The gods have given the city up; something or other has angered them.
+Locusts, indeed, are no uncommon visitation, but at an earlier season.
+Perhaps some temple has been polluted, or some unholy rite practised, or
+some secret conspiracy has spread.
+
+Another and a still worse calamity. The invaders, as we have already
+intimated, could be more terrible still in their overthrow than in their
+ravages. The inhabitants of the country had attempted, where they could,
+to destroy them by fire and water. It would seem as if the malignant
+animals had resolved that the sufferers should have the benefit of this
+policy to the full; for they had not got more than twenty miles beyond
+Sicca when they suddenly sickened and died. Thus after they had done all
+the mischief they could by their living, when they had made their foul
+maws the grave of every living thing, then they died themselves, and made
+the desolated land their own grave. They took from it its hundred forms
+and varieties of beautiful life, and left it their own fetid and poisonous
+carcases in payment. It was a sudden catastrophe; they seemed making for
+the Mediterranean, as if, like other great conquerors, they had other
+worlds to subdue beyond it; but whether they were overgorged, or struck by
+some atmospheric change, or that their time was come and they paid the
+debt of nature, so it was that suddenly they fell, and their glory came to
+nought, and all was vanity to them as to others, and “their stench rose
+up, and their corruption rose up, because they had done proudly.”
+
+The hideous swarms lay dead in the moist steaming underwoods, in the green
+swamps, in the sheltered valleys, in the ditches and furrows of the
+fields, amid the monuments of their own prowess, the ruined crops and the
+dishonoured vineyards. A poisonous element, issuing from their remains,
+mingled with the atmosphere, and corrupted it. The dismayed peasant found
+that a pestilence had begun; a new visitation, not confined to the
+territory which the enemy had made its own, but extending far and wide, as
+the atmosphere extends, in all directions. Their daily toil, no longer
+claimed by the produce of the earth, which has ceased to exist, is now
+devoted to the object of ridding themselves of the deadly legacy which
+they have received in its stead. In vain; it is their last toil; they are
+digging pits, they are raising piles, for their own corpses, as well as
+for the bodies of their enemies. Invader and victim lie in the same grave,
+burn in the same heap; they sicken while they work, and the pestilence
+spreads. A new invasion is menacing Sicca, in the shape of companies of
+peasants and slaves, (the panic having broken the bonds of discipline,)
+with their employers and overseers, nay the farmers themselves and
+proprietors, rushing thither from famine and infection as to a place of
+safety. The inhabitants of the city are as frightened as they, and more
+energetic. They determine to keep them at a distance; the gates are
+closed; a strict _cordon_ is drawn; however, by the continued pressure,
+numbers contrive to make an entrance, as water into a vessel, or light
+through the closed shutters, and anyhow the air cannot be put into
+quarantine; so the pestilence has the better of it, and at last appears in
+the alleys, and in the cellars of Sicca.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+                             WORSE AND WORSE.
+
+
+“O wretched minds of men! O blind hearts!” truly cries out a great heathen
+poet, but on grounds far other than the true ones. The true ground of such
+a lamentation is, that men do not interpret the signs of the times and of
+the world as He intends who has placed these signs in the heavens; that
+when Mane, Thecel, Phares, is written upon the ethereal wall, they have no
+inward faculty to read them withal; and that when they go elsewhere for
+one learned in tongues, instead of taking Daniel, who is used to converse
+with Angels, they rely on Magi or Chaldeans, who know only the languages
+of earth. So it was with the miserable population of Sicca now; half
+famished, seized with a pestilence which was sure to rage before it
+assuaged, perplexed and oppressed by the recoil upon them of the
+population whom they had from time to time sent out into the surrounding
+territory, or from whom they had supplied their markets, they never
+fancied that the real cause of the visitation which we have been
+describing was their own iniquity in their Maker’s sight, that His arm
+inflicted it, and that its natural and direct interpretation was, “Do
+penance, and be converted.” On the contrary, they looked only at their own
+vain idols, and at the vain rites which these idols demanded, and they
+thought there was no surer escape from their misery than by upholding a
+lie, and putting down all who revolted from it; and thus the visitation
+which was sent to do them good turned through their wilful blindness to
+their greater condemnation.
+
+The Forum, which at all times was the resort of idleness and dissipation,
+now became more and more the haunt of famine and sickness, of robust
+frames without work, of slavish natures virtually and for the time
+emancipated and uncontrolled, of youth and passion houseless and
+shelterless. In groups and companies, in and out of the porticoes, on the
+steps of the temples, and about the booths and stalls of the market, a
+multitude grows day by day, from the town and from the country, and of all
+the various races which town and country contain. The civil magistracy and
+the civil force to which the peace of the city was committed, were not
+equal to such an emergency as the present; and the _milites stationarii_,
+a sort of garrison who represented the Roman power, though they were ready
+to act against either magistrates or mob impartially, had no tenderness
+for either, when in collision with each other. Indeed the bonds of society
+were broken, and every political element was at war with every other, in a
+case of such great common calamity, when every one was angry with every
+one else, for want of some clearly defined object against which the common
+anger might be discharged with unanimity.
+
+They had almost given over sacrificing and consulting the flame or the
+entrails; for no reversal or respite of their sufferings had followed
+their most assiduous acts of deprecation. Moreover the omens were
+generally considered by the priests to have been unpropitious or adverse.
+A sheep had been discovered to have, instead of a liver, something very
+like a gizzard; a sow had chewed and swallowed the flowers with which it
+had been embellished for the sacrifice; and a calf, after receiving the
+fatal blow, instead of lying down and dying, dashed into the temple,
+dripping blood upon the pavement as it went, and at last fell and expired
+just before the sacred _adytum_. In despair the people took to
+fortune-telling and its attendant arts. Old crones were found in plenty
+with their strange rites, the stranger the more welcome. Trenches were dug
+in by-places for sacrifices to the infernal gods; amulets, rings,
+counters, tablets, pebbles, nails, bones, feathers, Ephesian or Egyptian
+legends, were in request, and raised the hopes, or beguiled and occupied
+the thoughts, of those who else would have been directly dwelling on their
+sufferings, present or in prospect.
+
+Others were occupied, whether they would or no, with diversions fiercer
+and more earnest. There were continual altercations between farmers, small
+proprietors of land, government and city officials,—altercations so
+manifold and violent, that, even were there no hubbub of voices, and no
+incoherence of wrath and fear to complicate them, we should despair of
+setting them before the reader. An officer from the camp was expostulating
+with one of the municipal authorities that no corn had been sent thither
+for the last six or seven days, and the functionary attacked had thrown
+the blame on the farmer, and he in turn had protested that he could not
+get cattle to bring the waggons into Sicca; those which he had set out
+with had died of exhaustion on the journey. A clerk, as we now speak, in
+the _Officium_ of the society of publicans or collectors of _annona_ was
+threatening a number of small tenants with ejection for not sending in
+their rated portion of corn for the Roman people:—the _Officium_ of the
+_Notarius_, or assistant prefect, had written up to Sicca from Carthage in
+violent terms; and come it must, though the locusts had eaten up every
+stack and granary. A number of half-starved peasants had been summoned for
+payment of their taxes, and in spite of their ignorance of Latin, they had
+been made to understand that death was the stern penalty of neglecting to
+bring the coin. They, on the other hand, by their fierce doggedness of
+manner, seemed to signify by way of answer that death was not a penalty,
+unless life was a boon.
+
+The _villicus_ of one of the decurions, who had an estate in the
+neighbourhood, was laying his miseries before the man of business of his
+employer. “What are we to do?” he said. “Half the gang of slaves is dead,
+and the other half is so feeble, that I can’t get through the work of the
+month. We ought to be sheep-shearing; you have no chance of wool. We ought
+to be swarming the bees, pressing the honey, boiling and purifying the
+wax. We ought to be plucking the white leaves of the camomile, and
+steeping the golden flowers in oil. We ought to be gathering the wild
+grapes, sifting off the flowers, and preserving the residue in honey. We
+ought to be sowing brassicum, parsley, and coriander against next spring.
+We ought to be cheese-making. We ought to be baking white and red bricks
+and tiles in the sun; we have no hands for the purpose. The _villicus_ is
+not to blame, but the anger of the gods.” The country _employé_ of the
+procurator of the imperial _Baphia_ protests that the insect cannot be
+found from which the dye is extracted; and argues that the locusts must
+have devoured them, or the plant on which they feed, or that they have
+been carried off by the pestilence. Here is old Corbulus in agonies for
+his febrifuge, and a slave of his is in high words with the
+market-carrier, who tells him that Mago, who supplied it, is dead of a
+worse fever than his master’s. “The rogue,” cried the slave, “my master
+has contracted with him for the year, and has paid him the money in
+advance.” A jeering and mocking from the crowd assailed the unfortunate
+domestic, who so truly foreboded that his return without the medicine
+would be the signal for his summary committal to the _pistrinum_. “Let old
+Corbulus follow Mago in his passage to perdition,” said one of the rabble;
+“let him take his physic with Pluto, and leave us the bread and wine on
+which he’s grown gouty.” “Bread, bread!” was the response elicited by this
+denunciation, and it spread into a circle larger than that of which the
+slave and the carrier were part.
+
+“Wine and bread, Ceres and Liber!” cried a young legionary, who, after a
+night of revelry, was emerging still half-intoxicated from one of the low
+wine-shops in the vaults which formed the basement of the _Thermæ_ or hot
+baths; “make way there, you filthy slime of the earth, you half-kneaded,
+half-fermented Africans, who never yet have quite been men, but have ever
+smelt strong of the baboon, who are three quarters _must_, and two
+vinegar, and a fifth water,—as I was saying, you are like bad liquor, and
+the sight of you disagrees with the stomach and affects the eyes.”
+
+The crowd looked sullenly, and without wincing, at his shield, which was
+the only portion of his military accoutrements which he had preserved
+after his carouse. The white surface, with a silver boss in the centre,
+surrounded by first a white and then a red circle, and the purple border,
+showed that he belonged to the Tertiani or third Italic Legion, which had
+been stationed in Africa since the time of Augustus. “Vile double-tongued
+mongrels,” he continued, “what are you fit for but to gather the fruits of
+the earth for your owners and lords, ‘Romanos dominos rerum’? And if there
+are now no fruits to reap, why your service is gone. Go home and die, and
+drown yourselves, for what are you fit for now, except to take your dead
+corpses away from the nostrils of a Roman, the cream of humankind? Ye
+base-born apes, that’s why you catch the pestilence, because our blood
+mantles and foams in our ruddy veins like new milk in the wine cup, which
+is too strong for this clime, and my blood is up, and I drink a full
+measure of it to great Rome; for what does old Horace say, but ‘Nunc est
+bibendum’? and so get out of my way.”
+
+To a good part of the multitude, both peasantry and town rabble, Latin was
+unintelligible; but they all understood vocabulary and syntax and logic,
+as soon as he drew his knuckles across one fellow’s face who refused to
+move from his path, and as soon as his insult was returned by the latter
+with a thrust of the dagger. A rush was made upon him, on which he made a
+face at them, shook his fist, and leaping on one side, ran with great
+swiftness to an open space in advance. From his quarrelsome humour rather
+than from fear, he raised a cry of alarm; on which two or three
+fellow-soldiers made their appearance from similar dens of intoxication
+and vice, and came up to the rescue. The mob assailed them with stones,
+and the cream of human nature was likely to be roughly churned, when,
+seeing matters were becoming serious, they suddenly took to their heels,
+and got into the Temple of Esculapius on one side of the Forum. The mob
+followed, the ministers of the sacred place attempted to shut the gates, a
+scuffle ensued, and a riot was in progress. Self-preservation is the first
+law of man; trembling for the safety of his noble buildings, and
+considering that it was a bread riot, as it really was, the priest of the
+god came forward, rebuked the mob for its impiety, and showed the
+absurdity of supposing that there were loaves in his enclosure to satisfy
+its wants; but he reminded them that there was a baker’s shop at the other
+end of the Forum, which was one of the most considerable in Sicca.
+
+A slight impulse determines the movements of an excited multitude. Off
+they went to the quarter in question, where certainly there was the very
+large and handsome store of a substantial dealer in grain of all sorts,
+and in other produce. The shop, however, seemed on this occasion to be but
+poorly furnished; for the baker was a prudent man, and feared a display of
+provisions which would be an invitation to a hungry multitude. The
+assailants, however, were not to be baffled; some one cried out that the
+man had withdrawn his corn from the market for his own ends, and that
+great stores were accumulated within. They avail themselves of the hint;
+they pour in through the open front, the baker escapes as he may, his
+mills and ovens are smashed, the house is ransacked; whatever is found is
+seized, thrown about, wasted, eaten, as the case may be; and the mob gains
+strength and appetite for fresh exploits.
+
+However, the rioters have no definite plan of action yet. Some of them
+have penetrated into the stable behind the house in search of corn. They
+find the mill-ass which ground for the baker, and bring it out. It is a
+beast of more than ordinary pretensions, such as you would not often see
+in a mill, showing both the wealth of the owner and the flourishing
+condition of his trade. The asses of Africa are finer than those in the
+north; but this is fine for an African. One fellow mounts upon it, and
+sets off with the world before him, like a knight-errant, seeking an
+adventure, the rabble at his tail acting as squire. He begins the circuit
+of the Forum, and picks up its riff-raff as he goes along—here some rascal
+boys, there some drunken women, here again a number of half-brutalized
+country slaves and peasants. Partly out of curiosity, partly from
+idleness, from ill temper, from hope of spoil, from a vague desire to be
+doing something or other, every one who has nothing to lose by the
+adventure crowds around and behind him. And on the contrary, as he
+advances, and the noise and commotion increase, every one who has a
+position of any sort, the confidential _vernæ_ of great families, farmers,
+shopkeepers, men of business, officials, vanish from the scene of action
+without delay.
+
+“Africa, Africa!” is now the cry; the signal in that country, as an
+ancient writer tells us, that the parties raising it have something new in
+hand, and have a mind to do it.
+
+Suddenly, as they march on, a low and awful growl is heard. It comes from
+the booth of a servant of the imperial court. He is employed as a
+transporter of wild beasts from the interior to the coast, where they are
+shipped for Rome; and he has charge at present of a noble lion, who is
+sitting majestically, looking through the bars of his cage at the rabble,
+who now begin to look at him. In demeanour and in mental endowments he has
+the advantage of them. It was at this moment, while they were closing,
+hustling each other, staring at the beast, and hoping to provoke him, that
+a shrill voice cried out, “Christianos ad leones, Christianos ad leones!”
+the Christians to the lions! A sudden and dead silence ensued, as if the
+words had struck the breath out of the promiscuous throng. An interval
+passed; and then the same voice was heard again, “Christianos ad leones!”
+This time the whole Forum took it up from one end to the other. The fate
+of the day, the direction of the movement, was decided; a distinct object
+was obtained, and the only wonder was that the multitude had been so long
+to seek and so slow to find so obvious a cause of their misfortunes, so
+adequate a subject of their vengeance. “Christianos ad leones!” was
+shouted out by town and country, priests and people. “Long live the
+emperor! long live Decius! he told us this long ago. There’s the edict; it
+never has been obeyed. Death to the magistrates! To the Christians! to the
+Christians! Up with great Jove, down with the atheists!”
+
+They were commencing their march when the ass caught their eye. “The
+Christians’ god!” they shouted out; “the god of the Christians!” Their
+first impulse was to give the poor beast to the lion, their next to
+sacrifice it, but they did not know to whom. Then they said they would
+make the Christians worship it; and dressing it up in tawdry finery, they
+retained it at the head of their procession.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+                          CHRISTIANOS AD LEONES.
+
+
+By the time that they had got round again to the unlucky baker’s, the mob
+had been swollen to a size which even the area of the Forum would not
+contain, and it filled the adjacent streets. And by the same time it had
+come home to its leaders, and, indeed, to every one who used his reason at
+all, that it was very far from certain that there were any Christians in
+Sicca, and if so, still very far from easy to say where they were. And the
+difficulty was of so practical a character as to keep them inactive for
+the space of several hours. Meanwhile their passions were excited to the
+boiling point by the very presence of the difficulty, as men go mad of
+thirst when water is denied them. At length, after a long season of such
+violent commotion, such restless pain, such curses, shrieks, and
+blasphemies, such bootless gesticulations, such aimless contests with each
+other, that they seemed to be already inmates of the prison beneath, they
+set off in a blind way to make the circuit of the city as before they had
+paraded round the Forum, still in the knight-errant line, looking out for
+what might turn up where they were sure of nothing, and relieving the
+intense irritation of their passions by locomotion, if nothing more
+substantial was offered to them.
+
+It was an awful day for the respectable inhabitants of the place; worse
+than anything that even the most timid of them had anticipated, when they
+had showed their jealousy of a popular movement against the proscribed
+religion; for the stimulus of famine and pestilence was added to hatred of
+Christianity, in that unreasoning multitude. The magistrates shut
+themselves up in dismay; the small body of Roman soldiery reserved their
+strength for the defence of themselves; and the poor wretches, not a few,
+who had fallen from the faith, and offered sacrifice, hung out from their
+doors sinful heathen symbols, to avert a storm against which apostasy was
+no sufficient safeguard. In this conduct the Gnostics and other sectaries
+imitated them, while the Tertullianists took a more manly part, from
+principle or pride.
+
+It would require the brazen voice which Homer speaks of, or the magic pen
+of Sir Walter, to catalogue and to picture, as far as it is lawful to do
+either, the figures and groups of that most miserable procession. As it
+went forward it gained a variety and strength, which the circuit of the
+Forum could not furnish. The more respectable religious establishments
+shut their gates, and would have nothing to do with it. The priests of
+Jupiter, the educational establishments of the Temple of Mercury, the
+Temple of the Genius of Rome near the Capitol, the hierophants of Isis,
+the Minerva, the Juno, the Esculapius, viewed the popular rising with
+terror and disgust; but these were not the popular worships. The vast
+homestead of Astarte, which in the number and vowed profligacy of its
+inhabitants rivalled the vaults upon the Forum; the old rites, many and
+diversified, if separately obscure, which came from Punic times; the new
+importations from Syria and Phrygia, and a number of other haunts and
+schools of depravity and crime, did their part in swelling or giving
+character to the concourse. The hungry and idle rabble, the filthy beggars
+who fed on the offal of the sacrifices, the drivers and slaughterers of
+the beasts sacrificed; the tumblers and mountebanks who amused the gaping
+market-people; dancers, singers, pipers from low taverns and
+drinking-houses; infamous creatures, young and old, men and boys, half
+naked and not half sober; brutal blacks, the aboriginal race of the Atlas,
+with their appetites written on their skulls and features; Canaanites, as
+they called themselves, from the coast; the wild beast-keepers from the
+amphitheatre; troops of labourers from the fields, to whom the epidemic
+was a time of Saturnalia; and the degraded company, alas! how numerous and
+how pitiable, who took their nightly stand in long succession at the doors
+of their several cells in the deep galleries under the Thermæ; all these,
+and many others, had their part and place in the procession. There you
+might see the devilish emblems of idolatry borne aloft by wretches from
+the great Punic Temple, while frantic forms, ragged and famished, wasted
+and shameless, leapt and pranced around them. There too was a choir of
+Bacchanals, ready at a moment with songs as noisy as they were
+unutterable. And there was the priest of the Punic Saturn, the
+child-devourer, a sort of Moloch, to whom the martyrdom of Christians was
+a sacred rite; he and all his attendants in fiery-coloured garments, as
+became a sanguinary religion. And there, moreover, was a band of fanatics,
+devotees of Cybele or of the Syrian goddess, if indeed the two rites were
+distinct. They were bedizened with ribbons and rags of various colours,
+and smeared over with paint. They had long hair like women, and turbans on
+their heads. They pushed their way to the head of the procession, being
+quite worthy of the post of honour, and, seizing the baker’s ass, put
+their goddess on the back of it. Some of them were playing the fife,
+others clashing cymbals, others danced, others yelled, others rolled their
+heads, and others flogged themselves. Such was the character of the
+frenzied host, which progressed slowly through the streets, while every
+now and then, when there was an interval in the hubbub, the words
+“Christianos ad leones” were thundered out by some ruffian voice, and a
+thousand others fiercely responded.
+
+Still no Christian was forthcoming; and it was plain that the rage of the
+multitude must be discharged in other quarters, if the difficulty
+continued in satisfying it. At length some one recollected the site of the
+Christian chapel, when it existed; thither went the multitude, and
+effected an entrance without delay. It had long been turned to other
+purposes, and was now a store of casks and leather bottles. The miserable
+sacristan had long given up any practical observance of his faith, and
+remained on the spot a keeper of the premises for the trader who owned
+them. They found him, and dragged him into the street, and brought him
+forward to the ass, and to the idol on its back, and bade him worship the
+one and the other. The poor wretch obeyed; he worshipped the ass, he
+worshipped the idol, and he worshipped the genius of the emperor; but his
+persecutors wanted blood; they would not submit to be cheated of their
+draught; so when they had made him do whatever they exacted, they flung
+him under the feet of the multitude, who, as they passed on, soon trod all
+life and breath out of him, and sent him to the powers below, to whom he
+had just before been making his profession.
+
+Their next adventure was with a Tertullianist, who stationed himself at
+his shop-door, displayed the sign of the cross, and walking leisurely
+forward, seized the idol on the ass’s back, broke it over his knee, and
+flung the portions into the crowd. For a few minutes they stared on him
+with astonishment, then some women fell upon him with their nails and
+teeth, and tore the poor fanatic till he fell bleeding and lifeless upon
+the ground.
+
+In the higher and better part of the city, which they now approached,
+lived the widow of a Duumvir, who in his day had made a bold profession of
+Christianity. The well connected lady was a Christian also, and was
+sheltered by her great friends from the persecution. She was bringing up a
+family in great privacy, and with straitened means, and with as much
+religious strictness as was possible under the circumstances of the place.
+She kept them from all bad sights and bad company, was careful as to the
+character of the slaves she placed about them, and taught them all she
+knew of her religion, which was quite sufficient for their salvation. They
+had all been baptized, some by herself in default of the proper minister,
+and, as far as they could show at their tender ages, which lay between
+thirteen and seven, the three girls and the two boys were advancing in the
+love of truth and sanctity. Her husband, some years back, when presiding
+in the Forum, had punished with just severity an act of ungrateful fraud;
+and the perpetrator had always cherished a malignant hatred of him and
+his. The moment of gratifying it had now arrived, and he pointed out to
+the infuriated rabble the secluded mansion where the Christian household
+dwelt. He could not offer to them a more acceptable service, and the
+lady’s modest apartment was soon swarming with enemies of her God and His
+followers. In spite of her heartrending cries and supplications, her
+children were seized, and when the youngest boy clung to her, the mother
+was thrown senseless upon the pavement. The whole five were carried off in
+triumph; it was the greatest success of the day. There was some hesitation
+how to dispose of them; at last the girls were handed over to the
+priestesses of Astarte, and the boys to the loathsome votaries of Cybele.
+
+Revenge upon Christians was the motive principle of the riot; but the
+prospect of plunder stimulated numbers, and here Christians could not
+minister to their desires. They began the day by the attack upon the
+provision-shop, and now they had reached the aristocratic quarter of the
+city, and they gazed with envy and cupidity at the noble mansions which
+occupied it. They began to shout out, “Bread, bread!” while they uttered
+threats against the Christians; they violently beat at the closed gates,
+and looked about for means of scaling the high walls which defended them
+in front. The cravings of famished men soon take form and organization;
+they began to ask relief from house to house. Nothing came amiss; and
+loaves, figs, grapes, wine, found their way into the hands and mouths of
+those who were the least exhausted and the least enfeebled. A second line
+of fierce supplicants succeeded to the first; and it was plain that,
+unless some diversion were effected, the respectable quarter of Sicca had
+found a worse enemy than the locust.
+
+The houses of the government _susceptor_, or tax collector, of the
+_tabularius_ or registrar, of the _defensor_ or city counsel, and one or
+two others, had already been the scene of collisions between the domestic
+slaves and the multitude, when a demand was made upon the household of
+another of the Curia, who held the office of Flamen Dialis. He was a
+wealthy, easy-going man, generally popular, with no appetite for
+persecution at all, but still no desire to be persecuted. He had more than
+tolerated the Christians, and had at this time a Christian among his
+slaves. This was a Greek, a splendid cook and perfumer, and he would not
+have lost him for a large sum of money. However, life and limb were nearer
+to him even than his dinner, and a Jonah must be cast overboard to save
+the ship. In trepidation, yet with greater satisfaction, his
+fellow-domestics thrust the poor helpless man out of the house, and
+secured the door behind him. He was a man of middle age, of a grave
+aspect, and he looked silently and calmly upon the infuriated and yelling
+multitude, who were swarming up the hill about him, and swelling the
+number of his persecutors. What had been his prospects, had he remained in
+his earthly master’s service? his fill of meat and drink while he was
+strong and skilful, the stocks or scourge if he ever failed to please him,
+and the old age and death of the worn-out hack who once has caracoled in
+the procession, or snorted at the coming fight. What are his prospects
+now? a moment’s agony, a martyr’s death, and the everlasting beatific
+vision of Him for whom he died. The multitude cry out, “To the ass or to
+the lion!” worship the ass, or fight the lion. He was dragged to the ass’s
+head and commanded to kneel down before the irrational beast. In the
+course of a minute he had lifted up his eyes to heaven, had signed himself
+with the cross, had confessed his Saviour, and had been torn to pieces by
+the multitude. They anticipated the lion of the amphitheatre.
+
+A lull followed, sure to be succeeded by a fresh storm. Not every
+household had a Christian cook to make a victim of. Plunder, riot, and
+outrage were becoming the order of the day; successive messengers were
+sent up in breathless haste to the capitol and the camp for aid, but the
+Romans returned for answer that they had enough to do in defending the
+government buildings and offices. They suggested measures, however, for
+putting the mob on a false scent, or involving them in some difficult or
+tedious enterprise, which would give the authorities time for
+deliberation, and for taking the rioters at disadvantage. If the
+magistrates could get them out of the city, it would be a great point;
+they could then shut the gates upon them, and deal with them as they
+would. In that case, too, the insurgents would straggle, and divide, and
+then they might be disposed of in detail. They were showing symptoms of
+returning fury, when a voice suddenly cried out, “Agellius the Christian!
+Agellius the sorcerer! Agellius to the lions! To the farm of Varius—to the
+cottage of Agellius—to the south-west gate!” A sudden yell burst forth
+from the vast multitude when the voice ceased. The impulse had been given
+as at the first; the tide of human beings ebbed and retreated, and,
+licking the base of the hill, rushed vehemently on one side, and roared
+like a torrent towards the south-west. Juba, thy prophecy is soon to be
+fulfilled! The locusts will bring more harm on thy brother’s home than
+imperial edict or local magistrate. The decline of day will hardly prevent
+the visitation.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+                             AGELLIUS FLITS.
+
+
+A change had passed over the fair face of Nature, as seen from the cottage
+of Agellius, since that evening on which our story opened; and it is so
+painful to contemplate waste, decay, and disappointment, that we mean to
+say little about it. There was the same cloudless sky as then; and the sun
+travelled in its silent and certain course, with even a more intense
+desire than then to ripen grain and fruit for the use of man; but its
+occupation was gone, for fruit and grain were not, nor man to collect and
+to enjoy them. A dark broad shadow passed across the beautiful prospect
+and disfigured it. When you looked more closely, it was as if a fire had
+burned up the whole surface included under that shadow, and had stripped
+the earth of its clothing. Nothing had escaped; not a head of khennah, not
+a rose or carnation, not an orange or an orange blossom, not a _boccone_,
+not a cluster of unripe grapes, not a berry of the olive, not a blade of
+grass. Gardens, meadows, vineyards, orchards, copses, instead of rejoicing
+in the rich variety of hue which lately was their characteristic, were now
+reduced to one dreary cinder-colour. The smoke of fires was actually
+rising from many points, where the spoilt and poisonous vegetation was
+burning in heaps, or the countless corpses of the invading foe, or of the
+cattle, or of the human beings whom the pestilence had carried off. The
+most furious inroad of savage hordes, of Vandals, or of Saracens, who were
+destined at successive eras to come and waste that country, could not have
+spread such thorough desolation. The slaves of the farm of Varius were
+sorrowfully turning to a new employment, that of clearing away the wreck
+and disappointment of the bright spring from flower-bed, vineyard, and
+field.
+
+It was on the forenoon of the eventful day whose course we have been
+tracing in the preceding Chapters, that a sharp-looking boy presented
+himself to Agellius, who was directing his labourers in their work. “I am
+come from Jucundus,” he said; “he has instant need of you. You are to go
+with me, and by my way; and this is the proof I tell you truth. He sends
+you this note, and wishes you in a bad time the best gifts of Bacchus and
+Ceres.”
+
+Agellius took the tablets, and went with them across the road to the place
+where Cæcilius was at work, in appearance a slave. The letter ran
+thus:—“Jucundus to Agellius. I trust you are well enough to move; you are
+not safe for many days in your cottage; there is a rising this morning
+against the Christians, and you may be visited. Unless you are ambitious
+of Styx and Tartarus, follow the boy without questioning.” Agellius showed
+the letter to the priest.
+
+“We are no longer safe here, my father,” he said; “whither shall we go?
+Let us go together. Can you take me to Carthage?”
+
+“Carthage is quite as dangerous,” answered Cæcilius, “and Sicca is more
+central. We can but leap into the sea at Carthage; here there are many
+lines to retreat upon. I am known there, I am not known here. Here, too, I
+hear all that goes on through the proconsulate and Numidia.”
+
+“But what can we do?” asked Agellius; “here we cannot remain, and you at
+least cannot venture into the city. Somewhither we must go, and where is
+that?”
+
+The priest thought. “We must separate,” he said. The tears came into
+Agellius’s eyes.
+
+“Though I am a stranger,” continued Cæcilius, “I know more of the
+neighbourhood of Sicca than you who are a native. There is a famous
+Christian retreat on the north of the city, and by this time, I doubt not,
+or rather I know, it is full of refugees. The fury of the enemy is
+extending on all hands, and our brethren, from as far as Cirtha round to
+Curubis, are falling back upon it. The only difficulty is how to get round
+to it without going through Sicca.”
+
+“Let us go together,” said Agellius.
+
+Cæcilius showed signs of perplexity, and his mind retired into itself. He
+seemed for the moment to be simply absent from the scene about him, but
+soon his intelligence returned. “No,” he said, “we must separate,—for the
+time; it will not be for long. That is, I suppose, your uncle will take
+good care of you, and he has influence. We are safest just now when most
+independent of each other. It is only for a while. We shall meet again
+soon; I tell you so. Did we keep together just now, it would be the worse
+for each of us. You go with the boy; I will go off to the place I
+mentioned.”
+
+“O my father,” said the youth, “how will you get there? What shall I
+suffer from my fears about you?”
+
+“Fear not,” answered Cæcilius, “mind, I tell you so. It will be a trying
+time, but my hour is not yet come. I am good for years yet; so are you,
+for many more than mine. He will protect and rescue me, though I know not
+how. Go, leave me to myself, Agellius!”
+
+“O my father, my only stay upon earth, whom God sent me in my extreme
+need, to whom I owe myself, must I then quit you; must a layman desert a
+priest; the young the old?... Ah! it is I really, not you, who am without
+protection. Angels surround you, father; but I am a poor wanderer. Give me
+your blessing that evil may not touch me. I go.”
+
+“Do not kneel,” said the priest; “they will see you. Stop, I have got to
+tell you how and where to find me.” He then proceeded to give him the
+necessary instructions. “Walk out,” he said, “along the road to
+Thibursicumbur to the third milestone, you will come to a country road;
+pursue it; walk a thousand steps; then again for the space of seven
+_paternosters_; and then speak to the man upon your right hand. And now
+away with you, God speed you, we shall not long be parted,” and he made
+the sign of the cross over him.
+
+“That old chap gives himself airs,” said the boy, when Agellius joined
+him; “what may he be? one of your slaves, Agellius?”
+
+“You’re a pert boy,” answered he, “for asking me the question.”
+
+“They say the Christians brought the locusts,” said Firmian, “by their
+enchantments; and there’s a jolly row beginning in the Forum just now. The
+report goes that you are a Christian.”
+
+“That’s because your people have nothing better to do than talk against
+their neighbours.”
+
+“Because you are so soft, rather,” said the boy. “Another man would have
+knocked me down for saying it; but you are lackadaisical folk, who bear
+insults tamely. Arnobius says your father was a Christian.”
+
+“Father and son are not always the same religion now-a-days,” said
+Agellius.
+
+“Ay, ay,” answered Firmian, “but the Christians came from Egypt: and as
+cook there is the son of cook, and soldier is son of soldier, so
+Christian, take my word for it, is the son of a Christian.”
+
+“Christians boast, I believe,” answered Agellius, “that they are of no one
+race or country, but are members of a large unpatriotic family, whose home
+is in the sky.”
+
+“Christians,” answered the boy, “would never have framed the great Roman
+empire; that was the work of heroes. Great Cæsar, Marius, Marcus Brutus,
+Camillus, Cicero, Sylla, Lucullus, Scipio, could never have been
+Christians. Arnobius says they are a skulking set of fellows.”
+
+“I suppose you wish to be a hero,” said Agellius.
+
+“I am to be a pleader,” answered Firmian; “I should like to be a great
+orator like Cicero, and every one listening to me.”
+
+They were walking along the top of a mud wall, which separated Varius’s
+farm from his neighbour’s, when suddenly Firmian, who led the way, leapt
+down into a copse, which reached as far as the ravine in which the knoll
+terminated towards Sicca. The boy still went forward by devious paths,
+till they had mounted as high as the city wall.
+
+“You are bringing me where there is no entrance,” said Agellius.
+
+The boy laughed. “Jucundus told me to bring you by a blind way,” he said.
+“You know best why. This is one of our ways in and out.”
+
+There was an aperture in the wall, and the bricks and stones about it were
+loose, and admitted of removal. It was such a private way of passage as
+schoolboys know of. On getting through, Agellius found himself in a
+neglected garden or small close. Everything was silent about them, as if
+the inhabitants were away; there was a great noise in the distance, as if
+something unusual were going on in the heart of the town. The boy told him
+to follow him as fast as he could without exciting remark; and, leading
+him by lanes and alleys unknown to Agellius, at last brought him close
+upon the scene of riot. At this time the expedition in search of
+Christians had just commenced; to cross the Forum was to shorten his
+journey, and perhaps was safer than to risk meeting the mob in the
+streets. Firmian took the step; and while their attention was directed
+elsewhere, brought Agellius safely through it. They then proceeded
+cautiously as before, till they stood before the back door of the house of
+Jucundus.
+
+“Say a good word for me to your uncle,” said the boy, “I have done my job.
+He must remember me handsomely at the Augustalia,” and he ran away.
+
+
+
+Meanwhile Cæcilius had been anxiously considering the course which it was
+safest for him to pursue. He must move, but he must wait till dusk, when
+the ways were clear, and the light uncertain. Till then he must keep close
+in-doors. There was a remarkable cavern in the mountains above Sicca,
+which had been used as a place of refuge for Christians from the very time
+they had first suffered persecution in Roman Africa. No spot in its whole
+territory seemed more fit for what is called a base of operations, from
+which the soldiers of the Cross might advance, or to which they might
+retire, according as the fury of their enemy grew or diminished. While it
+was in the midst of a wilderness difficult of access, and feared as the
+resort of ghosts and evil influences, it was not far from a city near to
+which the high roads met from Hippo and from Carthage. A branch of the
+Bagradas, navigable for boats, opened a way from it through the woods,
+where flight and concealment were easy on a surprise, as far as Madaura,
+Vacca, and other places; at the same time it commanded the vast plain on
+the south which extended to the roots of the Atlas. Just now, the
+persecution growing, many deacons, other ecclesiastics, and prominent
+laymen from all parts of the country had fallen back upon this cavern or
+grotto; and in no place could Cæcilius have better means than here of
+learning the general state of affairs, and of communicating with countries
+beyond the seas. He was indeed on his way thither, when the illness of
+Agellius made it a duty for him to stop and restore him, and attend to his
+spiritual needs; and he had received an inward intimation, on which he
+implicitly relied, to do so.
+
+The problem at this moment was how to reach the refuge in question. His
+direct road lay through Sicca; this being impracticable at present, he had
+to descend into the ravine which lay between him and the city, and,
+turning to the left, to traverse the broad plain, the Campus Martius of
+Sicca, into which it opened. Here the mountain would rise abruptly on his
+right with those steep cliffs which we have already described as rounding
+the north side of Sicca. He must traverse many miles before he could reach
+the point at which the rock lost its precipitous character, and changed
+into a declivity allowing the traveller to ascend. It was a bold
+undertaking; for all this he had to accomplish in the dark before the
+morning broke, a stranger too to the locality, and directing his movements
+only by the information of others, which, however accurate and distinct,
+could scarcely be followed, even if without risk of error, at least
+without misgiving. However, could he master this point before the morning
+he was comparatively safe; he then had to strike into the solitary
+mountains, and to retrace his steps for a while towards Sicca along the
+road, till he came to a place where he knew that Christian scouts or
+_videttes_ (as they may be called) were always stationed.
+
+This being his plan, and there being no way of mending it, our confessor
+retired into the cottage, and devoted the intervening hours to intercourse
+with that world from which his succour must come. He set himself to
+intercede for the Holy Catholic Church throughout the world, now for the
+most part under persecution, and for the Roman Empire, not yet holy, which
+was the instrument of the evil powers against her. He had to pray for the
+proconsulate, for Numidia, Mauretania, and the whole of Africa; for the
+Christian communities throughout it, for the cessation of the trial then
+present, and for the fortitude and perseverance of all who were tried. He
+had to pray for his own personal friends, his penitents, converts,
+enemies; for children, catechumens, neophytes; for those who were
+approaching the Church, for those who had fallen away, or were falling
+away from her; for all heretics, for all troublers of unity, that they
+might be reclaimed. He had to confess, bewail and deprecate the many sins
+and offences which he knew of, foreboded, or saw in prospect as to come.
+Scarcely had he entered on his charge at Carthage four years before, when
+he had had to denounce one portentous scandal in which a sacred order of
+the ministry was implicated. What internal laxity did not that scandal
+imply! And then again what a low standard of religion, what niggardly
+faith, and what worn-out, used-up sanctity in the community at large, was
+revealed in the fact of those frequent apostasies of individuals which
+then were occurring! He prayed fervently that both from the bright pattern
+of martyrs, and from the warning afforded by the lapsed, the Christian
+body might be edified and invigorated. He saw with great anxiety two
+schisms in prospect, when the persecution should come to an end, one from
+the perverseness of those who were too rigid, the other from those who
+were too indulgent towards the fallen; and in proportion to his gift of
+prescience was the earnestness of his intercession that the wounds of the
+Church might be healed with the least possible delay. He then turned to
+the thought of his own correspondence then in progress with the Holy Roman
+Church, which had lately lost its bishop by martyrdom. This indeed was no
+unusual event with the see of Peter, in which the successors of Peter
+followed Peter’s steps, as Peter had been bidden to follow the King and
+Exemplar of Martyrs. But the special trouble was, that months had passed,
+full five, since the vacancy occurred, and it had not yet been supplied.
+Then he thought of Fabian, who made the vacancy, and who had already
+passed through that trial which was to bring to so many Christians life or
+condemnation, and he commended himself to his prayers against the hour of
+his own combat. He thought of Fabian’s work, and went on to intercede for
+the remnant of the seven apostles whom that Pope had sent into Gaul, and
+some of whom had already obtained the martyr’s crown. He prayed that the
+day might come, when not the cities only of that fair country, but its
+rich champaigns and sunny slopes should hear the voice of the missionary.
+He prayed in like manner for Britain, that the successful work of another
+Pope, St. Eleutherius, might be extended even to its four seas. And then
+he prayed for the neighbouring island on the west, still in heathen
+darkness, and for the endless expanse of Germany on the east, that there
+too the one saving name and glorious Faith might be known and accepted.
+
+His thoughts then travelled back to Rome and Italy, and to the martyrdoms
+which had followed that of St. Fabian. Two Persians had already suffered
+in the imperial city; Maximus had lost his life, and Felix had been
+imprisoned, at Nola. Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt had already afforded
+victims to the persecution, and cried aloud to all Christians for their
+most earnest prayers and for repeated Masses in behalf of those who
+remained under the trial. Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, the third see in
+Christendom, was already martyred in that city. Here again Cæcilius had a
+strong call on him for intercession, for a subtle form of freethinking was
+there manifesting itself, the issue of which was as uncertain as it might
+be frightful. The Bishop of Alexandria, that second of the large divisions
+or patriarchates of the Church, the great Dionysius, the pupil of Origen,
+was an exile from his see, like himself. The messenger who brought this
+news to Carthage had heard at Alexandria a report from Neocæsarea, that
+Gregory, another pupil of Origen’s, the Apostle of Pontus, had also been
+obliged to conceal himself from the persecution. As for Origen himself,
+the aged, laborious, gifted, zealous teacher of his time, he was just then
+engaged in answering the works of an Epicurean called Celsus, and on him
+too the persecution was likely to fall; and Cæcilius prayed earnestly that
+so great a soul might be kept from such high untrue speculations as were
+threatening evil at Antioch, and from every deceit and snare which might
+endanger his inheriting that bright crown which ought to be his portion in
+heaven. Another remarkable report had come, viz., that some young men of
+Egypt had retired to the deserts up the country under the stress of the
+persecution,—Paul was the name of one of them,—and that they were there
+living in the practice of mortification and prayer so singular, and had
+combats with the powers of darkness and visitations from above so special,
+as to open quite a new era in the spiritual history of the Church.
+
+And then his thoughts came back to his poor Agellius, and all those
+hundred private matters of anxiety which the foes of the Church, occupied
+only with her external aspect, little suspected. For Agellius, he prayed,
+and for his; for the strange wayward Juba, for Jucundus, for Callista; ah!
+that Callista might be brought on to that glorious consummation, for which
+she seemed marked out! But the ways of the Most High are not as our ways,
+and those who to us seem nearest are often furthest from Him; and so our
+holy priest left the whole matter in the hands of Him to whom he prayed,
+satisfied that he had done his part in praying.
+
+This was the course of thought which occupied him for many hours, after
+(as we have said) he had closed the door upon him, and knelt down before
+the cross. Not merely before the symbol of redemption did he kneel; for he
+opened his tunic at the neck, and drew thence a small golden pyx which was
+there suspended. In that carefully fastened case he possessed the Holiest,
+his Lord and his God. That Everlasting Presence was his stay and guide
+amid his weary wanderings, his joy and consolation amid his overpowering
+anxieties. Behold the secret of his sweet serenity, and his clear
+unclouded determination. He had placed it upon the small table at which he
+knelt, and was soon absorbed in meditation and intercession.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+                            A PASSAGE OF ARMS.
+
+
+How many hours passed while Cæcilius was thus employed, he did not know.
+The sun was declining when he was roused by a noise at the door. He
+hastily restored the sacred treasure to its hiding-place in his breast,
+and rose up from his knees. The door was thrown back, and a female form
+presented itself at the opening. She looked in at the priest, and said,
+“Then Agellius is not here?”
+
+The woman was young, tall, and graceful in person. She was clad in a
+yellow cotton tunic, reaching to her feet, on which were shoes. The clasps
+at her shoulders, partly visible under the short cloak or shawl which was
+thrown over them, and which might, if necessary, be drawn over her head,
+seemed to serve the purpose, not only of fastening her dress, but of
+providing her with sharp prongs or minute stilettos for her defence, in
+case she fell in with ruffians by the way; and though the expression of
+her face was most feminine, there was that about it which implied she
+could use them for that purpose on an emergency. That face was clear in
+complexion, regular in outline, and at the present time pale, whatever
+might be its ordinary tint. Its charm was a noble and majestic calm. There
+is the calm of divine peace and joy; there is the calm of heartlessness;
+there is the calm of reckless desperation; there is the calm of death.
+None of these was the calm which breathed from the features of the
+stranger who intruded upon the solitude of Cæcilius. It was the calm of
+Greek sculpture; it imaged a soul nourished upon the visions of genius,
+and subdued and attuned by the power of a strong will. There was no
+appearance of timidity in her manner; very little of modesty. The evening
+sun gleamed across her amber robe, and lit it up till it glowed like fire,
+as if she were invested in the marriage _flammeum_, and was to be claimed
+that evening as the bride of her own bright god of day.
+
+She looked at Cæcilius, first with surprise, then with anxiety; and her
+words were, “You, I fear, are of his people. If so, make the most of these
+hours. The foe may be on you to-morrow morning. Fly while you can.”
+
+“If I am a Christian,” answered Cæcilius, “what are you who are so careful
+of us? Have you come all the way from Sicca to give the alarm to mere
+atheists and magic-mongers?”
+
+“Stranger,” she said, “if you had seen what I have seen, what I have heard
+of to-day, you would not wonder at my wish to save from a like fate the
+vilest being on earth. A hideous mob is rioting in the city, thirsting for
+the blood of Christians; an accident may turn it in the direction of
+Agellius. He is gone; where is he? Murderous outrages have already been
+perpetrated; you remain.”
+
+“She who is so tender of Christians,” answered the priest, “must herself
+have some sparks of the Christian flame in her own breast.”
+
+Callista sat down half unconsciously upon the bench or stool near the
+door; but she at once suddenly started up again, and said, “Away, fly!
+perhaps they are coming; where is he?”
+
+“Fear not,” said Cæcilius; “Agellius has been conveyed away to a safe
+hiding-place; for me, I shall be taken care of; there is no need for
+hurry; sit down again. But you,” he continued, “you must not be found
+here.”
+
+“They know _me_,” she said; “I am well known here. I work for the temples.
+I have nothing to fear. I am no Christian;” and, as if from an
+inexplicable overruling influence, she sat down again.
+
+“Not a Christian yet, you mean,” answered Cæcilius.
+
+“A person must be born a Christian, sir,” she replied, “in order to take
+up the religion. It is a very beautiful idea, as far as I have heard
+anything about it; but one must suck it in with one’s mother’s milk.”
+
+“If so, it never could have come into the world,” said the priest.
+
+She paused for a while. “It is true,” she answered at length; “but a new
+religion begins by appealing to what is peculiar in the minds of a few.
+The doctrine, floating on the winds, finds its own; it takes possession of
+their minds; they answer its call; they are brought together by that
+common influence; they are strong in each other’s sympathy; they create
+and throw around them an external form, and thus they found a religion.
+The sons are brought up in their fathers’ faith; and what was the idea of
+a few becomes at length the profession of a race. Such is Judaism; such
+the religion of Zoroaster, or of the Egyptians.”
+
+“You will find,” said the priest, “that the greater number of African
+Christians at this moment, for of them I speak confidently, are converts
+in manhood, not the sons of Christians. On the other hand, if there be
+those who have left the faith, and gone up to the capitol to sacrifice,
+these were Christians by hereditary profession. Such is my experience, and
+I think the case is the same elsewhere.”
+
+She seemed to be speaking more for the sake of getting answers than of
+objecting arguments. She paused again, and thought; then she said,
+“Mankind is made up of classes of very various mental complexion, as
+distinct from each other as the colours which meet the eye. Red and blue
+are incommensurable; and in like manner, a Magian never can become a
+Greek, nor a Greek a Cœlicolist. They do but make themselves fools when
+they attempt it.”
+
+“Perhaps the most deeply convinced, the most tranquil-minded in the
+Christian body,” answered Cæcilius, “will tell you, on the contrary, that
+there was a time when they hated Christianity, and despised and
+ill-treated its professors.”
+
+“_I_ never did any such thing,” cried Callista, “since the day I first
+heard of it. I am not its enemy, but I cannot believe in it. I am sure I
+never could; I never, never should be able.”
+
+“What is it you cannot believe?” asked the priest.
+
+“It seems too beautiful,” she said, “to be anything else than a dream. It
+is a thing to talk about, but when you come near its professors you see it
+is impossible. A most beautiful imagination, _that_ is what it is. Most
+beautiful its precepts, as far as I have heard of them; so beautiful, that
+in idea there is no difficulty. The mind runs along with them, as if it
+could accomplish them without an effort. Well, its maxims are too
+beautiful to be realized; and then on the other hand, its dogmas are too
+dismal, too shocking, too odious to be believed. They revolt me.”
+
+“Such as what?” asked Cæcilius.
+
+“Such as this,” answered Callista. “Nothing will ever make me believe that
+all my people have gone and will go to an eternal Tartarus.”
+
+“Had we not better confine ourselves to something more specific, more
+tangible?” asked Cæcilius, gravely. “I suppose if one individual may have
+that terrible lot, another may—both may, many may. Suppose I understand
+you to say that you never will believe that _you_ will go to an eternal
+Tartarus.”
+
+Callista gave a slight start, and showed some uneasiness or displeasure.
+
+“Is it not likely,” continued he, “that you are better able to speak of
+yourself, and to form a judgment about yourself, than about others?
+Perhaps if you could first speak confidently about yourself, you would be
+in a better position to speak about others also.”
+
+“Do you mean,” she said, in a calm tone, “that my place, after this life,
+is an everlasting Tartarus?”
+
+“Are you happy?” he asked in turn.
+
+She paused, looked down, and in a deep clear voice said, “No.” There was a
+silence.
+
+The priest began again: “Perhaps you have been growing in unhappiness for
+years; is it so? you assent. You have a heavy burden at your heart, you
+don’t well know what. And the chance is, that you _will_ grow in
+unhappiness for the next ten years to come. You will be more and more
+unhappy the longer you live. Did you live till you were an old woman, you
+would not know how to bear your existence.”
+
+Callista cried out as if in bodily pain, “It is true, sir, whoever told
+you. But how can you have the heart to say it, to insult and mock me!”
+
+“God forbid!” exclaimed Cæcilius, “but let me go on. Listen, my child. Be
+brave, and dare to look at things as they are. Every day adds to your
+burden. This is a law of your present being, somewhat more certain than
+the assertion which you just now so confidently made, the impossibility of
+your believing in that law. You cannot refuse to accept what is not an
+opinion, but a fact. I say this burden which I speak of is not simply a
+dogma of our creed, it is an undeniable fact of nature. You cannot change
+it by wishing; if you were to live on earth two hundred years, it would
+not be reversed, it would be more and more true. At the end of two hundred
+years you would be too miserable even for your worst enemy to rejoice in
+it.”
+
+Cæcilius spoke, as if half in soliloquy or meditation, though he was
+looking towards Callista. The contrast between them was singular: he thus
+abstracted; she too, utterly forgetful of self, but absorbed in him, and
+showing it by her eager eyes, her hushed breath, her anxious attitude. At
+last she said impatiently, “Father, you are speaking to yourself; you
+despise me.”
+
+The priest looked straight at her with an open, untroubled smile, and
+said, “Callista, do not doubt me, my poor child; you are in my heart. I
+was praying for you shortly before you appeared. No; but, in so serious a
+matter as attempting to save a soul, I like to speak to you in my Lord’s
+sight. I am speaking to you, indeed I am, my child; but I am also pleading
+with you on His behalf, and before His throne.”
+
+His voice trembled as he spoke, but he soon recovered himself. “Suffer
+me,” he said. “I was saying that if you lived five hundred years on earth,
+you would but have a heavier load on you as time went on. But you will not
+live, you will die. Perhaps you will tell me that you will then cease to
+be. I don’t believe you think so. I may take for granted that you think
+with me, and with the multitude of men, that you will still live, that you
+will still be _you_. You will still be the same being, but deprived of
+those outward stays and reliefs and solaces, which, such as they are, you
+now enjoy. You will be yourself, shut up in yourself. I have heard that
+people go mad at length when placed in solitary confinement. If, then, on
+passing hence, you are cut off from what you had here, and have only the
+company of yourself, I think your burden will be, so far, greater, not
+less than it is now.
+
+“Suppose, for instance, you had still your love of conversing, and could
+not converse; your love of the poets of your race, and no means of
+recalling them; your love of music, and no instrument to play upon; your
+love of knowledge, and nothing to learn; your desire of sympathy, and no
+one to love: would not that be still greater misery?
+
+“Let me proceed a step further: supposing you were among those whom you
+actually did _not_ love; supposing you did _not_ like them, nor their
+occupations, and could not understand their aims; suppose there be, as
+Christians say, one Almighty God, and you did not like Him, and had no
+taste for thinking of Him, and no interest in what He was and what He did;
+and supposing you found that there was nothing else anywhere but He, whom
+you did not love and whom you wished away: would you not be still more
+wretched?
+
+“And if this went on for ever, would you not be in great inexpressible
+pain for ever?
+
+“Assuming then, first, that the soul always needs external objects to rest
+upon; next, that it has no prospect of any such when it leaves this
+visible scene; and thirdly, that the hunger and thirst, the gnawing of the
+heart, where it occurs, is as keen and piercing as a flame; it will follow
+there is nothing irrational in the notion of an eternal Tartarus.”
+
+“I cannot answer you, sir,” said Callista, “but I do not believe the dogma
+on that account a whit the more. My mind revolts from the notion. There
+_must_ be some way out of it.”
+
+“If, on the other hand,” continued Cæcilius, not noticing her
+interruption, “if all your thoughts go one way; if you have needs,
+desires, aims, aspirations, all of which demand an Object, and imply, by
+their very existence, that such an Object does exist also; and if nothing
+here does satisfy them, and if there be a message which professes to come
+from that Object, of whom you already have the presentiment, and to teach
+you about Him, and to bring the remedy you crave; and if those who try
+that remedy say with one voice that the remedy answers; are you not bound,
+Callista, at least to look that way, to inquire into what you hear about
+it, and to ask for His help, if He be, to enable you to believe in Him?”
+
+“This is what a slave of mine used to say,” cried Callista, abruptly; “...
+and another, Agellius, hinted the same thing.... What is your remedy, what
+your Object, what your love, O Christian teacher? Why are you all so
+mysterious, so reserved in your communications?”
+
+Cæcilius was silent for a moment, and seemed at a loss for an answer. At
+length he said, “Every man is in that state which you confess of yourself.
+We have no love for Him who alone lasts. We love those things which do not
+last, but come to an end. Things being thus, He whom we ought to love has
+determined to win us back to Him. With this object He has come into His
+own world, in the form of one of us men. And in that human form He opens
+His arms and woos us to return to Him, our Maker. This is our Worship,
+this is our Love, Callista.”
+
+“You talk as Chione,” Callista answered; “only that she felt, and you
+teach. She could not speak of her Master without blushing for joy.... And
+Agellius, when he said one word about his Master, he too began to
+blush....”
+
+It was plain that the priest could hardly command his feelings, and they
+sat for a short while in silence. Then Callista began, as if musing on
+what she had heard.
+
+“A loved One,” she said, “yet ideal; a passion so potent, so fresh, so
+innocent, so absorbing, so expulsive of other loves, so enduring, yet of
+One never beheld;—mysterious! It is our own notion of the First and only
+Fair, yet embodied in a substance, yet dissolving again into a sort of
+imagination.... It is beyond me.”
+
+“There is but one Lover of souls,” cried Cæcilius, “and He loves each one
+of us, as though there were no one else to love. He died for each one of
+us, as if there were no one else to die for. He died on the shameful
+cross. ‘Amor meus crucifixus est.’ The love which he inspires lasts, for
+it is the love of the Unchangeable. It satisfies, for He is inexhaustible.
+The nearer we draw to Him, the more triumphantly does He enter into us;
+the longer He dwells in us, the more intimately have we possession of Him.
+It is an espousal for eternity. This is why it is so easy for us to die
+for our faith, at which the world marvels.”
+
+Presently he said, “Why will not _you_ approach Him? why will not you
+leave the creature for the Creator?”
+
+Callista seldom lost her self-possession; for a moment she lost it now;
+tears gushed from her eyes. “Impossible!” she said, “what, I? you do not
+know me, father!” She paused, and then resumed in a different tone, “No!
+_my_ lot is one way, yours another. I am a child of Greece, and have no
+happiness but that, such as it is, which my own bright land, my own
+glorious race, give me. I may well be content, I may well be resigned, I
+may well be proud, if I possess _that_ happiness. I must live and die
+where I have been born. I am a tree which will not bear transplanting. The
+Assyrians, the Jews, the Egyptians, have their own mystical teaching. They
+follow their happiness in their own way; mine is a different one. The
+pride of mind, the revel of the intellect, the voice and eyes of genius,
+and the fond beating heart, I cannot do without them. I cannot do without
+what you, Christian, call sin. Let me alone; such as nature made me I will
+be. I cannot change.”
+
+This sudden revulsion of her feelings quite overcame Cæcilius; yet, while
+the disappointment thrilled through him, he felt a most strange sympathy
+for the poor lost girl, and his reply was full of emotion. “Am _I_ a Jew?”
+he exclaimed; “am _I_ an Egyptian, or an Assyrian? Have I from my youth
+believed and possessed what now is my Life, my Hope, and my Love? Child,
+_what_ was once my life? Am not _I_ too a brand plucked out of the fire?
+Do _I_ deserve anything but evil? Is it not the Power, the Mighty Power of
+the only Strong, the only Merciful, the grace of Emmanuel, which has
+changed and won me? If He can change me, an old man, could He not change a
+child like you? I, a proud, stern Roman; I, a lover of pleasure, a man of
+letters, of political station, with formed habits, and life-long
+associations, and complicated relations; was it _I_ who wrought this great
+change in me, who gained for myself the power of hating what I once loved,
+of unlearning what I once knew, nay, of even forgetting what once I was?
+Who has made you and me to differ, but He who can, when He will, make us
+to agree? It is His same Omnipotence which will transform _you_, if you
+will but come to be transformed.”
+
+But a reaction had come over the proud and sensitive mind of the Greek
+girl. “So after all, priest,” she said, “you are but a man like others; a
+frail, guilty person like myself. I can find plenty of persons who do as I
+do; I want some one who does not; I want some one to worship. I thought
+there was something in you special and extraordinary. There was a
+gentleness and tenderness mingled with your strength which was new to me.
+I said, Here is at last a god. My own gods are earthly, sensual; I have no
+respect for them, no faith in them. But there is nothing better anywhere
+else.... Alas!...” She started up, and said with vehemence, “I thought you
+sinless; you confess to crime.... Ah! how do I know,” she continued with a
+shudder, “that you are better than those base hypocrites, priests of Isis
+or Mithras, whose lustrations, initiations, new birth, white robes, and
+laurel crowns, are but the instrument and cloak of their intense
+depravity?” And she felt for the clasp upon her shoulder.
+
+Here her speech was interrupted by a hoarse sound, borne upon the wind as
+of many voices blended into one and softened by the distance, but which,
+under the circumstances, neither of the parties to the above conversation
+had any difficulty in assigning to its real cause. “Dear father,” she
+said, “the enemy is upon you.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+                      HE SHALL NOT LOSE HIS REWARD.
+
+
+There was no room for doubt or for delay. “What is to become of you,
+Callista?” he said; “they will tear you to pieces.”
+
+“Fear nothing for me, father,” she answered; “I am one of them. They know
+me. Alas, _I_ am no Christian! _I_ have not abjured their rites! but you,
+lose not a moment.”
+
+“They are still at some distance,” he said, “though the wind gives us
+merciful warning of their coming.” He looked about the room, and took up
+the books of Holy Scripture which were on the shelf. “There is nothing
+else,” he said, “of special value here. Agellius could not take them.
+Here, my child, I am going to show you a great confidence. To few persons
+not Christians would I show it. Take this blessed parchment; it contains
+the earthly history of our Divine Master. Here you will see whom we
+Christians love. Read it; keep it safely; surrender it, when you have the
+opportunity, into Christian keeping. My mind tells me I am not wrong in
+lending it to you.” He handed to her the Gospel of St. Luke, while he put
+the two other volumes into the folds of his own tunic.
+
+“One word more,” she said; “your name, should I want you.”
+
+He took up a piece of chalk from the shelf, and wrote upon the wall in
+distinct characters,
+
+  “Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus, Bishop of Carthage.”
+
+Hardly had she read the inscription when the voices of several men were
+heard in the very neighbourhood of the cottage; and hoping to effect a
+diversion in favour of Cæcilius, and being at once unsuspicious of danger
+to herself, and careless of her life, she ran quickly forward to meet
+them. Cæcilius ought to have taken to flight without a moment’s delay, but
+a last sacred duty detained him. He knelt down and took the pyx from his
+bosom. He had eaten nothing that day; but even if otherwise, it was a
+crisis which allowed him to consume the sacred species without fasting. He
+hastily opened the golden case, adored the blessed sacrament, and consumed
+it, purifying its receptacle, and restoring it to its hiding-place. Then
+he rose at once and left the cottage.
+
+He looked about; Callista was nowhere to be seen. She was gone; so much
+was certain, no enemy was in sight; it only remained for him to make off
+too. In the confusion he turned in the wrong direction; instead of making
+off at the back of the cottage from which the voices had scared him, he
+ran across the garden into the hollow way. It was all over with him in an
+instant; he fell at once into the hands of the vanguard of the mob.
+
+Many mouths were opened upon him all at once. “The sorcerer!” cried one;
+“tear him to shreds; _we’ll_ teach him to brew his spells against the
+city.” “Give us back our grapes and corn,” said a second. “Have a guard,”
+said a third; “he can turn you into swine or asses while there is breath
+in him,” “Then be the quicker with him,” said a fourth, who was lifting up
+a crowbar to discharge upon his head. “Hold!” said a tall swarthy youth,
+who had already warded off several blows from him, “hold, will you? don’t
+you see, if you kill him he can’t undo the spell. Make him first reverse
+it all; make him take the curse off us. Bring him along; take him to
+Astarte, Hercules, or old Saturn. We’ll broil him on a gridiron till he
+turns all these canes into vines, and makes olive berries of the pebbles,
+and turns the dust of the earth into fine flour for our eating. When he
+has done all this he shall dance a jig with a wild cow, and sit down to
+supper with an hyena.”
+
+A loud scream of exultation broke forth from the drunken and frantic
+multitude. “Along with him!” continued the same speaker in a jeering tone.
+“Here, put him on the ass and tie his hands behind his back. He shall go
+back in triumph to the city which he loves. Mind, and don’t touch him
+before the time. If you kill him, you’ll never get the curse off. Come
+here, you priests of Cybele,” he added, “and be his body-guard.” And he
+continued to keep a vigilant eye and hand over the old man, in spite of
+them.
+
+The ass, though naturally a good-tempered beast, had been most sadly tried
+through the day. He had been fed, indeed, out of mockery, as being the
+Christians’ god; but he did not understand the shouts and caprices of the
+crowd, and he only waited for an opportunity to show that he by no means
+acquiesced in the proceedings of the day. And now the difficulty was to
+move at all. The people kept crowding up the hollow road, and blocked the
+passage, and though the greater part of the rioters had either been left
+behind exhausted in Sicca itself, or had poured over the fields on each
+side of Agellius’s cottage, or gone right over the hill down into the
+valley beyond, yet still it was some time before the ass could move a
+step, and a time of nervous suspense it was both to Cæcilius and the youth
+who befriended him. At length what remained of the procession was
+persuaded to turn about and make for Sicca, but in a reversed order. It
+could not be brought round in so confined a space, so its rear went first
+and the ass and its burden came last. As they descended the hill back
+again, Cæcilius, who was mounted upon the linen and silk which had adorned
+the Dea Syra before the Tertullianist had destroyed the idol, saw before
+him the whole line of march. In front were flaunted the dreadful emblems
+of idolatry, so far as their bearers were able still to raise them.
+Drunken women, ragged boys mounted on men’s shoulders, ruffians and
+bullies, savage-looking Getulians, half-human monsters from the Atlas,
+monkeys and curs jabbering and howling, mummers, bacchanals, satyrs, and
+gesticulators, formed the staple of the procession. Midway between the
+hill which he was descending and the city lay the ravine, of which we have
+several times spoken, widening out into the plain or Campus Martius, which
+reached round to the steep cliffs on the north. The bridle-path, along
+which he was moving, crossed it just where it was opening and became
+level, so as to present no abrupt descent and ascent at the place where
+the path was lowest. On the left every vestige of the ravine soon ceased,
+and a free passage extended to the plain.
+
+The youth who had placed Cæcilius on the ass still kept close to him and
+sung at the pitch of his voice, in imitation of the rest—
+
+  “Sporting and snorting in shades of the night,
+  His ears pricking up, and his hoofs striking light,
+  And his tail whisking round, in the speed of his flight.”
+
+“Old man,” he continued to Cæcilius in a low voice, and in Latin, “your
+curse has not worked on me yet.”
+
+“My son,” answered the priest, “you are granted one day more for
+repentance.”
+
+“Lucky for you as well as for me,” was the reply: and he continued his
+song:—
+
+  “Gurta, the witch, was out with the rest;
+  Though as lame as a gull, by his highness possessed,
+  She shouldered her crutch, and danced with the best.
+
+  “She stamped and she twirled in the shade of the yew,
+  Till her gossips and chums of the city danced too;
+  They never are slack when there’s mischief to do.
+
+  “She danced and she coaxed, but he was no fool;
+  He’d be his own master, he’d not be her tool:
+  Not the little black moor should send him to school.”
+
+He then turned to Cæcilius and whispered, “You see, old father, that
+others, besides Christians, can forgive and forget. Henceforth call me
+generous Juba.” And he tossed his head.
+
+By this time they had got to the bottom of the hill, and the deep shadows
+which filled the hollow showed that the sun was rapidly sinking in the
+west. Suddenly, as they were crossing the bottom as it opened into the
+plain, Juba seized and broke the thong which bound Cæcilius’s arms, and
+bestowing a tremendous cut with it upon the side of the ass, sent him
+forward upon the plain at his greatest speed. The youth’s manœuvre was
+successful to the full. The asses of Africa can do more on an occasion of
+this kind than our own. Cæcilius for the moment lost his seat; but,
+instantly recovering it, took care to keep the animal from flagging; and
+the cries of the mob, and the howlings of the priests of Cybele cooperated
+in the task. At length the gloom, increasing every minute, hid him from
+their view; and even in daylight his recapture would have been a difficult
+matter for a wearied-out, famished, and intoxicated rabble. Before
+Cæcilius well had time to return thanks for this unexpected turn of
+events, he was out of pursuit, and was ambling at a pace more suitable to
+the habits of the beast of burden that carried him, over an expanse of
+plain which would have been a formidable night-march to a fasting man.
+
+
+
+We must not conclude the day without relating what was its issue to the
+persecutors, as well as to their intended victim. It is almost a proverb
+that punishment is slow in overtaking crime; but the present instance was
+an exception to the rule. While the exiled Bishop of Carthage escaped, the
+crowd, on the other hand, were caught in the trap which had been laid for
+them. We have already said it was a _ruse_ on the part of the governing
+authorities of the place to get the rioters out of the city, that they
+might at once be relieved of them, and then deal with them just as they
+might think fit. When the mob was once outside the walls, they might be
+refused re-admittance, and put down with a strong hand. The Roman
+garrison, who, powerless to quell the tumult in the narrow and winding
+streets and multiplied alleys of the city, had been the authors of the
+manœuvre, now took on themselves the stern completion of it, and
+determined to do so in the sternest way. Not a single head of all those
+who poured out in the afternoon should return at night. It was not to be
+supposed that the soldiers had any tenderness for the Christians, but they
+abominated and despised the rabble of the town. They were indignant at
+their rising, thought it a personal insult to themselves, and resolved
+they should never do so again. The gates were commonly in the custody of
+the city guard, but the Porta Septimiana, by which the mob passed out, was
+on this occasion claimed by the Romans. It was most suitably circumstanced
+for the use they intended to make of it. Immediately outside of it was a
+large court of the same level as the ground inside, bordered on the right
+and left by substantial walls, which after a time were drawn to meet each
+other, and contracted the space to the usual breadth of a road. The walls
+continued to run along this road for some distance, till they joined the
+way which led to the Campus Martius, and from this point the ground was
+open till it reached the head of the ravine. The soldiers drew up at the
+gate, and as the worn-out and disappointed, brutalized and half-idiotic
+multitudes returned towards it from the country, those who were behind
+pushed on between the border walls those who were in front, and, while
+they jammed together their ranks, also made escape impossible. It was now
+that the Roman soldiers began their barbarous, not to say cowardly,
+assault upon them. With heavy maces, with the pike, with iron gauntlets,
+with stones and bricks, with clubs, with scourge, with the sword, with the
+helmet, with whatever came to hand, they commenced the massacre of that
+large concourse of human beings, who did not offer one blow in return.
+They slaughtered them like sheep; they trampled them down; they threw the
+bodies of the wounded over the walls. Attempting to run back, numbers of
+the poor wretches came into conflict with the ranks behind them, and an
+additional scene of confusion and overthrow took place; many of them
+straggled over to the open country or woods, and perished, either from the
+weather, or from hunger, or even from the wild beasts. Others, weakened by
+excess and famine, fell a prey to the pestilence that was raging. After
+some days a remnant of them was allowed silently and timidly to steal back
+into the city as best they could. It was a long day before the Plebs
+Siccensis ventured to have any opinion of its own upon the subject of
+Christianity, or any other political, social, or ecclesiastical topic
+whatever.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+                            STARTLING RUMOURS.
+
+
+When Jucundus rose next morning, and heard the news, he considered it to
+be more satisfactory than he could have supposed possible. He was a
+zealous imperialist, and a lover of tranquillity, a despiser of the
+natives and a hater of the Christians. The Christians had suffered enough
+to vindicate the Roman name, to deter those who were playing at
+Christianity, and to show that the people of Sicca had their eyes about
+them. And the mob had received a severe lesson too; and the cause of
+public order had triumphed, and civic peace was re-established. His
+anxiety, too, about Agellius had terminated, or was terminating. He had
+privately denounced him to the government, come to an understanding with
+the military authorities, and obtained the custody of him. He had met him
+at the very door to which the boy Firmian brought him, with an apparitor
+of the military staff (or what answered to it), and had clapped him into
+prison in an underground cellar in which he kept damaged images, and those
+which had gone out of fashion, and were otherwise unsaleable. He was not
+at all sorry, by some suffering, and by some fright, to aid the more
+potent incantation which Callista was singing in his ears. He did not,
+however, at all forget Juba’s hint, and was careful not to overdo the
+rack-and-gridiron dodge, if we may so designate it; yet he thought just a
+flavour or a thought of the inconveniences which the profession of
+Christianity involved might be a salutary reflection in the midst of the
+persuasives which the voice and eyes of Callista would kindle in his
+heart. There was nothing glorious or heroic in being confined in a lumber
+cellar, no one knowing anything about it; and he did not mean to keep him
+there for ever.
+
+As the next day wore on towards evening, rumour brought a piece of news
+which he was at first utterly unable to credit, and which for the moment
+seemed likely to spoil the appetite which promised so well for his evening
+repast. He could hardly believe his ears when he was told that Callista
+was in arrest on a charge of Christianity, and at first it made him look
+as black as some of those Egyptian gods which he had on one shelf of his
+shop. However, he rallied, and was very much amused at the report. The
+imprisonment indeed was a fact, account for it as one could; but who
+_could_ account for it? “Varium et mutabile:” who could answer for the
+whims and fancies of womankind? If she had fallen in love with the owl of
+Minerva, or cut off her auburn tresses, or turned rope-dancer, there might
+have been some shrugging of shoulders, but no one would have tried to
+analyze the motive; but so much his profound sagacity enabled him to see,
+that, if there was one thing more than another likely to sicken Agellius
+of Christianity, it was to find one who was so precious to him suffering
+from the suspicion of it. It was bad enough to have suffered one’s self in
+such a cause; still he could conceive, he was large-minded enough to
+grant, that Agellius might have some secret satisfaction in the antagonist
+feeling of resentment and obstinacy which that suffering might engender:
+but it was carrying matters too far, and no comfort in any point of view,
+to find Callista, his beloved, the object of a similar punishment. It was
+all very well to profess Christianity as a matter of sentiment, mystery,
+and singularity; but when it was found to compromise the life or limbs of
+another, and that other Callista, why it was plain that Agellius would be
+the very first to try and entreat the wayward girl to keep her good looks
+for him, and to be loyal to the gods of her country; and he chuckled over
+the thought, as others have done in other states of society, of a
+love-scene or a marriage being the termination of so much high romance and
+fine acting.
+
+However, the next day Aristo came down to him himself, and gave him an
+account at once more authentic and more extended on the matter which
+interested him. Callista had been called up before the tribunal, and had
+not been discharged, but remanded. The meaning of it was as obscure as
+ever; Aristo could give no account of it; it almost led him to believe in
+the evil eye; some unholy practices, some spells such as only potent
+wizards know, some deplorable delusion or hallucination, had for the time
+got the mastery of his sister’s mind. No one seemed quite to know how she
+had found her way into the hands of the officers; but there she was, and
+the problem was how to get her out of them.
+
+However, whatever mystery, whatever anxiety, attached to the case, it was
+only still more urgent to bring the matter home to Agellius without delay.
+If time went on before the parties were brought together, she might grow
+more obstinate, and kindle a like spirit in him. Oh that boys and girls
+_would_ be giving old people, who wish them well, so much trouble!
+However, it was no good thinking of that just then. He considered that, at
+the present moment, they would not be able to bear the sight of each other
+in suffering and peril; that mutual tenderness would make them plead with
+each other in each other’s behalf, and that each would be obliged to set
+the example to each of a concession, to which each exhorted each; and on
+this fine philosophical view he proceeded to act.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+              JUCUNDUS PROPOUNDS HIS VIEW OF THE SITUATION.
+
+
+For thirty-six hours Agellius had been confined in his underground
+receptacle, light being almost excluded, a bench and a rug being his means
+of repose, and a full measure of bread, wine, and olives being his dole.
+The shrieks and yells of the rioters could be distinctly heard in his
+prison, as the day of his seizure went on, and they passed by the temple
+of Astarte; but what happened at his farm, and how it fared with Cæcilius,
+he had no means of conjecturing; nor indeed how it was to fare with
+himself, for on the face of the transaction, as was in form the fact, he
+was in the hands of the law, and only indulged with the house of a
+relative for his prison. On the second night he was released by his
+uncle’s confidential slave, who brought him up to a small back closet on
+the ground floor, which was lighted from the roof, and next morning, being
+the second day after the riot, Jucundus came in to have his confidential
+conversation with him.
+
+His uncle began by telling him that he was a government prisoner, but that
+he hoped by his influence in high places to get him off and out of Sicca
+without any prejudice to his honour. He told him that he had managed it
+privately, and if he had treated him with apparent harshness up to the
+evening before, it was in order to save appearances with the apparitors
+who had attended him. He then went on to inform him that the mob had
+visited his cottage, and had caught some man there; he supposed some
+accomplice or ally of his nephew’s. They had seized him, and were bringing
+him off, but the fellow had been clever enough to effect his escape. He
+did not know more than this, but it had happened very fortunately, for the
+general belief in the place was, that it was Agellius who had been taken,
+and who had managed to give them the slip. Since it could not any longer
+be safely denied that he was a Christian, though he (Jucundus) did not
+think so himself, he had encouraged or rather had given his confirmation
+to the report; and when some persons who had means of knowing had asserted
+that the culprit was double the age of his nephew and more, and not at all
+of his make or description, but a sort of slave, or rather that he was the
+slave of Agellius who had belonged to his father Strabo, Jucundus had
+boldly asserted that Agellius, in the emergency, had availed himself of
+some of the remarkably powerful charms which Christians were known to
+possess, and had made himself seem what he really was not, in order to
+escape detection. It had not indeed answered the purpose entirely, for he
+had actually been taken; but no blame in the charm, which perhaps, after
+all, had enabled him to escape. However, Agellius was gone, he told
+people, and a good riddance, and he hoped never to see him again. “But you
+see, my dear boy,” he concluded, “this was all talk for the occasion, for
+I hope you will live here many years in respectability and credit. I
+intend you should close my eyes when my time comes, and inherit whatever I
+have to leave you; for as to that fellow Juba, he inspires me with no
+confidence in him at all.”
+
+Agellius thanked his uncle with all his heart for his kind and successful
+efforts on his behalf; he did not think there was a word he had said, in
+the future he had sketched for him, which he could have wished altered.
+But he thought Jucundus over-sanguine; much as he should like to live with
+him and tend him in his old age, he did not think he should ever be
+permitted to return to Sicca. He was a Christian, and must seek some
+remote corner of the world, or at least some city where he was unknown.
+Every one in Sicca would point at him as the Christian; he would
+experience a thousand rubs and collisions, even if the mob did not rise
+against him, without corresponding advantage; on the other hand, he would
+have no influence. But were he in the midst of a powerful and
+widely-extended community of Christians, he might in his place do work,
+and might extend the faith as one of a number, unknown himself, and strong
+in his brethren. He therefore proposed as soon as possible to sell his
+effects and stock, and retire from the sight of men, at least for a time.
+
+“You think this persecution, then, will be soon at an end?” asked
+Jucundus.
+
+“I judge by the past,” answered Agellius; “there have been times of trial
+and of rest hitherto, and I suppose it will be so again. And one place has
+hitherto been exempt from the violence of our enemies, when another has
+been the scene of it.”
+
+“A new time is coming, trust me,” said Jucundus, gravely. “Those popular
+commotions are all over. What happened two days ago is a sample of what
+will come of them; they have received their _coup-de-grâce_. The State is
+taking up the matter, Rome itself, thank the gods! a tougher sort of
+customer than these villain ratcatchers and offal-eaters, whom you had to
+do with two days since. Great Rome is now at length in earnest, my boy,
+which she ought to have been a long time back, before you were born; and
+then you know,” and he nodded, “you would have had no choice; you wouldn’t
+have had the temptation to make a fool of yourself.”
+
+“Well, then,” answered Agellius, “if a new time is really coming, there is
+less chance than ever of my continuing here.”
+
+“Now be a sensible fellow, as you are when you choose,” said his uncle;
+“look the matter in the face, do. You cannot wrestle with impossibilities,
+you cannot make facts to pattern. There are lawful religions, there are
+illicit. Christianity is illicit; it is not tolerated; that’s not your
+fault; you cannot help it; you would, if you could; you can’t. Now you
+have observed your point of honour; you have shown you can stand up like a
+man, and suffer for your own fancy. Still Rome does not give way; and you
+must make the best of it. You must give in, and you are far too good (I
+don’t compliment, I speak my mind), far too amiable, excellent, sweet a
+boy for so rascally a superstition.”
+
+“There is something stronger than Rome,” said the nephew almost sternly.
+
+Jucundus cut him short. “Agellius!” he said, “you must not say that in
+this house. You shall not use that language under my roof. I’ll not put up
+with it, I tell you. Take your treason elsewhere.... This accursed
+obstinacy!” he said to himself; “but I must take care what I am doing;”
+then aloud, “Well, we both of us have been railing; no good comes of
+railing; railing is not argument. But now, I say, do be sensible, if you
+can. Is not the imperial government in earnest now? better late than
+never, but it is now in earnest. And now mark my words, by this day five
+years, five years at the utmost,—I say by this day five years there will
+not be a single ragamuffin Christian in the whole Roman world.” And he
+looked fierce. “Ye gods! Rome, Rome has swept from the earth by her very
+breath conspiracies, confederacies, plots against her, without ever
+failing; she will do so now with this contemptible, Jew-begotten foe.”
+
+“In what are we enemies to Rome, Jucundus?” said Agellius; “why will you
+always take it for granted?”
+
+“Take it for granted!” answered he, “is it not on the face of the matter?
+I suppose _they_ are enemies to a state, whom the state _calls_ its
+enemies. Besides, why a pother of words? Swear by the genius of the
+emperor, invoke the Dea Roma, sacrifice to Jove; no, not a bit of it, not
+a whisper, not a sign, not a grain of incense. You go out of your way to
+insult us; and then you come with a grave face, and say you are loyal. You
+kick our shins, and you wish us to kiss you on both cheeks for it. A few
+harmless ceremonies; we are not entrapping you; we are not using your
+words against yourselves; we tell you the meaning beforehand, the whole
+meaning of them. It is not as if we tied you to the belief of the nursery:
+we don’t say, ‘If you burn incense, you profess to believe that old
+Jupiter is shivering atop of Olympus;’ we don’t say, ‘You swear by the
+genius of Cæsar, therefore he has a genius, black, or white, or piebald,’
+No, we give you the meaning of the act; it is a mere expression of loyalty
+to the empire. If then you won’t do it, you confess yourself _ipso facto_
+disloyal. It is incomprehensible.” And he had become quite red.
+
+“My dear uncle,” said Agellius, “I give you my solemn word, that the
+people whom you so detest do pray for the welfare of the imperial power
+continually, as a matter of duty and as a matter of interest.”
+
+“Pray! pray! fudge and nonsense!” cried Jucundus, almost mimicking him in
+his indignation; “pray! who thanks you for your prayers? what’s the good
+of prayers? Prayers, indeed! ha, ha! A little loyalty is worth all the
+praying in the world. I’ll tell you what, Agellius; you are, I am sorry to
+say it, but you are hand and glove with a set of traitors, who shall and
+will be smoked out like a nest of wasps. _You_ don’t know; _you_ are not
+in the secret, nor the wretched slave, poor beast, who was pulled to
+pieces yesterday (ah! you don’t know of him) at the Flamen’s, nor a
+multitude of other idiots. But, d’ye see,” and he chucked up his head
+significantly, “there are puppets, and there are wires. Few know what is
+going on. They won’t have done (unless we put them down; but we will) till
+they have toppled down the state. But Rome will put them down. Come, be
+sensible, listen to reason; now I am going to put facts before my poor,
+dear, well-meaning boy. Oh that you saw things as I do! What a trouble you
+are to me! Here am I”——
+
+“My dearest uncle, Jucundus,” cried Agellius, “I assure you, it is the
+most intense pain to me”——
+
+“Very well, very well,” interrupted the uncle in turn, “I believe it, of
+course I believe it; but listen, listen. Every now and then,” he continued
+in a more measured and lower tone, “every now and then the secret is
+blabbed—blabbed. There was that Tertullianus of Carthage, some fifty years
+since. He wrote books; books have done a great deal of harm before now;
+but _read_ his books—read and ponder. The fellow has the insolence to tell
+the proconsul that he and the whole government, the whole city and
+province, the whole Roman world, the emperors, all but the pitiful
+_clique_ to which he belongs, are destined, after death, to flames for
+ever and ever. There’s loyalty! but the absurdity is greater than the
+malevolence. Rightly are the fellows called atheists and men-haters. Our
+soldiers, our statesmen, our magistrates, and judges, and senators, and
+the whole community, all worshippers of the gods, every one who crowns his
+head, every one who loves a joke, and all our great historic names,
+heroes, and worthies,—the Scipios, the Decii, Brutus, Cæsar, Cato, Titus,
+Trajan, Antoninus,—are inmates, not of the Elysian fields, if Elysian
+fields there be, but of Tartarus, and will never find a way out of it.”
+
+“That man, Tertullianus, is nothing to us, uncle,” answered Agellius; “a
+man of great ability, but he quarrelled with us, and left us.”
+
+“_I_ can’t draw nice distinctions,” said Jucundus. “Your people have
+quarrelled among themselves perhaps on an understanding; we can’t split
+hairs. It’s the same with your present hierophant at Carthage, Cyprianus.
+Nothing can exaggerate, I am told, the foulness of his attack upon the
+gods of Rome, upon Romulus, the Augurs, the Ancilia, the consuls, and
+whatever a Roman is proud of. As to the imperial city itself, there’s
+hardly one of their high priests that has not died under the hands of the
+executioner, as a convict. The precious fellows take the title of Pontifex
+Maximus; bless their impudence! Well, my boy, this is what I say; be, if
+you will, so preternaturally sour and morose as to misconceive and mislike
+the innocent, graceful, humanising, time-honoured usages of society; be
+so, for what I care, if this is all; but it isn’t all. Such misanthropy is
+wisdom, absolute wisdom, compared with the Titanic presumption and
+audacity of challenging to single combat the sovereign of the world. Go
+and kick down Mount Atlas first.”
+
+“You have it all your own way, Jucundus,” answered his nephew, “and so you
+must move in your own circle, round and round. There is no touching you,
+if you first assume your premisses, and then prove them by means of your
+conclusion.”
+
+“My dear Agellius,” said his uncle, giving his head a very solemn shake,
+“take the advice of an old man. When you are older than you are, you will
+see better who is right and who is wrong. You’ll be sorry you despised me,
+a true, a prudent, an experienced friend; you will. Shake yourself, come
+do. Why should you link your fortunes, in the morning of life, with
+desperate men, only because your father, in his last feeble days, was
+entrapped into doing so? I really will not believe that you are going to
+throw away hope and life on so bad a bargain. Can’t you speak a word? Here
+you’ve let me speak, and won’t say one syllable for yourself. I don’t
+think it kind of you.”
+
+Thus adjured, Agellius began. “Well,” he said, “it’s a long history; you
+see, we start, my dear uncle, from different points. How am I possibly to
+join issue with you? I can only tell you my conclusion. Hope and life, you
+say. Why, my only hope, my only life, my only joy, desire, consolation,
+and treasure is that I am a Christian.”
+
+“Hope and life!” interrupted Jucundus, “immortal gods! life and hope in
+being a Christian! do I hear aright? Why, man, a prison brings despair,
+not hope; and the sword brings death, not life. By Esculapius! life and
+hope! you choke me, Agellius. Life and hope! you are beyond three
+Anticyras. Life and hope! if you were old, if you were diseased, if you
+were given over, and had but one puff of life left in you, then you might
+be what you would, for me; but your hair is black, your cheek is round,
+your limbs are strong, your voice is full; and you are going to make all
+these a sacrifice to Hecate! has your good genius fed that plump frame,
+ripened those goods looks, nerved your arm, bestowed that breadth of
+chest, that strength of loins, that straightness of spine, that vigour of
+step, only that you may feed the crows? or to be torn on the rack,
+scorched in the flame, or hung on the gibbet? is this your gratitude to
+nature? What has been your price? for what have you sold yourself? Speak,
+man, speak. Are you dumb as well as dement? Are you dumb, I say, are you
+dumb?”
+
+“O Jucundus,” cried Agellius, irritated at his own inability to express
+himself or hold an argument, “if you did but know what it was to have the
+Truth! The Christian has found the Truth, the eternal Truth, in a world of
+error. That is his bargain, that is his hire; can there be a greater? Can
+I give up the Truth? But all this is Punic or Barbar to you.”
+
+It certainly did pose Jucundus for half a minute, as if he was trying to
+take in, not so much the sense, as the words of his nephew’s speech. He
+looked bewildered, and though he began to answer him at once, it took
+several sentences to bring him into his usual flow of language. After one
+or two exclamations, “The truth!” he cried, “_this_ is what I understand
+you to say,—the truth. The _truth_ is your bargain; I think I’m right, the
+truth; Hm; what is truth? What in heaven and earth do you mean by truth?
+where did you get that cant? What oriental tomfoolery is bamboozling you?
+The truth!” he cried, staring at him with eyes, half of triumph, half of
+impatience, “the truth! Jove help the boy!—the truth! can truth pour me
+out a cup of melilotus? can truth crown me with flowers? can it sing to
+me? can it bring Glyceris to me? drop gold into my girdle? or cool my
+brows when fever visits me? Can truth give me a handsome suburban with
+some five hundred slaves, or raise me to the duumvirate? Let it do this,
+and I will worship it; it shall be my god; it shall be more to me than
+Fortune, Fate, Rome, or any other goddess on the list. But _I_ like to
+see, and touch, and feel, and handle, and weigh, and measure what is
+promised me. I wish to have a sample and an instalment. I am too old for
+chaff. Eat, drink, and be merry, that’s my philosophy, that’s my religion;
+and I know no better. To-day is ours, to-morrow is our children’s.”
+
+After a pause, he added, bitterly, “If truth could get Callista out of
+prison, instead of getting her into it, I should have something to say to
+truth.”
+
+“Callista in prison!” cried Agellius with surprise and distress, “what do
+you mean, Jucundus?”
+
+“Yes, it’s a fact; Callista _is_ in prison,” answered he, “and on
+suspicion of Christianity.”
+
+“Callista! Christianity!” said Agellius, bewildered, “do I hear aright?
+She a Christian! oh, impossible, uncle! you don’t mean to say that she is
+in prison. Tell me, tell me, my dear, dear Jucundus, what this wonderful
+news means.”
+
+“You ought to know more about it than I,” answered he, “if there is any
+meaning in it. But if you want my opinion, here it is. I don’t believe she
+is more a Christian than I am; but I think she is over head and ears in
+love with you, and she has some notion that she is paying you a
+compliment, or interesting you in her, or sharing your fate—(_I_ can’t
+pretend to unravel the vagaries and tantarums of the female mind)—by
+saying that she is what she is _not_. If not, perhaps she has done it out
+of spite and contradiction. You can never answer for a woman.”
+
+“Whom should she spite? whom contradict?” cried Agellius, thrown for the
+moment off his balance. “O Callista! Callista in prison for Christianity!
+Oh if it’s true that she is a Christian! but what if she is not?” he added
+with great terror, “what if she’s not, and yet in prison, as if she were?
+How are we to get her out, uncle? Impossible! no, she’s not a
+Christian—she is not at all. She ought not to be there! Yet how
+wonderful!”
+
+“Well, I am sure of it, too,” said Jucundus; “I’d stake the best image in
+my shop that she’s not a Christian; but what if she is perverse enough to
+say she _is_? and such things are not uncommon. Then, I say, what in the
+world is to be done? If she says she is, why she is. There you are; and
+what can you do?”
+
+“You don’t mean to say,” exclaimed Agellius, “that that sweet delicate
+child is in that horrible hole; impossible!” and he nearly shrieked at the
+thought. “What is the meaning of it all? dear, dear uncle, do tell me
+something more about it. Why did you not tell me before? What _can_ be
+done?”
+
+Jucundus thought he now had him in his hand. “Why, it’s plain,” he
+answered, “what can be _done_. She’s no Christian, we both agree. It’s
+certain, too, that she chooses to say she is, or something like it.
+There’s just one person who has influence with her, to make her tell the
+truth.”
+
+“Ha!” cried Agellius, starting as if an asp had bitten him.
+
+Jucundus kept silence, and let the poison of the said asp work awhile in
+his nephew’s blood.
+
+Agellius put his hands before his eyes; and with his elbows on his knees,
+began moving to and fro, as if in intense pain.
+
+“I repeat what I have said,” Jucundus observed at length; “I do really
+think that she imagines a certain young gentleman is likely to be in
+trouble, and that she is determined to share the trouble with him.”
+
+“But it isn’t true,” cried Agellius with great vehemence; “it’s not
+true.... If she really is not a Christian, O my dear Lord, surely they
+won’t put her to death as if she was?”
+
+“But if she has made up her mind to be in the same boat with you, and
+_will_ be a Christian while you are a Christian, what on earth can we do,
+Agellius?” asked Jucundus. “You have the whole matter in a nutshell.”
+
+“She does not love me,” cried Agellius; “no, she has given me no reason to
+think so. I am sure she does not. She’s nothing to me. That cannot be the
+reason of her conduct. _I_ have no power over her; _I_ could not persuade
+her. What, what _does_ all this mean? and I shut up here?” and he began
+walking about the little room, as if such locomotion tended to bring him
+out of it.
+
+“Well,” answered Jucundus, “it is easy to ascertain. I suppose you _could_
+be let out to see her.”
+
+But he was going on too fast; Agellius did not attend to him. “Poor, sweet
+Callista,” he exclaimed, “she’s innocent, she’s innocent; I mean she’s not
+a Christian. Ah!” he screamed out in great agony, as the whole state of
+the case unrolled itself to his apprehension, “she will die though not a
+Christian; she will die without faith, without love; she will die in her
+sins. She will die, done to death by false report of accepting that, by
+which alone she could be carried safely through death unto life. O my
+Lord, spare me!” and he sank upon the ground in a collapse of misery.
+
+Jucundus was touched, and still more alarmed. “Come, come, my boy,” he
+said, “you will rouse the whole neighbourhood. Give over; be a man; all
+will be right. If she’s not a Christian (and she’s not), she shall not die
+a Christian’s death; something will turn up. She’s not in any hole at all,
+but in a decent lodging. And you shall see her, and console her, and all
+will be right.”
+
+“Yes, I will see her,” said Agellius, in a sort of musing manner; “she is
+either a Christian, or she is not. If she is a Christian ...” and his
+voice faltered; “but if she is not, she shall live till she is.”
+
+“Well said!” answered Jucundus, “_till_ she is. She shall live _till_ she
+is. Yes, I can get you to see her. You shall bring her out of prison; a
+smile, a whisper from you, and all her fretfulness and ill-humour will
+vanish, like a mist before the powerful burning sun. And we shall all be
+as happy as the immortal gods.”
+
+“O my uncle!” said Agellius, gravely. The language of Jucundus had shocked
+him, and brought him to a better mind. He turned away from Jucundus, and
+leant his face against the wall. Then he turned round again, and said, “If
+she _is_ a Christian, I ought to rejoice, and I do rejoice; God be
+praised. If she is not a Christian, I ought at once to make her one. If
+she has already the penalty of a Christian, she is surely destined for the
+privilege. And how should I go,” he said, half speaking to himself, “how
+should I go to tell her that she is not yet a Christian, and bid her swear
+by Jupiter, because that is her god, in order that she may escape
+imprisonment and death? Am I to do the part of a heathen priest or infidel
+sophist? O Cæcilius, how am I forgetting your lessons! No; I will go on no
+such errand. Go, I will, if I may, Jucundus, but I will go on no
+conditions of yours. I go on no promise to try to get her out of prison
+anyhow, poor child. I will not go to make her sacrifice to a false god; I
+go to persuade her to stay in prison, by deserving to stay. Perhaps I am
+not the best person to go; but if I go, I go free. I go willing to die
+myself for my Lord; glad to make her die for Him.”
+
+Agellius said this in so determined a way, so calmly, with such a grasp of
+the existing posture of affairs, and of the whole circumstances of the
+case, that it was now Jucundus’s turn to feel surprise and annoyance. For
+a time he did not take in what Agellius meant, nor could he to the last
+follow his train of feeling. When he saw what may be called the upshot of
+the matter, he became very angry, and spoke with great violence. By
+degrees he calmed; and then the strong feeling came on him again that it
+was impossible, if a meeting took place between the two, that it could end
+in any way but one. He defied any two young people who loved each other,
+to come to any but one conclusion. Agellius’s mood was too excited, too
+tragic to last. The sight of Callista in that dreadful prison, perhaps in
+chains, waiting, in order to be free, for ability to say the words, “I am
+not a Christian;” and that ability waiting for the same words from
+himself, would bring the affair to a very speedy issue. As if he could
+love a fancy better than he loved Callista! Agellius, too, had already
+expressed a misgiving himself on that head; so far they were agreed. And,
+to tell the truth, it was a very difficult transaction for a young man;
+and giving our poor Agellius all credit for pure intention and firm
+resolve, we really should have been very sorry to see him involved in a
+trial, which would have demanded of him a most heroic faith and the
+detachment of a saint. We, therefore, are not sorry that in matter of fact
+he gained the merit of so virtuous a determination, without being called
+on to execute it. For it so happened, that a most unexpected event
+occurred to him not many hours afterwards, which will oblige us to take up
+here rather abruptly the history of one of our other personages.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+                                  GURTA.
+
+
+In the bosom of the woods which stretched for many miles from the
+immediate environs of Sicca, and placed on a gravel slope reaching down to
+a brook, which ran in a bottom close by, was a small, rude hut, of a kind
+peculiar to Africa, and commonly ascribed to the wandering tribes, who
+neither cared, nor had leisure for a more stable habitation. Some might
+have called it a tent, from the goat’s-hair cloth with which it was
+covered; but it looked, as to shape, like nothing else than an inverted
+boat, or the roof of a house set upon the ground. Inside it was seen to be
+constructed of the branches of trees, twisted together or wattled, the
+interstices, or rather the whole surface, being covered with clay. Being
+thus stoutly built, lined, and covered, it was proof against the
+tremendous rains, to which the climate, for which it was made, was
+subject. Along the centre ridge or backbone, which varied in height from
+six to ten feet from the ground, it was supported by three posts or
+pillars; at one end it rose conically to an open aperture, which served
+for chimney, for sky-light, and for ventilator. Hooks were suspended from
+the roof for baskets, articles of clothing, weapons, and implements of
+various kinds; and a second cone, excavated in the ground with the vertex
+downward, served as a storehouse for grain. The door was so low, that an
+ordinary person must bend double to pass through it.
+
+However, it was in the winter months only, when the rains were profuse,
+that the owner of this respectable mansion condescended to creep into it.
+In summer she had a drawing-room, as it may be called, of nature’s own
+creation, in which she lived, and in one quarter of which she had her
+lair. Close above the hut was a high plot of level turf, surrounded by old
+oaks, and fringed beneath with thick underwood. In the centre of this
+green rose a yew-tree of primeval character. Indeed, the whole forest
+spoke of the very beginnings of the world, as if it had been the immediate
+creation of that Voice which bade the earth clothe itself with green life.
+But the place no longer spoke exclusively of its Maker. Upon the trees
+hung the emblems and objects of idolatry, and the turf was traced with
+magical characters. Littered about were human bones, horns of wild
+animals, wax figures, spermaceti taken from vaults, large nails, to which
+portions of flesh adhered, as if they had had to do with malefactors,
+metal plates engraved with strange characters, bottled blood, hair of
+young persons, and old rags. The reader must not suppose any incantation
+is about to follow, or that the place we are describing will have a
+prominent place in what remains of our tale; but even if it be the scene
+of only one conversation, and one event, there is no harm in describing
+it, as it appeared on that occasion.
+
+The old crone, who was seated in this bower of delight, had an expression
+of countenance in keeping, not with the place, but with the furniture with
+which it was adorned; that furniture told her trade. Whether the root of
+superstition might be traced deeper still, and the woman and her traps
+were really and directly connected with the powers beneath the earth, it
+is impossible to determine; it is certain she had the will, it is certain
+that that will was from their inspiration; nay, it is certain that she
+thought she really possessed the communications which she desired; it is
+certain, too, she so far deceived herself as to fancy that what she
+learned by mere natural means came to her from a diabolical source. She
+kept up an active correspondence with Sicca. She was consulted by numbers;
+she was up with the public news, the social gossip, and the private and
+secret transactions of the hour; and had, before now, even interfered in
+matters of state, and had been courted by rival political parties. But in
+the high cares and occupations of this interesting person, we are not here
+concerned; but with a conversation which took place between her and Juba,
+about the same hour of the evening as that of Cæcilius’s escape, but on
+the day after it, while the sun was gleaming almost horizontally through
+the tall trunks of the trees of the forest.
+
+“Well, my precious boy,” said the old woman, “the choicest gifts of great
+Cham be your portion! You had excellent sport yesterday, I’ll warrant. The
+rats squeaked, eh? and you beat the life out of them. That scoundrel
+sacristan, I suppose, has taken up his quarters below.”
+
+“You may say it,” answered Juba. “The reptile! he turned right about, and
+would have made himself an honest fellow, when it couldn’t be helped.”
+
+“Good, good!” returned Gurta, as if she had got something very pleasant in
+her mouth; “ah! that is good! but he did not escape on that score, I do
+trust.”
+
+“They pulled him to pieces all the more cheerfully,” said Juba.
+
+“Pulled him to pieces, limb by limb, joint by joint, eh?” answered Gurta.
+“Did they skin him?—did they do anything to his eyes, or his tongue?
+Anyhow, it was too quickly, Juba. Slowly, leisurely, gradually. Yes, it’s
+like a glutton to be quick about it. Taste him, handle him, play with
+him,—that’s luxury! but to bolt him,—faugh!”
+
+“Cæso’s slave made a good end,” said Juba: “he stood up for his views, and
+died like a man.”
+
+“The gods smite him! but he has gone up—up:” and she laughed. “Up to what
+they call bliss and glory;—such glory! but he’s out of our domain, you
+know. But he did not die easy?”
+
+“The boys worried him a good deal,” answered Juba: “but it’s not quite in
+my line, mother, all this. I think you drink a pint of blood morning and
+evening, and thrive on it, old woman. It makes you merry; but it’s too
+much for my stomach.”
+
+“Ha, ha, my boy!” cried Gurta; “you’ll improve in time, though you make
+wry faces, now that you’re young. Well, and have you brought me any news
+from the capitol? Is any one getting a rise in the world, or a downfall?
+How blows the wind? Are there changes in the camp? This Decius, I suspect,
+will not last long.”
+
+“They all seem desperately frightened,” said Juba, “lest they should not
+smite your friends hard enough, Gurta. Root and branch is the word.
+They’ll have to make a few Christians for the occasion, in order to kill
+them: and I almost think they’re about it,” he added, thoughtfully. “They
+have to show that they are not surpassed by the rabble. ’Tis a pity
+Christians are so few, isn’t it, mother?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” she said, “but we must crush them, grind them, many or few:
+and we shall, we shall! Callista’s to come.”
+
+“I don’t see they are worse than other people,” said Juba; “not at all,
+except that they are commonly sneaks. If Callista turns, why should not I
+turn too, mother, to keep her company, and keep your hand in?”
+
+“No, no, my boy,” returned the witch, “you must serve _my_ master. You are
+having your fling just now, but you will buckle to in good time. You must
+one day take some work with my merry men. Come here, child,” said the fond
+mother, “and let me kiss you.”
+
+“Keep your kisses for your monkeys and goats and cats,” answered Juba;
+“they’re not to my taste, old dame. Master! my master! I won’t have a
+master! I’ll be nobody’s servant. I’ll never stand to be hired, nor cringe
+to a bully, nor quake before a rod. Please yourself, Gurta; I am a free
+man. You’re my mother by courtesy only.”
+
+Gurta looked at him savagely. “Why, you’re not going to be pious and
+virtuous, Juba? A choice saint you’ll make! You shall be drawn for a
+picture.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t I, if I choose?” said Juba. “If I must take service, willy
+nilly, I’d any day prefer the other’s to that of your friend. I’ve not
+left the master to take the man.”
+
+“Blaspheme not the great gods,” she answered, “or they’ll do you a
+mischief yet.”
+
+“I say again,” insisted Juba, “if I must lick the earth, it shall not be
+where your friend has trod. It shall be in my brother’s fashion, rather
+than in yours, Gurta.”
+
+“Agellius!” she shrieked out with such disgust, that it is wonderful she
+uttered the name at all. “Ah! you have not told me about him, boy. Well,
+is he safe in the pit, or in the stomach of an hyena?”
+
+“He’s alive,” said Juba; “but he has not got it in him to be a Christian.
+Yes, he’s safe with his uncle.”
+
+“Ah! Jucundus must ruin him, debauch him, and then we must make away with
+him. We must not be in a hurry,” said Gurta, “it must be body and soul.”
+
+“No one shall touch him, craven as he is,” answered Juba. “I despise him,
+but let him alone.”
+
+“Don’t come across me,” said Gurta, sullenly; “I’ll have my way. Why, you
+know I could smite you to the dust, as well as him, if I chose.”
+
+“But you have not asked me about Callista,” answered Juba. “It is really a
+capital joke, but she has got into prison for certain, for being a
+Christian. Fancy it! they caught her in the streets, and put her in the
+guard-house, and have had her up for examination. You see they want a
+Christian for the nonce: it would not do to have none such in prison; so
+they will flourish with her till Decius bolts from the scene.”
+
+“The Furies have her!” cried Gurta: “she _is_ a Christian, my boy: I told
+you so, long ago!”
+
+“Callista a Christian!” answered Juba, “ha! ha! She and Agellius are going
+to make a match of it, of some sort or other. They’re thinking of other
+things than paradise.”
+
+“She and the old priest, more likely, more likely,” said Gurta. “He’s in
+prison with her—in the pit, as I trust.”
+
+“Your master has cheated you for once, old woman,” said Juba.
+
+Gurta looked at him fiercely, and seemed waiting for his explanation. He
+began singing,—
+
+  “She wheedled and coaxed, but he was no fool;
+  He’d be his own master, he’d not be her tool;
+  Not the little black moor should send him to school.
+
+  “She foamed and she cursed—’twas the same thing to him;
+  She laid well her trap; but he carried his whim;—
+  The priest scuffled off, safe in life and in limb.”
+
+Gurta was almost suffocated with passion. “Cyprianus has not escaped,
+boy?” she asked at length.
+
+“I got him off,” said Juba, undauntedly.
+
+A shade, as of Erebus, passed over the witch’s face; but she remained
+quite silent.
+
+“Mother, I am my own master,” he continued, “I must break your assumption
+of superiority. I’m not a boy, though you call me so. I’ll have my own
+way. Yes, I saved Cyprianus. You’re a bloodthirsty old hag! Yes, _I’ve_
+seen your secret doings. Did not I catch you the other day, practising on
+that little child? You had nailed him up by hands and feet against the
+tree, and were cutting him to pieces at your leisure, as he quivered and
+shrieked the while. You were examining or using his liver for some of your
+black purposes. It’s not in my line; but you gloated over it; and when he
+wailed, you wailed in mimicry. You were panting with pleasure.”
+
+Gurta was still silent, and had an expression on her face, awful from the
+intensity of its malignity. She had uttered a low piercing whistle.
+
+“Yes!” continued Juba, “you revelled in it. You chattered to the poor babe
+when it screamed, as a nurse to an infant. You called it pretty names, and
+squeaked out your satisfaction each time you stuck it. You old hag! I’m
+not of your breed, though they call us of kin. _I_ don’t fear you,” he
+said, observing the expression of her countenance, “I don’t fear the
+immortal devil!” And he continued his song—
+
+  “She beckoned the moon, and the moon came down;
+  The green earth shrivelled beneath her frown;
+  But a man’s strong will can keep his own.”
+
+While he was talking and singing, her call had been answered from the hut.
+An animal of some wonderful species had crept out of it, and proceeded to
+creep and crawl, moeing and twisting as it went, along the trees and
+shrubs which rounded the grass plot. When it came up to the old woman, it
+crouched at her feet, and then rose up upon its hind legs and begged. She
+took hold of the uncouth beast and began to fondle it in her arms,
+muttering something in its ear. At length, when Juba stopped for a moment
+in his song, she suddenly flung it right at him, with great force, saying,
+“Take that!” She then gave utterance to a low inward laugh, and leaned
+herself back against the trunk of the tree upon which she was sitting,
+with her knees drawn up almost to her chin.
+
+The blow seemed to act on Juba as a shock on his nervous system, both from
+its violence and its strangeness. He stood still for a moment, and then,
+without saying a word, he turned away, and walked slowly down the hill, as
+if in a maze. Then he sat down....
+
+In an instant up he started again with a great cry, and began running at
+the top of his speed. He thought he heard a voice speaking in him; and,
+however fast he ran, the voice, or whatever it was, kept up with him. He
+rushed through the underwood, trampling and crushing it under his feet,
+and scaring the birds and small game which lodged there. At last,
+exhausted, he stood still for breath, when he heard it say loudly and
+deeply, as if speaking with his own organs, “You cannot escape from
+yourself!” Then a terror seized him; he fell down and fainted away.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+                           A MOTHER’S BLESSING.
+
+
+When his senses returned, his first impression was of something in him not
+himself. He felt it in his breathing; he tasted it in his mouth. The brook
+which ran by Gurta’s encampment had by this time become a streamlet,
+though still shallow. He plunged into it; a feeling came upon him as if he
+ought to drown himself, had it been deeper. He rolled about in it, in
+spite of its flinty and rocky bed. When he came out of it, his tunic
+sticking to him, he tore it off his shoulders, and let it hang round his
+girdle in shreds, as it might. The shock of the water, however, acted as a
+sedative upon him, and the coolness of the night refreshed him. He walked
+on for a while in silence.
+
+Suddenly the power within him began uttering, by means of his organs of
+speech, the most fearful blasphemies, words embodying conceptions which,
+had they come into his mind, he might indeed have borne with patience
+before this, or uttered in bravado, but which now filled him with
+inexpressible loathing, and a terror to which he had hitherto been quite a
+stranger. He had always in his heart believed in a God, but he now
+believed with a reality and intensity utterly new to him. He felt it as if
+he saw Him; he felt there was a world of good and evil beings. He did not
+love the good, or hate the evil; but he shrank from the one, and he was
+terrified at the other; and he felt himself carried away, against his
+will, as the prey of some dreadful, mysterious power, which tyrannised
+over him.
+
+The day had closed—the moon had risen. He plunged into the thickest wood,
+and the trees seemed to him to make way for him. Still they seemed to moan
+and to creak as they moved out of their place. Soon he began to see that
+they were looking at him, and exulting over his misery. They, of an
+inferior nature, had had no gift which they could abuse and lose; and they
+remained in that honour and perfection in which they were created. Birds
+of the night flew out of them, reptiles slunk away; yet soon he began to
+be surrounded, wherever he went, by a circle of owls, bats, ravens, crows,
+snakes, wild cats, and apes, which were always looking at him, but somehow
+made way, retreating before him, and yet forming again, and in order, as
+he marched along.
+
+He had passed through the wing of the forest which he had entered, and
+penetrated into the more mountainous country. He ascended the heights; he
+was a taller, stronger man than he had been; he went forward with a
+preternatural vigour, and flourished his arms with the excitement of some
+vinous or gaseous intoxication. He heard the roar of the wild beasts
+echoed along the woody ravines which were cut into the solid mountain
+rock, with a reckless feeling, as if he could cope with them. As he passed
+the dens of the lion, leopard, hyena, jackal, wild boar, and wolf, there
+he saw them sitting at the entrance, or stopping suddenly as they prowled
+along, and eyeing him, but not daring to approach. He strode along from
+rock to rock, and over precipices, with the certainty and ease of some
+giant in Eastern fable. Suddenly a beast of prey came across him; in a
+moment he had torn up by the roots the stump of a wild vine plant, which
+was near him; had thrown himself upon his foe before it could act on the
+aggressive, had flung it upon its back, forced the weapon into its mouth,
+and was stamping on its chest. He knocked the life out of the furious
+animal; and crying “Take that,” tore its flesh, and, applying his mouth to
+the wound, sucked a draught of its blood.
+
+He has passed over the mountain, and has descended its side. Bristling
+shrubs, swamps, precipitous banks, rushing torrents, are no obstacle to
+his course. He has reached the brow of a hill, with a deep placid river at
+the foot of it, just as the dawn begins to break. It is a lovely prospect,
+which every step he takes is becoming more definite and more various in
+the daylight. Masses of oleander, of great beauty, with their red
+blossoms, fringed the river, and tracked out its course into the distance.
+The bank of the hill below him, and on the right and left, was a maze of
+fruit-trees, about which nature, if it were not the hand of man, had had
+no thought except that they should be all together there. The wild olive,
+the pomegranate, the citron, the date, the mulberry, the peach, the apple,
+and the walnut, formed a sort of spontaneous orchard. Across the water,
+groves of palm-trees waved their long and graceful branches in the morning
+breeze. The stately and solemn ilex, marshalled into long avenues, showed
+the way to substantial granges or luxurious villas. The green turf or
+grass was spread out beneath, and here and there flocks and herds were
+emerging out of the twilight, and growing distinct upon the eye. Elsewhere
+the ground rose up into sudden eminences crowned with chestnut woods, or
+with plantations of cedar and acacia, or wildernesses of the cork-tree,
+the turpentine, the carooba, the white poplar, and the Phenician juniper,
+while overhead ascended the clinging tendrils of the hop, and an underwood
+of myrtle clothed their stems and roots. A profusion of wild flowers
+carpeted the ground far and near.
+
+Juba stood and gazed till the sun rose opposite to him, envying, repining,
+hating, like Satan looking in upon Paradise. The wild mountains, or the
+locust-smitten track would have better suited the tumult of his mind. It
+would have been a relief to him to have retreated from so fair a scene,
+and to have retraced his steps, but he was not his own master, and was
+hurried on. Sorely against his determined strong resolve and will, crying
+out and protesting and shuddering, the youth was forced along into the
+fulness of beauty and blessing with which he was so little in tune. With
+rage and terror he recognised that he had no part in his own movements,
+but was a mere slave. In spite of himself he must go forward and behold a
+peace and sweetness which witnessed against him. He dashed down through
+the thick grass, plunged into the water, and without rest or respite began
+a second course of aimless toil and travail through the day.
+
+The savage dogs of the villages howled and fled from him as he passed by;
+beasts of burden, on their way to market, which he overtook or met, stood
+still, foamed and trembled; the bright birds, the blue jay and golden
+oriole, hid themselves under the leaves and grass; the storks, a religious
+and domestic bird, stopped their sharp clattering note from the high tree
+or farmhouse turret, where they had placed their nests; the very reptiles
+skulked away from his shadow, as if it were poisonous. The boors who were
+at their labour in the fields suspended it, to look at one whom the Furies
+were lashing and whirling on. Hour passed after hour, the sun attained its
+zenith, and then declined, but this dreadful compulsory race continued.
+Oh, what would he have given for one five minutes of oblivion, of slumber,
+of relief from the burning thirst which now consumed him! but the master
+within him ruled his muscles and his joints, and the intense pain of
+weariness had no concomitant prostration of strength. Suddenly he began to
+laugh hideously; and he went forward dancing and singing loud, and playing
+antics. He entered a hovel, made faces at the children, till one of them
+fell into convulsions, and he ran away with another; and when some country
+people pursued him, he flung the child in their faces, saying, “Take
+that,” and said he was Pentheus, king of Thebes, of whom he had never
+heard, about to solemnise the orgies of Bacchus, and he began to spout a
+chorus of Greek, a language he had never learnt or heard spoken.
+
+Now it is evening again, and he has come up to a village grove, where the
+rustics were holding a feast in honour of Pan. The hideous brutal god,
+with yawning mouth, horned head, and goat’s feet, was placed in a rude
+shed, and a slaughtered lamb, decked with flowers, lay at his feet. The
+peasants were frisking before him, boys and women, when they were startled
+by the sight of a gaunt, wild, mysterious figure, which began to dance
+too. He flung and capered about with such vigour that they ceased their
+sport to look on, half with awe and half as a diversion. Suddenly he began
+to groan and to shriek, as if contending with himself, and willing and not
+willing some new act; and the struggle ended in his falling on his hands
+and knees, and crawling like a quadruped towards the idol. When he got
+near, his attitude was still more servile; still groaning and shuddering,
+he laid himself flat on the ground, and wriggled to the idol as a worm,
+and lapped up with his tongue the mingled blood and dust which lay about
+the sacrifice. And then again, as if nature had successfully asserted her
+own dignity, he jumped up high in the air, and, falling on the god, broke
+him to pieces, and scampered away out of pursuit, before the lookers-on
+recovered from their surprise.
+
+Another restless, fearful night amid the open country; ... but it seemed
+as if the worst had passed, and, though still under the heavy chastisement
+of his pride, there was now more in Juba of human action and of effectual
+will. The day broke, and he found himself on the road to Sicca. The
+beautiful outline of the city was right before him. He passed his
+brother’s cottage and garden; it was a wreck. The trees torn up, the
+fences broken down, and the room pillaged of the little that could be
+found there. He went on to the city, crying out “Agellius;” the gate was
+open, and he entered. He went on to the Forum; he crossed to the house of
+Jucundus; few people as yet were stirring in the place. He looked up at
+the wall. Suddenly, by the help of projections, and other irregularities
+of the brickwork, he mounted up upon the flat roof, and dropped down along
+the tiles, through the _impluvium_ into the middle of the house. He went
+softly into Agellius’s closet, where he was asleep, he roused him with the
+name of Callista, threw his tunic upon him, which was by his side, put his
+boots into his hands, and silently beckoned him to follow him. When he
+hesitated, he still whispered to him “Callista,” and at length seized him
+and led him on. He unbarred the street door, and with a movement of his
+arm, more like a blow than a farewell, thrust him into the street. Then he
+barred again the door upon him, and lay down himself upon the bed which
+Agellius had left. His good Angel, we may suppose, had gained a point in
+his favour, for he lay quiet, and fell into a heavy sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+                           CALLISTA IN DURANCE.
+
+
+We will hope that the reader, as well as Agellius, is attracted by the
+word Callista, and wishes to know something about her fate; nay, perhaps
+finds fault with us as having suffered him so long to content himself with
+the chance and second-hand information which Jucundus or Juba has
+supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now
+trust to make up for it.
+
+When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders,
+she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin
+fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom
+could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the
+country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the
+outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither
+her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself
+Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons
+of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and
+had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free
+from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten
+track. She and they could not understand each other’s speech; but her
+appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their
+share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca.
+As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the
+city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance,
+as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that
+wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it
+returned.
+
+These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon
+the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience
+than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery.
+Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate.
+
+“Down with your live luggage, you rascals,” they said, in their harsh
+Punic; “what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by
+her?”
+
+“She’s one of those Christian rats, your worship,” answered the fellow,
+who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed
+men. “Long live the Emperor! We’ll teach her to eat asses’ heads another
+time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She’s
+nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences.”
+
+“Let her go, you drunken animal!” said the constable, still keeping his
+distance. “I’ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young
+a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think
+she’s priestess of one of the great temples up there.”
+
+“She can turn herself into anything,” said the other of her capturers,
+“young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs
+in the shape of a black cat.”
+
+“Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the
+magistracy!” cried the official. “Give up your prisoner to the authorities
+of the place, and let the law take its course.”
+
+But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party
+liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. “Well,” said the
+guardian of the night, “the law must be vindicated, and the peace
+preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she
+happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we
+depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us
+the trouble. Here, child,” he continued, “you’re our prisoner; so you
+shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious
+and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer
+up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I’ll pledge a
+_cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet
+as the manna gum.”
+
+Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail
+herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards
+the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did
+not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was
+not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at
+the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four,
+were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the
+Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior
+officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president
+of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had
+devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her
+brother’s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of
+the meeting.
+
+“Help,” she said, “gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are
+carrying me off to some den of their own.”
+
+The tribune at once knew her voice. “What!” he cried, with great
+astonishment, “what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and
+unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do
+with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your
+African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say!”
+
+There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity,
+and the ruffians began to parley. “My noble master,” said the constable,
+“she’s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you,
+my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times.
+But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and
+a witch to boot.”
+
+“Cease your vile gutturals, you animal!” cried the officer, “or I will ram
+them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady,
+beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius,” he said to a private,
+“kick him away, and bring the woman here.”
+
+Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met
+with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out
+maliciously, “Mind what you are at, noble sir, it’s not our affair; you
+can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an
+Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don’t know what high places
+will say to it, but it’s your affair. Take notice,” he continued, as he
+got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers
+might hear, “yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian
+assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the
+Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been
+interrupted in the discharge of my duty—I, a constable of the place. See
+whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain,
+the locusts, and all manner of _larvæ_ and _maniæ_ before the end of the
+story.”
+
+This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible
+he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally
+uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of
+Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial
+Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good
+soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself
+with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by
+setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a
+Christian’s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, “Well,
+my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star
+of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and
+you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you.” And with these
+words he led the way to the _Officium_.
+
+But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he
+had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of
+their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great
+gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day’s
+work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found
+he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner
+to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and
+Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior
+functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to
+bring her up for examination next morning.
+
+The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but
+the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told
+she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was
+allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses,
+saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely
+she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but
+it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that
+public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day
+afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+                          WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN?
+
+
+Were the origin of Juba’s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of
+a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said
+on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and
+easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and
+had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of
+acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno,
+Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to
+witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the
+infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of
+them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities
+which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a
+nervous effect upon the old gentleman’s system, and, for the first evening
+after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless
+and songless. What had been Juba’s motive in the exploit which so
+unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say.
+Whether his mention of Callista’s name was intended to be for the benefit
+of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius’s, must be left in the obscurity in
+which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain,
+though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his
+leaving his uncle’s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did,
+without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and
+gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista’s prison, so as to excite
+the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance,
+and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with
+their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at
+the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain.
+
+To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention
+of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they
+were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in
+that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba
+was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect,
+and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his
+head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or
+roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca,
+and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the
+Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah!—what a real calamity was
+there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his
+fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether
+the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who
+knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever
+his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly
+imposed upon it.
+
+While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for
+the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and
+the day before Callista’s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in
+a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called,
+indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress
+upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by
+discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first
+the words of both “moved slow,” as the poet says, and went off in a sort
+of dropping fire.
+
+“Well,” said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; “he’s not come to _you_, of
+course?”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Agellius.”
+
+“Oh! Agellius! No, he’s not with me.” Then, after a pause, Aristo added,
+“Why should he be?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know. I thought he might be. He’s been gone since early
+morning.”
+
+“Indeed! No, I don’t know where he is. How came he with you?”
+
+“I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but
+he’s gone for ever.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“And his brother’s mad!—horribly mad!” and he slapped his hand against his
+thigh.
+
+“I always thought it,” answered Aristo.
+
+“Did you? Yes, so it is; but it’s very different from what it ever was.
+The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He’s frantic! Oh, if you
+had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It’s all the father!”
+
+“I thought you’d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista,” said
+her brother.
+
+“Yes, I should indeed!” answered Jucundus. “By Esculapius! they’re all mad
+together!”
+
+“Well, it is like madness!” cried Aristo, with great vehemence.
+
+“The world’s going mad!” answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he
+began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. “We are _all_
+going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What
+an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up
+my shutters. Did it come near you?—all on account of one or two beggarly
+Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and
+vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily.
+It’s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make
+examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer!”
+
+Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into
+the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued,—
+
+“Yes, it’s no good. The empire’s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told
+you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone.
+Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one’s safe! Farewell, my
+friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and,
+like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her?”
+
+“O dear, sweet, suffering girl!” cried her brother.
+
+“Yes, indeed!” answered Jucundus; “yes!” meditatively. “She _is_ a dear,
+sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off—that
+was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could
+be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She
+could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did!—I’m convinced of
+it!—nothing shall convince me otherwise! ‘Bring them together,’ I said,
+‘and they will rush into each other’s arms.’ But they’re bewitched!—The
+whole world’s bewitched! Mark my words,—I have an idea who is at the
+bottom of this.”
+
+“Oh!” groaned out Aristo; “I care not for top or bottom!—I care not for
+the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have
+seen the dear, patient sufferer!” and the poor fellow burst into a flood
+of tears.
+
+“Bear up! bear up!” said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably
+better; “show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be;—they
+are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay!
+no!—it’s the comedian,—it’s Menander”——
+
+“To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was
+spouted!” exclaimed Aristo. “Can you do nothing for me? Can’t you give me
+a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a
+stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so
+proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She
+loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I
+would with her. Come here, go there,—it was just as I would. There we
+were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age.
+She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all
+for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no
+will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased
+anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all
+the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this
+ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself
+a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chimæra.”
+
+“Well, but, Aristo,” said Jucundus, “I was going to tell you who is at the
+bottom of it all. Callista’s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo
+was mad;—but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad;—and there, I
+think, is the beginning of our troubles.——Come in! come in, Cornelius!” he
+cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into
+his lugubrious tone; “Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you
+can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will.”
+
+Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and
+came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he
+went.
+
+“That’s kind!” answered Jucundus: “but first tell me all about this
+dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any
+clue what has become of my poor Agellius?”
+
+Cornelius had not heard of the young man’s troubles, and was full of
+consternation at the news.
+
+“What! Agellius really a Christian?” he said, “and at such a moment? Why,
+I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order?”
+
+“She’s a Christian too,” replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. “It’s a
+bad world!” he continued. “She’s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be
+the end of it?”
+
+Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious.
+
+“You don’t mean it?” said Jucundus. “Not anything so dreadful, I do trust,
+Cornelius. Not the stake?”
+
+Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous.
+
+“Nothing in the way of torture?” he went on; “not the rack, or the
+pitchfork?”
+
+“It’s a bad business, on your own showing,” said Cornelius: “it’s a bad
+business!”
+
+“Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius?” cried Aristo. “The great people in
+Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I’d do anything for you!—I’d be
+your slave! She’s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing
+about her of the cut;—not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair.
+She’s a Greek from head to foot—within and without. She’s as bright as the
+day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because
+you are a foreigner!” and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. “O
+Cornelius!” he continued, “if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall
+sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace
+your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius!” and he knelt down,
+and would have taken hold of Cornelius’s beard.
+
+Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which
+nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction.
+“I hear from you,” he said with pomposity, “that your sister is in prison
+on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by
+the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law
+must take its course,” and he made a slight bow.
+
+“Well, but she is under a delusion,” persisted Aristo, “which cannot last
+long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that
+decisive? but then she won’t burn incense; she won’t swear by Rome. She
+tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more
+senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, ‘My girl, the question is,
+Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in
+torments?’ Oh, I shall go mad as well as she!” he screamed out. “She was
+so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why,
+there’s nothing she couldn’t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre,
+sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made
+this girdle for me. It’s all that Agellius, it’s Agellius. I beg your
+pardon, Jucundus; but it is;” and he threw himself on the ground, and
+rolled in the dust.
+
+“I have been telling our young friend,” said Jucundus to Cornelius, “to
+exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, ‘Ne quid nimis.’ Grieving
+does no good; but these young fellows, it’s no use at all speaking to
+them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius?”
+
+“Why,” answered Cornelius, “since I have been here, I have fallen in with
+a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He
+has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors
+at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and
+I’m surprised how well we agreed. He’s a Greek, as well as this young
+gentleman’s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one
+could disabuse her mind, it is he.”
+
+“True, true,” cried Aristo, starting up, “but, no, _you_ can do it better;
+you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The
+magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don’t wish to touch the poor
+girl, not they. But there’s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill
+blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust—but why
+should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you’d
+oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But
+what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the
+respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months,
+if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us
+steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It
+was a bad job our coming here.”
+
+“We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and
+distinctions,” said Cornelius; “and we know nothing of understandings,
+connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The
+question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not?
+Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we’ll see what can be
+done.” And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as
+his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius
+and Callista.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+                            AM I A CHRISTIAN?
+
+
+The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which
+was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of
+one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she
+was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when
+Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. “So is
+the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and
+should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow
+up, whilst he knoweth not.” She might, indeed, have been able afterwards,
+on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have
+recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that
+she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but
+one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only
+fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it
+came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which
+followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim
+with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we
+speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or
+whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or
+in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know
+about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what
+she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it
+approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to
+all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment
+that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the
+more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or
+the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance,
+which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at
+best but difficulties and perplexities.
+
+But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would
+have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention
+some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their
+definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were
+realised. She would have said, “I believe what has been told me, as from
+heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and Cæcilius:” and it was clear she could say
+nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once
+the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was
+that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from
+each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their
+testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so
+unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of
+her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion;
+whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of
+the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be
+without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us,
+love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but
+her instinctive notion of religion was the soul’s response to a God who
+had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name.
+Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each
+of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart.
+It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the
+very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason
+and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one
+and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest.
+
+This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she
+turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was
+implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she
+understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty,
+All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the
+Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular,
+that He had come upon earth in the form of a man, and in that form had
+gone through sufferings, in order to unite all souls to Him; that He
+desired to love, and to be loved; that He had said so; that He had called
+on man to love Him, and did actually bring to pass this loving intercourse
+of Him and man in those souls who surrendered themselves to Him. She did
+not go much further than this; but as much as this was before her mind
+morning, noon, and night. It pleaded in her; it importuned her; it would
+not be rebuffed. It did not mind her moods, or disgusts, or doubts, or
+denials, or dismissals, but came again and again. It rose before her, in
+spite of the contempt, reproach, and persecution which the profession of
+it involved. It smiled upon her; it made promises to her; it opened
+eternal views to her; and it grew upon her convictions in clearness of
+perception, in congruity, and in persuasiveness.
+
+Moreover, the more she thought of Chione, of Agellius, and of Cæcilius the
+more surely did she discern that this teaching wrought in them a something
+which she had not. They had about them a simplicity, a truthfulness, a
+decision, an elevation, a calmness, and a sanctity to which she was a
+stranger, which spoke to her heart and absolutely overcame her. The image
+of Cæcilius, in particular, came out prominently and eloquently in her
+memory,—not in his words so much as in his manner. In spite of what she
+had injuriously said to him, she really felt drawn to worship him, as if
+he were the shrine and the home of that Presence to which he bore such
+solemn witness.
+
+O the change, when, as if in punishment for her wild words against him,
+she found herself actually in the hands of lawless men, who were as far
+below her in sentiment as he was above her! O the change, when she was
+dizzied by their brutal vociferations and rapid motion, and that breath
+and atmosphere of evil which steamed up from the rankness of their
+impiety! O the thankfulness which rose up in her heart, though but vaguely
+directed to an object, when she found the repose and quiet, though it was
+that of a prison! for young as she was, she had become tired of all things
+that were seen, and had no strong desire, except for meditation on the
+great truths which she did not know.
+
+One day passes and then another; and now the morning and the hour is come
+when she must appear before the magistrates of Sicca. With dread, with
+agitation, she looks forward to the moment. She has not yet a peace within
+her. Her peace is the stillness of the room in which she is imprisoned.
+She knows it will pass away when she leaves it; she knows that again she
+must be in the hands of cruel, godless men, with whom she has no sympathy;
+but she has no stay whereon to lean in the terrible trial. Her brother
+comes to her: he affects to forget her perverseness or delusion. He comes
+to her with a smile, and throws his arms around her; and Callista repels,
+from some indescribable feeling, his ardent caress, as if she were no
+longer his. He has come to accompany her to court, by an indulgence which
+he had obtained; to support her there,—to carry her through, and to take
+her back in triumph home. My sister,—why that strange, piteous look upon
+thy countenance?—why that paleness of thy cheek?—why that whisper of thy
+lips?—why those wistful, gentle pleadings of thine eyes? Sweet eyes, and
+brow, and cheek, in which I have ever prided myself! Why so backward?—why
+so distant and unfriendly? Am I not come to rescue thee from a place where
+thou never shouldst have been?—where thou ne’er shalt be again? Callista,
+what is this mystery?—speak!
+
+Such as this was the mute expostulation conveyed in Aristo’s look, and in
+the fond grasp of his hand; while treading down forcibly within him his
+memory and his fears of her great change, he determined she should be to
+him still all that she had ever been. But how altered was that look, and
+how relaxed that grasp, when at length her misery found words, and she
+said to him in agitation, “My time is short: I want some Christian, a
+Christian priest!”
+
+It was as though she had never shown any tendency before to the proscribed
+religion. The words came to him with the intensity of something new and
+unimagined hitherto. He clasped his hands in emotion, turned white, and
+could but say, “Callista!” If she had made confession of the most heinous
+of crimes,—if she had spoken of murder, or some black treachery against
+himself,—of some enormity too great for words, it might have been; but his
+sister!—his pride and delight, after all and certainly a Christian! Better
+far had she said she was leaving him for ever, to abandon herself to the
+degrading service of the temples; better had she said she had taken
+hemlock, or had an asp in her bosom, than that she should choose to go out
+of the world with the tortures, the ignominy, the malediction of the
+religion of slaves.
+
+Time waits for no man, nor does the court of justice, nor the _subsellia_
+of the magistrate. The examination is to be held in the Basilica at the
+Forum, and it requires from us a few words of explanation beforehand. The
+local magistrates then could only try the lesser offences, and decide
+civil suits; cases of suspected Christianity were reserved for the Roman
+authorities. Still, preliminary examinations were not unfrequently
+conducted by the city Duumvirs, or even in what may be called the police
+courts. And this may have especially been the case in the Proconsulates.
+Proprætors and Presidents were in the appointment of the Emperor, and
+joined in their persons the supreme civil and military authority. Such
+provinces, perhaps, were better administered; but there would be more of
+arbitrariness in their rule, and it would not be so acceptable to the
+ruled. The Proconsuls, on the other hand, were representatives of the
+Senate, and had not the military force directly in their hands. The
+natural tendency of this arrangement was to create, on the one hand, a
+rivalry between the civil and military establishments; and, on the other,
+to create a friendly feeling between the Proconsul and the local
+magistracy. Thus, not long before the date of this history, we read of
+Gordian, the Proconsul, enjoying a remarkable popularity in his African
+province; and when the people rose against the exactions of the imperial
+Procurator, as referred to in a former page, they chose and supported
+Gordian against him. But however this might be in general, so it was at
+this time at Sicca, that the Proconsular _Officium_ and the city
+magistrates were on a good understanding with each other, whereas there
+was some collision between the latter and the military. Not much depends
+in the conduct of our story upon this circumstance; but it must be taken
+to account for the examination of Callista in the Forum, and for some
+other details which may follow before we come to the end of it.
+
+The populace was collected about the gates and within the ample space of
+the Basilica, but they gave expression to no strong feeling on the subject
+of a Christian delinquent. The famine, the sickness, and, above all, the
+lesson which they had received so lately from the soldiers, had both
+diminished their numbers and cowed their spirit. They were sullen, too,
+and resentful; and, with the changeableness proverbial in a multitude, had
+rather have witnessed the beheading of a magistrate, or the burning of a
+tribune, than the torture and death of a dozen of wretched Christians.
+Besides, they had had a glut of Christian blood; a reaction of feeling had
+taken place, and, in spite of the suspicion of witchcraft, the youth and
+the beauty of Callista recommended her to their compassion.
+
+The magistrates were seated on the _subsellia_, one of the Duumvirs
+presiding, in his white robe bordered with purple; his lictors, with
+staves, not fasces, standing behind him. In the vestibule of the court, to
+confront the prisoner on her first entrance, were the usual instruments of
+torture. The charge was one which can only be compared, in the estimation
+of both state and people in that day, to that of witchcraft, poisoning,
+parricide, or other monstrous iniquity in Christian times. There were the
+heavy _boiæ_, a yoke for the neck, of iron, or of wood; the fetters; the
+_nervi_, or stocks, in which hands and feet were inserted, at distances
+from each other which strained or dislocated the joints. There, too, were
+the _virgæ_, or rods with thorns in them; the _flagra_, _lori_, and
+_plumbati_, whips and thongs, cutting with iron or bruising with lead; the
+heavy clubs; the hook for digging into the flesh; the _ungula_, said to
+have been a pair of scissors; the _scorpio_, and _pecten_, iron combs or
+rakes for tearing. And there was the wheel, fringed with spikes, on which
+the culprit was stretched; and there was the fire ready lighted, with the
+water hissing and groaning in the large caldrons which were placed upon
+it. Callista had lost for ever that noble intellectual composure of which
+we have several times spoken; she shuddered at what she saw, and almost
+fainted, and, while waiting for her summons, leaned heavily against the
+merciless _cornicularius_ at her side.
+
+
+
+At length the judge began—“Let the servant from the _Officium_ stand
+forth.” The _officialis_ answered that he had brought a prisoner charged
+with Christianity; she had been brought to him by the military on the
+night of the riot.
+
+The _scriba_ then read out the deposition of one of the _stationarii_, to
+the effect that he and his fellow-soldiers had received her from the hands
+of the civic force on the night in question, and had brought her to the
+office of the Triumvirs.
+
+“Bring forward the prisoner,” said the judge; she was brought forward.
+
+“Here she is,” answered the _officialis_, according to the prescribed
+form.
+
+“What is your name?” said the judge.
+
+She answered, “Callista.”
+
+The judge then asked if she was a freewoman or a slave.
+
+She answered, “Free; the daughter of Orsilochus, lapidary, of
+Proconnesus.”
+
+Some conversation then went on among the magistrates as to her advocate or
+_defensor_. Aristo presented himself, but the question arose whether he
+was _togatus_. He was known, however, to several magistrates, and was
+admitted to stand by his sister.
+
+Then the _scriba_ read the charge—viz., that Callista was a Christian, and
+refused to sacrifice to the gods.
+
+It was a plain question of fact, which required neither witnesses nor
+speeches. At a sign from the Duumvir in came two priests, bringing in
+between them the small altar of Jupiter; the charcoal was ready lighted,
+the incense at the side, and the judge called to the prisoner to sprinkle
+it upon the flame for the good fortune of Decius and his son. All eyes
+were turned upon her.
+
+“I am not a Christian,” she said; “I told you so before. I have never been
+to a Christian place of worship, nor taken any Christian oath, nor joined
+in any Christian sacrifice. And I should lie did I say that I was in any
+sense a Christian.”
+
+There was a silence; then the judge said, “Prove your words; there is the
+altar, the flame, and the incense; sacrifice to the genius of the
+Emperor.”
+
+She said, “What can I do? I am not a Christian.” The judges looked at each
+other, as much as to say, “It is the old story; it is that inexplicable,
+hateful obstinacy, which will neither yield to reason, common sense,
+expediency, or fear.”
+
+The Duumvir only repeated the single word, “Sacrifice.”
+
+She stopped awhile; then she came forward with a hurried step. “O my
+fate!” she cried, “why was I born? why am I in this strait? I have no god.
+What can I do? I am abandoned; why should I not do it?” She stopped; then
+she went right on to the altar; she took the incense: suddenly she looked
+up to heaven and started, and threw it away. “I cannot! I dare not!” she
+cried out. There was a great sensation in court. “Evidently insane,” said
+some of the more merciful of the Decurions; “poor thing, poor thing!” Her
+brother ran up to her; talked to her, conjured her, fell down on his knees
+to her; took her hand violently, and would have forced her to offer. In
+vain; all he could get from her was, “I am not a Christian; indeed, I am
+not a Christian. I have nothing to do with them. O the misery!”
+
+“She is mad!” cried Aristo; “my lord judges, listen to me. She was seized
+by brutal ruffians during the riot, and the fright and shock have overcome
+her. Give her time, oh! give her time, and she will get right. She’s a
+good religious girl; she has done more work for the temples than any girl
+in Sicca; half the statues in the city are her finishing. Many of you, my
+lords, have her handiwork. She works with me. Do not add to my anguish in
+seeing her deranged, by punishing her as a criminal, a Christian: do not
+take her from me. Sentence her, and you end the whole matter; give her a
+chance, and she will certainly be restored to the gods and to me. Will you
+put her to death because she is mad?”
+
+What was to be done? The court was obsequious to the Proconsul, afraid of
+Rome; jealous that the mob should have been more forward than the
+magistracy. Had the city moved sooner, as soon as the edict came, there
+would have been no rising, no riot. Already they had been called on for a
+report about that riot and an explanation; if ever they had need to look
+sharp what they were doing, it was now. On the other hand, Callista and
+her brother had friends among the judges, as we have said, and their plea
+was at once obvious and reasonable. “If she persists, she persists, and
+nothing can be said; we don’t wish to be disloyal, or careless of the
+emperor’s commands. If she is obstinate, she must die; but she dies quite
+as usefully to us, with quite as much effect, a month hence as now. Not
+that we ask you to define a time on your own authority; simply do this,
+write to Carthage for advice. The government can answer within an hour, if
+it chooses. Merely say, ‘Here is a young woman, who has ever been
+religious and well conducted, of great accomplishments, and known
+especially for her taste and skill in religious art, who since the day of
+the riot has suddenly refused to take the test. She can give no reason for
+her refusal, and protests she is not a Christian. Her friends say that the
+fright has turned her brain, but that if kindly treated and kept quiet,
+she will come round, and do all that is required of her. What are we to
+do?’ ”
+
+At last Callista’s friends prevailed. It was decided that the judges
+should pass over this examination altogether, as if it had been rendered
+informal by Callista’s conduct. Had they recognised it as a proper legal
+process, they must have sentenced and executed her. Such a decision was of
+this further advantage to her, that nothing was altered as to her place of
+confinement. Instead of being handed over to the state prison, she
+remained in her former lodging, though in custody, and was allowed to see
+her friends. There had been very little chance of her recovery, supposing
+she was mad, or of ever coming out, if she had once gone into the
+formidable _Carcer_. Meanwhile the magistrates sent to Carthage for
+instructions.
+
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+                               A SICK CALL.
+
+
+Aristo was not a fellow to have very long distresses; he never would have
+died of love or of envy, for honour or for loss of property; but his
+present calamity was one of the greatest he could ever have, and weighed
+upon him as long as ever any one could. His love for his sister was real,
+but it would not do to look too closely into the grounds of it; if we are
+obliged to do so, we must confess to a suspicion that it lay rather in
+certain outward, nay, accidental attributes of Callista, than in Callista
+herself. Did she lose her good looks, or her amiable unresisting
+submission to his wishes, whatever they were, she would also lose her hold
+upon his affections. This is not to make any severe charge against him,
+considering how it is with the common run of brothers and sisters,
+husbands and wives; at the same time, most people certainly are haunted by
+the memory of the past, and love for “Auld lang syne,” and this Aristo
+might indeed have had, and perhaps had not. He loved chiefly for the
+present, and by the hour.
+
+However, at the present time he was in a state of acute suffering, and,
+under its paroxysm, he bethought him again of Cornelius’s advice, which he
+had rejected, to betake himself to Polemo. He had a distant acquaintance
+with him, sufficient for his purpose, and he called on him at the Mercury
+after the latter’s lecture. Polemo was no fool, though steeped in
+affectation and self-conceit, and Aristo fancied that his sister might be
+more moved by a philosophical compatriot than any one else. Polemo’s
+astonishment, however, when the matter was proposed to him surpassed
+words, and it showed how utterly Aristo was absorbed in his own misery,
+that the possibility of such a reception should not have occurred to him.
+What, he, the friend of Plotinus, of Rogatian, and the other noble men and
+women who were his fellow-disciples at Rome; he, a member of the
+intellectual aristocracy of the metropolis of the world; what, he to visit
+a felon in prison! and when he found the felon was a Christian, he fully
+thought that Aristo had come to insult him, and was on the point of
+bidding him leave him to himself. Aristo, however, persisted; and his
+evident anguish, and some particulars which came out, softened him.
+Callista was a Greek; a literate, or blue stocking. She had never indeed
+worn the philosophic pallium (as some Christian martyrs afterwards, if not
+before, have done—St. Catherine and St. Euphemia), but there was no reason
+why she should not do so. Polemo recollected having heard of her at the
+Capitol, and in the triclinium of one of the Decurions, as a lady of
+singular genius and attainments; and he lately had made an attempt to form
+a female class of hearers, and it would be a feather in his cap to make a
+convert of her. So, not many days after, one evening, accompanied by
+Aristo, he set out in his litter to the lodging where she was in custody;
+not, however, without much misgiving when it came to the point, some
+shame, and a consequent visible awkwardness and stiffness in his manner.
+All the perfumes he had about him could not hinder the disgust of such a
+visit rising up into his nostrils.
+
+Callista’s room was very well for a prison; it was on the ground-floor of
+a house of many stories, close to the _Officium_ of the Triumvirate.
+Though not any longer under their strict jurisdiction, she was allowed to
+remain where she had first been lodged. She was in one of the rooms
+belonging to an apparitor of that _Officium_, and, as he had a wife, or at
+least a partner, to take care of her, she might consider herself very well
+off. However, the reader must recollect that we are in Africa, in the
+month of July, and our young Greek was little used to heats, which made
+the whole city nothing less than one vast oven through the greater part of
+the twenty-four hours. In lofty spacious apartments the resource adopted
+is to exclude the external air, and to live as Greenlanders, with closed
+windows and doors; this was both impossible, and would have been
+unsuccessful, if attempted in the small apartment of Callista. But fever
+of mind is even worse than the heat of the sky; and it is undeniable that
+her health, and her strength, and her appearance are affected by both the
+physical and the moral enemy. The beauty, which was her brother’s delight,
+is waning away; and the shadows, if not the rudiments of a diviner
+loveliness, which is of expression, not of feature, which inspires not
+human passion, but diffuses chaste thoughts and aspirations, are taking
+its place. Aristo sees the change with no kind of satisfaction. The room
+has a bench, two or three stools, and a bed of rushes in one corner. A
+staple is firmly fixed in the wall; and an iron chain, light, however, and
+long, if the two ideas can be reconciled, reaches to her slender arm, and
+is joined to it by an iron ring.
+
+On Polemo’s entering the room, his first exclamation was to complain of
+its closeness; but he had to do a work, so he began it without delay.
+Callista, on her part, started; she had no wish for his presence. She was
+reclining on her couch, and she sat up. She was not equal to a
+controversy, nor did she mean to have one, whatever might be the case with
+_him_.
+
+“Callista, my life and joy, dear Callista,” said her brother, “I have
+brought the greatest man in Sicca to see you.”
+
+Callista cast upon him an earnest look, which soon subsided into
+indifference. He had a rose of Cyrene in his hand, whose perfume he
+diffused about the small room.
+
+“It is Polemo,” continued Aristo, “the friend of the great Plotinus, who
+knows all philosophies and all philosophers. He has come out of kindness
+to you.”
+
+Callista acknowledged his presence; it was certainly, she said, a great
+kindness for any one to visit her, and there.
+
+Polemo replied by a compliment; he said it was Socrates visiting Aspasia.
+There had always been women above the standard of their sex, and they had
+ever held an intellectual converse with men of mind. He saw one such
+before him.
+
+Callista felt it would be plunging her soul still deeper into shadows,
+when she sought realities, if she must take part in such an argument. She
+remained silent.
+
+“Your sister has not the fit upon her?” asked Polemo of Aristo aside,
+neither liking her reception of him, nor knowing what to say. “Not at all,
+dear thing,” answered Aristo; “she is all attention for you to begin.”
+
+“Natives of Greece,” at length said he, “natives of Greece should know
+each other; they deserve to know each other; there is a secret sympathy
+between them. Like that mysterious influence which unites magnet to
+magnet; or like the echo which is a repercussion of the original voice.
+So, in like manner, Greeks are what none but they can be,” and he smelt at
+his rose and bowed.
+
+She smiled faintly when he mentioned Greece. “Yes,” she said, “I am fonder
+of Greece than of Africa.”
+
+“Each has its advantages,” said Polemo; “there is a pleasure in imparting
+knowledge, in lighting flame from flame. It would be selfish did we not
+leave Greece to communicate what they have not here. But you,” he added,
+“lady, neither can learn in Greece nor teach in Africa, while you are in
+this vestibule of Orcus. I understand, however, it is your own choice; can
+that be possible?”
+
+“Well, I wish to get out, if I could, most learned Polemo,” said Callista
+sadly.
+
+“May Polemo of Rhodes speak frankly to Callista of Proconnesus?” asked
+Polemo. “I would not speak to every one. If so, let me ask, what keeps you
+here?”
+
+“The magistrates of Sicca and this iron chain,” answered Callista. “I
+would I could be elsewhere; I would I were not what I am.”
+
+“What could you wish to be more than you are?” answered Polemo; “more
+gifted, accomplished, beautiful than any daughter of Africa.”
+
+“Go to the point, Polemo,” said Aristo, nervously, though respectfully;
+“she wants home-thrusts.”
+
+“I see my brother wants you to ask how far it depends on me that I am
+here,” said Callista, wishing to hasten his movements; “it is because I
+will not burn incense upon the altar of Jupiter.”
+
+“A most insufficient reason, lady,” said Polemo.
+
+Callista was silent.
+
+“What does that action mean?” said Polemo; “it proposes to mean nothing
+else than that you are loyal to the Roman power. You are not of those
+Greeks, I presume, who dream of a national insurrection at this time? then
+you are loyal to Rome. Did I believe a Leonidas could now arise, an
+Harmodius, a Miltiades, a Themistocles, a Pericles, an Epaminondas, I
+should be as ready to take the sword as another; but it is hopeless.
+Greece, then, makes no claim on you just now. Nor will I believe, though
+you were to tell me so yourself, that you are leagued with any obscure,
+fanatic sect who desire Rome’s downfall. Consider what Rome is;” and now
+he had got into the magnificent commonplace, out of his last panegyrical
+oration with which he had primed himself before he set out. “I am a
+Greek,” he said, “I love Greece, but I love truth better; and I look at
+facts. I grasp them, and I confess to them. The wide earth, through untold
+centuries, has at length grown into the imperial dominion of One. It has
+converged and coalesced in all its various parts into one Rome. This,
+which we see, is the last, the perfect state of human society. The course
+of things, the force of natural powers, as is well understood by all great
+lawyers and philosophers, cannot go further. Unity has come at length, and
+unity is eternity. It will be for ever, because it is a whole. The
+principle of dissolution is eliminated. We have reached the _apotelesma_
+of the world. Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Libya, Etruria, Lydia, have all had
+their share in the result. Each of them, in its own day, has striven in
+vain to stop the course of fate, and has been hurried onwards at its
+wheels as its victim or its instrument. And shall Judæa do what profound
+Egypt and subtle Greece have tried in vain? If even the freedom of
+thought, the liberal scepticism, nay, the revolutionary theories of Hellas
+have proved unequal to the task of splitting up the Roman power, if the
+pomp and luxury of the East have failed, shall the mysticism of Syria
+succeed?”
+
+“Well, dear Callista, are you listening?” cried Aristo, not over-confident
+of the fact, though Polemo looked round at him with astonishment.
+
+“Ten centuries,” he continued, “ten centuries have just been completed
+since Rome began her victorious career. For ten centuries she has been
+fulfilling her high mission in the dispositions of Destiny, and perfecting
+her maxims of policy and rules of government. For ten centuries she has
+pursued one track with an ever-growing intensity of zeal, and an
+ever-widening extent of territory. What can she not do? just one thing;
+and that one thing which she has not presumed to do, you are attempting.
+She has maintained her own religion, as was fitting; but she has never
+thrown contempt on the religion of others. This you are doing. Observe,
+Callista, Rome herself, in spite of her great power, has yielded to that
+necessity which is greater. She does not meddle with the religions of the
+peoples. She has opened no war against their diversities of rite. The
+conquering power found, especially in the East, innumerable traditions,
+customs, prejudices, principles, superstitions, matted together in one
+hopeless mass; she left them as they were; she recognised them; it would
+have been the worse for her if she had done otherwise. All she said to the
+peoples, all she dared say to them, was, ‘You bear with me, and I will
+bear with you.’ Yet this you will not do; you Christians, who have no
+pretence to any territory, who are not even the smallest of the peoples,
+who are not even a people at all, you have the fanaticism to denounce all
+other rites but your own, nay, the religion of great Rome. Who are you?
+upstarts and vagabonds of yesterday. Older religions than yours, more
+intellectual, more beautiful religions, which have had a position, and a
+history, and a political influence, have come to nought; and shall you
+prevail, you, a _congeries_, a hotch-potch of the leavings, and scraps,
+and broken meat of the great peoples of the East and West? Blush, blush,
+Grecian Callista, you with a glorious nationality of your own to go shares
+with some hundred peasants, slaves, thieves, beggars, hucksters, tinkers,
+cobblers, and fishermen! A lady of high character, of brilliant
+accomplishments, to be the associate of the outcasts of society!”
+
+Polemo’s speech, though cumbrous, did execution, at least the termination
+of it, upon minds constituted like the Grecian. Aristo jumped up, swore an
+oath, and looked round triumphantly at Callista, who felt its force also.
+After all, what did she know of Christians?—at best she was leaving the
+known for the unknown: she was sure to be embracing certain evil for
+contingent good. She said to herself, “No, I never can be a Christian.”
+Then she said aloud, “My Lord Polemo, I am not a Christian;—I never said I
+was.”
+
+“That is her absurdity!” cried Aristo. “She is neither one thing nor the
+other. She won’t say she’s a Christian, and she won’t sacrifice!”
+
+“It is my misfortune,” she said, “I know. I am losing both what I see, and
+what I don’t see. It is most inconsistent: yet what can I do?”
+
+Polemo had said what he considered enough. He was one of those who sold
+his words. He had already been over-generous, and was disposed to give
+away no more.
+
+After a time, Callista said, “Polemo, do you believe in one God?”
+
+“Certainly,” he answered; “I believe in one eternal, self-existing
+something.”
+
+“Well,” she said, “I feel that God within my heart. I feel myself in His
+presence. He says to me, ‘Do this: don’t do that,’ You may tell me that
+this dictate is a mere law of my nature, as is to joy or to grieve. I
+cannot understand this. No, it is the echo of a person speaking to me.
+Nothing shall persuade me that it does not ultimately proceed from a
+person external to me. It carries with it its proof of its divine origin.
+My nature feels towards it as towards a person. When I obey it, I feel a
+satisfaction; when I disobey, a soreness—just like that which I feel in
+pleasing or offending some revered friend. So you see, Polemo, I believe
+in what is more than a mere ‘something.’ I believe in what is more real to
+me than sun, moon, stars, and the fair earth, and the voice of friends.
+You will say, Who is He? Has He ever told you anything about Himself?
+Alas! no!—the more’s the pity! But I will not give up what I have, because
+I have not more. An echo implies a voice; a voice a speaker. That speaker
+I love and I fear.”
+
+Here she was exhausted, and overcome too, poor Callista! with her own
+emotions.
+
+“O that I could find Him!” she exclaimed, passionately. “On the right hand
+and on the left I grope, but touch Him not. Why dost Thou fight against
+me?—why dost Thou scare and perplex me, O First and Only Fair? I have Thee
+not, and I need Thee.” She added, “I am no Christian, you see, or I should
+have found Him; or at least I should say I had found Him.”
+
+“It is hopeless,” said Polemo to Aristo, in much disgust, and with some
+hauteur of manner: “she is too far gone. You should not have brought me to
+this place.”
+
+Aristo groaned.
+
+“Shall I,” she continued, “worship any but Him? Shall I say that He whom I
+see not, whom I seek, is our Jupiter, or Cæsar, or the goddess Rome? They
+are none of them images of this inward guide of mine. I sacrifice to Him
+alone.”
+
+The two men looked at each other in amazement: one of them in anger.
+
+“It’s like the demon of Socrates,” said Aristo, timidly.
+
+“I will acknowledge Cæsar in every fitting way,” she repeated; “but I will
+not make him my God.”
+
+Presently she added, “Polemo, will not that invisible Monitor have
+something to say to all of us,—to you,—at some future day?”
+
+“Spare me! spare me, Callista!” cried Polemo, starting up with a violence
+unsuited to his station and profession. “Spare my ears, unhappy
+woman!—such words have never hitherto entered them. I did not come to be
+insulted. Poor, blind, hapless, perverse spirit—I separate myself from you
+for ever! Desert, if you will, the majestic, bright, beneficent traditions
+of your forefathers, and live in this frightful superstition! Farewell!”
+
+He did not seem better pleased with Aristo than with Callista, though
+Aristo helped him into his litter, walked by his side, and did what he
+could to propitiate him.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+                               CONVERSION.
+
+
+If there is a state of mind utterly forlorn, it is that in which we left
+the poor prisoner after Polemo had departed. She was neither a Christian,
+nor was she not. She was in the midway region of inquiry, which as surely
+takes time to pass over, except there be some almost miraculous
+interference, as it takes time to walk from place to place. You see a
+person coming towards you, and you say, impatiently, “Why don’t you come
+faster?—why are you not here already?” Why?—because it takes time. To see
+that heathenism is false,—to see that Christianity is true,—are two acts,
+and involve two processes. They may indeed be united, and the truth may
+supplant the error; but they may not. Callista obeyed, as far as truth was
+brought home to her. She saw the vanity of idols before she had faith in
+Him who came to destroy them. She could safely say, “I discard Jupiter:”
+she could not say, “I am a Christian.” Besides, what did she know of
+Christians? How did she know that they would admit her, if she wished it?
+They were a secret society, with an election, an initiation, and
+oaths;—not a mere philosophical school, or a profession of opinion, open
+to any individual. If they were the good people that she fancied them to
+be,—and if they were not, she would not think of them at all,—they were
+not likely to accept of her.
+
+Still, though we may account for her conduct, its issue was not, on that
+account, the less painful. She had neither the promise of this world, nor
+of the next, and was losing earth without gaining heaven. Our Lord is
+reported to have said, “Be ye good money-changers.” Poor Callista did not
+know how to turn herself to account. It had been so all through her short
+life. She had ardent affections, and keen sensibilities, and high
+aspirations; but she was not fortunate in the application of them. She had
+put herself into her brother’s hands, and had let him direct her course.
+It could not be expected that he would be very different from the world.
+We are cautioned against “rejoicing in our youth.” Aristo rejoiced in his
+without restraint; and he made his sister rejoice in hers, if enjoyment it
+was. He himself found in the pleasures he pointed out a banquet of
+fruits:—she dust and ashes. And so she went on; not changing her life,
+from habit, from the captivity of nature, but weary, disappointed,
+fastidious, hungry, yet not knowing what she would have; yearning after
+something, she did not well know what. And as heretofore she had cast her
+lot with the world, yet had received no price for her adhesion, so now she
+had bid it farewell; yet had nothing to take in its place.
+
+As to her brother, after the visit of Polemo, he got more and more
+annoyed—angry rather than distressed, and angry with her. One more
+opportunity occurred of her release, and it was the last effort he made to
+move her. Cornelius, in spite of his pomposity, had acted the part of a
+real friend. He wrote from Carthage, that he had happily succeeded in his
+application to government, and, difficult and unusual as was the grace,
+had obtained her release. He sent the formal documents for carrying it
+through the court, and gained the eager benediction of the excitable
+Aristo. He rushed with the parchments to the magistrates, who recognised
+them as sufficient, and got an order for admission to her room.
+
+“Joy, my dearest,” he cried; “you are free! We will leave this loathsome
+country by the first vessel. I have seen the magistrates already.”
+
+The colour came into her wan face, she clasped her hands together, and
+looked earnestly at Aristo. He proceeded to explain the process of
+liberation. She would not be called on to sacrifice, but must sign a
+writing to the effect that she had done so, and there would be an end of
+the whole matter. On the first statement she saw no difficulty in the
+proposal, and started up in animation. Presently her countenance fell; how
+could she say that she had done what it was treason to her inward Guide to
+do? What was the difference between acknowledging a blasphemy by a
+signature or by incense? She smiled sorrowfully at him, shook her head,
+and lay down again upon her rushes. She had anticipated the Church’s
+judgment on the case of the _Libellatici_.
+
+Aristo could not at first believe he heard aright, that she refused to be
+saved by what seemed to him a matter of legal form; and his anger grew so
+high as to eclipse and to shake his affection. “Lost girl,” he cried, “I
+abandon you to the Furies!” and he shook his clenched hand at her. He
+turned away, and said he would never see her again, and he kept his word.
+He never came again. He took refuge, with less restraint than was usual to
+him, in such pleasures as the city could supply, and strove to drive his
+sister from his mind by dissipation. He mixed in the games of the Campus
+Martius under the shadow of the mountain; took part with the revellers in
+the Forum, and ended the evening at the Thermæ. Sometimes the image of
+dear Callista, as once she looked, would rush into his mind with a force
+which would not be denied, and he would weep for a whole night.
+
+At length he determined to destroy himself, after the example of so many
+great men. He gave a sumptuous entertainment, expending his means upon it,
+and invited his friends to partake of it. It passed off with great gaiety;
+nothing was wanting to make it equal to an occasion so special and
+singular. He disclosed to his guests his purpose, and they applauded; the
+last libations were made—the revellers departed—the lights were
+extinguished. Aristo disappeared that night: Sicca never saw him again.
+After some time it was found that he was at Carthage, and he had been
+provident enough to take with him some of his best working tools, and some
+specimens of his own and poor Callista’s skill.
+
+Strange to say, Jucundus proved a truer friend to the poor girl than her
+brother. In spite of his selfishness and hatred of Christians, he was
+considerably affected as her case got more and more serious, and it became
+evident that only one answer could be returned to the magistrates from
+Carthage. He was quite easy about Agellius, who had, as he considered,
+successfully made off with himself, and he was reconciled to the thought
+of never seeing him again. Had it not been for this, one might have
+fancied that some lurking anxiety about the fate of his nephew might have
+kept alive the fidget which Callista’s dismal situation gave him, for the
+philosopher tells us, that pity always has something in it of self; but,
+under the circumstances, it would be rash judgment to have any such
+suspicion of his motives. He was not a cruel man: even the “hoary-headed
+Fabian,” or Cyprian, or others whom he so roundly abused, would have
+found, when it came to the point, that his bluster was his worst weapon
+against them; at any rate he had enough of the “milk of human kindness” to
+feel considerable distress about that idiotic Callista.
+
+Yet what could he do? He might as well stop the passage of the sun, as the
+movements of mighty Rome, and a rescript would be coming to a certainty in
+due time from Carthage, and would just say one thing, which would
+forthwith be passing into the region of fact. He had no one to consult,
+and to tell the truth, Callista’s fate was more than acquiesced in by the
+public of Sicca. Her death seemed a solution of various perplexities and
+troubles into which the edict had brought them; it would be purchasing the
+praise of loyalty cheaply. Moreover, there were sets of men actually
+hostile to her and her brother; the companies of statuaries, lapidaries,
+and goldsmiths, were jealous of foreign artists like them, who showed
+contempt for Africa, and who were acquainted, or rather intimate, with
+many of the higher classes, and even high personages in the place. Well,
+but could not some of those great people help her now? His mind glanced
+towards Calphurnius, whom he had heard of as in some way or other
+protecting her on the evening of the riot, and to him he determined to
+betake himself.
+
+Calphurnius and the soldiery were still in high dudgeon with the populace
+of Sicca, displeased with the magistrates, and full of sympathy for
+Callista. Jucundus opened his mind fully to the tribune, and persuaded him
+to take him to Septimius, his military superior, and in the presence of
+the latter many good words were uttered both by Calphurnius and Jucundus.
+Jucundus gave it as his opinion that it was a very great mistake to strike
+at any but the leaders of the Christian sect; he quoted the story of King
+Tarquin and the poppies, and assured the great man that it was what he had
+always said and always prophesied, and that, depend upon it, it was a
+great mistake not to catch Cyprianus.
+
+“The strong arm of the law,” he said, “should not, on the other hand, be
+put forth against such butterflies as this Callista, a girl who, he knew
+from her brother, had not yet seen eighteen summers. What harm could such
+a poor helpless thing possibly do? She could not even defend herself, much
+less attack anybody else. No,” he continued, “your proper policy with
+these absurd people is a smiling face and an open hand. Recollect the
+fable of the sun and the wind; which made the traveller lay aside his
+cloak? Do you fall in with some sour-visaged, stiff-backed worshipper of
+the Furies? fill his cup for him, crown his head with flowers, bring in
+the flute-women. Observe him—he relaxes; a smile spreads on his
+countenance; he laughs at a jest; ‘captus est; habet:’ he pours a
+libation. Great Jove has conquered! he is loyal to Rome; what can you
+desire more? But beat him, kick him, starve him, turn him out of doors;
+and you have a natural enemy to do you a mischief whenever he can.”
+
+Calphurnius took his own line, and a simple one. “If it was some vile
+slave or scoundrel African,” he said, “no harm would have been done; but,
+by Jupiter Tonans, it’s a Greek girl, who sings like a Muse, dances like a
+Grace, and spouts verses like Minerva. ’Twould be sacrilege to touch a
+hair of her head; and we forsooth are to let these cowardly dogs of
+magistrates entrap Fortunianus at Carthage into this solecism.”
+
+Septimius said nothing, as became a man in office; but he came to an
+understanding with his visitors. It was plain that the Duumvirs of Sicca
+had no legal custody of Callista; in a criminal matter she might seem to
+fall under the jurisdiction of the military; and Calphurnius gained leave
+to claim his right at the proper moment. The rest of his plan the tribune
+kept to himself, nor did Septimius wish to know it. He intended to march a
+guard into the prison shortly before Callista was brought out for
+execution, and then to make it believed that she had died under the
+horrors of the Barathrum. The corpse of another woman could without
+difficulty be found to be her representative, and she herself would be
+carried off to the camp.
+
+
+
+Meanwhile, to return to the prisoner herself, what was the consolation,
+what the occupation of Callista in this waiting time, ere the Proconsul
+had sent his answer? Strange to say, and, we suppose, from a sinful
+waywardness in her, she had, up to this moment, neglected to avail herself
+of a treasure, which by a rare favour had been put into her possession. A
+small parchment, carefully written, elaborately adorned, lay in her bosom,
+which might already have been the remedy of many a perplexity, many a woe.
+It is difficult to say under what feelings she had been reluctant to open
+the Holy Gospel, which Cæcilius had intrusted to her care. Whether she was
+so low and despondent that she could not make the effort, or whether she
+feared to convince herself further, or whether she professed to be waiting
+for some calmer time, as if that were possible, or whether her
+unwillingness was that which makes sick people so averse to eating, or to
+remedies which they know would be useful to them, cannot well be
+determined; but there are many of us who may be able, from parallel
+instances of infirmity, to enter into that state of mind, which led her at
+least to procrastinate what she might do any minute. However, now left
+absolutely to herself, Aristo gone, and the answer of the government to
+the magistracy not having yet come, she recurred to the parchment, and to
+the Bishop’s words, which ran, “Here you will see who it is we love,” or
+language to that effect. It was tightly lodged under her girdle, and so
+had escaped in the confusion of that terrible evening. She opened it at
+length and read.
+
+It was the writing of a provincial Greek; elegant, however, and marked
+with that simplicity which was to her taste the elementary idea of a
+classic author. It was addressed to one Theophilus, and professed to be a
+carefully digested and verified account of events which had been already
+attempted by others. She read a few paragraphs, and became interested, and
+in no long time she was absorbed in the volume. When she had once taken it
+up, she did not lay it down. Even at other times she would have prized it,
+but now, when she was so desolate and lonely, it was simply a gift from an
+unseen world. It opened a view of a new state and community of beings,
+which only seemed too beautiful to be possible. But not into a new state
+of things alone, but into the presence of One who was simply distinct and
+removed from anything that she had, in her most imaginative moments, ever
+depicted to her mind as ideal perfection. Here was that to which her
+intellect tended, though that intellect could not frame it. It could
+approve and acknowledge, when set before it, what it could not originate.
+Here was He who spoke to her in her conscience; whose Voice she heard,
+whose Person she was seeking for. Here was He who kindled a warmth on the
+cheek of both Chione and Agellius. That image sank deep into her; she felt
+it to be a reality. She said to herself, “This is no poet’s dream; it is
+the delineation of a real individual. There is too much truth and nature,
+and life and exactness about it, to be anything else.” Yet she shrank from
+it; it made her feel her own difference from it, and a feeling of
+humiliation came upon her mind, such as she never had had before. She
+began to despise herself more thoroughly day by day; yet she recollected
+various passages in the history which reassured her amid her
+self-abasement, especially that of His tenderness and love for the poor
+girl at the feast, who would anoint His feet; and the full tears stood in
+her eyes, and she fancied she was that sinful child, and that He did not
+repel her.
+
+O what a new world of thought she had entered! it occupied her mind from
+its very novelty. Everything looked dull and dim by the side of it; her
+brother had ever been dinning into her ears that maxim of the heathen,
+“Enjoy the present, trust nothing to the future.” She indeed could not
+enjoy the present with that relish which he wished, and she had not any
+trust in the future either; but this volume spoke a different doctrine.
+There she learned the very opposite to what Aristo taught—viz., that the
+present must be sacrificed for the future; that what is seen must give way
+to what is believed. Nay, more, she drank in the teaching which at first
+seemed so paradoxical, that even present happiness and present greatness
+lie in relinquishing what at first sight seems to promise them; that the
+way to true pleasure is, not through self-indulgence, but through
+mortification; that the way to power is weakness, the way to success
+failure, the way to wisdom foolishness, the way to glory dishonour. She
+saw that there was a higher beauty than that which the order and harmony
+of the natural world revealed, and a deeper peace and calm than that which
+the exercise, whether of the intellect or of the purest human affection,
+can supply. She now began to understand that strange, unearthly composure,
+which had struck her in Chione, Agellius, and Cæcilius; she understood
+that they were detached from the world, not because they had not the
+possession, nor the natural love of its gifts, but because they possessed
+a higher blessing already, which they loved above everything else. Thus,
+by degrees, Callista came to walk by a new philosophy; and had ideas, and
+principles, and a sense of relations and aims, and a susceptibility of
+arguments, to which before she was an utter stranger. Life and death,
+action and suffering, fortunes and abilities, all had now a new meaning
+and application. As the skies speak differently to the philosopher and the
+peasant, as a book of poems to the imaginative and to the cold and narrow
+intellect, so now she saw her being, her history, her present condition,
+her future, in a new light, which no one else could share with her. But
+the ruling sovereign thought of the whole was He, who exemplified all this
+wonderful philosophy in Himself.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+                              TORRES VEDRAS.
+
+
+There were those, however, whom Callista could understand, and who could
+understand her; there were those who, while Aristo, Cornelius, Jucundus,
+and Polemo were moving in her behalf, were interesting themselves also in
+her, and in a more effectual way. Agellius had joined Cæcilius, and, if in
+no other way, by his mouth came to the latter and his companions the news
+of her imprisonment. On the morning that Agellius had been so strangely
+let out of confinement by his brother, and found himself seated at the
+street-door, with his tunic on his arm and his boots on the ground before
+him, his first business was to recollect where he was, and to dispose of
+those articles of dress according to their respective uses. What should he
+do with himself, was of course his second thought. He could not stay there
+long without encountering the early risers of Sicca, the gates being
+already open. To attempt to find out where Callista was, and then to see
+her or rescue her, would have ended at once in his own capture. To go to
+his own farm would have been nearly as dangerous, and would have had less
+meaning. Cæcilius too had said, that they were not long to be separated,
+and had given him directions for finding him.
+
+Immediately then he made his way to one of the eastern gates, which led to
+Thibursicumbur. There was indeed no time to be lost, as he soon had
+indications; he met several men who knew him by sight, and one of the
+apparitors of the Duumviri, who happily did not. An apostate Christian,
+whose zeal for the government was notorious, passed him and looked back
+after him. However, he would soon be out of pursuit, if he had the start
+of them until the sun got round the mountains he was seeking. He walked on
+through a series of rocky and barren hills, till he got some way past the
+second milestone. Before he had reached the third he had entered a defile
+in the mountains. Perpendicular rocks rose on each side of him, and the
+level road, reaching from rock to rock, was not above thirty feet across.
+He felt that if he was pursued here, there was no escape. The third
+milestone passed, he came to the country road; he pursued it, counting out
+his thousand steps, as Cæcilius had instructed him. By this time it had
+left the stony bottom, and was rising up the side of the precipice.
+Brushwood and dwarf pines covered it, mingled with a few olives and
+caroubas. He said out his seven pater nosters as he walked, and then
+looked around. He had just passed a goatherd, and they looked hard at each
+other. Agellius wished him good morning.
+
+“You are wishing a kid for Bacchus, sir,” said the man to him as he was
+running his eye over the goats. On Agellius answering in the negative, he
+said in a clownish way, “He who does not sacrifice to Bacchus does not
+sacrifice goats.”
+
+Agellius, bearing in mind Cæcilius’s directions, saw of course there was
+something in the words which did not meet the ear, and answered
+carelessly, “He who does not sacrifice, does not sacrifice to Bacchus.”
+
+“True,” said the man, “but perhaps you prefer a lamb for a sacrifice.”
+
+Agellius replied, “If it is the right one; but the one I mean was slain
+long since.”
+
+The man, without any change of manner, went on to say that there was an
+acquaintance of his not far up the rock, who could perhaps satisfy him on
+the point. He said, “Follow those wild olives, though the path seems
+broken, and you will come to him at the nineteenth.”
+
+Agellius set out, and never was path so untrue to its own threats. It
+seemed ending in abrupt cliffs every turn, but never fulfilled the
+anticipation; that is, while he kept to the olive-trees. After ascending
+what was rather a flight of marble steps, washed and polished by the
+winter torrents, than a series of crags, he fulfilled the number of trees,
+and looked round at the man sitting under it. O the joy and surprise! it
+was his old servant Aspar.
+
+“You are safe, then, Aspar,” he said, “and I find you here. O what a
+tender Providence!”
+
+“I have taken my stand here, master,” returned Aspar, “day after day,
+since I got here, in hopes of seeing you. I could not get back to you from
+Jucundus’s that dreadful morning, and so I made my way here. Your uncle
+sent for you in my presence, but at the time I did not know what it meant.
+I was able to escape.”
+
+“And now for Cæcilius,” said Agellius.
+
+Behind the olive-tree a torrent’s bed descended; the descent being so
+easy, and yet so natural, that art had evidently interfered with nature,
+yet concealed its interference. After tracing it some yards, they came to
+a chasm on the opposite side; and, passing through it, Agellius soon found
+himself, to his surprise, on a bleak open hill, to which the huge mountain
+formed merely a sort of _façade_. Its surface was half rock, half moor,
+and it was surrounded by precipices. It was such a place as some hermit of
+the middle ages might have chosen for his solitude. The two walked briskly
+across it, and at length came to a low, broad yawning opening, branching
+out into several passages which, if pursued, would have been found to end
+in nothing. Aspar, however, made straight for what appeared a dead wall of
+rock, in which, on his making a signal, a door, skilfully hidden, was
+opened from within, and was shut behind them by the porter. They now stood
+in a gallery running into the mountain. It was very long, and a stream of
+cold air came along it. Aspar told him that at the extremity of it they
+should find Cæcilius.
+
+Agellius was indeed in the vestibule of a remarkable specimen of those
+caves which had been used for religious purposes, first by the aborigines
+of the country, then by the Phœnician colonists, and in the centuries
+which had just passed, for the concealment of the Christians. The passage
+along which they were proceeding might itself be fitly called a cave, but
+still it was only one of several natural subterraneans, of different
+shapes, and opening into each other. Some of them lay along the face of a
+ravine, from which they received light and air; and here in one place
+there were indications of a fortified front. They were perfectly dry,
+though the water had at some remote period filtered through the roof, and
+had formed pendants and pillars of semi-transparent stalactite, of great
+beauty. It was another and singular advantage that a particular spot in
+one of the caverns, which bordered on the ravine, was the focus of an
+immense ear or whispering-gallery, such, that whatever took place in the
+public road in which the ravine terminated, could be distinctly heard
+there, and thus they were always kept on guard against the attack of an
+enemy, if expected. Had either Agellius or Aspar been curious about such a
+matter, the latter might have pointed out the place where a Punic altar
+once had been discovered, with a sort of _tumulus_ of bones of mice near
+at hand, that animal coming into the list of victims in the Phœnician
+worship.
+
+But the two Christians were engaged, as they first halted, and then walked
+along the corridor, in other thoughts, than in asking and answering
+questions about the history of the place of refuge in which they found
+themselves. We have already remarked on the central position of Sicca for
+the purpose of missionary work and of retreat in persecution; such a
+dwelling in the rocks did but increase its advantageousness, and in
+consequence at this moment many Christians had availed themselves of it.
+It is an English proverb that three removes are as bad as a fire; and so
+great were the perils and the hardships of flight in those times, that it
+was a question, in a merely earthly point of view, whether the risk of
+being apprehended at home was not a far less evil than the evils which
+were certain upon leaving it. There was nothing, then, ungenerous in the
+ecclesiastical rule that they alone should flee, in persecution, who were
+marked out for death, if they stayed. The laity, private families, and the
+priests, on whose ministrations they depended, remained; bishops, deacons,
+and what may be called the staff of the episcopate, notaries, messengers,
+seminarists, and ascetics, would disappear from the scene of persecution.
+
+Agellius learned from his slave that the cave had been known to him from
+the time he was a boy, and that it was one of the secrets which all who
+shared it religiously observed. Holy men, it seemed, had had intimations
+of the present trial for several years past; and it was the full
+persuasion of the heads of the Church, that, though it might blow over for
+a short time, it would recur at intervals for many years, ending in a
+visitation so heavy and long, that the times of Antichrist would seem to
+have arrived. However, the impression upon their minds was, that then
+would come a millennium, or, in some sort, a reign of the saints upon the
+earth. That, however, was a date which even Agellius himself, young as he
+was, would not be likely to reach; indeed, who could expect to escape, who
+might not hope to gain, a Martyr’s death, in the interval, in the series
+of assaults, between which Christianity had to run the gauntlet? Aspar
+said, moreover, that some martyrs lay in the chapels within, and that
+various confessors had ended their days there. At the present time there
+were representatives, there collected, of a large portion of the Churches
+of the Proconsulate. A post, so to call it, went between them and Carthage
+every week, and his friend and father, the bishop of that city, was
+especially busy in correspondence.
+
+Moreover, Agellius learned from him that they had many partisans,
+well-wishers, and sympathizers, about the country, whom no one suspected;
+the families of parents who had conformed to the established worship, nay,
+sometimes the apostates themselves, and that this was the case in Sicca as
+well as elsewhere. For himself, old and ignorant as he was, the
+persecution had proved to him an education. He had been brought near great
+men, and some who, he was confident, would be martyrs in the event. He had
+learned a great deal about his religion which he did not know before, and
+had drunk in the spirit of Christianity, with a fulness which he trusted
+would not turn to his ultimate condemnation. He now too had a
+consciousness of the size and populousness of the Church, of her
+diffusion, of the promises made to her, of the essential necessity of what
+seemed to be misfortune, of the episcopal regimen, and of the power and
+solidity of the see of Peter afar off in Rome, all which knowledge had
+made him quite another being. We have put all this into finer language
+than the good old man used himself, and we have grouped it more exactly,
+but this is what his words would come to, when explained.
+
+Coming down to sublunary matters, Aspar said the cave was well
+provisioned; they had bread, oil, figs, dried grapes, and wine. They had
+vessels and vestments for the Holy Sacrifice. Their serious want was a
+dearth of water at that season, but they relied on Divine Providence to
+give them by miracle, if in no other way, a supply. The place was
+piercingly cold too in the winter.
+
+By this time they had gained the end of the long gallery, and passed
+through a second apartment, when suddenly the sounds of the ecclesiastical
+chant burst on the ear of Agellius. How strange, how transporting to him!
+he was almost for the first time coming home to his father’s house, though
+he had been a Christian from a child, and never, as he trusted, to leave
+it, now that it was found. He did not know how to behave himself, nor
+indeed where to go. Aspar conducted him into the seats set apart for the
+faithful; he knelt down and burst into tears.
+
+It was approaching the third hour, the hour at which the Paraclete
+originally descended upon the Apostles, and which, when times of
+persecution were passed, was appointed in the West for the solemn mass of
+the day. In that early age, indeed, the time of the solemnity was
+generally midnight, in order to elude observation; but even then such an
+hour was considered of but temporary arrangement. Pope Telesphorus is said
+to have prescribed the hour, afterwards in use, as early even as the
+second century; and in a place of such quiet and security as the cavern in
+which we just now find ourselves, there was no reason why it should not be
+selected. At the lower end of the chapel was a rail extending across it,
+and open in the middle, where its two portions turned up at right angles
+on each side towards the altar. The enclosure thus made was the place
+proper for the faithful, into which Agellius had been introduced, and
+about fifty persons were collected about him. Where the two side-rails
+which ran up the chapel ceased, there was a broad step; and upon it two
+pulpits, one on each side. Then came a second elevation, carrying the eye
+on to the extremity of the upper end.
+
+In the middle of the wall at that upper end is a recess, occupied by a
+tomb. On the front of it is written the name of some glorious champion of
+the faith who lies there. It is one of the first bishops of Sicca, and the
+inscription attests that he slept in the Lord under the Emperor Antoninus.
+Over the sacred relics is a slab, and on the slab the Divine Mysteries are
+now to be celebrated. At the back is a painting on the wall, very similar
+to that in Agellius’s cottage. The ever-blessed immaculate Mother of God
+is exercising her office as the Advocate of sinners, standing by the
+sacrifice as she stood at the cross itself, and offering up and applying
+its infinite merits and incommunicable virtue in union with priest and
+people. So instinctive in the Christian mind is the principle of
+decoration, as it may be called, that even in times of suffering, and
+places of banishment, we see it brought into exercise. Not only is the
+arch which overspans the altar ornamented with an arabesque pattern, but
+the roof or vault is coloured with paintings. Our Lord is in the centre,
+with two figures of Moses on each side, on the right unloosing his
+sandals, on the left striking the rock. Between the centre figure and the
+altar may be seen the raising of Lazarus; in the opposite partition the
+healing of the paralytic; at the four angles are men and women alternately
+in the attitude of prayer.
+
+At this time the altar-stone was covered with a rich crimson silk, with
+figures of St. Peter and St. Paul worked in gold upon it, the gift of a
+pious lady of Carthage. Beyond the altar, but not touching it, was a
+cross; and on one side of the altar a sort of basin or _piscina_ cut in
+the rock, with a linen cloth hanging up against it. There were no candles
+upon the altar itself, but wax lights fixed into silver stands were placed
+at intervals along the edge of the presbytery or elevation.
+
+The mass was in behalf of the confessors for the faith then in prison in
+Carthage; and the sacred ministers, some half-hour after Agellius’s
+entrance, made their appearance. Their vestments already varied somewhat
+from the ordinary garments of the day, and bespoke antiquity; and, though
+not so simply _sui generis_ as they are now, they were so far special,
+that they were never used on any other occasion, but were reserved for the
+sacred service. The neck was bare, the amice being as yet unknown; instead
+of the stole was what was called the _orarium_, a sort of handkerchief
+resting on the shoulders, and falling down on each side. The alb had been
+the inner garment, or _camisium_, which in civil use was retained at night
+when the other garments were thrown off; and, as at the present day, it
+was confined round the waist by a zone or girdle. The maniple was a
+napkin, supplying the place of a handkerchief; and the chasuble was an
+ample _pænula_, such as was worn by the judges, a cloak enveloping the
+whole person round, when spread out, with an opening in the centre,
+through which the head might pass. The deacon’s dalmatic was much longer
+than it is now, and the subdeacon’s tunicle resembled the alb. All the
+vestments were of the purest white.
+
+The mass began by the bishop giving his blessing; and then the Lector, a
+man of venerable age, taking the roll called _Lectionarium_, and
+proceeding to a pulpit, read the Prophets to the people, much in the way
+observed among ourselves still on holy Saturday and the vigil of
+Pentecost. These being finished, the people chanted the first verse of the
+_Gloria Patri_, after which the clergy alternated with the people the
+_Kyrie_, pretty much as the custom is now.
+
+Here a fresh roll was brought to the Lector, then or afterwards called
+_Apostolus_, from which he read one of the canonical epistles. A psalm
+followed, which was sung by the people; and, after this, the Lector
+received the _Evangeliarium_, and read a portion of the Gospel, at which
+lights were lighted, and the people stood. When he had finished, the
+Lector opened the roll wide, and, turning round, presented it to bishop,
+clergy, and people to kiss.
+
+The deacon then cried out, “Ite in pace, catechumeni,” “Depart in peace,
+catechumens;” and then the kiss of peace was passed round, and the people
+began to sing some psalms or hymns. While they were so engaged, the deacon
+received from the acolyte the _sindon_, or corporal, which was of the
+length of the altar, and perhaps of greater breadth, and spread it upon
+the sacred table. Next was placed on the _sindon_ the _oblata_, that is,
+the small loaves, according to the number of communicants, with the paten,
+which was large, and a gold chalice, duly prepared. And then the _sindon_,
+or corporal, was turned back over them, to cover them as a pall.
+
+The celebrant then advanced: he stood at the further side of the altar,
+where the candles are now, with his face to the people, and then began the
+holy sacrifice. First he incensed the _oblata_, that is, the loaves and
+chalice, as an acknowledgment of God’s sovereign dominion, and as a token
+of uplifted prayer to Him. Then the roll of prayers was brought him, while
+the deacon began what is sometimes called the bidding prayer, being a
+catalogue of the various subjects for which intercession is to be made,
+after the manner of the _Oremus dilectissimi_, now used on Good Friday.
+This catalogue included all conditions of men, the conversion of the
+world, the exaltation of Holy Church, the maintenance of the Roman empire,
+the due ripening and gathering of the fruits of the earth, and other
+spiritual and temporal blessings,—subjects very much the same as those
+which are now called the Pope’s intentions. The prayers ended with a
+special reference to those present, that they might persevere in the Lord
+even to the end. And then the priest began the _Sursum corda_, and said
+the _Sanctus_.
+
+The Canon or _Actio_ seems to have run, in all but a few words, as it does
+now, and the solemn words of consecration were said secretly. Great stress
+was laid on the Lord’s prayer, which in one sense terminated the function.
+It was said aloud by the people, and when they said, “Forgive us our
+trespasses,” they beat their breasts.
+
+It is not wonderful that Agellius, assisting for almost the first time at
+this wonderful solemnity, should have noted everything as it occurred; and
+we must be considered as giving our account of it from his mouth.
+
+It needs not to enlarge on the joy of the meeting which followed between
+Cæcilius and his young penitent. “O my father,” he said, “I come to thee,
+never to leave thee, to be thy dutiful servant, and to be trained by thee
+after the pattern of Him who made thee what thou art. Wonderful things
+have happened; Callista is in prison on the charge of Christianity; I was
+in a sort of prison myself, or what was worse for my soul; and Juba, my
+brother, in the strangest of ways, has this morning let me out. Shall she
+not be saved, my father, in God’s own way, as well as I? At least we can
+all pray for her; but surely we can do more—so precious a soul must not be
+left to herself and the world. If she has the trials, she may claim the
+blessings of a Christian. Is she to go back to heathenism? Is she, alas!
+to suffer without baptism? Shall we not hazard death to bestow on her that
+grace?”
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+                               THE BAPTISM.
+
+
+We have already had occasion to mention that there were many secret
+well-wishers, or at least protectors, of Christians, as in the world at
+large, so also in Sicca. There were many persons who had received benefits
+from their charity, and had experience of the scandalous falsehood of the
+charges now circulated against them. Others would feel a generosity
+towards a cruelly persecuted body; others, utterly dead to the subject of
+religion, or rather believing all religions to be impostures, would not
+allow it to be assumed that only one was worthy of bad treatment. Others
+liked what they heard of the religion itself, and thought there was truth
+in it, though it had no claim to a monopoly of truth. Others felt it to be
+true, but shrank from the consequences of openly embracing it. Others, who
+had apostatised through fear of the executioner, intended to come back to
+it at the last. It must be added that in the African Church confessors in
+prison had, or were considered to have, the remarkable privilege of
+gaining the public forgiveness of the Church for those who had lapsed; it
+was an object, then, for all those who, being in that miserable case,
+wished some day to be restored, to gain their promise of assistance, or
+their good-will. To these reasons was added, in Callista’s case, the
+interest which naturally attached to a woman, young and defenceless.
+
+The burning sun of Africa is at the height of its power. The population is
+prostrated by heat, by scarcity, by pestilence, and by the decimation
+which their riot brought upon them. They care neither for Christianity,
+nor for anything else just now. They lie in the porticoes, in the caverns
+under the city, in the baths. They are more alive at night. The
+_apparitor_, in whose dwelling Callista was lodged, who was himself once a
+Christian, lies in the shade of the great doorway, into which his rooms
+open, asleep, or stupefied. Two men make their appearance about two hours
+before sunset, and demand admittance to Callista. The jailor asks if they
+are not the two Greeks, her brother and the rhetorician, who had visited
+her before. The junior of the strangers drops a purse heavy with coin into
+his lap, and passes on with his companion. When the mind is intent on
+great subjects or aims, heat and cold, hunger and thirst, lose their power
+of enfeebling it; thus perhaps we must account for the energy now
+displayed both by the two ecclesiastics and by Callista herself.
+
+She too thought it was the unwelcome philosopher come again; she gave a
+start and a cry of delight when she saw it was Cæcilius. “My father,” she
+said, “I want to be a Christian, if I may; He came to save the lost sheep.
+I have learnt such things from this book—let me give it you while I can. I
+am not long for this world. Give me Him who spoke so kindly to that woman.
+Take from me my load of sin, and then I will gladly go.” She knelt at his
+feet, and gave the roll of parchment into his hand.
+
+“Rise and sit,” he answered. “Let us think calmly over the matter.”
+
+“I am ready,” she insisted. “Deny me not my wish, when time is so
+urgent—if I may have it.”
+
+“Sit down calmly,” he said again; “I am not refusing you, but I wish to
+know about you.” He could hardly keep from tears, of pain, or of joy, or
+of both, when he saw the great change which trial had wrought in her. What
+touched him most was the utter disappearance of that majesty of mien,
+which once was hers, a gift, so beautiful, so unsuitable to fallen man.
+There was instead of it a frank humility, a simplicity without
+concealment, an unresisting meekness, which seemed as if it would enable
+her, if trampled on, to smile and to kiss the feet that insulted her. She
+had lost every vestige of what the world worships under the titles of
+proper pride and self-respect. Callista was now living, not in the thought
+of herself, but of Another.
+
+“God has been very good to you,” he continued; “but in the volume you have
+returned to me He bids us ‘reckon the charges.’ Can you drink of His
+chalice? Recollect what is before you.”
+
+She still continued kneeling, with a touching earnestness of face and
+demeanour, and with her hands crossed upon her breast.
+
+“I _have_ reckoned,” she replied; “heaven and hell: I prefer heaven.”
+
+“You are on earth,” said Cæcilius; “not in heaven or hell. You must bear
+the pangs of earth before you drink the blessedness of heaven.”
+
+“He has given me the firm purpose,” she said, “to gain heaven, to escape
+hell; and He will give me too the power.”
+
+“Ah, Callista!” he answered, in a voice broken with distress, “you know
+not what you will have to bear, if you join yourself to Him.”
+
+“He has done great things for me already; I am wonderfully changed; I am
+not what I was. He will do more still.”
+
+“Alas, my child!” said Cæcilius, “that feeble frame, ah! how will it bear
+the strong iron, or the keen flame, or the ruthless beast? My child, what
+do _I_ feel, who am free, thus handing you over to be the sport of the
+evil one?”
+
+“Father, I have chosen Him,” she answered, “not hastily, but on
+deliberation. I believe Him most absolutely. Keep me not from Him; give
+Him to me, if I may ask it; give me my Love.”
+
+Presently she added, “I have never forgotten those words of yours since
+you used them; ‘Amor meus crucifixus est.’ ”
+
+She began again, “I will be a Christian; give me my place among them. Give
+me my place at the feet of Jesus, Son of Mary, my God. I wish to love Him.
+I think I can love Him. Make me His.”
+
+“He has loved you from eternity,” said Cæcilius, “and, therefore, you are
+now beginning to love Him.”
+
+She covered her eyes with her hands, and remained in profound meditation.
+“I am very ignorant—very sinful,” she said at length; “but one thing I
+know, that there is but One to love in the whole world, and I wish to love
+him. I surrender myself to Him, if He will take me; and He shall teach me
+about Himself.”
+
+“The angry multitude, their fierce voices, the brutal executioner, the
+prison, the torture, the slow, painful death.” He was speaking, not to
+her, but to himself. She was calm, in spite of her fervour; but he could
+not contain himself. His heart melted within him; he felt like Abraham,
+lifting up his hand to slay his child.
+
+“Time passes,” she said; “what may happen? you may be discovered. But,
+perhaps,” she added, suddenly changing her tone, “it is a matter of long
+initiation. Woe is me!”
+
+“We must gird ourselves to the work, Victor,” he said to his deacon who
+was with him. Cæcilius fell back and sat down, and Victor came forward. He
+formally instructed her so far as the circumstances allowed. Not for
+baptism only, but for confirmation, and Holy Eucharist; for Cæcilius
+determined to give her all three sacraments at once.
+
+It was a sight for angels to look down upon, and they did; when the poor
+child, rich in this world’s gifts, but poor in those of eternity, knelt
+down to receive that sacred stream upon her brow, which fell upon her with
+almost sensible sweetness, and suddenly produced a serenity different in
+kind from anything she had ever before even had the power of conceiving.
+
+The bishop gave her confirmation, and then the Holy Eucharist. It was her
+first and last communion; in a few days she renewed it, or rather
+completed it, under the very Face and Form of Him whom she now believed
+without seeing.
+
+“Farewell, my dearest of children,” said Cæcilius, “till the hour when we
+both meet before the throne of God. A few sharp pangs which you can count
+and measure, and all will be well. You will be carried through joyously,
+and like a conqueror. I know it. You could face the prospect before you
+were a Christian, and you will be equal to the actual trial, now that you
+are.”
+
+“Never fear me, father,” she said in a clear, low voice. The bishop and
+his deacon left the prison.
+
+
+
+The sun had all but set, when Cæcilius and Victor passed the city gate;
+and it was more than twilight as they crossed the wild hills leading to
+the precipitous pass. Evil men were not their only peril in this work of
+charity. They were also in danger from wild beasts in these lone wastes,
+and, the heathen would have added, from bad spirits. Bad spirits Cæcilius
+recognised too; but he would not have granted that they were perilous. The
+two went forward, saying prayers lowly, and singing psalms, when a sudden
+cry was heard, and a strong tall form rushed past them. It might be some
+robber of the wild, or dangerous outcast, or savage fanatic, who knew and
+hated their religion; however, while they stopped and looked, he had come,
+and he was gone. But he came again, more slowly; and from his remarkable
+shape Cæcilius saw that it was the brother of Agellius. He said, “Juba;”
+Juba started back, and stood at a distance. Cæcilius held out his hand,
+and called him on, again mentioning his name. The poor fellow came nearer:
+Cæcilius’s day’s work was not at an end.
+
+Since we last heard of him, Juba had dwelt in the mountainous tract over
+which the two Christians were now passing; roaming to and fro, or beating
+himself in idle fury against the adamantine rocks, and fighting with the
+stern necessity of the elements. How he was sustained can hardly be
+guessed, unless the impulse, which led him on the first accession of his
+fearful malady, to fly upon the beasts of the desert, served him here
+also. Roots too and fruits were scattered over the wild; and still more so
+in the ravines, wherever any quantity of soil had been accumulated. Alas!
+had the daylight lasted, in him too, as well as in Callista, Cæcilius
+would have found changes, but of a very different nature; yet even in him
+he would have seen a change for the better, for that old awful expression
+of pride and defiance was gone. What was the use of parading a self-will,
+which every moment of his life belied? His actions, his words, his hands,
+his lips, his feet, his place of abode, his daily course, were in the
+dominion of another, who inexorably ruled him. It was not the gentle
+influence which draws and persuades; it was not the power which can be
+propitiated by prayer; it was a tyranny which acted without reaction,
+energetic as mind, and impenetrable as matter.
+
+“Juba,” said Cæcilius a third time. The maniac came nearer, and then again
+suddenly retreated. He stood at a short distance from Cæcilius, as if
+afraid to come on, and cried out, tossing his hands wildly, “Away, black
+hypocrite, come not near me! Away! hound of a priest, cross not my path,
+lest I tear you to shreds!” Such visitations were no novelties to
+Cæcilius; he raised his hand and made the sign of the cross, then he said,
+“Come.” Juba advanced, shrieked, and used some terrible words, and rushed
+upon Cæcilius, as if he would treat him as he had treated the savage wolf.
+“Come?” he cried, “yes, I come!” and Victor ran up, fearing his teeth
+would be in Cæcilius’s throat, if he delayed longer. The latter stood his
+ground, quailing neither in eye nor in limb; he made the sign of the cross
+a second time; and in spite of a manifest antagonism within him, the
+stricken youth, with horrid cries, came dancing after him.
+
+Thus they proceeded, with some signs of insurrection from time to time on
+Juba’s part, but with a successful reduction of it as often on the part of
+Cæcilius, till they got to the ascent by the olive-trees, where careful
+walking was necessary. Then Cæcilius turned round, and beckoned him. He
+came. He said, “Kneel down.” He knelt down. Cæcilius put his hand on his
+head, saying to him, “Follow me close and without any disturbance.” The
+three pursued their journey, and all arrived safe at the cavern. There
+Cæcilius gave Juba in charge to Romanus, who had been intrusted with the
+_energumens_ at Carthage.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+                          THE IMPERIAL RESCRIPT.
+
+
+Had the imperial edict been acted on by the magistrates of Sicca, without
+a reference to Carthage, it is not easy to suppose that Callista would
+have persevered in her refusal to commit the act of idolatry required of
+her. But, to speak of second causes, the hesitation of her judges was her
+salvation. Once baptised, there was no reason she should desire any
+further delay of her conflict. Come it must, and come it did. While
+Cæcilius was placing her beyond danger, the rescript of the Proconsul had
+been received at the office of the Duumvirs.
+
+The absence of the Proconsul from Carthage had been the cause of the
+delay; and then, some investigation was needed to understand the relation
+of Callista’s seizure to the riot on the one hand, and to the strong act
+of the military on the other, in quelling it. It was thought that
+something or other might come to light to account for the anomalous and
+unaccountable position which she had taken up. The imperial government
+considered it had now a clear view of her case, and its orders were
+distinct and peremptory. Christianity was to cease to be. It was a subtle
+foe, sapping the vitals of the state. Rome must perish, or this illegal
+association. Such evasions as Callista had used were but instances of its
+craft. Its treason lay, not in its being Christianity, but in its not
+sacrificing to the gods of Rome. Callista was but throwing dust in their
+eyes. There had been no blow struck against the treason in inland Africa.
+Women had often been the most dangerous of conspirators. As she was a
+stranger, there was more probability of her connection with secret
+societies, and also less inconvenience in her execution. Whatever
+happened, she was to be got rid of; but first her resolution was to be
+broken, for the sake of the example. First, let her be brought before the
+tribunal and threatened: then thrust into the Tullianum; then put upon the
+rack, and returned to prison; then scorched over a slow fire; last of all,
+beheaded, and left for beasts of prey. She would sacrifice ere the last
+stage was reached. When she had given way, let her be given up to the
+gladiators. The message ended by saying that the Proconsular Procurator,
+who came by the same carriages, would preside at the process.
+
+O wisdom of the world! and strength of the world! what are you when
+matched beside the foolishness and the weakness of the Christian? You are
+great in resources, manifold in methods, hopeful in prospects; but one
+thing you have not,—and that is peace. You are always tumultuous,
+restless, apprehensive. You have nothing you can rely upon. You have no
+rock under your feet. But the humblest, feeblest Christian has that which
+is impossible to you. Callista had once felt the misery of maladies akin
+to yours. She had passed through doubt, anxiety, perplexity, despondency,
+passion; but now she was in peace. Now she feared the torture or the flame
+as little as the breeze which arose at nightfall, or the busy chatter of
+the grasshoppers at the noonday. Nay, rather, she did not think of torture
+and death at all, but was possessed by a peace which bore her up, as if
+bodily, on its mighty wings. For hours she remained on her knees, after
+Cæcilius left her: then she lay down on her rushes and slept her last
+sleep.
+
+She slept sound; she dreamed. She thought she was no longer in Africa, but
+in her own Greece, more sunny and bright than before; but the inhabitants
+were gone. Its majestic mountains, its rich plains, its expanse of waters,
+all silent: no one to converse with, no one to sympathize with. And, as
+she wandered on and wondered, suddenly its face changed, and its colours
+were illuminated tenfold by a heavenly glory, and each hue upon the scene
+was of a beauty she had never known, and seemed strangely to affect all
+her senses at once, being fragrance and music, as well as light. And there
+came out of the grottoes and glens and woods, and out of the seas, myriads
+of bright images, whose forms she could not discern; and these came all
+around her, and became a sort of scene or landscape, which she could not
+have described in words, as if it were a world of spirits, not of matter.
+And as she gazed, she thought she saw before her a well-known face, only
+glorified. She, who had been a slave, now was arrayed more brilliantly
+than an oriental queen; and she looked at Callista with a smile so sweet,
+that Callista felt she could but dance to it.
+
+And as she looked more earnestly, doubting whether she should begin or
+not, the face changed, and now was more marvellous still. It had an
+innocence in its look, and also a tenderness, which bespoke both Maid and
+Mother, and so transported Callista, that she must needs advance towards
+her, out of love and reverence. And the lady seemed to make signs of
+encouragement: so she began a solemn measure, unlike all dances of earth,
+with hands and feet, serenely moving on towards what she heard some of
+them call a great action and a glorious consummation, though she did not
+know what they meant. At length she was fain to sing as well as dance; and
+her words were, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
+Holy Ghost;” on which another said, “A good beginning of the sacrifice.”
+And when she had come close to this gracious figure, there was a fresh
+change. The face, the features were the same; but the light of Divinity
+now seemed to beam through them, and the hair parted, and hung down long
+on each side of the forehead; and there was a crown of another fashion
+than the Lady’s round about it, made of what looked like thorns. And the
+palms of the hands were spread out as if towards her, and there were marks
+of wounds in them. And the vestment had fallen, and there was a deep
+opening in the side. And as she stood entranced before Him, and
+motionless, she felt a consciousness that her own palms were pierced like
+His, and her feet also. And she looked round, and saw the likeness of His
+face and of His wounds upon all that company. And now they were suddenly
+moving on, and bearing something or some one, heavenwards; and they too
+began to sing, and their words seemed to be, “Rejoice with Me, for I have
+found My sheep,” ever repeated. They went up through an avenue or long
+grotto, with torches of diamonds, and amethysts, and sapphires, which lit
+up its spars and made them sparkle. And she tried to look, but could not
+discover what they were carrying, till she heard a very piercing cry,
+which awoke her.
+
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+                            A GOOD CONFESSION.
+
+
+The cry came from the keeper’s wife, whom we have described as kindly
+disposed to her. She was a Lybo-Phœnician, and spoke a broken Latin; but
+the language of sympathy is universal, in spite of Babel. “Callista,” she
+exclaimed; “girl, they have sent for you; you are to die. O frightful!
+worse than a runaway slave,—the torture! Give in. What’s the harm? you are
+so young: those terrible men with the pincers and hot bars!”
+
+Callista sat up, and passed from her vision to her prison. She smiled and
+said, “I am ready; I am going home.” The woman looked almost frightened,
+and with some shade of disgust and disappointment. She, as others, might
+have thought it impossible, as it was unaccountable, that when it came to
+the point Callista would hold out. “She’s crazed,” she said. “I am ready,
+mother,” Callista said, and she got up. “You have been very good to me,”
+she continued; “I have been saying many prayers for you, while my prayers
+were of no good, for then He was not mine. But now I have espoused Him,
+and am going to be married to-day, and He will hear me.” The woman stared
+at her stupidly, as much as to make it evident that if afterwards a change
+took place in her, as in Callista, that change too, though in so different
+a soul, must come of something beyond nature. She had something in her
+hand, and said, “It’s useless to give a mad woman like her the packet,
+which my man has brought me.”
+
+Callista took the packet, which was directed to her, and broke the seal.
+It was from her brother. The little roll of worn parchment opened; a
+dagger fell out. Some lines were written on the parchment; they were dated
+Carthage, and ran as follows:—
+
+“Aristo to his dearest Callista. I write through Cornelius. You have not
+had it in your power to kill me, but you have taken away half my life. For
+me, I will cherish the other half, for I love life better than death. But
+you love annihilation; yet, if so, die not like a slave. Die nobly,
+mindful of your country; I send you the means.”
+
+Callista was beyond reflecting on anything around her, except as in a sort
+of dream. As common men think and speak of heaven, so she now thought and
+spoke of earth. “I wish _Him_ to kill me, not myself,” she said. “I am His
+victim. My brother! I have no brother, except One, who is calling me.”
+
+She was carried to court, and the examination followed. We have already
+given a specimen of such a process; here it will be sufficient to make use
+of two documents, different in kind, as far as they go, which have come
+down to us. The first is an alto-relief, which once was coloured, not
+first-rate in art or execution, and of the date of the Emperor
+Constantius, about a century later. It was lately discovered in the course
+of excavations made at El Kaf, the modern Sicca, on the ruins of a church
+or Roman basilica, for the building in question seems to have served each
+purpose successively. In this sculpture the prætorium is represented, and
+the tribunal of the president in it. The tribunal is a high throne, with
+wings curving round on each side, making the whole construction extend to
+almost a semicircle, and it is ascended by steps between the wings. The
+curule chair is at the top of the steps; and in the middle and above it
+are purple curtains, reaching down to the platform, drawn back on each
+side, and when drawn close together running behind the chair, and
+constituting what was called the _secretarium_. On one side of the
+tribunal is a table covered with carpeting, and looking something like a
+modern ottoman, only higher, and not level at top; and it has upon it the
+Book of Mandates, the sign of jurisdiction. The sword too is represented
+in the sculpture, to show a criminal case is proceeding. The procurator is
+seated on the chair; he is in purple, and has a gold chain of triple
+thread. We can also distinguish his lawyers, whether assessors or
+_consiliarii_; also his lictors and soldiers. There, too, are the notaries
+in a line below him; they are writing down the judge’s questions and the
+prisoner’s answers: and one of them is turning round to her, as if to make
+her speak more loudly. She herself is mounted upon a sort of platform,
+called _catasta_, like that on which slaves were put up for sale. Two
+soldiers are by her, who appear to have been dragging her forwards. The
+executioners are also delineated, naked to the waist, with instruments of
+torture in their hands.
+
+
+
+The second document is a fragment of the _Acta Proconsularia_ of her
+Passion. If, indeed, it could be trusted to the letter, as containing
+Callista’s answers word for word, it would have a distinctly sacred
+character, in consequence of our Lord’s words, “It shall be given you in
+that hour what to speak.” However, we attach no such special value to this
+document, since it comes to us through heathen notaries, who may not have
+been accurate reporters; not to say that before we did so we ought to look
+very carefully into its genuineness. As it is, we believe it to be as true
+as any part of our narrative, and not truer. It runs as follows:—
+
+
+
+“Cneius Messius Decius Augustus II., and Gratus, Consuls, on the seventh
+before the Calends of August, in Sicca Veneria, a colony, in the Secretary
+at the Tribunal, Martianus, procurator, sitting; Callista, a maker of
+images, was brought up by the Commentariensis on a charge of Christianity,
+and when she was placed,
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: This folly has been too long; you have
+made images, and now you will not worship them.
+
+“CALLISTA answered: For I have found my true Love, whom before I knew not.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: Your true love is, I ween, your last
+love; for all were true in their time.
+
+“CALLISTA said: I worship my true Love, who is the Only True; and He is
+the Son of God, and I know none but Him.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: You will not worship the gods, but you
+are willing to love their sons.
+
+“CALLISTA said: He is the true Son of the True God; and I am His, and He
+is mine.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: Let alone your loves, and swear by the
+genius of the emperor.
+
+“CALLISTA said: I have but one Lord, the King of kings, the Ruler of all.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, turned to the lictor and said: This folly is
+madness; take her hand, put incense in it, and hold it over the flame.
+
+“CALLISTA said: You may compel me by your great strength, but my own true
+Lord and Love is stronger.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: You are bewitched; but we must undo the
+spell. Take her to the Lignum (the prison for criminals).
+
+“CALLISTA said: He has been there before me, and He will come to me there.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: The jailer will see to that. Let her be
+brought up to-morrow.
+
+“On the day following, Martianus, the procurator, sitting at the tribunal,
+called up Callista. He said: Honour our lord, and sacrifice to the gods.
+
+“CALLISTA said: Let me alone; I am content with my One and only Lord.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: What? did he come to you in prison, as
+you hoped?
+
+“CALLISTA said: He came to me amid much pain; and the pain was pleasant,
+for He came in it.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: You have got worn and yellow, and he
+will leave you.
+
+“CALLISTA said: He loves me the more, for I am beautiful when I am black.
+
+“MARTIANUS, the procurator, said: Throw her into the Tullianum; perhaps
+she will find her god there also.
+
+“Then the procurator entered into the Secretary, and drew the veil; and
+dictated the sentence for the tabella. Then he came out, and the præco
+read it:—Callista, a senseless and reprobate woman, is hereby sentenced to
+be thrown into the Tullianum; then to be stretched on the equuleus; then
+to be placed on a slow fire; lastly, to be beheaded, and left to the dogs
+and birds.
+
+“CALLISTA said: Thanks to my Lord and King.”
+
+
+
+Here the Acta end: and though they seem to want their conclusion, yet they
+supply nearly every thing which is necessary for our purpose. The one
+subject on which a comment is needed, is the state prison, which, though
+so little is said of it in the above Report, is in fact the real _medium_,
+as we may call it, for appreciating its information; a few words will
+suffice for our purpose.
+
+The state prison, then, was arranged on pretty much one and the same plan
+through the Roman empire, nay, we may say, throughout the ancient world.
+It was commonly attached to the government buildings, and consisted of two
+parts. The first was the vestibule, or outward prison, which was a hall,
+approached from the prætorium, and surrounded by cells, opening into it.
+The prisoners, who were confined in these cells, had the benefit of the
+air and light, which the hall admitted. Such was the place of confinement
+allotted to St. Paul at Cæsarea, which is said to be the “prætorium of
+Herod.” And hence, perhaps, it is that, in the touching Passion of St.
+Perpetua and St. Felicitas, St. Perpetua tells us that, when permitted to
+have her child, though she was in the inner portion, which will next be
+described, “suddenly the prison seemed to her like the prætorium.”
+
+From this vestibule there was a passage into the interior prison, called
+Robur or Lignum, from the beams of wood, which were the instruments of
+confinement, or from the character of its floor. It had no window or
+outlet, except this door, which, when closed, absolutely shut out light
+and air. Air, indeed, and coolness might be obtained for it by the
+_barathrum_, presently to be spoken of, but of what nature we shall then
+see. The apartment, called Lignum, was the place into which St. Paul and
+St. Silas were cast at Philippi, before it was known that they were
+Romans. After scourging them severely, the magistrates, who nevertheless
+were but the local authorities, and had no proper jurisdiction in criminal
+cases, “put them in prison, bidding the jailer to keep them carefully;
+who, on receiving such a command, put them in the inner prison, and
+fastened them in the lignum.” And in the Acts of the Scillitane Martyrs we
+read of the Proconsul giving sentence, “Let them be thrown into prison,
+let them be put into the Lignum, till to-morrow.”
+
+The utter darkness, the heat, and the stench of this miserable place, in
+which the inmates were confined day and night, is often dwelt upon by the
+martyrs and their biographers. “After a few days,” says St. Perpetua, “we
+were taken to the prison, and I was frightened, for I never had known such
+darkness. O bitter day! the heat was excessive by reason of the crowd
+there.” In the Acts of St. Pionius, and others of Smyrna, we read that the
+jailers “shut them up in the inner part of the prison, so that, bereaved
+of all comfort and light, they were forced to sustain extreme torment,
+from the darkness and stench of the prison.” And, in like manner, other
+martyrs of Africa, about the time of St. Cyprian’s martyrdom, that is,
+eight or ten years later than the date of this story, say, “We were not
+frightened at the foul darkness of that place; for soon that murky prison
+was radiant with the brightness of the Spirit. What days, what nights we
+passed there no words can describe. The torments of that prison no
+statement can equal.”
+
+Yet there was a place of confinement even worse than this. In the floor of
+this inner prison was a sort of trap-door, or hole, opening into the
+_barathrum_, or pit, and called, from the original prison at Rome, the
+Tullianum. Sometimes prisoners were confined here, sometimes despatched by
+being cast headlong into it through the opening. It was into this pit at
+Rome that St. Chrysanthus was cast; and there, and probably in other
+cities, it was nothing short of the public cesspool.
+
+It may be noticed that the Prophet Jeremiah seems to have had personal
+acquaintance with Vestibule, Robur, and Barathrum. We read in one place of
+his being shut up in the “atrium,” that is, the vestibule, “of the prison,
+which was in the house of the king.” At another time he is in the
+“ergastulum,” which would seem to be the inner prison. Lastly his enemies
+let him down by ropes into the lacus or pit, in which “there was no water,
+but mud.”
+
+As to Callista, then, after the first day’s examination, she was thrown
+for nearly twenty-four hours into the stifling Robur, or inner prison.
+After the sentence, on the second day, she was let down, as the
+commencement of her punishment, that is, of her martyrdom, into the
+loathsome Barathrum, lacus, or pit, called Tullianum, there to lie for
+another twenty hours before she was brought out to the equuleus or rack.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+                              THE MARTYRDOM.
+
+
+Callista had sighed for the bright and clear atmosphere of Greece, and she
+was thrown into the Robur and plunged into the Barathrum of Sicca. But in
+reality, though she called it Greece, she was panting after a better
+country and a more lasting home, and this country and home she had found.
+She was now setting out for it.
+
+It was, indeed, no slight marvel that she was not already there. She had
+been lowered into that pit of death before noon on the day of her second
+examination, and, excepting some unwholesome bread and water, according to
+the custom of the prison, had had no food since she came into the custody
+of the _commentariensis_ the day before. The order came from the
+magistrates to bring her out earlier in the morning than was intended, or
+the prison might have really effected that death which Calphurnius had
+purposed to pretend. When the apparitors attempted to raise her, she
+neither spoke or moved, nor could well be seen. “Black as Orcus,” said one
+of the fellows, “another torch there! I can’t see where she nestles.”
+“There she is, like a bundle of clothes,” said another. “Madam gets up
+late this morning,” said a third. “She’s used to softer couches,” said a
+fourth. “Ha! ha! ’tis a spoiler of beauty, this hole,” said a fifth. “She
+is the demon of stubbornness, and must be crushed,” said the jailer; “she
+likes it, or she would not choose it.” “The plague take the witch,” said
+another; “we shall have better seasons when a few like her are ferreted
+out.”
+
+They got her out like a corpse, and put her on the ground outside the
+prison. When she still did not move, two of them took her between them on
+their shoulders and arms, and began to move forward, the instrument of
+torture preceding her. The fresh air of the morning revived her; she soon
+sat up. She seemed to drink in life again, and became conscious. “O
+beautiful Light!” she whispered, “O lovely Light, my light and my life! O
+my Light and my Life, receive me!” Gradually she became fully alive to all
+that was going on. She was going to death, and that rather than deny Him
+who had bought her by His own death. He had suffered for her, and she was
+to suffer for Him. He had been racked on the Cross, she too was to have
+her limbs dislocated after His pattern. She scarcely rested on the men’s
+shoulders; and they vowed afterwards that they thought she was going to
+fly away, vile witch as she was.
+
+“The witch, the witch,” the mob screamed out, for she had now come to the
+place of her conflict. “_We’ll_ pay you off for blight and pestilence!
+Where’s our bread, where’s the maize and barley, where are the grapes?”
+And they uttered fierce yells of execration, and seemed disposed to break
+through the line of apparitors, and to tear her to pieces. Yet, after all,
+it was not a very hearty uproar, but got up for the occasion. The populace
+had spent their force, not to say their lives, in the riot in which she
+was apprehended. The priests and priestesses of the temples had sent the
+poor wretches and paid them.
+
+The place of execution was on the north-east of the city, outside the
+walls, and towards the mountain. It was where slaves were buried, and it
+was as hideous as such spots usually were. The neighbourhood was wild,
+open to the beasts of prey, who at night used to descend and feast upon
+the corpses. As Callista approached to the scene of her suffering, the
+expression of her countenance had so altered that a friend would scarce
+have known it. There was a tenderness in it and a modesty which never had
+been there in that old time. Her cheek had upon it a blush, as when the
+rising sun suddenly touches some grey rock or tower yet it was white and
+glistening too, so much so that others might have said it was like silver.
+Her eyes were larger than they had been, and gazed steadfastly, as if at
+what the multitude did not see. Her lips spoke of sweet peace and deep
+composure. When at length she came close upon the rabble, who had been
+screaming and yelling so fiercely, men, women, and boys suddenly held
+their peace. It was first from curiosity, then from amazement, then from
+awe. At length a fear smote through them, and a strange pity and
+reverence. They almost seemed inclined to worship what stirred them so
+much, they knew not how; a new idea had visited those poor ignorant souls.
+
+A few minutes sufficed to put the rack into working order. She was laid
+down upon its board in her poor bedimmed tunic, which once flashed so
+bright in the sun,—she who had been ever so delicate in her apparel. Her
+wrists and ankles were seized, extended, fastened to the moveable blocks
+at the extremities of the plank. She spoke her last word, “For Thee, my
+Lord and Love, for Thee!... Accept me, O my Love, upon this bed of pain!
+And come to me, O my Love, make haste and come!” The men turned round the
+wheels rapidly to and fro; the joints were drawn out of their sockets, and
+then snapped in again. She had fainted. They waited for her coming-to;
+they still waited; they got impatient.
+
+“Dash some water on her,” said one. “Spit in her face, and it will do,”
+said a second. “Prick her with your spike,” said a third. “Hold your wild
+talk,” said a fourth; “she’s gone to the shades.” They gathered round, and
+looked at her attentively. They could not bring her back. So it was: she
+had gone to her Lord and her Love.
+
+“Lay her out for the wolves and vultures,” said the _cornicularius_, and
+he was going to appoint guards till nightfall, when up came the
+_stationarii_ and Calphurnius in high wrath.
+
+“You dogs!” he cried, “what trick have you been practising against the
+soldiers of Rome?” However, expostulation and reproach were bootless; nor
+would it answer here to go into the quarrel which ensued over the dead
+body. The magistrates, having got scent of Calphurnius’s scheme, had
+outwitted the tribune by assigning an earlier hour than was usual for the
+execution. Life could not be recalled; nor did the soldiers of course dare
+publicly to disobey the Proconsul’s order for the exposure of the corpse.
+All that could be done, they did. They took her down with rude reverence
+from the rack, and placed her on the sand; and then they set guards to
+keep off the rabble, and to avail themselves of any opportunity which
+might occur to show consideration towards her.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+                             THE CORPO SANTO.
+
+
+The sun of Africa has passed over the heavens, but has not dared with one
+of his fierce rays to profane the sacred relics which lie out before him.
+The mists of evening rise up, and the heavy dews fall, but they neither
+bring the poison of decay to that gracious body, nor receive it thence.
+The beasts of the wild are roaming and roaring at a distance, or nigh at
+hand: not any one of them presumes to touch her. No vultures may promise
+themselves a morning meal from such a victim, as they watch through the
+night upon the high crags which overlook her. The stars have come out on
+high, and, they too look down upon Callista, as if they were funeral
+lights in her honour. Next the moon rises up to see what has been going
+on, and edges the black hangings of the night with silver. Yet mourning
+and dirge are but of formal observance, when a brave champion has died for
+her God. The world of ghosts has as little power over such an one as the
+world of nature. No evil spirit has aught to say to her, who has gone in
+her baptismal white before the Throne. No penal fire shall be her robe,
+who has been carried in her bright _flammeum_ to the Bridal Chamber of the
+Lamb. A divine odour fills the air, issuing from that senseless,
+motionless, broken frame. A circle of light gleams round her brow, and,
+even when the daylight comes again, it there is faintly seen. Her features
+have reassumed their former majesty, but with an expression of childlike
+innocence and heavenly peace. The thongs have drawn blood at the wrists
+and ankles, which has run and soaked into the sand; but angels received
+the body from the soldiers when they took it off the rack, and it lies,
+sweetly and modestly composed, upon the ground.
+
+Passers-by stand still and gaze; idlers gather round. The report spreads
+in Sicca that neither sun by day, nor moon by night, nor moist atmosphere,
+nor beast of prey, has power over the wonderful corpse. Nay, that they
+cannot come near it without falling under some strange influence, which
+makes them calm and grave, expels bad passions, and allays commotion of
+mind. Many come again and again, for the mysterious and soothing effect
+she exerts upon them. They cannot talk freely about it to each other, and
+are seized with a sacred fear when they attempt to do so. Those who have
+merely heard their report without seeing her, say that these men have been
+in a grove of the Eumenides, or have suddenly encountered the wolf. The
+popular sensation continues and extends; some say it is magical, others
+that it is from the great gods. Day sinks again into evening, evening
+becomes night; the night wears out, and morning is coming again.
+
+It begins to dawn: a glimmer is faintly spread abroad, and, mixing with
+the dark, makes twilight, which gradually brightens, and the outlines of
+nature rise dimly out of the night. Gradually the sacred body comes to
+sight; and, as the light grows stronger around it, gradually too the forms
+of five men emerge, who had not been there the night before. One is in
+front; the rest behind with a sort of bier or litter. They stand on the
+mountain side of her, and must have come from the country. It has been a
+bold enterprise theirs, to expose themselves to the nightly beasts, and
+now again to the rabble and the soldiers. The soldiers are at some little
+distance, silent and watchful; such of the rabble as have passed the night
+there have had some superstitious object in their stay. They have thought
+to get portions of the flesh for magical purposes; a finger, or a tooth,
+or some hair, or a portion of her tunic, or the blood-stained rope which
+was twisted round her wrist and ankle.
+
+As the light makes her at length quite visible to the youth on the other
+side, who stands by himself with clasped hands and tearful eyes, he
+shrinks from the sight. He turns round to his companions who are provided
+with a large winding-sheet or pall, and with the help of one of them, to
+the surprise of the populace, he spreads it all over the body. And having
+done this, he stands again trembling, just for a few seconds, absorbed in
+his meditations, praying and weeping, and nerving himself for what is to
+follow. Ah, poor Agellius! you have not risen yet to the pitch of triumph;
+and other thoughts must be let to range through your breast, other
+emotions must spend themselves, before you are prepared simply to rejoice,
+exult, and glory in the lifeless form which lies before you. You are upon
+a brave work, but your heart is torn while you set hand to it, and you
+linger before you begin.
+
+It was in the pride of her earthly beauty and the full vigour and
+elevation of her mind, that he last had seen her. It seemed an age since
+that morning, as if a chasm ran between the now and the then, when she so
+fascinated him with her presence, and so majestically rebuked him for
+bowing to that fascination. Yet on his memory every incident of that
+interview was fixed, and was indelible. O why should the great Creator
+shatter one of His most admirable works! If the order of the sun and stars
+is adorable, if the laws by which earth and sea are kept together mark the
+Hand of supreme Wisdom and Power, how much nobler perfection of beauty is
+manifested in man! And of human nature itself here was the supereminent
+crown, a soul full of gifts, full of greatness, full of intellect, placed
+in an outward form, equally surpassing in its kind, and still more
+surpassingly excellent from its intimate union and subordination to the
+soul, so as almost to be its simple expression; yet this choicest, rarest
+specimen of Almighty skill, the Almighty had pitilessly shattered, in
+order that it might inherit a higher, an eternal perfection. O mystery of
+mysteries, that heaven should not be possibly obtained without such
+grinding down and breaking up of our original nature! O mysterious, that
+principle in us, whatever it is, and however it came there, which is so
+antagonistic to God, which has so spoilt what seems so good, that all must
+be undone, and must begin anew! “An enemy hath done this;” and, knowing as
+much as this, and no more, we must leave the awful mystery to that day
+when all things shall be made light.
+
+Agellius has not been idle while these thoughts pass through his mind. He
+has stooped down and scooped up such portions of the sand as are moistened
+with her blood, and has committed them to a small bag which he has taken
+out of his bosom. Then without delay, looking round to his attendants, and
+signing to them, with two of the party he resolutely crossed over to the
+other side of the corpse, covering it from attack, while his two
+assistants who were left proceeded quickly to lay hold of it. They had
+raised it, laid it on the bier, and were setting off by an unusual track
+across the waste, while Agellius, Aspar, and the third were grappling with
+some ruffians who had rushed upon them. Few, however, were there as yet to
+take part against them, but their cries of alarm were bringing others up,
+and the Christians were in growing danger of being worsted and carried
+off, when suddenly the soldiers interfered. Under pretence of keeping the
+peace, they laid about them with their heavy maces; and so it was, the
+blows took effect on the heads and shoulders of the rabble, with but
+slight injury to Agellius and his companions. The latter took instant
+advantage of the diversion, and vanished out of view by the same
+misleading track which their comrades had already chosen. If they, or the
+party who had preceded them, came within the range of sight of any
+goatherds upon the mountains, we must suppose that angels held those
+heathen eyes that they should not recognise them.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+
+                    LUX PERPETUA SANCTIS TUIS, DOMINE.
+
+
+The bier and its bearers, and its protectors, have reached the cave in
+safety, and pace down the gallery, preceded by its Christian hosts, with
+lighted tapers, singing psalms. They place the sacred body before the
+altar, and the mass begins. St. Cyprian celebrates, and after the Gospel,
+he adds a few words of his own.
+
+He said that they were engaged in praising, blessing, and exalting the
+adorable Grace of God, which had snatched so marvellously a brand out of
+the furnace. Benedicamus Patrem et Filium cum Sancto Spiritu. Benedictus,
+et laudabilis, et gloriosus, et superexaltatus in sæcula. Every day doing
+marvels and exceeding all that seemed possible in power and love, by new
+and still newer manifestations. A Greek had come to Africa to embellish
+the shrines of heathenism, to minister to the usurpation of the evil one,
+and to strengthen the old ties which connected genius with sin; and she
+had suddenly found salvation. But yesterday a poor child of earth, and
+to-day an inhabitant of the heavens. But yesterday without God and without
+hope; and to-day a martyr with a green palm and golden vestment,
+worshipping before the Throne. But yesterday the slave of Satan, and
+spending herself on the vanities of time; and to-day drinking of the
+never-cloying torrents of bliss everlasting. But yesterday one of a
+number, a grain of a vast heap, destined indiscriminately for the flame;
+to-day one of the elect souls, written from eternity in the book of life,
+and predestined to glory. But yesterday, hungry and thirsty, and restless
+for some object worthy an immortal spirit; to-day enjoying the ineffable
+ecstasy of the Marriage Feast and the espousals of Emmanuel. But yesterday
+tossed about on a sea of opinion; and to-day entranced in the vision of
+infallible truth and immutable sanctity. And yet what was she but only one
+instance out of ten thousand, of the Almighty and All-manifold Grace of
+the Redeemer? And who was there of all of them, there assembled, from the
+most heroic down to the humblest beginner, from the authoritative preacher
+down to the slave or peasant, but was equally, though in his own way, a
+miracle of mercy, and a vessel, once of wrath, if now of glory? Only might
+he and all who heard him persevere as they had begun, so that if (as was
+so probable) their trial was to be like hers, its issue might be like hers
+also.
+
+St. Cyprian ceased; and, while the deacon opened the _sindon_ for the
+offertory, the faithful took up alternately the verses of a hymn, which we
+here insert in a most unworthy translation:—
+
+  “The number of Thine own complete,
+    Sum up and make an end;
+  Sift clean the chaff, and house the wheat,—
+    And then, O Lord, descend.
+
+  “Descend, and solve by that descent,
+    This mystery of life;
+  Where good and ill, together blent,
+    Wage an undying strife.
+
+  “For rivers twain are gushing still,
+    And pour a mingled flood;
+  Good in the very depths of ill—
+    Ill in the heart of good.
+
+  “The last are first, the first are last,
+    As angel eyes behold;
+  These from the sheepcote sternly cast,
+    Those welcomed to the fold.
+
+  “No Christian home, no pastor’s eye,
+    No preacher’s vocal zeal,
+  Moved Thy dear martyr to defy
+    The prison and the wheel.
+
+  “Forth from the heathen ranks she stepped
+    The forfeit throne to claim
+  Of Christian souls who had not kept
+    Their birthright and their name.
+
+  “Grace formed her out of sinful dust;
+    She knelt a soul defiled;
+  She rose in all the faith and trust
+    And sweetness of a child.
+
+  “And in the freshness of that love
+    She preached by word and deed,
+  The mysteries of the world above—
+    Her new-found glorious creed.
+
+  “And running, in a little hour,
+    Of life the course complete,
+  She reached the throne of endless power,
+    And sits at Jesus’ feet.
+
+  “Her spirit there, her body here,
+    Make one the earth and sky;
+  We use her name, we touch her bier,
+    We know her God is nigh.”
+
+The last sentiment of the yet unfinished hymn was receiving an answer
+while they sang it. Juba had been brought into the chapel in the hands of
+his brother and the exorcists. Since he had been under their care, he had
+been, on the whole, calm and manageable, with intervals of wild tempest
+and mad terror. He spoke, at times, of an awful incubus weighing on his
+chest, which he could not throw off, and said he hoped that they would not
+think all the blasphemies he uttered were his own. On this occasion, he
+struggled most violently, and shook with distress; and, as they brought
+him towards the sacred relics, a thick, cold dew stood upon his brow, and
+his features shrank and collapsed. He held back, and exerted himself with
+all his might to escape, foaming at the mouth, and from time to time
+uttering loud shrieks and horrible words, which disturbed, though they
+could not interrupt, the hymn. His bearers persevered; they brought him
+close to Callista, and made him touch her feet with his hands. Immediately
+he screamed fearfully, and was sent up into the air with such force that
+he seemed discharged from some engine of war: then he fell back upon the
+earth apparently lifeless.
+
+The long prayer was ended; the _Sursum corda_ was uttered. Juba raised
+himself from the ground. When the words of consecration had been said, he
+adored with the faithful. After the mass, his attendants came to him; he
+was quite changed; he was quiet, harmless, and silent: the evil spirit had
+gone out; but he was an idiot.
+
+This wonderful deliverance was but the beginning of the miracles which
+followed the martyrdom of St. Callista. It may be said to have been the
+resurrection of the Church at Sicca. In not many months Decius was killed,
+and the persecution ceased there. Castus was appointed bishop, and numbers
+began to pour into the fold. The lapsed asked for peace, or at least such
+blessings as they could have. Heathens sought to be received. When asked
+for their reason, they could only say that Callista’s history and death
+had affected them with constraining force, and that they could not help
+following her steps. Increasing in boldness, as well as numbers, the
+Christians cowed both magistrates and mob. The spirit of the populace had
+been already broken; and the continual change of masters, and measures
+with them, in the imperial government, inflicted a chronic timidity on the
+magistracy. A handsome church was soon built, to which Callista’s body was
+brought, and which remained till the time of the Diocletian persecution.
+
+Juba attached himself to this church; and, though he could not be taught
+even to sweep the sacred pavement, still he never was troublesome or
+mischievous. He continued in this state for about ten years. At the end of
+that time, one morning, after mass, which he always attended in the church
+porch, he suddenly went to the bishop, and asked for baptism. He said that
+Callista had appeared to him, and had restored to him his mind. On
+conversing with him, the holy Castus found that his recovery was beyond
+all doubt: and not knowing how long his lucid state would last, he had no
+hesitation, with such instruction as the time admitted, in administering
+the sacred rite, as Juba wished. After receiving it, he proceeded to the
+tomb, within which lay St. Callista, and remained on his knees before his
+benefactress till nightfall. Not even then was he disposed to rise; and so
+he was left there for the night. Next morning he was found still in the
+attitude of prayer, but lifeless. He had been taken away in his baptismal
+robe.
+
+As to Agellius, if he be the bishop of that name who suffered at Sicca in
+his old age, in the persecution of Diocletian, we are possessed in this
+circumstance of a most interesting fact to terminate his history withal.
+What makes this more likely is, that this bishop is recorded to have
+removed the body of St. Callista from its original position, and placed it
+under the high altar, at which he said mass daily. After his own
+martyrdom, St. Agellius was placed under the high altar also.
+
+
+                                 THE END.
+
+
+                  THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                FOOTNOTES
+
+
+_    1 Vide_ Oxford transl. of St. Cyprian.
+
+    2 Here is an anachronism, as regards Arnobius and Lactantius of some
+      twenty or thirty years.
+
+    3 Bacon.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+
+The author’s footnotes have been moved to the end of the volume.
+
+The following typographical errors were corrected:
+
+      page 10, single quote changed to double quote after “pilum,”
+      page 34, “off?” changed to “off!”
+      page 42, “tomatos” changed to “tomatoes”
+      page 69, comma removed after “spirit”
+      page 135, “lees” changed to “less”
+      page 137, “do!” changed to “do?”
+      page 157, single quote changed to double quote after “stronger,”
+      page 181, “aud” changed to “and”
+      page 201, period changed to question mark after “Carthage”
+      page 207, “throughont” changed to “throughout”
+      page 228, “Saturu” changed to “Saturn”
+      page 230, period added after “best”
+      page 232, period added after “again”
+      page 239, “ou” changed to “on”
+      page 240, “be” changed to “he”
+      page 248, “you” changed to “your”
+      page 255, “to” changed to “too”
+      page 256, “n” changed to “in”
+      page 263, period changed to comma after “said”
+      page 278, period changed to question mark after “it”
+      page 300, period added after “gods”
+      page 303, single quote added after “do?”
+      page 310, quote removed before “If”, added before “it”
+      page 313, comma changed to period after “was”
+      page 333, “corrider” changed to “corridor”
+      page 347, comma changed to period after “initiation”
+      page 348, period added after “voice”
+      page 379, “Jesu’s” changed to “Jesus’”
+
+Variations in spelling (like “jailer” and “jailor”, “Asper” and “Aspar”,
+“Phenician” and “Phœnician”, “Thibursicumber” and “Thibursicumbur”) and
+hyphenation (e.g. “farm-house” and “farmhouse”, “goodwill” and
+“good-will”) were not changed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Callista by John Henry Cardinal Newman
+
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