Chapter VIII: Letter VI: From Piso to Fausta (1)

Having confined myself, in my last letter, to the affairs of Marcus and Lucilia, I now, Fausta, turn to those which concern us and Rome.

I found, on my return to the city, that the general anxiety concerning the designs of Aurelian had greatly increased. Many rumors were current of dark sayings of his, which, whether founded in truth or not, contributed to alarm even the most hopeful, and raise serious apprehensions for the fate of this much and long-suffering religion. Julia herself partakes--I cannot say of the alarm--but of the anxiety. She has less confidence than I have in the humanity of the Emperor. In the honours heaped upon Zenobia, and the favors shown herself and Vabalathus, she sees, not so much the outpouring of benevolent feeling, as a rather ostentatious display of imperial generosity, and, what is called, Roman magnanimity. For the true character of the man she looks into the graves of Palmyra, upon her smoking ruins, and upon the blood, yet hardly dry, that stains the pavements of the Coelian. Julia may be right, though I am unwilling to believe it. Her judgment is entitled to the more weight in this severe decision, that it is ever inclined to the side of a too favorable opinion of character and motive. You know her nature too well, to believe her capable of exaggerating the faults of even the humblest. Yet, though such are her apprehensions, she manifests the same calm and even carriage as on the approach of more serious troubles in Palmyra. She is full of deepest interest in the affairs of the Christians, and by many families of the poorer sort is resorted to continually for aid, for counsel, or sympathy. Not one in the whole community is a more frequent and devout attendant upon the services of the church; and, I need not add, that I am her constant companion. The performance of this duty gives a value to life in Rome such as it never had before. Every seventh day, as with the Jews, only upon a different day of the week, do the Christians assemble for the purposes of religious worship. And, I can assure you, it is with no trifling accession of strength for patient doing and patient bearing, that we return to our every-day affairs, after having listened to the prayers, the reasonings, or exhortations of Probus.

So great is the difference in my feelings and opinions from what they were before I left Rome for Palmyra, that it is with difficulty I persuade myself that I am the same person. Between Piso the Pyrronist and Piso the Christian, the distance seems immeasurable--yet in how short a time has it been past. I cannot say that I did not enjoy existence and value it in my former state, but I can say that my enjoyment of it is infinitely heightened as a Christian, and the rate at which I value it infinitely raised. Born and nurtured as I was, with Portia for my mother, a palace for my home, Rome for my country and capital, offering all the luxuries of the earth, and affording all the means I could desire for carrying on researches in study of every kind, surrounded by friends of the noblest and best families in the city,--I could not but enjoy life in some very important sense. While mere youth lasted, and my thoughts never wandered beyond the glittering forms of things, no one could be happier or more contented. All was fair and beautiful around me--what could I ask for more? I was satisfied and filled. But, by and by, my dream of life was disturbed--my sleep broken. Natural questions began to propose themselves for my solution, such, I suppose, as, sooner or later, spring up in every bosom. I began to speculate about myself--about the very self that had been so long, so busy, about everything else beside itself. I wished to know something of myself--of my origin, my nature, my present condition, my ultimate fate. It seemed to me I was too rare and curious a piece of work to go to ruin, final and inevitable--perhaps to-morrow--at all events in a very few years. Of futurity I had heard--and of Elysium--just as I had heard of Jupiter, greatest and best, but, with my earliest youth, these things had faded from my mind, or had already taken upon themselves the character of fable. My Virgil, in which I early received my lessons of language, at once divested them of all their air of reality, and left them naked fiction. The other poets, Livy helping them, continued the same work and completed it. But, bent with most serious and earnest desires toward truth on what seemed to me the greatest theme, I could not remain where I was, and turned with highest expectations to the philosophers. I not only read, but I studied and pondered them with diligence, and with as sincere a desire of arriving at truth as ever scholar sat at the feet of his instructer. The result was anything but satisfying, I ended a universal sceptic, so far as human systems of philosophy were concerned, so far as they pretended to solve the enigma of God and man, of life and death; but with a heart, nevertheless, yearning after truth; and even full of faith, if that may be called faith which would instinctively lay hold upon a God and a hope of immortality; and, though beaten back once and again, by every form which the syllogism could assume, still keep its hold.

This was my state, Fausta, when I was found by Christianity. Without faith, and yet with it; doubting, and yet believing; rejecting philosophy, but leaning upon nature; dissatisfied, but hoping. I cannot easily find words to tell you the change which Christian faith has wrought within me. All I can say is this, that I am now a new man; I am made over again; I am born as it were into another world. Where darkness once was, there is now light brighter than the sun. Where doubt was, there is now certainty. I have knowledge and truth, for error and perplexity. The inner world of my mind is resplendent with a day whose luminary will never set. And even the outer world of appearances and forms shines more gloriously, and has an air of reality which before it never had. It used to seem to me like the gorgeous fabric of a dream, and as if, at some unexpected moment, it might melt into air and nothingness, and I, and all men and things, with it; for there appeared to be no purpose in it; it came from nothing, it achieved nothing, and certainly seemed to conduct to nothing. Men, like insects, came and went; were born, and died, and that was all. Nothing was accomplished, nothing perfected. But now, nature seems to me stable, and eternal as God himself. The world being the great birth-place and nursery of these myriads of creatures, made, as I ever conceived, in a divine likeness, after some godlike model,--for what spirit of other spheres can be more beautiful than a perfect man, or a perfect woman--each animated with the principle of immortality--there is a reason for its existence, and its perpetuity, from whose force the mind cannot escape. It is, and it ever will be; and mankind upon it, a continually happier, and more virtuous brotherhood.

Yes, Fausta, to me as a Christian, everything is new everything better; the inward world, the outward world, the present, and the future. Life is a worthier gift, and a richer possession. I am to myself an object of a thousand-fold greater interest; and every other human being, from a poor animal, that was scarce worthy its wretched existence, starts up into a god, for whom the whole earth may, one day, become too narrow a field either to till, or rule. I am, accordingly, ready to labor both for myself and others. I once held myself too cheap to do much even for myself; for others, I would do nothing, except to feed the hunger that directly appealed to me, or relieve the wretchedness that made me equally wretched. Not so now. I myself am a different being, and others are different. I am ready to toil for such beings; to suffer for them. They are too valuable to be neglected, abused, insulted, trodden into the dust. They must be defended and rescued, whenever their fellow-men--wholly ignorant of what they are, and what themselves are about--would oppress them. More than all, do they need truth, effectually to enlighten and redeem them, and truth they must have at whatever cost. Let them only once know what they are, and the world is safe. Christianity tells them this, and Christianity they must have. The State must not stand between man and truth! or, if it do, it must be rebuked by those who have the knowledge and the courage, and made to assume its proper place and office. Knowing what has been done for me by Christian truth, I can never be content until to others the same good is at least offered; and I shall devote what power and means I possess to this task. The prospect now is of opposition and conflict. But it dismays not me, nor Julia, nor any of this faith who have truly adopted its principles. For, if the mere love of fame, the excitement of a contest, the prospect of pay or plunder, will carry innumerable legions to the battle-field to leave there their bones, how much more shall the belief of a Christian arm him for even worse encounters? It were pitiful indeed, if a possession, as valuable as this of truth, could not inspire a heroism, which the love of fame or of money can.

These things I have said, to put you fully in possession of our present position, plans, and purposes. The fate of Christianity is to us now as absorbing an interest, as once was the fate of Palmyra.

* * * * *

I had been in the city only long enough to give Julia a full account of my melancholy visit in the country, and to write a part of it to you, when I walked forth to observe for myself the signs which the city might offer, either to confirm, or allay, the apprehensions which were begun to be felt.

I took my way over the Palatine, desiring to see the excellent Tacitus, whose house is there. He was absent, being suddenly called to Baiæ. I turned toward the Forum, wishing to perform a commission for Julia at the shop of Civilis--still alive, and still compounding his sweets--which is now about midway between the slope of the hill and the Forum, having been removed from its former place where you knew it, under the eaves of the Temple of Peace. The little man of 'smells' was at his post, more crooked than ever, but none the less exquisitely arrayed; his wig befitting a young Bacchus, rather than a dried shred of a man beyond his seventieth year. All the gems of the east glittered on his thin fingers, and diamonds, that might move the envy of Livia, hung from his ears. The gales of Arabia, burdened with the fragrance of every flower of that sunny clime, seemed concentrated into an atmosphere around him; and, in truth, I suppose a specimen of every pot and phial of his vast shop, might be found upon his person concealed in gold boxes, or hanging in the merest fragments of bottles upon chains of silver or gold, or deposited in folds of his ample robes. He was odor in substantial form. He saluted me with a grace, of which he only in Rome is master, and with a deference that could not have been exceeded had I been Aurelian. I told him that I wished to procure a perfume of Egyptian origin and name, called Cleopatra's tears, which was reputed to convey to the organs of smell, an odor more exquisite than that of the rarest Persian rose, or choicest gums of Arabia. The eyes of Civilis kindled with the fires of twenty--when love's anxious brow is suddenly cleared up by that little, but all comprehensive word, yes--as he answered,

'Noble Piso, I honor you. I never doubted your taste. It is seen in your palace, in your dress, nay, in the very costume of your incomparable slave, who has done me the honor to call here in your service. But now have you given of it the last and highest proof. Never has the wit of man before compounded an essence like that which lies buried in this porphyry vase.'

'You do not mean that I am to take away a vase of that size? I do not purchase essences by the pound!'

Civilis seemed as if he would have fainted, so oppressed was he by this display of ignorance. My character, I found, was annihilated in a moment. When his presence of mind was recovered, he said,

'This vase? Great Jupiter! The price of your palace upon the Coelian would scarce purchase it! Were its contents suddenly let loose, and spilled upon the air, not Rome only, but Italy, would be bathed in the transporting, life-giving fragrance! Now I shall remove the cover, first giving you to know, that within this larger vase there is a number of smallest bottles, some of glass, others of gold, in each of which are contained a few of the tears, and which are warranted to retain their potency, and lend their celestial peculiarity to your clothes or your apartments, without loss or diminution in the least appreciable degree, during the life of the purchaser. Now, if it please you, bend this way, and receive the air which I shall presently set free. How think you, noble Piso? Art not a new man?

'I am new in my knowledge such as it is Civilis. It is certainly agreeable, most agreeable.'

'Agreeable! So is mount Etna a pretty hill! So is Aurelian a fair soldier! so is the sun a good sized brazier! I beseech thee, find another word. Let it not go forth to all Rome, that the most noble Piso deems the tears of Cleopatra agreeable!'

'I can think no otherwise,' I replied. 'It is really agreeable, and reminds me, more than anything else, of the oldest Falernian, just rubbed between the palms of the hand, which you will allow is to compliment it in no moderate measure. But confess now, Civilis, that you have an hundred perfumes more delicious than this.'

'Piso, I may say this,--they have been so.'

'Ah, I understand you; you admit then, that it is the force of fashion that lends this extraordinary odor to the porphyry vase.'

'Truly, noble Piso, it has somewhat to do with it, it must be acknowledged.'

'It would be curious, Civilis, to know what name this bore, and in what case it was bestowed, and at what price sold, before the Empress Livia fancied it. I think it should have been named, 'Livia's smiles.' It would, at any rate, be a good name for it at thy shop in Alexandria.'

'You are facetious, noble Piso. But that last hint is too good to be thrown away. Truly, you are a man of the world, whose distinction I suppose is, that he has eyes in the hind part of his head, as well as before. But what blame can be mine for such dealing? I am driven; I am a slave. It is fashion, that works these wonders, not I. And there is no goddess, Piso, like her. She is the true creator. Upon that which is worthless, can she bestow, in a moment, inestimable value. What is despised to-day, she can exalt to-morrow to the very pinnacle of honor. She is my maker. One day I was poor, the goddess took me by the hand, and smiled upon me, and the next day I was rich. It was the favorite mistress of Maximin, who, one day--her chariot, Piso, so chance would have it, broke down at my door, when she took refuge in my little shop, then at the corner of the street Castor as you turn towards the Tiber--purchasing a particular perfume, of which I had large store, and boasted much to her, gave me such currency among the rich and noble, that, from that hour, my fortune was secure. No one bought a perfume afterwards but of Civilis. Civilis was soon the next person to the Emperor. And, to this hour, has this same goddess befriended me. And many an old jar, packed away in the midst of rubbish in dark recesses now valueless, do I look upon as nevertheless so much gold--its now despised contents one day to disperse themselves upon kings and nobles, in the senate and the theatres. I need not tell you what this diminutive bottle might have been had for, before the Kalends. Yet, by Hercules, should I have sold it even then for less? for should I not have divined its fortune? The wheel is ever turning, turning. But, most excellent Piso, men of the world are ever generous--'

'Fear nothing, Civilis, I will not betray you. I believe you have spoken real truths. Besides, with Livia on your side, and what could all Rome do to hurt you?'

'Most true, most true. But, may I ask--for one thing has made me astonished--how is it that you, being now, as report goes, a Christian, should come to me to purchase essences? When I heard you had so named yourself, I looked to lose your custom forever after.'

'Why should not a Christian man smell of that which is agreeable, as well as another?'

'Ah, that I cannot say. I have heard--I know nothing, Piso, beyond essences and perfumes--but, I have heard, that the Christians forbear such things, calling them vanities; just as they withdraw too, 'tis said, from the theatres and the circuses.'

'They do, indeed, withdraw from the theatres and circuses, Civilis, because the entertainments witnessed there do, as they judge, serve but to make beasts of men; they minister to vice. But in a sweet smell they see no harm, any more than in a silk dress, in well-proportioned buildings, or magnificent porticoes. Why should it be very wrong or very foolish to catch the odors which the divine Providence plants in the rose, and in a thousand flowers and gums as they wander forth upon the air for our delight, and fasten them up in these little bottles? by which means we can breathe them at all times--in winter as well as in summer, in one country, or clime, as in another. Thy shop, Civilis, is but a flower-garden in another form, and under another name.'

'I shall think better of the Christians for this. I hardly believed the report, indeed, for it were most unnatural and strange to find fault with odors such as these. I shall lament the more, that they are to be so dealt with by the Emperor. Hast thou heard what is reported this morning?'

'No; I am but just from home. How does it go?'

'Why, 'tis nothing other nor less than this, that Aurelian, being resolved to change the Christians all back again into what they were, has begun with his niece the princess Aurelia, and, with violence, insists that she shall sacrifice--which she steadfastly refuses to do. Some say, that she has not been seen at the palace for several days, and that she is fast locked up in the great prison on the Tiber.'

'I do not believe a word of it, Civilis. The Emperor has of late used harsh language of the Christians, I know. But for one word he has spoken, the city has coined ten. And, moreover, the words of the priest Fronto are quoted for those of Aurelian. It is well known he is especially fond of Aurelia; and Mucapor, to whom she is betrothed, is his favorite among all his generals, not excepting Probus.'

'Well, well, may it be as you say! I, for my part, should be sorry that any mishap befel those with whom the most noble Piso is connected; especially seeing they do not quarrel, as I was fain to believe, with my calling. Yet, never before, as I think, have I seen a Christian in my shop.'

'They may have been here without your knowing it.'

'Yes, that is true.'

'Besides, the Christians being in the greater proportion of the middle or humbler classes, seek not their goods at places where emperors resort. They go elsewhere.'

Civilis bowed to the floor, as he replied, 'You do me too much honor.'

'The two cases of perfume which I buy,' I then said, 'are to travel into the far East. Please to secure them accordingly.'

'Are they not then for the princess Julia, as I supposed?'

'They are for a friend in Syria. We wish her to know what is going on here in the capital of all the world.'

'By the gods! you have devised well. It is the talk all over Rome. Cleopatra's tears have taken all hearts. Orders from the provinces will soon pour in. They shall follow you well secured, as you say.'

I enjoy a call upon this whole Roman, and yet half Jew, as much as upon the first citizens of the capital. The cup of Aurelian, is no fuller than the cup of Civilis. The perfect bliss that emanates from his countenance, and breathes from his form and gait, is pleasing to behold--upon whatever founded--seeing it is a state that is reached by so few. No addition could be made to the felicity of this fortunate man. He conceives his occupation to be more honorable than the proconsulship of a province, and his name, he pleases himself with believing, is familiar to more ears than any man's, save the Emperor's, and has been known in Rome for a longer period than any other person's living, excepting only the head of the Senate, the venerable Tacitus. This is all legible in the lines about his mouth and eyes.

Leaving the heaven of the happy man, I turned to the Forum of Augustus, to look at a statue of brass, of Aurelian, just placed among the great men of Rome in front of the Temple of Mars, the Avenger. This statue is the work of Periander, who, with that universality of power which marks the Greek, has made his genius as distinguished here for sculpture, as it was in Palmyra for military defence and architecture. Who, for perfection in this art of arts, is to be compared with the Greek? or for any work, of either the head or the hands, that implies the possession of what we mean by genius? The Greeks have not only originated all that we know of great and beautiful in letters, philosophy and the arts, but, what they have originated, they have also perfected. Whatever they have touched, they have finished; at least, so far as art, and the manner of working, is concerned. The depths of all wisdom and philosophy they have not sounded indeed, though they have gone deeper than any, only because they are in their own essence unfathomable. Time, as it flows on, bears us to new regions to be explored, whose riches constantly add new stores to our wisdom, and open new views to science. But in all art they have reached a point beyond which none have since advanced, and beyond which it hardly seems possible to go. A doric column, a doric temple, a corinthian capital, a corinthian temple--these perfectly satisfy and fill the mind; and, for seven hundred years, no change or addition has been made or attempted that has not been felt to be an injury. And I doubt not that seven thousand years hence, if time could but spare it so long, pilgrims would still go in search of the beautiful from the remotest parts of the world, from parts now unknown, to worship before the Parthenon, and, may I not add, the Temple of the Sun in Palmyra!

Periander has gained new honors by this admirable piece of work. I had hardly commenced my examination of it, when a grating voice at my elbow, never, once heard, to be mistaken for any other, croaked out what was meant as a challenge.

'The greatest captain of this or of any age!'

It was Spurius, a man whom no slight can chill nor, even insult, cause to abate the least of his intrusive familiarity--a familiarity which he covets, too, only for the sake of disputation and satire. To me, however, he is never other than a source of amusement. He is a variety of the species I love occasionally to study.

I told him I was observing the workmanship, without thinking of the man represented.

'If you will allow me to say it,' he rejoined, 'a very inferior subject of contemplation. A statue--as I take it, the thing, that is, for which it is made, is commemoration. If one wants to see fine work in marble, there is the cornice for him just overhead: or in brass, let him look at the doors of the new temple, or the last table or couch of Syphax. The proper subject for man is man.'

'Well, Spurius, on your own ground then. In this brass I do not see brass, nor yet Aurelian--'

'What then, in the name of Hecate?'

'Nothing but intellect--the mind, the soul of the greater artist, Periander. That drapery never fell so upon Aurelian; nor was Aurelian's form or bearing ever like this. It is all ennobled, and exalted above pure nature, by the divine power of genius. The true artist, under every form and every line of nature, sees another form and line of more perfect grace and beauty, which he chooses instead, and makes it visible and permanent in stone or brass. You see nothing in me, but merely Piso as he walks the streets. Periander sees another within, bearing no more resemblance to me--yet as much--than does this, to Aurelian.'

'That, I simply conceive, to be so much sophistry,' rejoined the poet, 'which no man would be guilty of, except he had been for the very purpose, as one must think, of degrading his intellect, to the Athenian schools. Still, as I said and think, the statue is made to commemorate the man represented, not the artist.'

'It is made for that. But, oftentimes, the very name of the man commemorated is lost, while that of the artist lives forever. In my judgment there is as much of Periander in the statue as there is of Aurelian.'

'I know not what the fame of this great Periander may be ages hence. It has not till now reached my ear.'

'It is not easy to reach the ear of some who dwell in the via coeli.' I could not help saying that.

'My rooms, sir, I would inform you,' he rejoined sharply, 'are on the third floor.'

'Then I do wonder you should not have heard of Periander.'

'Greater than Aurelian! and I must wonder too. A poet may be greater than a general or an emperor, I grant: he is one of the family of the gods; but how a worker in brass or marble can be, passes my poor understanding. It is vain to attempt to raise the mere artist, to the level of the historian or poet.'

'I think that too. I only said he was greater than Aurelian--'

'Than Aurelian,' replied Spurius, 'who has extended the bounds of the empire!'

'But narrowed those of human happiness,' I answered. 'Which is of more consequence, empire or man? But now, man was the great object! I grant you he is, and for that reason a man who, like an artist of genius, adds to the innocent sources of human enjoyment, is greater than the soldier and conqueror, whose business is the annoyance and destruction of life. Aurelian has slain hundreds of thousands. Periander never injured a worm. He dwells in a calm and peaceful world of his own, and his works are designed to infuse the same spirit that fills himself into all who behold them. You must confess the superior power of art, and of the artist, in this very figure. Who thinks of conquest, blood, and death, as he looks upon these flowing outlines, this calm, majestic form--upon that still face? The artist here is the conqueror of the conqueror, and makes him subserve his own purposes; purposes, of a higher nature than the mere soldier ever dreamed of. No one can stand and contemplate this form, without being made a lover of beauty rather than of blood and death; and beauty is peace.'

'It must be impossible,' replied the bitter spirit, 'for one who loves Palmyra better than his native Rome, to see much merit in Aurelian. It is a common saying, Piso is a Palmyrene. The report is current too that Piso is about to turn author, and celebrate that great nation in history.'

'I wish I were worthy to do so,' I answered, 'I might then refute certain statements in another quarter. Yet events have already refuted them.'

'If my book,' replied Spurius, 'be copied a thousand times, the statements shall stand as they are. They are founded upon indisputable evidence and philosophical inferences.'

'But, Spurius, they are every one contradicted by the late events.'

'No matter for that, if they were ever true they must always be true. Reasoning is as strong as fact. I found Palmyra a vulgar, upstart, provincial city; the most distasteful of all spots on earth to a refined mind; such I left it, and such I have shown it to the world.'

'Yet,' I urged, 'if the Palmyrenes in the defence of their country showed themselves a brave, daring, and dangerous foe, as they certainly were magnanimous; if so many facts and events prove this, and all Rome admits it, it will seem like little else than malice for such pages to circulate in your book. Besides, as to a thousand other things I can prove you to have seen amiss.'

'Because I have but one eye, am I incapable of vision? Am I to be reproached with my misfortunes? One eye is the same as two; who sees two images except he squint? I can describe that wain, loaded down with wine casks, drawn by four horses with scarlet trappings, the driver with a sweeping Juno's favor in his cap, as justly as you can. Who can see more?'

'I thought not, Spurius, of your misfortune, though I must think two eyes better for seeing than one, but only of favorable opportunities for observation. You were in Palmyra from the ides of January to the nones of February, and lived in a tavern. I have been there more than half a year, and dwelt among the citizens themselves. I knew them in public and in private, and saw them under all circumstances most favorable to a just opinion, and I can affirm that a more discolored picture of a people was never drawn than yours.'

'All the world,' said the creature, 'knows that Spurius is no flatterer. I have not only published travels among the Palmyrenes, but I intend to publish a poem also--yes, a satire--and if it should be entitled "Woman's pride humbled," or "The downfall of false greatness" or "The gourd withered in a day," or "Mushrooms not oaks," or "Ants not elephants," what would there be wonderful in it?--or, if certain Romans should figure largely in it, eh?'

'Nothing is less wonderful, Spurius, than the obstinacy and tenaciousness of error?'

'Periander greater than Aurelian!' rejoined he, moving off; 'that is a good thing for the town.'

As I turned, intending to visit the shop of Demetrius, to see what progress he was making in his silver Apollo, I was accosted by the consul, Marcellinus.

'A fair morning to you, Piso,' said he; 'and I see you need the salutation and the wish, for a black cloud has just drifted from you, and you must still feel as if under the shadow. Half the length of the street, as I slowly approached, have I witnessed your earnest discourse with one whom, I now see, to have been Spurius. But I trust your Christian principles are not about to make an agrarian of you? Whence this sudden intimacy with one like Spurius?'

'One need not, I suppose, be set down as a lover of an east wind because they both sometimes take the same road, and can scarcely separate if they would? But, to speak the truth, a man is to me a man, and I never yet have met one of the race from whom I could not gain either amusement, instruction, or warning. Spurius is better than a lecture from a philosopher, upon the odiousness of prejudice. To any one inclined to harbor prejudices would I recommend an hour's interview with Spurius, sooner far than I would send him to Cleanthes the Stoic, or Silius the Platonist, or, I had almost said Probus the Christian.'

'May I ask, Piso, if you have in sober earnest joined yourself to the community of the Christians, or, are you only dallying for awhile with their doctrines, just as our young men are this year infected by the opinions of Cleanthes, the next followers of Silius, the third of the nuisance Crito, and the fourth, adrift from all, and the fifth, good defenders, if not believers, of the popular superstitions? I presume I may believe that such is the case with you. I trust so, for the times are not favorable for the Christians, and I would like to know that you were not of them.'

'I am however of them, with earnestness. I have been a Christian ever since I first thoroughly comprehended what it meant.'

'But how can it be possible that, standing as you do at the head as it were of the nobility and wealth of Rome, you can confound yourself with this obscure and vulgar tribe? I know that some few of reputation are with them beside yourself; but how few! Come, come, disabuse yourself of this error and return to the old, safe, and reputable side.'

'If mere fancy, Marcellinus, had carried me over to the Christians, fancy or whim might bring me away from them. But if it be, on the other hand, a question of truth, then it is clear, fashion and respectability, and even what is safest, or most expedient, are arguments not to be so much as lisped.'

'No more, no more! I see how it is. You are fairly gone from us. Nevertheless, though it may be thought needful to check the growth of this sect, I shall hope that your bark may sail safely along. But this reported disappearance of Aurelia shows that danger is not far off.'

'Do you then credit the rumor?'

'I can do no otherwise. It is in every part of the town. I shall learn the truth at the capitol. I go to meet the senate.'

'One moment: Is my judgment of the senate a right one in this, that it would not second Aurelian in an attack upon the privileges, property, or lives of the Christians?'

'I think it is. Although, as I know, there are but few Christians in the body--how many you know surely better than I--yet I am persuaded it would be averse to acts of intolerance and persecution. Will you not accompany me to the sitting?'

'Not so early. I am first bound elsewhere.'

'You know, Fausta, that I avoid the senate. Being no longer a senate, a Roman senate, but a mere gathering of the flatterers of the reigning Emperor, whoever he may be, neither pleasure nor honor can come of their company. There is one aspect however, at the present moment, in which this body is to be contemplated with interest. It is not, in matters of religion, a superstitious body. Here it stands, between Aurelian with the populace on his side, and the Christians, or whatever religious body or sect there should be any design to oppress or exterminate. It consists of the best and noblest, and richest, of Rome; of those who have either imbibed their opinions in philosophy and religion from the ancient philosophers or their living representatives, or are indifferent and neglectful of the whole subject; which is the more common case. In either respect they are as a body tolerant of the various forms which religion or superstition may assume. The only points of interest or inquiry with them would be, whether any specified faith or ceremonies tended to the injury of the state? whether they affected to its damage the existing order of civil affairs? These questions being answered favorably on the part of the greater number, there would be no disposition to interfere. Of Christianity, the common judgment in that body, and among those in the capital who are of the same general rank, is for the most part favorable. It is commended for its modesty, for the quiet and unostentatious manner in which its religious affairs are managed, and for the humble diligence with which it concerns itself with the common people and the poor, carefully instructing them in the doctrines of their religion, and relieving liberally their necessities. I am persuaded, that any decision of the senate concerning the Christians, would be indulgent and paternal, and that it would, in opinion and feeling, be opposed to any violence whatever on the part of Aurelian. But then, alas! it is little that they can do with even the best purposes. The Emperor is absolute--the only power, in truth, in the state. The senate exists but in name and form. It has even less independent power than that of Palmyra had under Zenobia. Yours, indeed, was dependent through affection and trust, reposing in a higher wisdom than its own. This, through fear and the spirit of flattery. So many members too were added, after the murderous thinning of its seats in the affair of the mint, that, now, scarce a voice would be raised in open opposition to any course the Emperor might adopt. The new members being moreover of newer families, nearer the people, are less inclined than the others to resist any of his measures. Still, it is most evident that there is an under current of ill-will, opposition, jealousy, distrust, running through the body, which, if the opportunity should present itself, and there were courage enough for the work, may show itself and make itself felt and respected. The senate, in a word, though slavish and subservient, is not friendly.

But I am detaining you from the company of Demetrius, of which you were always fond. I soon reached his rich establishment, and being assured that he of Palmyra was within, I entered. First passing through many apartments, filled with those who were engaged in some one of the branches of this beautiful art, I came to that which was sacred to the labors of the two brothers, who are employed in the invention of the designs of their several works, in drawing the plans, in preparing the models, and then in overseeing the younger artists at their tasks, themselves performing all the higher and more difficult parts of the labor. Demetrius was working alone at his statue; the room in which he was, being filled either with antiquities in brass, ivory, silver, or gold, or with finished specimens of his own and his brother's skill, all disposed with the utmost taste, and with all the advantages to be derived from the architecture of the room, from a soft and mellowed light resembling moonlight which came through alabaster windows, from the rich cloths, silks, and other stuffs, variously disposed around, and from the highly ornamented cabinets in which articles of greatest perfection and value were kept and exhibited. Here stood the enthusiast, applying himself so intently to his task, that he neither heard the door of the apartment as it opened, nor the voice of the slave who announced my name. But, in a moment, as he suddenly retreated to a dark recess to observe from that point the effect of his touches as he proceeded, he saw me, and cried out,

'Most glad to greet you here, Piso; your judgment is, at this very point, what I shall be thankful for. Here, if it please you, move to the very spot in which I now am in, and tell me especially this, whether the finger of the right hand should not be turned a line farther toward the left of the figure. The metal is obstinate, but still it can be bent if necessary. Now judge, and speak your judgment frankly, for my sake.'

I sank back into the recess as desired, and considered attentively the whole form, rough now and from the moulds, and receiving the first finishing touches from the rasp and the chisel. I studied it long and at my leisure, Demetrius employing himself busily about some other matter. It is a beautiful and noble figure, worthy any artist's reputation of any age, and of a place in the magnificent temple for which it is designed. So I assured Demetrius, giving him at length my opinion upon every part. I ended with telling him I did not believe that any effect would be gained by altering the present direction of the finger. It had come perfect from the moulds.

'Is that your honest judgment, Piso? Christians, they say, ever speak the exact truth. Fifty times have I gone where you now are to determine the point. My brother says it is right. But I cannot tell. I have attempted the work in too much haste; but Aurelian thinks, I believe, that a silver man may be made as easily as a flesh one may be unmade. Rome is not Palmyra, Piso. What a life there for an artist! Calm as a summer sea. Here! by all the gods and goddesses! if one hears of anything but of blood and death! Heads all on where they should be to-day, to-morrow are off. To-day, captives cut up on the altars of some accursed god, and to-morrow thrown to some savage beast, no better and no worse, for the entertainment of savages worse than either or all. The very boys in the streets talk of little else than of murderous sports of gladiators or wild animals. I swear to you, a man can scarce collect or keep his thoughts here. What's this about the Christians too? I marvel, Piso, to see you here alive! They say you are to be all cut up root and branch. Take my advice, and fly with me back to Palmyra! Not another half year would I pass among these barbarians for all the patronage of the Emperor, his minions, and the senate at their heels. What say you?'

'No, Demetrius, I cannot go; but I should not blame you for going. Rome is no place, I agree with you, for the life contemplative, or for the pure and innocent labors of art. It is the spot for intense action; but--'

'Suffering you mean--'

'That too, most assuredly, but of action too. It is the great heart of the world.'

'Black as Erebus and night.'

'Yes, but still a great one, which, if it can be once made to beat true, will send its blood, then a pure and life-giving current, to the remotest extremities of the world, which is its body. I hope for the time to come when this will be true. There is more goodness in Rome, Demetrius, than you have heard, or known of. There is a people here worth saving: I, with the other Christians, am set to this work. We must not abandon it.'

''Twill be small comfort though, should you all perish doing it.'

'Our perishing might be but the means of new and greater multitudes springing up to finish what we had begun, but left incomplete. There is great life in death. Blood, spilled upon the ground, is a kind of seed that comes up men. Truth is not extinguished by putting out life. It then seems to shine the more brightly, as if the more to cheer and comfort those who are suffering and dying for it.'

'That may, or may not be,' said the artist, 'here and there; but, in my judgment, if this man-slayer, this world-butcher once fastens his clutches upon your tribe, he will leave none to write your story. How many were left in Palmyra?--Just, Piso, resume your point of observation, and judge whether this fold of the drapery were better as it is, or joined to the one under it, an alteration easily made.'

I gave him my opinion, and he went on filing and talking.

'And now, Piso, if I must tell you, I have conceived a liking for you Christians, and it is for this reason partly I would have you set about to escape the evil that is at least threatened. Here is my brother, whose equal the world does not hold, is become a Christian. Then, do you know, here is a family, just in the rear of our shop, of one Macer, a Christian and a preacher, that has won upon us strangely. I see much of them. Some of his boys are in a room below, helping on by their labor the support of their mother and those who are younger, for I trow, Macer himself does little for them, whatever he may be doing for the world at large, or its great heart as you call it. But, what is more still,' cried he with emphasis, and a jump at the same moment, throwing down his tools, 'do you know the Christians have some sense of what is good in our way? they aspire to the elegant, as well as others who are in better esteem.'

And as he finished, he threw open the doors of a small cabinet, and displayed a row of dishes, cups, and pitchers, of elegant form and workmanship.

'These,' he went on, 'are for the church of Felix, the bishop of the Christians. What they do with them I know not; but, as I was told by the bishop, they have a table or altar of marble, on which, at certain times, they are arranged for some religious rite or other. They are not of gold, as they seem, but of silver gilded. My brother furnished the designs, and put them into the hands of Flaccus, who wrought them. Neither I nor my brother could labor at them, as you may believe, but it shows a good ambition in the Christians to try for the first skill in Rome or the world,--does it not? They are a promising people.'

Saying which, he closed the doors and flew to his work again.

At the same moment the door of the apartment opened, and the brother Demetrius entered accompanied by Probus. When our greetings were over, Probus said, continuing as it seemed a conversation just broken off,

'I did all I could to prevent it, but the voice of numbers was against me, and of authority too, and, both together, they prevailed. You, I believe, stood neuter, or indeed, I may suppose, knew nothing about the difference?'

'As you suppose,' replied the elder Demetrius, 'I knew nothing of it, but designed the work and have completed it. Here it is.' And going to the same cabinet, again opened the doors and displayed the contents. Probus surveyed them with a melancholy air, saying, as he did so,

'I could bear that the vessels, used for the purpose to which these are destined, should be made of gold, or even of diamond itself, could mines be found to furnish it, and skill to hollow it out. For, we know, the wine which these shall hold is that which, in the way of symbol, shadows forth the blood of Christ which, by being shed on the cross, purchased for us this Christian truth and hope; and what should be set out with every form of human honor, if not this?'

'I think so,' replied Demetrius; 'to that which we honor and reverence in our hearts we must add the outward sign and testimony; especially moreover if we would affect, in the same way that ours are, the minds of others. Paganism understands this; and it is the pomp and magnificence of her ceremony, the richness of the temple service, the grandeur of her architecture, and the imposing array of her priests in their robes, ministering at the altars or passing through the streets in gorgeous procession, with banners, victims, garlands, and music, by which the populace are gained and kept. That must be founded on just principles, men say, on which the great, the learned, and the rich, above all the State itself, are so prompt to lavish so much splendor and wealth.'

'But here is a great danger,' Probus replied. 'This, carried too far, may convert religion into show and ostentation. Form and ceremony, and all that is merely outward and material, may take the place of the moral. Religion may come to be a thing apart by itself, a great act, a tremendous and awful rite, a magnificent and imposing ceremony, instead of what it is in itself, simply a principle of right action toward man and toward God. This is at present just the character and position of the Roman religion. It is a thing that is to be seen at the temples, but nowhere else; it is a worship through sacrifices and prayers, and that is all. The worshipper at the temple may be a tyrant at home, a profligate in the city, a bad man everywhere, and yet none the less a true worshipper. May God save the religion of Christ from such corruption! Yet is the beginning to be discerned. A decline has already begun. Rank and power are already sought with an insane ambition, even by ministers of Christ. They are seeking to transfer to Christianity the same outward splendor, and the same gilded trappings, which, in the rites and ceremonies of the popular faith, they see so to subdue the imagination, and lead men captive. Hence, Piso and Demetrius, the golden chair of Felix, and his robes of audience, on which there is more gold, as I believe, than would gild all these cups and pitchers; hence, too, the finery of the table, the picture behind it, and, in some churches, the statues of Christ, of Paul, and Peter. These golden vessels for the supper of Christ's love, I can forgive--I can welcome them--but in the rest that has come, and is coming, I see signs of danger.'

'But, most excellent Probus,' said the younger Demetrius, 'I like not to hear the arts assailed and represented dangerous. I have just been telling Piso, that you are a people to be respected, for you were beginning to honor the arts. Yet here now you are denouncing them. But, let me ask, what harm could it do any good man among you, to come and look at this figure of Apollo, or a statue of your Paul or Peter, as you name them--supposing they were just men and benefactors of their race?'

'There ought to be none,' Probus replied. 'It ought to be a source of innocent pleasure, if not of wholesome instruction, to gaze upon the imitated form of a good man--of a reformer, a benefactor, a prophet. But man is so prone to religion,--it is an honorable instinct--that you can scarce place before him an object of reverence but he will straightway worship it. What were your gods but once men, first revered, then worshipped, and now their stone images deemed to be the very gods themselves? Thus the original idea--the effect, we may believe, of an early revelation--of one supreme Deity has been almost lost out of the world. Let the figure of Christ be everywhere set before the people in stone or metal, and, what with the natural tendency of the mind to idolatry, and the force of example in the common religion, I fear it would not be long before he, whom we now revere as a prophet, would soon be worshipped as a god; and the disciples whom you have named, in like manner, would no longer be remembered with gratitude and affection as those who devoted their lives to the service of their fellow-men, but be adored as inferior Deities, like your Castor and Pollux. I can conceive that, in the lapse of ages, men shall be so redeemed from the gross conceptions that now inthrall them concerning both God and his worship, and so nourished up to a divine strength by the power of truth, they shall be in no danger from such sources; but shall reap all the pleasure and advantage which can be derived from beautiful forms of art and the representation of great and excellent characters, without ever dreaming that any other than the infinite and invisible Spirit of the universe is to be worshipped, or held divine. The religion of Christ will itself, if aught can do it, bring about such a period.'