us up in moments of sadness. Therefore it is that we cannot bring ourselves to approve the way in which you Pagans apply the arts and sciences. Your scholars employ their natural capacities and acquired knowledge to invent new ways of working evil to others; they are always busy making the methods of war more effective, more deadly that is to say, they are engaged in making murder easier; they are ever concocting new schemes for earning money that is, for enriching some persons at the expense of others. Your art is utilized for the building and ornamentation of temples in honor of gods in whom the most enlightened among you have long since ceased to believe, but faith in whom you try to keep alive in others, in the hope that by means of this fraud it will be all the more easy for you to keep them well in band. Your statues are raised to the strongest and most cruel of your tyrants, whom no one esteems, but all fear. In the plays given in your theatres criminal love is lauded and applauded. Music among you is degraded to the role of a means of tickling the senses of rich gluttons after they have gorged themselves to satiety on the meats and drinks of their luxurious banquets. The highest use to which painting is put is to depict scenes at which no man can glance without blushing whose senses are not blunted by beastly passion or paralyzed by the fumes of wine. No, it is not for such purposes that man is endowed with those higher attributes which distinguish him from the beasts of the field. They were not given to be turned into a plaything for the delectation of our bodies. By consecrating our whole life to the fulfilment of God's will, we are employing, and employing to the highest purpose, all those nobler gifts and faculties which we have received from God."

"Yes," Julius answered, "all that would be sublime, if only life were possible under such conditions. But one cannot live so. You are only deluding yourselves. You refuse to acknowledge our protection, but if it were not for the Roman legions, could you live peaceably You enjoy the protection which you refuse to acknowledge. Even certain members of your own community you yourself told me defended themselves. You do not recognize property, and yet you enjoy it; your brethren own property and give it to

you; you yourself take care not to give away for nothing the grapes you carry ; you sell them, and you will also in turn make purchases. Now, all this is a delusion. If you carried out what you say to the letter, then I should understand your position; but as it is, you are deceiving others and yourselves to boot.

Julius waxed hot during the conversation and gave expression to every thought that flitted through his mind. Pamphilius remained silent, waiting the end. When Julius ceased speaking, he said—

"You are in error when you say that we enjoy without recognizing the protection you afford us. We have no need of Roman legions because we attach no importance whatever to those things which require to be protected by violence. Our happiness in centred in that which needs no defence, and which no man can take away from us. If material objects, which you regard as personal property, pass through our hands, it should be borne in mind that we do not look upon them or treat them as our own, that we hand them over to those for whose support they are necessary. It is true that we sell grapes, but not for profit; only in order to obtain the necessaries of life for those who are in need of them. If any one wanted to take those grapes from us, we should give them up without the slightest resistance. the same reason we have nothing to fear from an invasion of barbarians. If they wanted to deprive us of the products of our labor, we should yield them up at once; if they insisted on our working for them, this also we should do with joy; and not only would the barbarians have no cause to kill us, but it would be detrimental to what they consider their own interests to do so. They would soon get to understand us, would even grow to love us and we should have less to suffer from them than we have now to endure from the enlightened people in whose midst we live and by whom we are persecuted.

For

It has been frequently urged by you and yours that it is only in consequence of the rights of property being respected that one is enabled to obtain all those articles of food and clothing with which people are nourished and kept alive. But weigh the matter well, and then decide for yourself; by whom are all these necessaries of life really produced? By whose labor are those riches stored up and accumulated of

which you are so proud? Is it by those who, sitting comfortably with folded arms, command their slaves and mercenaries to go hither and thither, to do this and that, and who alone possess property to enjoy or is it not rather by those poor necessitous workmen who, to earn a crust of bread, carry out their lords' commands, while they themselves are deprived of all property and scarcely receive for their share enough to keep them alive for a single day. And what grounds have you for supposing that those workmen, who are so lavish of their strength and energy now when it is a question of executing orders, which they frequently do not even understand, will give up every kind of exertion the moment it is made possible for them to undertake intelligible and moderate work, the results of which will benefit themselves and those whom they love and pity.

The accusations you launch against us are mainly these that we do not completely attain the end which we have in view, and that we actually deceive others when we say that we do not recognize violence or property, seeing that we enjoy the results of both. Now if we are deceivers, it is useless to waste words upon us; we are fit objects, not for anger or for accusation, but for scorn. And the scorn we joyfully accept because it is one of our rules to contemn our own nothingness. But if we sincerely and earnestly strive to reach the end toward which we profess to be directing all our efforts, then your accusations would prove unjust.

If we

aspire and strive, as my brethren and myself do, to live in accordance with the law laid down by our Master, without violence or property, which is one of its fruits, our object in doing so obviously cannot be the attainment of material ends, the acquisition of riches, power, honors-for we gain none of these things thereby-but something wholly different. We are quite as keen as you Pagans are in the search of happiness; the only difference between us consisting in the opposite views we take of what constitutes it. You place it in riches and honors, we in something very different. Our faith tells us that bliss is to be found not in violence but in submission; not in riches but in giving everything away. And even as the flowers struggle upward toward the light, so do we move onward toward what we see to be our happiness. We do

not carry out everything that we should like to do for the attainment of our happiness, that is to say, we have not quite succeeded in casting off every habit of violence and property. This is true. But could it well be otherwise? Take yourself, for instance: you strain every nerve to obtain the prettiest wife, to acquire the largest fortune, but do you, does any one, succeed in this? If an archer does not hit the target, will he, because he has missed it many times in succession, cease altogether to aim at it? We are in exactly the same position. Our happiness isaccording to Christ's teaching-in love; but love excludes violence, and property which flows from violence. We are all of us bent on seeking our happiness, but we do not fully succeed; moreover, we do not all set about it in precisely the same way; nor do we all attain it to the same extent."

'Yes; but why do you refuse to listen to the accumulated wisdom of mankind, why do you turn away from it and give ear only to your own crucified Master? Your thraldom, your servile submission to Him, is precisely what most of all repels us in you."

"You are again mistaken, as are all those who imagine that, while professing the teachings which we do, we believe in them only because the man in whom we trust commanded us to do so. On the contrary, all those who, with their whole soul, seek for knowledge of the truth, for communion with the Father, all who yearn for true happiness, involuntarily, and without conscious effort, find themselves travelling along the same road that Christ traversed, and, instinctively taking their stand behind Him, are soon aware that He is leading the way. All who love God will converge toward and finally meet on this road, yourself among the number. He is the Son of God, the mediator between God and man; it is not that we have been told this by some one and therefore blindly believe it, but we hold it to be true because all those who seek God find His Son before them and only through the Son do they understand, see, and know God."

Julius made no reply, and they both sat for a considerable time in unbroken silence. "Are you happy?" he asked at length.

66

'I desire nothing better than what I have and am. Nor is this all. I am

"How about my wife?"

"You say that she has a leaning toward Christianity; if so, she will join us along with you.

"True; but we have only just begun a different kind of life; would it be wise to break it up thus suddenly? We have begun now and we had better live it out to the end," said Julius, vividly picturing to himself the disappointment of his father, his mother, his friends, if he were to become a Christian, but more vividly still the continuous and painful effort it would cost him to effect this revolution.

At this moment the young girl, Pamphilius's friend, accompanied by a youth, came up to the shop door. Pamphilius went out to them, and the youth told him, in.the presence of Julius, that he had been sent by Cyril to buy some leather. The grapes were already sold, and wheat purchased with the money received. Pauphilius proposed that the youth should return home along with Magdalen, bringing the wheat with them, and undertook himself to buy the leather and carry it home. "It will be better for you,' ," he urged. No, it is better for Magdalen that you should go with her," the youth answered, and went away. Julius accompanied his friend to the stores of a merchant with whom he was acquainted, where Pamphilius filled the sacks with wheat and handed over a small portion to Magdalen, slung his own heavy burden over his shoulder, said good-by to his friend, and, walking side by side with the young girl, left the city.

At a bend in the street, Pamphilius looked back and smilingly nodded to Julius, and then smiling still more joyfully, made some remark to Magdalen as they disappeared from Julius's horizon.

"6 Yes, it would indeed have been better for me, had I then gone over to the Christians, ,"exclaimed Julius to himself.

And in his imagination arose two pictures which kept alternating with each other: now he reheld the robust Pamphilius, with the tall strong girl, carrying baskets on their heads, their faces radiant with kindliness and joy; now he saw his own domestic bearth which he had quitted that morning and to which he would return that night, and his pampered, pretty wife whose charms had already begun to pall upon him, decked out in fine apparel, adorned with wristbands, and lolling on rich carpets and soft yielding cushions.

But Julius had little time for thinking. He was accosted first by some merchants who had come to see him, then by comrades, and they entered at once upon the usual occupations which wound up with dinner and drinking.

CHAPTER VI.

TEN years passed away; and during all that time Julius never once canic across his friend. He thought less and less frequently of their former meetings and discussions, and the impressions they had created in his mind respecting Pamphilius himself and the life of the Christians generally, grew gradually dimmer and dimmer, till at last they seemed to have faded away. Julius's own life ran in the common groove. His father had died, and he had taken over the entire business of the firm-a very complicated concern, with its old customers, its salesmen in Africa, its clerks at home, its debts to be collected and debts to be paid. Julius was engrossed by affairs in spite of himself, and gave up all his time to them. Besides, he had the new cares of his wife to bear. Then, again, he was elected to discharge the duties of a civic office; and this new occupation, flattering his self-love, delighted him. From that time forward, in addition to his business affairs, he turned his attention to public matters, and, being a man of parts and endowed with the gift of flowing facile speech, he began to make his mark among his fellow-citizens, and bade fair to rise in time to the highest civic honors in his native place.

Those ten years had likewise wrought considerable changes in the sphere of his family life-changes which to him, at least, were highly distasteful. He was now the father of three children, and one of the effects of their birth was to estrange him still more from their mother.

In the

first place, his wife had lost much of her former freshness and beauty, and in the next place, she had grown less solicitous about her husband than of yore, all her tenderness and caresses being lavished upon her offspring. Although the children were confided to the care of wet nurses and dry nurses, as was the custom of the Pagans, Julius often found then in their mother's apartments, or, having looked for her there in vain, discovered her in her children's room. For the most part Julius looked upon his children as an irksome burdena source of trouble and vexation rather than pleasure. Absorbed in private and municipal affairs, Julius had given up his former dissolute life; but he considered that he stood in need of elegant repose after his day's labors, and this he no longer found in the society of his wife, especially as her intercourse with her female slave- -a Christian-grew inore and more intimate, and she allowed herself to be carried away by the charm of the new doctrine to such an extent that she discarded from her life all the outward gloss and varnish of Paganism by which Julius set such store. Not finding in his wife's society what he sought there, Julius cultivated the friendship of a woman of light conduct, in whose company he spent those leisure moments which remained to him after the day's duties were discharged. If you had asked him whether he was happy during those years of his life, he would have been at a loss what to answer, so numerous and absorbing were his occupations. From one business matter and pleasure he rushed rapidly to another; but not one of them was of a nature thoroughly to satisfy his yearnings, of not one of them could he truly say that he desired it to last. Every serious affair he took in hand was such that the sooner be accomplished it and had done with it, the easier he felt in mind, and there was not one of his pleasures which was not poisoned by something or other, not one free from the loathing that comes of satiety.

In this wise the stream of Julius's life rolled smoothly on till one day an untoward event took place which nearly ́changed its whole course. He was taking part in the Olympian games, and was guiding his chariot successfully toward the goal, putting forth all his energies to outstrip another chariot that was slightly

ahead of his, when he dashed up against it. One of the wheels of his chariot snapped in two, he was thrown violently out, breaking two ribs and his arm. The injuries he sustained were very severe, but not mortal; he was conveyed to his house, and was confined to his bed for three months.

During these three months of intense physical pain, his mind became unusually active; he employed his enforced leisure in meditating upon his life, which he contemplated from a purely objective point of view, as if it were the life of a perfect stranger. And his past life appeared to him in an unpleasant light, which was intensified by the occurrence just then of three disagreeable events which occasioned him no inconsiderable pain. The first of these was the dishonesty of an old and trusted slave, who had loyaily served Julius's father for many years, but now suddenly absconded with a heap of precious stones' which he had received in Africa for his master's firm, thus inflicting heavy losses on Julius, and throwing his affairs into disorder. The second blow was the inconstancy of his companion, who unceremoniously left him and chose another protector for herself. The third and most painful stroke of all was the election of his rival to the high post for which he himself was a candidate the public elections took place during his illness, and he was rejected. All these reverses, Julius was convinced, were the outcome of his illness, which in turn resulted from his chariot having moved just half an inch too much to the left. Lying thus helpless in bed, his thoughts involuntarily turned on the trifling contingencies on which his happiness depended, and then dwelt on the remembrance of his previous misfortunes, his attempt to become a Christian, and on Pamphilius, whom he had not seen for ten years. These recollections were refreshed by the conversations he had with his wife, who, now that he was suffering and in bed, used to pass the greater part of her time with him, telling him everything she had learned from her female slave about Christianity. This slave had lived for a time in the very community in which Pamphilius resided, and was personally acquainted with him. Julius, on learning this, expressed a wish to see her, and when she drew near his couch questioned her in