WHEN calm had been restored, after this twofold disturbance, the work of the day went quietly on. Besides the distribution of greater alms, such as was made by St. Laurence, from the Church, it was by no means so uncommon in early ages, for fortunes to be given away at once, by those who wished to retire from the world.[57] Indeed we should naturally expect to find that the noble charity of the Apostolic Church at Jerusalem would not be a barren example to that of Rome. But this extraordinary charity would be most naturally suggested at periods when the Church was threatened with persecution; and when Christians, who from position and circumstances might look forward to martyrdom, would, to use a homely phrase, clear their hearts and houses for action, by removing from both whatever could attach themselves to earth, and become the spoil of the impious soldier, instead of having been made the inheritance of the poor.[58]
Nor would the great principles be forgotten, of making the light of good works to shine before men, while the hand which filled the lamp, poured in its oil in the secret, which only He who seeth in secret can penetrate. The plate and jewels of a noble family publicly valued, sold, and, in their price, distributed to the poor, must have been a bright example of charity, which consoled the Church, animated the generous, shamed the avaricious, touched the heart of the catechumen, and drew blessings and prayers from the lips of the poor. And yet the individual right hand that gave them remained closely shrouded from the scrutiny or consciousness of the left; and the humility and modesty of the noble giver remained concealed in His bosom, into which these earthly treasures were laid up, to be returned with boundless and eternal usury.
And such was the case in the instance before us. When all was prepared, Dionysius the priest, who at the same time was the physician to whom the care of the sick was committed, and who had succeeded Polycarp in the title of St. Pastor, made his appearance, and seated in a chair at one end of the court, thus addressed the assembly:
“Dear brethren, our merciful God has touched the heart of some charitable brother, to have compassion on his poorer brethren, and strip himself of much worldly possession, for Christ’s sake. Who he is I know not; nor would I seek to know. He is some one who loves not to have his treasures where rust consumes, and thieves break in and steal, but prefers, like the blessed Laurence, that they should be borne up, by the hands of Christ’s poor, into the heavenly treasury.
“Accept then, as a gift from God, who has inspired this charity, the distribution which is about to be made, and which may be a useful help, in the days of tribulation which are preparing for us. And as the only return which is desired from you, join all in that familiar prayer which we daily recite for those who give, or do us good.”
During this brief address poor Pancratius knew not which
way to look. He had shrunk into a corner behind the assistants, and Sebastian had compassionately stood before him, making himself as large as possible. And his emotion did all but betray him, when the whole of that assembly knelt down, and with outstretched hands, uplifted eyes, and fervent tone, cried out, as if with one voice:
“Retribuere dignare, Domine, omnibus nobis bona facientibus, propter Nomen tuum, vitam æternam. Amen.”[59]
The alms were then distributed, and they proved unexpectedly large. Abundant food was also served out to all, and a cheerful banquet closed the edifying scene. It was yet early: indeed many partook not of food, as a still more delicious, and spiritual, feast was about to be prepared for them in the neighboring titular church.
When all was over, Cæcilia insisted upon seeing her poor old cripple safe home, and upon carrying for him his heavy canvas purse; and chatted so cheerfully to him that he was surprised when he found they had reached the door of his poor but clean lodging. His blind guide then thrust his purse into his hand, and giving him a hurried good day, tripped away most lightly, and was soon lost to his sight. The bag seemed uncommonly full; so he counted carefully its contents, and found, to his amazement, that he had a double portion. He tried again, and still it was so. At the first opportunity, he made inquiries from Reparatus, but could get no explanation. If he had seen Cæcilia, when she had turned the corner, laugh outright, as if she had been playing some one a good trick, and running as lightly as if she had nothing heavy about her, he might have discovered a solution of the problem of his wealth.
THE month of October in Italy is certainly a glorious season. The sun has contracted his heat, but not his splendor; he is less scorching, but not less bright. As he rises in the morning, he dashes sparks of radiance over awakening nature, as an Indian prince, upon entering his presence chamber, flings handfuls of gems and gold into the crowd; and the mountains seem to stretch forth their rocky heads, and the woods to wave their lofty arms, in eagerness to catch his royal largess. And after careering through a cloudless sky, when he reaches his goal and finds his bed spread with molten gold on the western sea, and canopied above with purple clouds, edged with burnished yet airy fringes, more brilliant than Ophir supplied to the couch of Solomon, he expands himself into a huge disk of most benignant effulgence, as if to bid farewell to his past course; but soon sends back, after disappearing, radiant messengers from the world he is visiting and cheering, to remind us he will soon come back, and gladden us again. If less powerful, his ray is certainly richer and more active. It has taken months to draw out of the sapless, shrivelled vine-stem, first green leaves, then crisp slender tendrils, and last little clusters of hard sour berries; and the growth has been provokingly slow. But now the leaves are large and mantling, and worthy in vine-countries to have a name of their own;[60] and the separated little knots have swelled up into luxurious bunches of grapes. And of these some are already assuming their bright amber tint, while those which are to glow in rich imperial purple, are passing rapidly to it, through a changing opal hue, scarcely less beautiful.
It is pleasant then to sit in a shady spot, on a hill-side, and look ever and anon, from one’s book, over the varied and varying landscape. For, as the breeze sweeps over the olives on the hill-side, and turns over their leaves, it brings out from them light and shade, for their two sides vary in sober tint; and as the sun shines, or the cloud darkens, on the vineyards, in the rounded hollows between, the brilliant web of unstirring vine-leaves displays a yellower or browner shade of its delicious green. Then, mingle with these the innumerable other colors that tinge the picture, from the dark cypress, the duller ilex, the rich chestnut, the reddening orchard, the adust stubble, the melancholy pine—to Italy what the palm-tree is to the East—towering above the box, and the arbutus, and laurels of villas, and these scattered all over the mountain, hill, and plain, with fountains leaping up, and cascades gliding down, porticoes of glittering marble, statues of bronze and stone, painted fronts of rustic dwellings, with flowers innumerable, and patches of greensward; and you have a faint idea of the attractions which, for this month, as in our days, used to draw out the Roman patrician and knight, from what Horace calls the clatter and smoke of Rome, to feast his eyes upon the calmer beauties of the country.
And so, as the happy month approached, villas were seen open to let in air; and innumerable slaves were busy, dusting and scouring, trimming the hedges into fantastic shapes, clearing the canals for the artificial brooklets, and plucking up the weeds from the gravel-walks. The villicus or country steward superintends all; and with sharp word, or sharper lash, makes many suffer, that perhaps one only may enjoy.
At last the dusty roads become encumbered with every species of vehicle, from the huge wain carrying furniture, and slowly drawn by oxen, to the light chariot or gig, dashing on behind spirited barbs; and as the best roads were narrow, and the drivers of other days were not more smooth-tongued than those of ours, we may imagine what confusion and noise and squabbling filled the public ways. Nor was there a favored one among these. Sabine, Tusculan, and Alban hills were all studded over with splendid villas, or humbler cottages, such as a Mæcenas or a Horace might respectively occupy; even the flat Campagna of Rome is covered with the ruins of immense country residences; while from the mouth of the Tiber, along the coast of Laurentum, Lanuvium, and Antium, and so on to Cajeta, Bajæ, and other fashionable watering-places round Vesuvius, a street of noble residences may be said to have run. Nor were these limits sufficient to satisfy the periodical fever for rustication in Rome. The borders of Benacus (now the Lago Maggiore, north of Milan), Como, and the beautiful banks of the Brenta, received their visitors not from neighboring cities only, still less from wanderers of Germanic origin, but rather from the inhabitants of the imperial capital.
It was to one of these “tender eyes of Italy,” as Pliny calls its villas,[61] because forming its truest beauty, that Fabiola had hastened, before the rush on the road, the day after her black slave’s interview with Corvinus. It was situated on the slope of the hill which descends to the bay of Gaeta, and was remarkable, like her house, for the good taste which arranged the most costly, though not luxurious, elements of comfort. From the terrace in front of the elegant villa could be seen the calm azure bay, embowered in the richest of shores, like a mirror in an embossed and enamelled frame, relieved by the white sun-lit sails of yachts, galleys, pleasure-boats, and fishing-skiffs; from some of which rose the roaring laugh of excursionists, from others the song or harp-notes of family parties, or the loud, sharp, and not over-refined ditties of the various ploughmen of the deep. A gallery of lattice, covered with creepers, led to the baths on the shore; and half way down was an opening on a favorite spot of green, kept ever fresh by the gush, from an out-cropping rock, of a crystal spring, confined for a moment in a natural basin, in which it bubbled and fretted, till, rushing over its ledge, it went down murmuring and chattering, in the most good-natured way imaginable, along the side of the trellis, into the sea. Two enormous plane-trees cast their shade over this classic ground, as did Plato’s and Cicero’s over their choice scenes of philosophical disquisition. The most beautiful flowers and plants from distant climates had been taught to make this spot their home, sheltered, as it was, equally from sultriness and from frost.
Fabius, for reasons which will be explained later, seldom paid more than a flying visit for a couple of days to this villa; and even then it was generally on his way to some gayer resort of Roman fashion, where he had, or pretended to have, business. His daughter was, therefore, mostly alone, and enjoyed a delicious solitude. Besides a well-furnished library always kept at the villa, chiefly containing works on agriculture, or of a local interest, a stock of books, some old favorites, other lighter productions of the season (of which she generally procured an early copy at a high price), was brought every year from Rome, together with a quantity of smaller familiar works of art, such as, distributed through new apartments, make them become a home. Most of her morning hours were spent in the cherished retreat just described, with a book-casket at her side, from which she selected first one volume, and then another. But any visitor calling upon her this year, would have been surprised to find her almost always with a companion—and that a slave!
We may imagine how amazed she was when, the day following the dinner at her house, Agnes informed her that Syra had declined leaving her service, though tempted by a bribe of liberty. Still more astonished was she at learning, that the reason was attachment to herself. She could feel no pleasurable consciousness of having earned this affection by any acts of kindness, nor even by any decent gratitude for her servant’s care of her in illness. She was therefore at first inclined to think Syra a fool for her pains. But it would not do in her mind. It was true she had often read or heard of instances of fidelity and devotedness in slaves, even towards oppressive masters;[62] but these were always accounted as exceptions to the general rule; and what were a few dozen cases, in as many centuries, of love, compared with the daily ten thousand ones of hatred around her? Yet here was a clear and palpable one at hand, and it struck her forcibly. She waited a time, and watched her maid eagerly, to see if she could discover in her conduct any airs, any symptom of thinking she had done a grand thing, and that her mistress must feel it. Not in the least. Syra pursued all her duties with the same simple diligence, and never betrayed any signs of believing herself less a slave than before. Fabiola’s heart softened more and more; and she now began to think that not quite so difficult, which, in her conversation with Agnes, she had pronounced impossible—to love a slave. And she had also discovered a second evidence, that there was such a thing in the world as disinterested love, affection that asked for no return.
Her conversations with her slave, after the memorable one which we have recounted, had satisfied her that she had received a superior education. She was too delicate to question her on her early history; especially as masters often had young slaves highly educated, to enhance their value. But she soon discovered that she read Greek and Latin authors with ease and elegance, and wrote well in both languages. By degrees she raised her position, to the great annoyance of her companions: she ordered Euphrosyne to give her a separate room, the greatest of comforts to the poor maid; and she employed her near herself as a secretary and reader. Still she could perceive no change in her conduct, no pride, no pretensions; for the moment any work presented itself of the menial character formerly allotted to her, she never seemed to think of turning it over to any one else, but at once naturally and cheerfully set herself about it.
The reading generally pursued by Fabiola was, as has been previously observed, of rather an abstruse and refined character, consisting of philosophical literature. She was surprised, however, to find how her slave, by a simple remark, would often confute an apparently solid maxim, bring down a grand flight of virtuous declamation, or suggest a higher view of moral truth, or a more practical course of action, than authors whom she had long admired proposed in their writings. Nor was this done by any apparent shrewdness of judgment or pungency of wit; nor did it seem to come from much reading, or deep thought, or superiority of education. For though she saw traces of this in Syra’s words, ideas, and behavior, yet the books and doctrines which she was reading now, were evidently new to her. But there seemed to be in her maid’s mind some latent but infallible standard of truth, some master-key, which opened equally every closed deposit of moral knowledge, some well-attuned chord, which vibrated in unfailing unison with what was just and right, but jangled in dissonance with whatever was wrong, vicious, or even inaccurate. What this secret was, she wanted to discover; it was more like an intuition than any thing she had before witnessed. She was not yet in a condition to learn, that the meanest and least in the Kingdom of Heaven (and what lower than a slave?) was greater in spiritual wisdom, intellectual light, and heavenly privileges, than even the Baptist Precursor.[63]
It was on a delicious morning in October, that, reclining by the spring, the mistress and slave were occupied in reading; when the former, wearied with the heaviness of the volume, looked for something lighter and newer; and, drawing out a manuscript from her casket, said:
“Syra, put that stupid book down. Here is something, I am told, very amusing, and only just come out. It will be new to both of us.”
The handmaid did as she was told, looked at the title of the proposed volume, and blushed. She glanced over the few first lines, and her fears were confirmed. She saw that it was one of those trashy works, which were freely allowed to circulate, as St. Justin complained, though grossly immoral, and making light of all virtue; while every Christian writing was suppressed, or as much as possible discountenanced. She put down the book with a calm resolution, and said:
“Do not, my good mistress, ask me to read to you from that book. It is fit neither for me to recite, nor for you to hear.”
Fabiola was astonished. She had never heard, or even thought, of such a thing as restraint put upon her studies. What in our days would be looked upon as unfit for common perusal, formed part of current and fashionable literature. From Horace to Ausonius, all classical writers demonstrate this. And what rule of virtue could have made that reading seem indelicate, which only described by the pen a system of morals, which the pencil and the chisel made hourly familiar to every eye? Fabiola had no higher standard of right and wrong than the system under which she had been educated could give her.
“What possible harm can it do either of us?” she asked, smiling. “I have no doubt there are plenty of foul crimes and wicked actions described in the book; but it will not induce us to commit them. And, in the meantime, it is amusing to read them of others.”
“Would you yourself, for any consideration, do them?”
“Not for the world.”
“Yet, as you hear them read, their image must occupy your mind; as they amuse you, your thoughts must dwell upon them with pleasure.”
“Certainly. What then?”
“That image is foulness, that thought is wickedness.”
“How is that possible? Does not wickedness require an action, to have any existence?”
“True, my mistress; and what is the action of the mind, or as I call it the soul, but thought? A passion which wishes death, is the action of this invisible power, like it, unseen; the blow which inflicts it is but the mechanical action of the body, discernible like its origin. But which power commands, and which obeys? In which resides the responsibility of the final effect?”
“I understand you,” said Fabiola, after a pause of some little mortification. “But one difficulty remains. There is responsibility, you maintain, for the inward, as well as the outward act. To whom? If the second follow, there is joint responsibility for both, to society, to the laws, to principles of justice, to self; for painful results will ensue. But if only the inward action exist, to whom can there be responsibility? Who sees it? Who can presume to judge it? Who to control it?”
“God,” answered Syra, with simple earnestness.
Fabiola was disappointed. She expected some new theory, some striking principle, to come out. Instead, they had sunk down into what she feared was mere superstition, though not so much as she once had deemed it. “What, Syra, do you then really believe in Jupiter, and Juno, or perhaps Minerva, who is about the most respectable of the Olympian family? Do you think they have any thing to do with our affairs?”
“Far indeed from it; I loathe their very names, and I detest the wickedness which their histories or fables symbolize on earth. No, I spoke not of gods and goddesses, but of one only God.”
“And what do you call Him, Syra, in your system?”
“He has no name but God; and that only men have given Him, that they may speak of Him. It describes not His nature, His origin, His attributes.”
“And what are these?” asked the mistress, with awakened curiosity.
“Simple as light is His nature, one and the same every where, indivisible, undefilable, penetrating yet diffusive, ubiquitous and unlimited. He existed before there was any beginning; He will exist after all ending has ceased. Power, wisdom, goodness, love, justice too, and unerring judgment belong to Him by His nature, and are as unlimited and unrestrained as it. He alone can create, He alone preserve, and He alone destroy.”
Fabiola had often read of the inspired looks which animated a sibyl, or the priestess of an oracle; but she had never witnessed them till now. The slave’s countenance glowed, her eyes shone with a calm brilliancy, her frame was immovable, the words flowed from her lips, as if these were but the opening of a musical reed, made vocal by another’s breath.
Her expression and manner forcibly reminded Fabiola of that abstracted and mysterious look, which she had so often noticed in Agnes; and though in the child it was more tender and graceful, in the maid it seemed more earnest and oracular. “How enthusiastic and excitable an Eastern temperament is, to be sure!” thought Fabiola, as she gazed upon her slave. “No wonder the East should be thought the land of poetry and inspiration.” When she saw Syra relaxed from the evident tension of her mind, she said, in as light a tone as she could assume: “But, Syra, can you think that a Being such as you have described, far beyond all the conception of ancient fable, can occupy Himself with constantly watching the actions, still more the paltry thoughts, of millions of creatures?”
“It is no occupation, lady, it is not even choice. I called Him light. Is it occupation or labor to the sun to send his rays through the crystal of this fountain, to the very pebbles in its bed? See how, of themselves they disclose, not only the beautiful, but the foul that harbors there; not only the sparkles that the falling drops strike from its rough sides; not only the pearly bubbles that merely rise, glisten for a moment, then break against the surface; not only the golden fish that bask in their light, but black and loathsome creeping things, which seek to hide and bury themselves in dark nooks below, and cannot; for the light pursues them. Is there toil or occupation in all this, to the sun that thus visits them? Far more would it appear so, were he to restrain his beams at the surface of the transparent element, and hold them back from throwing it into light. And what he does here he does in the next stream, and in that which is a thousand miles off, with equal ease; nor can any imaginable increase of their number, or bulk, lead us to fancy, or believe, that rays would be wanting, or light would fail, to scrutinize them all.”
“Your theories are beautiful always, Syra, and, if true, most wonderful,” observed Fabiola, after a pause, during which her eyes were fixedly contemplating the fountain, as though she were testing the truth of Syra’s words.
“And they sound like truth,” she added; “for could falsehood be more beautiful than truth? But what an awful idea, that one has never been alone, has never had a wish to oneself, has never held a single thought in secret, has never hidden the most foolish fancy of a proud or childish brain, from the observation of One that knows no imperfection. Terrible thought, that one is living, if you say true, under the steady gaze of an Eye, of which the sun is but a shadow, for he enters not the soul! It is enough to make one any evening commit self-destruction, to get rid of the torturing watchfulness! Yet it sounds so true!”
Fabiola looked almost wild as she spoke these words. The pride of her pagan heart rose strong within her, and she rebelled against the supposition that she could never again feel alone with her own thoughts, or that any power should exist which could control her inmost desires, imaginings, or caprices. Still the thought came back: “Yet it seems so true!” Her generous intellect struggled against the writhing passion, like an eagle with a serpent; more with eye, than with beak and talons, subduing the quailing foe. After a struggle, visible in her countenance and gestures, a calm came over her. She seemed for the first time to feel the presence of One greater than herself, some one whom she feared, yet whom she would wish to love. She bowed down her mind, she bent her intelligence to His feet; and her heart too owned, for the first time, that it had a Master, and a Lord.
Syra, with calm intensity of feeling, silently watched the workings of her mistress’s mind. She knew how much depended on their issue, what a mighty step in her unconscious pupil’s religious progress was involved in the recognition of the truth before her; and she fervently prayed for this grace.
At length Fabiola raised her head, which seemed to have been bowed down in accompaniment to her mind, and with graceful kindness said:
“Syra, I am sure I have not yet reached the depths of your knowledge; you must have much more to teach me.” (A tear and a blush came to the poor handmaid’s relief.) “But to-day you have opened a new world, and a new life, to my thoughts. A sphere of virtue beyond the opinions and the judgments of men, a consciousness of a controlling, an approving, and a rewarding Power too; am I right?” (Syra expressed approbation,) “standing by us when no other eye can see, or restrain, or encourage us; a feeling that, were we shut up forever in solitude, we should be ever the same, because that influence on us must be so superior to that of any amount of human principles, in guiding us, and could not leave us; such, if I understand your theory, is the position of moral elevation, in which it would place each individual. To fall below it, even with an outwardly virtuous life, is mere deceit, and positive wickedness. Is this so?”
“O my dear mistress,” exclaimed Syra, “how much better you can express all this than I!”
“You have never flattered me yet, Syra,” replied Fabiola, smilingly; “do not begin now. But you have thrown a new light upon other subjects, till to-day obscure to me. Tell me, now, was it not this you meant, when you once told me that in your view there was no distinction between mistress and slave; that is, that as the distinction is only outward, bodily and social, it is not to be put in comparison with that equality which exists before your Supreme Being, and that possible moral superiority which He might see of the one over the other, inversely of their visible rank?”
“It was in a great measure so, my noble lady; though there are other considerations involved in the idea, which would hardly interest you at present.”
“And yet, when you stated that proposition, it seemed to me so monstrous, so absurd, that pride and anger overcame me. Do you remember that, Syra?”
“Oh, no, no!” replied the gentle servant; “do not allude to it, I pray!”
“Have you forgiven me that day, Syra?” said the mistress, with an emotion quite new to her.
The poor maid was overpowered. She rose and threw herself on her knees before her mistress, and tried to seize her hand; but she prevented her, and, for the first time in her life, Fabiola threw herself upon a slave’s neck, and wept.
Her passion of tears was long and tender. Her heart was getting above her intellect; and this can only be by its increasing softness. At length she grew calm; and as she withdrew her embrace she said:
“One thing more, Syra: dare one address, by worship, this Being whom you have described to me? Is He not too great, too lofty, too distant for this?”
“Oh, no! far from it, noble lady,” answered the servant. “He is not distant from any of us; for as much as in the light of the sun, so in the very splendor of His might, His kindness, and His wisdom, we live and move and have our being. Hence, one may address Him, not as far off, but as around us and within us, while we are in Him; and He hears us not with ears, but our words drop at once into His very bosom, and the desires of our hearts pass directly into the divine abyss of His.”
“But,” pursued Fabiola, somewhat timidly, “is there no great act of acknowledgment, such as sacrifice is supposed to be, whereby He may be formally recognized and adored?”
Syra hesitated, for the conversation seemed to be trenching upon mysterious and sacred ground, never opened by the Church to profane foot. She, however, answered in a simple and general affirmative.
“And could not I,” still more humbly asked her mistress, “be so far instructed in your school as to be able to perform this sublimer act of homage?”
“I fear not, noble Fabiola; one must needs obtain a Victim worthy of the Deity.”
“Ah, yes! to be sure,” answered Fabiola. “A bull may be good enough for Jupiter, or a goat for Bacchus; but where can be found a sacrifice worthy of Him whom you have brought me to know?”
“It must indeed be one every way worthy of Him, spotless in purity, matchless in greatness, unbounded in acceptableness.”
“And what can that be, Syra?”
“Only Himself.”
Fabiola shrouded her face with her hands, and then looking up earnestly into Syra’s face, said to her:
“I am sure that, after having so clearly described to me the deep sense of responsibility under which you must habitually speak, as well as act, you have a real meaning in this awful saying, though I understand you not.”
“As surely as every word of mine is heard, as every thought of mine is seen, it is a truth which I have spoken.”
“I have not strength to carry the subject further at present; my mind has need of rest.”
AFTER this conversation Fabiola retired; and during the rest of the day her mind was alternately agitated and calm. When she looked steadily on the grand view of moral life which her mind had grasped, she found an unusual tranquillity in its contemplation; she felt as if she had made discovery of a great phenomenon, the knowledge of which guided her into a new and lofty region, whence she could smile on the errors and follies of mankind. But when she considered the responsibility which this light imposed, the watchfulness which it demanded, the unseen and unrequited struggles which it required, the desolateness, almost, of a virtue without admiration or even sympathy, she again shrunk from the life that was before her, as about to be passed without any stay or help, from the only sources of it which she knew. Unconscious of the real cause, she saw that she possessed not instruments or means, to carry out the beautiful theory. This seemed to stand like a brilliant lamp in the midst of a huge, bare, unfurnished hall, lighting up only a wilderness. What was the use of so much wasted splendor?
The next morning had been fixed for one of those visits which used to be annually paid in the country,—that to the now ex-prefect of the city, Chromatius. Our reader will remember, that after his conversion and resignation of office, this magistrate had retired to his villa in Campania, taking with him a number of the converts made by Sebastian, with the holy priest Polycarp, to complete their instruction. Of these circumstances, of course, Fabiola had never been informed; but she heard all sorts of curious reports about Chromatius’s villa. It was said that he had a number of visitors never before seen at his house; that he gave no entertainments; that he had freed all his country slaves, but that many of them had preferred remaining with him; that if numerous, the whole establishment seemed very happy, though no boisterous sports or frolicsome meetings seemed to be indulged in. All this stimulated Fabiola’s curiosity, in addition to her wish to discharge a pleasing duty of courtesy to a most kind friend of hers from childhood; and she longed to see, with her own eyes, what appeared to her to be a very Platonic, or, as we should say, Utopian, experiment.
In a light country carriage, with good horses, Fabiola started early, and dashed gaily along the level road across the “happy Campania.” An autumnal shower had laid the dust, and studded with glistening gems the garlands of vine which bordered the way, festooned, instead of hedges, from tree to tree. It was not long before she reached the gentle acclivity, for hill it could scarce be called, covered with box, arbutus, and laurels, relieved by tall tapering cypresses, amidst which shone the white walls of the large villa on the summit. A change, she perceived, had taken place, which at first she could not exactly define; but when she had passed through the gate, the number of empty pedestals and niches reminded her that the villa had entirely lost one of its most characteristic ornaments,—the number of beautiful statues which stood gracefully against the clipped evergreen hedges, and gave it the name, now become quite an empty one, of Ad Statuas.[64]
Chromatius, whom she had last seen limping with gout, now a hale old man, courteously received her, and inquired kindly after her father, asking if the report were true that he was going shortly to Asia. At this Fabiola seemed grieved and mortified; for he had not mentioned his intention to her. Chromatius hoped it might be a false alarm, and asked her to take a stroll about the grounds. She found them kept with the same care as ever, full of beautiful plants; but still much missed the old statues. At last they reached a grotto with a fountain, in which formerly nymphs and sea-deities disported, but which now presented a black unbroken surface. She could contain herself no longer, and turning to Chromatius, she said:
“Why, what on earth have you been doing, Chromatius, to send away all your statues, and destroy the peculiar feature of your handsome villa? What induced you to do this?”
“My dear young lady,” answered the good-humored old gentleman, “do not be so angry. Of what use were those figures to any one?”
“If you thought so,” replied she, “others might not. But tell me, what have you done with them all?”
“Why, to tell you the truth, I have had them brought under the hammer.”
“What! and never let me know any thing about it? You know there were several pieces I would most gladly have purchased.”
Chromatius laughed outright, and said, with that familiar tone, which acquaintance with Fabiola from a child authorized him always to assume with her:
“Dear me! how your young imagination runs away, far too fast for my poor old tongue to keep pace with; I meant not the auctioneer’s hammer, but the sledge-hammer. The gods and goddesses have been all smashed, pulverized! If you happen to want a stray leg, or a hand minus a few fingers, perhaps I may pick up such a thing for you. But I cannot promise you a face with a nose, or a skull without a fracture.”
Fabiola was utterly amazed, as she exclaimed: “What an utter barbarian you have become, my wise old judge! What shadow of reason can you give to justify so outrageous a proceeding?”
“Why, you see, as I have grown older, I have grown wiser! and I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Jupiter and Mrs. Juno are no more gods than you or I; so I summarily got rid of them.”
“Yes, that may be very well; and I, though neither old nor wise, have been long of the same opinion. But why not retain them as mere works of art?”
“Because they had been set up here, not in that capacity, but as divinities. They were here as impostors, under false pretences; and as you would turn out of your house, for an intruder, any bust or image found among those of your ancestors, but belonging to quite another family, so did I these pretenders to a higher connection with me, when I found it false. Neither could I run a risk of their being bought for the continuance of the same imposture.”
“And pray, my most righteous old friend, is it not an imposture to continue calling your villa Ad Statuas, after not a single statue is left standing in it?”
“Certainly,” replied Chromatius, amused at her sharpness, “and you will see that I have planted palm-trees all about; and, as soon as they show their heads above the evergreens, the villa will take the title of Ad Palmas[65] instead.”
“That will be a pretty name,” said Fabiola, who little thought of the higher sense of appropriateness which it would contain. She, of course, was not aware that the villa was now a training-school, in which many were being prepared, as wrestlers or gladiators used to be, in separate institutions, for the great combat of faith, martyrdom to death. They who had entered in, and they who would go out, might equally say they were on their way to pluck the conqueror’s palm, to be borne by them before God’s judgment-seat, in token of their victory over the world. Many were the palm-branches shortly to be gathered in that early Christian retreat.
But we must here give the history of the demolition of Chromatius’s statues, which forms a peculiar episode in the “Acts of St. Sebastian.”
When Nicostratus informed him, as prefect of Rome, of the release of his prisoners, and of the recovery of Tranquillinus from gout by baptism, Chromatius, after making every inquiry into the truth of the fact, sent for Sebastian, and proposed to become a Christian, as a means of obtaining a cure of the same complaint. This of course could not be; and another course was proposed, which would give him new and personal evidence of Christianity, without risking an insincere baptism. Chromatius was celebrated for the immense number of idolatrous images which he possessed; and was assured by Sebastian that, if he would have them all broken in pieces, he would at once recover. This was a hard condition, but he consented. His son Tiburtius, however, was furious, and protested that if the promised result did not follow, he would have Sebastian and Polycarp thrown into a blazing furnace: not perhaps so difficult a matter for the prefect’s son.
In one day two hundred pagan statues were broken in pieces, including, of course, those in the villa, as well as those in the house at Rome. The images indeed were broken; but Chromatius was not cured. Sebastian was sent for and sharply rebuked. But he was calm and inflexible. “I am sure,” he said, “that all have not been destroyed. Something has been withheld from demolition.” He proved right. Some small objects had been treated as works of art rather than religious things, and, like Achan’s coveted spoil,[66] concealed. They were brought forth and broken up; and Chromatius instantly recovered. Not only was he converted, but his son Tiburtius became also one of the most fervent of Christians; and, dying in glorious martyrdom, gave his name to a catacomb. He had begged to stay in Rome, to encourage and assist his fellow-believers, in the coming persecution, which his connection with the palace, his great courage and activity, would enable him to do. He had become, naturally, the great friend and frequent companion of Sebastian and Pancratius.
After this little digression, we resume the conversation between Chromatius and Fabiola, who continued her last sentence by adding:
“But do you know, Chromatius—let us sit down in this lovely spot, where I remember there was a beautiful Bacchus—that all sorts of strange reports are going round the country, about your doings here?”
“Dear me! What are they? Do tell me.”
“Why, that you have a quantity of people living with you whom nobody knows; that you see no company, go out nowhere, and lead quite a philosophical sort of life, forming a most Platonic republic.”
“Highly flattered!” interrupted Chromatius, with a smile and bow.
“But that is not all,” continued Fabiola. “They say you keep most unfashionable hours, have no amusements, and live most abstemiously; in fact, almost starve yourselves.”
“But I hope they do us the justice to add, that we pay our way?” observed Chromatius. “They don’t say, do they, that we have a long score run up at the baker’s or grocer’s?”
“Oh, no!” replied Fabiola, laughing.
“How kind of them!” rejoined the good-humored old judge. “They—the whole public I mean—seem to take a wonderful interest in our concerns. But is it not strange, my dear young lady, that so long as my villa was on the free-and-easy system, with as much loose talk, deep drinking, occasional sallies of youthful mirth, and troublesome freaks in the neighborhood, as others,—I beg your pardon for alluding to such things; but, in fact, so long as I and my friends were neither temperate nor irreproachable, nobody gave himself the least trouble about us? But let a few people retire to live in quiet, be frugal, industrious, entirely removed from public affairs, and never even talk about politics or society, and at once there springs up a vulgar curiosity to know all about them, and a mean pruritus in third-rate statesmen to meddle with them; and there must needs fly about flocks of false reports and foul suspicions about their motives and manner of living. Is not this a phenomenon?”
“It is, indeed; but how do you account for it?”
“I can only do so by that faculty of little minds which makes them always jealous of any aims higher than their own; so that, almost unconsciously, they depreciate whatever they feel to be better than they dare aspire to.”
“But what is really your object and your mode of life here, my good friend?”
“We spend our time in the cultivation of our higher faculties. We rise frightfully early—I hardly dare tell you how early; we then devote some hours to religious worship; after which we occupy ourselves in a variety of ways; some read, some write, some labor in the gardens; and I assure you no hired workmen ever toiled harder and better than these spontaneous agriculturists. We meet at different times, and sing beautiful songs together, all breathing virtue and purity, and read most improving books, and receive oral instruction from eloquent teachers. Our meals are indeed very temperate; we live entirely on vegetables; but I have already found out that laughing is quite compatible with lentils, and that good cheer does not necessarily mean good fare.”
“Why, you are turned complete Pythagoreans. I thought that was quite out of date. But it must be a most economical system,” remarked Fabiola, with a knowing look.
“Ha! you cunning thing!” answered the judge; “so you really think that this may be a saving plan after all? But it won’t be, for we have taken a most desperate resolution.”
“And what on earth is that?” asked the young lady.
“Nothing less than this. We are determined that there shall not be such a thing as a poor person within our reach; this winter we will endeavor to clothe all the naked, and feed the hungry, and attend to all the sick about. All our economy will go for this.”
“It is indeed a very generous, though very new, idea in our times; and no doubt you will be well laughed at for your pains, and abused on all sides. They will even say worse of you than they do now, if it were possible; but it is not.”
“How so?”
“Do not be offended if I tell you; but already they have gone so far as to hint, that possibly you are Christians. But this, I assure you, I have every where indignantly contradicted.”
Chromatius smiled, and said: “Why an indignant contradiction, my dear child?”
“Because, to be sure, I know you and Tiburtius, and Nicostratus, and that dear dumb Zoë, too well to admit, for a moment, that you had adopted the compound of stupidity and knavery called by that name.”
“Let me ask you one question. Have you taken the trouble of reading any Christian writings, by which you might know what is really held and done by that despised body?”
“Oh, not I indeed; I would not waste my time over them; I could not have patience to learn any thing about them. I scorn them too much, as enemies of all intellectual progress, as doubtful citizens, as credulous to the last degree, and as sanctioning every abominable crime, ever to give myself a chance of a nearer acquaintance with them.”
“Well, dear Fabiola, I thought just the same about them once, but I have much altered my opinion of late.”
“This is indeed strange; since, as prefect of the city, you must have had to punish many of these wretched people, for their constant transgression of the laws.”
A cloud came over the cheerful countenance of the old man, and a tear stood in his eye. He thought of St. Paul, who had once persecuted the Church of God. Fabiola saw the change, and was distressed. In the most affectionate manner she said to him, “I have said something very thoughtless, I fear, or stirred up recollections of what must be painful to your kind heart. Forgive me, dear Chromatius, and let us talk of something else. One purpose of my visit to you was, to ask you if you knew of any one going immediately to Rome. I have heard, from several quarters, of my father’s projected journey, and I am anxious to write to him,[67] lest he repeat what he did before,—go without taking leave of me, to spare me pain.”
“Yes,” replied Chromatius, “there is a young man starting early to-morrow morning. Come into the library, and write your letter; the bearer is probably there.”
They returned to the house, and entered an apartment on the ground-floor, full of book-chests. At a table in the middle of the room a young man was seated, transcribing a large volume; which, on seeing a stranger enter, he closed and put aside.
“Torquatus,” said Chromatius, addressing him, “this lady desires to send a letter to her father in Rome.”
“It will always give me great pleasure,” replied the young man, “to serve the noble Fabiola, or her illustrious father.”
“What, do you know them?” asked the judge, rather surprised.
“I had the honor, when very young, as my father had had before me, to be employed by the noble Fabius in Asia. Ill-health compelled me to leave his service.”
Several sheets of fine vellum, cut to a size, evidently for transcription of some book, lay on the table. One of these the good old man placed before the lady, with ink and a reed, and she wrote a few affectionate lines to her father. She doubled the paper, tied a thread round it, attached some wax to this, and impressed her seal, which she drew from an embroidered bag, upon the wax. Anxious, some time, to reward the messenger, when she could better know how, she took another piece of the vellum, and made on it a memorandum of his name and residence, and carefully put this into her bosom. After partaking of some slight refreshment, she mounted her car, and bid Chromatius an affectionate farewell. There was something touchingly paternal in his look, as though he felt he should never see her again. So she thought; but it was a very different feeling which softened his heart. Should she always remain thus? Must he leave her to perish in obstinate ignorance? Were that generous heart, and that noble intellect, to grovel on in the slime of bitter paganism, when every feeling and every thought in them seemed formed of strong yet finest fibres, across which truth might weave the richest web? It could not be; and yet a thousand motives restrained him from an avowal, which he felt would, at present, only repulse her fatally from any nearer approach to the faith. “Farewell, my child,” he exclaimed, “may you be blessed a hundredfold in ways which as yet you know not.” He turned away his face, as he dropped her hand, and hastily withdrew.
Fabiola too was moved by the mystery, as well as the tenderness, of his words; but was startled, before reaching the gate, to find her chariot stopped by Torquatus. She was, at that moment, painfully struck by the contrast between the easy and rather familiar, though respectful, manner of the youth, and the mild gravity, mixed with cheerfulness, of the old ex-prefect.
“Pardon this interruption, madam,” he said, “but are you anxious to have this letter quickly delivered?”
“Certainly, I am most anxious that it should reach my father as speedily as possible.”
“Then I fear I shall hardly be able to serve you. I can only afford to travel on foot, or by chance and cheap conveyance, and I shall be some days upon the road.”
Fabiola, hesitating, said: “Would it be taking too great a liberty, if I should offer to defray the expenses of a more rapid journey?”
“By no means,” answered Torquatus, rather eagerly, “if I can thereby better serve your noble house.”
Fabiola handed him a purse abundantly supplied, not only for his journey, but for an ample recompense. He received it with smiling readiness, and disappeared by a side alley. There was something in his manner which made a disagreeable impression; she could not think he was fit company for her dear old friend. If Chromatius had witnessed the transaction, he would have seen a likeness to Judas, in that eager clutching of the purse. Fabiola, however, was not sorry to have discharged, by a sum of money, once for all, any obligation she might have contracted by making him her messenger. She therefore drew out her memorandum to destroy it as useless, when she perceived that the other side of the vellum was written on; as the transcriber of the book, which she saw put by, had just commenced its continuation on that sheet. Only a few sentences, however, had been written, and she proceeded to read them. Then for the first time she perused the following words from a book unknown to her:
“I say to you, love your enemies; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.”[68]
We may imagine the perplexity of an Indian peasant who has picked up in a torrent’s bed a white pellucid pebble, rough and dull outside, but where chipped emitting sparks of light; unable to decide whether he have become possessed of a splendid diamond, or of a worthless stone, a thing to be placed on a royal crown, or trodden under a beggar’s feet. Shall he put an end to his embarrassment by at once flinging it away, or shall he take it to a lapidary, ask its value, and perhaps be laughed at to his face? Such were the alternating feelings of Fabiola on her way home. “Whose can these sentences be? No Greek or Roman philosopher’s. They are either very false or very true, either sublime morality or base degradation. Does any one practise this doctrine, or is it a splendid paradox? I will trouble myself no more on the subject. Or rather I will ask Syra about it; it sounds very like one of her beautiful, but impracticable, theories. No; it is better not. She overpowers me by her sublime views, so impossible for me, though they seem easy to her. My mind wants rest. The shortest way is to get rid of the cause of my perplexity, and forget such harassing words. So here it goes to the winds, or to puzzle some one else, who may find it on the road-side. Ho! Phormio, stop the chariot, and pick up that piece of parchment which I have dropped.”
The outrider obeyed, though he had thought the sheet deliberately flung out. It was replaced in Fabiola’s bosom: it was like a seal upon her heart, for that heart was calm and silent till she reached home.