and rapine; but now sudden destruction is coming on the insatiate
city, and visitation for her sins."

"And if you are right--if the barbarians should indeed destroy the armies
of Caesar," asked Melissa, looking up in some alarm at the enthusiast,
"what then?"

"Then we may thank those who help to demolish the crumbling house!" cried
Andreas, with flashing eyes.

"And if it should be so," said the girl, with tremulous anxiety, "what
universal ruin! What is there on earth that could fill its place? If the
empire falls into the power of the barbarians, Rome will be made
desolate, and all the provinces laid waste which thrive under her
protection."

"Then," said Andreas, "will the kingdom of the Spirit arise, in which
peace and love shall reign instead of hatred and murder and wars. There
shall be one fold and one Shepherd, and the least shall be equal with the
greatest."

"Then there will be no more slaves?" asked Melissa, in growing amazement.

"Not one," replied her companion, and a gleam of inspiration seemed to
light up his stern features. "All shall be free, and all united in love
by the grace of Him who hath redeemed us."

But Melissa shook her head, and Andreas, understanding what was passing
in her mind, tried to catch her eye as he went on:

"You think that these are the impossible wishes of one who has himself
been a slave, or that it is the remembrance of past suffering and
unutterable wrong which speaks in me? For what right-minded man would not
desire to preserve others from the misery which once crushed him to earth
with its bitter burden?--But you are mistaken. Thousands of free-born men
and women think as I do, for to them, too, a higher Power has revealed
that the fullness of time is now come. He, the Greatest and Best, who
made all the woes of the world His own, has chosen the poor rather than
the rich, the suffering rather than the happy, the babes rather than the
wise and prudent; and in his kingdom the last shall be first--yea, the
least of the last, the poorest of the poor; and they, child, are the
slaves."

He ended his diatribe with a deep sigh, but Melissa pressed the hand
which held hers as they walked along the raised pathway, and said: "Poor
Andreas! How much you must have gone through before Polybius set you
free!"

He only nodded, and they both remained silent till they found themselves
in a quiet side street. Then the girl looked up at him inquiringly, and
began again:

"And