ccompanied with sneers or contempt. But she remembered how that in
Ostia, while she was yet a very young girl, she had heard it sometimes
whispered that the Christians were kind and loving to all the world, and
free from many sins in which other men openly exulted, and that, through
their great love for their founder, they organized charities which had
never before been even thought of--and how that once, when she had been
very sick, a strange woman had nursed her into health and refused all
payment for it, alleging that her religion bade her give herself up to
such tasks--and how that she had once seen pass by, one who was pointed
out to her as a holy man among the sect--whose name indeed she could not
remember, but whose mild and serene expression yet lived in her
recollection. It was hardly possible that one whose face was so radiant
with universal love and benevolence as to impress itself thus lastingly
upon the heart of a young child could have been very wicked. Nor did it
seem likely that Cleotos, whose greatest weakness was that his life had
been almost too innocent and trusting, could speak well of a sect which
worthily ought to be persecuted. And then again she thought upon that
little book to the sect at Corinth, and she bade Cleotos to read a verse
or two. He did so. At another time she might have listened as she had
listened to the moral maxims of the poet Emilius--judging well of it,
perhaps, for the beauty of its words, but, beyond that, regarding it
simply as some new and more original expression of long-accepted
philosophy. But now, in her trouble, she felt that there was something
in it beyond all known philosophy--a new development of faith, appealing
to the heart, and speaking comfort to all who were in misery. It surely
could not be that such words were the emanations of an evil influence.

'Art thou--answer me, Cleotos--art thou one of the sect of Christians?'
she inquired.

'How can I tell?' he responded. 'I have so often asked that question of
my heart, and yet have not been able to understand what it has said to
me. There are times when I think that I must pray only to the gods of
Olympus, and that all I have heard or read about other gods must be
untrue. And again, when I read this little parchment of mine, and
remember other like things that have been told to me, and see how they
all speak of death as a relief to the sorrowing, and of another life in
which the down trodden and the captive shall