erson. Here was the
very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason
and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one
and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest.

This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she
turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was
implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she
understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty,
All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the
Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular,
that He had come upon earth in the form of a man, and in that form had
gone through sufferings, in order to unite all souls to Him; that He
desired to love, and to be loved; that He had said so; that He had called
on man to love Him, and did actually bring to pass this loving intercourse
of Him and man in those souls who surrendered themselves to Him. She did
not go much further than this; but as much as this was before her mind
morning, noon, and night. It pleaded in her; it importuned her; it would
not be rebuffed. It did not mind her moods, or disgusts, or doubts, or
denials, or dismissals, but came again and again. It rose before her, in
spite of the contempt, reproach, and persecution which the profession of
it involved. It smiled upon her; it made promises to her; it opened
eternal views to her; and it grew upon her convictions in clearness of
perception, in congruity, and in persuasiveness.

Moreover, the more she thought of Chione, of Agellius, and of Caecilius the
more surely did she discern that this teaching wrought in them a something
which she had not. They had about them a simplicity, a truthfulness, a
decision, an elevation, a calmness, and a sanctity to which she was a
stranger, which spoke to her heart and absolutely overcame her. The image
of Caecilius, in particular, came out prominently and eloquently in her
memory,--not in his words so much as in his manner. In spite of what she
had injuriously said to him, she really felt drawn to worship him, as if
he were the shrine and the home of that Presence to which he bore such
solemn witness.

O the change, when, as if in punishment for her wild words against him,
she found herself actually in the hands of lawless men, who were as far
below her in sentiment as he was above her! O the change, when