in the strangest of ways, has this morning let me out. Shall she
not be saved, my father, in God's own way, as well as I? At least we can
all pray for her; but surely we can do more--so precious a soul must not be
left to herself and the world. If she has the trials, she may claim the
blessings of a Christian. Is she to go back to heathenism? Is she, alas!
to suffer without baptism? Shall we not hazard death to bestow on her that
grace?"

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE BAPTISM.

We have already had occasion to mention that there were many secret
well-wishers, or at least protectors, of Christians, as in the world at
large, so also in Sicca. There were many persons who had received benefits
from their charity, and had experience of the scandalous falsehood of the
charges now circulated against them. Others would feel a generosity
towards a cruelly persecuted body; others, utterly dead to the subject of
religion, or rather believing all religions to be impostures, would not
allow it to be assumed that only one was worthy of bad treatment. Others
liked what they heard of the religion itself, and thought there was truth
in it, though it had no claim to a monopoly of truth. Others felt it to be
true, but shrank from the consequences of openly embracing it. Others, who
had apostatised through fear of the executioner, intended to come back to
it at the last. It must be added that in the African Church confessors in
prison had, or were considered to have, the remarkable privilege of
gaining the public forgiveness of the Church for those who had lapsed; it
was an object, then, for all those who, being in that miserable case,
wished some day to be restored, to gain their promise of assistance, or
their good-will. To these reasons was added, in Callista's case, the
interest which naturally attached to a woman, young and defenceless.

The burning sun of Africa is at the height of its power. The population is
prostrated by heat, by scarcity, by pestilence, and by the decimation
which their riot brought upon them. They care neither for Christianity,
nor for anything else just now. They lie in the porticoes, in the caverns
under the city, in the baths. They are more alive at night. The
_apparitor_, in whose dwelling Callista was lodged, who was himself once a
Christian, lies in the shade of the great doorway, into which his rooms
open, asleep, or stupefied. Two men make th