sons,
But one God, thrice mystic emblem!--
In the Catholic faith we hold
In one Trinity one God dwelleth,
And that in one God is also
One sole Trinity, ever bless`ed,
Which confounds not the three Persons,
Nor the single substance severs.
One is the person of the Father,
One the Son's, beloved for ever,
One, the third, the Holy Ghost's.
But though three, you must remember
That in the Father, and in the Son,
And in the Holy Ghost . . .

CHRYSANTHUS.
Unheard of
Mysteries these!

CARPOPHORUS.
There 's but one God,
Equal in the power exerted,
Equal in the state and glory;
For . . .

CHRYSANTHUS.
I listen, but I tremble.

CARPOPHORUS.
The eternal Father is
Limitless, even so unmeasured
And eternal is the Son,
And unmeasured and eternal
Is the Holy Ghost; but then
Three eternities are not meant here,
Three immensities, no, but One,
Who is limitless and eternal.
For though increate the three,
They are but one Uncreated.
First the Father was not made,
Or created, or engendered;
Then engendered was the Son
By the Father, not created;
And the Spirit was not made
Or created, or engendered
By the Father or the Son,
But proceeds from both together.
This is God's divinity
Viewed as God alone, let 's enter
On the human aspect.

CHRYSANTHUS.
Stay:
For so strange, so unexpected
Are the things you say, that I
Need for their due thought some leisure.
Let me my lost breath regain,
For entranced, aroused, suspended,
Spell-bound your strong reasons hold me.
Is there then but one sole God
In three Persons, one in essence,
One in substance, one in power,
One in will?

CARPOPHORUS.
My son, 't is certain.

(Enter Aurelius and Soldiers.)

AURELIUS to the Soldiers.
Yonder is the secret cavern
Of Carpophorus, at its entrance
See him seated with another
Reading.

A SOLDIER.
Why delay? Arrest them.

AURELIUS.
Recollect Polemius bade us,
When we seized them, to envelope
Each one's face, that so, the Christians,
Their accomplices and fellows,
Should not know or recognize them.

A SOLDIER.
You 're our prisoners.
[A veil is thrown over the head of each.]

CHRYSANTHUS.
What! base wretches . . .

AURELIUS.
Gag their mouths.

CHRYSANTHUS.
But then I am . . .

AURELIUS.
Come, no words: now tie together
Both their hands behind their backs.

CHRYSANTHUS