ht, rapture.

Then he threw himself on his knees, his arms stretched forward; and this
cry left his lips,--

"O Christ! O Christ!"

He fell with his face to the earth, as if kissing some one's feet.

The silence continued long; then were heard the words of the aged man,
broken by sobs,--

"Quo vadis, Domine?"

Nazarius did not hear the answer; but to Peter's ears came a sad and
sweet voice, which said,--

"If thou desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second
time."

The Apostle lay on the ground, his face in the dust, without motion or
speech. It seemed to Nazarius that he had fainted or was dead; but he
rose at last, seized the staff with trembling hands, and turned without
a word toward the seven hills of the city.

The boy, seeing this, repeated as an echo,--

"Quo vadis, Domine?"

"To Rome," said the Apostle, in a low voice.

And he returned.

Paul, John, Linus, and all the faithful received him with amazement; and
the alarm was the greater, since at daybreak, just after his departure,
pretorians had surrounded Miriam's house and searched it for the
Apostle. But to every question he answered only with delight and
peace,--

"I have seen the Lord!"

And that same evening he went to the Ostian cemetery to teach and
baptize those who wished to bathe in the water of life.

And thenceforward he went there daily, and after him went increasing
numbers. It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors
were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands
of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world
was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness,
those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and
oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came
to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given
Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which
the society of the time could not give any one,--happiness and love.

And Peter understood that neither Caesar nor all his legions could
overcome the living truth,--that they could not overwhelm it with tears
or blood, and that now its victory was beginning. He understood with
equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road. That city of
pride, crime, wickedness, and power was beginning to be His city, and
the double capital, from whic