description of customs and habits, enthusiasm of
the first followers of Christ, refinement of Roman civilization,
corruption of the old world, the question rises: What is the
dominating idea of the author, spread out all over the whole book? It
is the cry of Christians murdered in circuses: _Pro Christo_!

Sienkiewicz searching always and continually for a tranquil harbor
from the storms of conscience and investigation of the tormented mind,
finds such a harbor in the religious sentiments, in lively Christian
faith. This idea is woven as golden thread in a silk brocade, not only
in "Quo Vadis," but also in all his novels. In "Fire and Sword" his
principal hero is an outlaw; but all his crimes, not only against
society, but also against nature, are redeemed by faith, and as a
consequence of it afterward by good deeds. In the "Children of the
Soul," he takes one of his principal characters upon one of seven
Roman hills, and having displayed before him in the most eloquent way
the might of the old Rome, the might as it never existed before and
perhaps never will exist again, he says: "And from all that nothing
is left only crosses! crosses! crosses!" It seems to us that in "Quo
Vadis" Sienkiewicz strained all his forces to reproduce from one side
all the power, all riches, all refinement, all corruption of the
Roman civilization in order to get a better contrast with the great
advantages of the cry of the living faith: _Pro Christo!_ In that
cry the asphyxiated not only in old times but in our days also find
refreshment; the tormented by doubt, peace. From that cry flows hope,
and naturally people prefer those from whom the blessing comes to
those who curse and doom them.

Sienkiewicz considers the Christian faith as the principal and even
the only help which humanity needs to bear cheerfully the burden and
struggle of every-day life. Equally his personal experience as well as
his studies made him worship Christ. He is not one of those who say
that religion is good for the people at large. He does not admit such
a shade of contempt in a question touching so near the human heart.
He knows that every one is a man in the presence of sorrow and the
conundrum of fate, contradiction of justice, tearing of death, and
uneasiness of hope. He believes that the only way to cross the
precipice is the flight with the wings of faith, the precipice made
between the submission to general and absolute laws and the confidence
in the infi