appier if all this vast population were bound together by some
common ties of kindred; if all held all as brethren; if the poor man
felt himself to be the same as Aurelian himself, because he is a man
like him and weighs just as much as he in the scales of God, and that it
is the vice in the one or the other, and that only that sinks him lower?
Would it not be better, if you all could see in the presiding power of
the universe, one great and good Being, who needs not to be propitiated
by costly sacrifices of oxen or bulls, nor by cruel ones of men,--but is
always kindly disposed towards you, and desires nothing so much as to
see you living virtuously, and is never grieved as he is to see you
ruining your own peace,--not harming him--by your vices? for you will
bear witness with me that your vices are never a cause of happiness.
Would it not be better if you could behold such a God over you, in the
place of those who are called gods, and whom you worship, as I did
once, because I feared to do otherwise, and yet sin on never the less:
who are your patterns not so much in virtue as in all imaginable vice?'

'Away with the wicked!'--'Away with the fellow!' cried several voices;
but others predominated, saying, 'Let him alone!'--'He speaks well! We
will hear him!'--'We will defend him! go on, go on!'

'I have little or nothing more to say,' continued Macer. 'I will only
ask you whether you must not judge that to be a very powerful principle
of some kind that drew me up out of that foul pit into which I was
fallen, and made me what I am now? Which of you now feels that he has
motive strong enough to work out such a deliverance for him? What help
in this way do you receive from your priests, if perchance you ever
apply to them? What book of instructions concerning the will of the gods
have you, to which you can go at any time and all times? Only believe as
I do, Romans, and you will hate sin as I do. You cannot help it. Believe
in the God that I do, and in the revealer of his will, the teacher whom
he sent into the world to save us from our heathen errors and vices, and
you will then be more than the Romans you once were. You are now, and
you know it, infinitely less. Then you will be what the old Romans were
and more. You will be as brave as they, and more just. You will be as
generous and more gentle. You will love your own country as well, but
you will love others too. You will be more ready to offer up your lives
for your