nd furious mob.'

'They can die, can they not?' said Macer. 'Is that difficult, or
impossible? If the Lord need them, they are his. I can ask no happier
lot for them than that by death they may glorify God. And what is it to
die so, more than in another way? Let them die in their beds, and whom
do they benefit? They die then to themselves, and no one is the gainer;
let them die by the sword of Varus, or by the stones of the populace,
and then they become themselves stones in the foundation of that temple
of God, of which Jesus is the chief corner-stone, and they are glorious
forever. What say you, Cicer, will you die for Christ?'

The little fellow hid his head in his father's bosom at this sudden
appeal, but soon drew it out and said,

'I would rather die for you, father.'

'Ah!' said Macer, 'how am I punished in my children! Cicer, would you
not die for Christ?'

'I would die for him if you wish it.'

'Macer,' said Probus, 'do you not see how God has bound you and this
family into one? and he surely requires you not to separate yourself,
their natural protector, from them forever; still less, to involve them
in all the sufferings which, taking the course you do, may come upon
them at any hour.'

'Probus! their death would give me more pleasure than their life, dying
for Christ. I love them now and here, fondly as ever parent loved his
children,--but what is now, and here? Nothing. The suffering of an hour
or of a moment joins us together again, where suffering shall be no
more, and death no more. To-morrow! yes, to-morrow! would I that the
wrath of these idol-worshippers might be turned against us. Rome must be
roused; she sleeps the sleep of death; and the church sleeps it too;
both need that they who are for the Lord should stand forth, and, not
waiting to be attacked, themselves assail the enemy, who need but to be
assailed with the zeal and courage of men, who were once to be found in
the church, to be driven at all points.'

'But, father,' said the daughter who had spoken before, 'other
Christians think not so. They believe for the most part, as I hear, with
Probus and Piso, that on no account should we provoke the gentiles, or
give them cause of complaint against us; they think that to do so would
greatly harm us; that our duty is to go on the even tenor of our way,
worshipping God after our own doctrine, and in our own manner, and
claiming and exercising all our rights as citizens, but abstaining from