it is, and so must be the game. I listen to no appeal.'

'Not from me,' I replied; 'but surely you will not deny a hearing to
what these people may say in their own defence. That were neither just
nor merciful; nor were it like Aurelian. There is much which by their
proper organs they might say to place before you their faith in the
light of truth. You have heard what you have received concerning it,
chiefly from the lips of Fronto; and can he know what he has never
learned? or tell it unperverted by prejudices black as night?'

'I have already said,' rejoined the Emperor, 'that I would hear them,
and I will. But it can avail them no more than words uttered in the
breath of the tempest that is raging up from the north. Hear them! This
day have I already heard them--from one of those madmen of theirs who
plague the streets of Rome. Passing early by the temple of
AEsculapius--that one which stands not an arrow's flight from the column
of Trajan--I came upon a dense crowd of all sorts of persons listening
to a gaunt figure of a man who spoke to them. Soon as I came against
him, and paused on my horse for the crowd to make way, the wild beast
who was declaiming, shouted at me at the top of his voice, calling on me
to 'hear the word of God which he would speak to me.' Knowing him by
such jargon to be a Christian, I did as he desired, and there stood,
while he, for my especial instruction, laid bare the iniquities and
follies of the Roman worship; sent the priesthood and all who entered
their temples to the infernal regions; and prophesied against
Rome--which he termed Babylon--that ere so many centuries were gone,
her walls would lie even with the ground, her temples moulder in ruins,
her language become extinct, and her people confounded with other
nations and lost. And all this because, I, whom he now called, if I
remember the names aright, Ahaz and now Nebuchadnezzar, oppressed the
children of God and held them in captivity: while in the same breath he
bid me come on with my chains, gibbets, beasts, crosses, and fires, for
they were ready, and would rejoice to bear their testimony in the cause
of Christ. As I turned to resume my way, his words were; 'Go on, thou
man of pride and blood; go on thy way! The gates of hell swing open for
thee! Already the arm of the Lord is bared against thee! the winged
lightning struggles in his hand to smite thee! I hear thy cry for mercy
which no one answers--' and more, till I was beyond