se are
all honorable names--I would yet rather be a Christian than either.
Strange that, with so strong desires after a greater good, I should
remain fixed where I have ever been! Stranger still, seeing I have moved
so long in the same sphere with the excellent Piso, the divine
Julia--that emanation of God--and the god-like Probus! But there is no
riddle so hard for man to read as himself. I sometimes feel most
inclined toward the dark fatalism of the stoics, since it places all
things beyond the region of conjecture or doubt.

Yet if I may not be a Christian myself--I do not, however, cease both to
hope and pray--I am happy in this, that I am permitted by the Divine
Providence to behold, in these the last days of life, the quiet
supremacy of a faith which has already added so much to the common
happiness, and promises so much more. Having stood in the midst, and
looked upon the horrors of two persecutions of the Christians--the first
by Aurelian and the last by Diocletian--which last seemed at one moment
as if it would accomplish its work, and blot out the very name of
Christian--I have no language in which to express the satisfaction with
which I sit down beneath the peaceful shadows of a Christian throne, and
behold the general security and exulting freedom enjoyed by the many
millions throughout the vast empire of the great Constantine. Now,
everywhere around, the Christians are seen, undeterred by any
apprehension of violence, with busy hands reerecting the demolished
temples of their pure and spiritual faith; yet not unmindful, in the
mean time, of the labor yet to be done, to draw away the remaining
multitudes of idolaters from the superstitions which, while they
infatuate, degrade and brutalize them. With the zeal of the early
apostles of this religion, they are applying themselves, with untiring
diligence, to soften and subdue the stony heart of hoary Paganism,
receiving but too often, as their only return, curses and threats--now
happily vain--and retiring from the assault, leading in glad triumph
captive multitudes. Often, as I sit at my window, overlooking, from the
southern slope of the Quirinal, the magnificent Temple of the Sun, the
proudest monument of Aurelian's reign, do I pause to observe the labors
of the artificers who, just as it were beneath the shadow of its
columns, are placing the last stones upon the dome of a Christian
church. Into that church the worshippers shall enter unmolested;
mingling