an wish you, Romans,
before I die, no greater good than that, like me and those who are with
me, you may one day become Christians. For you will then be incapable of
inflicting such sufferings and wrongs upon any human being. The religion
of Jesus will not suffer you to do otherwise than love others as you do
yourselves; that is the great Christian rule. Be assured that we now
die, as Christians, in full faith in Christ and in joyful hope of living
with him, so soon as these mortal bodies shall have perished; and that,
though a single word of denial would save us, we would not speak it. Ye
have cruelly slaughtered the good Macer; do so now by us, if such is
your will, and we shall then be with him where he is.'

With these words she again turned, and throwing her arms around her
mother and younger sisters, awaited the onset of the furious dogs, whose
yellings and strugglings could all the while be heard. She and they
waited but a moment, when the blood-hounds, fiercer than the fiercest
beasts of the forest, flew from their leashes, and, in less time than
would be believed, naught but a heap of bones marked where the Christian
family had stood.

The crowds, then fully sated as it seemed with the rare sport of the
morning, dispersed, each having something to say to another of the
firmness and patriotism of Varus and Fronto,--and of the training and
behavior of the dogs.

* * * * *

From the earliest period of reflection have I detested the Roman
character; and all that I have witnessed with my own eyes has served but
to confirm those early impressions. They are a people wholly destitute
of humanity. They are the lineal descendants of robbers, murderers, and
warriors--which last are but murderers under another name--and they show
their parentage in every line of their hard-featured visages, and still
more in all the qualities of the soul. They are stern,--unyielding,
unforgiving--cruel. A Roman heart dissected would be found all stone.
Any present purpose of passion, or ambition, or party zeal, will
extinguish in the Roman all that separates him from the brute. Bear
witness to the truth of this, ye massacres of Marius and Sylla! and
others, more than can be named, both before and since--when the blood of
neighbors, friends, and fellow-citizens, was poured out as freely as if
it had been the filthy stream that leaks its way through the public
sewers! And, in good sooth, was it not as filth