so,' he sharply
replied,'that must conform to truth and keep inviolate a plighted word?
Is deception no vice when it is a Christian who deceives? I indeed said
that I would hear the Christians, though, when I made that promise, I
also said that 'twould profit them nothing; but I then little knew why
it was that Piso was so urgent.'

'Truth,' I replied, 'cannot be received from some quarters, any more
than sweet and wholesome water through poisoned channels. Even,
Aurelian, if Fronto designed not to mislead, no statement passing
through his lips--if it concerned the Christians--could do so, without
there being added to it, or lost from it, much that properly belonged to
it. I have heard that too, which, I may suppose, has been poured into
the mind of Aurelian, to fill it with a bitterer enmity still toward the
Christians--that the Christians have sought this delay only that they
might use the opportunities thus afforded, to escape from his power--and
that, using them, they have already in the greater part fled from the
capital, leaving to the Emperor but a few old women and children upon
whom to wreak his vengeance. How does passion bring its film over the
clearest mind! How does the eye that will not see, shut out the light
though it be brighter than that of day! It had been wiser in Aurelian,
as well as more merciful, first to have tried the truth of what has thus
been thrust upon his credulity ere he made it a ground of action. True
himself, he suspects not others; but suspicion were sometimes a higher
virtue than frank confidence. Had Aurelian but looked into the streets
of Rome, he could not but have seen the grossness of the lie that has
been palmed upon his too willing ear. Of the seventy thousand Christians
who dwelt in Rome, the same seventy thousand, less by scarce a
seventieth part, are now here within their dwellings waiting the will of
Aurelian. Take this on the word of one whom, in former days at least,
you have found worthy of your trust. Take it on the word of the
venerable head of this community who stands here to confirm it either by
word or oath--and in Rome it needs but to know that Felix, the
Christian, has spoken, to know that truth has spoken too.'

'The noble Piso,' added Felix 'has spoken what all who know aught of the
affairs and condition of the Christians know to be true. There is among
us, great Emperor, too much, rather than too little, of that courage
that meets suffering and death without