denying any obligations to a different or better
life. Such do we find, indeed, not Rome only, but the world itself, dead
in trespasses and sin. We would rouse it from this sleep of death. We
desire first of all, to waken in the souls of men a perception of the
guilt of sin! a feeling of the wide departure of their lives from the
just demands of the being who made them. The prospect of immortality
were nothing without this. Longer life were but a greater evil were we
not made alive to sin and righteousness. Life on earth, Aurelian, is not
the best thing, but virtuous life: so life without end is not the best
thing, but life without fault or sin. But to the necessity of such a
life men are now insensible and dead. They love the prospect of an
immortal existence, but not of that purity without which immortality
were no blessing. But it is this moral regeneration--this waking up of
men dead in sin, to the life of righteousness, which is the great aim of
Christianity. Repentance! was the first word of its founder when he
began preaching in Judea; it is the first word of his followers wherever
they go, and should be the last. This, O Aurelian, in few words, is the
gospel of Jesus--"Repent and live forever!"

'In the service of this gospel, and therefore of you and the world, we
are content to labor while we live, to suffer injury and reproach, and
if need be, and they to whom we go will not understand us, lay down our
lives. Almost three hundred years has it appealed to mankind; and though
not with the success that should have followed upon the labor of those
who have toiled for the salvation of men, yet has it not been rejected
everywhere, nor has the labor been in vain. The fruit that has come of
the seed sown is great and abundant. In every corner of the earth are
there now those who name the name of Christ. And in every place are
there many more, than meet the eye, who read our gospels, believe in
them, and rejoice in the virtue and the hope which have taken root in
their souls. Here in Rome, O Aurelian, are there multitudes of
believers, whom the ear hears not, nor the eye sees, hidden away in the
security of this sea of roofs, whom the messengers of your power never
could discover. Destroy us, you may; sweep from the face of Rome every
individual whom the most diligent search can find, from the gray-haired
man of fourscore to the infant that can just lisp the name of Jesus, and
you have not destroyed the Christians; th