o sow and
till against the future harvest. Must I not experience solicitude about
the acts and the thoughts of so long a career? I may often have erred; I
must often have stood idly by the wayside; I must many times have been
neglectful, and forgetful, and wilful; I must often have sinned; and it
is not all the expected glory of another life, nor all the honor of
dying in the cause of Christ, nor all the triumph of a martyr's fate,
that can or ought to stifle and overlay such thoughts. Still I am happy.
Happy, not because I am in my own view worthy or complete, but because
through Jesus Christ I am taught, in God, to see a Father. I know that
in him I shall find both a just and a merciful judge; and in him who was
tempted even as we are, who was of our nature and exposed to our trials,
shall I find an advocate and intercessor such as the soul needs. So
that, if anxious as he who is human and fallible must ever be, I am
nevertheless happy and contented. My voyage is ended; the ocean of life
is crossed, and I stand by the shore with joyful expectations of the
word that shall bid me land and enter into the haven of my rest.'

As Probus ended these words, a low and deep murmur or distant rumbling
as of thunder caught our ears, which, as we listened, suddenly increased
to a terrific roar of lions, as it were directly under our feet. We
instinctively sprang from where we sat, but were quieted at once by
Probus:

'There is no danger,' said he; 'they are not within our apartment, nor
very near us. They are a company of Rome's executioners, kept in
subterranean dungeons, and fed with prisoners whom her mercy consigns to
them. Sounds more horrid yet have met my ears, and may yours. Yet I hope
not.'

But while he yet spoke, the distant shrieks of those who were thrust
toward the den, into which from a high ledge they were to be plunged
headlong, were borne to us, accompanied by the oaths and lashes of such
as drove them, but which were immediately drowned by the louder roaring
of the imprisoned beasts as they fell upon and fought for their prey. We
sat mute and trembling with horror, till those sounds at length ceased
to reverberate through the aisles and arches of the building.

'O Rome!' cried Probus, when they had died away, 'how art thou drunk
with blood! Crazed by ambition, drunk with blood, drowned in sin,
hardened as a millstone against all who come to thee for good, how shalt
thou be redeemed? where is the power to sav