life of that to
which God has given being and authority? Shall he flourish in pride and
glory who hath helped to pull down what God built up? Not so, Piso. 'Tis
no wonder that the Christians are now in this plight. It could be no
otherwise. And in every corner of this huge fabric wilt thou behold
some of my tribe looking on upon this sight, or helping at the
sacrifice. Yet, as thou knowest, I am not among them. There is no hope
for Probus, Piso?'

'None, Isaac. All Rome could not save him.'

'Truly,' rejoined the Jew, 'he is in the lion's den. Yet as the prophet
Daniel was delivered, so may it be to him. God is over all.'

'God is, indeed, over all,' I said; 'but he leaves us with our natural
passions, affections, and reason, to work out our own way through the
world. We are the better for it.'

'Doubtless,' said Isaac. 'Yet at times, when we look not for it, and
from a quarter we dream not of, deliverance comes. So was it to Abraham,
when he thought that by his own hand Isaac his son must be slain. But
why to a Christian should I speak of these? Dost thou witness the
sacrifice, Piso?'

'Yes, at the earnest entreaty of Probus himself.'

'I, too, shall be there. We shall both then see what shall come to
pass.'

So saying, he moved away toward the lower vaults, where are the cages of
the beasts, and I passed on and ascended the flight of steps leading to
that part of the interior where it is the custom of Aurelian to sit. The
Emperor was not as yet arrived, but the amphitheatre, in every part of
it, was already filled with its countless thousands. All were seated
idly conversing, or gazing about as at the ordinary sports of the place.
The hum of so many voices struck the ear like the distant roar of the
ocean. How few of those thousands--not one perhaps--knew for what it was
that Probus and his companions were now about to suffer a most cruel
and abhorred death! They knew that their name was Christian, and that
Christian was of the same meaning as enemy of the gods and of the
empire; but what it was which made the Christian so willing to die, why
it was he was so ready to come to that place of horror and give up his
body to the beasts--this they knew not. It was to them a riddle they
could not read. And they sat and looked on with the same vacant
unconcern, or with the same expectation of pleasure, as if they were to
witness the destruction of murderers and assassins. This would not have
been so, had that class o