s wanting. The
chosen associates of all these children, as they grew older, were among
the heathen; and daily they urged their parents, by their entreaties, to
conform, in one thing after another, to heathen usage. "Why should we be
singular, mother?" said the dark-eyed Myrrah, as she bound her hair and
arranged her dress after the fashion of the girls in the temple of
Venus. "Why may we not wear the golden ornaments and images which have
been consecrated to heathen goddesses?" said the sprightly Thalia;
"surely none others are to be bought, and are we to do altogether
without?" "And why may we not be at feasts where libations are made to
Apollo or Jupiter?" said the sons; "so long as we do not consent to it
or believe in it, will our faith be shaken thereby?" "How are we ever to
reclaim the heathen, if we do not mingle among them?" said another son;
"did not our Master eat with publicans and sinners?"

It was, however, to be remarked, that no conversions of the heathen to
Christianity ever took place through the means of these complying sons
and daughters, or any of the number who followed their example. Instead
of withdrawing any from the confines of heathenism, they themselves were
drawn so nearly over, that in certain situations and circumstances they
would undoubtedly have been ranked among them by any but a most
scrutinizing observer. If any in the city of Laodicea were ever led to
unite themselves with Jesus, it was by means of a few who observed the
full simplicity of the ancient faith, and who, though honest, tender,
and courteous in all their dealings with the heathen, still went not a
step with them in conformity to any of their customs.

In time, though the family we speak of never broke off from the
Christian church, yet if you had been in it, you might have heard much
warm and earnest conversation about things that took place at the baths,
or in feasts to various divinities; but if any one spoke of Jesus, there
was immediately a cold silence, a decorous, chilling, respectful pause,
after which the conversation, with a bound, flew back into the old
channel again.

* * * * *

It was now night; and the house of Onesiphorus the Elder was blazing
with torches, alive with music, and all the hurry and stir of a
sumptuous banquet. All the wealth and fashion of Laodicea were there,
Christian and heathen; and all that the classic voluptuousness of
Oriental Greece could give to shed