ng to the dim light
of history, they had been mortals like themselves. They imagined the
heathen divinities to be evil spirits--they transplanted to Italy and to
Greece the gloomy demons of India and the East; and in Jupiter or in
Mars they shuddered at the representative of Moloch or of Satan.

Apaecides had not yet adopted formally the Christian faith, but he was
already on the brink of it. He already participated the doctrines of
Olinthus--he already imagined that the lively imaginations of the
heathen were the suggestions of the arch-enemy of mankind. The innocent
and natural answer of Ione made him shudder. He hastened to reply
vehemently, and yet so confusedly, that Ione feared for his reason more
than she dreaded his violence.

'Ah, my brother!' said she, 'these hard duties of thine have shattered
thy very sense. Come to me, Apaecides, my brother, my own brother; give
me thy hand, let me wipe the dew from thy brow--chide me not now, I
understand thee not; think only that Ione could not offend thee!'

'Ione,' said Apaecides, drawing her towards him, and regarding her
tenderly, 'can I think that this beautiful form, this kind heart, may be
destined to an eternity of torment?'

'Dii meliora! the gods forbid!' said Ione, in the customary form of
words by which her contemporaries thought an omen might be averted.

The words, and still more the superstition they implied, wounded the ear
of Apaecides. He rose, muttering to himself, turned from the chamber,
then, stopping, half way, gazed wistfully on Ione, and extended his
arms.

Ione flew to them in joy; he kissed her earnestly, and then he said:

'Farewell, my sister! when we next meet, thou mayst be to me as nothing;
take thou, then, this embrace--full yet of all the tender reminiscences
of childhood, when faith and hope, creeds, customs, interests, objects,
were the same to us. Now, the tie is to be broken!'

With these strange words he left the house.

The great and severest trial of the primitive Christians was indeed
this; their conversion separated them from their dearest bonds. They
could not associate with beings whose commonest actions, whose commonest
forms of speech, were impregnated with idolatry. They shuddered at the
blessing of love, to their ears it was uttered in a demon's name. This,
their misfortune, was their strength; if it divided them from the rest
of the world, it was to unite them proportionally to each other. They
were men