creed, some singular fantasies of right
and wrong. Pardon me if I offend thee: but reflect! Against whom shall
I contend? Oh! couldst thou know those wretches with whom, for thy
sake, I assort, thou wouldst think I purified earth by removing one of
them. Beasts, whose very lips drop blood; things, all savage,
unprincipled in their very courage: ferocious, heartless, senseless; no
tie of life can bind them: they know not fear, it is true--but neither
know they gratitude, nor charity, nor love; they are made but for their
own career, to slaughter without pity, to die without dread! Can thy
gods, whosoever they be, look with wrath on a conflict with such as
these, and in such a cause? Oh, My father, wherever the powers above
gaze down on earth, they behold no duty so sacred, so sanctifying, as
the sacrifice offered to an aged parent by the piety of a grateful son!'

The poor old slave, himself deprived of the lights of knowledge, and
only late a convert to the Christian faith, knew not with what arguments
to enlighten an ignorance at once so dark, and yet so beautiful in its
error. His first impulse was to throw himself on his son's breast--his
next to start away to wring his hands; and in the attempt to reprove,
his broken voice lost itself in weeping.

'And if,' resumed Lydon--'if thy Deity (methinks thou wilt own but one?)
be indeed that benevolent and pitying Power which thou assertest Him to
be, He will know also that thy very faith in Him first confirmed me in
that determination thou blamest.'

'How! what mean you?' said the slave.

'Why, thou knowest that I, sold in my childhood as a slave, was set free
at Rome by the will of my master, whom I had been fortunate enough to
please. I hastened to Pompeii to see thee--I found thee already aged and
infirm, under the yoke of a capricious and pampered lord--thou hadst
lately adopted this new faith, and its adoption made thy slavery doubly
painful to thee; it took away all the softening charm of custom, which
reconciles us so often to the worst. Didst thou not complain to me that
thou wert compelled to offices that were not odious to thee as a slave,
but guilty as a Nazarene? Didst thou not tell me that thy soul shook
with remorse when thou wert compelled to place even a crumb of cake
before the Lares that watch over yon impluvium? that thy soul was torn
by a perpetual struggle? Didst thou not tell me that even by pouring
wine before the threshold, and calling on