Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
'So,' said Marcus, 'may the wheat spilled into the Tiber, or sown among
rocks, or eaten by the birds.'
'And that may be, though not to-day or to-morrow,' I replied. 'The seed
of things essential to man's life, as of wheat, is not easily killed. It
may be buried for years and years, yet, turned up at length, to the sun,
and its life sprouts upward in leaf, and stem, and fruit. Borne down by
the waters of the Tiber, and apparently lost, it may be cast up upon the
shores of Egypt, or Britain, and fulfil its destiny. The seed of truth
is longer-lived still--by reason that what it bears is more essential
than wheat, or other grain, to man's best life.'
'Well, well,' said Marcus, 'let us charge our goblets with the bottom of
this Falernian, and forgetting whether there be such an entity as truth
or not, drink to the health of the princess Julia.'
'That comes nearer our hearts,' said Lucilia, 'than anything that has
been spoken for the last hour. When you return, Lucius, Laco must follow
you with a mule-load of some of my homely products'---- She was about to
add more, when we were all alike startled and alarmed by cries,
seemingly of deep distress, and rapidly approaching. We sprang from our
seats, when the door of the room was violently flung open, and a slave
rushed in, crying out,
'Oh, sir! Gallus--Gallus'--
'What is it? What is it?'--cried Marcus and Lucilia. 'Speak quick--has
he fallen--'
'Yes, alas! the pond--the fish-pond--run--fly--'
Distractedly we hurried to the spot already surrounded by a crowd of
slaves. 'Who had been with him? Where had he fallen? How did it happen?'
were questions hastily asked, but which no one could answer. It was a
miserable scene of agony, confusion, and despair--Marcus ordering his
slaves to dive into the pond, then uttering curses upon them, and
commanding those to whom Gallus was usually entrusted, to the rack. No
one could swim, no one could dive. It was long since I had made use of
an art which I once possessed, but instantly I cast off my upper
garments, and, needing no other direction to the true spot than the
barking of the little dog, and his jumping in and out of the
water--first learning that the water was deep, and of an even bottom, I
threw myself in, and, in a moment, guided by the white dress of the
little fellow, I grasped him, and drew him to the surface.
Life was apparently, and probably, to my mind, extinct; but expressing a
hope that means might yet be resorted to that should restore him, I bore
him in my arms to the house. But it was all in vain. Gallus was dead.
* * * * *
I shall not inflict a new sadness upon you, Fausta, by describing the
grief of my friends, or any of the incidents of the days and weeks I now
passed with them. They were heavy, and melancholy indeed; for the
sorrows, of both Lucilia and Marcus, were excessive and inconsolable. I
could do nothing for them, nor say anything to them in the hope to
comfort them; yet, while they were thus incapacitated for all action, I
could serve them essentially by placing myself at the head of their
affairs, and relieving them of common cares and duties, that must
otherwise have been neglected, or have proved irksome and oppressive.
The ashes of Gallus, committed to a small marble urn, have been
deposited in a tomb in the centre of Lucilia's flower garden, which will
soon be embowered by flowers and shrubs, which her hand will delight to
train around it.
On the eve of the day when I was to leave them and return to Rome, we
sat together in a portico which overlooks the Tiber. Marcus and Lucilia
were sad, but, at length, in some sort, calm. The first violence of
sorrow had spent itself, and reflection was beginning to succeed.
'I suppose,' said Marcus, 'your rigid faith greatly condemns all this
show of suffering, which you have witnessed, Piso, in us, as, if not
criminal, at least weak and childish?'
'Not so, by any means,' I rejoined. 'The religion of the Christians, is
what one may term a natural religion; it does violence to not one of the
good affections and propensities. Coming, as we maintain, from the
Creator of our bodies and our minds, it does them no injury, it wars not
with any of their natural elements, but most strictly harmonizes with
them. It aims to direct, to modify, to heal, to moderate--but never to
alter or annihilate. Love of our offspring, is not more according to our
nature, than grief for the loss of them. Grief, therefore, is
innocent--even as praiseworthy, as love. What trace of human
wisdom--much less of divine--would there be in the arrangement, that
should first bind us by chains of affection as strong as adamant to a
child, or a parent, or a friend, and then treat the sorrow as criminal
that wept, with whatever violence, as it saw the links broken and
scattered, never again to be joined together?'
'That certainly is a proof that some just ideas are to be found in your
opinions,' replied my friend. 'By nothing was I ever more irreconcilably
offended in the stoical philosophy, than by its harsh violence towards
nature under suffering. To be treated by your philosophy with rudeness
and contempt, because you yield to emotions which are as natural, and,
therefore, in my judgment, as innocent as any, is, as if one were struck
with violence by a friend or a parent, to whom you fled for protection
or comfort. The doctrines of all the others failed in the same way. Even
the Epicureans hold it a weakness, and even a wrong, to grieve, seeing
the injury that is thereby done to happiness. Grief must be suppressed,
and banished, because it is accompanied by pain. That too, seemed to me
a false sentiment; because, although grief is indeed in some sort
painful, yet it is not wholly so, but is attended by a kind of pleasure.
How plain it is, that I should suffer greatly more, were I forcibly
restrained by a foreign power, or my own, from shedding these tears, and
uttering these sighs for Gallus, than I do now while I am free to
indulge my natural feelings. In truth, it is the only pleasure that
grief brings with it--the freedom of indulging it.'
'He,' I said, as Marcus paused, giving way afresh to his sorrow, 'who
embraces the Christian doctrine, is never blamed, condemned, or
ridiculed by it for the indulgence of the emotions, to which, the loss
of those whom we love, gives birth. But then, at the same time, he will
probably grieve and suffer much less under such circumstances than
you--not, however, because he is forcibly restrained, but because of the
influence upon his mind and his heart, of truths and opinions, which, as
a Christian, he entertains, and which, without any will or act of his
own, work within him and strengthen and console him. The Christian
believing, so firmly as he does, for example, in a God, not only on
grounds of reason but of express revelation, and that this God is a
parent, exercising a providence over his creatures, regardless of none,
loving as a parent all, who has created mankind, not for his own
amusement or honor, but that life and happiness might be diffused: they
who believe thus, must feel very differently under adversity, from those
who, like yourself, believe nothing of it at all, and from those who,
like the disciples of the Porch and the Academy, believe but an
inconsiderable part of it. Suppose, Marcus and Lucilia, your whole
population of slaves were, instead of strangers and slaves, your
children, toward whom you experienced the same sentiments of deep
affection that you did toward Gallus, how would you not consult for
their happiness; and how plain it is, that whatever laws you might set
over them, they would be laws of love, the end of which, however they
might not always recognize it, would be their happiness--happiness
through their virtue. This may represent, with sufficient exactness, the
light in which Christians regard the Divinity, and the laws of life
under which they find themselves. Admitting, therefore, their faith to
be well founded, and how manifest is it that they will necessarily
suffer less under adversity than you; and not because any violence is
done to their nature, but because of the benignant influences of such
truths.'
'What you say,' observed Lucilia, 'affects the mind very agreeably; and
gives a pleasing idea, both of the wisdom and mercy of the Christian
faith. It seems at any rate to be suited to such creatures as we are.
What a pity that it is so difficult to discern truth.'
'It is difficult,' I replied; 'the best things are always so: but it is
not impossible; what is necessary to our happiness, is never so. A mind
of common powers, well disposed, seeking with a real desire to find,
will rarely retire from the search wholly unsuccessful. The great
essentials to our daily well-being, and the right conduct of life, the
Creator has supplied through our instincts. Your natural religion, of
which you have spoken, you find sufficient for most of the occurrences
which arise, both of doing and bearing. But there are other emergencies
for which it is as evidently insufficient. Now, as the Creator has
supplied so perfectly in all breasts the natural religion, which is so
essential, it is fair to say and believe, that He would not make
additional truths, almost equally essential to our happiness, either of
impossible attainment, or encompassed by difficulties which could not,
with a little diligence and perseverance, be overcome.'
'It would seem so, certainly,' said Marcus; 'but it is so long since I
have bestowed any thought upon philosophical inquiries, that to me the
labor would be very great, and the difficulties extreme--for, at
present, there is scarcely so much as a mere shred or particle of faith,
to which as a nucleus other truths may attach themselves. In truth, I
never look even to possess any clear faith in a God--it seems to be a
subject wholly beyond the scope and grasp of my mind. I cannot entertain
the idea of self-existence. I can conceive of God neither as one, nor as
divided into parts. Is he infinite and everywhere, himself constituting
his universe?--then he is scarcely a God; or, is he a being dwelling
apart from his works, and watching their obedience to their imposed
laws? In neither of these conceptions can I rest.'
'It is not strange,' I replied; 'nor that, refusing to believe in the
fact of a God until you should be able to comprehend him perfectly, you
should to this hour be without faith. If I had waited before believing,
until I understood, I should at this moment be as faithless as you, or
as I was before I received Christianity. Do I comprehend the Deity? Can
I describe the mode of his being? Can I tell you in what manner he
sprang into existence? And whether he is necessarily everywhere in his
works, and as it were constituting them? Or whether he has power to
contract himself, and dwell apart from them, their omniscient observer,
and omnipotent Lord? I know nothing of all this; the religion which I
receive, teaches nothing of all this. Christianity does not demonstrate
the being of a God, it simply proclaims it; hardly so much as that
indeed. It supposes it, as what was already well known and generally
believed. I cannot doubt that it is left thus standing by itself,
untaught and unexplained, only because the subject is intrinsically
incomprehensible by us. It is a great fact or truth, which all can
receive, but which none can explain or prove. If it is not believed,
either instinctively, or through the recognition of it, and declaration
of it, in some revelation, it cannot be believed at all. It needs the
mind of God to comprehend God. The mind of man is no more competent to
reach and grasp the theme through reason, than his hands are to mould a
sun. All the reasonings, imaginations, guesses, of self-styled