Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third Century
the enemy of our peace pursues. Memory is a companion who never leaves
us--or never leaves us long. It is the true Nemesis. Tartarean regions
have no worse woes, nor the Hell of Christians, than memory inflicts
upon those who have done evil. My friends struggle in vain. They have
not done evil indeed, but they have suffered it. The sorest calamity
that afflicts mortals has overtaken them; their choicest jewel has been
torn from them; and they can no more drown the memory of their loss than
they can take that faculty itself and tear it from their souls. Comfort
cannot come from that quarter. It can come only from being re-possessed
of that which has been lost hereafter, and from enjoying the hope of
that felicity now. See how Marcus writes. After much else, he says,
'I miss you, Piso, and the conversations which we had together. I know
not how it is, but your presence acted as a restraint upon my hot and
impatient temper. Since your departure I have been little less than mad,
and so far from being of service to Lucilia, she has been compelled to
moderate her own grief in the hope to assuage mine. I have done nothing
but rave, and curse my evil fortune. And can anything else be looked
for? How should a man be otherwise than exasperated when the very thing
he loves best in the wide universe is, without a moment's warning,
snatched away from him? A man falls into a passion if his seal is
stolen, or his rings, or his jewels, if his dwelling burns down, or his
slaves run away or die by some pestilence. And why should he not much
more when the providence of the gods, or the same power whatever it may
be that gave as a child, tears it from us again; and just then when we
have so grown into it that it is like hewing us in two? I can believe in
nothing but capricious chance. We live by chance, and so we die. Such
events are otherwise inexplicable. For what reason can by the most
ingenious be assigned for giving life for a few years to a being like
Gallus, and who then, before he is more than just past the threshold of
life, before a single power of his nature has put itself forth, but at
the moment when he is bound to his parents by ties of love which never
afterwards would be stronger--is struck dead? We can give no account of
it. It is irreconcilable with the hypothesis of an intelligent and good
Providence. It has all the features of chance upon it. A god could not
have done it unless he had been the god of Tartarus. Dark Pluto might,
or the avenging Furies, were they supreme. But away with all such
dreams! The slaves who were his proper attendants, have been scourged
and crucified. That at first gave me some relief; but already I repent
it. So it is with me; I rush suddenly upon what at the moment I think
right, and then as suddenly think and feel that I have done wrong, and
so suffer. I see and experience nothing but suffering, whichever way I
turn. Truly we are riddles. Piso, you cannot conceive of my loss. It was
our only child--and the only one we shall ever know. I wish that I
believed in the gods that I might curse them.'
And much more in the same frantic way. Time will blunt his grief; but it
will bring him I fear no other or better comfort. He hopes for oblivion
of his loss; but that can never be. He may cease to grieve as he grieves
now; but he can never cease to remember. I trust to see him again ere
long, and turn his thoughts into a better channel.
* * * * *
I did not forget to keep my promise to the wife of Macer. In truth I had
long regarded it as essential to our safety almost, certainly to our
success, that this man, and others of the same character, should be
restrained in some way in their course of mistaken zeal; and had long
intended to use what influence to that end I might possess. Probus had
promised to accompany me, and do what in him lay, to rescue religion
from this peril at the hands of one of her best friends. He joined me
toward the evening of the same day on which I had seen the wife of
Macer, and we took our way toward his dwelling.
It was already past the hour of twilight when we reached the part of the
city where Macer dwells, and entered the ruins among which his cabin
stands. These ruins are those of extensive and magnificent baths
destroyed a long time ago, and to this day remaining as the flames left
them. At the rear of them, far from the street and concealed from it by
arches and columns and fragments of wall, we were directed by the rays
of a lamp streaming from a window, to the place we sought. We wound our
way among these fallen or still standing masses of stone, which
frequently hid from us the object of our search, till, as we found
ourselves near the spot, we were arrested by the sound of a single voice
uttering itself with vehemence and yet solemnity. We paused, but could
not distinguish the words used; but the same conviction possessed us as
to its cause. It was Macer at prayer. We moved nearer, so that, without
disturbing the family, we might still make ourselves of the number of
hearers. His voice, loud and shrill, echoed among the ruins and conveyed
to us, though at some distance, every word that he uttered. But for the
noise of carriages and passengers it would have penetrated even to the
streets. The words we caught were such as these--
--'If they hear thee not, O Lord, nor reverence thy messengers, but deny
thee and turn upon those whom thou sendest the lip of scorn and the eye
of pride, and will none of their teachings, and so do despite to the
spirit of thy grace, and crucify the Lord afresh, then do thou, O Lord,
come upon them as once upon the cities of the plain in the times of
thine anger. Let fire from Heaven consume them. Let the earth yawn and
swallow them up. Tear up the foundations of this modern Babylon; level
to the earth her proud walls; and let her stand for a reproach, and a
hissing, and a scorn; through all generations; so that men shall say as
they pass by, lo! the fate of them that held to their idols rather than
serve the living God; their proud palaces are now dwellings of dragons,
and over her ruins the trees of the forest are now spreading their
branches. But yet, O Lord, may this never be; but may a way of escape be
made for them through thy mercy. And to this end may we thy servants, to
whom thou hast given the sword of the spirit, gird it upon our sides,
lift up our voices and spare not, day and night, morning and evening, in
the public place, and at the corners of the streets; in all places, and
in every presence, proclaiming the good news of salvation. Let not
cowardice seal our lips. Whether before gentile or jew, emperor or
slave, may we speak as becomes the Lord's anointed. Warm the hearts of
the cold and dead; put fire into them; fire from thine own altar. The
world, O Lord, and its honors and vanities, seduce thine own servants
from thee. They are afraid, they are cold, they are dead, and the enemy
lifts himself up and triumphs. For this we would mourn and lament. Give
us, O Lord, the courage and the zeal of thine early apostles and
teachers so that no fear of tortures and death may make us traitors to
Christ and thee.'
It was a long time that he went on in this strain, inveighing, with heat
and violence, against all who withdrew their hand from the work, or
abated their zeal. When he had ceased, and we stood waiting to judge
whether the service were wholly ended, the voices of the whole family
apparently, were joined together in a hymn of praise--Macer's now more
gentle and subdued, as if to hear himself the tones of the children and
of his wife who accompanied him. The burden of the hymn was also a
prayer for a spirit of fidelity and a temper of patience, in the cause
of truth and Christ. It was worship in the highest sense, and none
within the dwelling could have joined more heartily than we did who
stood without.
When it was ended, and with it evidently the evening service, we
approached, and knocked for admittance. Macer appeared holding a light
above his head, and perceiving who his guests were, gave us cordial
welcome, at the same time showing us into his small apartment and
placing stools for our accommodation. The room in which we were was
small and vaulted, and built of stone in the most solid manner. I saw at
once that it was one of the smaller rooms of the ancient bath, which
had escaped entire destruction and now served as a comfortable
habitation. A door on the inner side appeared to connect it with a
number of similar apartments. A table in the centre and a few stools, a
shelf on which were arranged the few articles which they possessed both
for cooking and eating their food, constituted the furniture of the
room. In the room next beyond I could see pallets of straw laid upon the
floor, which served for beds. Macer, his wife, and six children,
composed the family then present; the two elder sons being yet absent at
their work, in the shop of Demetrius. The mother held at her breast an
infant of a year or more; one of three years sprang again upon his
father's lap, as he resumed his seat after our entrance, whence he had
apparently been just dislodged; the rest, sitting in obscure parts of
the room, were at first scarcely visible. The wife of Macer expressed
heartily her pleasure at seeing us, and said even more by her flushed
and animated countenance than by her words. The severe countenance of
Macer himself relaxed and gave signs of satisfaction.
'I owe you, Piso,' he said, 'many thanks for mercies shown to my wife
and my little ones here, and I am glad to see you among us. We are far
apart enough as the world measures such things, but in Christ we are
one. At such times as these, when the Prince of Darkness rules, we ought
if ever to draw toward each other, that so we may make better our common
defence. I greet you as a brother--I trust to love you as one.'
I told him that nothing should be wanting on my part toward a free and
friendly intercourse; that from all I had heard of him I had conceived a
high regard for him, and owed him more thanks for what he had done in
behalf of our religion, than he could me for any services I had rendered
him.
'Me?' said he, and his head fell upon his bosom. 'What have I done for
Christ to deserve the thanks of any? I have preached and I have prayed;
I have opposed heresies and errors; I have wrestled with the enemies and
corrupters of our faith within our own body and without; but the fruit
seems nothing. The gentile is still omnipotent--heresy and error still
abound.'
'Yes, Macer,' I replied, 'that is certainly so, and may be so for many
years to come, but still we are gaining. He who can remember twenty
years can count a great increase. After the testimony borne by the
martyrs of the Decian persecution to their faith, and all the proof they
gave of sincere attachment to the doctrine of Christ, crowds have
entered the church, an hundred for every one whose blood then flowed.'
'And now,' said Macer, his eye kindling with its wild fires, 'the church
is dead! The truest prayer that the Christian can now offer is, that it
would please God to try us again as it were by fire! We slumber, Piso!
The Christians are not now the Nazarites they were in the first age of
the church. Divisions have crept in; tares have been sown with the
wheat, and have come up, and are choking the true plants of God. I know
not but that the signs of terror which are scaring the heavens ought
rather to be hailed as tokens of love. Better a thousand perish on the
rack or by the axe, than that the church itself faint away and die.'
'It will not do,' said Probus, 'always to depend upon such remedies of
our sloth and heresies. Surely it were better to prosper in some other
and happier way. All I think we can say of persecution, and of the