CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY.

After this conversation Fabiola retired; and during the rest of the day her mind was alternately agitated and calm. When she looked steadily on the grand view of moral life which her mind had grasped, she found an unusual tranquillity in its contemplation; she felt as if she had made discovery of a great phenomenon, the knowledge of which guided her into a new and lofty region, whence she could smile on the errors and follies of mankind. But when she considered the responsibility which this light imposed, the watchfulness which it demanded, the unseen and unrequited struggles which it required, the desolateness, almost, of a virtue without admiration or even sympathy, she again shrunk from the life that was before her, as about to be passed without any stay or help, from the only sources of it which she knew. Unconscious of the real cause, she saw that she possessed not instruments or means, to carry out the beautiful theory. This seemed to stand like a brilliant lamp in the midst of a huge, bare, unfurnished hall, lighting up only a wilderness. What was the use of so much wasted splendor?

The next morning had been fixed for one of those visits which used to be annually paid in the country,--that to the now ex-prefect of the city, Chromatius. Our reader will remember, that after his conversion and resignation of office, this magistrate had retired to his villa in Campania, taking with him a number of the converts made by Sebastian, with the holy priest Polycarp, to complete their instruction. Of these circumstances, of course, Fabiola had never been informed; but she heard all sorts of curious reports about Chromatius’s villa. It was said that he had a number of visitors never before seen at his house; that he gave no entertainments; that he had freed all his country slaves, but that many of them had preferred remaining with him; that if numerous, the whole establishment seemed very happy, though no boisterous sports or frolicsome meetings seemed to be indulged in. All this stimulated Fabiola’s curiosity, in addition to her wish to discharge a pleasing duty of courtesy to a most kind friend of hers from childhood; and she longed to see, with her own eyes, what appeared to her to be a very Platonic, or, as we should say, Utopian, experiment.

In a light country carriage, with good horses, Fabiola started early, and dashed gaily along the level road across the “happy Campania.” An autumnal shower had laid the dust, and studded with glistening gems the garlands of vine which bordered the way, festooned, instead of hedges, from tree to tree. It was not long before she reached the gentle acclivity, for hill it could scarce be called, covered with box, arbutus, and laurels, relieved by tall tapering cypresses, amidst which shone the white walls of the large villa on the summit. A change, she perceived, had taken place, which at first she could not exactly define; but when she had passed through the gate, the number of empty pedestals and niches reminded her that the villa had entirely lost one of its most characteristic ornaments,--the number of beautiful statues which stood gracefully against the clipped evergreen hedges, and gave it the name, now become quite an empty one, of _Ad Statuas_.[64]

Chromatius, whom she had last seen limping with gout, now a hale old man, courteously received her, and inquired kindly after her father, asking if the report were true that he was going shortly to Asia. At this Fabiola seemed grieved and mortified; for he had not mentioned his intention to her. Chromatius hoped it might be a false alarm, and asked her to take a stroll about the grounds. She found them kept with the same care as ever, full of beautiful plants; but still much missed the old statues. At last they reached a grotto with a fountain, in which formerly nymphs and sea-deities disported, but which now presented a black unbroken surface. She could contain herself no longer, and turning to Chromatius, she said:

“Why, what on earth have you been doing, Chromatius, to send away all your statues, and destroy the peculiar feature of your handsome villa? What induced you to do this?”

“My dear young lady,” answered the good-humored old gentleman, “do not be so angry. Of what use were those figures to any one?”

“If you thought so,” replied she, “others might not. But tell me, what have you done with them all?”

“Why, to tell you the truth, I have had them brought under the hammer.”

“What! and never let me know any thing about it? You know there were several pieces I would most gladly have purchased.”

Chromatius laughed outright, and said, with that familiar tone, which acquaintance with Fabiola from a child authorized him always to assume with her:

“Dear me! how your young imagination runs away, far too fast for my poor old tongue to keep pace with; I meant not the auctioneer’s hammer, but the sledge-hammer. The gods and goddesses have been all smashed, pulverized! If you happen to want a stray leg, or a hand minus a few fingers, perhaps I may pick up such a thing for you. But I cannot promise you a face with a nose, or a skull without a fracture.”

Fabiola was utterly amazed, as she exclaimed: “What an utter barbarian you have become, my wise old judge! What shadow of reason can you give to justify so outrageous a proceeding?”

“Why, you see, as I have grown older, I have grown wiser! and I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Jupiter and Mrs. Juno are no more gods than you or I; so I summarily got rid of them.”

“Yes, that may be very well; and I, though neither old nor wise, have been long of the same opinion. But why not retain them as mere works of art?”

“Because they had been set up here, not in that capacity, but as divinities. They were here as impostors, under false pretences; and as you would turn out of your house, for an intruder, any bust or image found among those of your ancestors, but belonging to quite another family, so did I these pretenders to a higher connection with me, when I found it false. Neither could I run a risk of their being bought for the continuance of the same imposture.”

“And pray, my most righteous old friend, is it not an imposture to continue calling your villa _Ad Statuas_, after not a single statue is left standing in it?”

“Certainly,” replied Chromatius, amused at her sharpness, “and you will see that I have planted palm-trees all about; and, as soon as they show their heads above the evergreens, the villa will take the title of _Ad Palmas_[65] instead.”

“That will be a pretty name,” said Fabiola, who little thought of the higher sense of appropriateness which it would contain. She, of course, was not aware that the villa was now a training-school, in which many were being prepared, as wrestlers or gladiators used to be, in separate institutions, for the great combat of faith, martyrdom to death. They who had entered in, and they who would go out, might equally say they were on their way to pluck the conqueror’s palm, to be borne by them before God’s judgment-seat, in token of their victory over the world. Many were the palm-branches shortly to be gathered in that early Christian retreat.

But we must here give the history of the demolition of Chromatius’s statues, which forms a peculiar episode in the “Acts of St. Sebastian.”

When Nicostratus informed him, as prefect of Rome, of the release of his prisoners, and of the recovery of Tranquillinus from gout by baptism, Chromatius, after making every inquiry into the truth of the fact, sent for Sebastian, and proposed to become a Christian, as a means of obtaining a cure of the same complaint. This of course could not be; and another course was proposed, which would give him new and personal evidence of Christianity, without risking an insincere baptism. Chromatius was celebrated for the immense number of idolatrous images which he possessed; and was assured by Sebastian that, if he would have them all broken in pieces, he would at once recover. This was a hard condition, but he consented. His son Tiburtius, however, was furious, and protested that if the promised result did not follow, he would have Sebastian and Polycarp thrown into a blazing furnace: not perhaps so difficult a matter for the prefect’s son.

In one day two hundred pagan statues were broken in pieces, including, of course, those in the villa, as well as those in the house at Rome. The images indeed were broken; but Chromatius was not cured. Sebastian was sent for and sharply rebuked. But he was calm and inflexible. “I am sure,” he said, “that _all_ have not been destroyed. Something has been withheld from demolition.” He proved right. Some small objects had been treated as works of art rather than religious things, and, like Achan’s coveted spoil,[66] concealed. They were brought forth and broken up; and Chromatius instantly recovered. Not only was he converted, but his son Tiburtius became also one of the most fervent of Christians; and, dying in glorious martyrdom, gave his name to a catacomb. He had begged to stay in Rome, to encourage and assist his fellow-believers, in the coming persecution, which his connection with the palace, his great courage and activity, would enable him to do. He had become, naturally, the great friend and frequent companion of Sebastian and Pancratius.

After this little digression, we resume the conversation between Chromatius and Fabiola, who continued her last sentence by adding:

“But do you know, Chromatius--let us sit down in this lovely spot, where I remember there was a beautiful Bacchus--that all sorts of strange reports are going round the country, about your doings here?”

“Dear me! What are they? Do tell me.”

“Why, that you have a quantity of people living with you whom nobody knows; that you see no company, go out nowhere, and lead quite a philosophical sort of life, forming a most Platonic republic.”

“Highly flattered!” interrupted Chromatius, with a smile and bow.

“But that is not all,” continued Fabiola. “They say you keep most unfashionable hours, have no amusements, and live most abstemiously; in fact, almost starve yourselves.”

“But I hope they do us the justice to add, that we pay our way?” observed Chromatius. “They don’t say, do they, that we have a long score run up at the baker’s or grocer’s?”

“Oh, no!” replied Fabiola, laughing.

“How kind of them!” rejoined the good-humored old judge. “They--the whole public I mean--seem to take a wonderful interest in our concerns. But is it not strange, my dear young lady, that so long as my villa was on the free-and-easy system, with as much loose talk, deep drinking, occasional sallies of youthful mirth, and troublesome freaks in the neighborhood, as others,--I beg your pardon for alluding to such things; but, in fact, so long as I and my friends were neither temperate nor irreproachable, nobody gave himself the least trouble about us? But let a few people retire to live in quiet, be frugal, industrious, entirely removed from public affairs, and never even talk about politics or society, and at once there springs up a vulgar curiosity to know all about them, and a mean _pruritus_ in third-rate statesmen to meddle with them; and there must needs fly about flocks of false reports and foul suspicions about their motives and manner of living. Is not this a phenomenon?”

“It is, indeed; but how do you account for it?”

“I can only do so by that faculty of little minds which makes them always jealous of any aims higher than their own; so that, almost unconsciously, they depreciate whatever they feel to be better than they dare aspire to.”

“But what is really your object and your mode of life here, my good friend?”

“We spend our time in the cultivation of our higher faculties. We rise frightfully early--I hardly dare tell you how early; we then devote some hours to religious worship; after which we occupy ourselves in a variety of ways; some read, some write, some labor in the gardens; and I assure you no hired workmen ever toiled harder and better than these spontaneous agriculturists. We meet at different times, and sing beautiful songs together, all breathing virtue and purity, and read most improving books, and receive oral instruction from eloquent teachers. Our meals are indeed very temperate; we live entirely on vegetables; but I have already found out that laughing is quite compatible with lentils, and that good cheer does not necessarily mean good fare.”

“Why, you are turned complete Pythagoreans. I thought that was quite out of date. But it must be a most economical system,” remarked Fabiola, with a knowing look.

“Ha! you cunning thing!” answered the judge; “so you really think that this may be a saving plan after all? But it won’t be, for we have taken a most desperate resolution.”

“And what on earth is that?” asked the young lady.

“Nothing less than this. We are determined that there shall not be such a thing as a poor person within our reach; this winter we will endeavor to clothe all the naked, and feed the hungry, and attend to all the sick about. All our economy will go for this.”

“It is indeed a very generous, though very new, idea in our times; and no doubt you will be well laughed at for your pains, and abused on all sides. They will even say worse of you than they do now, if it were possible; but it is not.”

“How so?”

“Do not be offended if I tell you; but already they have gone so far as to hint, that possibly you are Christians. But this, I assure you, I have every where indignantly contradicted.”

Chromatius smiled, and said: “Why an _indignant_ contradiction, my dear child?”

“Because, to be sure, I know you and Tiburtius, and Nicostratus, and that dear dumb Zoë, too well to admit, for a moment, that you had adopted the compound of stupidity and knavery called by that name.”

“Let me ask you one question. Have you taken the trouble of reading any Christian writings, by which you might know what is really held and done by that despised body?”

“Oh, not I indeed; I would not waste my time over them; I could not have patience to learn any thing about them. I scorn them too much, as enemies of all intellectual progress, as doubtful citizens, as credulous to the last degree, and as sanctioning every abominable crime, ever to give myself a chance of a nearer acquaintance with them.”

“Well, dear Fabiola, I thought just the same about them once, but I have much altered my opinion of late.”

“This is indeed strange; since, as prefect of the city, you must have had to punish many of these wretched people, for their constant transgression of the laws.”

A cloud came over the cheerful countenance of the old man, and a tear stood in his eye. He thought of St. Paul, who had once persecuted the Church of God. Fabiola saw the change, and was distressed. In the most affectionate manner she said to him, “I have said something very thoughtless, I fear, or stirred up recollections of what must be painful to your kind heart. Forgive me, dear Chromatius, and let us talk of something else. One purpose of my visit to you was, to ask you if you knew of any one going immediately to Rome. I have heard, from several quarters, of my father’s projected journey, and I am anxious to write to him,[67] lest he repeat what he did before,--go without taking leave of me, to spare me pain.”

“Yes,” replied Chromatius, “there is a young man starting early to-morrow morning. Come into the library, and write your letter; the bearer is probably there.”

They returned to the house, and entered an apartment on the ground-floor, full of book-chests. At a table in the middle of the room a young man was seated, transcribing a large volume; which, on seeing a stranger enter, he closed and put aside.

“Torquatus,” said Chromatius, addressing him, “this lady desires to send a letter to her father in Rome.”

“It will always give me great pleasure,” replied the young man, “to serve the noble Fabiola, or her illustrious father.”

“What, do you know them?” asked the judge, rather surprised.

“I had the honor, when very young, as my father had had before me, to be employed by the noble Fabius in Asia. Ill-health compelled me to leave his service.”

Several sheets of fine vellum, cut to a size, evidently for transcription of some book, lay on the table. One of these the good old man placed before the lady, with ink and a reed, and she wrote a few affectionate lines to her father. She doubled the paper, tied a thread round it, attached some wax to this, and impressed her seal, which she drew from an embroidered bag, upon the wax. Anxious, some time, to reward the messenger, when she could better know how, she took another piece of the vellum, and made on it a memorandum of his name and residence, and carefully put this into her bosom. After partaking of some slight refreshment, she mounted her car, and bid Chromatius an affectionate farewell. There was something touchingly paternal in his look, as though he felt he should never see her again. So she thought; but it was a very different feeling which softened his heart. Should she always remain thus? Must he leave her to perish in obstinate ignorance? Were that generous heart, and that noble intellect, to grovel on in the slime of bitter paganism, when every feeling and every thought in them seemed formed of strong yet finest fibres, across which truth might weave the richest web? It could not be; and yet a thousand motives restrained him from an avowal, which he felt would, at present, only repulse her fatally from any nearer approach to the faith. “Farewell, my child,” he exclaimed, “may you be blessed a hundredfold in ways which as yet you know not.” He turned away his face, as he dropped her hand, and hastily withdrew.

Fabiola too was moved by the mystery, as well as the tenderness, of his words; but was startled, before reaching the gate, to find her chariot stopped by Torquatus. She was, at that moment, painfully struck by the contrast between the easy and rather familiar, though respectful, manner of the youth, and the mild gravity, mixed with cheerfulness, of the old ex-prefect.

“Pardon this interruption, madam,” he said, “but are you anxious to have this letter quickly delivered?”

“Certainly, I am _most_ anxious that it should reach my father as speedily as possible.”

“Then I fear I shall hardly be able to serve you. I can only afford to travel on foot, or by chance and cheap conveyance, and I shall be some days upon the road.”

Fabiola, hesitating, said: “Would it be taking too great a liberty, if I should offer to defray the expenses of a more rapid journey?”

“By no means,” answered Torquatus, rather eagerly, “if I can thereby better serve your noble house.”

Fabiola handed him a purse abundantly supplied, not only for his journey, but for an ample recompense. He received it with smiling readiness, and disappeared by a side alley. There was something in his manner which made a disagreeable impression; she could not think he was fit company for her dear old friend. If Chromatius had witnessed the transaction, he would have seen a likeness to Judas, in that eager clutching of the purse. Fabiola, however, was not sorry to have discharged, by a sum of money, once for all, any obligation she might have contracted by making him her messenger. She therefore drew out her memorandum to destroy it as useless, when she perceived that the other side of the vellum was written on; as the transcriber of the book, which she saw put by, had just commenced its continuation on that sheet. Only a few sentences, however, had been written, and she proceeded to read them. Then for the first time she perused the following words from a book unknown to her:

“I say to you, love your enemies; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.”[68]

We may imagine the perplexity of an Indian peasant who has picked up in a torrent’s bed a white pellucid pebble, rough and dull outside, but where chipped emitting sparks of light; unable to decide whether he have become possessed of a splendid diamond, or of a worthless stone, a thing to be placed on a royal crown, or trodden under a beggar’s feet. Shall he put an end to his embarrassment by at once flinging it away, or shall he take it to a lapidary, ask its value, and perhaps be laughed at to his face? Such were the alternating feelings of Fabiola on her way home. “Whose can these sentences be? No Greek or Roman philosopher’s. They are either very false or very true, either sublime morality or base degradation. Does any one practise this doctrine, or is it a splendid paradox? I will trouble myself no more on the subject. Or rather I will ask Syra about it; it sounds very like one of her beautiful, but impracticable, theories. No; it is better not. She overpowers me by her sublime views, so impossible for me, though they seem easy to her. My mind wants rest. The shortest way is to get rid of the cause of my perplexity, and forget such harassing words. So here it goes to the winds, or to puzzle some one else, who may find it on the road-side. Ho! Phormio, stop the chariot, and pick up that piece of parchment which I have dropped.”

The outrider obeyed, though he had thought the sheet deliberately flung out. It was replaced in Fabiola’s bosom: it was like a seal upon her heart, for that heart was calm and silent till she reached home.