CHAPTER I.

THE STRANGER FROM THE EAST.

We appear to ourselves to be walking in solitude. One by one, those whose words and actions, and even thoughts, have hitherto accompanied and sustained us, have dropped off, and the prospect around looks very dreary. But is all this unnatural? We have been describing not an ordinary period of peace and every-day life, but one of warfare, strife, and battle. Is it unnatural that the bravest, the most heroic, should have fallen thick around us? We have been reviving the memory of the cruellest persecution which the Church ever suffered, when it was proposed to erect a column bearing the inscription that the Christian name had been extinguished. Is it strange that the holiest and purest should have been the earliest to be crowned?

And yet the Church of Christ has still to sustain many years of sharper persecution than we have described. A succession of tyrants and oppressors kept up the fearful war upon her, without intermission, in one part of the world or another for twenty years, even after Constantine had checked it wherever his power reached. Dioclesian, Galerius, Maximinus, and Lucinius in the East, Maximian and Maxentius in the West, allowed no rest to the Christians under their several dominions. Like one of those rolling storms which go over half the world, visiting various countries with their ravaging energy, while their gloomy foreboding or sullen wake simultaneously overshadow them all, so did this persecution wreak its fury first on one country, then on another, destroying every thing Christian, passing from Italy to Africa, from Upper Asia to Palestine, Egypt, and then back to Armenia, while it left no place in actual peace, but hung like a blighting storm-cloud over the entire empire.

And yet the Church increased, prospered, and defied this world of sin. Pontiff stepped after Pontiff at once upon the footstool of the papal throne and upon the scaffold; councils were held in the dark halls of the catacombs; bishops came to Rome, at risk of their lives, to consult the successor of St. Peter; letters were exchanged between Churches far distant and the supreme Ruler of Christendom, and between different Churches, full of sympathy, encouragement and affection; bishop succeeded bishop in his see, and ordained priests and other ministers to take the place of the fallen, and be a mark set upon the bulwarks of the city for the enemy’s aim; and the work of Christ’s imperishable kingdom went on without interruption, and without fear of extinction.

Indeed it was in the midst of all these alarms and conflicts, that the foundations were being laid of a mighty system, destined to produce stupendous effects in after ages. The persecution drove many from the cities, into the deserts of Egypt, where the monastic state grew up, so as to make “the wilderness rejoice and flourish like the lily bud forth and blossom, and rejoice with joy and praise.”[232] And so, when Dioclesian had been degraded from the purple, and had died a peevish destitute old man, and Galerius had been eaten up alive by ulcers and worms, and had acknowledged, by public edict, the failure of his attempts, and Maximian Herculeus had strangled himself, and Maxentius had perished in the Tiber, and Maximinus had expired amidst tortures inflicted by Divine justice equal to any he had inflicted on Christians, his very eyes having started from their sockets, and Licinius had been put to death by Constantine; the spouse of Christ, whom they had all conspired to destroy, stood young and blooming as ever, about to enter into her great career of universal diffusion and rule.

It was in the year 313 that Constantine, having defeated Maxentius, gave full liberty to the Church. Even if ancient writers had not described it, we may imagine the joy and gratitude of the poor Christians on this great change. It was like the coming forth, and tearful though happy greeting, of the inhabitants of a city decimated by plague, when proclamation has gone forth that the infection has ceased. For here, after ten years of separation and concealment, when families could scarcely meet in the cemeteries nearest to them, many did not know who among friends or kinsfolk had fallen victims, or who might yet survive. Timid at first, and then more courageous, they ventured forth; soon the places of old assembly, which children born in the last ten years had not seen, were cleansed, or repaired, refitted and reconciled,[233] and opened to public, and now fearless, worship.

Constantine also ordered all property, public or private, belonging to Christians and confiscated, to be restored; but with the wise provision that the actual holders should be indemnified by the imperial treasury.[234] The Church was soon in motion to bring out all the resources of her beautiful forms and institutions; and either the existing basilicas were converted to her uses, or new ones were built on the most cherished spots of Rome.

Let not the reader fear that we are going to lead him forward into a long history. This will belong to some one better qualified, for the task of unfolding the grandeur and charms of free and unfettered Christianity. We have only to show the land of promise from above, spread like an inviting paradise before our feet; we are not the Josue that must lead others in. The little that we have to add in this brief third part of our humble book, is barely what is necessary for its completion.

We will then suppose ourselves arrived at the year 318, fifteen years after our last scene of death. Time and permanent laws have given security to the Christian religion, and the Church is likewise more fully establishing her organization.

Many who on the return of peace had hung down their heads, having by some act of weak condescension escaped death, had by this time expiated their fall by penance; and now and then an aged stranger would be saluted reverently by the passers-by, when they saw that his right eye had been burned out, or his hand mutilated; or when his halting gait showed that the tendons of the knee had been severed, in the late persecution, for Christ’s sake.[235]

If at this period our friendly reader will follow us out of the Nomentan gate, to the valley with which he is already acquainted, he will find sad havoc among the beautiful trees and flower-beds of Fabiola’s villa. Scaffold-poles are standing up in place of the first; bricks, marbles, and columns lie upon the latter. Constantia, the daughter of Constantine, had prayed at St. Agnes’s tomb, when not yet a Christian, to beg the cure of a virulent ulcer, had been refreshed by a vision, and completely cured. Being now baptized, she was repaying her debt of gratitude, by building over her tomb her beautiful basilica. Still the faithful had access to the crypt in which she was buried; and great was the concourse of pilgrims, that came from all parts of the world.

One afternoon, when Fabiola returned from the city to her villa, after spending the day in attending to the sick, in an hospital established in her own house, the _fossor_, who had charge of the cemetery, met her with an air of great interest, and no small excitement, and said:

“Madam, I sincerely believe that the stranger from the East, whom you have so long expected, is arrived.”

Fabiola, who had ever treasured up the dying words of Miriam, eagerly asked, “Where is he?”

“He is gone again,” was the reply.

The lady’s countenance fell. “But how,” she asked again, “do you know it was he?” The excavator replied:

“In the course of the morning I noticed, among the crowd, a man not yet fifty, but worn by mortification and sorrow, to premature old age. His hair was nearly grey, as was his long beard. His dress was eastern, and he wore the cloak which the monks from that country usually do. When he came before the tomb of Agnes, he flung himself upon the pavement with such a passion of tears, such groans, such sobs, as moved all around to compassion. Many approached him, and whispered, ‘Brother, thou art in great distress; weep not so, the saint is merciful.’ Others said to him, ‘We will all pray for thee, fear not.’[236] But he seemed to be beyond comfort. I thought to myself, surely in the presence of so gentle and kind a saint, none ought to be thus disconsolate or heart-broken, except only one man.”

“Go on, go on,” broke in Fabiola; “what did he next?”

“After a long time,” continued the fossor, “he arose, and drawing from his bosom a most beautiful and sparkling ring, he laid it on her tomb. I thought I had seen it before, many years ago.”

“And then?”

“Turning round he saw me, and recognized my dress. He approached me, and I could feel him trembling, as, without looking in my face, he timidly asked me: ‘Brother, knowest thou if there lie buried any where here about a maiden from Syria, called Miriam?’ I pointed silently to the tomb. After a pause of great pain to himself, so agitated now that his voice faltered, he asked me again: ‘Knowest thou, brother, of what she died?’ ‘Of consumption,’ I replied. ‘Thank God!’ he ejaculated, with the sigh of relieved anguish, and fell prostrate on the ground. Here too he moaned and cried for more than an hour, then, approaching the tomb, affectionately kissed its cover, and retired.”

“It is he, Torquatus, it is he!” warmly exclaimed Fabiola; “why did you not detain him?”

“I durst not, lady; after I had once seen his face, I had not courage to meet his eye. But I am sure he will return again; for he went towards the city.”

“He must be found,” concluded Fabiola. “Dear Miriam, thou hadst, then, this consoling foresight in death!”