is task, which
was to show her passionate and criminal son the dignity of moderation and
virtue. The book was also to bring home to Caesar the religion of his
forefathers and his country in all its beauty and elevating power; for
hitherto he had vacillated from one form to another, had not even
rejected Christianity, with which his nurse had tried to inoculate him as
a child, and had devoted himself to every superstition of his time in a
way which had disgusted those about him. It had been particularly
interesting to the writer, with a view to the purpose of this work, to
meet with a girl who practiced all the virtues the Christians most highly
prized, without belonging to that sect, who were always boasting of the
constraining power of their religion in conducing to pure morality.

In his work the day before he had taken occasion to regret the small
recognition his hero had met with among those nearest to him. In this, as
in other respects, he seemed to have shared the fate of Jesus Christ,
whose name, however, Philostratus purposely avoided mentioning. Now,
to-night, he reflected on the sacrifice offered by Melissa for Caesar
whom she knew not, and he wrote the following words as though proceeding
from the pen of Apollonius himself: "I know well how good a thing it is
to regard all the world as my home, and all mankind as my brethren and
friends; for we are all of the same divine race, and have all one
Father."

Then, looking up from the papyrus, he murmured to himself: "From such a
point of view as this Melissa might see in Caracalla a friend and a
brother. If only now it were possible to rouse the conscience of that
imperial criminal!"

He took up the written sheet on which he had begun a dissertation as to
what conscience is, as exerting a choice between good and evil. He had
written: "Understanding governs what we purpose; consciousness governs
what our understanding resolves upon. Hence, if our understanding choose
the good, consciousness is satisfied."

How flat it sounded! It could have no effect in that form.

Melissa had confessed with far greater warmth what her feelings had been
after she had sacrificed for the suffering sinner. Every one, no doubt,
would feel the same who, when called on to choose between good and evil,
should prefer the good; so he altered and expanded the last words: "Thus
consciousness sends a man with song and gladness into the sanctuaries and
groves, into the roads, and wherever