ared to conduct him to his own abode. When, however,
they had gained the door of the chapel, he desired them gently, to
leave him and return to the performance of the service among
themselves. Ever implicitly obedient to his slightest wishes, the
persons of his little assembly, moved to tears by the sight of their
teacher's suffering, obeyed him, by retiring silently to their former
places. As soon as he found that he was alone, he passed the door; and
whispering to himself, 'I must join those who seek her! I must aid
them myself in the search!'--he mingled once more with the disorderly
citizens who thronged the darkened streets.

CHAPTER 10.

THE RIFT IN THE WALL.

When Ulpius suddenly departed from Numerian's house on the morning of
the siege, it was with no distinct intention of betaking himself to any
particular place, or devoting himself to any immediate employment. It
was to give vent to his joy--to the ecstacy that now filled his heart
to bursting--that he sought the open streets. His whole moral being
was exalted by that overwhelming sense of triumph, which urges the
physical nature into action. He hurried into the free air, as a child
runs on a bright day in the wide fields; his delight was too wild to
expand under a roof; his excess of bliss swelled irrepressibly beyond
all artificial limits of space.

The Goths were in sight! A few hours more, and their scaling ladders
would be planted against the walls. On a city so weakly guarded as
Rome, their assault must be almost instantaneously successful.
Thirsting for plunder, they would descend in infuriated multitudes on
the defenceless streets. Christians though they were, the restraints
of religion would, in that moment of fierce triumph, be powerless with
such a nation of marauders against the temptations to pillage.
Churches would be ravaged and destroyed; priests would be murdered in
attempting the defence of their ecclesiastical treasures; fire and
sword would waste to its remotest confines the stronghold of
Christianity, and overwhelm in death and oblivion the boldest of
Christianity's devotees! Then, when the hurricane of ruin and crime had
passed over the city, when a new people were ripe for another
government and another religion--then would be the time to invest the
banished gods of old Rome with their former rule; to bid the survivors
of the stricken multitude remember the judgment that their apostacy to
their ancient faith had dem