ame!)
The path of Christian neophyte hast thou trod,
And, in God's name, hast mocked Almighty God!
Earth, heaven, and hell in turn have been thy tool,
And him thou hast traduced thou wouldst befool!
Go,--bully-flatterer--liar!--Every part
Thou playest, while delay doth break my heart!
Enough of dallying! While thou dost dissolve
Thy feeble soul in doubt, hear my resolve:
The God who made me--Him will I adore;
He holds my plighted faith,--and evermore
He works salvation for his ransomed race--
Who gave His Son to death that we might life embrace;
And this--Christ's sacrifice--continued day by day,
The Christ reveals and pleads--The Life--The Truth--The Way!
No more His mysteries to self-stopped ears
Will I disclose--(he heedeth not nor hears.)
(Pointing to Felix.)
Pray then to these thy gods of wood and stone,
To gods who every deed of crime enthrone,
Who boast their malice, and their foul incest,
Vaunt theft and murder--all that we detest.
This, their example,--Pagan--follow thou!
To Pluto bend, to Aphrodite bow!
For this I broke their altars, rased their shrine,--
Yea, for those crimes that thou dost call divine!
And what I did, that would I do once more
Before Severus--Decius,--nay, before
The eyes of all men;--so would I proclaim
One God alone adored,--one Holiest Name!

FELIX.
At last my bounties yield to wrath most stern, most just.
Die! or the gods adore!

POLY.
A Christian I!

FELIX.
Thou must
Adore the gods I say! Adore, or die!

POLY.
I am a Christian.

FELIX.
This is thy reply?
Ye Guards, do my behest--prepare the knife!

PAUL.
Where goes he?

FELIX.
To his death!

POLY.
Ah, no to life!
(To Pauline.)
Remember me! Farewell, Pauline, farewell!

PAUL.
Nay, I will follow thee--to heaven or hell!

FELIX.
Begone! For all our ills this one redress!

(Exeunt Pauline, Polyeucte and Guards.)
(Enter Albin)

O task ungrateful to my gentle mind!
Well did he say, 'Be cruel to be kind!'
The people I defy, ah, let them rage!
Severus may in war of words engage.
Yes, I have saved myself--I mean _the State_,
To wilful man there comes relentless fate;
My conscience pure of all reproa