should have got so cross and contrary and so hard to
please?"

"I mean," she said, "if I were a Christian, life would be more bearable."

"Bearable!" he echoed; "bearable! ye gods! more bearable to have Styx and
Tartarus, the Furies and their snakes, in this world as well as in the
next? to have evil within and without, to hate one's self and to be hated
of all men! to live the life of an ass, and to die the death of a dog!
Bearable! But hark! I hear Agellius's step on the staircase. Callista,
dear Callista, be yourself. Listen to reason."

But Callista would not listen to reason, if her brother was its
embodiment; but went on with her singing:--

"For what is Afric but the home
Of burning Phlegethon?
What the low beach and silent gloom,
And chilling mists of that dull river,
Along whose bank the thin ghosts shiver,
The thin, wan ghosts that once were men,
But Tauris, isle of moor and fen;
Or, dimly traced by seaman's ken,
The pale-cliffed Albion?"

Here she stopped, looked down, and busied herself with her work.

CHAPTER XI.

CALLISTA'S PREACHING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

It is undeniably a solemn moment, under any circumstances, and requires a
strong heart, when any one deliberately surrenders himself, soul and body,
to the keeping of another while life shall last; and this, or something
like this, reserving the supreme claim of duty to the Creator, is the
matrimonial contract. In individual cases it may be made without thought
or distress, but surveyed objectively, and as carried out into a
sufficient range of instances, it is so tremendous an undertaking that
nature seems to sink under its responsibilities. When the Christian binds
himself by vows to a religious life, he makes a surrender to Him who is
all-perfect, and whom he may unreservedly trust. Moreover, looking at that
surrender on its human side, he has the safeguard of distinct _provisos_
and regulations, and of the principles of theology, to secure him against
tyranny on the part of his superiors. But what shall be his encouragement
to make himself over, without condition or stipulation, as an absolute
property, to a fallible being, and that not for a season, but for life?
The mind shrinks from such a sacrifice, and demands that, as religion
enjoins it, religion should sanction and bless it. It instinctively
desire