ct who desire Rome's downfall. Consider what Rome is;" and now
he had got into the magnificent commonplace, out of his last panegyrical
oration with which he had primed himself before he set out. "I am a
Greek," he said, "I love Greece, but I love truth better; and I look at
facts. I grasp them, and I confess to them. The wide earth, through untold
centuries, has at length grown into the imperial dominion of One. It has
converged and coalesced in all its various parts into one Rome. This,
which we see, is the last, the perfect state of human society. The course
of things, the force of natural powers, as is well understood by all great
lawyers and philosophers, cannot go further. Unity has come at length, and
unity is eternity. It will be for ever, because it is a whole. The
principle of dissolution is eliminated. We have reached the _apotelesma_
of the world. Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Libya, Etruria, Lydia, have all had
their share in the result. Each of them, in its own day, has striven in
vain to stop the course of fate, and has been hurried onwards at its
wheels as its victim or its instrument. And shall Judaea do what profound
Egypt and subtle Greece have tried in vain? If even the freedom of
thought, the liberal scepticism, nay, the revolutionary theories of Hellas
have proved unequal to the task of splitting up the Roman power, if the
pomp and luxury of the East have failed, shall the mysticism of Syria
succeed?"

"Well, dear Callista, are you listening?" cried Aristo, not over-confident
of the fact, though Polemo looked round at him with astonishment.

"Ten centuries," he continued, "ten centuries have just been completed
since Rome began her victorious career. For ten centuries she has been
fulfilling her high mission in the dispositions of Destiny, and perfecting
her maxims of policy and rules of government. For ten centuries she has
pursued one track with an ever-growing intensity of zeal, and an
ever-widening extent of territory. What can she not do? just one thing;
and that one thing which she has not presumed to do, you are attempting.
She has maintained her own religion, as was fitting; but she has never
thrown contempt on the religion of others. This you are doing. Observe,
Callista, Rome herself, in spite of her great power, has yielded to that
necessity which is greater. She does not meddle with the religions of the
peoples. She has opened no war against their diversities of rite. The
conquering power fou