ng or not himself, succeeded in poisoning the mind of
Aurelian and that of the multitude. So great was the commotion among the
populace, that, but for the tempest, I believe scarce would the legions
of the Emperor have saved us from slaughter upon the spot. Honest,
misguided Macer--little dost thou know how deep a wound thou hast struck
into the very dearest life of the truth, for which thou wouldst yet at
any moment thyself freely suffer and die!'

'What,' said Julia, 'could have moved him to such madness?'

'With him,' replied Probus, 'it was a deed of piety and genuine zeal for
God; he saw it in the light of an act god-like, and god-directed. Could
you read his heart, you would find it calm and serene, in the
consciousness of a great duty greatly performed. It is very possible he
may have felt himself to be but an instrument in the hand of a higher
power, to whom he gives all the glory and the praise. There are many
like him, lady, both among Christians and Pagans. The sybils impose not
so much upon others as upon themselves. They who give forth the
responses of the oracle, oft-times believe that they are in very truth
full of the god, and speak not their own thoughts, but the inspirations
of him whose priests they are. To themselves more than to others are
they impostors. The conceit of the peculiar favor of God, or of the gods
in return for extraordinary devotion, is a weakness that besets our
nature wherever it is found. An apostle perhaps never believed in his
inspiration more firmly than at times does Macer, and others among us
like him. But this inward solitary persuasion we know is nothing,
however it may carry away captive the undiscriminating multitude.'

'Hence, Probus, then, I suppose, the need of some outward act of an
extraordinary nature to show the inspiration real.'

'Yes,' he replied. 'No assertion of divine impulses or revelations can
avail to persuade us of their reality, except supported and confirmed by
miracle. That, and that only, proves the present God. Christ would have
died without followers had he exhibited to the world only his character
and his truth, even though he had claimed, and claimed truly, a descent
from and communion with the Deity. Men would have said, 'This is an old
and common story. We see every day and everywhere those who affect
divine aid. No act is so easy as to deceive one's self. If you propose a
spiritual moral system and claim for it a divine authority, show your
a