the theme through reason, than his hands are to mould a
sun. All the reasonings, imaginations, guesses, of self-styled
philosophers, are here like the prattlings of children. They make you
smile, but they do not instruct.'

'I fear,' said Marcus, 'I shall then never believe, for I can believe
nothing of which I cannot form a conception.'

'Surely,' I answered, 'our faith is not bounded by our conceptions, or
our knowledge, in other things. We build the loftiest palaces and
temples upon foundations of stone, though we can form no conception
whatever of the nature of a stone. So I think we may found a true and
sufficient religion on our belief in the fact of a God, although we can
form no conception whatever of his nature and the mode of his
existence.'

But I should fatigue you, Fausta, were I to give you more of our
conversation. It ran on equally pleasant, I believe, to all of us, to a
quite late hour; in which time, almost all that is peculiar to the faith
of the Christians came under our review. It was more than midnight when
we rose from our seats to retire to our chambers. But before we did
that, a common feeling directed our steps to the tomb of Gallus, which
was but a few paces from where we had been sitting. There these
childless parents again gave way to their grief and was I stone, that I
should not weep with them?

When this act of duty and piety had been performed, we sought our
pillows. As for me, I could not sleep for thinking of my friends and
their now desolate house. For even to me, who was to that child almost a
stranger, and had been so little used to his presence, this place is no
longer the same: all its brightness, life, and spirit of gladness, are
gone. Everything seems changed. From every place and scene something
seems to have been subtracted to which they were indebted for whatever
it was that made them attractive. If this is so to me, what must it be
to Marcus and Lucilia? It is not difficult to see that a sorrow has
settled upon their hearts, which no length of time can heal. I suppose
if all their estates had been swept away from them in a night, and all
their friends, they would not have been so overwhelmed as by this
calamity--in such a wonderful manner were they each woven into the
child, and all into each other, as one being. They seem no longer to me
like the same persons. Not that they are not often calm, and in a manner
possessed of themselves; but that even then, when they are m