ice of the amphitheatre
I joined the Legions. In the army I had work, and I had fighting, but my
passions, in the early days of that service, raged like the sea; and
during all the reign of Valerian's son there was no bridle upon
them;--for I served under the general Carinus, and what Carinus was and
is, most of you know. O the double horrors of those years! I was older,
and yet worse and worse. God! I marvel that thou didst not interpose and
strike me dead! But thy mercy spared me, and now the lowest, lowest hell
shall not be mine.' Tears, forced by these recollections, flowed down
his cheeks, and for a time he was speechless.

'Such, Romans, was I once. What am I now? I am a changed man--through
and through. There is not a thought of my mind, nor a fibre of my body,
what they were once. You may possibly think the change has been for the
worse, seeing me thus thrust forth from the tribunal of the prefect with
dishonor, when I was once a soldier and an officer under Aurelian. I
would rather a thousand times be what I am, a soldier of Jesus Christ.
And I would that, by anything I could do, you, any one of you, might be
made to think so too; I would that Varus might, for I bear him no ill
will.

'But what am I now? I am so different a man from what I once was, that I
can hardly believe myself to be the same. The life which I once led, I
would not lead again--no--not one day nor hour of it, though you would
depose Aurelian to day and crown me Caesar to-morrow. I would no more
return to that life, than I would consent to lose my nature and take a
swine's, and find elysium where as a man I once did, in sinks and sties.
I would not renounce for the wealth of all the world, and its empire
too, that belief in the faith of Christ, the head of the Christians,
which has wrought so within me.

'And what has made me so--would make you so--if you would but hearken to
it. And would it not be a good thing if the flood of vice, which pours
all through the streets of Rome, were stayed? Would it not be a happy
thing, if the misery which dwells beneath these vaulted roofs and these
humbler ones equally, the misery which drunkenness and lust, the lust of
money, and the love of place, and every evil passion generates, were all
wiped away, and we all lived together observant of the rights of one
another, helping one another; not oppressing; loving, not hating;
showing in our conduct as men, the virtues of little children? Would it
not be h