mmolation. Should I offend'--

'Surely not,' I replied. 'If, as I believe will happen, the edicts of
the Emperor should be published to-day, put them on board to-night, and
let to-morrow see them floating on the Mediterranean. We are not all to
stand still and hold our throats to the knife of this imperial butcher.'

'God be thanked!' said Demetrius, and grasping my hand with fervor
turned quickly and moved in the direction of his home.

Soon after, seated with Julia and Probus--he had joined me as I parted
from Demetrius--I communicated to her all that I had heard at the
palace. It neither surprised nor alarmed her. But she could not repress
her grief at the prospect spread out before us of so much suffering to
the innocent.

'How hard is this,' said she, 'to be called to bear such testimony as
must now be borne to truth! These Christian multitudes, so many of whom
have but just adopted their new faith and begun to taste of the
pleasures it imparts, all enjoying in such harmony and quietness their
rich blessings--with many their only blessings--how hard for them, all
at once, to see the foundations of their peace broken up, and their very
lives clamored for! rulers and people setting upon them as troops of
wild beasts! It demands almost more faith than I can boast, to sit here
without complaint a witness of such wrong. How strange, Probus, that
life should be made so difficult! That not a single possession worth
having can be secured without so much either of labor or endurance! I
wonder if this is ever to cease on earth?'

'I can hardly suppose that it will,' said Probus. 'Labor and suffering,
in some of their forms, seem both essential. My arm would be weak as a
rush were it never moved; but exercised, and you see it is nervous and
strong; plied like a smith's, and it grows to be hard as iron and
capable of miracles. So it is with any faculty you may select; the
harder it is tasked the more worthy it becomes; and without tasking at
all, it is worth nothing. So seems to me it is with the whole man. In a
smooth and even lot our worth never would be known, and we could respect
neither ourselves nor others. Greatness and worth come only of collision
and conflict. Let our path be strewed with roses, and soft southern
gales ever blow, and earth send up of her own accord our ready prepared
nutriment, and mankind would be but one huge multitude of Sybarites,
dissolved in sloth and effeminacy. If no difficulty opposed, no