it extremest
torture, and gained the crown of martyrdom and the name of saint--a
crown not always without spot--a name not always honorable. He who
suffers for Christ must suffer with simplicity--even as he has lived
with simplicity. And when he has lived so, and endured the martyr's
death at last, that is to be accounted but the last of many acts of duty
which are essentially alike--unless it may be that in many a previous
conflict over temptation and the world and sin, there was a harder
victory won, and a harder duty done, than when the flames consumed him,
or the beasts tare him limb from limb.'

'Yet, Probus,' continued Julia, 'among the humble and the ignorant,
where we cannot suppose that vanity could operate, where men have
received Christianity only because it seemed to them just the faith they
needed, and who then when it has been required that they renounce it,
will not do so, but hold steadfastly to what they regard the truth of
God, and for it take with meekness and patience all manner of torture,
and death itself--there is surely here great virtue! Suffering here has
great worth and sets upon the soul the seal of God. Is it not so?'

'Most assuredly it is,' answered Probus. 'O there is no virtue on earth
greater than theirs! When dragged from their quiet homes--unknown,
obscure, despised, solitary, with not one pitying eye to look on upon
their sufferings, with none to record their name, none to know it
even--they do, nevertheless, without faltering, keep true to their
faith, hugging it to them the closer the more it is tried to tear them
asunder--this, this is virtue the greatest on earth! It is a testimony
borne to the truth of whatever cause is thus supported, that is daily
bringing forth its fruits in the conviction and conversion of
multitudes. It is said, that in the Decian persecution, it was the
fortitude and patience under the cruelest sufferings of those humble
Christians whom no one knew, who came none knew whence, and who were
dying out of a pure inward love of the faith they professed, that fell
upon the hearts of admiring thousands with more than the force of
miracle, and was the cause of the great and sudden growth of our numbers
which then took place. Still, suffering and dying for a faith is not
unimpeachable evidence of its truth. There have been those who have died
and suffered for idolatries the most abhorred. It is proof, indeed, not
at all of truth itself, but only of the deep sincer