w
what I was when in the ranks of Aurelian. To Christ do I owe it that my
soul, once steeped in sin as thy robe in purple dye, is now by him
cleansed and, as I trust, thoroughly purged. To Christ do I owe it that
once worshipping the dumb idols of Roman superstition, I now bow down to
the only living God--' 'Away with him to the tormentors!' came from an
hundred voices--'to Christ do I owe it, O Prefect, that my heart is not
now as thine, or his who sits beside thee, or as that of these,
hungering and thirsting--never after righteousness--but for the blood of
the innocent. Shall I then renounce Christ? and then worship that
ancient adulterer, Jupiter greatest and best?--' The hall here rang with
the ferocious cries of those who shouted--

'Give him over to us!'--'To the rack with him!'--'Tear out the tongue of
the blaspheming Galilean!'

'Romans,' cried Varus, rising from his chair, 'let not your zeal for the
gods cause you to violate the sanctity of this room of Justice. Fear not
but Varus, who, as you well know, is a lover of the gods, his country,
and the city, will well defend their rights and honors against whoever
shall assail them.'

He then turned to Macer and said,

'I should ill perform my duty to thee, Christian, did I spare any effort
to bring thee to a better mind--ill should I perform it for Rome did I
not use all the means by the State entrusted to me to save her citizens
from errors that, once taking root and growing up to their proper
height, would soon overshadow, and by their poisonous neighborhood kill,
that faith venerable through a thousand years, and of all we now inherit
from our ancestors of greatest and best, the fruitful and divine
spring.'

'There, Romans, spoke a Roman,' exclaimed Fronto.

As Varus ended--at a sign and a word from him, what seemed the solid
wall of the room in which we were, suddenly flew up upon its screaming
pulleys, and revealed another apartment black as night, save here and
there where a dull torch shed just light enough to show its great
extent, and set in horrid array before us, engines of every kind for
tormenting criminals, each attended by its half-naked minister, ready at
a moment's warning to bind the victim, and put in motion the infernal
machinery. At this sight a sudden faintness overspread my limbs, and I
would willingly have rushed from the hall--but it was then made
impossible. And immediately the voice of the Prefect was again heard:

'Again, Chri