Christ may not be the
very principle which, and which alone, may save your people from
atheism, and your empire from the ruin that would bring along in its
train?'

'I cannot deny,' said the Emperor in reply, 'that there is some sense
and apparent truth in what you have said. But to me it is shadowy and
intangible. It is the speculation of that curious class among men, who,
never satisfied with what exists, are always desiring some new forms of
truth, in religion, in government, and all subjects of that nature. I
could feel no more certain of going or doing right by conforming to
their theories, than I feel now in adhering to what is already
established. Nay, I can see safety nowhere but in what already is. There
is the only certainty. Suppose some enthusiast in matters of government
were to propose his system, by which the present established
institutions were all to be abandoned and new ones set up, should I
permit him to go freely among the people, puzzling their heads with what
it is impossible they should understand, and by his sophistries
alienating them from their venerable parent? Not so, by Hercules! I
should ill deserve my office of supreme guardian of the honor and
liberties of Rome, did I not mew him up in the Fabrician dungeons, or
send him lower still to the Stygian shades.'

'But,' said Livia, who had seemed anxious to speak, 'though it may be
right, and best for the interests of Rome, to suppress this new worship,
yet why, Aurelian, need it be done at such expense of life? Can no way
be devised by which the professors of this faith shall be banished, for
instance, the realm, and no new teachers of it permitted to enter it
afterward but at the risk of life, or some other appointed penalty? Sure
I am, from what I heard from the Christian Probus, and what I have heard
so often from the lips of Julia, this people cannot be the sore in the
body of the state which Fronto represents them.'

'I cannot, Livia,' replied the Emperor, 'refuse to obey what to me have
been warnings from the gods.'

'But may not the heavenly signs have been read amiss?' rejoined Livia.

'There is no truth in augury, if my duty be not where I have placed it,'
answered Aurelian.

'And perhaps, Aurelian,' said the Empress, 'there is none. I have heard
that the priests of the temples play many a trick upon their devout
worshippers.'

'Livia, it has doubtless been so; but you would not believe that Fronto
has trifled with Aurelian?