At first her notions of the truth had been indistinct and shadowy. So dazzled had she been by the full blaze of Gospel day, that her perceptions resembled those of the blind from birth to whose eyes the light is first revealed. Cornelia in the beginning of her Christian course had been the most stedfast, for Lucia had almost shipwrecked her new-born faith against the precipice of earthly love. She had stumbled, not to fall, but to become more perfect. Her deep penitence had brought her to see more clearly that Divine love that had sent forth the Son from the bosom of the Father, to die for the sins of men, to redeem a ruined world. Her feelings were far more vivid than those of her nurse. She had not only been a heathen priestess, not only the blind worshipper of an element, thereby transferring the worship due to the Creator to the creature He had formed, but she had taught others to do the same. Her sin was ever before her eyes, but this consciousness only made her cleave more closely to the atonement as her refuge. Once the noble Roman lady had gloried in her spotless reputation and sacerdotal profession, but this glory had become her shame; for, meek and lowly in her own eyes, the Christian neophyte no longer minded earthly things. The Spirit was not given by measure to the Christians of that early day, when His miraculous gifts were poured out upon the primitive Church, whose suffering state required such mighty help; for the neophytes were often called from the waters of baptism to meet the fiery trial of martyrdom, and, relying upon the Power present with them, “endured the cross, despising the shame,” like Him whose followers they professed to be. Comforted with the thoughts of spiritual support, Lucia Claudia and her faithful nurse quitted the villa of Julius in the dead of night, and took the road to Rome. They were met upon the way by the freedman Glaucus and several of the brethren, who safely conducted them to the subterranean abode of Linus. In the morning the disappearance of the Lady Lucia Claudia and the freedwoman Cornelia excited great alarm, and an active search was instantly set on foot by Julius and Nymphidius. Towards noon these endeavours to trace the fugitives were suddenly discontinued, to the manifest surprise of the whole household, both pagan and Christian. CHAPTER XIV. “Whose is that sword, that voice and eye of flame, That heart of unextinguishable ire? Who bears the dungeon keys, and bonds, and fire? Along his dark and withering path he came— Death in his looks, and terror in his name.” ROSCOE.