Sadly and remorsefully the Roman patrician contemplated the languid form before him: could this feeble frame indeed enshrine the haughty and unsubdued spirit of Adonijah? At this moment the Hebrew opened his heavy eyes, and recognised his master regarding him with a piteous expression that pierced him to the heart. How unlike was this helpless look to that contemptuous one the gladiator had turned upon him as he fell, when his indignant glance flashed back defiance and disdain! His lost child, his lamented Lucius, had loved him too, had died invoking the Hebrew’s name, and the tears of the bereaved parent fell fast upon the burning brow of the slave. Adonijah perceived his master’s emotion, but could not comprehend the cause of this change of feeling towards him. A sort of stupor came over his senses, and before he recovered from its effects he was on the way to Tivoli in a covered litter, supported in the arms of a confidential slave belonging to Julius’ household. Leaving the unconscious Adonijah to the tender care of Lucia and her attendants, Julius Claudius remained at Rome to consign the remains of his child to their native dust. No costly funeral rites, no games, no pompous oration, no gathering of the ashes into the sumptuous urn, graced the obsequies of the young Lucius. Pious Christians consecrated with prayer the last sleep of the child, and laid him not with his heathen forefathers to rest, but in the subterranean chambers of the catacombs, as the heir of a better hope, to wait the dawn of everlasting day. Religion brought balm to the torn heart of the father, who baptized into the faith of Christ resigned himself without another murmur to the Divine will, looking forward with humble confidence to a final reunion with his child in heaven. Julius Claudius was indeed another man; his habits, thoughts, feelings, all were changed. To deep self-abhorrence and agonizing despair, true penitence, holy hope, and stedfast faith had succeeded. He had become a Christian, to him “old things had passed away and all things had become new.” To the vain deriding world his change of life and creed became a subject of surprise and derision. It was madness, folly, eccentricity; but to his Christian brethren it was a theme of wonder and adoring praise. They viewed him as a brand plucked out of the burning, a sinner redeemed and justified by the blood of the Lamb. To himself Julius Claudius was a greater wonder still, for the deep recesses of that polluted heart had been searched out by the Spirit, its secret iniquities revealed, and the remedy applied by the same Almighty power. To devote his life to make known the great truths of the Gospel to those who like him had sat in darkness and the shadow of death, following the dictates of a sinful and perverted nature, and to show them the new and living way, was suddenly become the end and aim of the young Roman patrician’s being. CHAPTER XXI.