“This faith, increased by our Lord’s Ascension, and strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, has not been overcome by chains, nor imprisonments, nor banishments, nor famine, nor the sword, nor the teeth of wild beasts, nor by any torments invented by the cruelty of persecutors. For this faith, throughout the whole world, not only men but even women, not only young boys but tender maidens, contended to the shedding of their own blood; whatever had before caused them fear now turned into joy. “Let us therefore, dearly beloved, follow after charity, without which no one can shine; that through this way of love whereby Christ descended to us, we also may be able to ascend to Him, to Whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost belong honour and glory for ever.” So the tide of Christian joy flowed on fuller and fuller to Whitsuntide, when the great company of the newly baptized gathered around the fonts in their white robes, as at Easter. Then Ethne’s heart went back to that glad white-robed company of neophytes which had gathered around the well, beside the little chapel of rough-hewn stones in her own island. It was but a year since she had sat with her brother in the white robes of baptism on the cliff by her father’s house. And in looking back from the pomp of these great assemblies in the stately basilicas on that homely gathering, she felt more than ever how glorious had been that simple beginning of new life in the new world, as at the first Pentecost. “From Him, the Holy Spirit,” Bishop Leo said, “comes the thirst; from Him, the calling on the Father; from Him, the groans of suppliants. As in that first exultant choir of all human tongues, the majesty of the Holy Ghost was present, let the minds of the faithful rejoice, because now through all the world our God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is praised by the acknowledgment rendered in every tongue, and because that indication which was given in the form of fire is still witnessed, alike as a work and a gift. For the Spirit of Truth Himself makes the house of His glory shine with the radiance of His own light, and wills not to have in His temple anything dark or lukewarm.” “The house of His glory also,” Ethne murmured to Damaris, “was that little round stone cell of Patrick’s building in our Ireland.” “The house of His glory is Patrick’s heart and Leo’s, and, in their humble place, thine and mine,” Damaris said. “Did not our Leo say, _Templum Dei sumus, si Spiritus Dei habitat in nobis_? Greater is what the faithful Christian has in his heart than what he wonders at in the heavens.” [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. THE FALL OF AQUILEIA. Thus the great festivals of the Church swept on, and spring had conquered winter in the natural and the Christian year. All through those months the household on the Aventine knew that Aquileia was still holding her own, and trusted that there also the summer was beating back the winter.