'There is wisdom, princess, in the maxim of thy prophet, and its spirit is found in many of the sayings of truer prophets who went before him, whose words are familiar to thy royal mother, though, I fear, they are not to thee; a misfortune, wholly to be traced to that misadventure of thine, Piso, in being thrown into the company of the Christian Probus on board the Mediterranean trader. Had I been alone with thee on that voyage, who can say that thou wouldst not now have been what, but this morning, I took thee for, as I looked upon those marble figures?' 'But, Isaac, forget not your own principles,' said Julia. 'May you, who cannot, as you have said, see the end from the beginning, and whose sight is but a mole's, dare to complain of the providence which threw Piso into the society of the Christian Probus? I am sure you would not, on reflection, re-arrange those events, were it now permitted you. And seeing, Isaac, how much better things are ordered by the Deity than we could do it, and how we should choose voluntarily to surrender all into his hands, whose wisdom is so much more perfect, and whose power is so much more vast, than ours, ought we not, as a necessary consequence of this, to acquiesce in events without complaint, when they have once occurred? If Providence had made both Piso and Probus Christians, then ought you not to complain, but acquiesce; and, more than that, revere the Providence that has done it, and love those none the less whom it has directed into the path in which it would have them go. True piety, is the mother of charity.' 'Princess,' rejoined Isaac, 'you are right. The true love of God cannot exist, without making us true lovers of man; and Piso I do love, and think none the worse of him for his Christian name. But, touching Probus, and others, I experience some difficulty. Yet may I perhaps, escape thus--I may love them as men, yet hate them as Christians; just as I would bind up the wounds of a thief or an assassin, whom I found by the wayside, and yet the next hour bear witness against him, and without compunction behold him swinging upon the gibbet! It is hard, lady, for the Jew to love a Christian and a Roman.--But how have I been led away from what I wished chiefly to say before departing! When I spake just now of the darkness of Providence, I was thinking, Piso, of my journey across the desert for thy Persian brother, Calpurnius. That, as I then said to thee, was dark to me. I could not comprehend how it should come to pass that I, a Jew, of no less zeal than Simon Ben Gorah himself, should tempt such dangers in the service of thee, a Roman, and half a Christian.' 'And is the enigma solved at length?' asked Julia. 'I could have interpreted it by saying that the merit of doing a benevolent action was its solution.'