'Peace, slave! or rods shall teach thee where thou art.' And at the same moment, at a sign from Varus, he was laid hold of with violence by officials of the place armed with spears and rods, and held. 'What I wish to know then,' said Varus, turning to the crowd, 'is, whether this is not the street brawler, one of the impious Gallileans, a man who should long ago have been set in the stocks to find leisure for better thoughts?' Several testified, as was desired, that this was he. 'This is all I wish to know,' said the prefect. 'The man is either without wits, or they are disordered, or else the pestilent faith he teaches has made the nuisance of him he is, as it does of all who meddle with it. It is scarcely right that he should be abroad. Yet has he committed no offence that condemns him either to scourging or the prison. Hearken therefore, fellow! I now dismiss thee without the scourging thou well deservest; but, if thou keep on thy wild and lawless way, racks and dungeons shall teach thee what there is in Roman justice. Away with him!' 'Romans! Roman citizens!' cried Macer; 'are these your laws and this your judge?--' 'Away with him, I say!' cried the prefect; and the officers of the palace hurried him out of the hall. As he went, a voice from the crowd shouted, 'Roman citizens, Macer, are long since dead. 'Tis a vain appeal.' 'I believe you,' replied Macer; 'tyrant and slave stand now for all who once bore the proud name of Roman.' This violence and injustice on the part of Varus must be traced--for though capricious, and imperious, this is not his character--to the language of Macer in the shop of Publius, and to his apprehension lest the same references to his origin, which he would willingly have forgotten, should be made, and perhaps more offensively still, in the presence of the people. Probus, on the former occasion, lamented deeply that Macer should have been tempted to rehearse in the way he did some of the circumstances of the prefect's history, as its only end could be to needlessly irritate the man of power, and raise up a bitterer enemy than we might otherwise have found in him. Upon leaving the tribunal, I was curious to watch still further the movements of the Christian. The crowd about him increased rather than diminished, as he left the building and passed into the street. At but a little distance from the hall of the prefect, stands the Temple of Peace, with its broad and lofty flights of steps. When Macer had reached it he paused, and looked round upon the motley crowd that had gathered about him. 'Go up! go up!' cried several voices. 'We will hear thee.' 'There is no prefect here,' cried another.