rest never dawn nor arise, they might then, when hope was dead, come forth and add themselves to the innumerable company of those, born of Heaven, who hold life and all its joys and comforts as dross, in comparison with the perfect integrity of the mind. By such statements have I prevailed with many. Probus too has exerted his power in the same direction, and has enjoyed the happiness of seeing safely embarked for Greece, or Syria, many whose lives in the coming years will be beyond price to the then just-surviving church. Yet do not imagine, Fausta, that we are an immaculate people; that the weaknesses and faults which seem universal to mankind, are not to be discovered in us that we are all, what by our acknowledged principles we ought to be. We have our traitors and our renegades, our backsliders, and our well-dissembling hypocrites--but so few are they, that they give us little disquiet, and bring slight discredit upon us with the enemy. And beside these, there will now be those, as in former persecutions, who, as the day of evil approaches, will, through the operation simply of their fears, renounce their name and faith. Of the former, some have already made themselves conspicuous--conspicuous now by their cowardly and hasty apostacy, as they were before by a narrow, contentious, and restless zeal. Among others, the very one, who, on the evening when the Christians assembled near the baths of Macer, was so forward to assail the faith of Probus, and who ever before, on other occasions, when a display could by any possibility be made of devotion to his party, or an ostentatious parade of his love of Christ, was always thrusting himself upon the notice of our body and clamoring for notoriety, has already abandoned us and sought safety in apostacy. Others of the same stamp have in like manner deserted us. They are neither lamented by us nor honored by the other party. It is said of him whom I have just spoken of, that soon as he had publicly renounced Christ, and sacrificed, hisses and yells of contempt broke from the surrounding crowds. He, doubtless it occurred to them, who had so proved himself weak, cowardly, and faithless, to one set of friends, could scarcely be trusted as brave and sincere by those to whom he then joined himself. There are no virtues esteemed by the Romans like courage and sincerity. This trait in their character is a noble one, and is greatly in our favor. For, much as they detest our superstitions, they so honor our fortitude under suffering, that a deep sympathy springs up almost unconsciously in our behalf. Half of those who, on the first outbreak of these disorders, would have been found bitterly hostile, if their hearts could be scanned now or when this storm shall have passed by, would be found most warmly with us--not in belief indeed, but in a fellow-feeling, which is its best preparation and almost certain antecedent. Even in such an inhuman rabble as perpetrated the savage