'We came at their request,' I replied; 'rumors are abroad through the city, too confidently reported, and too generally credited to be regarded as wholly groundless, yet which it is impossible for those who know Aurelian to believe, asserting that to-day edicts are to be issued affecting both the liberty and the lives of the Christians--' 'I would, Piso, that rumor were never farther from the truth than in this.' 'But,' I rejoined, 'has not Aurelian said that he would proceed against them no further till he had first heard their defence from their own organs?' 'Is it one party only in human affairs, young Piso,' he sharply replied,'that must conform to truth and keep inviolate a plighted word? Is deception no vice when it is a Christian who deceives? I indeed said that I would hear the Christians, though, when I made that promise, I also said that 'twould profit them nothing; but I then little knew why it was that Piso was so urgent.' 'Truth,' I replied, 'cannot be received from some quarters, any more than sweet and wholesome water through poisoned channels. Even, Aurelian, if Fronto designed not to mislead, no statement passing through his lips--if it concerned the Christians--could do so, without there being added to it, or lost from it, much that properly belonged to it. I have heard that too, which, I may suppose, has been poured into the mind of Aurelian, to fill it with a bitterer enmity still toward the Christians--that the Christians have sought this delay only that they might use the opportunities thus afforded, to escape from his power--and that, using them, they have already in the greater part fled from the capital, leaving to the Emperor but a few old women and children upon whom to wreak his vengeance. How does passion bring its film over the clearest mind! How does the eye that will not see, shut out the light though it be brighter than that of day! It had been wiser in Aurelian, as well as more merciful, first to have tried the truth of what has thus been thrust upon his credulity ere he made it a ground of action. True himself, he suspects not others; but suspicion were sometimes a higher virtue than frank confidence. Had Aurelian but looked into the streets of Rome, he could not but have seen the grossness of the lie that has been palmed upon his too willing ear. Of the seventy thousand Christians who dwelt in Rome, the same seventy thousand, less by scarce a seventieth part, are now here within their dwellings waiting the will of Aurelian. Take this on the word of one whom, in former days at least, you have found worthy of your trust. Take it on the word of the venerable head of this community who stands here to confirm it either by word or oath--and in Rome it needs but to know that Felix, the Christian, has spoken, to know that truth has spoken too.'