'I shall require, great Emperor,' replied Probus, 'but little of either; yet I thank thee, and all of our name who are here present thank thee, for the free range which thou hast offered. I thank thee too, and so do we all, for the liberty of frank and undisturbed speech, which thou hast assured to me. Yet shall I not use it to malign either the Romans or their faith. It is not with anger and fierce denunciation, O Emperor, that it becomes the advocate, of what he believes to be a religion from Heaven, to assail the adherents of a religion like this of Rome, descended to the present generation through so many ages, and which all who have believed it in times past, and all who believe it now, do hold to be true and woven into the very life of the state--the origin of its present greatness, and without which it must fall asunder into final ruin, the bond that held it together being gone. If the religion of Rome be false, or really injurious, it is not the generations now living who are answerable for its existence formerly or now, nor for the principles, truths, or rites, which constitute it. They have received it, as they have received a thousand customs which are now among them, by inheritance from the ancestors who bequeathed them, which they received at too early an age to judge concerning their fitness or unfitness, but to which, for the reason of that early reception, they have become fondly attached, even as to parents, brothers, and sisters, from whom they have never been divided. It becomes not the Christian, therefore, to load with reproaches those who are placed where they are, not by their own will, but by the providence of the Great Ruler. Neither does it become you of the Roman faith to reproach us for the faith to which we adhere; because the greater proportion of us also have inherited our religion, as you yours, from parents and a community who professed it before us, and all regard it as heaven-descended, and so proved to be divine, that without inexpiable guilt we may not refuse to accept it. It must be in the face of reason, then, and justice, in the face of what is both wise and merciful, if either should judge harshly of the other.