“Surely a dreadful one,” replied Pancratius, “to limit the mercy and forgiveness of Him, who came to call not the just, but sinners to repentance. The Catholic Church has always held, that a sinner, however dark the dye, however huge the mass of his crimes, on truly repenting, may receive forgiveness, through the penitential remedy left in her hands. And, therefore, she has always so much loved this type of the Good Shepherd, ready to run into the wilderness, to bring back a lost sheep.” “But suppose,” said Torquatus, evidently moved, “that one who had become a Christian, and received the sacred Gift, were to fall away, and plunge into vice, and--and”--(his voice faltered)--“almost betray his brethren, would not the Church reject such a one from hope?” [Illustration: The Blessed Virgin and the Magi. From a picture in the Cemetery of Callistus.] “No, no,” answered the youth; “these are the very crimes, which the Novatians insult the Catholics for admitting to pardon. The Church is a mother, with her arms ever open to re-embrace her erring children.” There was a tear trembling in Torquatus’s eye; his lips quivered with the confession of his guilt, which ascended to them for a moment; but as if a black poisonous drop rose up his throat with it and choked him, he changed in a moment to a hard, obstinate look, bit his lip, and said, with an effort at coolness: “It is certainly a consoling doctrine for those that need it.” Severus alone observed that a moment of grace had been forfeited, and that some despairing thought had quenched a flash of hope, in that man’s heart. Diogenes and Majus, who had been absent looking at a new place for opening a gallery near, now returned. Torquatus addressed the old master-digger: “We have now seen the galleries and the chambers; I am anxious to visit the church in which we shall have to assemble.” The unconscious excavator was going to lead the way, when the inexorable artist interposed. “I think, father, it is too late for to-day; you know we have got our work to do. These young friends will excuse us, especially as they will see the church in good time, and in better order also, as the holy Pontiff intends to officiate in it.” They assented; and when they arrived at the point where they had turned off from the first straight gallery to visit the ornamented chamber, Diogenes stopped the party, turned a few steps along an opposite passage, and said: “If you pursue this corridor, and turn to the right, you come to the church. I have merely brought you here to show you an _arcosolium_, with a beautiful painting. You here see the Virgin Mother holding her Divine Infant in her arms, while the wise Easterns, here represented as four, though generally we only reckon three, are adoring Him.”[109]