“My lord,” said Eurymachus, “our God has no name by which he is known. A name is used for distinction, and to mark a difference from others of the same, kind; but He is one alone and eternal from the beginning. He reveals himself to us through the myriad marvels of the universe, which would never cease to rouse our awe-struck admiration, but that custom has dulled our sense. He is manifest in the impulses and emotions of our own nature, in the ardent yearning for immortality--that home-sickness of the soul which, in the midst of all the joys and blessings of this life, makes us aware of an infinite void, a gulf which nothing else can fill. It is He, whom we apprehend in the joy, that thrills us like a tender mother’s kiss, when we lift up our hearts to contemplate Him by faith. We know Him by the strength, the constancy, the scorn of death, that He can inspire, when every nerve of our frail body is quivering with pain. Think of our fellow-believers, who were butchered by Nero--the bloody slaughter in the Arena, the men burnt alive, buried alive! What upheld these martyrs through their unspeakable torments? The grace of God, the Almighty and All-merciful, whom Jesus Christ hath taught us to know.” “Amen!” whispered Glauce, with an admiring glance at her lover, whose face glowed with enthusiasm. Barbatus went anxiously up to him, and laid a hand on his brow. “Do not agitate yourself,” he said with tender sympathy. “You have still much to go through.” “Nay, it is well,” replied Eurymachus. “I feel strengthened since I have set eyes on my preserver.--Aye, noble Quintus, this is the God, whom the disciples of the Nazarene worship--this is the faith, which your empire brands as a crime. Conspirators, they call us, and traitors. We conspire, it is true, but not against Caesar, to whom we freely render the things that are Caesar’s, as our Master taught us; only against sin, against crime and evil-doing. We swear to each other by the memory of the Crucified,[352] not to betray each other, nor to lie, nor steal, nor bear false witness, nor commit adultery. We hate no man for his faith’s sake, for we know that grace is a gift of omnipotent God, and that, even in the shadow of the false god Jupiter, a gleam of divine truth may be seen. We are quiet, peaceful folk, who ask nothing more than to be allowed to live undisturbed in our faith and hope.” “You forget one thing,” exclaimed Barbatus, as Eurymachus paused. “Christ teaches us, that we are all the children of God. In his sight all differences of high and low, rich and poor, lofty and humble are as nothing; and we, as true disciples of the Redeemer, must strive to work out this principle. We must try to found a state of human society, in which all the distinctions which have hitherto existed are utterly dissolved.”