So passed the greater part of the day, up till the ninth hour. Then came a reaction. The thought of Scaurus returned, and of his criticisms. “He is right,” I said, “I am a dreamer. I will go out into the fields.” So I went out, taking my Virgil as company. When I came into the woods I sat down in the warmth of the westering sun. There, for a time, listening to the songs of the thrushes and the cooing of the doves, I felt at peace, and opened my Virgil, intending to read about the bees and the fields. But I had brought the Æneid by mistake, and the first words I met were these: “Si nunc se nobis ille aureus arbore ramus Ostendat nemore in tanto!” Then back again came suggestions of doubt. For I recognised it as a kind of oracle from the Gods, that I must still be seeking for the light of the truth in the dark forest of error, and that I could not find it without divine help. “But,” said I, as I started up to return home, “it shall be such help as a Roman may accept without shame. The faith of Junius Silanus shall never be constrained by spells, or incantations, or by anything except reasonable conviction and the force of facts.” Returning home as the sun was sinking I found letters awaiting me. Among these, one was from Flaccus, saying that he had sent me three little Christian books called “gospels,” in accordance with my order. After his usual fashion, addressing me as the son of his old master, but also as a companion in the fellowship of book-lovers, he added some remarks on the contents of the parcel. “The third of these books,” he said, “is written by a man of some education, named Lucas, a companion of Paulus (whose works I recently sent you); and he has published a supplementary volume, which I have ventured to add although you did not order it. The supplement is entitled ‘The Acts of the Apostles,’ that is, of the missionaries sent out by Christus. The ‘gospel,’ as you probably know, is a record of the acts and words of Christus himself. Also, as you are interested in this sect, I have sent you a book called the Revelation of John. It is written in most extraordinary Greek, without pretensions to grammar, much less to style. But it has some poetic touches in it. Of the eastern style, of course. But that you will understand. This John was himself—(I am told)—one of their ‘apostles,’ and a man of note among the Christians. He is said to have written it soon after the reign of Domitian.”