'But why should not these sentiments, though called into being by personal ambition alone, give equal pleasure as if springing directly from the heart? Are they not, after all, as true?' 'Nay, honored mistress, neither are they true. This is again where they fail to please; for in your soul there is an instinct, though you may not know of it, which forbids that such cold and unsatisfactory reasoning should bring you comfort. He speaks of death: is it cheering to be told that, though the gods have appointed death to every person, they have given it, not as a veiled mercy, but rather as a dreadful fate--that there is no certainty about our future condition, but that, if we are destined to live again, it may be with the same evils encompassing us which bind us now--and that the slave may then still be a slave, destined forever to look up to and worship the high and mighty ones who trampled on him here?' 'That is, in truth, no comfort,' said AEnone. And she bowed her head upon her hands, and sadly thought how worthless to her would be the gift of eternal life, if her present sorrows were to follow her. 'But what can we do? If it were possible to discover and believe in some other fate, telling us that death, instead of being a dreaded pang, is a boon and relief to the sick and weary and oppressed--' 'There is a book,' said Cleotos--and for a moment he hesitated, as though fearful of proceeding--'there is a book which I have read, and which tells us all this. It says that death is not merely a fate, but is a source of blessing; since it leads to a world where the sufferings of this life shall be recompensed with abundant joy, not to the rich merely, but more especially to the poor and lowly.' 'Where is that book?' cried AEnone, with sudden energy, as the wondrous depth and power of the sentiment flashed upon her. 'Where can I see and read it? He who can talk like that, must surely have said still more?' 'I have not that book,' answered Cleotos. 'I have only this little copy of a small portion of it;' and he hesitatingly drew from beneath his tunic a single small leaf of discolored parchment, closely filled with Greek characters. 'But being at Corinth, a year ago, I was permitted to see the book itself, and to hear portions of it read. It was written to a Christian church there, by one Paul, a leader of that sect.'