Читать книгу No. XIII; or, The Story of the Lost Vestal онлайн

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But, though her name has perished, her virtues remain engraven on the imperishable stone, and these help us to call her before us, in all the grace and dignity of a beautiful life, passed in the cloisters of the Vestals’ home.

The incidents which have gathered round her supposed history, are more or less connected with the persecution and martyrdom of the Early Church in Britain, and afterwards in Rome.

A glance like this into the past may be made useful to the young reader, if it should quicken a desire for the intelligent study of history, and help the student to look upon the events of bygone ages as they affected real men and women, who had the same hopes and fears, and aims and ends, as we have, who are living so long after them.

We are, naturally perhaps, too apt to think of those of whom we read in these distant ages, as myths rather than as the brothers and sisters of the one great family of God, to which we all belong. Their human hearts beat with the same affections as ours, and through the mists of superstition and ignorance the lamp of an undying love shines out here and there, as a light in a dark place.