Читать книгу Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs онлайн

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No idea that his name would be enrolled in every martyrology, his picture, crowned with rays, hung over many altars, as the boy-martyr of the early Church. He was only the simple-hearted Christian youth, who looked upon it as a matter of course that he must always obey God’s law and His Gospel; and only felt happy that he had that day performed his duty, when it came under circumstances of more than usual trial. There was no pride, no self-admiration in the reflection; otherwise there would have been no heroism in his act.

When he raised again his eyes, after his calm reverie of peaceful thoughts, in the new light which brightly filled the hall, they met his mother’s countenance gazing anew upon him, radiant with a majesty and tenderness such as he never recollected to have seen before. It was a look almost of inspiration; her face was as that of a vision; her eyes what he would have imagined an angel’s to be. Silently, and almost unknowingly, he had changed his position, and was kneeling before her; and well he might; for was she not to him as a guardian spirit, who had shielded him ever from evil; or might he not well see in her the living saint whose virtues had been his model from childhood? Lucina broke the silence, in a tone full of grave emotion.