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

72 страница из 93

“No doubt; but your idea of a Christian triumphal arch supposes an earthly instrument; where do you imagine this to lie?”

“Why, Pancratius, my thoughts, I own, turn towards the family of one of the Augusti, as showing a slight germ of better thoughts: I mean, Constantius Chlorus.”

“But, Sebastian, how many of even our learned and good men will say, nay, do say, if you speak thus to them, that similar hopes were entertained in the reigns of Alexander, Gordian, or Aurelian; yet ended in disappointment. Why, they ask, should we not expect the same results now?”

“I know it too well, my dear Pancratius, and bitterly have I often deplored those dark views which damp our energies; that lurking thought that vengeance is perpetual, and mercy temporary, that martyr’s blood, and virgin’s prayer have no power even to shorten times of visitation, and hasten hours of grace.”

By this time they had reached Sebastian’s apartment, the principal room of which was lighted, and evidently prepared for some assembly. But opposite the door was a window open to the ground, and leading to a terrace that ran along that side of the building. The night looked so bright through it, that they both instinctively walked across the room, and stood upon the terrace. A lovely and splendid view presented itself to them. The moon was high in the heavens, swimming in them, as an Italian moon does; a round, full globe, not a flat surface, bathed all round in its own refulgent atmosphere. It dimmed, indeed, the stars near itself; but they seemed to have retired, in thicker and more brilliant clusters, into the distant corners of the azure sky. It was just such an evening as, years after, Monica and Augustine enjoyed from a window at Ostia, as they discoursed of heavenly things.