CHAPTER XIX.
——“The dead cannot grieve;
Not a sob, not a sigh, meets mine ear,
Which compassion itself could relieve;
Ah! sweetly they slumber, nor hope, love, or fear;
Peace, peace, is the watchword, the only one here.”
Julius Claudius found himself opposite the sepulchral monument that contained the ashes of his ancient house before he lost the wild impetus that had driven him from his home. He opened the gate which soon was to unclose again to receive the last and dearest of his race. A light gleamed within, but, lost in bitter communion with himself, its presence created no surprise. His pride, his ambition, his glory, must all descend into this abode of death. The deep stillness of the midnight hour calmed for a few brief moments the feelings that urged him to fall upon his sword, and end at once his base career by suicide.
The sight of this last home of the Claudii made him pause in the midst of his dark thoughts to muse upon the nothingness of human things. The dead around him had tasted joy and sorrow, had been legislators, orators, and warriors, though now unconscious dust. The fame of their mighty deeds, and the inscriptions on the funeral urns that contained their ashes, alone revealed that they had once existed. Such as they were must he also become.
These reflections, so new to the man of pleasure, the votary of the world, gave birth to stranger still. As in a glass he saw himself as others saw him, and loathed the faithful picture. His whole life passed in review before him. His early excesses, his companionship with Nero, the murder of his brother, the forced marriage of his sister, the snare he had laid for Adonijah, for the man who had preserved him from the dagger of Tigranes, the death of his own child, of which he considered himself the cause,—all crowded upon his soul with the dreadful force of truth. Tears streamed from his eyes, tears the bitterest that ever wrung the heart of guilt. Suddenly the cries of wild revelry smote upon the ear of the conscience-stricken wretch, who hastily entered the mausoleum to screen himself from the observation of the midnight brawlers.
The sepulchral lamp burned dimly in the abode of death. The feeble ray glimmered upon urns surmounted by the effigies of those whose ashes were mouldering within the narrow receptacle of human passions and human pride, each effigy showing the gradual advance of art, from the rude moulded clay to the chiselled marble that wore the semblance of life.
The only surviving Claudius stood surrounded by the illustrious dead, feeling himself unworthy to be the last of such a mighty line. His crimes seemed to forbid him to approach a spot wherein reposed the relics of the great, the valiant, and the wise.
A strange fascination attracted him to look upon the effigy of his murdered brother, from which he could not withdraw his eyes The skilful graver’s hand had given to the marble the animated expression of life. The martial form of Lucius Claudius rose before the fratricide in the severe beauty of other years, and the guilty one half expected to hear from the half-closed lips of the statue the impetuous oratory that had characterized the noble Roman in life.
The affectation of piety that had led Julius to adorn the tomb of his brother with this master-piece of art, did not compel him to view it when completed. The mortified sculptor received his gold, but not his commendations. In this hour, however, he gained in the thrill of agony that vibrated from the brain of Julius to every nerve and rigid muscle the reward due to the admirable fidelity of genius.
As he gazed upon the image of his brother, guilty years of retrospect rushed upon his memory, till far and vista-like they blended with the happier ones of boyhood, when he was not this blot upon the face of nature, this loathsome compound of luxury and crime. Then he smote upon his breast, and called upon the stately roof to fall and crush him into the atom he wished to be, yet feared he was not. Upon his agony a voice intruded, a voice whose well-remembered tones increased his mental misery almost to madness. He turned round and saw his sister Lucia at his side. From the mild majestic shade he fled affrighted forth, rushing from street to street, still haunted by her voice, her look, her wrongs.
In midnight silence and darkness Julius Claudius pursued his way; he would have given wealth untold at that moment to hear human converse, to see human faces. Suddenly, to his great relief, he encountered on the Julian Way a number of persons, to whom, without being aware of the object for which they were gathering together, he joined himself, reckless of everything but the relief of finding himself among his fellow-men once more. He followed them to the cemetery of Ostorius, entering with them the house of death; whereupon a veiled female, rising from a tripod, admitted him with the rest into a spacious cavity, illuminated by many lamps. Then Julius Claudius comprehended that he was among a midnight assembly of Christians.
The females, closely veiled, ranged themselves on one side of the subterranean temple, the men on the other; but the bewildered intruder shrank behind what appeared to be a tomb, and concealing his features in his mantle remained a silent spectator of the worship of the primitive times.
The Christians’ fervent prayers, their melodious and solemn hymns, at once soothed and awed the soul of the guilty man who had so strangely become a witness of their mysterious rites, and when their bishop rose to address the little flock he was almost “persuaded to become a Christian.”
The venerable countenance of the preacher seemed not unknown to his new auditor; the august tones of his voice awakened some chord in his memory. The place, too, appeared familiar to his eyes. Suddenly the conviction that he was then present with those Christians from whom he had torn his sister, to compel her to become the wife of Nymphidius, passed through his mind with the rapidity of lightning, but he had then entered this oratory by a different route.
He looked about him fearfully, half expecting to see the victim of that ill-starred marriage appear again before his eyes. The eloquence of the preacher at length so completely fixed his attention, that he forgot his supernatural terrors while listening to his oration.
From the tenor of Linus’ discourse it should seem that some young men belonging to his flock had been present at the games of the circus, which the Christians held in deep abhorrence, as may yet be seen in a pathetic passage in the first apology of Justin Martyr. Upon this transgression the second Roman bishop commented with great severity, dwelling upon the sin of murder and its awful consequences in the world to come, with impressive eloquence. “He spake of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” till not only his erring brethren trembled, but the fratricide whom accident had brought among his flock.
For the first time in his life Julius Claudius heard the gospel preached fully, faithfully, preached not only as a message of love, but of wrath to the disobedient and impenitent sinner. To the conscience-stricken Roman patrician the word of God was sharper than a two-edged sword, compelling him to disclose every secret of his guilty breast. With a cry that thrilled to every heart he rushed from his hiding-place, and, falling on his knees before the preacher, besought him to save him from “the wrath to come.”
To Him who died, that fallen man might live, Linus directed the despairing criminal at his feet, bidding him “repent and believe in Jesus Christ, whose precious blood would cleanse him from all sin.”
“Can guilt like mine find pardon?” cried Julius Claudius, at once unbosoming himself of the hoarded trespasses of years, pausing at each recital in expectation of hearing the preacher pronounce his case hopeless. The transgressions of this sinner, though black as night, were but of too frequent occurrence in Rome to excite the surprise of the holy man to whose ear they were repeated. Like St. Paul he could have said of many of his flock, “and such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
He comforted the dejected Julius with the hope of mercy, revealing the salvation brought to sinners by the holy Jesus, exhorting him to repent and be baptized, leading henceforth a new life, even the life of faith through Him who loved “us and gave Himself as a ransom for our sins.”
At these consoling words Julius Claudius raised his eyes from the ground, when they suddenly encountered those of his sister Lucia, who was bending over his kneeling form with looks of unutterable love. A second cry broke from his lips; sight and memory failed him, and he sank motionless at the feet of the supposed phantom.