Then she rose, and taking him by the arm, walked leisurely on her way, discoursing, as she went, on certain truths which she had learnt from Calchas, and which she believed with the faith of those who have been taught by one, himself an eye-witness of the wonders he relates. There were no dogmas in those early days of the Christian Church to distract the minds of its votaries from the simple tenets of their creed. The grain of mustard-seed had not yet shot up [pg 258]into that goodly tree which has since borne so many branches, and the pruning-knife, hereafter to lop away so many redundant heresies, was not as yet unsheathed. The Christian of the first century held to a very simple exposition of his faith as handed down to him from his Divine Master. Trust and love were the fundamental rules of his order. Trust that in the extremity of mortal agony could penetrate beyond the gates of death, and brighten the martyr’s face with a ray of splendour “like the face of an angel.” Love that embraced all things, downward from the Creator to the lowest of the created, that opened its heart freely and ungrudgingly to each, the sinner, the prodigal, and the traveller who fell among thieves. Other faiths, indeed, and other motives have fortified men to march proudly to the stake, to bear without wincing tortures that forced the sickening spectator to turn shuddering away. A heathen or a Jew could front the lion’s sullen scowl, or the grin and glare of the cruel tiger, in the amphitheatre, with the dignified composure that brave men borrow from despair; could behold unmoved the straight-cut furrow in the sand that marked the arena of his sufferings, soon to run crimson with his blood. Even athwart the dun smoke, amidst the leaping yellow flames, pale faces have been seen to move, majestic and serene as spectres, with no sustaining power beyond that of a lofty courage, the offspring of education and of pride. But it was the Christian alone who could submit to the vilest degradations and the fiercest sufferings with a humble and even cheerful thankfulness; who could drink from the bitter cup and accept the draught without a murmur, save of regret for his own unworthiness; nay, who could forgive and bless the very tyranny that extorted, the very hand that ministered to, the tortures he endured.
In its early days, fresh from the fountain-head, the Christian’s was, indeed, essentially and emphatically, a religion of love. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to stretch a hand to the fallen, to think no evil, to judge not, nor to condemn, in short, to love “the brother whom he had seen,” were the direct commands of that Great Example who had so recently been here on earth. His first disciples strove, hard as fallible humanity can, to imitate Him, and in so striving, failed not to attain a certain peaceful composure and contentment of mind, that no other code of morality, no other system of philosophy, had ever yet produced. Perhaps this was the quality that, in his dealings with his victim, the Roman executioner found most mysterious and inexplicable. [pg 259]Fortitude, resolution, defiance, these he could understand: but the childlike simplicity that accepted good and evil with equal confidence; that was thankful and cheerful under both, and that entertained neither care for to-day nor anxiety for to-morrow, was a moral elevation, at which, with all their pretensions, his own countrymen had never yet been able to arrive. Neither Stoic nor Epicurean, Sophist nor Philosopher, could look upon life, and death also, with the calm assurance of these unlearned men, leaning on a hand the Roman could not see, convinced of an immortality the Roman was unable to conceive.
With this happy conviction beaming in her face, Mariamne inculcated on Esca the tenets of her noble faith; explaining, not logically, indeed, but with woman’s persuasive reasonings of the heart, how fair was the prospect thus open to him, how glorious the reward, which, though mortal eye could not behold it, mortal hand could not take away. Promises of future happiness are none the less glowing that they fall on a man’s ear from the lips he loves. Conviction goes the straighter to his heart when it pervades another’s that beats in unison with his own. Under that moonlit sky, reddened in the horizon with the glare of a distant quarter of the city already set on fire by the insurgents; in that dreary waste of the Esquiline, with its blasted trees, its shrieking night-birds, and its scattered grave-stones, the Briton imbibed the first principles of Christianity from the daughter of Judah, whom he loved; and the girl’s face beamed with a holy tenderness more than mortal, while she showed the way of everlasting happiness, and life, and light, to him whose soul was dearer to her than her own.
And meanwhile around them on all sides, murder, rapine, and violence were stalking abroad unchecked. Riotous parties of Vespasian’s supporters met, here and there, detached companies of Cæsar’s broken legions; and when such collisions took place, the combatants fought madly, as it would seem from mere wanton love of bloodshed, to the death; whichever conquered, neither spared the dissolute citizens, who indeed, when safe out of reach, from roofs or windows encouraged the strife heartily with word and gesture. Sparks fell in showers through the streets of Rome, and blood and wine ran in streams along the pavement; nor were the deserted gardens of the Esquiline undisturbed by the tumult and devastation that pervaded the rest of the unhappy city.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CHURCH
When they sought to leave their place of refuge, Esca and Mariamne found themselves hemmed in and drawn back by the continued tumult that was raging through the surrounding quarters. On all sides were heard the shouts of victory, the shrieks of despair, and the mad riot of drunken mirth. Occasionally, flying parties of pursuers or pursued swept through the very outskirts of the gardens themselves, compelling the Briton and his charge to plunge deeper into its gloomy solitudes for concealment.
At length they reached a place of comparative safety, under a knot of dark cypresses that had escaped the general conflagration, and here they paused to take breath and listen, Mariamne becoming every moment more composed and tranquil, while Esca, with a beating heart, calculated the many chances that must still be risked ere they could reach her home beyond the Tiber, and he could place the daughter in safety under her father’s roof once more. It was very dark where they were, for the cypresses grew thick and black between them and the sky. The place had probably in former times been a favourite resort in the noonday heat. There were the remains of a grotto or summer-house not yet wholly destroyed, and the fragments of a wide stone basin, from which a fountain had once shot its sparkling drops into the summer air. Several alleys, too, cut in the young plantations, had apparently converged at this spot; and although these were much overgrown and neglected, one still formed, so to speak, a broad white street of turf, hemmed in by walls of quivering foliage, dark and massive, but sprinkled here and there with points of silver in the moonlight.
Mariamne crept closer to her companion’s side.