“Yes, for ever,” was his reply. “To me the Christian, Lucia, must become a stranger, an accursed thing.” Again he lifted up his voice and wept, for the anguish of his benighted soul was great.
Lucia wavered for an instant, then she raised her lover up, and fell upon his neck and wept; he drew her to his bosom, for he felt that he had conquered, and joy and hope lighted up his countenance as he hung over his beautiful, his recovered proselyte, who, insnared by her affection for him, had forsaken the faith of Christ.
Did earthly passion blight all this heavenly promise in its first birth? How could Lucia Claudia meet sterner trials when a few passionate tears had power to move her thus? It was the weakness of the moment, for when alone she experienced deep remorse for a compliance wrung from her by the reproaches and entreaties of Adonijah. She felt her apostasy, but she knew not how to give up one dearer than the light of heaven to her eyes and heart. Cornelia saw the struggle of her soul, and her soothing words gained her confidence, her admonitions pointed out her danger.
Cornelia was no longer under the dominion of the passions. She had proved the vanity, the nothingness of all that the world could offer. The faith that presented to her view the glories of the world to come stood bright and alone. Temptation could not shake the heart which was given up to God. She warned Lucia of her danger; she reminded her that there could be no compromise here, that she must give up all for Christ, or return to doubt and darkness. “Thy affection has misled thee, my child; but thy love to Adonijah had been better shown in leading him to Christ than in revolting from the faith to pacify him. Pray for his conversion, but be stedfast thyself; return to Him from whom in thy weakness rather than in thy unbelief thou hast wandered.”
Lucia feared that her contrition would not be accepted, but she threw herself upon her knees, humbly confessing her guilt, and imploring that mercy of which she almost despaired.
Cornelia soothed her foster-child, and upon her maternal bosom Lucia could find sympathy. The Greek then unrolled the vellum scrolls and commenced reading the wondrous history of a Saviour’s love as recorded by St. Luke. If the beauty, the sublimity of those opening chapters awaken the intensest feeling in the bosom of the reader of our own day, to whom they have been familiar from infancy, what was their effect upon these Gentiles who for the first time perused them? Lucia Claudia no longer believed upon the word of Linus alone, she rested her faith upon the word of God.
Painfully aware of her own weakness, she wisely left to Cornelia the task of informing Adonijah of her stedfast determination to become a Christian. He heard this resolution with bitter indignation, but when the pious Greek besought him in Lucia’s name, and for her dear sake, to listen to the preaching of Linus, he laughed scornfully and left her abruptly and in anger.
That night Lucia Claudia and the brethren in her household again attended the midnight worship of the Christians, and among them came Adonijah. Surprised, delighted, hoping that here his bitter hatred must expire, his heart must be softened, Lucia watched him as he stood half shadowed by a tomb, and sorrowed when he gave no sign of relenting; and thus he remained proudly apart for many successive nights, cold, obdurate, and dead to the beams of the gospel light as the stone upon which he leaned.
The Christians of Julius’s household became alarmed respecting his object in frequenting the midnight assembly, and they hinted their fears to Lucia Claudia and her nurse. Neither entertained a doubt of Adonijah’s integrity; they naturally concluded that the intense jealousy of a lover made him keep watch thus over his beloved. He disdained to hold the slightest communication with any part of the Christian flock of Linus when in private. To Lucia Claudia he showed the cold respect due to the sister of his lord, to Cornelia he never spoke at all.
Upon the morning preceding the night of her baptism, Lucia Claudia resolved to break this mysterious silence, for she had determined to leave clandestinely her brother’s house that she might devote herself to the service of the Christian Church. Cornelia, her nurse, was to be the companion of her flight; her fortune she was about to bestow upon the Christian community, a measure commonly adopted by the wealthy converts of that day. She would thus be safe from the odious addresses of Nymphidius, who had daringly told her that she was fated to become his bride. She would also be secured from the dangerous influence Adonijah still held over her heart. She must leave him, but not without a parting gift, a parting blessing. What man could not accomplish, the word of God might yet effect, and the heart that would not bow before the mighty eloquence of Linus would melt, perchance, over the record of the sacrifice and sufferings of the Son of God.