Religion brought balm to the torn heart of the father, who baptized into the faith of Christ resigned himself without another murmur to the Divine will, looking forward with humble confidence to a final reunion with his child in heaven.
Julius Claudius was indeed another man; his habits, thoughts, feelings, all were changed. To deep self-abhorrence and agonizing despair, true penitence, holy hope, and stedfast faith had succeeded. He had become a Christian, to him “old things had passed away and all things had become new.” To the vain deriding world his change of life and creed became a subject of surprise and derision. It was madness, folly, eccentricity; but to his Christian brethren it was a theme of wonder and adoring praise. They viewed him as a brand plucked out of the burning, a sinner redeemed and justified by the blood of the Lamb. To himself Julius Claudius was a greater wonder still, for the deep recesses of that polluted heart had been searched out by the Spirit, its secret iniquities revealed, and the remedy applied by the same Almighty power. To devote his life to make known the great truths of the Gospel to those who like him had sat in darkness and the shadow of death, following the dictates of a sinful and perverted nature, and to show them the new and living way, was suddenly become the end and aim of the young Roman patrician’s being.
CHAPTER XXI.
“——Woman all exceeds
In ardent sanctitude and pious deeds:
And chief in woman charities prevail
That soothe when sorrows or disease assail.
As dropping balm medicinal instils
Health when we pine, her tears alleviate ills;