As they were entering the palace, that part of which Sebastian’s cohort guarded, he said to his companion: “Every time that I enter here, it strikes me how kind an act of Divine Providence it was, to plant almost at the very gate of Cæsar’s palace, the arch which commemorates at once the downfall of the first great system that was antagonistic to Christianity, and the completion of the greatest prophecy of the Gospel,—the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman power.[37] I cannot but believe that another arch will one day arise to commemorate no less a victory, over the second enemy of our religion, the heathen Roman empire itself.”
“What! do you contemplate the overthrow of this vast empire, as the means of establishing Christianity?”
“God forbid! I would shed the last drop of my blood, as I shed my first, to maintain it. And depend upon it, when the empire is converted, it will not be by such gradual growth as we now witness, but by some means, so unhuman, so divine, as we shall never, in our most sanguine longings, forecast; but all will exclaim, ‘This is the change of the right hand of the Most High!’”
“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.
It is true that, below and around, all was beautiful and grand. The Coliseum, or Flavian amphitheatre, rose at one side, in all its completeness; and the gentle murmur of the fountain, while its waters glistened in a silvery column, like the refluent sea-wave gliding down a slanting rock, came soothingly on the ear. On the other side, the lofty building called the Septizonium of Severus, in front, towering above the Cœlian, the sumptuous baths of Caracalla, reflected from their marble walls and stately pillars the radiance of the autumn moon. But all these massive monuments of earthly glory rose unheeded before the two Christian youths, as they stood silent; the elder with his right arm round his youthful companion’s neck, and resting on his shoulder. After a long pause, he took up the thread of his last discourse, and said, in a softer tone: “I was going to show you, when we stepped out here, the very spot just below our feet, where I have often fancied the triumphal arch, to which I have alluded, would stand.[38] But who can think of such paltry things below, with the splendid vault above us, lighted up so brilliantly, as if on purpose to draw upwards our eyes and hearts?”