"Lady, believe me, I knew not of the presence of Magas, until I saw him there; I was not thinking of him, until he stood beside the pillar within which I was concealed. It was on a sudden impulse that I acted. Lotis was beside me with her lute; we were both effectually concealed within one of those hollow, vaulted recesses used for emitting the more mysterious sounds of the deities, and which are known to so few that I felt myself doubly secure, when the sight of him who could not see me caused a rush of blood to my head; I gave Lotis a signal, which she obeyed, as thinking, perhaps, I had again a part in the performance as I used to have, and I sang, not of the muse, save as a thing of the past."
"I know you cannot believe in paganism again, Chione," said the lady solemnly; "it is not your head that is likely to be misled, at least not in the first instance. I fear your passions, not your understanding. The rush of blood was, methinks, to your heart, rather than to your head."
"Lady, I love my religion, or I should not have desired to leave the temple; I was honored there."
"Yes, Chione; and here you are not honored in a way that flatters your self-love; and that is why, after a year of trial, you seek the flattery of Magas, rather than the unimpassioned love of your Christian friends. Yet their love is less selfish, more sincere."
"It is cold, cold," muttered Chione. Aloud she said, "Madam, I dare assure you, my faith is as vivid now as it was a year ago."
"My poor child!" said the lady, laying her hand upon Chione's head, "go for to-night; another day, we will resume the subject. You are under the influence of passion at this moment; you know neither your own strength nor your own weakness; you scarcely know what you believe, what you doubt. Your passions are awakened, your self-love aroused, and perhaps wounded. These must be subdued; not by the exercise of the understanding, which is powerless against such formidable enemies; but by faith, which is the exercise of the heart in God; for with the heart man believeth unto justice. [Footnote 58] If, as you say, your faith is as vivid now as it was a year ago, go and exercise it in prayer, and I too will pray with you, my poor child, that our hearts may be fashioned after the pattern shown us in the mount."
[Footnote 58: Rom. x. 10.]
Poor Chione! the tenth muse! with every pulse palpitating to the inspirations of poetical and musical genius—a genius which in her panted for expression, and nourished itself at the shrine of self-love. Poor Chione! bred an orphan in the temple of the muses; gifted with more than ordinary powers of mind, which had been cultivated even by the residence which had been hers from infancy; endowed with grace, beauty, and intelligence; fostered by the praises of Magas, who, from being the patron of the beautiful and interesting child, had become the admirer of the still and ever increasing loveliness of the maiden. Poor Chione! The truths of Christianity unfolded to her by Merion, her uncle, also a slave, at a time when her understanding was about to reject the mockeries of a worship beautiful and fanciful indeed, but sustained by no interior power, appealing to no standard on which she could rely unhesitatingly, had taken hold of her imagination, had captivated her by their beauty, their coherence, their consistency. They were the realization of her fondest dreams, the filling up of the most beautiful pictures that her fancy had ever painted; they were a logical appeal to her understanding; and because they were all these, she adopted them, not beginning to comprehend the interior spirit, not fathoming even to the first degree, the mystery of the cross, that stumbling-block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks. [Footnote 59] Chione's understanding was Christ's, and her imagination also, because the metaphysical propositions of the apostle met her approval, and the poetry and imagery of the church claimed her admiration; but her heart seemed still untouched, her thoughts still centred in herself, her loves and her hatreds still found their source in human passion. She judged all things as yet by a mere outward, human standard; and the tragic scenes recounted in the Gospels but moved her in the same manner, though in a higher degree, as would a tragedy of Sophocles or Euripides. They excited her feelings to admiration, nay to adoration; but for the regulation of the dispositions of her heart, they were not yet brought into play.
[Footnote 59: I Cor. i. 23.]
In fact, she was disappointed in religion, although she did not confess her disappointment even to herself. Up to the time she had become a Christian, all things had ministered to her self-love. When, yielding to the preaching of Merion, (for such it was, although addressed to so limited an audience,) she had besought his intercession to be removed from a place where, as her years increased, her beauty and position as a slave exposed her to danger, she had counted on being appreciated by the society which she entered; and as she had heard of many slaves having been set free by the Christians on account of the esteem in which they were held, she, fancying herself a very superior being to the generality of slaves, (her beauty, grace, and genius having ever called forth such unqualified admiration,) could not but deem that she should soon be accounted well worthy of such an advantage. When, then, she found herself at the age of sixteen, secluded in the household of the Lady Damaris, treated kindly, but not specially indulged; when she saw that her mistress, far from deeming her a prodigy, seemed to find in her serious failings needing correction, and that a probation was deemed necessary ere allowing her to profess the faith; she was more hurt than she permitted to appear: and the seclusion to which she had committed herself, when requesting to be transferred from the muses' temple to the silence and retirement practised by the household of the Lady Damaris, weighed upon her spirit, for it gave no scope to the love of display which excited her genius to pleasurable expression. Her intellectual convictions, indeed, remained unchanged, but her heart sought other interests than those around her; and when it appeared that one after another of the slaves attached to the lady received their freedom, according as they demonstrated to the satisfaction of their mistress that they were likely to make a good use of it, but that no hint was ever given to herself that she might expect a like boon, she began to wax impatient, to tax her mistress with partiality, and finally to raise the question whether she had not a right to free herself from tyranny. Tyranny! The only restraint exercised in her regard was such as a tender mother's vigilance would deem necessary. She saw not that, at her years, the protection of the Lady Damaris was the greatest benefit this world could give her, accompanied as it was by genuine kindness, and an earnest desire to cultivate her heart and her understanding in the right direction.