"And what do you think can be done for Chione, my child?" asked the good bishop one day.
"I do not know, father, (so let me call you, I beg;) I do not know; but I understand her struggle now, which I did not when I sat with her on the ruins; I see what she meant when she could not give up Magas, or the applause of the world. She dreaded slavery because she was not free in soul. Would I could win the interior freedom for her by wearing the exterior chain. Father, let me beg Chione's freedom, bodily freedom; hers is not a spirit to be coerced into discipline. Surveillance only exasperates her."
"I believe it, my child, when it is not of her own choosing. Remember, however, she obeys Magas."
"Because he flatters her, fosters her pride, and maintains her in her station; besides, she loves him, and a woman easily obeys where she loves."
"She has bound herself to follow Christ."
"But she does not feel free to do it. Perhaps, were exterior freedom granted to her, she might follow what she knows to be truth. I shall never forget her appearance in the ruins of Tiryns when first I accosted her. Chione has not lost her faith."
"Faith without works is dead," [Footnote 23] said the bishop; "for works are the expression of our love, of that divine charity without which we are nothing. [Footnote 24] Though we speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, we become as sounding brass or tinkling cymbals."
[Footnote 23: James ii. 20.]
[Footnote 24: I Cor. xiii. I, 2.]
"Chione knows this," said Lotis; "she feels it intensely; it is this feeling which occasions the struggle which she says is destroying her."