'No, Demetrius, I cannot go; but I should not blame you for going. Rome is no place, I agree with you, for the life contemplative, or for the pure and innocent labors of art. It is the spot for intense action; but—'
'Suffering you mean—'
'That too, most assuredly, but of action too. It is the great heart of the world.'
'Black as Erebus and night.'
'Yes, but still a great one, which, if it can be once made to beat true, will send its blood, then a pure and life-giving current, to the remotest extremities of the world, which is its body. I hope for the time to come when this will be true. There is more goodness in Rome, Demetrius, than you have heard, or known of. There is a people here worth saving: I, with the other Christians, am set to this work. We must not abandon it.'
''Twill be small comfort though, should you all perish doing it.'
'Our perishing might be but the means of new and greater multitudes springing up to finish what we had begun, but left incomplete. There is great life in death. Blood, spilled upon the ground, is a kind of seed that comes up men. Truth is not extinguished by putting out life. It then seems to shine the more brightly, as if the more to cheer and comfort those who are suffering and dying for it.'
'That may, or may not be,' said the artist, 'here and there; but, in my judgment, if this man-slayer, this world-butcher once fastens his clutches upon your tribe, he will leave none to write your story. How many were left in Palmyra?—Just, Piso, resume your point of observation, and judge whether this fold of the drapery were better as it is, or joined to the one under it, an alteration easily made.'
I gave him my opinion, and he went on filing and talking.
'And now, Piso, if I must tell you, I have conceived a liking for you Christians, and it is for this reason partly I would have you set about to escape the evil that is at least threatened. Here is my brother, whose equal the world does not hold, is become a Christian. Then, do you know, here is a family, just in the rear of our shop, of one Macer, a Christian and a preacher, that has won upon us strangely. I see much of them. Some of his boys are in a room below, helping on by their labor the support of their mother and those who are younger, for I trow, Macer himself does little for them, whatever he may be doing for the world at large, or its great heart as you call it. But, what is more still,' cried he with emphasis, and a jump at the same moment, throwing down his tools, 'do you know the Christians have some sense of what is good in our way? they aspire to the elegant, as well as others who are in better esteem.'