'I am a poor, miserable wretch, whom God may forgive, because his compassions never fail, but who has no claim on his mercy, and will be content to sit hereafter where he shall but just catch, now and then, a glimpse of the righteous.'

'I must speak my thoughts, not yours, Isaac. This all agrees with what we have known of you; and, with all our hearts, you have our thanks. But we are bound to this place by ties stronger than any that bind us to life, and must not depart.'

'Say not so! Lady, speak! Why should ye remain to add to the number that must fall? Rank will not stand in the way of Aurelian.'

'That we know well, Isaac,' said Julia. 'We should not look for any shield such as that to protect us, nor for any other. Life is not the chief thing, Isaac. What is life, without liberty? Would you live, a slave? and is not he the meanest slave, who bends his will to another? who renounces the thoughts he dearly cherishes for another's humor? Who will beggar the soul, to save, or serve, the body?'

'Alas, princess, I fear there is more courage in thee, woman as thou art, than in this old frame! I love my faith, too, princess, and I labor for it in my way; but, may the God of Abraham spare me the last trial! And wouldst thou give up thy body to the tormentors and the executioner, to keep the singleness of thy mind, so that merely a few little thoughts, which no man can see, may run in and out of it, as they list?'

'Even so, Isaac.'

'It is wonderful,' exclaimed the Jew, 'what a strength there is in man! how, for an opinion, which can be neither bought, nor sold, nor weighed, nor handled, nor seen—a thing, that, by the side of lands, and gold, and houses, seems less than the dust of the balance—men and women, yea, and little children, will suffer and die; when a word, too, which is but a little breath blown out of the mouth, would save them!'

'But, it is no longer wonderful,' said Julia, 'when we look at our whole selves, and not only at one part. We are all double, one part, of earth, another, of heaven; one part, gross body, the other, etherial spirit; one part, life of the body, the other, life of the soul. Which of these parts is the better, it is not hard to determine. Should I gain much by defiling the heavenly, for the sake of the earthly? by injuring the mind, for the preservation of the body; by keeping longer the life I live now, but darkening over the prospect of the life that is hereafter? If I possess a single truth, which I firmly believe to be a truth, I cannot say that it is a lie, for the sake of some present benefit or deliverance, without fixing a stain thereby, not on the body, which by and by perishes, but on the soul, which is immortal; and which would then forever bear about with it the unsightly spot.'

'It is so; it is as you say, lady; and rarely has the Jew been known to deny his name and his faith. Since you have spoken, I find thoughts called up which have long slept. Despise me not, for my proposal, yet I would there were a way of escape! Flight now, would not be denial, or apostacy.'

'It would not,' said Julia. 'And we may not judge with harshness those whose human courage fails them under the apprehension of the sufferings which often await the persecuted. But, with my convictions, and Piso's, the guilt and baseness of flight or concealment would be little less than that of denial or apostacy. We have chosen this religion for its divine truth, and its immortal prospects; we believe it a good which God has sent to us; we believe it the most valuable possession we hold; we believe it essential to the world's improvement and happiness. Believing it thus, we must stand by it; and, if it come to this—as I trust in Heaven it will not, notwithstanding the darkness of the portents—that our regard for it will be questioned except we die for it—then we will die.'