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164 DARKNESS AND DAWN
Britanuicus was astonished at, their numbers. He was quite
unaware that a religion so strange a religion of yesterday,
whose founder had perished in Palestine little more than
twenty years before already numbered such a multitude of
adherents in the imperial city.
Clemens whispered to him
that this was but one congregation, and represented only a
fraction of the entire number of believers in Rome, who formed
a multitude which no single room could have accommodated.
He told him, further, that though the Jewish and the Eomau
or, as they call them, the Gentile converts formed a
common brotherhood, only separated from each other by a few
national observances, they usually worshipped at Rome in
separate communities.
If Britanuicus was surprised by the numbers of the Christians,
he was still more surprised by their countenances. The majority
were slaves, whose native home was Greece or Asia. Their
faces bore the stamp which had been fixed on them by years
of toil and hardship ;
but even on the worn features of the
aged there was something of the splendour and surprise of the
divine secret. The young prince saw that they were in
possession of something more divine than the world could
understand. For the first time he beheld not one or two only,
who had felt the
but a blessed company of faithful people
peace of God which passeth all understanding.
The children also rilled him with admiration. He had seen
lovely slaves in multitudes there were
;
throngs of them in the
Palace and in the houses of men like Otho and Petronius.
But their beauty was the beauty of the flesh alone. How7 little
did it
resemble the sweet and sacred innocence which brightened
the eyes of these boys and girls who had been brought
up in the shelter of Christian homes !
But he was struck most of all with the youths. How many
Roman youths had he seen who had been trained in wealthy
households, in whom had been fostered from childhood every
evil impulse of pride and passion He ! daily saw the young
men who were the special favourites of his brother Nero.
Many of them had inherited the haughty beauty of patrician
generations but
; luxury and wine had left their marks upon
them, and if they had been set side by side with these, whose
features glowed with health and purity and self-control, how
would the pallid faces of those dandies have looked like a