Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

1 'with creepers, led to the baths on tin "'1 half w;iy
i
down was an oprni'i;; mi a
by the gusli, from nn oiit-cTopping r< nt it.
'" ii> '
:
'
!ly net
would
apparently solid lu. gr;tnd
flight of virtuous da
moral truth, or a more piv;:
whom she had long admired proposed iu1!
uthnrs
-lie by any
of wit; nor did
thought, or superiori i.
of this in Syra's word:?, ideas, and !
and doctrines which she was reading nor,, !y new
to her. But there seemed to be in her maid's m latent
but infallible standard of truth, some master-]
ed equally every closed deposit of moral kuov, i-
attuned chord, which vibrated in unfailing i
was just and right, but jnpgled in uiss;< '
was wrong, vicious or even inaccurate. Win*'
she wanted to discover; it was more like an intuition, than any-
thing she had before witnessed. She was not yet
in :i condition
to learn, that the meanest and least in the Kingdom of
Heaven (and what lower than a slave?) was greater in spiritual
wisdom, intellectual light, and heavenly privi!e.^i 8, thai
the Baptist Precursor. *
It was on a delicious morning in October, that, reclining bj
the spring, the mistress and slave were occupied in reading ;
when the former, wearied by the heaviness of the volume, looked
for something lighter and newer and ; drawing out a manu-
script from her casket, said :
" Syra, put that stupid book down. Here is something, I
am told, very amusing, and only just come out. It will i <
to both of us. "
The handmaid did as she was told, looked at the title of the
proposed volume, and blushed. She glanced over the fir
lines, and her fears were confirmed. She saw that it was one
of those trashy works, which were freely allowed to circulate, as
St. Justin complained, though grossly immoral, and n:.
light of all virtue ; while every Christian writing was suppressed,
or as much as possible discountenanced. She put
down the book with a calm resolution, and said :
"Do not, my good mistress, ask me to read to yon from
that book. It is fit neither for me to recite, nor for you to
hear."
Fabiola was astonished. She had never heard, or
thought, of such a thing as restraint put upon In
What in our days would be looked upon as unfit for co>
perusal, formed part of current and fashionable literature.
From Horace to Ausonius, all classical writers d-
this. And what rule of virtue could have made that reading
seem indelicate, which only described by the pen a system of
morals, which the pencil and the chisel made hourly visi '
to love a slave. And she had also discovered a second evidence,
that there wax such a thing in the world as disinterested love,
affection that asked for no return.
Her conversation with her slave, after the memorable one
which we have recounted, had satisfied her that she had received
a superior education. She was too delicate to question her on
her early history, especially as masters often had young slaves
every eye? Fabiola had no higher standard of right and wrong
than the system, under which she had been educated could give
her.
'What possible harm can it do either of us ?" she EM
"
smiling. I have no doubt, there are plenty of foul crimi
wicked actions described in the book but it will not ;
indii
to commit them. And,
highly educated to enhance their value. But she soon discovered
that she read Greek and Latin authors with ease and ele-
in the meantime, it is amusing to read
them of others."
"Would you yourself, for any consideration do them ?''
"Not for the world."
"Yet, as you hear them rend, their image must occupy your
mind; as they amuse you, your thoughts must dwell upon them
with pleasure."
"
Certainly. What then ?"
" That image is foulness, that thought ie
" How is tint -: po: ihle ? Does not wickedness reqn.'
action, to have any existei:
"True, my mistress and what is ;
the action of the mind, of
Matt. lii. 11.