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

arn other considerations involved in the id i
hardly interest you at piv
" And yet, when you stated that pj
so monstrous. BO absurd, that pride nud an
I>o you remember tiiat. S;
"Oh, no, no !" replied the gentle servant ;
Tin: CHURCH (>!' Tin: >//,'.v. 27
would
'
forae
"do not allude to
it, I pray !"
"
Have you forgiven me that day,
with an emotion quite new to her.
The poor
Syra ?" said the mistress,
inaid was overpowered. She, rose and threw h
on her knees before her mistress, and tried to seize her luind ;
but she prevented her, and, for the first time iu her life, Fabiola
threw herself upon a slave's neck, and wept.
Her passion of tears was long and tender. Her heart was
1
getting above her intellect and this ;
can only be by itsi
ing softness. At length she grew calm ; and as she withdrew
l>er embrace she said :
" One thing more, Syra : dare one address, by worship, this
whom you have described to me? Is He not too great,
for this ?"
i'ty, too distant,
"Oh.no! far from it, noble lady," answered the servant.
" He is not distant from any of us for ; as much as in the light
of the sun, so in the very splendor of His might, His kindness,
and His wisdom, we live and move and have our being. Hence,
one may address Him, not as far off, but as around us and within
us, while we are in Him and He hears us not ;
with ears, but
our words drop at once into Hia very bosom, and the desires
of our hearts pass directly into the divine abyss of His."
"
But," pursued Fabiola, somewhat "
timidly, is there no
great act of acknowledgment, such as sacrifice is supposed to
be, whereby He may be formally recognized and adored ?"
Syra hesitated, for the conversation seemed to be trenching
upon mysterious and sacred ground, never opened by the
Church to profane foot. She, however, answered in a simple
and general affirmative.
" And could not I," still more humbly asked her mistress,
" be so far instructed in your school, as to be able to perform
this sublimer act of homage ?"
" I fear not, noble Fabiola one must needs obtain a Victim
worthy of the Deity."
" Ah, yes ! to be sure," answered Fabiola. " A bull may
be good enough for Jupiter, or a goat for Bacchus ! but where
e found a sacrifice worthy of Him, whom you have
brought me to know ?"
" It must indeed be one every way worthy of Him, spotless
in purity, matchless in greatness, unbounded in acceptable-
" And what can that be, Syra ?'
imposed, the watchfulness which it
"
Only Himself."
hale old man, courteously received her, and inquired K
Fabiola shrouded her face with her hands, and then after her
looking father, asking if the report were true that he w:i
up earnestly into Syra's face, said to her : ing shortly to Asia. At this Fabiola seemed grieved auu m
I am sure that, after having so clearly described to me the ned f r ne bad not mentioned his intention to i her. Ch
the uii
'lit to lie 1.
1
s of it which s-i
m tli at she
oat the beautiful theory.
,. tViiiii the
'
ilikeabri
lamp in the midst of 8
up only a wilderness. What was the use of so much wasted
splendor V
The next morning had been fixed for one of those visits *
used to be annually paid to the country, thai, .\v cs-
! of tlin
city, ChromutiuB. On
that after his conversion and re;
trate had retired io his villa in Campania, i
a number of the converts made 1 >y
priest Polycarp, to complete tl; . Of
t'ue
cumstances, of course, Fabiola :
she heard all sorts of curious reports about OJXromatius's
It was said that he had a number of visitors ui, , seen
at his house ; that he gave no uents ; that he hod
freed all his country slaves, but that many of I
ferred remaining with him ;
that if numerous, the \
ment seeemed very happy, though no boisterous;
pre-
frolicsome meetings seemed to be indulged iu. All this stimu-
lated Fabiola's curiosity, in addition to her wish to <
to a most kind f i
pleasing duty of courtesy
and she longed to see, with her o\v:
hood ;
to her to be a veiy Platonic, or, as we should say, U t
experiment.
In a light country carriage, with good horses. Fabiola si
early, and dashed gaily along tli ross the "]
Campania." An autumnal shower had laid the 'lust, u.ix!
ded with glistening gems the garlands of vine which boi <
the way, festooned, instead of hedges, from tree t"
was not long before she reached the gentle acclivity, for i;
could scarcely be called, covered with box, arbutus, an. i
rels, relieved by tall tapering cypresses, amidst which shon
the white walls of the large villa on the summit. A cl
she perceived, had taken place, which at first she cou'd n
actly define; but when she had passed through the
number of empty pedestals and niches reminded her, tli;
villa had entirely lost one of its most characteristic orna
the number of beautiful statues which stood grae
against the clipped evergreen hedges, and gave it the i
now become quite an empty one, of Ad A'tatuaa.*
Chromatius, whom she had last seen limping with gout.
deep sense of responsibility, under arhieh you must ti'tB
habitually hoped it might be a false alarm, and asked her to t
speak as well as act, you have a real meaning in this awful stroll about the
say-
grounds. She ;' u kept with the same
ing, though I understand "
you not. care as ever, full of beautiful plants; but still much m;
'
As surely as every word of mine is heard, as ^he 1