Agellius

“ Cæcilius responded, as before, with sacred words which were new to Agellius: “ ‘Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fortitudinem; assument pennas, sicut aquilæ,’ ‘Sursum corda!’ you must soar, Agellius.”
“ ‘Sursum corda!’ ” answered he; “I know those words. They are old friends; where have I heard them? I can’t recollect; but they are in my earliest memories. Ah! but, my father, my heart is below, not above. I want to tell you all. I want to tell you about one who has enthralled my heart; who has divided it with my True Love. ”

“ When a collision arose on such matters between Agellius and his friends, Callista kept silence; but Aristo was not slow to express his wonder that the young Christian should think customs or practices wrong which, in his view of the matter, were as unblamable and natural as eating, drinking, or sleeping. His own face became almost satirical as Agellius’s became grave; however, he was too companionable and good-natured to force another to be happy in his own way ”

“ You profess to believe in One True God, and to reject every other; and now you are implying that the Hand, the Shadow of that God is on my mind and heart. Who is this God? where? how? in what? O Agellius, you have stood in the way of Him, ready to speak for yourself, using Him as a means to an end.”
“O Callista,” said Agellius, in an agitated voice, when he could speak, “do my ears hear aright? do you really wish to be taught who the true God is?” ”

“ On Agellius’s entering the room, Aristo was pacing to and fro in some discomposure; however, he ran up to his friend, embraced him, and, looking at him with significance, congratulated him on his good looks. “There is more fire in your eye,” he said, “dear Agellius, and more eloquence in the turn of your lip, than I have ever yet seen. A new spirit is in you. So you are determined to come out of your solitude? That you should have been able to exist in it so long is the wonderment to me.”
[pg 125] Agellius had recovered himself, yet he dared not look again on Callista. ”

“ Agellius took the tablets, and went with them across the road to the place where Cæcilius was at work, in appearance a slave. The letter ran thus:—“Jucundus to Agellius. I trust you are well enough to move; you are not safe for many days in your cottage; there is a rising this morning against the Christians, and you may be visited. Unless you are ambitious of Styx and Tartarus, follow the boy without [pg 201] questioning.” Agellius showed the letter to the priest. ”

“ Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows:—
“I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. ”

“ Thus adjured, Agellius began. “Well,” he said, [pg 248] “it’s a long history; you see, we start, my dear uncle, from different points. How am I possibly to join issue with you? I can only tell you my conclusion. Hope and life, you say. Why, my only hope, my only life, my only joy, desire, consolation, and treasure is that I am a Christian.”
“Hope and life!” interrupted Jucundus, “immortal gods! life and hope in being a Christian! do I hear aright? Why, man, a prison brings despair, not hope; and the sword brings death, not life. By Esculapius! life and hope! you choke me, Agellius. ”

“ He defied [pg 255] any two young people who loved each other, to come to any but one conclusion. Agellius’s mood was too excited, too tragic to last. The sight of Callista in that dreadful prison, perhaps in chains, waiting, in order to be free, for ability to say the words, “I am not a Christian;” and that ability waiting for the same words from himself, would bring the affair to a very speedy issue. As if he could love a fancy better than he loved Callista! Agellius, too, had already expressed a misgiving himself on that head ”

“ This lodged him in medias res; and Agellius’s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it.
“My dear Agellius,” said Jucundus, “it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. ”

“ You’ll be quite the talk of the place.”
“That’s just what I don’t want to be,” said Agellius. “I mean to say,” he continued, “that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista—”
“Of course, of course,” interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius’s human respect; “but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I’ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. ”

“ Those who are shut up in crowded cities see but the work of man, which is evil. It is the compensation of my flight from Carthage that I am brought before the face of God.”
“The heathen worship all this, as if God Himself,” said Agellius; “how strange it seems to me that any one can forget the Creator in His works!”
Cæcilius was silent for a moment, and sighed; he then said, “You have ever been a Christian, Agellius.”
“And you have not, my father?” answered he; “well, you have earned that grace which came to me freely.”
“Agellius,” said the priest, “it comes freely to all ”

“ Nay, not a few of their mystic or esoteric class have conformed.”
“If so, unless Agellius looks sharp,” said Jucundus, “his sect will give him up before he gives up his sect. Christianity will be converted before him.”
“Oh, don’t fear for him!” said Arnobius; “I knew him at school. Boys differ; some are bold and open. They like to be men, and to dare the deeds of men; they talk freely, and take their swing in broad day. Others are shy, reserved, bashful, and are afraid to do what they love quite as much as the others. Agellius never could rub off this shame, and it has taken this turn. ”

“ And then again, how do you know you would wish it? Is your will simply in your own power? ‘Carpe diem;’ take God’s gift while you can.”
“The benefit is so immense,” answered Agellius, “that one would wish, if one could, to enter into the unseen world without losing its fulness. This cannot be, if a long time elapses between baptism and death.”
“You are, then, of the number of those,” said Cæcilius, “who would cheat their Maker of His claim on their life, provided they could (as it is said) in their last moment cheat the devil.” ”

“ He learned much of the history of foreign countries, especially of Greece, of its heroes and sages, its poets and its statesmen, of [pg 95] Alexander, of the Syro-Macedonic empire, of the Jews, and of the series of conquests through which Rome advanced to universal dominion.
To impart knowledge is as interesting as to acquire it; and Agellius was called upon to give as well as to take. The brother and sister, without showing any great religious earnestness, were curious to know about Christianity, and listened with the more patience that they had no special attachment to any other worship. ”

“ And he does so, not only from a sense of duty, but the more assiduously, because he finds in constant employment a protection against himself, against idle thoughts, wayward wishes, discontent, and despondency. It is doubtless very strange to the reader how any one who professed himself a Christian in good earnest should be open to the imputation of resting his hopes and his heart in the tents of paganism; but we do not see why Agellius has not quite as much right to be inconsistent in one way as Christians of the present time in another, and perhaps he has more to say for himself than they. ”

“ He then proceeded to give him the necessary instructions. “Walk out,” he said, “along the road to Thibursicumbur to the third milestone, [pg 203] you will come to a country road; pursue it; walk a thousand steps; then again for the space of seven paternosters; and then speak to the man upon your right hand. And now away with you, God speed you, we shall not long be parted,” and he made the sign of the cross over him.
“That old chap gives himself airs,” said the boy, when Agellius joined him; “what may he be? one of your slaves, Agellius?” ”

“ I must prepare you, and send you back to Sicca, to collect and restore this scattered flock.”
Agellius turned, and leaned against the priest’s shoulder, and laughed. “I am laughing,” he said, “not from lightness of mind, but from the depth of surprise and of joy that you should so think of me. It was a dream which once I had; but impossible! you do not think that I, weak I, shall ever be able to do more than save my own soul?”
“You will save your own soul by saving the souls of others,” said Cæcilius ”

“ Arnobius says your father was a Christian.”
“Father and son are not always the same religion now-a-days,” said Agellius.
“Ay, ay,” answered Firmian, “but the Christians came from Egypt: and as cook there is the son of cook, and soldier is son of soldier, so Christian, take my word for it, is the son of a Christian.”
“Christians boast, I believe,” answered Agellius, “that they are of no one race or country, but are [pg 204] members of a large unpatriotic family, whose home is in the sky.”
“Christians,” answered the boy, “would never have framed the great Roman empire ”

“ Agellius to the lions! To the farm of Varius—to the cottage of Agellius—to the south-west gate!” A sudden yell burst forth from the vast multitude when the voice ceased. The impulse had been given as at the first; the tide of human beings ebbed and retreated, and, licking the base of the hill, rushed [pg 198] vehemently on one side, and roared like a torrent towards the south-west. Juba, thy prophecy is soon to be fulfilled! The locusts will bring more harm on thy brother’s home than imperial edict or local magistrate. The decline of day will hardly prevent the visitation. ”

“ I cannot exist without something to rest upon. I cannot fall back upon that drear, forlorn state, which philosophers call wisdom, and moralists call virtue. I cannot enrol myself a votary of that cold Moon, whose arrows do but freeze me. I cannot sympathize in that majestic band of sisters whom Rome has placed under the tutelage of Vesta. I must have something to love; love is my life. Why do you come to me, Agellius, with your every-day gallantry. ”

“ On this Agellius, who was slowly making his way past them on the broken and steep path, leapt up in two or three steps to the ridge, and went away in security; when one woman cried out, “O the toad, I know him now; he is a wizard; he eats little children; didn’t you see him make that sign? it’s a charm. My sister did it; the fool left me to be one of them. She was ever doing so” (mimicking the sign of the cross) . “He’s a Christian, blight him! he’ll turn us into beasts.”
“Cerberus, bite him!” said another, “he sucks blood;” ”

“ The mind shrinks from such a sacrifice, and demands that, as [pg 123] religion enjoins it, religion should sanction and bless it. It instinctively desires that either the bond should be dissoluble, or that the subjects of it should be sacramentally strengthened to maintain it. “So help me God,” the formula of every oath, is emphatically necessary here.
But Agellius is contemplating a superhuman engagement without superhuman assistance ”

“ As the light makes her at length quite visible to the youth on the other side, who stands by himself with clasped hands and tearful eyes, he shrinks from the sight. He turns round to his companions who are provided with a large winding-sheet or pall, and with the help of one of them, to the surprise of the populace, he spreads it all over the body. And having done this, he stands again trembling, just for a few seconds, absorbed in his meditations, praying and [pg 374] weeping, and nerving himself for what is to follow. Ah, poor Agellius! you have not risen yet to the pitch of triumph ”

“ And stand in beauty undecayed,
Guards of the bold and free.” “A lower flight, if you please, just now,” said Aristo, interrupting her. “I do really wish a serious word with you about Agellius. He’s a fellow I can’t help liking, in spite of his misanthropy. Let me plead his cause. Like him or not yourself, still he has a full purse; and you will do a service to yourself and to the gods of Greece, and to him too, if you will smile on him. Smile on him at least for a time; we will go to Carthage when you are tired. His looks have very little in them of a Christian left ”

“ Jucundus was touched, and still more alarmed. “Come, come, my boy,” he said, “you will rouse the whole neighbourhood. Give over; be a man; all will be right. If she’s not a Christian (and she’s not) , she shall not die a Christian’s death; something will turn up. She’s not in any hole at all, but in a decent lodging. And you shall see her, and console her, and all will be right.”
“Yes, I will see her,” said Agellius, in a sort of musing manner; “she is either a Christian, or she is not. If she is a Christian ...” ”