Caecilius answered, "But how could you promise yourself that you would be able to obtain the sacrament at the last moment? The water and the administrator might come just too late; and then where would you be, my son? And then again, how do you know you would wish it? Is your will simply in your own power? 'Carpe diem;' take G.o.d'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 Caecilius, "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."

Agellius continuing silent, Caecilius added, "You want to enjoy this world, and to inherit the next; is it so?"

"I am puzzled, my head is weak, father; I do not see my way to speak."

Presently he said, "Sin after baptism is so awful a matter; there is no second laver for sin; and then again, to sin against baptism is so great a sin."

The priest said, "In baptism G.o.d becomes your Father; your own G.o.d; your worship; your love-can you give up this great gift all through your life?

Would you live 'without G.o.d in this world'?"

Tears came into Agellius's eyes, and his throat became oppressed. At last he said, distinctly and tenderly, "No."

After a while the priest said, "I suppose what you fear is the fire of judgment, and the prison; not lest you should fall away and be lost."

"I know, my dear father," answered the sick youth, "that I have no right to reckon on anything, or promise myself anything; yet somehow I have never feared h.e.l.l-though I ought, I know I ought; but I have not. I deserve the worst, but somehow I have thought that G.o.d would lead me on.

He ever has done so."

"Then you fear the fire of judgment," said Caecilius; "you'd put off baptism for fear of that fire."

"I did not say I _would_," answered Agellius; "I wanted _you_ to explain the thing to me."

"Which would you rather, Agellius, be without G.o.d here, or suffer the fire there?"

Agellius smiled; he said faintly, "I take Him for my portion here _and_ there: _He_ will be in the fire with me."

Agellius lay quiet for some hours, and seemed asleep. Suddenly he began again, "I was baptized when I was only six years old. I'm glad you do not think it was wilful in me, and wrong. I cannot tell what took me," he presently continued. "It was a fervour; I have had nothing of the kind since. What does our Lord say? I can't remember: 'Novissima pejora prioribus.' "

He continued the train of thought another day, or rather the course of his argument; for on the thought itself his mind seemed ever to be working.

"My spring is gone," he said, "and I have no summer. Nay, I have had no spring; it was a day, not a season. It came, and it went; where am I now?

Can spring ever return? I wish to begin again in right earnest."

"Thank G.o.d, my son, for this great mercy," said Caecilius, "that, though you have relaxed, you have never severed yourself from the peace of the Church, you have not denied your G.o.d."

Agellius sighed bitterly. "O my father," he said, " 'Erravi, sicut ovis quae periit.' I have been very near denying Him, at least by outward act.

You do not know me; you cannot know what has come on me lately. And I dare not look back on it, my heart is so weak. My father, how am I to repent of what is past, when I dare not think of it? To think of it is to renew the sin."

" 'Puer meus, noli timere,' " answered the priest; " 'si transieris per ignem, odor ejus non erit in te.' In penance, the grace of G.o.d carries you without harm through thoughts and words which _would_ harm you apart from it."

"Ah, penance!" said Agellius; "I recollect the catechism. What is it, father? a new grace, I know; a plank after baptism. May I have it?"

"You are not strong enough yet to think of these things, Agellius,"

answered Caecilius. "Please G.o.d, you shall get well. Then you shall review all your life, and bring it out in order before Him; and He, through me, will wipe away all that has been amiss. Praise Him who has spared you for this."

It was too much for the patient in his weak state; he could but shed happy tears.

Another day he had sat up in bed. He looked at his hands, from which the skin was peeling; he felt his lips, and it was with them the same; and his hair seemed coming off also. He smiled and said, "Renovabitur, ut aquila, juventus mea."

Caecilius responded, as before, with sacred words which were new to Agellius: " 'Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fort.i.tudinem; a.s.sument pennas, sicut aquilae,' '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. But I daren't speak of her, as I have said; I dare not speak, lest I be carried away. O, I blush to say it; she is a heathen! May G.o.d save her soul! Will He come to me, and not to her? 'Investigabiles viae ejus.' "

He remained silent for some time; then he said, "Father, I mean to dedicate myself to G.o.d, simply, absolutely, with His grace. I will be His, and He shall be mine. No one shall come between us. But O this weak heart!"

"Keep your good resolves till you are stronger," said the priest. "It is easy to make them on a sick-bed. You must first reckon the charges."

Agellius smiled. "I know the pa.s.sage, father," he said, and he repeated the sacred words: "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."

Another time Agellius said: "The Martyrs; surely the old bishop used to say something about the Martyrs. He spoke of a second baptism, and called it a baptism of blood; and said, 'Might his soul be with the Martyrs!'

Father, would not this wash out every thing, as the first?"

It was now Caecilius who smiled, and his eyes shone like the sapphires of the Holy City; and he seemed the ideal of him who, when

"Called upon to face Some awful moment to which heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover, and attired With sudden brightness, like a man inspired."

However, he soon controlled himself, and said, "Quo ego vado, non potes me modo sequi; sequeris autem postea."

CHAPTER XIV.

A SMALL CLOUD.

This sort of intercourse, growing in frequency and fulness, went on for about a week, till Agellius was able to walk with support, and to leave the cottage. The priest and his own slave took him between them, and seated him one evening in sight of the glorious prospect, traversed by the long shadow of the far mountains, behind which the sun was making its way.

The air was filled with a thousand odours; the brilliant colouring of the western heavens was contrasted with the more sober but varied tints of the rich country. The wheat and barley harvest was over; but the beans were late, and still stood in the fields. The olives and chestnut-trees were full of fruit; the early fig was supplying the markets with food; and the numerous vineyards were patiently awaiting the suns of the next month slowly to perfect their present promise. The beautiful scene had a moral dignity, from its a.s.sociations with human sustenance and well-being. The inexpressible calmness of evening was flung, like a robe, over it. Its sweetness was too much for one who had been confined to the monotony of a sick-room, and was still an invalid. He sat silent, and in tears. It was life from the dead; and he felt he had risen to a different life. And thus he came out evening after evening convalescent, gradually and surely advancing to perfect restoration of his health.

One evening he said, after feeding his eyes and thoughts for some time with the prospect, " 'Mansueti hereditabunt terram.' They alone have real enjoyment of this earth who believe in its Maker. Every breath of air seems to whisper how good He is to me."

Caecilius answered, "These sights are the shadows of that fairer Paradise which is our home, where there is no beast of prey, no venomous reptile, no sin. My child, should _I_ not feel this more than you? 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 G.o.d."

"The heathen worship all this, as if G.o.d Himself," said Agellius; "how strange it seems to me that any one can forget the Creator in His works!"

Caecilius 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; and is only merited when it has already prevailed. Yet I think you earned it too, else why the difference between you and your brother?"

"What do you know of us?" asked Agellius quickly.

"Not a great deal," answered he, "yet something. Three or four years back an effort was made to rekindle the Christian spirit in these parts, and to do something for the churches of the proconsulate, and to fill up the vacant sees. Nothing has come of it as yet; but steps were taken towards it: one was to obtain a recovery of the Christians who remained in them. I was sent here for that purpose, and in this way heard of you and your brother. When my life was threatened by the persecution, and I had to flee, I thought of your cottage. I was obliged to act secretly, as we did not know friends from foes."

"You were led here for other purposes towards _me_, my father," said Agellius; "yet you cannot have a safer refuge. There is nothing to disturb, nothing to cause suspicion here. In this harvest time numbers of strangers pour in from the mountains, of various races; there is nothing to distinguish you from one of them, and my brother is away convoying some grain to Carthage. Persecution drove you hither, but you have not been suffered to be idle, my father, you have brought home a wanderer." He added, after a pause, "I am well enough to go to confession to you now.