at once receive from this view of his relation to his Maker! How unlike the repulsive indifference of the stoic's doctrine seemed the Christian's! He began already to feel, what Fielding has so eloquently expressed in the following comparison between philosophy and religion, "Philosophy makes us wiser, but Christianity makes us better men; Philosophy elevates and steels the mind; Christianity softens and sweetens it. The former makes us the objects of human admiration; the latter of divine love. That ensures us a temporal, but this an eternal happiness."

St. Paul, after having given Pudens such instruction as circumstances allowed, promised to send him a teacher, who would explain the subject more fully to him; and accordingly on the morrow he was visited by a pale, studious looking young man, whose fervent spirit had, as it appeared, almost out-worn its weakly integument. His new teacher's knowledge, was not so varied as that of the intellectual Apostle; nor when he spoke on the glorious mysteries of the Christian religion, did he speak with that rapturous enthusiasm, which characterized the conversa

tion of the half glorified saint; but there was something singularly sublime and spiritual in his manner, which bespoke a mind unsullied, by the sordid, sensual pursuits of mankind; as though his thoughts and affections could derive no sustenance from things below. He was one to whom we might apply the expression of his master, not of the earth earthy.' Under the tuition of the pure-lived Timothy-. for him we have been describing-Pudens made rapid progress in divine lore; although he did not give immediate assent to the supernatural truths of Christianity, nor, indeed at once acquiesce in the propriety of all its

tenets.

There were some things, it must be acknowledged, which he heard with repugnance; and many at which he felt not slightly offended. Among the first was the subservience of reason to faith; which, until better instructed, he presumptuously called the preference of ignorance to knowledge. Again, he was greatly offended at that mysterious change in the very views and motives of human actions which was demanded; and which, he mistakingly said, was abrogating the office of conscience, as though

one should say, that correcting the aberrations of the needle, by astronomical calculations, is superseding the use of the compass! Another objection which he made to the Christian religion was its uncompromising nature, which, he observed, seemed incompatible with such a mixed state as the present, where so many claims divide the heart; and, he added, not discordant claims either. But what disgusted him more than all was the self-renunciation which it enjoined.

"After doing," said he, "what appears to me almost impossible; am I to have no merit for it? When Cicero foiled Catiline he boasted of it till his hearers were tired of the name of Catiline; but if I were to foil a hundred Catilines I should not, I suppose, be allowed to take any glory for my pains!"

These objections were combated by Timothy; but he was not wholly successful in removing them nor, perhaps, would Pudens have been so easily induced to renounce his beloved Platonism for self-denying Christianity, had it not been that Timothy, being unacquainted with the Greek philosophy, thought it advisable to send some person, who was familiar with it, to institute an impartial comparison

between it and the new religion, that his disciple might choose for himself. The readers may imagine Pudens's surprise on finding that the person selected for this high and important purpose, was-his volatile friend Linus!

CHAPTER XIII.

-Linus hæc illi.

VIRG.

PUDENS could hardly recognise his old friend, when he beheld, instead of the gay, the sanguine, the frivolous and dissipated Linus, a simple, sober, persecuted Christian ! His countenance expressed cheerfulness, but not levity; and his manner displayed a graceful animation, rather than a vaunting vehemence. There was nothing gloomy or ascetic in his demeanour; nothing repulsive or pharisaical in his address; but, as though unconscious of the change, which rendered him so unlike what he was, he advanced to salute Pudens with a most affectionate cordiality, which completely re-established their former friendship. The train of events which had led Linus to embrace Christianity was rather singular, and is not, perhaps, unworthy of being related.