“I am amazed—and can it be?—
—Oh mockery of heaven!”
SUCKLING.
Unconscious of her danger, because unconscious of the vast influence the
Hebrew captive held over her mind and affections, Lucia Claudia, though
aware of his hatred to Christianity, did not know that in communicating
to him the fact that she was a catechumen (as those persons were called
who had put themselves under a course of instruction previous to their
Christian baptism) she would risk the loss of that faith which seemed
then so precious to her soul.
Adonijah listened to her recital in gloomy silence; nothing but his
intention of learning, through her, the secret places of meeting in
which the Christians celebrated their Sabbath made him hear her story to
the end. More than once he rent his clothes, and struck his forehead or
smote upon his breast, while his countenance expressed grief,
indignation, and mortification; but when she announced to him that she
was a candidate for baptism, he fixed his eyes upon her face, and with a
start of horror turned away; then looked at her again, at the same time
uttering a cry that thrilled to the soul of Lucia Claudia. She stood
trembling before him, not daring to contend with the emotion that shook
the frame of her lover.
“The glory, the glory has departed from my head,” cried Adonijah; “the
daughter of the stranger who came to put her trust in the covenant, she
who put her trust in Jehovah, has revolted from Him. Ruth the Moabitess
clave to Him in spirit, but Lucia Claudia has apostatized from her God.”
Then Adonijah threw dust upon his head, and rent his garments in the
vehemence of his sorrow.
“Hear me, Adonijah—dear Adonijah,” continued Lucia Claudia, “for to
thee also is this great salvation sent. Jesus Christ is the Messiah of
thy people, the promised seed of the woman ‘who should bruise the
serpent’s head.’ He is the everlasting Son of the Father, the Redeemer
and Saviour of the world.”
“Blasphemy, blasphemy!” exclaimed Adonijah, and then—but who shall dare
to utter the despiteful words that the blind Pharisee spake against the
Hope of his fathers, the blessed Lamb of God? He seemed touched by the
terror of Lucia, for, suddenly softening his voice from the tones of
rage to those of deep tenderness, he threw himself at her feet, and
taking her hand bathed it with his tears. “Wilt thou,” said he, “wilt
thou, my beloved, place an eternal bar between us? Wilt thou forsake me?
I had lost all, but the Lord, in giving me thee, restored parents,
brethren, and country. Oh, my dear proselyte, my own familiar friend,
thou with whom I have taken sweet counsel, forsake me not. I love thee
as no Hebrew ought to love the daughter of the stranger; and thou, thou
lovest me, Lucia, and yet thou breakest my heart.”
He wrapt his face in the folds of Lucia’s mantle and wept. She, moved to
the soul by his passionate eloquence, and still more passionate grief,
leant fondly over him, “Be calm, be calm, my Adonijah,” she whispered;
“I cannot endure this warfare, it rends my soul.”
“Defile not thyself with this baptism, bid me look up and live. The
Nazarene is my abhorrence, and must I hate thee? Rather let me die.
Lucia Claudia, raise me up with words of peace and comfort, or bid me
depart from thee for ever.”
“For ever?” murmured Claudia.
“Yes, for ever,” was his reply. “To me the Christian, Lucia, must become
a stranger, an accursed thing.” Again he lifted up his voice and wept,
for the anguish of his benighted soul was great.
Lucia wavered for an instant, then she raised her lover up, and fell
upon his neck and wept; he drew her to his bosom, for he felt that he
had conquered, and joy and hope lighted up his countenance as he hung
over his beautiful, his recovered proselyte, who, insnared by her
affection for him, had forsaken the faith of Christ.
Did earthly passion blight all this heavenly promise in its first birth?
How could Lucia Claudia meet sterner trials when a few passionate tears
had power to move her thus? It was the weakness of the moment, for when
alone she experienced deep remorse for a compliance wrung from her by
the reproaches and entreaties of Adonijah. She felt her apostasy, but
she knew not how to give up one dearer than the light of heaven to her
eyes and heart. Cornelia saw the struggle of her soul, and her soothing
words gained her confidence, her admonitions pointed out her danger.
Cornelia was no longer under the dominion of the passions. She had
proved the vanity, the nothingness of all that the world could offer.
The faith that presented to her view the glories of the world to come
stood bright and alone. Temptation could not shake the heart which was
given up to God. She warned Lucia of her danger; she reminded her that
there could be no compromise here, that she must give up all for Christ,
or return to doubt and darkness. “Thy affection has misled thee, my
child; but thy love to Adonijah had been better shown in leading him to
Christ than in revolting from the faith to pacify him. Pray for his
conversion, but be stedfast thyself; return to Him from whom in thy
weakness rather than in thy unbelief thou hast wandered.”
Lucia feared that her contrition would not be accepted, but she threw
herself upon her knees, humbly confessing her guilt, and imploring that
mercy of which she almost despaired.
Cornelia soothed her foster-child, and upon her maternal bosom Lucia
could find sympathy. The Greek then unrolled the vellum scrolls and
commenced reading the wondrous history of a Saviour’s love as recorded
by St. Luke. If the beauty, the sublimity of those opening chapters
awaken the intensest feeling in the bosom of the reader of our own day,
to whom they have been familiar from infancy, what was their effect upon
these Gentiles who for the first time perused them? Lucia Claudia no
longer believed upon the word of Linus alone, she rested her faith upon
the word of God.
Painfully aware of her own weakness, she wisely left to Cornelia the
task of informing Adonijah of her stedfast determination to become a
Christian. He heard this resolution with bitter indignation, but when
the pious Greek besought him in Lucia’s name, and for her dear sake, to
listen to the preaching of Linus, he laughed scornfully and left her
abruptly and in anger.
That night Lucia Claudia and the brethren in her household again
attended the midnight worship of the Christians, and among them came
Adonijah. Surprised, delighted, hoping that here his bitter hatred must
expire, his heart must be softened, Lucia watched him as he stood half
shadowed by a tomb, and sorrowed when he gave no sign of relenting; and
thus he remained proudly apart for many successive nights, cold,
obdurate, and dead to the beams of the gospel light as the stone upon
which he leaned.
The Christians of Julius’s household became alarmed respecting his
object in frequenting the midnight assembly, and they hinted their fears
to Lucia Claudia and her nurse. Neither entertained a doubt of
Adonijah’s integrity; they naturally concluded that the intense jealousy
of a lover made him keep watch thus over his beloved. He disdained to
hold the slightest communication with any part of the Christian flock of
Linus when in private. To Lucia Claudia he showed the cold respect due
to the sister of his lord, to Cornelia he never spoke at all.
Upon the morning preceding the night of her baptism, Lucia Claudia
resolved to break this mysterious silence, for she had determined to
leave clandestinely her brother’s house that she might devote herself to
the service of the Christian Church. Cornelia, her nurse, was to be the
companion of her flight; her fortune she was about to bestow upon the
Christian community, a measure commonly adopted by the wealthy converts
of that day. She would thus be safe from the odious addresses of
Nymphidius, who had daringly told her that she was fated to become his
bride. She would also be secured from the dangerous influence Adonijah
still held over her heart. She must leave him, but not without a parting
gift, a parting blessing. What man could not accomplish, the word of God
might yet effect, and the heart that would not bow before the mighty
eloquence of Linus would melt, perchance, over the record of the
sacrifice and sufferings of the Son of God.
The household of Julius Claudius was suddenly at this time removed to
Tivoli, and thither his sister was compelled to follow him. She had been
too closely watched to effect her escape by the descent that led down to
the catacombs, nor could she offer any pretence for remaining behind
with those persons who kept the house. The freedman Glaucus was to
convey the necessary information to the bishop, of the change in her
plans, and to arrange that some of the brethren were to meet her at
midnight near her brother’s villa. In these days it is almost impossible
to understand the powerful influence of a body so closely united as the
Christians then were, extending on every side, and comprehending every
order and degree in society; in which rich and poor, noble and slave,
Jew and Gentile, the barbarian and the Roman citizen, formed one
fellowship, and were knit together in the bonds formed by the
constraining love of Christ. It was this beautiful union in the
Primitive Church that first attracted the suspicions of the heathen
ruler of the world. While others more virtuous could say, “See how these
Christians love one another,” Nero only saw conspiracies and plots
against his government; for goodness and religion to him appeared only a
flimsy veil to hide corruption and wickedness like his own. The
Christian union was one of brotherly love, and Lucia Claudia knew that
she was surrounded by a secret circle of friends to whom she could
confide herself and her wealth, without an anxious thought. In leaving
light and sunshine for gloom and darkness, Lucia Claudia only lamented
Adonijah; for was not she about to embrace a faith that must separate
them for ever, unless his stubborn soul submitted also to its easy yoke?
She found the Hebrew in that ruined fane, where her idolatry had
formerly moved his indignation, and where he had betrayed his love. He
was reclining at the base of a shattered column, tracing Hebrew
characters upon the sand. His deep abstraction, his air of proud
melancholy, harmonized with the desolation round him. It was Marius
among the ruins of Carthage, or Nehemiah lamenting the prostration of
Zion. The magnificence of the figure, the intellectual beauty of the
countenance, awakened in Lucia’s bosom a thousand fond regrets. She
sighed deeply as she remembered that it was not as a lover but as a
Christian she had sought this interview, and that it must be brief and
passionless. That sigh recalled Adonijah from his abstraction, he looked
up and recognised his once dear Lucia.
“Why are you here, destroyer of my peace?—do you come to weave your
magic spells about my soul? Away, enchantress, away!” cried he
impatiently.
“Bid me not depart, Adonijah, or at least not here, where gratitude
reminds me of the mighty debt I owe you. It was here that you rebuked my
blind idolatry, it was here you avowed your love. Yes, beloved Adonijah,
you shook here my trust in the superstition to which I had been
dedicated, and brought me from pagan darkness to the worship of the one
true God. We are about to part—we who have prayed so often together—we
who have vowed eternal love, hopeless though that love may be. Yes, we
must part—but not unkindly, not in anger. Take these scrolls, my
brother, and keep them in remembrance of me. They contain the evidences
of that faith of which the ceremonial law of Moses was but the type and
shadow. Read them, and compare them with the Scriptures, and see if it
be not so. Then Adonijah the Christian may claim his Christian bride.”
Lucia Claudia blushed deeply, and, extending the delicate hand that held
the holy Gospel, timidly, yet beseechingly, regarded Adonijah. How
beautiful was that tenderness, how frank and yet how chastened by modest
dignity was that avowal! Adonijah was almost more than man to resist it.
“Tempt me not, Lucia,” he replied, “to my undoing; the bribe is mighty,
but I am strong in faith. Well is it for thee that thou art no daughter
of my people, for then in obedience to a tremendous law my hand must be
first upon thee to cast the murderous stone, though thou wert the wife
of my own bosom, or the friend dearer than my own soul.”
He repulsed the hand she proffered, and, snatching the vellum scrolls
Lucia Claudia held towards him, trampled them scornfully beneath his
feet.
“Cruel Adonijah, and is it thus we part? Oh, I had hoped that the
preaching of the word would have melted away these proud and stubborn
thoughts. Why have you frequented our midnight assemblies, why has your
shadow haunted me, unless it were to pass between me and my God?”
Adonijah laughed bitterly; that scornful laugh thrilled painfully from
the ears of Lucia to her heart. Could he betray her—could his stern
integrity stoop to a measure so infinitely base and unworthy of him? Oh
no! woman’s trusting love forbade a thought so wild.
“Adonijah,” said she, “you were kinder to the priestess of Vesta than to
the worshipper of the true God.”
“Oh that you were still the idolatress—the heathen priestess—or
anything but an apostate from Jehovah! Go, leave me, guileful Gentile;
leave me in solitude and misery to curse the day when first a true
Israelite gazed on your fatal form, and, all-forgetful of his creed,
madly doted upon the daughter of the stranger.” With these words
Adonijah quitted the presence of the distressed and weeping Lucia
Claudia.