An Easter Disciple - The Chronicle of Quintus, the Roman Knight by Arthur Benton Sanford
page 7 of 32 (21%)
page 7 of 32 (21%)
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there at Brundisium. could mean that I am to fall by death, here
in Palaestina. We have not come for battle, but to guard the peace. Yet it is easy for Atropos, that cruel fate, to clip the slender thread of life and send men on to die land of shades. If this was what the augur meant, no Roman in the days of Tiberius has ever set forth upon a more serious adventure." "You are given to melancholy, this autumn afternoon, my comrade Quintus," the other says; "you are feeling that sadness which comes to men when the Dryads move over the earth and touch the leaves into crimson and gold and brown." "Not so," answers Quintus; "but I am remembering that I have come into a land where a strange Teacher is speaking to men of a future life. Yet are men to live again? I have seen the marble tombs on the Appia Via where the Scipios, the Metelli, and so many more of our great Romans lie asleep. Shall I soon follow them? Is it an endless slumber? What is it that the new Rabbi from Nazareth means, when in the city yonder he speaks of another life?" "A fig for your weird autumn fancy," responds Aulus; "down to the streets of Hierosolyma we will go, and among their novel sights we will forget your serious meditations." They walk that afternoon as sightseers through the crowded Jewish emporium. The shops remind them, with all their contrasts, of the marts of Rome, for men always and everywhere have the trader's passion. In the narrow streets of Jerusalem they see the stir of many activities. The workman is hammering his brass; the shoemaker |
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