almost in infancy, they are provided--according to their pleasure--as
dogs, as horses; they lash, they scourge them, long before they have the
strength to kill. What wonder if the boy, who, when a boy, used a slave
as his beast of burden, or his footstool, when he grows to be a man,
should use him as a mark to be shot at? The youth of Antiochus was reared
in Rome. I presume to say that his earliest play-things were slaves, and
the children of slaves. I am not surprised at his act. And such acts are
too common in Rome for this to disturb me much. The education of Antiochus
was continued and completed, I may venture also to say, at the circus. I
think the result very natural. It cannot be very different, where slavery
and the sports of the amphitheatre exist.'

'I perceive your meaning,' said Julia; 'Antiochus you affirm to be the
natural product of the customs and institutions which now prevail. It is
certainly so, and must continue so, until some new element shall be
introduced into society, that shall ultimately reform its practices, by
first exalting the sentiments and the character of the individual. Such an
element do I detect----'

'In Christianity,' said Fausta; 'this is your panacea. May it prove all
you desire; yet methinks it gives small promise, seeing it has already
been at work more than two hundred years, and has accomplished no more.'

'A close observer,' replied Julia, 'sees much of the effect of
Christianity beside that which appears upon the surface. If I err not
greatly, a few years more will reveal what this religion has been doing
these two centuries and more. Revolutions which are acted out in a day,
have often been years or centuries in preparation. An eye that will see,
may see the final issue, a long time foreshadowed in the tendencies and
character of a preceding age.'