The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-06-28


bly, what the Antchrist will be. 1t would suit
the blindness of vanity better"
As he spoke the words, they heard quick
footstep behind, and were overtaken by
Longinus, who, saying he had just heard OF
their reception, greeted them W tn every de-
monstration of raptnrous affection.
-" Now" pursued he, walking by their side,
"good for evil to Master Paulus's family.
Forgive the apparent intrusion, dear general,
if mention that happen to know the story
of your youthful love, as all the world have
witnessed your fidelity to an unatailing at
tachmant. But learn from poor Lopginus that
Esther Maccabeus is now a disciple; and the
Christian maiden can wed, under still holier
law, the brave Gentle whom the Jewess was
bound to refuse"
With this he turned into an alley under the
court of the Gentiles, and disappeared
CHAPTER XVI.
One still and sultry evening, the decline of
brooding day in spring, two persons were
sitting on the flat roof of q house in Jerusalem.
They were the Atbenian Lady Aglais and her
son, the comparatively youthful Roman Gen.
eral Paulus-he who has SO largely figured,
even from his gallant boyhood, in the events
and affairs we have been recording.
1t was the 30th of March, and q Wednesday
the first of all Easter w ed pesdays-the first
in that now aud perpetual calendar by which,
throughout the fairest regions of EARTH among
all enlightened nations and civilized races till
the crash of doom, time was for evermore to
be measured.
A servant, carrying q skin-cask slung over
his shoulders, was watering the flowers, faint
with thirst; and these, arranged in fanciful
vases, which made an artificial garden of the
housetop, shook their dropping heads under
the fresh and grateful shower, and seemed to
answer it with smiles of a thousand blooms
and rays. AS the man stole softly to and fro
abont the roof, now approaching the lady and
her SOB, now receding, he seemed, in spite of
the foreign language in which they spoke, and
in spite of the low and hushed tone they OBJ
served, to follow with intense and breathless
though stealthy excitement, the tenor Of their
conversation; while his figure, in the last
evening rays, cast a long, shifting shadow that
streaked with black the yellow flood to its
farthest limit, climbed the parapet, broke
upon its grail-work of balusters, and then was
beheaded, for it flung off it's head out of sight
into empty space, leaving the calm bright air
uhblotted above the stone guard wall.
An occurrence took place of which CHAT
Wednesday evening" Paulus and his mother
were witnesses-an occurrence in dumb show,
the significance of which they were destined,
only after several years, to learn; yet the
! incident was 30 singular, 80 strange, SO impress
| sive-it was such picture in such quarter
that when, long sub sequenty, the explanation
came, they seemed to be still actually assisting
| in person at the scene which, while they be-
held it, they had no means of understanding
No
| occurrence; and we must here request the
reader to grant us his full belief and his conf
dence when we remark that in comparison of
his amusement, his profit, and that mental
gallery of pictures to be his henceforth (Which
We try to give to all who honor these pages
with perusaD, we feel the sincerest contempt
for any mere display of scholarship or learn
ing. For this reason, and this reason alone,
and certainly from no scantiness, and still less
from any lack of authorities, we shall almost
disencumber our narrative of references to the
ancient writers and reconcile documents
which establish as positive historical facts
the more striking of the occurrences still to be
mentioned. In ono instance the intelligent
reader will discern that the most sacred of all
evidence supports what we have to record.
But if we were to show with what nicely of
Pi0Slsioh hucu piolaue, yeC respectable ana
even venerable, testimony accords with the
passage here meant in the Acts of the Apostles,
and how abundantly such testimony corrobo-
rates and supplements the inspired account,
this book would cease to be what it aims at
being, and would become historical treatise
of tho German criticism school.
If any one should feel astonished at our in
sisting not only upon the exact day, but the
very hour, when certain things occurred, let
him or her remember that tho calculation OF
cclpses passing backward from one to another
Gas though ascending the steps of a staircase),
reaches and fixes the date-yes, the precise
minute of the day-when incidents took place
between which ana US the broad haze of twice
n thousand years is interposed.
Paulus and his mother were convorsing, as
has been described, in Greek, while tho serv-
ing man, despite his ignorance of that Lam
guage, had the air of half following the drift
of what they said, and of catching the main
purport of it with wonder and awe. There