There was here a veritable consecration, hopeful and
animating, of the earth's gifts, of old dead and dark matter itself, now
in some way redeemed at last, of all that we can touch and see, in the
midst of a jaded world that had lost the true sense of such things."
The sense of youth in it all was perhaps the dominating impression--the
youth that was yet old as the world in experience and discovery of the
true meaning of life. The young Christ was rejuvenating the world, and
all things were being made new by him.
This is the climax of the book. He meets Lucian the aged, who for a
moment darkens his dawning faith, but that which has come to him has
been no casual emotion, no forced or spectacular conviction. He does not
leap to the recognition of Christianity at first sight, but very quietly
realises and accepts it as that secret after which his pagan idealism
had been all the time groping. The story closes amid scenes of plague
and earthquake and martyrdom in which he and Cornelius are taken
prisoners, and he dies at last a Christian. "It was the same people who,
in the grey, austere evening of that day, took up his remains, and
buried them secretly, with their accustomed prayers; but with joy also,
holding his death, according to their generous view in this matter, to
have been of the nature of a martyrdom; and martyrdom, as the Church had
always said, was a kind of Sacrament with plenary grace.
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