“It is my misfortune,” she said, “I know. I am losing both what I see, and what I don’t see. It is most inconsistent: yet what can I do?”

Polemo had said what he considered enough. He was one of those who sold his words. He had already been over-generous, and was disposed to give away no more.

After a time, Callista said, “Polemo, do you believe in one God?”

“Certainly,” he answered; “I believe in one eternal, self-existing something.”

“Well,” she said, “I feel that God within my heart. I feel myself in His presence. He says to me, ‘Do this: don’t do that,’ You may tell me that this dictate is a mere law of my nature, as is to joy or to grieve. I cannot understand this. No, it is the echo of a person speaking to me. Nothing shall persuade me that it does not ultimately proceed from a person external to me. It carries with it its proof of its divine origin. My nature feels towards it as towards a person. When I obey it, I feel a satisfaction; when I disobey, a soreness—just like that which I feel in pleasing or offending some revered friend. So you see, Polemo, I believe in what is more than a mere ‘something.’ I believe in what is more real to me than sun, moon, stars, and the fair earth, and the voice of friends. You will say, Who is He? Has He ever told you anything about Himself? Alas! no!—the more’s the pity! But I will not give up what I have, because I have not more. An echo implies a voice; a voice a speaker. That speaker I love and I fear.”

Here she was exhausted, and overcome too, poor Callista! with her own emotions.

“O that I could find Him!” she exclaimed, passionately. “On the right hand and on the left I grope, but touch Him not. Why dost Thou fight against me?—why dost Thou scare and perplex me, O First and Only Fair? I have Thee not, and I need Thee.” She added, “I am no Christian, you see, or I should have found Him; or at least I should say I had found Him.”

“It is hopeless,” said Polemo to Aristo, in much disgust, and with some hauteur of manner: “she is too far gone. You should not have brought me to this place.”

Aristo groaned.

“Shall I,” she continued, “worship any but Him? Shall I say that He whom I see not, whom I seek, is our Jupiter, or Cæsar, or the goddess Rome? They are none of them images of this inward guide of mine. I sacrifice to Him alone.”

The two men looked at each other in amazement: one of them in anger.

“It’s like the demon of Socrates,” said Aristo, timidly.

“I will acknowledge Cæsar in every fitting way,” she repeated; “but I will not make him my God.”