CHAPTER XV. Moments there are, and this was one, Sweetening the very edge of doom. MOORE. PUDENS found Timothy busy in preparations for his departure from Rome, and would have withheld the communication which he had so much desired to make, as being inopportune; but his animated countenance betrayed the secret, and induced his friend to inquire of what happy intelligence he was the bearer. On Claudia's letter being shown to him, he informed her too happy lover, that the writer was no stranger, but that she was a darling of the church; who, in their extended hopes, had connected her conversion with the introduction of Christianity into the remotest regions of the earth. He also warmly congratulated Pudens on having bestowed his affections on one so worthy of them; and offered to delay his journey, if necessary, to promote their union. St. Paul having entered while they were conversing, and the circumstance being related to him, he concurred in Timothy's views, and hailed the prospect of the institution of a Christian church in the distant isle of Britain, rejoicing that Claudia would be further protected by her marriage with Pudens from seduction from Christianity. His philanthropic soul expanded with joy, as the extension of his master's kingdom seemed thus insured; and his upturned eyes betrayed his secret aspirations, as he silently supplicated Heaven that his wishes might not be disappointed. Just at this moment a female entered, accompanied by two servants, each heavily laden; and the reader may judge of our hero's surprise and delight at recognising in the lovely form and face of that female, his own Claudia ! She had come to take, what she feared might prove a final farewell of some of the brethren, and particularly of Timothy; and her attendants were laden with presents of what she thought would be useful to him in his proposed journey. Claudia had not observed Pudens; and Timothy, therefore, very considerately advanced to meet her, and prepared her for the interview which awaited her: the suddenness of which might otherwise have been attended with serious consequences in the very delicate state of her health. The lovers were then introduced; but oh! what pen can describe their feelings!-Strange to say, they looked at each other for a moment, and both burst into tears; neither being able to utter a word. It was not surprising that Claudia's feminine sensibility should display itself in this manner; but that a young soldier's emotions should thus express themselves, seemed to require the explanation which Pudens afterwards gave. Claudia, who was still in a state of convalescence, having been baptized but a day or two before, and being consequently clothed in the catechumen's white garb, looked so pale and so unearthly, that her lover shrank back appalled, fearful that if he did not actually gaze upon an angel, he gazed upon one who must very shortly become one. His beloved, on the other hand, seeing his emaciated appearance and his mourning suit, which he had just procured for his approaching trial, thought that she had been the means of dismantling his cheeks of their bloom; and fear was filled with anxiety as to what his sad apparel might betoken. Their tears of apprehension, however, were soon turned to tears of ecstacy, and of gratitude to Heaven, which had so mercifully brought them, by different ways, into the same fold. In the course of the evening they were solemnly betrothed to each other; and St. Paul and Timothy both assisted at the ceremony. The inspired Apostle told them, indeed, that in the present perilous times it became Christians to rejoice as though they rejoiced not, and to weep as though they wept not, remembering that the fashion of this world passeth away; yet he commended them to that Providence, whose hand seemed so manifest; and invoked the choicest of heaven's blessings upon their union, when it should be consummated. A spectator of this scene, might have wished that the same inimitable hand' which has eternized the Apostle's preaching at Athens, had immortalized this group. The invocatory attitude of St. Paul, his countenance beaming with a tenderness and sublimity, in which the feelings of a father seemed commingled with those of a saint-the enraptured look of Pudens, whose face seemed lighted up with a visible radiance, such as a brother's might wear, when, after a long separation he hails a favourite sister in those regions where parting is unknown; expressing all that, fortune-defying security, which is produced by a sense of the perpetuity which Christianity imparts to friendship—these were indeed striking: but how shall I describe the appearance of Claudia; the beautiful Claudia! Britain's first, and loveliest Christian convert? In her sweet countenance the most hallowed, most amiable affections of earth and of heaven being blended, softened and heightened each other: Mingling the meek and vestal fires A soul too more than half divine, Where, through some shades of earthly feeling, Like light through summer foliage stealing, As makes the very darkness there Cold indeed must have been the heart that could not share in the interest, the absorb * Moore. |