We have neither of us an
affection or a hope that can bind us to the things of earth. Our hearts
look both towards heaven; our expectations are only from on high!'
'Do not set your hopes too firmly on your child. Remember how the
nobles of Rome have destroyed the household I once had, and tremble for
your own.'
'I have no fear for my daughter; she is cared for in my absence by one
who is vowed to aid me in my labours for the Church. It is now nearly a
year since I first met Ulpius, and from that time forth he has devoted
himself to my service and watched over my child.'
'Who is this Ulpius, that you should put such faith in him?'
'He is a man of age like mine. I found him, like me, worn down by the
calamities of his early life, and abandoned, as I had once been, to the
delusions of the pagan gods. He was desolate, suffering, forlorn, and I
had pity on him in his misery. I proved to him that the worship he
still professed was banished for its iniquities from the land; that the
religion which had succeeded it had become defiled by man, and that
there remained but one faith for him to choose, if he would be saved--
the faith of the early Church.
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