To narrate the confusion and horror within and without the temple on the
discovery of this fatal even; to describe the execrations and tumults of
the priests and the populace, who at once suspected the favoured and
ambitious Christians of causing, by poison, the death of their spiritual
ruler, might be interesting as a history of the manners of the times,
but is immaterial to the object of this chapter. We prefer rather to
trace the effect on the mind of Ulpius of his personal and private
bereavement; of this loss--irretrievable to him--of the master whom he
loved and the guardian whom it was his privilege to revere.
An illness of some months, during the latter part of which his
attendants trembled for his life and reason, sufficiently attested the
sincerity of the grief of Ulpius for the loss of his protector. During
his paroxysms of delirium the priests who watched round his bed drew
from his ravings many wise conclusions as to the effects that his
seizure and its causes were likely to produce on his future character;
but, in spite of all their penetration, they were still far from
appreciating to a tithe of its extent the revolution that his
bereavement had wrought in his disposition.
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