To gain this
man's confidence, to frustrate every effort that he might make in his
new vocation, to ruin his credit with his hearers, and to threaten his
personal safety by betraying his inmost secrets to his powerful enemies
in the Church, were determinations instantly adopted by the Pagan as
duties demanded by the exigencies of his creed. From that moment he
seized every opportunity of favourably attracting the new reformer's
attention to himself, and, as the reader already knows, he was at length
rewarded for his cunning and perseverance by being received into the
household of the charitable and unsuspicious Numerian as a pious convert
to the Christianity of the early Church.
Once installed under Numerian's roof, the treacherous Pagan saw in the
Christian's daughter an instrument admirably adapted, in his
unscrupulous hands, for forwarding his wild project of obtaining the ear
of a Roman of power and station who was disaffected to the established
worship. Among the patricians of whose anti-Christian predilections
report had informed him, was Numerian's neighbour, Vetranio the senator.
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