It was a spectacle--touching, beautiful, even sublime--to see this young
girl, but a few hours freed, by perilous paths and by criminal hands,
from scenes which had begun in treachery, only to end in death, now
passing, resolute and alone, through the streets of a mighty city,
overwhelmed by all that is poignant in human anguish and hideous in
human crime. It was a noble evidence of the strong power over the world
and the world's perils, with which the simplest affection may arm the
frailest being--to behold her thus pursuing her way, superior to every
horror of desolation and death that clogged her path, unconsciously
discovering in the softly murmured name of 'father', which still fell at
intervals from her lips, the pure purpose that sustained her--the steady
heroism that ever held her in her doubtful course. The storms of heaven
poured over her head--the crimes and sufferings of Rome darkened the
paths of her pilgrimage; but she passed firmly onward through all, like
a ministering spirit, journeying along earthly shores in the bright
inviolability of its merciful mission and its holy thoughts--like a ray
of light living in the strength of its own beauty, amid the tempest and
obscurity of a stranger sphere.
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