As he disappeared from their eyes, the
audience turned away speechless. An universal despair now overpowered
in them even the last energies of discord and crime; they resigned
themselves to their doom with the gloomy indifference of beings in whom
all mortal sensations, all human passions, good or evil, were
extinguished. The Prefect departed on his ill-omened expedition to
propose the practice of Paganism to the bishop of a Christian church;
but no profitable effort for relief was even suggested, either by the
government or the people.
And so this day drew in its turn towards a close--more mournful and more
disastrous, more fraught with peril, misery, and gloom, than the days
that had preceded it.
The next morning dawned, but no preparations for the ceremonies of the
ancient worship appeared at the Capitol. The Senate and the bishop
hesitated to incur the responsibility of authorising a public
restoration of Paganism; the citizens, hopeless of succour, heavenly or
earthly, remained unheedful as the dead of all that passed around them.
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