O my mother, I also am a Christian: Read, I pray thee, the papyrus I send.

It is part of the Christians' Book.
We flee, with other Christians, from Alexandria, today.

Farewell." The mother lifted her face, and her cry rang through the room, "O my sons, my sons!" She had execrated Timokles at times when she had spoken of him before Heraklas, and he had thought that the execration came from her heart.

But she had longed, with pain unspeakable, to see Timokles once more.

And now, when she knew that he had been in Alexandria, that he needed a mother's care, that Heraklas, also, had owned allegiance to the Christians' God--when she thought of Christians burned, beheaded, given to wild beasts--when she realized that perhaps she should never see again the face of Timokles or Heraklas, the heart of the mother broke within her, and she wailed, "O my sons! My sons!" "Hush!" warned the messenger, quickly.