'Ah, that your excellency but saw the great duel which depends on you alone! Do not fancy that the battle is merely between Paganism and Christianity--' 'Why, if it were, you know, I, as a Christian, under a Christian and sainted emperor, not to mention his august sister--' 'We understand,' interrupted she, with an impatient wave of her beautiful hand.

'Not even between them; not even between philosophy and barbarism.

The struggle is simply one between the aristocracy and the mob,--between wealth, refinement, art, learning, all that makes a nation great, and the savage herd of child-breeders below, the many ignoble, who were meant to labour for the noble few.

Shall the Roman empire command or obey her own slaves?
is the question which you and Cyril have to battle out; and the fight must be internecine.' 'I should not wonder if it became so, really,' answered the prefect, with a shrug of his shoulders.

'I expect every time I ride, to have my brains knocked out by some mad monk.' 'Why not?
In an age when, as has been well and often said, emperors and consulars crawl to the tombs of a tent-maker and a fisherman, and kiss the mouldy bones of the vilest slaves?
Why not, among a people whose God is the crucified son of a carpenter?
Why should learning, authority, antiquity, birth, rank, the system of empire which has been growing up, fed by the accumulated wisdom of ages,--why, I say, should any of these things protect your life a moment from the fury of any beggar who believes that the Son of God died for him as much as for you, and that he is your equal if not your superior in the sight of his low-born and illiterate deity!' [Footnote: These are the arguments and the language which were commonly employed by Porphyry, Julian, and the other opponents of Christianity.] 'My most eloquent philosopher, this may be--and perhaps is--all very true.