Serapis — Volume 05, Georg Ebers [ebook e reader txt] 📗

was a hard task even for you—a painful duty—was it not?"

"Terrible! horrible!" he exclaimed with a shudder, as he recalled the feelings of that momentous instant. She looked sympathetically into his eyes.

"And you did it," she cried, "because you felt that you must and will be wholly what you profess to be? It is right—the only right; I feel it so. I will try to imitate you, and rise above the half-heartedness which is the bane of existence, and which makes the firm path of life a trembling, swaying bridge. I am yours, wholly yours; I have none other gods but yours, and for love of you I will learn to love your God—for you have often and often called him a God of Love."

"And He is a God of Love!" cried Constantine, "and you will know him and confess him even without teaching; for our Saviour lives in every heart that is filled with love. Oh! Gorgo, I have destroyed that beautiful idol, but I will let you see that even a Christian can duly value and cherish beauty in his home and in his heart."

"I am sure of it," she exclaimed joyfully. "The world goes on its way and does not quake, in spite of the fall of Serapis; but I feel as though in my inmost soul a world had perished and a new one was created, nobler and purer, and perhaps even more lovely than the old one!"

He pressed her hand to his lips; she signed to him to follow her and led the way to her father's couch. Porphyrius was sitting up, supported in the physician's arms; his eyes were open, and as they entered he greeted them with a faint smile.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Great happiness, and mingled therefor with bitter sorrow
It is not by enthusiasm but by tactics that we defeat a foe
Rapture and anguish—who can lay down the border line