“Come down, Hermas, you sluggard!  Come down!  It is Christmas morn.  Awake and be glad with us!”

“I am coming,” he answered listlessly; “only have patience a moment.  I have been awake since midnight, and waiting for the day.”

“You hear him!” said his friends one to another.  “How he puts us all to shame!  He is more watchful, more eager, than any of us.  Our master, John the Presbyter, does well to be proud of him.  He is the best man in our class.  When he is baptized the church will get a strong member.”

While they were talking the door opened and Hermas stepped out.  He was a figure to be remarked in any company—­tall, broad-shouldered, straight-hipped, with a head proudly poised on the firm column of the neck, and short brown curls clustering over the square forehead.  It was the perpetual type of vigourous and intelligent young manhood, such as may be found in every century among the throngs of ordinary men, as if to show what the flower of the race should be.  But the light in his dark blue eyes was clouded and uncertain; his smooth cheeks were leaner than they should have been at twenty; and there were downward lines about his mouth which spoke of desires unsatisfied and ambitions repressed.  He joined his companions with brief greetings,—­a nod to one, a word to another,—­ and they passed together down the steep street.

Overhead the mystery of daybreak was silently transfiguring the sky.  The curtain of darkness had lifted softly upward along the edge of the horizon.  The ragged crests of Mount Silpius were outlined with pale rosy light.  In the central vault of heaven a few large stars twinkled drowsily.  The great city, still chiefly pagan, lay more than half asleep.  But multitudes of the Christians, dressed in white and carrying lighted torches in their hands, were hurrying toward the Basilica of Constantine to keep the latest holy day of the church, the new festival of the birthday of their Master.

The vast, bare building was soon crowded, and the younger converts, who were not yet permitted to stand among the baptized, found it difficult to come to their appointed place between the first two pillars of the house, just within the threshold.  There was some good-humoured pressing and jostling about the door; but the candidates pushed steadily forward.

“By your leave, friends, our station is beyond you.  Will you let us pass?  Many thanks.”

A touch here, a courteous nod there, a little patience, a little persistence, and at last they stood in their place.  Hermas was taller than his companions; he could look easily over their heads and survey the white sea of people stretching away through the columns, under the shadows of the high roof, as the tide spreads on a calm day into the pillared cavern of Staffa, quiet as if the ocean hardly dared to breathe.  The light of many flambeaux fell, in flickering, uncertain rays, over the assembly.  At the end of the vista there was a circle of clearer, steadier radiance.  Hermas could see the bishop in his great chair, surrounded by the presbyters, the lofty desks on either side for the readers of the Scripture, the communion-table and the table of offerings in the middle of the church.