Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell Page A

only hope for Rome is a return to religious values ...”
     
    Not a return to the befouled gods — But to what? To Whom? The ‘Unknown God’ of the Greeks? But who was He, and where was He? He, the Incorruptible, the Father, the Loving One, the Just? Why was He silent, if He existed? Why did He not speak to mankind, and reorder the reeking world and bring peace to the peaceless, hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless, fullness to those starving for righteousness? If He lived, this was the hour when He should manifest Himself, before the world smothered in its own dunghill, or died by its own sword.
     
    Diodorus was filled with a wild hunger and impatience. He halted between two white columns, spreading his legs sturdily apart and standing as a soldier stands, and he looked at the sunset sky above the trees and the palms. His pain was stilled for a moment. Never had he seen so glorious a sunset before, so full of rosy light and golden lances, so brilliant and pure that the boughs of the trees, the shivering fronds of the palms, the columns of the house beamed with a radiance of their own and reflected the colors of the sky. Gentleness and majesty radiated from it, as if some mighty Voice had bestowed a benediction to all the world, as if a mighty Hand had been lifted in tenderness and love. The fierce face of Diodorus softened, became almost childlike. His disciplined mind told him that this was only an unusually resplendent sunset; his soul told him that a Word had been spoken.
     
    Then he remembered the wild rumors in Antioch that day. A particularly vivid Star, brighter than the brightest moon, had appeared in the heavens the night before, and had been seen by many, even during the most shameful hours of the Saturnalia. There had been much fright, and mobs had run blindly through the streets in their terror, their gay garments streaming about them. But Diodorus had been informed by a priest in the temple of Mercury that it was only a comet, or a meteor, and he had spoken indulgently. “But where were you that you did not see it yourself?” Diodorus had asked. The priest had replied, “I was asleep, noble Tribune.”
     
    Diodorus searched for the Star where he had been told it had stood. There was nothing there now but the evening star, twinkling mildly. But all at once he believed there had in truth been a Star. His heart lifted on a powerful wave of joy, and he was comforted, though he could not explain it.
     
    The night-blooming jasmine awakened in a wave of fragrance, and Diodorus breathed it in as if it were incense. He felt humble and at peace, and full of strength. “I can do what I can do, live by the values and the truths I have been taught, by the virtues and the justice I know, and surely He will remember me though all the world goes mad.”
     
    He walked between the columns along the marble path towards the women’s quarters. Then he encountered two of his officers in the courtyard, youths he loved for he had trained them himself, and he trusted them because of their honest faces, their candid eyes, their devotion to him and the ancient virtues. They came to attention when they saw him, and saluted smartly, and he paused, trying to frown at them, but loving them too much.
     
    “How now, lads, why have you not returned to Antioch?” he asked, roughly. He never kept a bodyguard about his home, as other military commanders did, for he trusted in his own right arm and disliked too great a show of militarism.
     
    “Noble Diodorus, we have heard alarming rumors in Antioch this day,” one of the soldiers replied. “Some of the rabble scream that the Star they pretended to believe they saw last night indicated the fall of Rome and the anger of the gods against all Romans. It is said the Star moved eastwards, away from the Imperial City, and this indicates, they declare, that Rome is about to fall. And when an empire falls, they reason, it is time for a subjugated country to rise and