Page:Wives and mothers in the olden time.djvu/30

14 gorgeous mausoleum of the Scipios, her ancestors, the sense of the vanity of all earthly things, which was one day to make her whole life heroic, arose in her mind and produced thoughts far beyond her age. The pious child would have preferred to be the virgin St. Cecilia, interred in the cemetery of St. Callixtus, than the Cecilia Metella, to whom Crassus raised the gorgeous tomb which still bears her name, and which is seen from afar ; while often, in her young girl s dreams, she regretted not living in the time when she could die for the love of her Lord, Jesus Christ.

Is it necessary to add that works of charity as well as pious practices formed a large part of Paula’s education? Christian charity had been too well organised in Rome by successive pontiffs not to have been taught early to this pious child; and when her mother took her to the Basilica built over the grave of St. Agnes, she did not fail to tell her of the way in which the Empress Helena, laying aside her crown, used to come there to serve and tend the poor with her own hands, or rather Jesus Christ Himself in the persons of His poor. Thus did she inspire into the heart of her little daughter that true tenderness for human misery which led her eventually to the highest pitch of devotion and self-abnegation. This truly moral and Christian education was crowned by the serious studies which likewise formed part of the traditionary training of girls in the noble families of Rome. Independently of the Holy Scriptures, which were Paula s first study, she was also thoroughly instructed in Latin and Greek literature. She spoke both languages with ease and fluency, and was familiar with the works of the best historians, poets, and philosophers of both countries. We shall see later how useful this profane literature became to her in following out the