_Rebecca._ What talk you of so earnestly?

_Salome._ Jesus of Nazareth.

_Rebecca._ He has come, it is said, to set up a new kingdom.

_Salome._ Rather to enlarge the kingdom already flourishing in heaven.

_Rebecca._ Call it what you may, he is slow in gathering his armies.

_Salome._ He needs no army for his conquests, but an army of loving
hearts and pure spirits.

_Rebecca._ Then the nation's hope is again blasted, and we are to
remain yet longer subjects of a foreign king.

_Salome._ Not so. This is the true Messiah: he who joins his kingdom
shall be free indeed.

_Rebecca._ But what freedom can there be greater than from Roman
bondage?

_Eudora._ Unless it be a deliverance, such as mine, from idolatry and
superstition. Methinks there is no liberty to be compared with that;
and, having that, slavery loses its power.

_Jezebel._ Or deliverance, such as mine, from an unholy temper.
Surely, Eudora, mine is the greater deliverance; for what is truth
without goodness? You were delivered from _error_; I from _sin._ Oh!