




                                 CALLISTA

                       A TALE OF THE THIRD CENTURY





                                CALLISTA

                      A TALE OF THE THIRD CENTURY


                                   BY

                        JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN


            "Love thy God, and love Him only,
            And thy breast will ne'er be lonely.
            In that One Great Spirit meet
            All things mighty, grave, and sweet.
            Vainly strives the soul to mingle
            With a being of our kind;
            Vainly hearts with hearts are twined:
            For the deepest still is single.
            An impalpable resistance
            Holds like natures still at distance.
            Mortal: love that Holy One,
              Or dwell for aye alone."
                          DE VERE


_NEW IMPRESSION_


LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1904

_All rights reserved_





                                   _To_

                       _HENRY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE._

_To you alone, who have known me so long, and who love me so well, could I
venture to offer a trifle like this. But you will recognise the author in
his work, and take pleasure in the recognition._

                                                                _J. H. N._





                              ADVERTISEMENT.




It is hardly necessary to say that the following Tale is a simple fiction
from beginning to end. It has little in it of actual history, and not much
claim to antiquarian research; yet it has required more reading than may
appear at first sight.

It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view,
the feelings and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period
to which it belongs, and it has been undertaken as the nearest approach
which the Author could make to a more important work suggested to him from
a high ecclesiastical quarter.

_September 13, 1855._




                      POSTSCRIPTS TO LATER EDITIONS.


_February 8, 1856._--Since the volume has been in print, the Author finds
that his name has got abroad. This gives him reason to add, that he wrote
great part of Chapters I., IV., and V., and sketched the character and
fortunes of Juba, in the early spring of 1848. He did no more till the end
of last July, when he suddenly resumed the thread of his tale, and has
been successful so far as this, that he has brought it to an end.

Without being able to lay his finger upon instances in point, he has some
misgiving lest, from a confusion between ancient histories and modern
travels, there should be inaccuracies, antiquarian or geographical, in
certain of his minor statements, which carry with them authority when they
cease to be anonymous.



_February 2, 1881.--October, 1888._--In a tale such as this, which professes
in the very first sentence of its Advertisement to be simple fiction from
beginning to end, details may be allowably filled up by the writer's
imagination and  by his personal opinions and beliefs, the only
rule binding on him being this--that he has no right to contravene
acknowledged historical facts. Thus it is that Walter Scott exercises a
poet's licence