CHAPTER XLIII.

We are certainly profitless to the bad, but this is a real gain.

I WILL willingly admit that some persons may perhaps truly complain of the unprofitableness of the Christians to them. First amongst these will be the pimps and panders and attendants of prostitutes; then come the assassins, professional poisoners, magicians, and also the fortune-tellers, soothsayers, and astrologers. But to be unprofitable to such as these is in itself very profitable. And moreover whatever loss your interests may suffer from our religion, it is certainly counterbalanced by some gain. How many persons have you—I do not now say who can expel daemons from you; I do not now say who present prayers on your behalf to the True God, because perhaps you do not believe Him to be such; but—from whom you have nothing to fear? [126]