The next day about noon the young prophet offered a prayer over the corpse, and we consigned it to a humble grave dug by our own hands in a large cavern near by. I observed that there were four other graves in the same spot. “Yes,” said John, meekly, “this is my little cemetery. Here I bury my dead in ground consecrated to the Lord. This was a robber who was wounded in a fray and left by his comrades. He dragged his bleeding limbs into the desert. I found him and bore him to my home. I preached to him the new gospel of repentance and faith, and he died in my arms weeping like a child over the sins of his youth. He who occupies that grave was a madman, who broke his chains, and drove every one from him with knives and stones until he met me in the wilderness. He followed me to my cave, and would sit contented at my feet hearing me sing or read or pray. Under that mound is a poor slave who fled, mutilated and frenzied, from a cruel master. I kissed the wounds I could not heal; and he died clasping my hands smilingly to his lips. And that last one is the grave of another poor leper like your father, forsaken even by his wretched companions—but not forsaken by the Lord, whose Word I obeyed when I tended him in his long illness. “I call it consecrated ground,” he continued; “for these poor people are the children of God. The leper is cured of his leprosy; the slave is free; the madman is sane; the robber is forgiven.” “What induces you,” said I, “to lead this strange, lonely life, so full of self-sacrifice, so full of terrors and dangers?” “The Spirit of God!” he said, solemnly. “Are you not afraid of the silence, the solitude, the darkness of the desert?” He replied in the words of Scripture: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?” I felt awed in the presence of this young man, who was not more than ten years older than myself. I was better satisfied to leave my father’s ashes in his keeping, than if I had built above them the most splendid monument of Pentelican marble or Corinthian brass. After a frugal meal we started for the public road. It was ten long miles to the nearest highway, and it was ten more from that to Bethany. We discoursed, as we walked along, about spiritual things; and although I did not understand half he said, he spoke with such eloquence and sincerity that he convinced me he had some great mission in the world. We parted a little before sunset with mutual embraces and blessings. I dropped some grateful and admiring tears as I gazed after the heavenly-minded hermit, picking his way with his long staff through the rough places, until he disappeared from sight over the brown, bare hill.