He said no more at this time, for Jesus came forth into the court‐yard where we sat together around the fountain; and straightway we held our peace. Then we fell to discourse of John the son of Zachariah, how great things he had prophesied, and how we had hoped that he should have triumphed with us in the Kingdom of God; and one likened John unto Elias the prophet, saying that he spake in the spirit of Elias, and that many of the common people would have it that this John was indeed Elias risen from the dead. Then another spake of the love in which the disciples of John the son of Zachariah still had their Master, and how, though he were dead, yet did they still cleave to him in their hearts; insomuch that his spirit seemed to rule over them yet more than his living presence. But another said that John the Prophet could not be Elias: for was it possible that the Lord should suffer such an one as Elias to be slain? And to him Nathanael replied that Isaiah the Prophet was sawn asunder, and wherefore not also Elias? Then Thomas, one of the Twelve, lamented for John the son of Zachariah, because he had been thus swallowed up by destruction, neither had he left children to stand in his stead upon the earth; “for they that die, leaving children behind them,” said he (quoting a certain proverb of my countrymen) “die not, but only fall asleep: but they that die and leave no children, these die indeed.” To this John the son of Zebedee made answer that whoso leaveth behind him children perverse and alien from his own nature, he liveth not, for all his children; but whoso leaveth behind him disciples and followers like unto himself and imbued with his own doctrine, such an one liveth, yea even though he be childless and lie in the grave. Hereat methought Jesus was strangely moved: howbeit he sat still where he was, and spake never a word.