The dreadful days, closed by the most awful day the world has known--closed by the ever-memorable and tremendous Friday--came and went. On the Saturday, Paulus met Longinus, who said he had been on Mount Calvary that afternoon, and that he, Longinus, was now and ever henceforth a disciple of him who had been crucified. The Sunday came, and brought with it a prodigious rumor, which, instead of dying out, found additional believers every day. The disciples, most of whom had shown themselves as timid as they were known to be ignorant, now seemed transformed into new characters, who loudly affirmed that their Master had risen from the dead by his own power; and they were ready to face every torment and all terrors calmly in the maintenance of this fact, which they predicted would be received and acknowledged by the whole world. And, indeed, it was no longer a rumor, but a truth, attested by the only witnesses who could by possibility know anything about it, either for or against; and whose earthly interests it would have been to deny it, even while they knew it to be true--witnesses who, if they knew it to be false--and they certainly knew whether it were true or false (this much was granted, _and is still granted_, by all their opponents)--could have had no motive, either earthly or unearthly, for feigning that they believed it. So pregnant is this simple reasoning, that a man might ponder it and study it for a whole month, and yet find fresh strength and an ever-increasing weight in the considerations which it suggests; not even find a flaw if he made the one month twelve. Paulus's mind was determined, and so was his mother's. The son sought that same beautiful youth whom he had seen twice before; told him the new desire, the new belief, which had made his mother's and his own heart glad; and by him they were baptized as Christians, disciples of him that had been crucified--by that fair youth, I say, who was to be known for ever among men as "Saint John the Evangelist." "After all, mother," said Paulus, when they were returning together to her dwelling, "it is not so very mysterious; I mean that difficulty about the lowliness of our divine Teacher's chosen place among men. Because, see you, if the builder of those glorious stars and that sublime firmament was to come at all amongst us, he would be certain to take the lowest and smallest lot, lest we should deem there was any difference as before him. We are all low and small together--the earth itself, I am told, being but a sort of Bethlehem among the stars; but, anyhow, we are but mites and emmets on a blade of grass in his sight, and had he taken a great relative place amidst us, it might countenance the lie and the delusion of our silly pride. That part of it is to me not so mysterious, although I don't wonder at the Jewish notion that their Messiah was to have been a great conquering prince--that is probably what the Antichrist will be. It would suit the blindness of vanity better."