On the opposite wall sinners were burning in the fire of the pit, and above them rose Paradise and the saints. One of the saints was plucking the fruits of the tree of Eden; another playing the psaltery; and a third, couched on a cloud, contemplated with a beatific smile the tortures of the damned. Beneath were written the words, "Behold! there shall be tears and gnashing of teeth!" The adorers of St. Mamas entered the church like a procession of all human maladies. The bandy-legged, the blind, the armless, the anæmic, children tottering along like old men, epileptics, idiots with pale faces and inflamed eyelids--all bore the mark of a dull and desperate submission. When the choir ceased, there could be heard the contrite sighings of the "widows of the church," black-robed nuns of the order of St. Basil, and the jingling of the chains of old Pamphilus, who for many a long year had addressed no word to the living, muttering only, "Lord, Lord, give me tears!--grant me mercy!--give me an end to remembrance!" The atmosphere was that of a warm sepulchral chamber, thick, loaded with incense and the smell of melting wax, hot oil, and the breath of all these sick persons. Now it was Julian's lot on that day to read aloud part of the Apocalypse. The terrifying pictures of the Revelation were unfolded, the white horse of Death soared through space above the peoples of the earth, as they knelt weeping at the nearness of the world's end. "_The sun becomes dark as pitch, and the moon red as blood. Men say to the mountains, Fall on us and hide us from the throne of God and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His anger is come, and who can resist it?_" Over and over again came the prophecy: "_Men shall seek death and shall not find it; they shall desire death and it shall flee from them._" Lamentation arose: "_Thrice happy are the dead!_" and "_Then came the bloody destruction of all peoples, and the angel cast his sickle into the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, and the wine-press was trodden without the city; and there came out blood from the wine-press even unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs_," and men cursed the God of heaven for their plagues, and they did not repent them of their sins; and the angel sang: "_He Who worships the Beast and his image shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, prepared in the cup of His anger, and shall be tormented in fire and sulphur before the holy angels and the Lamb, and the smoke of his torture shall rise in the night of ages. For he who shall adore the Beast and his image shall rest no more._"