"Thou dost not need to ask such things, my son," Paul with a grave severity replied. "To ask them is to ask me that I judge A fellow-servant. What am I to judge The servant of another, I who am Servant myself with him of the same Lord? I will not judge my neighbor; nay, myself, Mine own self even, I judge not; One is Judge, He who the Master is, not I that serve. If so be, the inspired, not sanctified, Mere man, entrusted with the word of God-- Our human fellow in infirmity, Remember, of like passions with ourselves-- Indeed in those old days wherein he wrote, His enemies being the enemies of the Lord, And speaking he as voice at once of God And of God's chosen, His ministers to destroy Those wicked--if so be such man, so placed, Half conscious, half unconscious, oracle Of utterance not his own, did in some part That utterance make his own, profaning it, To be his vehicle for sense not meant By the august Supreme Inspiring Will-- Whether in truth he did, be God the judge, Not thou, my son, nor I, but if he did-- Why, Stephen, then that psalmist--with more plea Than thou for lenient judgment on the sin, Thine the full light, and only twilight his, With Christ our Sun unrisen--the selfsame fault As thou, committed. Be both thou and he Forgiven of Him with Whom forgiveness is-- With Whom alone, that so He may be feared!" Abashed, rebuked, the youth in silence stood, Musing; but what he mused divining, Paul, With gently reassuring speech resumed, Soon to the things unspoken in the heart Of Stephen spoke and said: "Abidest still Unsatisfied that anything from God, Though even through man, should less than perfect be, Or anywise other than incapable, Than utterly intolerant, of abuse To purposes profane? Consider this-- And lay thy hand upon thy mouth, nay, put Thou mouth into the dust, before the Lord-- That God Most High hath willed it thus to be, That thus Christ found it and pronounced it good. Who are we, Stephen, to be more wise than God, Who, to be holier than His Holy Son?" "Amen! Amen! I needs must say, Amen!" In anguish of bewilderment the youth Cried out, almost with sobs of passionate Submission, from rebellion passionate Hardly to be distinguished; "yea, to God From man, ever amen, only amen, No other answer possible to Him!-- Who is the potter, in Whose hands the clay Are we, helpless and choiceless, to be formed And fashioned into vessels at His will!" "Helpless, yea, Stephen," Paul said, "but choiceness not; We choose, nay, even, we cannot choose but choose-- The choice our freedom, our necessity: Free how to choose, we are to choose compelled. We choose with God, or else against Him choose. Which wilt thou, Stephen? Thou! With Him or against?"