But Stephen answered: "If such was my thought, At least I did not know it to be such, As thou hast thus divined it now for me. Thither perhaps it tended--but that goal, Shown in this light from thee, though far, I shun; I would not be more wise than God, for God. But is there then no contrariety At all, no spirit discrepant, between The frightful fulminations of those psalms And the forgiving love of our Lord Christ?" "None, Stephen," said Paul, "for none did Jesus know, Who knew those psalms and never protest made Against them, never softened their austere, Their angry, aspect, never glozed their sense, Never one least slant syllable let slip, Hint as that _He_ would not have spoken so, Never with pregnant silence passed them by. Nay, of those psalms one of the fiercest, He-- And this, then when His baptism into death, His offering of Himself for sin, was nigh, Those Feet already in the crimson flood!-- Most meek and lowly suffering Lamb of God, Took to Himself to make it serve His need In uttering the just horror of His soul At such hate wreaked on Him without a cause. 'Pour out Thine indignation on them, Lord, And let the fierceness of Thy wrath smite them! To their iniquity iniquity Add Thou'--such curse invokes this dreadful psalm-- 'Let them be blotted from the book of life'! From close beside these burning sentences, These drops of Sodom-and-Gomorrah rain, Out of the self-same psalm with them, our Lord, Now nigh to suffer (saying to His own He as in holy of holies with them shrined, More heavenly things than ever even Himself Till then had spoken) drew those words--sad words, Stern words!--'They hated Me without a cause.' Love shrank not, nay, in Him, from holy hate! "His spirit and the spirit of those psalms Ever with one another dwelt at peace; More than at peace, with one another one Were they, the selfsame spirit both; as needs Was, since the Spirit of all psalms was He. Even thus, I have not to the full expressed The will, with power, that in Christ Jesus wrought To fulmine indignation against sin. The psalms, those fiercest and most branding, fail To match the fury of the Lamb of God Poured out in words of woe on wickedness, His own words, burning to the lowest hell-- Enraged eruption from the heart of love! Most dreadful of things dreadful that! A fire, My Stephen, which, as loth to kindle, so, Once kindled, then will burn the deepest down! Woe the most hopeless of surcease or change-- Mercy herself to malediction moved, Love forced to speak in final words of hate!"