Nicetas, after this, became friendly to the patriarch, who, as a token of response, stood godfather to his children. On one occasion this friendship was clouded, and threatened dissolution. The governor had imposed a tax, which fell with peculiar severity on the poor. John complained, and back-biters were not slow to excite Nicetas against John, by representing him as fomenting general discontent. The governor rushed to the patriarch's lodgings, and exploded into a storm of angry words, which left our Saint agitated and distressed. As evening drew on, he wrote on a scroll the words, "_The sun is setting_," and sent it to Nicetas, who, recalling the maxim of S. Paul, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath," was moved to regret his violence, and he sped with the same celerity as before, but with different purpose, to the residence of the patriarch, to ask his pardon, and heal their friendship. The good prelate could ill bear to be at discord with another, though the fault was none of his. On one occasion he had excommunicated, for a few days, two clerks, who had attacked each other with their fists. One bore the sentence in a right spirit of compunction, but the other with resentment. Next Sunday, the patriarch was at the altar celebrating. As the deacon was about to remove the veil covering the sacred vessels, John remembered all at once the hostility of the clerk, and the words of our Lord: "If thou bringest thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." (Matt. v. 25, 24.) Then, bidding the deacon recite the general prayer over and over again till his return, he left the altar, and, entering the vestry, sent a minister to bring the clerk who was not in charity with him. And when this man came, the patriarch fell before him on his knees, and bowed his white head, and said, "Pardon me, my brother!" Then the clerk, full of shame to see the patriarch, an aged man, in all his splendid vestments, at his feet, flung himself down, weeping, confessed his wrong, and asked forgiveness. Then the patriarch embraced him, and returning to the altar, finished the sacrifice.