"Joyful is he in the midst of sadness and happy in all adversity; for wherever he goes he dwells in the shadow of the Eternal, and hears His wings above him. "Among the countless lame and maimed, in the multitude of the defective and infirm, he is the only perfect one, showing what it is possible for man to be. "Strong is he, and beautiful in person; proud and unpretentious; daring and patient; wise in great, and sagacious in lesser, things; stern in deed, yet tender-hearted; unlimited in love; gentle, but never weak. "For he is the only hale flower of perfect bloom in a full field of the pale and the deformed. Honor be to him! Elect him, and encompass him with care and with homage; for in him exists the future and the entire race. "He is the director of the ways of men, and bears with ease the burden of their sorrow and their care, for he knows the issue and the solution. "He is the maker and maintainer of order in human relations, because he knows and comprehends, and beholds in his mind, like an accurate map, the longings and emotions of men. "He operates not through pressure of fear or force, but through the superiority of his mind, which must be perceptible to all. "He is the regulator of the labor of men, teaching them how to bring forth and to distribute in such manner that none may have overflow while others suffer scarcity; and also that none may be idle while others overwork. He plans and confirms the bond through which each finds his place in the great family, so that life becomes fine and orderly and easy, like the figures of a well-drilled dance. "Such is the King of men. His power is given him, not through the unreasoning, capricious fancy of the undeveloped who are the slaves of custom and of idle, impressionable fear, but through the reasonable views of the multitude who follow and honor, in him, their own best self. "He moves not in the splendor of external pomp, neither wears he a golden crown; but around his head streams, visible to all, the grace of God, which is wisdom, love, and beauty." * * * * * When Markus had said this, people here and there began to be restless. The master of ceremonies indicated that enough had been said, and sent one lackey to the choir-conductor to ask why, according to regulations, there was no singing, and another lackey to the door to see if the carriages were in waiting. But the carriages were not yet there, and the children who were to sing the chorus now in order, remained, with perplexed faces and open mouths, gazing at that strange figure speaking as if out of the sky in such a marvelous voice. The conductor failed to attract their attention, and realized that all his painstaking, studious preparations for the song were useless.