"O patient Bearer of the Cross," he prayed, "let us not faint thus soon--we who are driven on! Let Thy footsteps be illumined that we may go Thy way, even though they lead unto Calvary! Teach us Thy submission, quicken us with Thy love, clothe us with Thy charity, that they who oppress us may see that submission is stronger than rebellion, that love is more enduring than hate, that charity is broad enough for our enemies. And if it be Thy will that we should love the spoiler of Thy Church and the destroyer of Thy saints, teach us then to love that enemy!" This of a surety was not what Marsyas had expected to hear. Undoubtedly the praying man spoke of Saul. The prayer continued. "Lo, Thou hast tarried thus long away from us, and evil already gathereth thick about Thy people. In those days, when we asked and were answered, voice unto voice, we did not grope. Now, O Lord, we ask and there answers but the speech of faith left in us, and that in grievous hours--doth not bid the cup to pass from us!" Marsyas' chin sank on his breast; somehow the faltering sentences fell on some keenly sensitive spot in his soul, for in spirit he winced, and listened intently, in spite of himself. "Yet, judge us not as wavering, O Lord; we but miss Thee from our side, who loved Thee, O Christ!" The sentence ceased suddenly at the edge of a break in the voice. It seemed that human sorrow had broken in on an inspiration, and the sound of a sob arose here and there from the bowed circle of Nazarenes. Marsyas suddenly saw the dark trampled space without Hanaleel, the falling night, the still figure of Stephen stretched on the sand, the three humble mourners who of all Jerusalem were not afraid to sorrow for him, and the young Essene choked back a cry to the praying man, "I know thy pain, brother!" For that instant bond of sorrow it did not matter that, according to Marsyas' lights, the praying man blasphemed and besought another than the one Lord God as divinity. The Nazarene had loved a friend and lost him from his side; the voice had ceased and, in place of the warm content, only agony and emptiness abode in the heart. "Show us Thy will; let us see and we shall follow; above all things quicken our ears that Thy loved voice may still be sweet in them across the boundaries of Death and through the darkness which embraceth our heads. Lo, Thou art with us alway even unto the end, we believe, we believe!" There was too much human suffering, self-examination and beseeching in the prayer for it to help any who heard it. It was not like Stephen's prayers, which had seized upon Marsyas' spirit because of their unshaken confidence and beatification, and had terrified him, as assaults upon his steadfastness. In those moments, he had been afraid of the Nazarene heresy; now, he was stirred to pity for the heretics. The sensation added to his resolution against Saul.