"That is sweet humility, while ye are oppressed," he said, in a voice almost prophetic. "But will ye remember it, when ye come into power?" Power! Had any of that congregation a hope for power? The word startled them. They looked at the rabbi's garments, clothing a huge frame, the strength of the Law typified, and wondered at his words. Even the preacher had no ready answer. The intimation of the Nazarenes in power on the lips of an expounder of the Law was not conducive to instant comment. "So ye were in the Jews' place, what would ye do?" he asked again. Marsyas looked at the rabbi in surprise, but meanwhile the preacher answered. "Christ's doctrine suffereth no change for rank or power." "Watch; forget it not!" Eleazar turned to Marsyas. "I have seen, my brother," he said. "This is not the method. Let us wait; our time will come." Contented to go, Marsyas turned with the rabbi and together they passed through the gathering to the door. But before they went out, Marsyas spoke again to the silent congregation. "Rest ye," he said, "we are not informers." They went forth. CHAPTER XIII A TRUST FULFILLED Marsyas came forth moodily convinced by Eleazar's words. No; it was not the method. Revenge would have to come through another medium than the Nazarenes. Stephen had told him before that the privilege of taking vengeance had been removed from the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. At that time Marsyas had not believed it of the whole sect; but now he was not too much irritated to be convinced. "Is there any doctrine too mad to get it followers?" he said. "O brother," Eleazar said, with his chin on his breast, "it is a period of change. The world wearies of its manner from time to time. Surfeit of good is not less common than surfeit of evil, but it is deadlier. Men tire of their gods as they do of their women, and thou, being an eremite and unfamiliar, may not know that death is much more desirable than enforced toleration of satiety." Marsyas heard; satiety was only a word to him and the rabbi's earnestness carried no conviction for him. "It is the time for change; rest under old usages is no longer possible. But Israel hath endured a long, long time in one habit." "Give me thy meaning, Rabbi." "Thou and I are good Jews, Marsyas, yet I can not say that of a surety of any other man in Judea. I have come from Jerusalem, David's City, the rock of Israel, but the hosts of schism possess it from the Ophlas to the uttermost limits of Bezetha!" "Rabbi!" "I have seen; I have seen. Saul hath set for himself a task of emptying the sea. In Jerusalem they come singing to torture and death, but armies of them go fleeing into the rest of Judea and all the world. And, hear me, thou true son of Israel, the pastor of the apostates we heard this night declared at least one truth. The Pharisee hath diffused an influence; he hath scattered a pestilence." Because it was a new charge against Saul, Marsyas accepted it.