Horace was well versed in Scripture history, but he had only a very superficial knowledge of the Epistles of St. Paul. The glowing, fervent spirit of devotion breathing through them had found no response in his heart. He read now, almost as though they were new to him, the soul-stirring words of the apostle and martyr, proclaiming the blessed truths which he so joyfully sealed with his blood—
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong!"
Horace felt that the Italian at his side was not merely reading this as a chronicled address to suffering saints of old, but receiving it as a rousing call to himself, a watchword to be used on the field of battle, a command from a leader to a soldier of the cross.
"Is it true," asked Raphael, when at last he paused in his reading—"is it true that in your blessed land these Scriptures are open to all?"
"The poorest can have a Bible," replied Horace.
"What a power must be wielded there for the truth!" said the Italian, laying his hand upon the open Testament. "In this country there is but a man here and there, like a picket in a hostile land, a sentinel on a post of danger, to grasp with a feeble hand the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, standing forth in a cause which, were it not the cause of the Almighty, he might well consider to be desperate; but with you, how strong, how united a phalanx must hold the ground against all opposers, and go forward conquering and triumphant in the great battle that is waged on earth!"
"Of what battle do you speak?" said Horace, rather to draw forth an answer from Raphael than from any difficulty as to his meaning.
"The great battle between truth and error, Light and Darkness, God and Satan," replied Raphael; "that battle in which every individual must be enlisted on one or the other side."
"Not necessarily to take any very active part," observed Horace, who felt as regarded himself there had been little interest, and certainly no great effort in the strife.
Raphael fixed his large, earnest eyes upon the speaker with an expression of grave surprise. "In the world's warfare," said he, "what do we esteem a soldier who shrinks from taking his part in the struggle, who obeys not his leader, who deserts his banner at a period of danger?"