"Then the Lord desired that his apostle should eat of all things?... while I...."
(Anthony remains thoughtful, his chin resting against his breast. The rustling of the pages, agitated by the wind, causes him to lift his head again; and he reads:)
'So the Jews made a great slaughter of their enemies with the sword, and killed them, repaying according to what they had prepared to do to them....[2]
"Then, comes the number of people slain by them—seventy-five thousand. They had suffered so much! Moreover, their enemies were the enemies of the true God. And how they must have delighted in avenging themselves thus by the massacre of idolaters! Doubtless the city must have been crammed with the dead! There must have been corpses at the thresholds of the garden gates, upon the stairways, in all the chambers, and piled up so high that the doors could no longer move upon their hinges!... But lo! here I am permitting my mind to dwell upon ideas of murder and of blood!..."
(He opens the book at another place.)
'Then King Nabuchodonosor fell on his face, and worshipped Daniel....'[3]
"Ah! that was just! The Most High exalts his prophets above Kings; yet that monarch spent his life in banqueting, perpetually drunk with pleasure and pride. But God, to punish him, changed him into a beast! He walked upon four feet!"
(Anthony begins to laugh; and in extending his arms, involuntarily disarranges the leaves of the book with the tips of his fingers. His eyes fell upon this phrase:—)
'And Ezechias rejoiced at their coming, and he showed them the house of his aromatical spices, and the gold and the silver, and divers precious odours and ointments, and the house of his vessels, and all that he had in his treasures....'[4]