“Linus, spared at first, they have taken now and put to torture, O Lord!”
Then a fifth,
“When we return to our houses, pretorians will seize us. We know not where to hide.”
“Woe to us! Who will protect us?”
And thus in that silence of the night complaint after complaint was heard. The old fisherman closed his eyes and shook his white head over that human pain and fear. New silence followed; the watchman merely gave out low whistles beyond the shed.
Vinicius sprang up again, so as to break through the crowd to the Apostle and demand salvation; but on a sudden he saw before him, as it were, a precipice, the sight of which took strength from his feet. What if the Apostle were to confess his own weakness, affirm that the Roman Cæsar was stronger than Christ the Nazarene? And at that thought terror raised the hair on his head, for he felt that in such a case not only the remnant of his hope would fall into that abyss, but with it he himself, and all through which he had life, and there would remain only night and death, resembling a shoreless sea.
Meanwhile Peter began to speak in a voice so low at first that it was barely possible to hear him,—
“My children, on Golgotha I saw them nail God to the cross. I heard the hammers, and I saw them raise the cross on high, so that the rabble might gaze at the death of the Son of Man. I saw them open His side, and I saw Him die. When returning from the cross, I cried in pain, as ye are crying, ‘Woe! woe! O Lord, Thou art God! Why hast Thou permitted this? Why hast Thou died, and why hast Thou tormented the hearts of us who believed that Thy kingdom would come?’
“But He, our Lord and God, rose from the dead the third day, and was among us till He entered His kingdom in great glory.
“And we, seeing our little faith, became strong in heart, and from that time we are sowing His grain.”