4. "Woman," Tritemius answered, "from our door
None go unfed; hence are we always poor;
A single soldo is our only store.
Thou hast our prayers; what can we give thee more?"
5. "Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticks
On either side of the great crucifix;
God may well spare them on his errands sped,
Or he can give you golden ones instead."
6. Then spake Tritemius: "Even as thy word,
Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord,
Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice,
Pardon me if a human soul I prize
Above the gifts upon his altar piled!)
Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child."
7. But his hand trembled as the holy alms
He placed within the beggar's eager palms;
And as she vanished down the linden shade,
He bowed his head, and for forgiveness prayed.
8. So the day passed, and when the twilight came
He woke to find the chapel all aflame,
And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold!
Whittier.
XI.—DAMON AND PYTHIAS.
1. About four hundred years before the Christian era, the government of Syracuse fell into the hands of Dionysius, a successful general of the army. He dispossessed the magistrates whom the people elected, and was therefore a usurper. While ruling justly in the main, he had a capricious temper, and often in his rage performed actions which he sincerely regretted in his sober moments. He was a good scholar, and very fond of philosophy and poetry, and he delighted to have learned men around him, and he had naturally a generous spirit; but the sense that he was in a position that did not belong to him, and that every one hated him for assuming it, made him very harsh and suspicious. It is of him that the story is told, that he had a chamber hollowed in the rock near his state prison, and constructed with galleries to conduct sounds like an ear, so that he might overhear the conversation of his captives; and of him, too, is told that famous anecdote which has become a proverb, that on hearing a friend, named Damocles, express a wish to be in his situation for a single day, he took him at his word, and Damocles found himself at a banquet with everything that could delight his senses, delicious food, costly wine, flowers, perfumes, music, but with a sword with the point almost touching his head, and hanging by a single horse-hair! This was to show the condition in which a usurper lived.