BOOK II.
SAUL AND THE SANHEDRIM.
The Sanhedrim still in session on the apostles' case, Saul speaks; first scornfully repudiating for himself Shimei's proposal of guile, and then impressively announcing his own purpose, now fully mature, to controvert the Christian preachers in open argument before the people. After a pause following Saul's speech, Gamaliel speaks in favor of letting the prisoners go free. Other councillors express their sentiments. A scourging of the utmost severity being proposed, Nicodemus, with bated breath, deprecates first a cruel infliction, and then any infliction at all. Release after scourging is finally resolved upon.
SAUL AND THE SANHEDRIM.
Dumb-struck and stirless long the Sanhedrim—
Instinctively abhorrent from the part
Of that base councillor—at last there rose
A new assessor in the midst to speak.
A young man he, who, in the general thought,
Wherever moving, round about him wore
A golden halo of uncertain hope
And prophecy of bright futures. Aspect clear
And pure; straight stature; foothold firm and free;
The bloom of youth just ripening to the hue
Of perfect manhood upon cheek and brow;
Lip mobile, but not lax—capacity
Expressed of exquisite emotion, will
Elastic and resilient, tempered true
To bend, not break, and ultimately strong;
Glances of lightning latent in the eye,
But lightning liable to be quenched in tears;
The pride of every Hebrew, such was Saul.
A stir of expectation broke the hush
Of that strange silence, ere his opening words:
"That I, the youngest of this order, thus
Should rise for speech—and that beloved gray head
Before me bowed, unready yet—might seem
Unseemly. But to speak after he speaks,
My own reveréd guide, the guide of all,
Would be, should I then speak to differ, more
Unseemly still. And what I have to say,
Being my thought, burns in me to be said,
Approve, condemn, who will; God bids me speak."