appearance and prophesied power. Hermas knew very well who it
was: the man who had drawn him from his father's house, the
teacher who was instructing him as a son in the Christian faith,
the guide and trainer of his soul--John of Antioch, whose fame
filled the city and began to overflow Asia, and who was called
already Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed preacher.

Hermas had felt the magic of his eloquence many a time;
and to-day, as the tense voice vibrated through the stillness,
and the sentences moved onward, growing fuller and stronger,
bearing argosies of costly rhetoric and treasures of homely
speech in their bosom, and drawing the hearts of men with a
resistless magic, Hermas knew that the preacher had never been
more potent, more inspired.

He played on that immense congregation as a master on an
instrument. He rebuked their sins, and they trembled. He
touched their sorrows, and they wept. He spoke of the
conflicts, the triumphs, the glories of their faith, and they
broke out in thunders of applause. He hushed them into reverent
silence, and led them tenderly, with the wise men of the East, to
the lowly birthplace of Jesus.

"Do thou, therefore, likewise leave the Jewish people, the
troubled city, the bloodthirsty tyrant, the pomp of the world,
and hasten to Bethlehem, the sweet house of spiritual bread.
For though thou be but a shepherd, and come hither, thou shalt
behold the young Child in an inn. Though thou be a king, and
come not hither, thy purple robe shall profit thee nothing.
Though thou be one of the wise men, this shall be no hindrance