"It is related by learned men in the _Bestiaries_ how the unicorn, which
bears on its forehead a flaming sword, transfixes the hunter in his
coat-of-mail, but falls to its knees before a pure virgin. Be ye
gentle-hearted, therefore, and simple-souled; keep your heart pure, and
ye shall fear nothing.

"Put not your trust in the sword of the Condottieri, for did not the
shepherd boy's smooth stone pierce Goliath's brow? But be ye strong in
love, and love them that hate you. Hate, when unreturned, is robbed of
half its sting; and what is left is weak, widowed, and like to die.
Strip yourselves, that other men strip you not. Love your enemies, that
they become your friends. Forgive, that ye may be forgiven. Say not,
'Gentleness is a bane to the shepherds of the peoples.' For how can you
know, seeing these have never tried? They profess by harshness to have
lessened the evil of the world. Yet is evil still rampant among men, and
there is never a sign of its growing less.

"I said to some, 'Be not oppressors,' and to others, 'Rise not in revolt
against oppression,'--and neither hearkened to me. They cast the stone
of derision at me. Because I was on all men's side, each reproached me
and said, 'You are not on my side.'

"I said, 'I am the friend of the wretched.' But you never thought I was
your friend, because in your pride, you know not that you are wretched.
Nevertheless the wretchedness of the master is more cruel than that of
the slave. My tender pity for your woes only made you think I was
mocking you; and the oppressed deemed me to be of the party of the
oppressors. 'He has no bowels,' they said. Nay! but I am on the side of
love and not of hate. This is why you scorn me; and because I preach