“The more serious events which gave my life this particular bias occurred in my twentieth year, when I had already left even the high school behind me; nor was I fully carried away by their influence till after my uncle had procured me several opportunities of proving my proficiency in my calling.  I may say without vanity that my speeches won approval; but I was revolted by the pompous, flowery bombast, without which I should have been hissed down, and though my parents rejoiced when I went home from Niku, Arsmoe, or some other little provincial town, with laurel-wreaths and gold pieces, to myself I always seemed an impostor.  Still, for my father’s sake, I dared not give up my profession, although I hated more and more the task of praising people to the skies whom I neither loved nor respected, and of shedding tears of pathos while all the time I was minded to laugh.

“I had plenty of time to myself, and as I did not lack courage and held stoutly to our Greek confession, I was always to be found where there was any stir or contention between the various sects.  They generally passed off with nothing worse than bruises and scratches, but now and then swords were drawn.  On one occasion thousands came forth to meet thousands, and the Prefect called out the troops—­all Greeks—­to restore order by force.  A massacre ensued in which thousands were killed.  I could not describe it!  Such scenes were not rare, and the fury and greed of the mob were often directed against the Jews by the machinations of the creatures of the archbishop and the government.  The things I saw there were so horrible, so shocking, that the tongue refuses to tell them; but one poor Jewess, whose husband the wretches—­our fellow Christians—­killed, and then pillaged the house, I have never forgotten!  A soldier dragged her down by her hair, while a ruffian snatched the child from her breast and, holding it by its feet, dashed its skull against the wall before her eyes—­as you might slash a wet cloth against a pillar to dry it—­I shall never forget that handsome young mother and her child; they come before me in my dreams at night even now.

“All these things I saw; and I shuddered to behold God’s creatures, beings endowed with reason, persecuting their fellows, plunging them into misery, tearing them limb from limb—­and why?  Merciful Saviour, why?  For sheer hatred—­as sure as man is the standard for all things—­merely carried away by a hideous impulse to spite their neighbor for not thinking as they do—­nay, simply for not being themselves—­to hurt him, insult him, work him woe.  And these fanatics, these armies who raised the standard of ruthlessness, of extermination, of bloodthirstiness, were Christians, were baptized in the name of Him who bids us forgive our enemies, who enlarged the borders of love from the home and the city and the state to include all mankind; who raised the adulteress from the dust, who took children into his arms, and would have more