'Which of these three,' said Augustine, 'was neighbour to him who fell
among thieves, but he who had mercy on him? Verily, my friend Raphael
Aben-Ezra, thou art not far from the kingdom of God.'

'Of which God?' asked Raphael slyly.

'Of the God of thy forefather Abraham, whom thou shalt hear us worship
this evening, if He will. Synesius, have you a church wherein I can
perform the evening service, and give a word of exhortation to these my
children?'

Synesius sighed. 'There is a ruin, which was last month a church.'

'And is one still. Man did not place there the presence of God, and man
cannot expel it.'

And so, sending out hunting-parties right and left in chase of
everything which had animal life, and picking up before nightfall a
tolerably abundant supply of game, they went homewards, where Victoria
was entrusted to the care of Synesius's old stewardess, and the soldiery
were marched straight into the church; while Synesius's servants, to
whom the Latin service would have been unintelligible, busied themselves
in cooking the still warm game.

Strangely enough it sounded to Raphael that evening to hear, among those
smoke-grimed pillars and fallen rafters, the grand old Hebrew psalms of
his nation ring aloft, to the very chants, too, which were said by the
rabbi to have been used in the Temple-worship of Jerusalem.... They, and
the invocations, thanksgivings, blessings, the very outward ceremonial
itself, were all Hebraic, redolent of the thoughts, the words of his
own ancestors. That lesson from the book of Proverbs, which Augustine's
deacon was reading in Latin--the blood of the man who wrote these words
was flowing in Aben-Ezra's veins.... Was it a mistake, an hypocrisy? or
were they indeed worshipping, as they fancied, the Ancient One who spoke
face to face with his forefathers, the Archetype of man, the friend of
Abraham and of Israel?

And now the sermon began; and as Augustine stood for a moment in prayer
in front of the ruined altar, every furrow in his worn face lit up by
a ray of moonlight which streamed in through the broken roof,
Raphael waited impatiently for his speech. What would he, the refined
dialectician, the ancient teacher of heathen rhetoric, the courtly and
learned student, the ascetic celibate and theosopher, have to say
to those coarse war-worn soldiers, Thracians and Markmen, Gauls and
Belgians, who sat watching there, with those sad earnest faces? What one
thought or feeling i