The old man stood still, laid his hand on the youth's shoulder, and
then said mildly: "My dear young friend, there is yet time; listen
even now to my fatherly warning, before it is too late. Do not deceive
yourself, as so many, even without number, have done already; be on
your guard, and watch over your soul. Are you then at your age thus
beforehand aweary of your peace and future blessedness? would you
requite your Saviour's love by becoming a runagate from him, and
denying him, and taking up arms as a rebel against him?"

"I understand you not, old man," replied Alfonso: "did not you
yourself see and hear how piously, how christianly, with what a
heart-stirring majesty, the glorious man spake, and led back the
erring footsteps of sorrowing love by his heavenly comfort into the
right path?"

"What is there that he cannot, that he will not do, the trickster, the
magician!" exclaimed the old priest warmly.

"Magician!" returned Alfonso. "So you too would take part in the folly
of the rabble that is unable to appreciate the knowledge of lofty
spirits, and would rather credit any absurdity than strengthen their
own souls by gazing upon the grandeur of a fellow-creature.

"Only go on in this way," said the priest indignantly, "and you
scarcely need go into his vaunted school. It is clear his magic has
you already in its snares, just as he subdues every heart that but
beats within his reach. Yes forsooth, the heathen, he has spoken and
prophesied today like a priest, and has for once besmeared his lies
with this varnish. In the same manner he is lord and master in the
house of the Podesta. Poor Crescentia could hardly in her last hours
find her way back to holy church: so bound and held fast was her soul
by the false doctrines the wicked hypocrite had flung like poisonous
nets around her young spirit. Now she has escaped him; the Lord has
called her to himself, and has sent this disease to save her soul with
the loss of her body."

The speakers were come into the large square before the church. The
youth was irritated, and, to give his feelings vent, exclaimed: "What
boots all this fierce envy, my ghostly sir? Do you not see, can you
not perceive, how the world only falls away from you more and more,
the more you by your excommunications and anathemas and persecutions
strive to quench and stifle the new spirit? that spirit of eternal
truth which is now awakening all nations from their sleep, and which
in spite of y