the vast love that
animates it, and the fervent longing to lead the straying sinner back to
the path of salvation.--Your admirable mother has told me, with tears in
her eyes, of the abyss over which you are standing. It is your desire
to bind yourself for life to a heretic, a Melchite--and there is another
thing which fills her pious mother's heart with fears, which tortures it
as she thinks of you and your eternal welfare. She promised to confide
this to my ear in church, and I shall find leisure to consider of it on
my return home; but at any rate, and be it what it may, it cannot more
greatly imperil your soul than marriage with a Melchite.

"On what have you set your heart? On the mere joys of earth! You sue for
the hand of an unbeliever, the daughter of an unbelieving heretic;
you go over to Fostat--nay, hear me out--and place your brain and your
strong arm at the service of the infidels--it is but yesterday; but I,
I, the shepherd of my flock, will not suffer that he who is the highest
in rank, the richest in possessions, the most powerful by the mere
dignity of his name, shall pervert thousands of the Jacobite brethren. I
have the will and the power too, to close the sluice gates against such
a disaster. Obey me, or you shall rue it with tears of blood."

The prelate paused, expecting to see Orion fall on his knees before
him; but the young man did nothing of the kind. He stood looking at him,
open-eyed and agitated, but undecided, and Benjamin went on with added
vehemence:

"I came to you to lift up my voice in protest, and I desire, I require,
I command you: sever all ties with the enemies of your nation and of
your faith, cast out your love for the Melchite Siren, who will seduce
your immortal part to inevitable perdition...."

Till this Orion had listened with bowed head and in silence to the
diatribe which the patriarch had hurled at him like a curse; but at this
point his whole being rose in revolt, all self-control forsook him, and
he interrupted the speaker in loud tones:

"Never, never, never will I do such a thing! Insult me as you will. What
I am, I will still be: a faithful son of the Church to which my fathers
belonged, and for which my brothers died. In all humility I acknowledge
Jesus Christ as my Lord. I believe in him, believe in the God-made-man
who died to save us, and who brought love into the world, and I will
remain unpersuaded and faithful to my own love. Never will I forsake her
who