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Rh rule over them yet more than his living presence. But another said that John the Prophet could not be Elias: for was it possible that the Lord should suffer such an one as Elias to be slain? And to him Nathaniel replied that Isaiah the Prophet was sawn asunder, and wherefore not also Elias? Then Thomas, one of the Twelve, lamented for John the son of Zachariah, because he had been thus swallowed up by destruction, neither had he left children to stand in his stead upon the earth; "for they that die, leaving children behind them," said he (quoting a certain proverb of my countrymen), "die not, but only fall asleep: but they that die and leave no children, these die indeed." To this John the son of Zebedee made answer that whoso leaveth behind him children perverse and alien from his own nature, he liveth not, for all his children; but whoso leaveth behind him disciples and followers like unto himself and imbued with his own doctrine, such an one liveth, yea even though he be childless and lie in the grave. Hereat methought Jesus was strangely moved: howbeit he sat still where he was, and spake never a word.

But presently mention was made of Jonah the Prophet, how that he also was an exile and fled from his country, even as our Master had been forced to flee. Then Judas said that Jonah had done ill to flee, for that none could flee from the presence of the All-seeing, the Maker of all things, "for," said he, "the son of man, while he liveth, is like unto a horse tethered by a cord which suffereth him to graze, but resteth still in the hand of his owner." Thereon some one took up the discourse and said, "Nay, but rather the cord is a cord of love, and the owner is not an owner, but a father;" and another disciple quoted the words of the psalmist, "By thee have I been holden up from the womb." Thereat Jesus smiled as if to say that that disciple had spoken well, and he bade John repeat