Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/384

 promise deliverance to all who follow your counsel; but as well can you make a present of moon and stars.

"Are you not told to recompense evil with good? And is God less than man that He should do otherwise?

"It is well for you that He does not do otherwise, for where then were your salvation?

"For you, and you only, are the brood of vipers against whom is kindled the wrath of Him who was gentle with adulterers and murderers."

While speaking, the man had risen to his full height, and he now appeared, to all there assembled, impressively tall.

When he had spoken, reaching his right hand backward he grasped the foot of the great golden crucifix. It snapped off like glass, and he threw it on the marble floor at the feet of the priest. The fragment broke into many bits. It was apparently not wood, but plaster.

"Sacrilege!" cried the priest, in a stifled voice, as if the sound were wrung from his throat. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his great purple face.

The man quietly replied:

"No, but my right; for you are the sacrilegist and the blasphemer who makes of the Son of man a hideous caricature."

Then the priest stepped forward, and gripped Markus by the wrist. The latter made no resistance, but cried in a loud voice that reverberated through the church:

"Do your work, Caiaphas!"

After that he suffered himself to be led away to the sacristy.