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night, and then they beg him to join them in some still greater crime. By little and little he became habituated to vice, and then through the hotness of his nature, starting like a hard-mouthed and spirited horse out of the right path, and taking as it were the bit into his mouth, rushed so much the more violently down the precipice. Finally despairing of the salvation which is by God, he was no longer contented with more petty offences; but, as he was now altogether lost, would fain do some great thing, and disdained to suffer but an equal punishment with the rest. He took therefore with him these same companions, and having got together a band of robbers, became their ready leader, and of all the most violent, the most bloody, the most cruel.
An interval elapsed; and upon some need falling out in the Church, the men of the city again called upon John to visit them. After he had set in order the things for which he came, "Come," said he to the Bishop, "give me back the deposit which I and Christ committed to thee in the sight of the Church over which you preside." The Bishop was at first amazed, for he thought that John was unjustly charging him with money which had not been really given him, and knew not either how to credit a demand for what he had never received, or how to discredit the Apostle. But when he said plainly, "It is the youth I demand of thee, the soul of a brother," the old man groaned from the bottom of his heart, and shedding a few tears at the thought, answered him, "He is dead." "How then did he die, and by what death?" "He is dead," he said, "to God, for he has ended in becoming wicked and abandoned, and to sum up all, a robber, and now instead of the Church, he has taken to the hills with an armed band of robbers like himself." Then the Apostle tore his garment, and uttering a loud wail, beat his head, and said, "A careful guardian truly, I left of the soul of my brother, but bring me a horse, and let me have some one to guide me on my way. So he rode away from the Church, just as he was, and when he came to the place, being taken, by the outposts of the robbers, he neither fled from them, nor asked for mercy, but cried out, "For this purpose came I, bring me to your chief." He in the mean time, in the armour he wore, waited for his approach. When, however, he recognized St. John, as he drew near, he was filled with shame, and turned and fled. But the Apostle followed after him with all his strength,
