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As God appeared to Abraham, Lot, and Jacob: so angels have appeared to many in other cases, as to Manoah and his wife, Zechariah, the Virgin Mary, and to the apostles; other have been warned in a dream as king Abimelech, the false prophet Balaam, and many others.
Then fell Balaam upon his face, and foretold what calamities would befall the several kings of the nations, and the most eminent cities, some of which of old were not so much as inhabited; which events have come to pass among the several people concerned, both in the foregoing ages, and in this, till my own memory, both by sea and by land.
Three days later there appeared on the borders of Scratch Hill a lank gentleman armed with a rifle, while the butts of two pistols protruded from the depths of his capacious coat pockets. He made his presence known by whooping from the edge of the branch, and his whoops shaped themselves into the name of Yancy. It was Charley Balaam, old Squire Balaam's nephew.
For, if one can have faith so great as to be able to move mountains, without charity, and yet, precisely because charity is absent, be utterly worthless and wicked; if it is possible to be a true prophet and yet a bad man, as were Saul, Balaam, and Caiphas; to work miracles as Judas is believed to have done, and yet to be sinful as he was; if we can give all our goods to the poor, and suffer martyrdom by fire, without having charity, much more may we be devout without being charitable, since devotion is a virtue less estimable in its nature than those which we have mentioned.
As Balaam was evidently expecting the visit we may conclude that the caller was Baal, as Jehovah was not at that time on visiting terms with the Gentile priests was busily engaged pulling down their altars and putting them to the sword.
He hooked his right thumb inside his waistcoat pocket. "But I'm not cryin' for him," he repeated. "He'd stay right here, of course. I wouldn't part with him. Why does he stand that way? Hello!" Balaam suddenly straightened himself, like a man who has made a discovery. "Hello, what?" said Shorty, on the defensive. Balaam was staring at Pedro with a judicial frown.
Balaam, thou leanest thy foot against the walls, but do as thou wilt, I will crush thy foot; I leaned on the wall, on Christ, I leaned on His grace, I hoped; leave off thine anger and threatening, thou canst not get me away from the wall. I say to all of you: Come to the truth, forsake your vice and your malice, that I may not have to tell you of your grief.
Balaam still insisted that he had received no permission to wipe up the Plain of Moab with the ex-brick builders, but saddled his ass and went along, promising to do the best he could for his bleeding country. He evidently desired to size up the situation and be quite sure that none of his curses would come home to roost.
If I were a Roman Catholic, I should content myself with saying that the mighty hand and the outstretched arm had been put forth, according to the promise, in defence of the unchangeable Church; that He who in the old time turned into blessings the curses of Balaam, and smote the host of Sennacherib, had signally confounded the arts of heretic statesmen. But what is a Protestant to say?
Loyalty is the only virtue she insists on, loyalty in regard to her servant's experience of beauty; he may be immoral in every other way and she not desert him; but let him turn Balaam and declare beauty absent where he feels its presence though in doing this he hopes to advance virtue or knowledge, she needs no better than an ass to rebuke him.
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