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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, I.N.R.I., by Peter Rosegger, Translated by
+Elizabeth Lee
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: I.N.R.I.
+       A prisoner's Story of the Cross
+
+
+Author: Peter Rosegger
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 5, 2005  [eBook #17011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I.N.R.I.***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+I. N. R. I.
+
+A Prisoner's Story of the Cross
+
+by
+
+PETER ROSEGGER
+
+Translated by Elizabeth Lee
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Hodder and Stoughton Limited
+London
+First Edition, September, 1905.
+Second Edition, September, 1905.
+Third Edition, December, 1905.
+Made and Printed in Great Britain.
+Wyman & Sons Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham
+
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+The difficult path which leads to the gardens where the waters of life
+sparkle, takes us first to a big city in which the hearts of men
+pulsate with feverish unrest.
+
+There is such a great crowd in the broad square in front of the law
+courts that the electric cars are forced to stop.  Six or eight of them
+are standing in a row, and the police cannot break through the crowd.
+Every one is making for the law courts; some hurry forward excitedly,
+others push their way through quietly, and fresh streams of people from
+the side streets are continually joining the rest.  The public
+prosecutor is expected every moment to appear on the balcony and
+announce the verdict to the public.
+
+Every one was indulging in remarks about the prisoner who had wished to
+do so terrible a deed.
+
+"He is condemned, sure enough!" shouted one man.  "The like of him gets
+to Heaven with a hempen cord!"
+
+"Don't be silly," said another, with lofty superiority.  "In half an
+hour at most he'll pass the gate a free man.  Juries don't condemn the
+like of him."
+
+Many agreed with the first speaker, but more with the last.
+
+"Whoever believes that he'll be let off is a fool!" shouted some one.
+"Just consider what he did, what he wished to do!"
+
+"He wanted to do a splendid thing!"
+
+Passionate discussion and wagering began.  It would have struck a keen
+observer that good broadcloth expected condemnation, while fustian and
+rags eagerly desired acquittal.  A big man of imposing presence asked
+in a loud tone, over the heads of the people, if anyone would bet him
+ten ducats that the wretch would hang.
+
+A starved-looking little fellow declared himself willing to take up the
+bet.  The handsome man turned his head in its silk hat, and when he saw
+the starved, undersized creature, murmured sleepily, "He! he'll bet ten
+ducats with me!  My dear sir, you'd better go home to your mother and
+ask her to give you a couple of pennies."
+
+Laughter followed; but it was interrupted.  The crowd swayed suddenly,
+as when a gust of wind passes over the surface of water.  A man
+appeared on the balcony of the law courts.  He had a short, dark beard;
+his head with its high forehead was uncovered.  He stepped forward
+ceremoniously to the railing, and raised his hand to enforce silence.
+And when the murmur of the crowd died away, he exclaimed in a thin
+voice, but pronouncing every syllable clearly, "The prisoner, Konrad
+Ferleitner, is found guilty by a majority of two-thirds of the jury,
+and in the name of his Majesty the King is condemned to die by hanging."
+
+He stood for a moment after making the announcement, and then went back
+into the house.  A few isolated exclamations came from the crowd.
+
+"To make a martyr of him!  Enthusiasm is infectious!"
+
+"An enthusiast!  If he's an enthusiast, I'm a rascal!"
+
+"Why not?" replied a shock-headed man with a laugh.
+
+"Move on!" ordered the police, who were now reinforced by the military.
+The crowd yielded on all sides, and the tram rails were once more free.
+
+A few minutes later a closed carriage was driven along the same road.
+The glint of a bayonet could be seen through the window.  The crowd
+flocked after the carriage, but it went so swiftly over the paved road
+that the dust flew up under the horses' hoofs, and at length it
+vanished in the poplar avenue that led to the prison.  Some of the
+people stopped, panting, and asked each other why they had run so fast.
+"It won't take place to-day.  We shall see in the papers when it's to
+come off."
+
+"Do you think so?  I tell you it's only for specially invited and
+honoured guests!  The times when executions were conducted in public
+are gone, my dear fellow.  The people are kept out of the way."
+
+"Patience, my wise compeer!  It'll be a people's holiday when the
+hangman is hung."
+
+The crowd melted into the ordinary traffic of the street.
+
+A slender, stooping man sat handcuffed between two policemen in the
+carriage that rolled along the avenue.  He breathed so heavily that his
+shoulders heaved up and down.  He wore his black coat today, and white
+linen appeared at neck and sleeves.  His hair was reddish brown, he had
+brushed it carefully, and cheeks and chin were shaved smoothly.  He had
+felt sure that the day would restore him to liberty, or promise it him
+at no very distant date.  His pale face and sunken cheeks proclaimed
+him about forty, but he might have been younger.  His blue eyes had a
+far-away, dreamy expression, but they were now full of terror.  His
+face would have been handsome had not the look of terror spoiled it.
+His fettered hands lay on his knees, which were closely pressed
+together, his fingers were intertwined, his head sunken so that his
+chin was driven into his chest: he looked an utterly broken man.  He
+drew in his legs so that the policemen might be more comfortable.  One
+of them glanced at him sideways, and wondered how this gentle creature
+could have committed such a crime.
+
+They drove alongside the wall of the large building, the gate of which
+was now opened.  In the courtyard the poor sinner was taken out of the
+carriage and led through a second gate into an inner courtyard where
+his handcuffs were removed.  He was led through vaulted corridors in
+which here and there small doors with barred windows might be seen.
+The dark passage had many windings, and was lighted by an occasional
+lamp.  The air was cold and damp.  The openings high up in the wall,
+through which glimmered a pale daylight, became rarer, until at length
+it was as dark as the tomb.  The new arrival was received by the
+gaoler, a man with bristly grey hair, a prominent forehead, and
+pronounced features which incessant ill-humour had twisted into a
+lasting grimace.  Who would not be ill-humoured indeed, were he forced
+to spend a blameless life in a dungeon among thieves and murderers and
+even--worst of all--among those who had been foolishly led astray?
+Directly he saw the tottering, shadowy figure of the prisoner come
+round the pillar, he knew the blow had fallen.  Midnight had struck for
+the poor fellow.  Annoyed that such people should let themselves be so
+stupidly taken by surprise, he had continually snubbed him harshly.
+To-day he accompanied him to his cell in silence, and when opening it
+avoided rattling the keys.  But he could not help looking through the
+spy-hole to see what the poor fellow would do.  What he saw was the
+condemned man falling on to the brick floor and lying there motionless.
+The gaoler was alarmed, and opened the door again.  So the man was
+clever enough to die quickly?  That would be a miscarriage!  But the
+culprit moved slightly, and begged to be left alone.
+
+And he was alone, once again in this damp room with the wooden bench,
+the straw mattress, the water-jug on a table--things which during the
+long period of probation he had gazed at a hundred times, thinking of
+nothing but "They must acquit me."  Out of the planks that propped up
+the straw mattress he had put together a kind of table, a work of which
+the gaoler disapproved, but he had not destroyed it.  High up in the
+wall was a small barred window, through which mercifully came the
+reflection from an outer opposite wall, now lighted by the sun.  The
+edge of a steep gabled roof and a chimney could be just seen through
+the window, and in between peeped a three-cornered piece of blue sky.
+That was the joy of the cell.  Konrad did not know that he owed this
+room to special kindness.  The scanty light from above had been a
+comfort, almost a promise, all the weary weeks: "They will send you a
+free man out into the sunshine!"  By slow degrees that hope was
+extinguished in his lonely soul.  And to-day?  The little bit of
+reflection was a mockery to him.  He wanted no more twilight.  Daylight
+was gone for ever--he longed for darkness.  Night! night!  Night would
+be so heavy and dark that he would not behold his misery, even
+inwardly.  He could not think; he felt stifled, giddy, as if someone
+had struck him on the head with a club.
+
+When the gaoler on his rounds peeped through the spy-hole again and saw
+the man still lying on the floor, he grew angry.  He noisily opened the
+little door.  "By Jove, are you still there?  Number 19!  Do you hear?
+Is anything the matter?"  The last words were spoken almost gently; a
+stupid fellow might imagine that he was pitied.  But that was not the
+case.  As a man sows, he reaps.
+
+The prisoner stood up quickly and looked distractedly about him.  When
+he recognised the gaoler he felt for his hand.  He grasped it firmly,
+and said hoarsely: "I want to ask something.  Send me a priest."
+
+"Oh, at last!" grumbled the old man.  "These atheists!  In the end they
+crawl to the Cross."
+
+"I'm not an atheist," calmly replied the prisoner.
+
+"No?  Well, it's all the same.  You shall have a father-confessor."
+
+Konrad had not meant a confessor.  To set himself right with God?  That
+might come with time.  But what he now most desired was a human being.
+No one else would come.  No one will have anything to do with a ruined
+man.  Each man thanks God that he is not such a one.  But the priest
+must come.
+
+In about half an hour the condemned man started, every sound at the
+door alarmed him--some one came.  A monk quietly entered the cell.  He
+slipped along in sandals.  The dull light from the window showed an old
+man with a long, grey beard and cheerful-looking eyes.  His gown of
+rough cloth was tied round the waist with a white cord, from which a
+rosary hung.  He greeted the prisoner, reaching for his hand: "May I
+say good evening?  I should like to, if I may."
+
+"I sent for you, Father.  I don't know if you are aware how things are
+with me," said Konrad.
+
+"Yes, I know, I know.  But the Lord is nearer to you to-day than He was
+yesterday," replied the monk.
+
+"I have many things to say," said Konrad, hesitatingly.  "But I don't
+want to confess.  I want a man to talk to."
+
+"You want to ease your heart, my poor friend," said the monk.
+
+"You come to me because it's your duty," returned Konrad.  "It's not
+pleasant.  You have to comfort us, and don't know how to do it.
+There's nothing left for me."
+
+"Don't speak like that," said the Father.  "If I understand rightly,
+you have not summoned me as a confessor.  Only as a man, isn't that it?
+And I come willingly as such.  I can't convert you.  You must convert
+yourself.  Imagine me to be a brother whom you haven't seen for a long
+time.  And now he comes and finds you here, and wellnigh weeping asks
+you how such a thing could have happened."
+
+The prisoner sat down on the bench, folded his hands, and bent his head
+and murmured; "I had a brother.  If he had lived I should not be here.
+He was older than I."
+
+"Have you no other relatives?" asked the monk.
+
+"My parents died before I was twelve years old.  Quickly, one after the
+other.  My father could not survive my mother.  My mother--a poor, good
+woman; always cheerful, pious.  In the village just outside.  No one
+could have had a happier childhood.  Ah! forgive me----"  His words
+seemed to stick in his throat.
+
+"Compose yourself!" counselled the priest.  "Keep your childhood in
+your memory!  It is a light in such days."
+
+"It is over," said Konrad, controlling his sobs.  "Father, that memory
+does not comfort me; it accuses me more heavily.  How can such
+misfortune come from such blessing?  If only I dared kneel now before
+my God--and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."
+
+"Well, well!" said the Father.  "Other mothers had different
+experiences with other sons."
+
+"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady,"
+muttered Konrad.
+
+"That's right," returned the Father.  "Now tell me more.  Quite young,
+then, you lived among strangers, eh?"
+
+He uttered confusedly: "After the deaths of my father and mother I was
+apprenticed.  To a joiner.  That was a splendid time.  Only I read a
+great deal too much to please the master--all sorts of things, and
+dreamed about them.  And I didn't wish to do anything wrong, at least
+so I imagined.  The master called me a stupid visionary, and gave me
+the sack.  Then came a period of wandering--Munich, Cologne, Hamburg.
+I was two years with a master at Cologne.  If only I had stayed with
+him!  He didn't want to let me go--and there was a daughter.  Then to
+Hamburg.  That was bad luck.  I was introduced into a Society for the
+protection of the people against traitors.  To be a saviour, to risk
+one's life!  It came to me very slowly, quite gradually, what was the
+misery of living under such tyranny.  When a boy I once killed a dog
+that bit some poor people's children in the street.  A dog belonging to
+gentlefolk!  I was whipped, but it scarcely hurt--there was always in
+my mind; 'You freed them from the beast!'  And I felt just the same
+about the Society.  I can't tell you what went on in me.  I'm all
+bewildered.  Everything was laid bare at the trial, the whole horrible
+story.  Only I said yes with hundreds of others, I said it and thought:
+it won't come to me.  And it did come to me, as if our Lord had not
+wished it otherwise.  To me, the lot fell to me, when we drew."
+
+"I know the story, my poor fellow," said the monk.
+
+"I don't," retorted Konrad.  "From the moment they took the revolver
+out of my hand everything has been dark.  I have known nothing.  I only
+heard to-day that he lives.  And they told me----"
+
+"What did they tell you?"
+
+"That I must die."  Then violently addressing the priest: "It was a
+misfortune.  Is it really so great a crime?  Tell me."
+
+"I don't think I need tell you that."
+
+"Very well, then.  So it serves me right.  I desired to do the deed,
+and they say that's the same as the accomplishment of it.  Quite
+correct.  Isn't it 'A life for a life'?  It is written so in the Bible.
+Just that, no more.  They must take mine.  But--they must do it
+unexpectedly, suddenly.  Just as I meant to do to him.  Otherwise it
+won't be fair.  Tell me, holy Father, is it cowardly to be so
+terrified?  I am so terrified--of what is before me.  There's nothing
+about this terror of death in the Scriptures.  Those who settled my
+fate to-day looked like men.  Then they ought to know that they are
+executing me a thousand times, not once.  Why do I still live, I who
+was slain three hours ago!  Quick!  From behind!  If only they were so
+merciful!  One of them said to-day it was my duty to die.  My God!  I
+think I have the right to die, and they're the criminals!  They haven't
+secured me my rights at once!  It would have been over by now.  O God,
+my God, if only it were over!"
+
+So he raged on, wringing his hands, groaning under the torture.
+Suddenly his face became deathly white and his features stiffened as if
+his heart had ceased beating.
+
+"Poor fellow," said the priest, putting his arm round his neck and
+drawing his head down on his breast.  "You mustn't talk like that.
+Think, if we've been sinners all our lives, oughtn't we to spend a few
+days in repenting?  Tell me, brother, don't you desire the consolations
+of religion?"
+
+"Indeed I do," stammered the poor sinner.  "And so I asked----"
+
+"You see, I am ready."
+
+"And I also want the Gospels, if I may be allowed the book."
+
+The monk looked at him, then demanded quietly:
+
+"You want the New Testament?"
+
+"I should like to read in it.  My mother had one and used to read it
+aloud and explain it.  It would give me a home-like feeling if I could
+read in it now."
+
+The Father replied: "I'll tell you something, my dear friend.  The
+Gospel is a very good book, not in vain is it called the glad tidings."
+
+"My God! yes; what do I need more sorely now than glad tidings?" agreed
+Konrad.
+
+"Of course.  But the book's not an easy one.  Out of ten readers
+there's hardly one who understands it.  And even he doesn't really
+understand it.  It's too profound, I might say, too divine a book; as
+they say, seven times sealed.  Therefore it must be explained by
+experts.  I will willingly go through certain parts of it with you
+occasionally, but I shall give you something else for your edification,
+from which you will derive comfort and peace."
+
+Konrad covered his face with his hands, and said, almost inaudibly:
+"The Gospel is what I should have liked best."
+
+And then the monk said gravely: "My friend, you are the sick man and I
+am the physician.  And the physician knows best what will do the sick
+man good.  You should also prepare yourself for taking the Sacrament."
+
+As the poor sinner said no more, the priest spoke a few kind words and
+left him.  An hour later the gaoler brought him a parcel of books.
+"The holy brother sends them so that you can amuse yourself a little."
+
+Amusement!  It was a cruel joke.  Konrad gave a shrill laugh.  It was
+the laugh of a despairing man who cannot shut out the vision of his
+last journey, which became more hideous every moment.  What did the
+Father send?  Simple prayer-books and religious manuals.  Book-markers
+were placed to show the passages that applied especially to the
+penitent and the dying man, and also prayers for poor souls in
+purgatory.  The soul physician, all unacquainted with souls, sent the
+inconsolable man new anguish of death instead of life.  Konrad searched
+for the bread he needed, turned over the leaves of the books, began to
+read here and there, but always put them down sadly.  The more eagerly
+did he exercise his memory in order to recall the pictures of his
+childhood.  His mother, who had been dead many years, stood before him
+in order to help her unhappy child.  Her figure, her words, her songs,
+her sacred stories from the Saviour's life on earth--brought peace to
+his soul.  It suddenly came upon him; "God has not forgotten me."  Just
+as before he had raged in despair, so now beautiful shadows out of the
+past appeared before him, and tears of redemption flowed from his eyes.
+
+He did not have an hour's sleep the night of his condemnation.  He
+prayed, he dreamed, and then the horrid terror, which made him shiver
+in all his limbs, came again.  He kept looking towards the window to
+see if daylight was beginning.  Early in the morning, just at the first
+dawn--so he had often heard--the warders come.  The window showed only
+darkness.  But look, in the little three-cornered bit of sky, there is
+a star.  He had not seen it on other nights.  It sailed up to the crack
+in the roof and shone down through the window in kindly fashion.  His
+eye was riveted on the spark of light until it vanished behind the
+walls.  When at length day dawned, and the key rattled in the door,
+Konrad's hands and feet began to tremble.  It was the gaoler, who
+brought him a bundle of coarse cotton clothing.
+
+When Konrad asked in a dull voice if it was his gallows dress, the old
+man answered roughly: "What are you chattering about?  Put on your
+house clothes."
+
+The convict went up to the gaoler, clasped his hands, and said: "Only
+one thing, if I knew--when, when?  This suspense is unbearable!"
+
+"Eh! how impatient we are!" mocked the old man.  "My dear fellow, we
+don't do things so quickly.  The decision was only made yesterday.
+Why, they haven't yet settled about the banquet."
+
+"The banquet!"
+
+"The bill of fare--don't you understand?  No orders have come yet.
+You're safe for twenty-four hours.  But if there's anything you'd like
+to eat--I'll make an exception for once.  And now, get on with your
+toilet!  You can will away your own things as you please," he pointed
+to his clothes.  "Have you anyone?  No?  Well, I know some poor people.
+But get on, get on.  The hot season is coming on, and cotton isn't bad
+wear then."
+
+The rough gaoler's good-humoured chatter was particularly distasteful
+to the poor man.  To be snubbed and railed at would have pointed to a
+long life to come, one not to be measured by hours.  Did he know?  And
+was he silent out of pity? or was it malice?  Before, the old man had
+been easily moved to anger, and when heated would swing his arms up and
+down and plainly threaten to have the obstinate convict sent off.  Now
+there was no more grim humour nor raging round.  He looked at the poor
+sinner, sunk in deep gloom, with a sad calmness.  "Poor devil!"
+Suddenly it was too much for him, and he broke out violently: "But come
+now!  You must have known it.  Be sensible; I can't stand this misery.
+Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone
+by to help.  And then--who knows whether you won't live after all.  Do
+be sensible!"
+
+When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried
+his books afresh.  The Father had provided for a varied taste.  The
+"Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart,"
+"Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The
+Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in
+Distress."  What a wealth of edification!  The joiner's apprentice had
+always loved books.  He had once reckoned out as a joke that three
+asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood.
+They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all
+provinces of human life.  Now he asked himself what it had all brought
+him.  Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides.  He had thought about
+everything, but he could not be clear about anything.  That was not
+generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement
+pacified him.  He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily
+and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in
+childhood, but it had not gone deeper.  Now that they ought to prove
+their worth, they left him in the lurch.  He turned over the pages, he
+read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need.
+Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell
+over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.
+
+In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never
+dream had been.  It was a dark country, and he had lost his way.  He
+wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path.  Then
+his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the
+darkness.  The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him
+into his sunny native valley, to the place with the old gabled houses,
+to his father's house which stood amidst the fruit-trees, and the
+thread to which his fingers still clung involuntarily led him into the
+room where it had been spun from his mother's distaff.  And there she
+sat and span the thread, with her pale face and soft wrinkles and kind
+eyes, and directly the boy stood near her she told him tales of the
+Saviour.  He listened to her and was a happy child.  That was his
+dream.  And when he awoke in the prison cell, his mother's gentle voice
+still sounded in his ears: "My child, you must cling to Jesus."
+
+
+Konrad was taken every day for half an hour into the dirty and sunless
+courtyard.  But he dreaded that half-hour.  It stirred a vain longing
+for light.  And the rough and insolent fellow-prisoners with whom he
+was brought in contact!  He preferred to be alone in his quiet cell.
+
+During his imprisonment he had often asked for work, but was always
+informed that nothing of the sort had been provided for by the
+authorities.  Besides--work was an honourable thing, and it must first
+be proved that he was worthy of it.  But now it was not a time for
+work, rather a time for preparation.  What could he do in order to get
+through these days?  Or what could he do in order to keep the days from
+flying so quickly?  Look how a flash of lightning seems sometimes to
+pass over the floor.  Then it is gone again.  High up in the opposite
+wall, on which the sun sometimes shone, was a casement window, and its
+glass doors, swayed by the breeze, were reflected in the prison.
+Konrad was terrified by these sparks from heaven; he would grope on the
+ground as if for a gold piece that had rolled away.
+
+Then came visitors, unexpected, alarming visitors!  The judge's stiff
+figure and serious face appeared in company with the gaoler.
+
+Konrad felt stunned, and could only think: "The hour has come!"  The
+man had pronounced his sentence as coldly and unfeelingly as if he had
+been a machine which, when its keys are pressed, gives forth sounds
+like words.  The judge ordered the gaoler to withdraw.  The old man
+hesitated--what could that mean?  The judge had to repeat his order
+before the old man would go.  When the judge was alone with the
+prisoner, he bent down and felt with his hands, for he was not yet
+accustomed to the darkness.  Then he said kindly: "Konrad Ferleitner, I
+have come to ask you if there's anything you wish for?"
+
+The prisoner wrung his hands convulsively; wild pulsations, that beat
+in strong double strokes at irregular intervals, coursed through his
+body.  So violent was his agitation that the poor wretch stuttered
+forth words that the judge could not understand.
+
+"Compose yourself!"
+
+When he caught the words "Father-confessor!" amid the sounds uttered by
+the prisoner, it occurred to the judge that the poor fellow imagined
+that the hour of execution had arrived.  "Ferleitner," he said, "come
+and sit by me on the bench.  You think it's the end--no, it hasn't come
+so far yet, and perhaps it won't come so far at all.  I may tell you
+that a petition for mercy has been sent to His Majesty."
+
+Konrad looked up as if in a dream, and the dim light showed how
+terribly pale and sunken his cheeks were.  "Mercy!" he muttered in
+suppressed tones.  "Mercy for me?  Then--why did you condemn me?"
+
+The question appeared to puzzle the judge.  The delinquent seemed in
+all seriousness to think himself innocent.  "You were there yourself,
+Ferleitner, and heard how the jury decided after listening to the
+witnesses.  After that the judge must condemn; he has no choice."
+
+"For mercy?  The king?" asked Konrad, who, more bewildered than
+consoled, had sat down on the bench, for his legs would scarcely
+support him.
+
+"The advocate ventured it," replied the judge.  "Your whole bearing
+proves that you were inveigled into the business.  We want nothing
+further.  You see, Ferleitner, that evil cannot be eradicated from the
+world with evil.  To fight evil with evil only increases its power.
+But a large heart can pardon such a deed or purpose.  Let us hope
+meanwhile that our king possesses one.  The Chancellor is getting
+better.  Here, just look--sign the paper."  He pulled out a folded
+sheet, then an inkpot and a pen.  Konrad bent over the table and
+groaned while signing his name.
+
+"Ah," he said, "if only I could be free again!  I should never think of
+such things again.  The world could go on as it pleased.  I should do
+my work, and not trouble about anything else.  Only," and he said it
+softly, uncertainly, "only I shall not forget God again."
+
+"There is naturally only a moderate chance," said the judge.  "In some
+cases, where it is concerned with the whole----"
+
+"It is very uncertain, then?" asked Konrad.  "But, my God! how is it to
+be borne?  If this time is lengthened, how is it to be borne?  This
+terrible suspense!"
+
+"It can be a time of hope," said the judge.
+
+"But how long will it last?" asked Konrad.
+
+The judge shrugged his shoulders.  "It may last three weeks, but it
+might last double that time."
+
+Konrad asked confidingly: "Do you think, sir, that a man can hold
+out?--with the terror of death lasting for weeks?"
+
+"Haven't you just a little confidence?" asked the judge.  "Haven't we
+all to endure uncertainty?--the judge as well as the condemned man?"
+
+"But what am I to do?" demanded Konrad.  "How am I to employ myself all
+the dreadful time?  It's being buried alive."
+
+"Unhappily it's not in my power to give you a better room, though you
+haven't the worst cell in the building.  But perhaps you have some
+other desire that can be granted.  Speak out frankly, Ferleitner," said
+the judge.
+
+Therewith he folded the paper, and put the writing materials into his
+coat pocket.  Konrad followed his proceedings with his eyes.  He could
+not comprehend how this dread personage came to speak to him in so
+kindly a fashion.  "As to the room," he said, "it's all I need--when
+you've nothing to do, and are not likely to have anything to do, what
+can a man want?  If a man isn't free, nothing else matters.  But one
+thing--I have one request, sir."
+
+"Then speak it," said the judge, and holding Konrad's hand firmly in
+his, broke out with: "Don't you see, it's cruel to think, to believe,
+that we must be the personal enemies of all whom we're obliged to
+condemn.  You think the proceedings in court were so callous, you've no
+idea how we actually feel about the business.  It is not only the
+accused who passes sleepless nights--the judge, too, knows them.  We
+lawyers--outside our profession--have founded an association to support
+and encourage those we are obliged to pronounce guilty, that they may
+not sink down uncomforted.  So, my dear Ferleitner, you may trust me
+that, as far as I can, I will alleviate your position."
+
+Then Konrad, looking down on the floor, said: "I should like to have
+writing materials."
+
+"You want to write?" asked the Judge.
+
+"If I might ask for paper, pens, and ink," returned Konrad.  "In former
+years I used to like writing down my thoughts--just as they came, I had
+little education."
+
+"You wish to write to your friends?" inquired the judge.
+
+"Oh no!  If I had any, they'd be glad not to hear from me," said Konrad.
+
+"Or to draw up a plea of justification?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or an account of your life?"
+
+"No, not that either.  My life has not been good enough.  Misfortune
+should be forgotten rather than recorded.  No, I think I can write
+something else," stated Konrad.
+
+"You shall have writing materials," said the judge.  "And is there
+anything else?  A more comfortable bed?"
+
+"No, thank you.  It's right enough as it is.  If a hard bed was the
+only thing----"
+
+"And is everything kept properly neat and clean?" interrupted the judge.
+
+"If you're always waiting and thinking, 'Now, now, they're coming!' I
+tell you, sir, you don't sleep well," replied Konrad.
+
+"Don't keep worrying yourself with ideas, Ferleitner," said the judge
+warningly to the man, who had again worked himself up into a state of
+excitement.  "Not one of us knows what the next hour may bring, and yet
+we live on calmly.  Use the time," he continued playfully, "in avenging
+your condemnation by some great literary work.  In olden times great
+minds often did it."
+
+"I can't write a great work," answered Konrad.  "And I've nothing to
+avenge.  I deserve death.  But it's this waiting for it.  The torments
+of hell cannot be worse."
+
+"We've nothing to do with hell.  We've merely to think of the purgatory
+in which we are placed.  Let heaven, as they say, follow.  Haven't you
+any business to arrange?  Nothing to settle for anyone?" asked the
+judge.
+
+"No one, no one!" Konrad assured him.
+
+"That's a piece of luck that many of your comrades in misfortune would
+envy you.  A man can settle things easily for himself alone.  If it's
+any consolation, Ferleitner, I may tell you that we don't regard you as
+a scoundrel, only as a poor creature who has been led astray.  Now
+that's enough for the present.  Your modest request shall be granted at
+once."
+
+After this remarkable conversation with the poor sinner, the judge left
+the cell.  He was not satisfied.  Had he not listened enough, or had he
+spoken too much?  How could so childlike a creature take an oath to
+commit murder?  In the corridor he spoke seriously to the gaoler.
+
+"I must point out to you that the man is very ill.  Don't treat him
+harshly."
+
+The old man was annoyed.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir!  To treat a poor devil like that harshly!  If
+you pity him, why were you so rough with him?"  He rubbed a lamp-glass
+with a coarse rag in order to get the black off.  "'To die by hanging.'
+Even said as gently as that, it hurts more than when we roundly abuse
+the people, and yet that's at once taken amiss.  Only to prove it.
+Ill!  Of course he's ill, poor devil.  I am only surprised the doctors
+haven't been to cure him.  I suppose he's well enough to be hanged?"
+
+"That will do, Trapser."
+
+The gaoler put down his work, stood up straight in military fashion,
+and said: "Sir, I beg to resign my post."
+
+"What!" exclaimed the judge, "you wish to go?"
+
+"I respectfully hand in my resignation."  He stood up straight as a
+dart.  "Do you know, I've got accustomed to most things here in
+six-and-twenty years, I've seen seventeen hanged--just seventeen, sir.
+There ought to have been twenty-four, but seven were granted
+imprisonment for life.  They're still undergoing that mercy.  Do you
+know, sir, it's a miserable calling!  But as to that Ferleitner, I
+never afore saw anything like him.  What has he done, I ask you?  He's
+done nothing.  You see we've had quite different gallows-birds here.  A
+speculator who had ruined six families and driven the seventh to
+suicide--eight months.  A student with two duel murders on his
+conscience--six months.  But he is there now--because he's done
+nothing, it seems to me.  Well, the long and the short of it is, it
+horrifies me."
+
+"Always the same in temper and disposition, you old bear!  God keep
+you!"  And then a kindly tap on the shoulder.  The attempt at
+resignation was again met with a refusal.  The judge formally put it
+aside.  But the old man growled on for a long time.  "Old bear! old
+bear!  That's his whole stock of wit every time, I'll show him the old
+bear.  Good God! that's how things are with us!"  He whistled and made
+a harsh noise with his bunch of keys so that the prisoners could make
+their preparations before he performed his duty of looking through the
+spyhole to see how his charges were spending their time.  Then he went
+and procured a big bottle of ink and a packet of foolscap paper for
+Number 19.
+
+"Is that enough?" he asked.
+
+"Thank you, thank you!" said Ferleitner; "only now I want a pen."
+
+"Oh no, my dear sir, no.  We know that sort of thing.  Since the notary
+in Number 43 stabbed himself with a steel pen five years ago, I don't
+give any more," said the gaoler.
+
+"But I can't write without a pen," returned Konrad.
+
+"That's not my business; I can't let you have a pen," the old man
+assured him.
+
+"The judge gave me permission to have one," Konrad remonstrated
+modestly.
+
+Then the old man exclaimed afresh: "Do you know this judge, he just
+comes up as far as this," and he placed his hand on a level with his
+chin.  "He crumbles everything up and then we're to spoon it out."
+Then he muttered indistinctly in his beard; "I say just this, if they
+let a man hang for a week before they hang him, it's a--a--good God!  I
+can't properly--I can't find any more fine words!  If a man puts a
+knife into himself, no wonder!"
+
+"I shan't kill myself," said Konrad quietly.  "They say I may put my
+hopes in the king."
+
+"And you want to write to him?  That won't help much, but you can do it
+if you like; there's time.  For once it's a good thing that our
+officials are so slow.  If it's any comfort to you, you may know that
+they wrong me, too.  They won't accept my resignation.  Yes, that's how
+it is with us," concluded the old man.
+
+Then he went and brought a pot with rusty steel pens.  "But don't you
+spoil them!"  For they were the very pens with which death-warrants had
+been signed--the old man had a collection of such things and hoped to
+sell it to a rich Englishman.  "Does your honour require anything
+else?"  With those mocking words he left the cell and raged and cursed
+all along the corridor.  The prisoners thought he was cursing them.
+
+
+The judge, his hands behind his back, walked up and down his large
+study.  What a cursed critical case!  If the Chancellor had not been
+given up by the doctors on the day of the trial, the sentence would
+have been different.  The petition for mercy!  Would it have any result
+except that of prolonging the poor man's torture?  Whether in the end
+it would not have been better----?  Everything would have been over
+then.  An old official came out of the adjoining room and laid a bundle
+of papers on the table.
+
+"One moment.  Has the petition for mercy been sent to His Majesty?"
+
+"It has, sir."
+
+"What's your opinion?" asked the judge.
+
+The counsellor raised his shoulders and let them fall again.
+
+
+Konrad cowered down and stared at the table.
+
+On it lay everything--paper, ink, pens.  What should he write?  He
+might describe his sadness, but how did a man begin to do that?  He
+lifted up his face as if searching for something.  His glance fell
+through the window on to the wall, the upper part of which was lighted
+by the evening sun.  The mountain tops glowed like that.  Ah, world,
+beautiful world!  Still three weeks.  Or double that time.  Then--the
+very beating of his heart hurt him; his temple throbbed as though
+struck by a hammer.  For he always thought of the one thing--and it
+suddenly flashed into his mind--there were other executioners!  His
+supper was there--a tin can with rice soup and a piece of bread.  He
+swallowed it mechanically to the last crumb.  Then came night, and the
+star was again visible in the scrap of sky between the roof and the
+chimney.  Konrad gazed at it reverently for the few minutes until it
+vanished.  Then the long, dark, miserable night.  And this was called
+living!  And it was for such life that you petitioned the king.  But if
+a king grants mercy, then the sun shines.  The kindness shown him by
+the judge had strengthened him a little, but the last of his surging
+thoughts was always, "Hopeless!"
+
+The next night Konrad had another visitor--his mother, in her Sunday
+gown, just as she used to go to communion.  And there was some one with
+her.  She went up to her son's bed, and said: "Konrad, I bring you a
+kind friend."
+
+When he felt for her hand, she was no longer there, but in the middle
+of the dim cell stood the Lord Jesus.  His white garment hung down to
+the ground, His long hair lay over His shoulders.  His shining face was
+turned towards Konrad.
+
+When the poor sinner woke in the morning his heart was full of wonder.
+The night had brought healing.  He jumped blithely out of bed.  "My
+Saviour, I will never more leave you."
+
+Something of which he had hardly been conscious suddenly became clear
+to him.  He would take refuge in the Saviour.  He would sink himself in
+Jesus, in whom everything was united that had formed and must form his
+happiness--his mother, his innocent childhood, his joy in God, his
+repose and hope, his immortal life.  Now he knew, he would rely on his
+Saviour.  He would write a book about Jesus.  Not a proper literary
+work; he could not do that, he had no talent for it.  But he would
+represent the Lord as He lived, he would inweave his whole soul with
+the being of his Saviour so that he might have a friend in the cell.
+Then perhaps his terrors would vanish.  In former days it had pleased
+him, so to speak, to write away an anxiety from his heart, not in
+letters to others, but only for himself.  Many things which were not
+clear to him, which he found incomprehensible--with pen in hand he
+succeeded in making clearer to his inward eye, so that vague pictures
+almost assumed corporeal shape.  He had in that fashion created many
+comrades and many companions during his wanderings in strange lands
+when he was afraid.  So now in his forlorn and deserted condition he
+would try to invite the Saviour into the poor sinner's cell.  No
+outward help was to be hoped, he must evoke it all out of himself.  He
+would venture to implore the Lord Jesus until He came, using his
+childish memories, the remains of his school learning, the fragments of
+his reading, and, above all, his mother's Bible stories.
+
+And now the condemned man began to write a book in so far as it was
+possible to him.  At first his dreams and thoughts and figures were
+disconnected through timidity, and the painful excitement which often
+made his pulses gallop and his heart stop beating.  Then he cowered in
+the corner, and wept and groaned and struggled in vain with the desire
+for mortal life.  When he succeeded in collecting his thoughts again,
+and he took up his pen afresh, he gradually regained calm, and each
+time it lasted longer.  And it happened that he often wrote for hours
+at a stretch, that his cheeks began to glow and his eyes to shine--for
+he wandered with Jesus in Galilee.  Suddenly he would awake from his
+visions and find himself in his prison cell, and sadness overcame him,
+but it was no longer a falling into the pit of hell; he was strong
+enough to save himself on his island of the blessed.  And so he wrote
+and wrote.  He did not ask if it was the Saviour of the books.  It was
+his Saviour as he lived in him, the only Saviour who could redeem him.
+And so there was accomplished in this poor sinner on a small scale what
+was accomplished among the nations on a large scale; if it was not
+always the historical Jesus as Saviour, it was the Saviour in whom men
+believed become historical, since he affected the world's history
+through the hearts of men.  He whom the books present may not be for
+all men; He who lives in men's hearts is for all.  That is the secret
+of the Saviour's undying power: He is for each man just what that man
+needs.  We read in the Gospels that Jesus appeared at different times
+and to different men in different forms.  That should be a warning to
+us to let every man have his own Jesus.  As long as it is the Jesus of
+love and trust, it is the right Jesus.
+
+It often happened that during the prisoner's composition and writing, a
+wider, softer light from the window spread through the cell, flickered
+over the wall, the floor, the table, and then rested for a space on the
+white paper.  And so light even entered the lonely room, but
+unspeakably more light entered the writer's heart.
+
+The gaoler saw little of the writing.  Directly he rattled his keys, it
+was hidden under the sheet--just as children hide their treasures from
+intrusive eyes.  When five or six weeks had gone by, hundreds of
+written sheets lay there.
+
+Konrad placed them in a cover and wrote on it
+
+    I.N.R.I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+When darkness covers the world men look gladly towards the east.  There
+light dawns.  All lights come from out of the east.  And the races of
+men are said to have come hither from that quarter.  There is an
+ancient book, in which is written the beginning of things and of men.
+The book came from the nation of the Jews, and the old Jews were called
+the people of God, for they recognised only one eternal God.  And great
+men and holy prophets arose in that nation.  The greatest of them was
+named Moses, and it is written that he it was who brought down to men
+the Ten Commandments.  But the Jews fell on evil times, they sank lower
+and lower and were heavily oppressed by stronger nations.  Like us,
+they suffered poverty and curses and despair, and this lasted for a
+thousand years and more.  Prophets appeared from time to time, and with
+words of mercy announced that a Saviour would come to lead the Jews
+into the kingdom of glory.  For that Saviour they waited many hundreds
+of years.  Oftentimes one would appear whom they took for Him, but they
+were deceived.  And when at last the real Saviour, the real, mighty
+Saviour appeared, they did not recognise Him.  For He was different
+from what they had imagined.
+
+Shall I try to tell how it happened, just as my mother used to tell me,
+her little boy, the story on winter evenings?  Shall I recite it to
+myself like one who desires to wake himself at midnight before the Lord
+comes?  Shall I, who am without learning, search in my poor confused
+head for the fragments that have remained in it?  So much has been lost
+in the wear and tear of the world, and yet since it has grown so dark
+with me something flashes out, and shines forth on high, like some
+starry crown in the night!  Shall I invoke the holy figures that they
+may stand by me through the anguish of my last days, that they may
+surround me with their glad eternal light, and let no spirit of despair
+come near me?--The path between the walls of this cruel fortress is
+narrow, and through it only a feeble light penetrates to me.
+
+As God wills.  I am grateful for and content with the pale reflection
+of the sky that comes to me from the holy east through the cracks in
+the wall.  Oh, God, my Father, let glad tidings come to me from distant
+lands and far-off times, so that my simple heart can hold and
+understand them.  I am thirsty for God's truth, and whatever shall
+strengthen, comfort, and save me, will be for me God's truth.  Oh, thou
+pale light!  Art thou my mother's heritage and blessing?  Oh, my
+mother!  From out the eternal dwelling speak to thy unhappy son--oh,
+speak!
+
+Did I not always see you in the woman who, during the cold winter
+season, was compelled to go across the mountains far from home?  And so
+I will begin.
+
+At that time the land of the Jews was under the dominion of the Romans.
+The Roman Emperor wished to know how many Jews there were, and
+commanded that an enrolment of the people should be made in Judaea.
+All the Jews were to go to the place of their birth, and there report
+themselves to the Imperial officer.  In the little town of Nazareth, in
+Galilee--a mountainous district of Judaea--there lived a carpenter.  He
+was an elderly man, and had married a young wife of whom a folk-song
+still sings--
+
+  "As beautifully white as milk,
+  As marvellously soft as silk;
+  A woman very fair to see,
+  Yet full of deep humility."
+
+They were poor people, but pious and industrious and obedient.  No man
+in the wide world troubled about them, and yet had it not been for them
+the Roman Empire might not have fallen.  Years afterwards, indeed, it
+fell because of that carpenter.  People from all quarters of the globe
+dwelt in Galilee, even barbarians who had wandered there from the west
+and the north.  And it was often difficult to distinguish their
+descent.  Our carpenter was born in the south of Judaea, in the town of
+Bethlehem, which, in olden times, had been the native place of King
+David.  Joseph, the carpenter, was not unwilling to speak of that, and
+even to let it be known that he was of the house of David, the great
+king.  But yet he might well have thought it a finer thing to rise up
+from below than to come down from above.  And is it not so?  Does not
+man rise up from below, and God come down from high?  In his boyhood
+David was a shepherd; it is said that he slew the leader of the enemy
+with stones from his sling, and that was why he rose so high.  Now for
+that reason, and because Joseph, the carpenter, was glad to visit his
+native town once again, and to take his wife with him and show her the
+land of his youth, the enrolment of the people was right pleasing unto
+him.  So the two made their plans, and set out for Bethlehem.  It was
+three days' journey and more, and they might well have complained.  If
+a workman to-day has not all that is of the best, he should think of
+Master Joseph, who always cared more for good work than good money.
+They probably took a packet of food with them from home, and the bride
+was often obliged to rest by the way.  The path over the rocky
+mountains was difficult and tiring, and they had to pass through the
+suspected land of Samaria.  But Joseph never grumbled.  And at last
+they reached Judaea.  And when they came upon ancient monuments, he
+liked to stop, first in order to see how they were built, and then to
+ponder over the great men and great deeds of olden times.  They spent a
+night at a place called Bethel, and there Joseph dreamed that he saw a
+ladder before him, and that it reached from earth to heaven.  And
+Joseph thought, if the rungs would bear him, he might perhaps ascend
+it; meanwhile, he saw how an angel, robed in white, slowly descended it
+until he came down to where Joseph was.  But when Joseph stretched out
+his hand to him, the angel was no longer to be seen.  Joseph awoke, and
+the sweet dream filled his soul.  It was the place where once the
+Patriarch Jacob saw the heavenly ladder, and there it had remained ever
+since, so that angels might continually descend and ascend between
+heaven and earth.  And then they cheerfully continued their way.
+Joseph was afraid when he heard the jackals shriek in the desert and
+saw the Bedouin camps.  But he thought the angel who had come down was
+hovering near him, and often imagined that he felt his wings fanning
+his cheek.
+
+The land through which they journeyed was barren; the plants were dried
+up by the frost and were all faded.  Snow lay on the summits of
+Lebanon, which the travellers now saw from afar, away in their native
+land, and pale gleams fell on to the lowlands of Judaea through the
+cloudy atmosphere, so that stones and grass were white.  When they
+rested beside a brook the woman gazed thoughtfully into the pool and
+said, "Look, Joseph; what are the wonderful plants and flowers on the
+surface of the water?"
+
+And Joseph said, "Haven't you ever seen them before, Mary?  You are
+young and have only known a few cold winters.  And you don't know what
+these flowers mean?  Let me tell you.  A maiden stands in the dawn.
+Her feet are on the moon and the stars circle round her head.  And
+under her foot she crushes the head of the serpent who betrayed our
+first parents in Paradise.  And see, Spring courts the maiden and
+brings her his roses.  And Winter, too, courts the maiden, and because
+he has no other flowers he makes these to grow on the surface of the
+water and on the window-panes.  But they are stiff and cold, and the
+maiden, the mysterious rose, of whom a prophet sang, 'All nations shall
+call thee blessed!' she chose the Spring."
+
+That was the story Joseph told, Joseph whose beard was white as the
+ice-flowers.  Mary listened to the tale and was silent.
+
+On the third day the royal city lay before our wanderers.  Magnificent
+it stood on the hill-top with the domes and pinnacles of its temples.
+At that time Herod, king of the Jews, sat on the throne and imagined
+that he ruled.  But he only ruled in so far as the strangers allowed
+him to rule.  The town which had once been the pride of the chosen
+people, now swarmed with Roman warriors, who filled the streets with
+noise and unruly conduct.  Joseph led his young wife down towards the
+sloping rocks where were the graves of the prophets.  There he was so
+overcome that suddenly he stretched forth his hands to heaven:
+"Almighty Jehovah, when will the Messiah come?"  His cry was re-echoed
+in the hollows of the rocks, and Mary said: "You should not shout so,
+Joseph.  The dead will not awaken, and Jehovah hears a prayer that is
+quietly spoken."
+
+Mary had hoped in her heart that they would enter Jerusalem and spend
+the night there.  Joseph said it could not be, for he had no relatives
+in the town who could give them lodging, and he had not money enough to
+pay strangers for a lodging.  Also he did not like the strange ways of
+the place; he yearned for his beloved Bethlehem.  It wasn't very far
+off now; could she manage it?
+
+Mary signed "Yes" with her head, and gathered together all her
+remaining strength.  But just beyond the city walls she sank down
+exhausted, and Joseph said: "We will stay here so that you may rest,
+and to-morrow I can show you the Temple."
+
+There was a man on a stony hillock nailing two beams of wood together.
+Joseph understood something of that sort of work, but he was not quite
+clear over this particular thing.  So he asked what it might be.
+
+"He for whose use it is, doesn't want it," replied the workman.  It
+then flashed into Joseph's mind that it was a gallows.
+
+Mary grasped his arm: "Joseph, let us go on to Bethlehem."  For she
+began to be frightened.
+
+They staggered along the road.  A draught of the spring of the Valley
+of Jehoshaphat refreshed them.  Farther on in the fertile plain of
+Judaea lambs and kids were feeding, and Joseph began to speak of his
+childhood.  His whole being was fresh and joyful.  Home!  And by
+evening time Bethlehem, lighted by the setting sun, lay before them on
+the hill-top.
+
+They stood still for a space and looked at it.  Then Joseph went into
+the town to inquire about the place and the time of the enrolment, and
+to seek lodging for the night.  The young woman sat down before the
+gate under the fan-shaped leaves of a palm-tree and looked about her.
+The western land seemed very strange to her and yet sweet, for it was
+her Joseph's childish home.  How noisy it was in Jerusalem, and how
+peaceful it was here--almost as still and solemn as a Sabbath evening
+at Nazareth!  Beloved Nazareth!  How far away, how far away!  Sometimes
+the sound of a shepherd's pipe was heard from the green hills.  A youth
+leaned up against an olive tree and made a wreath of twigs and sang:
+"Behold, thou art fair, my love.  Thine eyes are as doves in thy
+fragrant locks, thy lips are rosebuds, and thy two breasts are like
+roes which feed among the lilies.  Thou hast ravished my heart, my
+sister, my spouse."  Then he was silent, and the leaves rustled softly
+in the evening breeze.
+
+Mary looked out for Joseph, but he came not.  And the singer continued:
+"Who art thou that shinest like the day-dawn, fair as the moon, and
+clear as the sun, divine daughter of Eve?"  And Mary still waited under
+the palm-tree and listened, and she began to feel strange pangs.  She
+drew her cloak more closely round her, and saw that the stars already
+stood in the sky.  But still Joseph came not.  And from the hill the
+singer: "And from the root of Jesse a twig shall spring."  And a second
+voice: "And all nations shall rise up and sing her praises."  So did
+the shepherds sing the songs of their old kings and prophets.
+
+At last Joseph came slowly from the town.  The enrolment was to take
+place to-morrow at nine o'clock; that was all right.  But there was
+difficulty over the lodging for the night.  He had spoken with rich
+relations; they would have been very glad, but unfortunately a wedding
+feast was going forward, and wanderers in homely garments might easily
+feel uncomfortable.  He quite understood that.  Then he went to his
+poorer relations, who would have been even more glad, but it was
+deplorable that their house was so small and their hearth so cramped.
+All the inns were overcrowded with strangers.  They did not seem to
+think much here of people from Galilee because all kinds of heathenish
+folk lived there--as if any one who was born in Bethlehem could be a
+heathen!  And so he did not know what to do.
+
+Mary leaned her head on her hand and said nothing.
+
+"Your hands and feet are trembling, Mary," said Joseph.
+
+She shook her head; it was nothing.
+
+"Come, my wife, we will go in together," said Joseph.  "We are not
+vagabonds to whom they can refuse assistance."
+
+And then they both went into the town.  Mine host of the inn was stern.
+
+"I told you already, old man, that there's no place for the like of you
+in my house.  Take your little daughter somewhere else."
+
+"She's not my daughter, sir, but my true wife, trusted to me by God
+that I may protect her," returned Joseph, and he lifted up his
+carpenter's hand.
+
+The door was slammed in their faces.
+
+A fruit-seller, who had witnessed the scene, stretched forth his brown
+neck and asked for their passport.
+
+"If you show me your papers and three pieces of silver, I'll take you
+in for the love of God.  For we are all wanderers on the earth."
+
+"We've no passport.  We've come from Nazareth in Galilee for the
+enrolment, because I am of the house of David," replied Joseph.
+
+"Of the house of David!  Why, you don't seem to know whether you're on
+your head or your heels," and with a laugh the fruit-seller went his
+way.
+
+"It is true," thought Joseph, "noble ancestors are useless to a man of
+no importance."  For the future he would let David alone.
+
+Mary now advised him to go outside the town again.  Perhaps the very
+poor or entire strangers would have pity on them.  And as they
+staggered along the stony road to the valley the woman sank down on the
+grass.
+
+Joseph looked at her searchingly.  "Mary, Mary, what is it?"
+
+A shepherd came along, looked at them, and listened to their request
+for shelter.
+
+"My wife is ill, and no one will take us in," complained Joseph.
+
+"Then you must go to the beasts," said the shepherd cheerfully.  "Come
+with me.  I'll gladly share my house with you.  The earth is my bed,
+the sky my roof, and a rocky cave my bedchamber."
+
+And he led them to a hollow in the mossy rocks, and it had a roof woven
+out of rushes.  Inside an ox was chewing the hay it had eaten out of
+the manger.  A brown ass stood near by and licked the ox's big head.
+There was still some hay left in the manger and in the corner was a bed
+of dry leaves.
+
+"Since you have nothing better, lie down here and rest as well as you
+can.  I will seek a bed at my neighbour's."
+
+So saying the shepherd went away.  It had now grown dark.
+
+The young woman lay down on the bed of leaves and heaved a sigh from
+her terrified heart.  Joseph looked at her--and looked at her.  Lightly
+the angel's wings touched his face.
+
+"Joseph, be not afraid.  Lift up your heart and pray.  It is the secret
+of all eternities, and you are chosen to be the foster-father of Him
+who comes from heaven."
+
+He looked round him, not knowing whence came these thoughts, these
+voices, this wondrous singing.
+
+"You are tired, Joseph, you must sleep," said Mary.  And when he
+slumbered peacefully she prayed in her heart: "I am a poor handmaiden
+of the Lord.  The will of the Lord be done."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+It is midnight and, wakeful shepherds see a bright star.  A strange
+star, too; they had never seen its like before.  It sparkled so
+brightly that the shepherds' shadows on the plain were long.  And it is
+said that they saw other stars approach it, and at length surround it.
+And then the new star threw off white sparks, which flew down
+earthwards and stopped in mid-air; and there were children with white
+wings and golden hair.  And they sang beautiful words to the honour of
+God and the good-will of men.
+
+In that selfsame hour a boy brought tidings that a tall, white-robed
+youth stood in front of the shepherd Ishmael's cave, and that within
+lay a young woman on the bed of leaves, an infant at her breast.  And
+high up in the air they heard singing.
+
+The story quickly spread through the mountains round Bethlehem.  The
+shepherds who were awake roused those who slept.  Everywhere a
+delicious tremor was felt, a sense of mighty wonder.  A poor, strange
+woman and a naked child!  What was the use of singing?  Swaddling
+clothes and wraps and milk were what was needed.  One brought the
+fleece of a slaughtered sheep.  Another brought dried figs and grapes
+and a skin of red wine.  Other shepherds brought milk and bread and a
+fat kid; every one brought something, just as they took tithes to the
+officer.  An old shepherd came with a patched bagpipe, and when the
+bystanders laughed, Ishmael said: "Do you expect our poor, good Isaac,
+to bring David's golden harp?  He gives what he has, and that's often
+worth more than golden harps."
+
+When they came down they no longer saw the star or the angels, but they
+found the cave, and the father and the mother and the child.  He lay in
+the manger on the hay, and the beasts stood round and gazed at him with
+their big, melancholy, black eyes.  The shepherd's pity for the poor
+people was so great that no one thought he was doing a good work for
+which people would praise him and God would bless him.  No one looked
+slyly at his neighbour to see who gave more and who less.  Their one
+feeling was pity.
+
+People came from the town; and a wiry shepherd, placing himself before
+the entrance to the grotto, and using his staff as a spear, said: "Men
+of Bethlehem, ye cannot enter; the babe sleeps."
+
+Near by stood an old man, who said dreamily: "The town cast him out.  I
+always said there was no salvation yonder.  That's to be found with the
+poor under the open sky.  Miracles are happening here, men are pitiful.
+What does it mean?"
+
+Down below in a cleft of the rock cowered a poor sinner, and burrowed
+in the earth with his lean fingers as if he would dig himself a grave
+in its depths.  He gazed at the cave where the child was with glassy,
+staring eyes.  A prayer for mercy surged up in his heart like a stream
+of blood.  Those who saw him turned from him shuddering.  They took him
+for Cain, his brother's murderer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A stranger was riding a lazy camel across the lonely Arabian desert.
+All men are Moors in the dark, but this man was a Moor in the
+starlight.  A newly discovered star brought the man from the banks of
+the Indus.  He consulted all the calendars of the East, but none could
+tell him about the star.  Balthasar, however, was not the man to let
+the strange, incomprehensible star escape him.  Nothing can be
+concealed in God's bosom from an Eastern scholar, for not even God
+Himself has a passport for the land of the all-wise.  The world is
+through them alone and for them alone; man must grow of himself towards
+the light as the lotus grows out of the mud.  So thought Balthasar, and
+felt that life was a failure.
+
+In such wisdom the faith of Orientals lives and moves and has its
+being.  If man honestly aspires to higher things and tortures his
+flesh, it may go better with him in another life.  For he must be born
+again many times, and must torture his body until it shrivels up, is
+freed from sin, and is without desires.  Then the soul is released and
+is not born again, for Nirvana, the last goal, is reached.  Only bad
+men continue to live.  The nations of India had been demoralised by
+that doctrine for centuries.  But it did not satisfy wise men.
+Balthasar thought: If a man starves through a few dozen lives, then
+something good must come out of it.  Or is evil good enough to
+continue, and good evil enough to cease?  Balthasar sought better
+counsel.  He sought throughout the universe for a peg on which to hang
+a new, more beneficial philosophy of life.  When, then, he saw the new
+star in the sky, he never ceased looking at it.  And, lo! it too took
+the road from east to west which all men traversed.  What was there
+yonder in the sunset that all went towards it, on earth as in heaven?
+Could not one particular star swim against the stream?  True, this new
+heavenly pilgrim took an unusual path; he leaned somewhat to the north
+of the barbarous folk.  So the wise man of the east left the fragrant
+gardens of India and followed the star.  On the road he was joined by
+two Oriental princes and their suites, who were also seeking they knew
+not what.
+
+And one night the three wise men saw in the heavens an extraordinary
+constellation, a group of stars hitherto unknown to any of them.
+
+[Illustration: Diagram of constellation of stars, using asterisks for
+the stars, spelling out "INRI".]
+
+They looked at the constellation for a long while, and Balthasar
+thought it was like writing.  They brought all their wisdom to bear on
+it, but could not explain it, for all it shone so brightly.  Did the
+gods mean to write some message?  Who could understand it?  An uncanny
+appearance, which no knowledge or faith could explain!  The next night
+they did not see it, but the guiding star still went before them and
+yielded to no sun.
+
+One morning, just as day began to dawn, they rode through the streets
+of Jericho.  A man was lying on his face in the road, and the Moor
+asked him why he lay in the dust.
+
+"I lie in the dust," answered the man of Judah, "because I must
+practise myself in humility in order not to become too proud.  We have
+become great beyond measure these last days.  The King of the Jews is
+born, the Messiah promised of God."
+
+Then the wise man from India remembered how the Jews had been expecting
+their Messiah for ages, the royal deliverer from bondage.
+
+"I thought you had King Herod," he said.
+
+"He's not the right king," answered the man in the dust.  "Herod is a
+heathen, and cringes to the Romans."
+
+And now clouds from Lebanon hid the star, and the travellers knew not
+which way to go.  Balthasar, perplexed, went towards the neighbouring
+city of Jerusalem; there surely he would be able to learn more.  He
+asked at the royal palace about the new-born king.  Such a question was
+news to King Herod.  A son born to him?  He knew nothing about it.  He
+would see the strangers who asked such a question.
+
+"Sire," said the Moor, "something is in the air.  Your people are
+whispering of the Messiah."
+
+"I'll have them beheaded!" shouted Herod angrily; then, more gently:
+"I'll have them beheaded if they don't kneel before the Messiah.  I
+myself will bow before him.  If only I knew where to find him!"
+
+"I'll go and look round a little," said the complacent Balthasar, "and
+if I find him I'll come and tell you."
+
+"Do, do, noble stranger," said Herod, "And then, pray take your ease at
+my palace as long as you like.  Are you fond of golden wine?"
+
+"I drink red wine," answered the Moor.
+
+"Or of the fair women of the west?" asked the king.
+
+"I love dark-skinned women," said Balthasar.
+
+"Good!  Then come, my friend, and bring me news of the new-born king."
+
+Balthasar rode on farther with his companions, and directly he left the
+town the star again shone in front of him.  It hung high up in the
+heavens, and after they had followed it for some hours it slowly turned
+its course eastwards, and stopped above a cave in the rocks.  And there
+the strangers who had ridden out of the east to seek for truth, there
+they found truth and life, there they found a child, a child who was as
+tender and beautiful as a rosebud in the moonlight, a little child born
+to poor people, and other poor folk stood round and offered the very
+last of their possessions, and were full of joy.
+
+Dusky Balthasar peered inside.  Had he ever seen eyes shine as in this
+shepherd's cave?  It seemed to him that he saw a new light and a new
+life there; but he could not understand it.  And in the air he heard a
+strange song, more a suggestion than words: "You will be blessed!  You
+will live for ever!"
+
+The strangers hearkened.  What was that?  You will be blessed, and you
+will live for ever!  For us happiness is to be found only in
+non-existence.  At sight of this new-born infant the idea of immortal
+life came to them for the first time.
+
+They offered the poor mother precious jewels, and their hearts were
+glad and happy and strange within them.  Formerly these princes and
+wise men had only found pleasure in receiving, now they found it in
+giving.  Formerly Balthasar had been all sufficient unto himself, he
+had woven his thoughts in entire loneliness, had despised the rest of
+the world, and had only cared for himself.  And suddenly there came to
+him this joy in the joy of poor men, and this suffering at their
+suffering!  He shivered in his silken cloak, and when he took it off
+and wrapped it about the child he was warm.
+
+They all offered gifts, precious gold and rich perfumes and healing
+ointments.  But they were ashamed of their gifts beside the royal
+offerings of the shepherds, who, though it was not much, brought all
+that they possessed.
+
+Balthasar in his joy wished to hasten to Jerusalem in order to tell
+Herod: I have not yet found the King of the Jews, but I have found a
+poor child and whoever looks upon him is happy, he knows not why.  Now
+kings are not so anxious to be happy; they prefer to be powerful.  A
+youth came forward from the back of the cave and said to Balthasar: "Do
+you know the man to whom you would go?  Why, he would strangle the
+Emperor Tiberius if he could.  Be silent, then, about a helpless child
+who is loved by the people as a prince."
+
+"Oh, child!" said Balthasar, "you have the misfortune to be the
+people's favourite.  Therefore the great hate thee."
+
+"Stranger, go not to Jerusalem.  Say nothing of the child."
+
+The strangers did not feel at ease in a land which had an emperor and a
+king, neither of whom was the right ruler!  And so they mounted their
+camels.  They took one more look at the child in the manger and they
+rode away straight over the stony desert.  They directed their course
+towards the east, towards all the starry constellations, and dreamed of
+a new revelation which might enable them henceforth to live rich in
+love and ever glad.
+
+Meanwhile King Herod, sleeping or waking, was not at peace.  It was not
+on account of his wife or his brothers whom he had had murdered from a
+suspicion that they might kill him to secure the throne.  It was
+something else that caused his anxiety.  The new-born king!  No one
+mentioned the news at court, but he heard it from the walls of his
+palace, from the flowers of his garden, from the pillows of his couch.
+Who had first spoken the word?  Whence did it come?  A new-born king!
+Where?  He must forthwith hasten to do him homage, to present him with
+a gift tied with a silken string.  And one day the decree came to
+Bethlehem that every mother who had an infant son should bring it to
+the king's palace at Jerusalem for the king desired to see the progeny
+of his subjects in order to discover what hope there was for the
+delivery of the land of the Jews from bondage: he wished to present
+gifts to the boys; yes, he was preparing a great surprise for his
+people.  No little excitement prevailed among the women, who declared
+that the childless king intended to adopt the handsomest boy as his own
+son.  Since each mother considered her son the handsomest and most
+attractive, she took the boy that she had and carried him to Jerusalem
+to the palace of King Herod.  And those who refused to go were sought
+out by the guards.
+
+Unhappy day, O Herod! which bears thy name for all time!  The angry
+king, desiring to kill the anti-king, commanded the wholesale murder of
+the future protectors of his realm!  He destroyed the race which had
+formerly saved the beautiful city from ruin!
+
+"All hail to our king, long may he live!" shouted the mothers in the
+courtyard of the palace.  Then knaves rushed out from the doors, tore
+the children from their mothers' arms, and slew them.  None can
+describe, indeed none would attempt to describe, how the unhappy
+mothers strove frantically with the tyrants until they fell fainting or
+lifeless upon the bodies of their dear ones.
+
+Tremble, O men, before the terrible decree of Herod, murderer of the
+innocents, yet despair not.  He for whom they spilled their blood by
+God's decree will requite it in full measure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+He at whom Herod had struck was not among the slaughtered innocents.
+For Mary had no desire to show her babe to the king.
+
+They kept in hiding with their great treasure.  They remained in hiding
+a long time.  The rite of circumcision made the boy a member of the
+nation which God had named His chosen people.  The child's ancestors
+reached back to Abraham, to whom the promise was made.  And if
+according to Holy Writ I trace his descent from the race of Abraham,
+branch by branch, it comes at last to Joseph, Mary's husband.  And it
+is here that the glad tidings turn us aside with firm hand from all
+earthly existence--to the Spirit through which Mary had borne Him, Him
+whom with holy awe we call Jesus.
+
+Now it came to pass one night that Joseph awoke from his sleep: "Arise,
+Joseph, wake them, and flee!"  The voice called to him clearly and
+distinctly: twice, thrice.
+
+"Flee? before whom?  The shepherds protect us," Joseph ventured to say.
+
+"The king will have the child.  Make your preparations quickly and
+flee."
+
+Joseph looked at his wife and child.  Their faces were white in the
+moonlight.  To think that such as they had an enemy on the earth!
+Flee!  But whither?  Where could the king not reach them?  His arm
+extended throughout the whole of Judaea.  We must not dream of going to
+Nazareth; he would be sure to seek us there.  Shall we go towards the
+land where the sun rises?  There dwell wild men of the desert.  Or
+towards the setting sun?  There are the boundless waters, and we have
+no boat in which to sail thither, where the heathens live who have
+kinder hearts than the grim princes of Israel.
+
+"Wake them!" called the voice clearly and urgingly.  "Take them to the
+land of the Pharaohs."
+
+"To Egypt, where our forefathers were slaves, and were only delivered
+with difficulty?" asked Joseph.
+
+"Joseph, delay not.  Go to the people whose faith is folly, but whose
+will is just, yonder where the waters of the Nile make the land fertile
+and bless it; There you will find peace and livelihood, safety for your
+wife, and teaching for the child.  When the time comes, God will lead
+you back as once He led Moses and Joshua across the sea."
+
+Joseph knew not whose voice it was; he did not seek to know, and
+doubted not his soul rested trustfully in the arms of the Lord.  He put
+his hand on the shoulders of his dearest one, and said softly: "Mary,
+awake, and be not afraid.  Gather together our few possessions, put
+them in a sack, and I will fasten it to the beast Ishmael gave us.
+Then take the child.  We must away."
+
+Mary pushed her long, soft, silky hair from her face.  Her husband's
+sudden decision, the departure in the middle of the night, made her
+wonder, but she said not a word.  She gathered together their scanty
+possessions, took the sleeping child in her arms, and mounted the ass,
+who pricked up his ears and thought what a day's work must be before
+him since it began so terribly early.  His former owner had not
+pampered him; his short legs were firm and willing.  They gave one last
+grateful look at the cave, the stones of which were softer than the
+hearts of the men of Bethlehem.  Joseph took his stick and a leathern
+strap and walked beside the ass, leading it, the ass which carried his
+whole world and his heaven, and--the heaven of the whole world.
+
+After going some way, they thought to rest under some palm-trees, not
+far from Hebron.  But the ass would not stop, and they let him have his
+will.  Then soldiers of Herod rode that way; they saw a brown-skinned
+woman with a child sitting on the sand.
+
+"Is it a boy?" they called to her.
+
+"A girl," answered the woman.  "But strangers have just passed by, and
+I think they had a boy with them, if you can come up with them."
+
+And the horsemen galloped on.  Meanwhile the fugitives from Nazareth
+had reached bad roads, and were tired and wretched.  Was not Jacob's
+favourite son also taken into Egypt just like this child?  What will
+become of this one?  They became aware of their pursuers galloping
+behind over the bare plain.  Not a tree, not a shrub which could afford
+them protection.  They took refuge in the cleft of a rock, but Joseph
+said: "What is the use of hiding?  They must have seen us."  But as
+soon as they were well inside the dark hole, down came a spider from
+the mossy wall, summoned all her brood and her most distant relations
+in great haste, and they speedily spun a web over the opening, a web
+that was stronger than the iron railings in Solomon's temple, at the
+entrance to the Holy of Holies.  Hardly was the weaving finished when
+the knaves came riding up.  One said: "They crept into the hole in the
+rock."
+
+"What!" shouted another, "no one could have crept in there since the
+time of David the shepherd.  Look at the thick cobwebs."
+
+"That's true," they laughed, and straightway rode off.
+
+An old man who seemed to have risen from the grave now stood before the
+dusky woman who had denied her own son and betrayed the stranger
+wanderers.  Whence he came he did not know himself.  He loved the
+lonely desert, the home of great thoughts.  He did not fear the robbers
+of the desert, for he was stronger than they because he had nothing.
+Now and again the desire came to him to behold a human face, so that he
+might read therein whether the souls of men looked upwards or sank
+downwards.  The old man went up to the woman who had denied her own son
+and betrayed the fugitives.  And he said: "Daughter of Uriah! twice
+have you given your son life: once through pleasure, once through a
+lie.  So his life will be a lie.  He will breathe without living, and
+yet he will not be able to die!"
+
+"Mercy!" she cried.
+
+"He will see Jerusalem fall!"
+
+"Woe is me!"
+
+"He will see Rome burn!"
+
+"Mercy!" she groaned.
+
+"He will see the old world perish.  He will see the barbarians of the
+north prevail.  He will wander restless, he will be ill-treated and
+despised everywhere, he will suffer the boundless despair of universal
+misery, and he will not be able to die.  He will envy men their death
+anguish and their right to die.  He will learn how they suck sweet
+poison from the loveliest blossoms, and how twelve-year-old boys kill
+themselves from sheer weariness.  He is the son of lies and is banished
+into the kingdom of lies.  He will lament over the torments of old age,
+and he will not be able to die.  He will call those children whom Herod
+slew blessed, and gnash his teeth at the memory of the woman who saved
+him through a lie."
+
+"Oh, stop!" shrieked the woman.  "When will he be redeemed?"
+
+"Perhaps when the eternal Truth is come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The desert lay under a leaden sky.  The yellow undulating sandy plain
+was like a frozen sea that had no end, and so far as eye could see was
+only bounded by the dark orb of heaven.  Here and there, grey, cleft,
+cone-shaped rocks and blunt-cornered stone boulders or blocks and
+flat-topped stones not unlike a table rose out of the sand-ocean.  Two
+such stones were situated close together; one was partly covered by the
+yellow quicksand, the other stood higher out of the ground.  On each of
+them lay a man stretched at full length.  One, strong and sinewy, lay
+on his face, supporting his black-bearded cheeks with his hands so that
+his half-raised face could gaze over the barren plain.  The other, a
+smaller-made man, lay on his back, making a pillow of his arms, and
+gazed at the gloomy sky.  Both wore the Bedouin dress and were provided
+with arms which were fastened into, or suspended from, their clothes.
+Their woolly heads were protected by kerchiefs.  Their complexion was
+as brown as the bark of the pine-tree, their eyes big and sparkling,
+their lips full and red.  The one had a snub nose; the nose of the
+other was long and thin.  So do these men of the desert appear to my
+mind's eye.
+
+"Dismas," said the snub-nosed man, "What do you see in the sky?"
+
+"Barabbas," replied the other, "what do you see in the desert?"
+
+"Are you waiting for manna to fall from the sky?" said Barabbas.  "Do
+you know that I'm almost starved to death?  I must go down to the
+caravan route."
+
+"Well, go.  I'll to the oasis of Sheba," said Dismas.
+
+"Dismas, I hate you," growled the other.
+
+Dismas said nothing, and steadfastly looked at the sky, which had not
+for a long while been so softly sunless as to-day.
+
+"Since the day when you refused to help me hold up the caravan of
+Orientals with my men, I have hated you.  They had much frankincense
+and precious spices and gold.  With one blow we should have provided
+ourselves with enough for many a long year.  And you----"
+
+"Wanderers who were seeking the Messiah!  I do not attack such as
+they," said Dismas.
+
+"You, too, are seeking him, you pious highwayman."
+
+"Of course, I seek him."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed he of the snub-nose, pressing his pointed chin
+into his hand.  "The Messiah! the fairy-tale of dreaming old men.  All
+weak men dream and believe.  Don't you see that when you have to strive
+and struggle for your little bit of life there isn't time to wait for
+the Messiah!"
+
+"That's just what I've believed for many a year and day," answered
+Dismas sadly.  "I left my home to follow you; I've plundered men of
+silks and precious stones here in the desert, and time has flown
+nevertheless.  All the treasure in the world cannot bid it stand still
+for an hour; comfort only makes the days fly quicker.  We should not
+struggle for life, but hold it fast, for existence is a wondrous thing.
+Oh, in vain--the days vanish.  So I've determined to have nought to say
+to the hours which pass, but to a time that endures for aye.  And only
+he whom God sends can bring such a time."
+
+Barabbas pressed his face against the stone, and said with comfortable
+conviction; "We've only the life we have; there's no other."
+
+"If it was as you say," returned Dismas, "we must make this one life
+great----"
+
+"If there's no life to come," said Barabbas, "we must live this one
+out.  That is nature, and to deny it folly.  No, I will enjoy my life.
+Enjoyment is a duty."
+
+"That is what bad men think," said Dismas.
+
+"There are no bad men," exclaimed Barabbas, "and no good men either.
+Friend, look at the lamb, he harms no one; he would rather be torn to
+pieces by the lion than tear the lion to pieces himself.  Is he good,
+therefore?  No, only weak.  And the lion who kills and eats the lamb?
+Is he bad, therefore?  No, only strong.  And so it is his right to
+destroy the weak.  Strength is the only virtue, and the only good deed
+is to exterminate the weak."
+
+When he made an end of speaking, the other turned his face towards him
+and said: "What extraordinary words are those?  I never heard such talk
+before.  In whose heart were such ideas born?"
+
+"They were not born in the heart," said Barabbas.  "The heart is dumb.
+Dismas, if I must dwell in desert caves and do nothing, I must search
+out and inquire.  I break stones in pieces and search.  I pull the
+corpses of animals and men to pieces and inquire.  And I find that
+things are not as the old writings tell us.  There's only one Messiah:
+the truth.  Man is an animal like any of the lower creatures--that is
+the truth.  Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+A shudder went through Dismas's body.  How he disliked this man!  And
+yet, on account of his companion's strong will, and through the habit
+of years, he could not free himself.  He had often fled away from him,
+but had always come back.  Now he stood up, lifted his arms to heaven,
+and exclaimed: "Oh, Lord, in the holy heights, save me!"
+
+"Invoke the stars," said Barabbas, with a scornful laugh.  "You'll be
+right then.  They know nothing of you and your God.  They're made of
+common dust.  They themselves, and all the beings on them, live in the
+same base struggle as does our earth and everything on it.  An enormous
+dust-heap, swarming with vermin, that's all."
+
+Dismas sat on his stone with folded hands, pale as a corpse.
+
+"Barabbas, my comrade," he said at last, "it is your bad angel that
+speaks."
+
+"Why don't you praise him, Dismas?  Why don't you shout for joy?  My
+message has redeemed you.  You think because you've attacked, slain,
+and plundered unsuspecting travellers that everlasting hell must be
+your portion.  My strong message does away with hell.  Do you see that?"
+
+The other replied: "I heard a prophet in the wilderness cry that a man
+whom God had damned could be saved by repentance.  Your damnation,
+Barabbas, never!  No Almighty God!  Everything a dry, swarming
+dust-heap, and no escape!  Frightful, frightful!"
+
+"Do you know, Dismas, your lamentations don't amuse me?" said the
+other, supporting himself on his hands and knees like a four-footed
+beast.  "I have a more important matter on hand.  I'm hungry."
+
+Dismas jumped on his stone, and made ready for flight.  "If he's
+hungry, he's capable of killing and eating me."
+
+Barabbas had assumed a listening attitude, and his eagle eyes stared
+out into the desert.  A red banner was visible between the rocks and
+stones; it moved and came nearer.  It was a woman's red garment.  She
+rode on an ass, and seen closer, carried a child in her arms.  A man,
+tired out, limped beside her, leading the ass.
+
+"Dismas, there's someone," whispered Barabbas, grasping the handle of
+his weapon.  "Come, let's hide behind the stone until they come up."
+
+"You'll fall on those defenceless folk from an ambush?"
+
+"And you're going to help me," said Barabbas coolly.
+
+"We'll take what we need for to-day, no more.  I'll only help you so
+far, mark that."
+
+The little group came nearer.  The man and the ass waded deep in the
+sand, which in some places lay scantily over the rough stones, and in
+others had drifted into high heaps.  The guide was leading the animal
+quickly, for during this sunless day he had lost his bearings, but said
+nothing about it, in order not to make his wife anxious.  His eyes
+sought the right road.  They ought to reach the oasis of Descheme that
+day.  Now he saw two men standing on blocks of stone which reached up
+into the sky.
+
+"Praised be God!" said Joseph of Nazareth, "these men will put me
+right."
+
+Before he had time to frame his question, they quickly descended.  One
+seized the ass's bridle, the other grasped Joseph's arm, and said:
+"Give us what you have with you."
+
+The pale woman on the ass sent an imploring glance to Heaven.  The
+little child in her lap looked straight out of his clear eyes, and was
+not afraid.
+
+"If you've bread with you, give it us," said Dismas, who was holding
+the ass.
+
+"Fool!" shouted Barabbas of the snub-nose, "everything they have
+belongs to us.  Whether we will give anything, that's the question.  I
+will give you the most precious thing--life.  Such a beautiful woman
+without life would be a horror."
+
+Dismas reached at the sack.
+
+"Why are you doing that, brother?" said Barabbas.  "We'll lead them to
+our castle.  The simoon may be blowing up.  There they'll have shelter
+for the night."
+
+He tore the bridle from Dismas's hand, and led the ass bearing the
+mother and child down between the stones to the cave,  Joseph saw the
+men's weapons, and followed gloomily.
+
+When the shades of evening fell, and the desert was shut out and the
+sky dark, when the blocks of stone and the cone-shaped rocks resembled
+black monsters, the wanderers were settled in the depths of the cave.
+The ass lay in front of it sleeping, his big head resting on the sand.
+Near by lurked the robbers, and ate their plunder.
+
+"Now we'll share our guests in brotherly fashion," said Barabbas.  "You
+shall have the old man and the child."
+
+"They are father, mother, and child," replied Dismas; "they belong
+together, we will protect them."
+
+"Brother," said Barabbas, who was in high good humour at the ease of
+the capture, "your dice.  We'll throw for them.  First, for the ass."
+
+"Right, Barabbas."
+
+He threw the eight-cornered stone with the black marks, and it fell on
+his outspread cloak.  The ass was his.
+
+"Now for the father and son!"
+
+"Right, Barabbas."
+
+The dice fell.  Barabbas rejoiced.  Dismas was winner.
+
+"A third time for the woman!"
+
+"Right, Barabbas."
+
+He threw the dice; they fell on his cloak.
+
+"What is that?  The dice have no marks!  Dismas, stop this joke!
+You've changed the dice."
+
+When he took them up in his hand the black marks were there again all
+right.  They drew a second and a third time.  As before the dice had no
+marks when they fell.
+
+"What does it mean, Dismas?  The dice are blind."
+
+"I think it's you who are blind, Barabbas," laughed Dismas.  "Here,
+drink these drops, and then lie down and sleep."
+
+The strong man soon rolled on to the sand beside the ass, and snored
+loudly.
+
+Then Dismas crawled into the cave and woke the strangers, in order to
+get them away from the libertine.  For he dared not venture a trial of
+strength with Barabbas.  He had some trouble with Joseph, but at last
+they were beneath the starry sky, Mary and the child on the ass, Joseph
+leading it.  Dismas walked in front in order to show them the way.
+They went slowly through the darkness; no one spoke a word.  Dismas was
+sunk in thought.  Past days, when he had rested like this child in his
+mother's arms and his father had led them over the Arabian desert, rose
+before him.  Many a holy saying of the prophets had echoed through his
+robber life and would not be silenced.
+
+After they had waded through the sand and clambered over the rocks for
+hours, a golden band of light shone in the east.  The bushes and trees
+of the oasis of Descheme stood out against it.
+
+Here Dismas left the wanderers to their safe road, in order to return
+to the cave.  When he turned back with good wishes for the rest of
+their journey, he was met by a look from the child's shining eyes.  The
+beaming glance terrified him with the terror of wonderment.  Never
+before had child or man looked at him with look so grateful, so
+glowing, so loving as this boy, his pretty curly head turned towards
+him, his hands stretched out in form of a cross, as if he wished to
+embrace him.  Dismas's limbs trembled as if a flash of lightning had
+fallen at his side, and yet it was only a child's eyes.  Holding his
+head with both hands, he fled, without knowing why he fled, for he
+would rather have fallen on his knees before the wondrous child.  But
+something like a judgment seemed to thrust him forth, back into the
+horror of the desert.
+
+For three days our fugitives rested in the oasis.  Mary liked to sit on
+the grass under an olive-tree near the spring, and let the boy stretch
+his little soft arms to pluck a flower.  He reached it, but did not
+break it from its stem; he only stroked it with his soft fingers.
+
+And when the child fell asleep in the flowers, his mother kneeled
+before him and looked at him.  And she gazed and gazed at him, and
+could not turn her face from him.  Then she bent down and took one
+little plump, soft hand and shut it into hers so that only the
+finger-tips could be seen, and she lifted them to her mouth and kissed
+them, and could not cease kissing the white, childish hands, the tears
+running down her cheeks the while.  And with her large dark eyes she
+looked out into the empty air--afraid of pursuers.
+
+Joseph walked up and down near at hand between the trees and shrubs,
+but always kept mother and child in view.  He was gathering dates for
+their further travels.
+
+And now new faces rise before me as they wander farther into the barren
+desert, swept by the simoon, parched by the rays of the sun.  Mary is
+full of peace, and wraps the child in her cloak so that he rests like a
+pearl in its shell.  He nestles against her warm breast and sucks his
+fill.  Whenever Joseph begins to be afraid, he feels the angel's wing
+fanning his face.  And then he is full of courage and leads his loved
+ones past hissing snakes and roaring lions.
+
+After many days they reached a fertile valley lying between rocky
+hills; a clear stream flowed through it.  They rested under a hedge of
+thorns, and looked at a terribly wild mountain that rose high above the
+rest.  It was bare and rocky from top to bottom, and deep clefts
+divided it in its whole length, so that the mountain seemed to be
+formed of upright blocks of stone, which looked like the fingers of two
+giant hands placed one on the other.  A hermit was feeding his goat in
+the meadow, and Joseph went up to him and asked the name of the
+remarkable mountain.
+
+"You are travelling through the district, and you don't know the
+mountain?" said the hermit.  "If you are a Jew, incline your face to
+the earth and kiss it.  It is the spot where eternity floated down from
+Sinai."
+
+"That--the Mountain of the Law?"
+
+"See how it stretches forth its fingers swearing.  As true as God
+lives!"
+
+Joseph bowed down and kissed the ground.  Mary looked at the stony
+mountain with a thrill of awe.  Little Jesus slept in the shade of the
+thorn-bush.  The threatening rock and the lovely child.  There dark
+menaces, and here----?
+
+Joseph tried to picture to himself the scene when Moses, on the summit
+of the mountain, received the tables of stone from Jehovah.  Then a
+cloud slowly covered the mountain top as if to veil the secret.  Joseph
+was ashamed of his presumption and kept silence.  Before he departed he
+cut a bough from the thorn-bush and pulled off the leaves and twigs, so
+that it formed a pilgrim's staff for the rest of the journey.  They
+were always meeting new dangers.  And one day a hunter of the desert
+came running after them.  They were not frightened of his tiger skin,
+but of what he had to tell them.  If they had come from Judaea with
+their boy, they had better hasten into the land of Egypt, for Herod's
+men were on their track.  So they had no rest until at last they came
+to the land of the Pharaohs.  But one day they found themselves not on
+its frontier, but on the seashore.  They were dumb with astonishment.
+There lay the sea, its waves dashing against the black, jagged cliffs,
+and beyond them was a smooth, level plain as far as the eye could see.
+
+Once in the past fugitives had stood on the other side of the sea,
+their enemies behind them.  And Joseph lifted up his arms and called
+upon the God of his forefathers to divide the waters of the sea once
+again and make a passage for them.  Belief in the God of ancestors is
+strong.  He appealed also to his ancestors themselves and entreated
+them to come to his assistance, for are we not one with them and strong
+in the same faith?  But the sea lay in calm repose and divided not.
+Six horsemen came riding over the sand, shouting for joy at the thought
+of their reward, when they saw those they had so long pursued standing
+by the water, unable to proceed farther.  Quickly they approached the
+shore, and were about to let fly the stones from their slings against
+the couple who had the little King of the Jews with them, when they saw
+the fugitives descend the wave-dashed cliffs and go out upon the
+surface of the sea.  The man led the ass on which sat the woman with
+the child, and just as they passed over the sand of the desert, with
+even steps, they passed over the waters of the sea.
+
+Their pursuers rode after them in blind rage, urged their horses into
+the sea, and were the first to reach--not Egypt, but the other world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The family of the poor carpenter from Nazareth stood on the soil of
+ancient Egypt.  How had they crossed the sea?  Joseph thought in a
+fishing boat, but it had all happened as in a dream.  He opened his
+eyes, and sought the mountains of Nazareth, and saw the dark grove of
+palm-trees with their bare trunks and sword-shaped leaves, and he saw
+the gate flanked by enormous stone figures which, lying on their
+bellies, stretched out two paws in front of them and lifted huge human
+heads high in the air.  He saw the triangular form of the pyramids rise
+against the yellow background.  Strange odours filled the air, as well
+as shrill noises made by fantastic figures, and every sound struck hard
+and sharp on the ear.  Joseph's heart was heavy.  His home was
+abandoned, and they were in a strange land in which they must certainly
+be lost.
+
+Mary, who was always outwardly calm, but inwardly bound up passionately
+in the child, looked at Joseph's stick, and said: "Joseph, it is a nice
+thought of yours to deck your staff with a flower in token of our safe
+arrival."  Then Joseph looked at his stick and marvelled.  For from the
+branch which he had cut at Sinai there sprouted a living, snow-white
+lily.  Oh, Joseph, 'tis the flower of purity!  But what was the use of
+all the flowers in the world when he was so full of care?  He lifted
+the child in his arms, and when he looked at his sunny countenance the
+shadows were dispersed.  But they experienced shadows enough in the
+land of the sun, where men had built a splendid temple to the sun-god
+like that which the Israelites at home had built to the great Jehovah.
+
+Things did not go very well with these poor Jews during the long years
+they remained in this land.  They did not understand the language; but
+their simple, kindly character and their readiness to be of use told in
+their favour.  In that treeless land carpentry was at a discount.  They
+built themselves a hut out of reeds and mud on the bank of the Nile
+near the royal city of Memphis, but in such a building the carpenter's
+skill did not shine.  Still it was better than the dwellings of other
+poor people by the riverside.  Joseph thought of fishing for a
+livelihood; but the fish-basket that he wove was so successful that the
+neighbours supplied him with food so that he might make such baskets
+for them.  And soon people came from the town to buy his baskets, and
+when he carried his wares to market, he got rid of them all on the way.
+So basket-making became his trade, and he thought how once the little
+Moses was saved in a basket on the Nile.  And just as his work was
+liked, so also did Mary and himself win affection, and they confessed
+that life went better on the banks of the Nile than in poor little
+Nazareth, for veritably there were fleshpots in Egypt.  If only they
+could have crushed their hearts' longing for home!
+
+When the little Jesus began to walk, the mothers who were their
+neighbours wished him to make friends with their children and play with
+them.  But the boy was reserved and awkward with strangers.  He
+preferred to wander alone at evening-time besides the stream and gaze
+at the big lotus flowers growing out of the mud, and at the crocodiles
+which sometimes crawled out of the water, and lifting their heads
+towards the sky, opened their great jaws as if they would drink in the
+sunshine.  He often remained out longer than he ought, and came back
+with glowing cheeks, excited by some pleasure about which he said
+nothing.  When he had eaten his figs or dates, and lay in his little
+bed, his father and mother sat close by, and spoke of the land of their
+fathers, or told ancient tales of their ancestors until he fell asleep.
+Joseph instructed the boy in the Jewish writings; but it was soon
+apparent that Joseph was the pupil, for what he read with difficulty
+from the roll, little Jesus spoke out spontaneously from his innermost
+soul.  So he grew into a slender, delicate stripling, learned the
+foreign tongue, marked the customs, and followed them so far as they
+pleased him.  There was much in him that he did not owe to education;
+although he said little, his mother observed it.  And once she asked
+Joseph: "Tell me, are other children like our Jesus?"
+
+He answered; "So far as I know them--he is different."
+
+One day, when Jesus was a little older, something happened.  Joseph had
+gone with the boy to the place where the boats land, in order to offer
+his baskets for sale.  There was a stir among the people: soldiers in
+brilliant uniforms and carrying long spears marched along; then came
+two heralds blowing their horns as if they would split the air with
+their sharp tones; and behind came six black slaves drawing a golden
+chariot in which sat Pharaoh.  He was a pale man with piercing eyes,
+dressed in costly robes, a sparkling coronet on his black, twisted
+hair.  The people shouted joyfully, but he heeded them not; he leaned
+back wearily on his cushions.  But all at once he lifted his head a
+little; a boy in the crowd, the stranger basket-maker's little son,
+attracted his attention.  Whether it was his beauty or something
+unusual about the boy that struck him, we cannot say, but he ordered
+the carriage to be stopped, and the child to be brought to him.
+
+Joseph humbly came forward with the boy, crossed his hands on his
+breast, and made a deep obeisance.
+
+"That is your son?" said the king in his own language.
+
+Joseph bowed affirmatively.
+
+"You are a Jew!  Will you sell me the boy?" asked Pharaoh.
+
+And then Joseph: "Pharaoh! although I am a descendant of Jacob, whose
+sons sold their brother Joseph into Egypt, I do not deserve your irony.
+We are poor people, but the child is our most cherished possession."
+
+"I only spoke in kindness about the selling," said the king.  "You are
+my subjects, and the boy is my property.  Take him, Hamar."
+
+The servant was ready to put his hand on the little boy, who stood by
+quietly and looked resolutely at the king.  Joseph fell on his knees
+and respectfully represented that he and his family were not Egyptian
+subjects, but lived there as strangers, and implored the almighty
+Pharaoh to allow him the rights of hospitality.
+
+"I know nothing about all that, my good man," said the king.  Then,
+catching sight of the boy's angry face, he laughed.  "Meseems, my young
+Jew, that you would crush me to powder.  Let me live a little longer in
+this pleasant land of Egypt.  I shall not harm you.  You are much too
+beautiful a child for that."  He stopped, and then continued in a
+different tone: "Wait, and look more closely at Pharaoh, and see if he
+is really so terribly wicked, and whether it would be so dreadful to
+live in his palace and hand him the goblet when he is thirsty.  Well?
+Be assured, old man, I shall do you no violence.  Boy, you shall come
+to my court of your own free will, you shall share the education and
+instruction of the children of my nobles; only sometimes I shall have
+you with me, you fine young gazelle.  Now go home with your father.
+To-morrow I will send and ask, mark you--only ask, not command.  He who
+is tired of plundered booty knows how to value a free gift.  You hear
+what I say?"
+
+When the crowd heard Pharaoh speak to these poor people with such
+unwonted kindness, the like of which they had never heard before, they
+uttered mad shouts of joy.  As the king proceeded on his way in his
+two-wheeled golden chariot, a long array of soldiers, cymbal players,
+and dancing girls following behind, the palm-groves resounded with the
+cries of the people.  Joseph fled with the boy down narrow streets so
+as to avoid the crowd that wanted to press round him and look at and
+pet Pharaoh's little favourite.
+
+The same evening an anxious council was held in the little hut.  The
+boy, Jesus, was drawn to Pharaoh without saying why.  They were
+terrified about it.  The two working people had no idea that their life
+was becoming too narrow for his young soul, that he wanted to fortify
+himself with the knowledge to be obtained from the papyrus rolls of the
+ancient men of wisdom, with the intellectual products of the land of
+the Pharaohs.  And still less did they imagine that a deeper reason led
+their boy to desire to learn something of life in the world.
+
+Joseph admitted that the manuscripts in the royal collection counted
+for something.  But Mary put little trust in the writings, and still
+less in Pharaoh.
+
+"We've had," she said, "a painful experience of the good intentions of
+kings.  Having escaped the violence of Herod with difficulty, are we to
+submit to that of Pharaoh?  They all play the same game, only in a
+different way.  What Jerusalem could not accomplish by force, Memphis
+will accomplish by cunning."
+
+Joseph said: "My dear wife, you are not naturally so mistrustful.  Yet
+after what we have gone through it is no wonder.  This legend of a
+young King of the Jews has been a real fatality to us.  Whoever started
+it can never answer for all the woes it brings."
+
+"Let us leave that to the Lord, Joseph, and do what it is ours to do."
+
+When Joseph was alone with her he said: "It seems to me, Mary, that you
+believe our Jesus is destined for great things.  But you must remember
+that a basket-maker's hut is not exactly the right place for that.  He
+would have a better chance at Pharaoh's court--like Moses.  And we know
+that the King of Egypt is no friend of Herod.  No, that is not his
+line; he really wishes well to the child, and no one can better
+understand that than ourselves.  Did he not say that our darling should
+be treated like the children of the nobles?"
+
+In the end she decided to do what was best for the child.  He was past
+ten years old, and if he wished to go from the mud hut to the palace,
+well, she would not forbid it.
+
+Jesus heard her words.  "Mother," he said, and stood in front of her,
+"I do not wish to go from the mud hut to the palace, but I want to see
+the world and men and how they live.  I am not abandoning my parents to
+go to Pharaoh--although I go, I remain here with you."
+
+"You remain with us," said his mother, "and yet I see that even now you
+are no longer here."
+
+But she would not let him know how it was with her.  He should not see
+her weep.  She would not spoil his pleasure.  And then they discovered
+that after all he was not going very far away, only from the Nile to
+the town, and that Pharaoh had promised him liberty; he could visit his
+parents, and return to them whenever he so wished.  But he would no
+longer be the same child who went from them.  Mary reflected that that
+was the usual case with mother and son; the youth gave himself up more
+and more to strangers, and less and less of him remained to his mother.
+There remained to her the memory that she had borne him in pain, that
+she had nourished him with her life; she had a claim on him more sacred
+and everlasting than any other could have.  But gradually and
+inevitably he separated himself from his mother, and what she would do
+for him, and give him, and be to him, he kindly but decidedly set
+aside.  She must even give him her prayerful blessing in secret; she
+hardly dared to touch his head with her trembling hands.
+
+Next day at noon a royal litter stood before the hut.  Two slaves were
+the bearers, one of whom was old and feeble.  When Mary saw the litter
+she exclaimed that she would not allow her child to lie on so soft a
+couch.  The boy smiled a little, so that two dimples appeared on his
+rosy cheeks, and said:
+
+"Why, mother, do you think I would ride on those cushions?  Now, let
+the sick slave get in, and I will take his place."
+
+But the leader of the little procession was not agreeable.  The boy
+could do as he liked, stay, or go with them.
+
+"I shall stay," said Jesus, "and go to Pharaoh when I please."  The
+litter returned empty to the palace.
+
+The next day the boy made up his mind to go.  His parents accompanied
+him through the palm-grove to the town.  He walked between father and
+mother in his humble garb, and Joseph gave him good advice the while.
+Mary was silent and invoked the heavenly powers to protect her child.
+Only the boy was admitted through the gateway of the palace; father and
+mother remained behind and looked fearfully after their Jesus, who
+turned round to wave to them.  His face was glad, and that comforted
+the mother.  The father thought it incomprehensible that a child could
+so cheerfully and heedlessly part from the only creatures who cared for
+him; but he kept his thought to himself.
+
+The boy felt curiosity, satisfaction, and repugnance all at the same
+time, when he gave himself into the hands of the servants, who led him
+to a refreshing bath, anointed him with sweet-smelling oil, and clad
+him in a silken garment.  But he desired to learn what life in the
+royal palace was like.  And gradually its splendour began to enfold
+him.  The Arabian tales which his father loved to tell him contained
+marvels and splendours, but nothing to be compared with the
+magnificence and brilliance that now assailed his senses.  Marble
+staircases as broad as streets, halls as lofty as temples, marble
+pillars, brilliantly painted domes.  The sun came through the windows
+in every colour there is, and was reflected red, blue, green, and gold
+by the shining walls.  But more fairy-like were the nights, when
+thousands of lamps burned in the halls, a forest of candelabra shone
+like a conflagration kept within bounds; when the courtiers seemed to
+sink into the carpets and divans and silken and down coverlets; when
+the sweet-smelling incense rose from the golden censers and intoxicated
+the brain; when a hundred servants made ready the banquet of
+indescribable luxury, and carried it in silver dishes, alabaster bowls,
+and crystal goblets; when youths and maidens, with arms entwined,
+crowned each other with wreaths of roses; when the fanfares sounded,
+and the cymbals clashed, and song gushed from maidens' throats; and
+when at length Pharaoh entered in flowing purple robes adorned with a
+thousand sparkling diamond stars--on his head an indented coronet,
+shining like carbuncle--the god! the sun-god!  On all this our boy from
+the Nile hut looked as at something wonderful that had nothing to do
+with him.  A fan of shimmering peacocks' feathers was put into his
+hand.  Other boys had similar fans, and with half-bared limbs stood
+close to the guests and fanned them into coolness.  Young Jesus was to
+do that for Pharaoh, but he did not do it, and sat on the floor and
+never grew weary of looking at Pharaoh's pale face.  The king answered
+his gaze kindly: "I think that is the proud youth from the Nile, who
+does not desire to sit at the feet of Pharaoh."
+
+"He shall sit at the right hand of God," sang the choir.  Slowly, with
+the air of an irritated lion, the king turned his head in order to see
+what stupid choirmaster mingled Hebrew verses with the hymn of Osiris.
+Then ensued noise and confusion.  The windows, behind which was the
+darkness, shone with a red light.  The people had assembled before the
+palace with torches in order to do homage to Pharaoh, the son of Light.
+The king looked annoyed.  Such homage was repeated every new moon--he
+desired it, and yet it bored him.  He beckoned to the cup-bearers, he
+wanted a goblet of wine.  That brought the blood to his cheeks, and the
+light to his eyes.  He joined in the hymn of praise to Osiris, and his
+whole form glowed with strength and gladness.
+
+When the quiet night succeeded the luxurious day, so still was it that
+the lapping of the waves of the Nile might be heard.  Jesus lay on a
+curtained couch of down, and could not sleep.  How well he had slept in
+the hut by the Nile!  He was hot and rose and looked out of the window.
+The stars sparkled like tiny suns.  He lay down again, prayed to his
+Father, and fell asleep.  The next day, when the feast was over, he
+would find the rooms in which the old writings were kept, and the
+teachers who would instruct him.  But it was not like the feast that
+comes to an end; it was repeated every day at the king's court.
+
+It happened one night that the slaves stole around and woke each other.
+Jesus became aware of the subdued noise and asked the cause.  One
+approached him and whispered, "Pharaoh weeps!"  Like a mysterious
+breath of wind it went through the palace, "Pharaoh weeps!"  Then all
+was still again, and the dreaming night lay over everything.
+
+Jesus did not lie down again on the soft cushions, he rested on the
+cool floor and thought.  The king weeps!  Arabia and India, Greece and
+Rome have sent their costliest treasures to Memphis.  Phoenician ships
+cruise off the coasts of Gaul, Albion, and Germany in order to obtain
+treasure for the great Pharaoh.  His people surround him day after day
+with homage, his life is at its prime.  And he weeps?  Was it not
+perhaps that he sobbed in his dreams, or it may be laughed?  But the
+watchers think he weeps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+And the days passed by.  As the king had said, the boy was free.  But
+he stayed on at the palace because he hoped one day to find the room in
+which the manuscripts were kept.  He often strolled through the town
+and the palm-grove down to the river to see his parents.  Thousands of
+slaves were working at the sluices of the stream which fertilised the
+land.  The overseer scourged them lustily, so that many of them fell
+down exhausted and even dying.  Jesus looked on and denounced such
+barbarity, until he, too, received a blow.  Then he went out to the
+Pyramids where the Pharaohs slept, and listened if they were not
+weeping.  He went into the Temple of Osiris and looked at the monster
+idols, fat, soulless, ugly, between the rounded pillars.  He searched
+the palace untiringly for the hall in which the writings were kept, and
+at last he came upon it.  But it was closed: its custodians were
+hunting jackals and tigers in the desert.  They found it dark and
+dreary there among the great minds of old; the splendour and luxury of
+the court did not penetrate to the hall of writings.
+
+Then nights came again when whispers ran through the halls, "Pharaoh
+weeps."  And the reason, too, was whispered.  He had caused the woman
+he loved best to be strangled, and now the astrologers declared that
+she was innocent.  One day the king lay on his couch and desired that
+the boy from the Nile should be summoned to fan him.  As the king was
+sick, Jesus agreed to go.  Pharaoh was ill-humoured and impatient,
+neither fan nor fanning was right, and when the boy left off that was
+not right either.
+
+Then Jesus said suddenly: "Pharaoh, you are sick."
+
+The king stared at him in astonishment.  A page dare to open his mouth
+and speak to the Son of Light!  When, however, he saw the sad, sincere
+expression of sympathy in the boy's countenance ho became calmer, and
+said; "Yes, my boy, I am sick."
+
+"King," said Jesus, "I know what is the matter with you."
+
+"You know!"
+
+"You keep shadows within and light without.  Reverse it."
+
+Directly the boy had said that Pharaoh got up, thinner and taller than
+he usually appeared to be, and haughtily pointed to the door, an angry
+light in his eyes.
+
+The boy went out quietly, and did not look back.
+
+But his words were not forgotten.  In the noise and tumult of the
+daytime Pharaoh did not hear them; in the night, when all the
+brilliance was extinguished and only the miserable and unhappy waked,
+he heard softly echoed from wall to wall of his chamber, "Reverse it!
+Bring the light inside!"
+
+Shortly before that time Jesus had discovered an aged scholar who dwelt
+outside the gate of Thebes, in a vaulted cave at the foot of the
+Pyramid.  He would have nothing to do with any living thing except a
+goat of the desert which furnished him with milk.  And as he kept
+always within the darkness of the vault, bending over endless
+hieroglyphics on half-decomposed slabs of stone, on excavated household
+vessels, and papyrus rolls, the goat likewise never saw the sun.  Both
+were contented with the food brought them daily by an old fellah.  The
+hermit was one who had surely reversed things--shadow without and light
+within.  When Pharaoh dismissed Jesus, he sought the learned
+cave-dweller in order to find wisdom.  At first the old man would not
+let him come in.  What had young blood to do with wisdom?
+
+"My son, first grow old, and then come and seek wisdom in the old
+writings."
+
+The boy answered: "Do you give wisdom only for dying?  I want it for
+living."
+
+Then the old man let him in.
+
+Jesus now visited the wise man every day and listened to his teachings
+about the world and life, and also about eternal life.  The hermit
+spoke of the transmigration of souls, how in the course of ages souls
+must pass through all beings, live through all the circles of
+existence, according as their conduct led them upwards to the gods, or
+downwards to the worms in the mud.  Therefore we should love the
+animals which the souls of men may inhabit.  He spoke with deep awe of
+the serpent Kebados, and of the sublime Apis in the Temple of Memphis.
+He lost himself in all the depths and shoals of thought, verified
+everything by the hieroglyphics, and declared it to be scientific
+truth.  So that the man who lived in the dark discoursed to the boy on
+light.  He spoke of the all-holy sun-god Osiris who created everything
+and destroyed everything--the great, the adorable Osiris by whose eye
+every creature was absorbed.  Then he would again solemnly and
+mysteriously murmur incomprehensible formulae, and the eager boy grew
+weary.  Here, too, something evidently had to be reversed.  So
+thinking, he went quietly forth and left the little gate open.  When
+the old man looked up at him, there he was in the open air pasturing
+the goat, who, delighted at her liberty, was capering round on the
+grass.
+
+"Why do you not show your reverence for truth?" he said, reprovingly.
+
+And Jesus: "Don't you see that I am proving my reverence for your
+teaching.  You say: We must love animals.  Therefore I led the goat out
+into the open air, that she may feed on the fragrant grass.  You say
+that we should kindle our eye at that of the sun-god, therefore I went
+out with the goat from the dark vault into the bright sunlight."
+
+"You must learn to understand the writings."
+
+"I want to know living creatures."
+
+The old man looked at the boy with an air of vexation.  "Tell me, you
+bold son of man, under what sign of the zodiac were you born?"
+
+"Under that of the ox and the ass," answered the boy Jesus.
+
+The man of learning immediately hurried into his cave, lighted his
+lamp, and consulted his hieroglyphics.  Under the ox and the ass--he
+grew afraid.  Away with Libra, away with Libra!  He investigated yet
+again.  It stood written on the stone and in the roll.  He went out
+again, and looked at the boy, but differently from before, uneasily, in
+great excitement.
+
+"Listen, boy, I've cast your horoscope."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"By the ancient and sacred signs I've read your fate.  Knowing under
+what sign of the zodiac and under which stars you were born, I can
+enlighten you as to the fate you go to meet so callously.  Do you
+desire to know it?"
+
+"If I desire to know it, I will ask my Father."
+
+"Is your father an astrologer?"
+
+"He guides the stars in their courses,"
+
+"He guides the stars in their courses?  What do you mean?  You are a
+fool, a godless fool.  You will learn what terrors await you.  This
+arrogance is the beginning.  His Father guides the stars in their
+courses indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+News came from Judaea that King Herod was dead.  It was also reported
+that his successor, called Herod the younger, was of milder temperament
+and a true friend of his people.  So Joseph considered that the time
+was now come when he might return to his native land with his wife and
+his tall, slender son.  His basket-making, through industry and thrift,
+had, almost without his noticing it, put so much money into his pocket
+that he was able to treat with a Phoenician merchant regarding the
+journey home.  For they would not go back across the desert: Joseph
+wanted to show his family the sea.  He took willow twigs with him in
+order to have something to do during the voyage.  Mary occupied herself
+in repairing and making clothes, so that she might be nicely dressed
+when she arrived home.  The other passengers who were in the big ship
+were glad of the idleness, and amused themselves in all sorts of ways.
+Jesus often joined them, and rejoiced with those who were glad.  But
+when the amusement degenerated into extravagance and shamelessness, he
+retired to the cabin, or looked at the wide expanse of waters.
+
+One moonlight night when they were on the high seas, a storm sprang up.
+The ship's keel was lifted high at one moment only to dip low the next,
+so that the waves broke over the deck; bundles and chests were thrown
+about, and a salt stream struck the travellers' faces.  The rigging
+broke away from the masts, and fluttered loosely in the air out into
+the dark sea which heaved endlessly in mountains of foam, and
+threatened to engulf the groaning ship.  The people were mad with
+terror and anguish, and, reeling and staggering, sought refuge in every
+corner in order to avoid the falling beams and splinters.  Joseph and
+Mary looked for Jesus, and found him quietly asleep on a bench.  The
+storm thundered over his head, the masts cracked, but he slept
+peacefully.  Mary bent over him, and climbed on to the bench so that
+they might not be hurled apart.  She would let him sleep on, what could
+a mother's love do more?  But Joseph thought it time to be prepared,
+and so they woke him.  He stood on the deck and looked out into the
+wild confusion.  He saw the moon fly from one wall of mist to the
+other, he saw dark monsters shoot up from the roaring abyss, and throw
+themselves on the ship with a crashing noise, and turn it on its side
+so that the masts almost touched the surface of the water, while birds
+of prey hovered above.  The ship heaved from its inmost recesses, and
+cracked from end to end as if it would burst.  Jesus, pale-faced, his
+eyes sparkling with delight, held on to the railing.  Joseph and Mary
+tried to protect him.  He thrust them back, and without ceasing to gaze
+at the awful splendour, said: "Let me alone!  Don't you see that I'm
+with my Father?"
+
+It is written of him that he is the only man who had no father on
+earth, and so he sought and found Him in heaven.
+
+Others who saw the youth that night became almost calm in spite of
+their terror.  If he is not afraid for his young life, is ours so much
+more valuable?  And then, whether to conquer or to fail, they went to
+work with more courage to steer the ship, to mend the tackle with tow,
+to bale out the water, until gradually the storm subsided.  When day
+dawned Jesus was still gazing with delight at the open sea, where he
+had watched the struggle of winds and waves of light and darkness.  At
+last he had found it--light both within and without!  The helmsman blew
+his horn, and announced, "Land in sight!"  Far away over the dark-green
+water shone the cliffs of Joppa.
+
+When the ship was safely steered through the high cliffs into the
+harbour, our family landed in order to journey thence to Jerusalem on
+foot.  For it was the time of the Passover, and it was many years since
+Joseph had celebrated it in Solomon's Temple.  The feast--a memorial of
+the deliverance from Egypt--had now a double meaning for him.  So he
+wished to make this _détour_ to the royal city on his way to his native
+Galilee, and especially that, after their sojourn in the land of the
+heathen, he might introduce Jesus to the public worship of the chosen
+people.  Joseph and Mary clasped each other's hands in quiet joy when
+they were once again journeying through their native land, breathing
+its fresh air, seeing the well-known plants and creatures, hearing the
+familiar tongue.  Jesus remained calm.  If he found any childish
+memories there, they would be of the king who had persecuted him.  He
+could regard the land with calm impartiality.  And when he saw his
+parents so glad to be at home again, he thought how strange it was that
+lifeless earth should have so much power over the heart.  Does not the
+Heavenly Father hold the whole earth in his hand?  Does not man carry
+his home within his own bosom?
+
+Their possessions were tied on to the back of a camel, and they trudged
+cheerfully after it.  Joseph carried an axe at his waist in order to
+defend them from attacks, but he only had occasion to try it on the
+blocks of wood that lay in the road, which he liked to hack at a little
+if they were good timber.  The nearer they approached the capital the
+more animated the stony roads became.  Pilgrims who were proceeding to
+the great festival in the holy place streamed along the paths.  After
+sunset on the second day our travellers found themselves at an inn in
+Jerusalem.  Joseph could afford to be more independent than he had been
+twelve years back--he had money in his pocket!  Their first walk was to
+the Temple.  They hastened their steps when passing Herod's palace.
+
+The Temple stood in wondrous splendour.  All sorts of people filled the
+forecourt, hurrying, pushing, and shouting, pressing forward through
+the lines of pillars into the Holy Place, and thence into the Holy of
+Holies, where the ark of the covenant stood, flanked by golden
+candelabra.  Every fifth man wore the robes of a rabbi, and was thus
+sure of his place in the Temple as one learned in the law.  Pharisees
+and Sadducees, two hostile parties in the interpretation of the law,
+talked together of tithes and tribute, or entered on lively disputes
+over the laws of the Scriptures, a subject on which they never agreed.
+Joseph and Mary did not observe that others were quarrelling; they
+humbly obeyed the rules, and stood in a niche of the Holy Place and
+prayed.  But Jesus stood by the pillars and listened to the disputants
+with astonishment.
+
+The next day they inspected the city as far as the crowds rendered it
+possible.  Joseph wished to visit the grave of his noble ancestor, and
+pushed through the crowds that filled the dark, narrow streets, noisy
+with buyers and sellers, donkey-drivers, porters, shouting rabbis, and
+an endless stream of pilgrims.  When they reached David's tomb Jesus
+was not with them.  Joseph thought that he had remained behind in the
+crowd, and, feeling quite easy about him, paid his devotions at the
+tomb of his royal ancestor.  When they returned to the inn, where they
+thought to find Jesus, He was not there; time passed, and He did not
+come.  Someone said He had joined a party of pilgrims going to Galilee,
+because He thought that His parents had already set out.  "How could He
+think that?" exclaimed Joseph.  "As if we should go without Him!"
+
+They hurried off to fetch their son, but when they came up with the
+pilgrims, Jesus was not there, nothing was known of him, and his
+parents returned to the town.  They sought him there for two whole
+days.  They visited every quarter of the city, searched all the public
+buildings, inquired of every curator, asked at the strangers' office,
+questioned all the shop-keepers about the tall boy with pale face,
+brown hair, and an Egyptian fez on his head.  But no one had seen him.
+They returned to the inn, fully expecting to find him there.  But there
+was no sign of him.  Mary, who was almost fainting with anxiety,
+declared that he must have fallen into the hands of Herod.  Joseph
+comforted her, though he was himself in sad need of consolation.
+
+"Poor mother," he said, drawing her head down on his breast, "let us go
+and place our trouble before the Lord."
+
+And when they had gone up into the Temple, there, among the scholars
+and the men learned in the law they found Jesus.  The youth sat among
+the grey-bearded rabbis, and carried on a lively conversation with
+them, so that his cheeks glowed and his eyes shone.  Judgment had to be
+pronounced on a serious case of transgression of the law.  A man in
+Jerusalem had baked bread on the Sabbath, because his neighbour had
+been unable to lend him the oven the day before.  The Pharisees met
+together, and eagerly brought forward a crowd of statutes regarding the
+culpability of the transgressor.  Young Jesus listened attentively for
+a while, and then suddenly stepped out of the crowd.  Placing himself
+in front of the learned men, he asked: "Rabbis, ought a man to do good
+on the Sabbath or not?"
+
+They did not know at first whether to honour this bold young man with
+an answer.  But there is a precept in the law which declares that every
+inquirer must be answered, so one of them said curtly and roughly: "Of
+course a man should do good."
+
+Jesus inquired further; "Is life a good thing or not?"
+
+"As it is the gift of God, it is a good thing."
+
+"Should a man then preserve life or harm it on the Sabbath?"
+
+The wise men were silent, for they would have been compelled to
+acknowledge that life must be preserved on the Sabbath, and their
+accusation of the man who had baked bread for his food would have
+fallen to the ground.
+
+Jesus walked quickly up the steps to the table, and said: "Rabbis, if a
+sheep fell into a brook on the Sabbath, would you leave it there till
+the next day?  You would not first think: To-day is the Sabbath day,
+but you would pull it out before it was drowned.  Which is of greater
+value, a sheep or a man?  If a sick man comes on the Sabbath day, and
+needs help, it is given him at once.  And if you have a splinter in
+your flesh, no one asks if it is the Sabbath; the splinter must be
+taken out.  But you come with your laws against a poor man who was
+obliged to prepare his food on the Sabbath, and you imagine yourselves
+better than he is.  No, that will not do.  The intention must decide.
+If any one bakes bread on the Sabbath, I should say to him: 'Is it for
+your own good or for gain?'  In the first case you are acting rightly,
+in the last you desecrate the Sabbath."
+
+As they now did not know what to say, they decided that the youth was
+too insignificant for them to dispute with.
+
+Jesus, still excited, came down and joined the crowd, where his mother
+was wringing her hands over the boldness with which her son had spoken
+to the elders and the wise men.  She stretched her arms towards him.
+"Child! child!  What are you doing here?  Why treat us so?  What we
+have not suffered on your behalf!  We have sought you for three whole
+days in the greatest anxiety."
+
+Then Jesus said: "Why did you seek me?  He who has a task to do, cannot
+always stay with his own people.  I have been about my Heavenly
+Father's business."
+
+"Where were you all the time?"
+
+He did not answer.  Others might have told how he stood between the
+pillars listening to the discussions of the Rabbis until he could keep
+silence no longer.
+
+Joseph said to him with some severity: "If you are learned enough to
+interpret the Scriptures to those honourable men, you must know the
+fifth commandment: 'Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may
+be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.'"
+
+Jesus said nothing.
+
+"And now, my son, we will betake ourselves to that land."
+
+And so they set out on the last stage of their journey.  It was hard
+walking over the vineyards of Judaea and Samaria, and Mary, when they
+were quite near home, asked if she should ever see Nazareth again.
+Jesus marched the distance, so to speak, twice, for he was never tired
+of turning aside to gather dates, currants, and figs, or to fetch a
+pitcher of water in order that his parents might quench their thirst.
+So they went slowly over the rocky land, and when the mule-path led to
+an eminence over which flat stones lay scattered, and which was thickly
+sown with stumpy shrubs, the fertile plain of Israel lay before them.
+It was surrounded by wooded hills, while villages were scattered about
+its surface, and shining rivers wound through it.  Opposite, one range
+of mountains showed behind the other, and the highest lifted their
+snowy peaks into the blue sky.
+
+Joseph let fall the camel's guiding rein and his staff, extended his
+arms and exclaimed: "Praise the Lord, oh my soul!"  For Galilee, his
+native place, lay before him.
+
+When they saw the little town of Nazareth nestling in a bend of the
+hills--ah! how small the place was, and how peaceful amid the green
+hills!--Mary wept for joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The inhabitants of Nazareth were not a little astonished to see Joseph,
+the carpenter, who had so long disappeared from their midst, walk up
+the street with his wife and a handsome boy.  It was a good thing that
+they had baggage with them.  But Cousin Nathaniel made a very wry face,
+in which the smile of welcome struggled with the anxiety this
+unexpected arrival caused him.  Cousin Nathaniel had taken possession
+of, and settled comfortably in the house, regarding himself as the
+heir.  Now he must pack up and go.
+
+Joseph was delighted to see his workshop again, with its vice, bench,
+yardstick, plane, and saw.  The red dyeing vat was also there, and the
+cord with which the timber was measured before the axe was used on it.
+Cousin Nathaniel declared that many of the tools belonged to him, until
+Joseph pointed to the J with which all the things were marked for the
+sake of order.  When the old workman tied on his apron, and for the
+first time set to work with the plane so that the fine shavings flew
+whirring about, his blood flowed swiftly for delight, and his eye
+looked like that of a young man.  And so the carpenter began cheerfully
+to work again, not only in his own shop, but anywhere in the
+neighbourhood where building or repairing was required, or tables,
+chests, or benches were needed.  The little property he had brought
+from Egypt would be increased here, so that when the time came his son
+should make a good start in life.  Mary helped him with careful and
+economical housekeeping, and made undergarments and cloaks for the
+women of Nazareth.  Jesus had a room to himself to which he could
+withdraw when work was over.  Joseph hoped, by making him comfortable
+at home, to counteract the attractions of the outside world.  The vine
+trellises could be clearly seen through the windows of the room, and a
+hill with olive-trees, and clouds from Lebanon passing over the sky,
+and the stars that rose in the east.  The first gleam of sun, moon, and
+stars, when they rose, fell into that peaceful chamber.  The Books of
+Moses, the Maccabees, the Kings, the Prophets, and Psalmists which
+Jesus gradually collected in Nazareth, Cana, Nain, and in villages
+below round the lake, filled a shelf.  The men of Galilee had become
+indifferent to the works which their forefathers wrote with toil and
+reverence; they had had to wait too long for the fulfilment of the
+prophecies, and began to doubt that a Messiah would ever come to the
+Jews, so that they were quite pleased to give the parchments to that
+nice boy of Joseph's.  If they wanted to know anything, they had only
+to ask him, and he explained it so clearly and concisely, and sometimes
+so impressively, that they never forgot it again.  That was much easier
+than awkwardly searching for themselves, and labouring hard to decipher
+the words only to be unable to understand them when they had done so.
+
+Many a night, by the light of the moon, did Jesus read in his books.
+They were the same as those we read to-day when we open the Old
+Testament.  So that it is as if we sat with Jesus on the same school
+bench.  He read of Adam and his sin, of Cain and his murder, of Abraham
+and his promise, of Noah and the deluge.  He read of Jacob and his
+sons, of Joseph whom his brothers sold into Egypt, and of his fate in
+that land.  And he read of Moses the great lawgiver, of David the
+shepherd, minstrel and king, and of Solomon's wisdom and of his temple,
+and of the Prophets who judged the people for their misdeeds, and
+prophesied the future kingdom.  Jesus read the history of his people
+with a burning heart.  He saw how the race had gradually gone from bad
+to worse.  If he had at first rejoiced with all enthusiasm, later on he
+became angry at the degeneration.  Grief made him sleepless, and he
+peered thoughtfully into the starry heavens, asking: "What will deliver
+them from this misery?"
+
+The stars were silent.  But out of the distance, out of the stillness
+of eternity, it was proclaimed: I love them so deeply, that I shall
+send my own Son to make them happy.
+
+By day Joseph took care that the youth should not dream too much.
+Jesus must learn his trade.  He did so willingly but not gladly, for
+his head was not with his hands, and while he should have joined two
+beams to make a door frame, the dark saying of the Prophet sounded in
+his head: "He is numbered among the transgressors."
+
+"What are you doing there?  Is that a door frame?  It's a cross!"  So
+Joseph awoke him out of his reverie, and Jesus was terrified to see
+that he had nailed the pieces of wood crosswise.
+
+"Tell me," said Joseph to the boy, "what are you thinking of?  If
+you've any sense in your head use it for your honest work.  The
+simplest handicraft needs it all, and not only a piece here and there.
+And especially carpentering, which builds people houses, bridges,
+ships, and yea, temples for Jehovah.  You cannot imagine what mischief
+a bad carpenter may do.  You're thinking of divine things?  Well, work
+is a divine thing.  With work in his hands, man continues the creation
+of God.  People say that you are clever; then let your master see it.
+You make the tools blunt and the work is not clean and sharp.  This
+can't go on, child."
+
+Jesus let the lecture pass in silence, and worked far into the night to
+make the mischief good.
+
+Joseph confided his grief to his wife.  Not that the boy would turn out
+a bad carpenter.  If he liked he could succeed in anything.  But Joseph
+was grieved to have to scold his favourite so often.  He had to do that
+to every apprentice.
+
+Mary said: "Joseph, you are quite right, to direct him.  I am indeed
+anxious.  I observe the child carefully, and I am not satisfied.  He is
+so different, so very different from boys of his age."
+
+"I think, too, that he is different," said Joseph.  "We must not forget
+that from the very beginning it was different with this child.  Jehovah
+understands it; I can't fit it together.  He reads too much, and that's
+bad for young people."
+
+"And I almost fear he reads the Law in order to criticise it," said
+Mary.
+
+"He'll find himself.  At his age boys exaggerate in everything."  So
+Joseph consoled himself.  "He's a singular boy.  Look at him when he
+plays with other children!  The tallest of them all!  No, after all, I
+wouldn't have him other than he is."
+
+They had talked in sorrow and joy while Jesus was nailing the wood
+correctly out in the workshop.  And when he had gone to bed, Joseph
+crept into his room, and laid his hand gently on his head.
+
+And so the years went by.  Jesus improved in his work, and grew in
+intelligence, and in cheerfulness.  The Sabbath day was all his own.
+He liked to go up to the hill top where the sheep were feeding among
+the stones and the olive-trees, whence he could see the mighty
+mountains of Lebanon and, the wide landscape, partly green and fertile
+and partly barren, down to the lake.  He stood there and thought.  He
+was always friendly with the people he met or who were employed about
+him, but he seldom became intimate with them.  Occasionally he would
+join in some athletic exercise with youths from Cana, and in wrestling,
+strive who could overcome the other.  Then his soft brown hair would
+fly in the wind, his cheeks would glow, and when the game was over, he
+would return arm-in-arm with his adversary to the valley below.  But he
+preferred to be alone with himself, or with silent nature.  Beautiful
+ideas came springing like lambs in that peaceful place, but there also
+came thoughts strong as lions.  He dreamed.  He did not think; thought,
+as it were, lay within himself, and then he spoke out many a word at
+which he was himself terrified.  Ideas began to shape themselves within
+him, and before he was aware of it they were clearly spoken by his
+tongue, as if it was another who spoke for him.  And so he came out of
+the mysterious depths to the light.
+
+He was often challenged to dispute; he never defended himself except by
+words, but they were so weighty and fiery that people soon left him in
+peace.  If he struck, he knew how to make the injury good.  One day
+when he was going down the defile to the stony moor, a mischievous boy
+ran up behind him and knocked him down.  Jesus quickly picked himself
+up, and shouted angrily to the boy, "Die!"  When he saw the blazing
+eye, the boy turned deathly pale and began to tremble so that, near to
+fainting, he had to lean up against the rocky wall.  Jesus went up to
+him, laid his hand on his shoulder and said kindly, "Live!"
+
+No one in the whole country-side had ever seen such an eye as his.
+Like lightning in anger, in calmer moods like the gleam of dewdrops
+upon flowers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+As Jesus gradually grew to manhood he worked at his trade as a master.
+For Joseph was old and feeble, and could only sit by the bench,
+overlook the carpenters and tell them what it would be best to do.
+They had a young apprentice, a near relation, named John, who helped
+Jesus with the carpentering and building.  When they built a cottage in
+Nazareth, or roofed a house, he was severe and strict with the youth.
+But when on the Sabbath day they wandered together through the country
+between the vines, over the meadows with the stones and herds,
+sometimes through the dark cedar forests to the lower slopes of
+Lebanon, they said not a word about the work.  They watched the
+animals, the plants, the streams, the heavens, and their everlasting
+lights, and rejoiced exceedingly.  Sometimes they assisted poor
+gardeners and shepherds, and did them trifling services.  They taught
+John to blow the horn, and Jesus sang joyful psalms with a clear voice.
+
+But Joseph's death was approaching.
+
+He lay half-blind on his bed, and asked Mary how she would manage when
+he was gone.  Then he felt with his cold hand for Jesus.
+
+"My son, my son!"
+
+Jesus wiped the dying man's brow with the hem of his garment.
+
+"I had hoped," said Joseph softly, "but it is not to be.  I must depart
+in darkness."
+
+"Father," said Jesus, and tenderly stroked his head.
+
+"It is hard, my child.  Stay beside me.  I had hoped to see the Messiah
+and his light.  But I must be gathered to my fathers in darkness."
+
+"He will soon come and lead you to paradise."
+
+The old man grasped his hand convulsively.  "It is quite dark.  I am
+afraid.  Stay with me, my Jesus."
+
+And so he fell asleep for ever.
+
+They buried him outside the city under the walls.  Jesus planted the
+staff which Joseph had cut during the flight into Egypt, and had always
+carried with him, on the mound.  And no sooner was it planted in the
+earth than it began to bear young shoots.  And when Mary went the next
+day to pray there, behold the grave was surrounded with white lilies,
+which grew from the stick and spread themselves in rows over the mound.
+
+After the old master's death trouble befell the family.  People began
+to take their orders for work elsewhere, for they found it difficult to
+get on with the young master.  A man who went against the Scriptures
+and traditional custom in so many things could not do his work
+properly.  He seldom attended public worship in the Temple, and was
+never seen to give alms.  In the morning he went down to the spring and
+washed himself, but otherwise he omitted all the prescribed ablutions.
+When the Rabbi of Nazareth reproached him for such conduct, he replied;
+"Who ought to wash, the clean or the unclean?  Moses knew this people
+when he made washing a law for them.  Does uncleanness come from within
+or without?  It is not the dust of the street that soils a man, but the
+evil thoughts of his heart.  Is it unseemly to eat honest bread with
+dusty hands?  Is it not more unseemly to take away your brother's bread
+with clean hands?"
+
+The Rabbi considered that it would be foolish to waste more words on
+this transgressor of the law, and went his way.  But next day he
+informed the carpenter that he was to stand on the Sabbath behind the
+poor-box, in order to see whether the well-washed hands of believing
+Jews took the bread away from their brothers, or, rather, did not
+bestow it liberally upon them.  And as Jesus stood in the Temple, he
+observed the well-to-do Nazarenes dip their hands into the basin, with
+pious air throw large pieces of money into the poor-box, and then look
+round to see if their good example was observed.  When it grew dark, a
+poor woman came and with her lean fingers put a farthing into the
+poor-box.
+
+"Well, what do you say now?" asked the Rabbi of the carpenter.
+
+Jesus answered: "I think the haughty rich people have washed
+themselves, and that still they give with unclean hands.  They give
+away a small part of what they have taken from others, and give from
+their superabundance.  The poor woman gave the largest gift in God's
+eyes.  She gave all that she possessed."
+
+And so it happened that Jesus became more and more estranged from
+Nazareth.  Only poor folk and little children were attracted to him: he
+cheered the former and played with the latter.  But otherwise men drew
+apart from him, considering him an eccentric creature and perhaps a
+little dangerous.  His mother sometimes tried to defend him: he had
+grown up in a foreign land among strange customs and ways of thought.
+At bottom he had the best of natures, so kind and helpful to others and
+so severe towards himself.  How like a mother!  What mother has not had
+the best of children?  They despised her remarks and pitied her because
+her son was so unlike other boys and caused her anxiety.  There was
+nothing to complain of in his work when he stuck to it.  What a
+carpenter he might be with such aptness!  Only he should not interfere
+in things he could not understand, and should not disturb people's
+belief in the religion of their fathers.
+
+One day there was a marriage in the neighbouring town of Cana.  Mary
+and her relatives were invited, for the bridegroom was a distant
+cousin.  So far as Jesus was concerned, there would have been no great
+grief had he stayed away.  Possibly he would not take any pleasure in
+the old marriage customs and the traditions to which they still held.
+Jesus understood the irony, but it did not hurt him, and so he went to
+the marriage in order to rejoice with the joyful.  When the merriment
+was at its height, Mary drew her son aside and said: "I think it would
+be well if we went home now; we are not regarded with favour here.
+They would be glad of fewer guests, for I hear the wine has given out."
+
+"What matters it to me if there's no more wine," answered Jesus, almost
+roughly.  "I do not want any."
+
+"But the other guests do.  The host is greatly embarrassed.  I wish
+someone could help him."
+
+"If they are thirsty, have the water jugs brought in," he said.  "If
+the drinker has faith in his God then the water will be wine.  He will
+be well content."
+
+The host, in fact, saw no other way of satisfying his guests' thirst
+than in ordering large stone pitchers of water to be brought in from
+the well.  He was vastly amazed when the guests found it delicious, and
+praised the wine that had just been poured out for them.  "Usually,"
+they said, "the host produces his best wine first, and when the
+carousers have drunk freely, he brings in worse.  Our good host thinks
+differently, and to the best food adds the best wine."
+
+But Jesus and his relations saw how the pitchers were filled at the
+well, and when they tasted their contents, some declared that things
+could not be all right here.  Jesus himself drank, and saw that it was
+wine.  Much moved, he went out into the starry night.  "Oh, Father!" he
+said in his heart, "what dost thou intend with regard to this son of
+man?  If it is thy will that water shall be turned into wine, it may
+then be possible to pour new wine into the old skins, the spirit and
+strength of God into the dead letter!"
+
+John went out into the night to seek his master.  "Sir," said the
+youth, when he stood before him, "what does it mean?  They say that you
+have turned water into wine.  I have often thought that you were
+different from all of us.  You must be from Heaven."
+
+"And why not you also, John, who look up to it?  Can anyone attain the
+height who has not come from it?"
+
+John remained standing by his side for a while.  It was not always easy
+to grasp what he meant.
+
+On their homeward way by night, the mother unburdened her anxious heart
+to her son.  "You are so good, my child, and help people wherever you
+can.  Why are you often so rough of speech?"
+
+"Because they do not understand me," he replied; "because you, none of
+you, understand me.  You think that if a man works at his wood in the
+carpenter's shop, then he's doing all that is necessary."
+
+"Wood?  Of course a carpenter has to work with wood.  Do you want to be
+a stonemason?  Think, stones are harder than wood."
+
+"But they give fire when struck together.  Wood gives no sparks, nor
+would the Nazarenes yield any sparks, even if lightning struck them.
+They are like earth and damp straw.  They are incapable of enthusiasm:
+they are only capable of languid irritation.  But you'll not build a
+kingdom of heaven with irritation.  I despise the wood that always
+smokes and never burns."
+
+"My son, I fear you will make such enemies of them that----"
+
+"That I shall not be able to stay in Nazareth.  Isn't that what you
+mean, mother?"
+
+"I am anxious about you, my son."
+
+"Happy the mother who is nothing worse.  I am quite safe."  He stopped
+and took her hand.  "Mother, I'm no longer a child or a boy.  Do not
+trouble about me.  Let me be as I am, and go where I will.  There are
+other tasks to be fulfilled than building Jonas a cottage or Sarah a
+sheep-pen.  The old world is breaking up, and the old heaven is falling
+into ruin.  Let me go, mother; let me be the carpenter who shall build
+up the kingdom of heaven."
+
+The constellations spread themselves across the sky.  Mary let her son
+go on before, down to the little town; she walked slowly behind and
+wept.  She stood alone and had no influence with him.  Every day he
+became more incomprehensible.
+
+To what would it lead?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A strange excitement prevailed among the people in Galilee, and spread
+through Samaria and Judaea even to Jerusalem.  A new prophet had
+arisen.  There were many in those days, but this one was different from
+the rest.  As is always the way in such times, at first a few people
+paid heed feverishly, then they infected others with their unrest, and
+finally roused families and whole villages which had hitherto stood
+aloof.  So at last all heeded the new prophet.  At the time of the
+foreign rule old men had spoken of the King and Saviour who was to make
+the chosen people great and mighty.  Expounders of the Scriptures had
+from generation to generation consoled those who were waiting and
+longing.  Men had grown impatient under the intolerable foreign
+oppression, and a national desire and a religious expectation such as
+had never before been known in so high a degree had manifested itself.
+
+And lo! strange rumours went through the land.  As the south wind of
+spring blows over Lebanon, melts the ice, and brings forth buds, so
+were the hearts of men filled with new hope.  A man out in the
+wilderness was preaching a new doctrine.  For a long while he preached
+to stones, because, he said, they were not so hard as men's
+understanding.  The stones themselves would soon speak, the mountains
+be levelled and the valleys filled up so that a smooth road might be
+ready for the Holy Spirit which was drawing nigh.
+
+Men grew keenly interested in those tidings.  Some said: "Let us go out
+and hear him just for amusement's sake."  They came back and summoned
+others to go out and see the extraordinary man.  He wore a garment of
+camel's hair instead of a cloak, and a leather girdle round his loins.
+His hair was long, black, and in disorder, his face sunburnt, and his
+eyes flamed as if in frenzy.  But he was not an Arab nor an Amalekite;
+he was one of the chosen people.  Down by the lake he was better known.
+He was the son of Zacharias, a priest and a native of the wonderful
+land of Galilee.  The Galileans had at first mocked at him, and with a
+side glance at Jesus, said: "What a blessed land is Galilee, where new
+teachers of virtue are as plentiful as mushrooms in rainy weather!"
+Jesus retorted by asking whether they knew what kind of a people it was
+that only produced preachers of repentance?
+
+The name of the preacher in the wilderness was John.  More and more
+people went out to hear him, and everyone related marvels.  He chased
+locusts and fed on them, and took the honey from the wild bees and
+swallowed it.  He seemed to despise the ordinary food and customs of
+men.  Since the murder of the innocents at Bethlehem, he had lived in
+the wilderness, dwelling in a cave high up in the rocks of the
+mountain.  It almost seemed that he loved wild beasts better than men,
+whose cloak of virtue he hated because it was woven out of
+evil-smelling hypocrisy and wickedness.
+
+They called him the herald.  "We are surprised," they said, "that the
+Rabbis and High Priests in Capernaum, Tiberias, and Jerusalem should
+keep silent.  They could put this man to death for his words."  But the
+herald had no fear.  He preached a new doctrine, and he poured water
+over the heads of those who joined him as a sign of the covenant.
+
+"And what is his teaching?" asked others.
+
+"Go and hear for yourselves!"
+
+And so more and more people went out from Judaea and Galilee into the
+wilderness.  The preacher had withdrawn a little way above the point
+where the river Jordan flows into the Dead Sea.  The district, usually
+so deserted, was alive with all sorts of people, among them Rabbis and
+men learned in the law, who represented themselves as penitents, but
+desired to outwit the prophet with cunning.  The preacher stood on a
+stone; he held a corner of his camel's hair garment, pressed against
+his hairy breast with one hand, and the other he stretched heavenwards
+and said: "Rabbis, are ye here too?  Are ye at last afraid of the wrath
+of heaven which ye see approaching, and so take refuge with him who
+calls on ye to repent?  Ye learned hypocrites!  Ye stone him who can
+hurt you with a breath, and praise him who brings with him a human
+sacrifice.  See that your repentance does not become your judge.  But
+if it is sincere, then receive the water on your head as a token that
+you desire to be pure in heart."
+
+Such were the words he spoke.  The scholars laughed, scornfully; others
+grumbled at the severity of his remarks, but kneeled down.  He took an
+earthen vessel, dipped it in the waters of Jordan, and poured it over
+their heads so that little streams ran down their necks and over their
+brows.  A man raised his head and asked: "Will you give us
+commandments?"
+
+The prophet answered: "You have two coats and only one body.  Yonder
+against the oak is a man who has likewise a body but no coat.  I give
+no commandments; but you know what to do."
+
+So the man went and gave his second coat to him who had none.
+
+A lean old man, a tax-gatherer from Jerusalem, asked what he should do,
+since everyone he met in the streets had a coat on his back.
+
+"Do not ask more payment than is legal.  Do not open your hand for
+silver pieces, nor shut your eyes to stolen goods."
+
+"And we?" asked a Roman mercenary.  "We are not the owners of our
+lives; are we, too, to have no commandments?"
+
+"You have the sword.  But the sword is violence, hatred, lust, greed.
+Take care!  The sword is your sin and your judgment."
+
+And then women came to him with a triumphant air, and exclaimed: "You
+wise man, you!  We have no rights, so we have no duties?  Is that not
+so?"
+
+And the prophet said; "You assume rights for yourselves, and duties
+will be given you.  The woman's commandment is: 'Thou shall not commit
+adultery.'"
+
+"And what do you say to men?" asked one of them.
+
+"Men have many commandments besides that one.  You must not tempt them
+with snares of the flesh, for they have more important things to do in
+the world than to make themselves pleasant to women.  You must not
+allure them with the colour of your cheeks, nor with the tangles of
+your hair, nor with your swelling breasts.  You shall not attract the
+eye of man through beautiful garments and sparkling jewels.  You shall
+not glisten like doves when you are false like snakes."
+
+The women were angry, and tried to set snares for him.  So they smiled
+sweetly, and asked: "Your words of wisdom, oh prophet! only concern the
+women of the people.  Royally-born women are excepted."
+
+Then spoke the preacher; "Women born in the purple are of the same
+stuff as the leprous beggar-woman who lies in the street.  No woman is
+excepted.  The wives of kings live in the sight of all, and must obey
+the law twice and thrice as strictly.  Since Herod put away his
+rightful wife, the Arab king's daughter, and lives openly in incest
+with his brother's wife, the angel of hell will strike at her."
+
+"You all hear," said the women, turning to the assembled crowd.  Then
+they pulled up their gowns high over their ankles, stepped into the
+river where it is shallow, and bared their brown necks, in order that
+the wild preacher might pour the water over them.  The men pressed
+closer, but the prophet tore a branch from the cedar and drove the
+hypocritical penitents back.  Some were glad that sin had no power over
+this holy man.
+
+Then they sent an old man to him to ask who he really was.  "Are you
+the Messiah whom we are expecting?"
+
+"I am not the Messiah," answered the preacher.  "But he is coming after
+me.  I prepare the way for him like the morning breeze ere the sun
+rises.  As the heaven is above the earth, so is he greater than I.  It
+is my prayer that I may be worthy to loosen his shoe latchets.  I
+sprinkle your heads with water; he will sprinkle them with fire.  He
+will separate you according as your hearts be good or evil.  He will
+lay up the wheat in the garner with his fan and burn the chaff.
+Prepare yourselves--the kingdom of God is nearer than ye think."
+
+The people were uneasy.  Clouds came up over the mountains of Galilee,
+and their edges shone like silver.  The air lay like a heavy weight
+over the valley of the Jordan, and not a twig stirred in the cedars.
+The strangers from Samaria and Judaea did not know the man who climbed
+down over the stones and went towards the preacher.  He wore a blue
+woollen gown that came down over his knees, so that only his sandalled
+feet were seen.  He might have been taken for a working man had not his
+head, with its high, pale forehead and heavy waving locks, been so
+royal.  A soft beard sprang from his upper lip, and there was such a
+wonderful light in his dark blue eyes that some were almost frightened
+by it.  And they asked each other: "Who is the man with the fiery eyes?"
+
+He reached the prophet.  One hand hung down: he held the other against
+his breast.  He said softly; "John, pour water over my head, too."
+
+The prophet looked at the young man and was terrified.  He went back
+two steps--they knew not why.  Did he himself know?
+
+"You!" he said, almost under his breath.  "You desire to receive the
+token of repentance from me?"
+
+"I will do penance--for them all.  I will begin with water what will be
+ended with blood."  That is what they thought to hear.  In a man who
+speaks like this, there is something incredibly spiritual.
+
+"He is a dreamer!  He is a madman!" the people whisper one to another.
+
+"No, he's not, he's not!" others declare.
+
+"Did he not speak of blood?"
+
+"It seemed so.  Such young blood, and already repenting!"
+
+"And as proud of it as a Roman."
+
+"With eyes glowing like an Arab's."
+
+"Looking at his hair, you might take him for a German."
+
+"He is neither a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a German," someone exclaimed,
+laughing; "he is the carpenter of Nazareth."
+
+"The same who turned water into wine?"
+
+"There are lots of stories about him.  We know plenty of them."
+
+"It is said that Herod's murder of the innocents was on his account."
+
+When the crowd heard that, they were quiet, and looked at the new
+arrival with a sort of awe.  And so old Herod had taken him for the
+Messiah-King!
+
+A feeling of reverence spread among the people.  For Jesus stepped into
+the river.  The prophet dipped his vessel in the water and poured it
+over his lightly-bent head.  The edges of the clouds in the heavens
+shone with the crimson light of evening.  The eyes of the bystanders
+were riveted by a white speck which showed itself in the windows of
+heaven, first like a flower-bloom and then like a fluttering pennon.
+It was a dove that flew down and circled round the head of him who had
+just been baptized.
+
+"My dearly beloved son!"
+
+The people whispered; "Whose voice was it that said: 'My dearly beloved
+son'?"
+
+"Didn't it refer to him over whom the water has just been poured?"
+
+A shudder seized many of them.  It was just as if he was presented to
+men by the invisible God!
+
+"We will ask him himself whose son he is," they said, and pressed
+towards the river.  But he had gone away, and the twilight of the
+desert lay over the stream.
+
+The same night Mary sat in her room at Nazareth, and sewed.  She kept
+looking out of the window, for she would not go to bed till Jesus
+returned.  When he had gone out of the door two days ago, he had turned
+to her again, looked at her, and said:
+
+"Mother, I go to my Father."
+
+She thought he was going to the cemetery to pray at Joseph's tomb, as
+he often did.  For in the city of the dead solitude may be found.  When
+he returned neither on the first day nor on the second, she began to
+feel anxious.  She waited up the whole night.
+
+The next morning the little town rang with the news: "The carpenter has
+been seen with the preacher.  He has been baptized."
+
+"That's just like him.  One enthusiast keeps company with another."
+
+"It would be more correct to say with false prophets.  For what else is
+it when a man declares that he can wash away sin with a dash of water?"
+
+Thereupon a Sidonian donkey-driver, who had come down the street;
+"That's excellent!  You Israelites can do so much with your ablutions.
+That would be a capital thing!"
+
+"Ah! what things one hears!  Everything points to the speedy
+destruction of the world."  And one whispered in his ear, "I tell you,
+frankly, 'twould be no great misfortune."
+
+"Now John has caught it.  Do you know what he's always shouting?"
+
+"The young carpenter, his apprentice?  He's never said anything that
+matters."
+
+"Do you know what he's always exclaiming?  He strides through the
+streets, and his hair flies in the wind.  He spreads out his hands
+before him, and says: 'The word has become flesh!'"
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+But Mary sat at the window and waited and watched.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A very short time after these events there came two soldiers to the
+Jordan, not to have the water poured over their heads, but to arrest
+the desert preacher and take him to Jerusalem to Herod.  Herod received
+him politely, and said: "I have summoned you here because I am told
+that you are the preacher."
+
+"They call me preacher and Baptist."
+
+"I want to hear you.  And, indeed, you must refute what your enemies
+say against you."
+
+"If it was only my enemies, it would be easy to refute them."
+
+"They say that you insult my royal house, that you say the prince lives
+in incest with his brother's wife.  Did you say that?"
+
+"I do not deny it."
+
+"You have come to withdraw it?"
+
+"Sire," said the prophet, "I have come to repeat it.  You are living in
+incest with your brother's wife.  Know that the day of reckoning is at
+hand.  It will come with its mercy, and it will come with its justice.
+Put away this woman."
+
+Herod grew white with rage that a man of the people should dare to
+speak thus to him.  Royal ears cannot endure such a thing, so he put
+the preacher in prison.
+
+But the next night the prince had a bad dream.  From the battlements he
+saw the city fall stone by stone into the abyss; he saw flames break
+out in the palace and temple, and the sound of infinite wailing rang
+through the air.  When he awoke the words came into his mind: You who
+stone the prophets! and he determined to set the preacher free.
+
+It was now the time when Herod should celebrate his birthday.  Although
+Oriental wisdom advised that a birthday should be celebrated with
+mourning, a prince had no reason for so doing.  Herod gave a banquet in
+honour of the day, and invited all the most important people in the
+province in order that while enjoying themselves they might have the
+opportunity of doing homage to him.  He enjoyed himself royally, for
+Herodias, his brother's wife, was present, and her daughter, who was as
+lovely as her mother.  She danced before him a series of dances which
+showed her beautiful figure, set off by the flowing white gown confined
+at the waist with a girdle of gold, to every advantage.  Intoxicated by
+the feast and inflamed by the girl's beauty, the prince approached her,
+put his arm, from which the purple cloak had fallen back so that it was
+bare, round her warm neck, and held a goblet of wine to her lips.  She
+smiled, did not drink, but said: "My lord and king!  If I drank now
+from your goblet, you would drink at my lips.  Those roses belong to my
+bridegroom."
+
+"Who is the man who dares to be more fortunate than a king?" asked
+Herod.
+
+"I do not yet know him," whispered the girl.  "He is the man who shall
+give me the rarest bridal gift."
+
+"And if it was Herod?"
+
+The girl raised her almond eyes to the prince and said nothing.  He
+almost lost his head with the sweetness of the shining eyes.  "You are
+an enchanting witch, you!" he whispered.  "Desire of me what you will."
+
+The beauty had been primed by her mother, who wished to be revenged on
+John, whose prophecies might tear her from her kingly lover.  The
+daughter breathed the words: "A dish for your table, O king!"
+
+"A dish of meat?  Speak more plainly."
+
+"Let your bridal gift be a dish of rare meat on a golden charger."
+
+"I do not understand what you want."
+
+"The head of the Baptist."
+
+The king understood, turned aside, and said: "Horror, thy name is
+woman!"
+
+Then she wept and murmured between her sobs: "I knew it.  A woman is
+nothing to you but a flower of the field.  You cut it down so that it
+turns to hay.  And hay is for asses.  You care more for the man who has
+mortally insulted yourself and my mother than you do for me."
+
+"Indeed, I do not!  If he deserves death, you shall have your desire."
+
+"When does he whom the king loves deserve death?" groaned the girl, and
+sank into a swoon.  He lifted her up, drew her to his breast, and what
+her words could not accomplish the embrace did--it cost the Baptist his
+life.
+
+The banquet was most sumptuous.  The most delicious viands, gathered
+from every quarter, and sparkling wines graced the table.  Harp players
+stood by the marble pillars, and sang praises to the king.  Herod, a
+garland of red roses round his head, sat between the two women.  He
+drank freely of the wine, and so hurriedly that the liquid dripped from
+his long, thin beard.  Was he afraid of the last course?  It appeared
+at midnight.  It was covered with a white cloth, and only the
+beautifully-chased edge of the charger was visible.  Herod shuddered
+and signed that the dish should be placed before the young woman who
+sat on his left.  She hastily pulled off the cloth, and behold! a man's
+head; the black hair and beard, steeped in the blood that ran from the
+neck, lay in the charger.  It stared with open eyes at the woman who,
+filled with voluptuous horror, leaned closely against the prince.  Then
+the mouth of the head opened and spoke the words: "The Kingdom of God
+is near at hand!"
+
+Horror and confusion filled the banqueting hall.  "Who dared to say
+that?" shouted several voices.  "'Twas the head of the prophet who
+prophesies even in death!"
+
+Then a tumult arose in the palace, for this was the most terrible
+horror that the golden halls had ever seen.  Long-restrained fury
+suddenly burst forth--the town was in flames, the men of Jerusalem
+rioted.  The women were torn from Herod's side, and flung into the
+streets to the mercy of the mob.  The prince was forced to fly.  The
+story goes that in his flight he fell into the hands of the Arab king,
+who avenged his despised daughter in a terrible manner.  Thus were
+godless hands stretched forth from Herod's house against him who bore
+witness to the coming One.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+After the act of baptism was accomplished, Jesus wandered for a long,
+long while--indeed, he paid no heed to time--along the banks of Jordan.
+Then he climbed the rocks, and when in the twilight he came to himself
+again and looked about, he saw that he was in the wilderness.  The
+revelation vouchsafed at his baptism had snatched him from the earth.
+In that mysterious vision he had opened to him the new path which he
+had chosen to follow.  What eternal peace surrounded him.  Yet he was
+not alone among the barren rocks; never in his life had he been less
+lonely than here in the dim terrors of the wilderness.  A deep silence
+prevailed.  The stars in the sky sparkled and sparkled, and the longer
+he gazed at them the more ardently they seemed to burn.  Gradually they
+seemed to sink downwards, and to become suns, while fresh legions
+pressed ever forward from the background, flying down unceasingly, the
+large and the small and the smallest, with new ones ever welling up
+from space--an inexhaustible source of heavenly light.
+
+Jesus stood up erect.  And when he lifted up his face it seemed as if
+his eye was the nucleus of all light.
+
+So he forgot the world and remained in the wilderness.  Each day he
+penetrated deeper into it, past abysses and roaring beasts.  The stones
+tore his feet, but he marked it not; snakes stung his heels, but he
+noticed it not.  Whence did he obtain nourishment?  What cleft in the
+rocks afforded him shelter?--that is immaterial to him who lives in
+God.  Once he had regarded the world and its powers as hard
+taskmasters, and now they seemed to him to be as nothing, for in him
+and with him was eternal strength.  The old traditional Jehovah of
+Jewish hearts was no more; his was the all-embracing One, who carried
+the heavens and the earth in his hand, who called to the children of
+men: Return! and who stooped down to every seedling in order to awaken
+it.  He himself became conscious of God--and after that, what could
+befall him?
+
+One day he descended between the rocky stones to the coast of the Dead
+Sea that lay dark and still, little foam-tipped waves breaking on the
+shore.  The expanse of water was lost in darkness in the distance, and
+stretched away heavy and lifeless.  Cleft blocks of stone were
+scattered along the beach, and their tops glowed as red as iron in the
+forge.  It was the hour of sunset.  The towering stones stood like
+giant torches, and the bright colour was reflected on the bare pebbles
+on which the water lapped.  For many thousands of years the fine yellow
+sand had drifted down from the walls of rock, and lay over the wide
+sloping plains of the shore.  It was like dry, light "stone-snow," and
+Jesus, who strode over it, left his footprints in it.  The next gust of
+wind disturbed it, the "stone-snow" was whirled about, and the dark
+stones were laid bare.  Men are engulfed in those sand-fields, which,
+broken by blocks of stone, stretch away into infinity.  Witness the
+bones which may be seen here and there, remains of dead beasts, and
+also legs and skulls of men who perished as hermits, or became the prey
+of lions.  Such skulls with their grinning teeth, warned the traveller
+to turn back as he valued his life.  Here is death!  Jesus laid his
+hands over his breast.  Here is life!  The greater the loneliness, the
+more keenly may the nearness of God be realised.
+
+Jesus preferred the rocky heights to the plain.  He could see the wide
+expanse of the sky, and the clouds which wandered over its face and
+then disappeared like nations of nomads.
+
+One day, in such a spot, he met an Arab chief.  He was of gigantic
+stature, dressed in the dark cloak of the Bedouins, with a wild, grey
+beard, and a snub nose in a bony face.  Beneath bushy eyebrows were a
+pair of unsteady eyes.  His belt was full of weapons, his head was
+adorned with an iron band which kept his wild hair in some sort of
+order.  The man looked at the young hermit not unkindly and called him
+a worm who should pray that he might be mercifully trodden under foot.
+He must either swear allegiance to the desert chief, or be burned up by
+the hot stones.
+
+Jesus scarcely heeded the impertinent speech.  He only saw in the
+stranger a man on whom he would like to bestow all the happiness that
+was triumphant in his soul.  So full of love was he that he could not
+bear it alone.  And he said: "I am no worm to be trodden under foot.  I
+am that Son of Man who brings you the new kingdom."
+
+"Ah! the Messiah!  Jesus of Nazareth, are you not?  I have heard of
+you.  Where are your soldiers?"
+
+"I shall not conquer with the sword, but with the spirit."
+
+The Arab shook his head mockingly.  "Who will conquer with the spirit!
+Well, I won't play the scoffer.  You are an orator, and that's
+something.  Listen, son of man; I like you.  I, too, desire the new
+kingdom; let us go together."
+
+And Jesus replied: "Whoever wishes can go with me.  I go with no one."
+
+"My friend, don't you know me?" asked the stranger.  "I am Barabbas,
+king of the desert.  Three thousand Arabs obey my behests.  Look down
+into the valley.  There is the key to the kingdom of the Messiah."
+
+What the chief called the key to the kingdom of the Messiah was an army
+which, scattered over the plain, resembled a dark spot spreading out in
+the desert, as busy and animated as an ant-hill.  The chief pointed
+down to it and said: "Look, there is my weapon.  But I shall not
+conquer with that weapon, nor will you conquer with your words.  For my
+weapons lack words, and your words lack weapons.  I need the prophet
+and you the army.  Warrior and orator allied, we shall take Jerusalem.
+I have made a mistake.  For many years it has been my illusion that all
+strength lay in the body.  And so I have cared for their bodies, fed
+and nourished them that they might become strong.  But instead of
+becoming strong and daring, they have become indolent and cowardly.
+And now that I wish to use this army to free Judaea from the yoke of
+the Romans, they laugh in my face and answer me with words I once
+taught them.  We have only this life, they cry, and we will not risk it
+any more.  And when I ask, 'Not even for freedom?' they reply, 'Not
+even for freedom, because what is the use of freedom to us if we are
+slain.'  Indolent beasts! they lack enthusiasm.  And now I find you.
+You are a master of oratory.  You say that you will conquer with the
+spirit.  Come with me!  Descend into the valley and inspire them with
+ardour.  The legions are ours, our weapons are of perfect temper,
+nothing is wanting but fire, and that you have.  The king must be
+allied with the zealot, otherwise the kingdom cannot be conquered.
+Come down with me.  Tell them that you are the prophet.  Incite them
+against Jerusalem, and exclaim: 'It is God's will!'  If only fire can
+be made to burn within them, they will march like the very devil,
+overcome the foreigners, and you will instruct them in Solomon's Temple
+about the Messiah.  You can tell them that he is coming, or that you
+yourself are he, just as you please.  Then, according to your desire,
+you can establish your kingdom, and all the glory of the world will lie
+at your feet as at those of a god.  Come, prophet, you give me the
+word, and I'll give you the sword!"
+
+"Begone, you tempter of hell!" exclaimed Jesus and his eye shot forth a
+ray of light that the other could not bear.
+
+And then Jesus was once more alone among the rocks, under the open sky.
+
+It was under the sacred sky of the desert where his Father came down to
+him that his spirit became quite free--his heart more animated, glowing
+with love.  And thus was Jesus perfected.  Leaving the desert, he then
+sought out the fertile land; he sought out men.
+
+His earthly task stood clear and fixed before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Lake of Gennesaret, also called the Sea of Galilee, lies to the
+east of Nazareth, where the land makes a gradual descent, and where,
+among the hills and the fertile plains, pleasant villages are situated.
+The mountains of Naphtali, which in some places rise up steeply from
+its banks, were clothed with herbage in the days of David.  But
+gradually, as stranger peoples cultivated them, fertility descended to
+the hills and valleys.
+
+Near where the Jordan flows into the sea, on the left of the river
+under the sandy cliffs of Bethsaida, a small cedar forest, the seeds of
+which may have been blown thither from Lebanon, grows close down to the
+shore of the lake.  A fisher-boat, rocking in the shade on the dark
+waters, was tied to one of the trees.  The holes in it were stuffed
+with seaweed, the beams fastened with olive twigs.  Two tall poles
+crossed were intended for the sail, which now lay spread out in the
+boat because the boatman was sleeping on it.  The brown stuff, made of
+camel's hair, was the man's most valuable possession.  On the water it
+caught the wind for him, on land it served as a cloak, if he slept it
+formed his bed.
+
+The little elderly man's face was tickled by a cedar twig for so long
+that at length he awoke.  He saw a young woman sitting on a rock.  She
+was just going to hurry off with her round basket when the fisherman
+called loudly to her; "Well, Beka, daughter of Manasseh, whither are
+you taking your ivory white feet?"
+
+"My feet are as brown as yours," replied Beka.  "Stop mocking at me,
+Simon."
+
+"How can I be mocking at you?  You're a fisherman's child, like me.
+But your basket is too heavy for you."
+
+"I am taking my father his dinner."
+
+"Manasseh has had a good catch.  Look, smoke is rising yonder behind
+the palms of Hium.  He is cooking the fish.  But I have eaten nothing
+since yesterday at the sixth hour."
+
+"I can well believe that, Simon.  The fish of the Lake of Gennesaret do
+not swim ready-cooked into the mouth.  He who lies like a child in the
+cradle, and lets the gods provide----!"
+
+Simon, with his legs apart in order to preserve the balance, stood up
+in the boat.  "Beka," he said, "let the gods alone, they won't feed us;
+they eat the best that men have."
+
+"Then hold to the one God who feeds the birds."
+
+"And who delivers the Jews to the Romans.  No; Jehovah won't help me
+either.  So I'm forsaken and stand alone, a tottering reed."
+
+"How can I help it if you stand alone?" asked the daughter of Manasseh.
+"Are there not daughters in Galilee who also stand alone?"
+
+"Beka, I am glad that you speak so," replied the fisherman.  "Why, how
+can Simon come to an understanding with anybody so long as he can't
+come to an understanding with himself?  And fishing delights me not.
+Everything is a burden.  Often when I lie here and look up into the
+blue sky, I think: If only a storm would come and drive me out on the
+open sea--into the wild, dark terror, then, Simon, you would lie there
+and extend your arms and say: Gods or God, do with me what you will."
+
+"Don't talk like that, Simon.  You must not jest with the Lord.  There,
+take it."
+
+And so saying, Beka took a magnificent bunch of grapes out of her
+basket, and handed it to him.
+
+He took it, and by way of thanks said: "Beka, a year hence there'll be
+some one who will find in you that sweet experience which I vainly seek
+in the Prophets."
+
+Whereupon she swiftly went her way towards the blue smoke that rose up
+behind the palms of Hium.
+
+It was no wonder that the fisherman gazed after her for a long time.
+Although he cared little for the society of his fellow-creatures,
+because they were too shallow to sympathise with what occupied his
+thoughts, he felt a cheerless void when he was alone.  He was
+misunderstood on earth, and forsaken by Heaven.  He feared the
+elements, and the Scriptures did not satisfy him.  Then the little man
+threw himself on his face, put his hand into the water of the lake, and
+sprinkled his brow with it.  He seated himself on the bench of the boat
+in order to enjoy Beka's gift.
+
+At the same moment the sand on the bank crackled, and a tall man, in a
+long brown cloak, and carrying a pilgrim's staff, came forward.  His
+black beard fell almost to his waist, where a cord held the cloak
+together.  His high forehead was shaded by a broad-brimmed hat; his eye
+was directed to the fisherman in the boat.
+
+"Boatman, can you take three men across the lake?"
+
+"The lake is wide," answered Simon, pointing to his fragile craft.
+
+"They want to get to Magdala to-day."
+
+"Then they can take the road by Bethsaida and Capernaum."
+
+"They are tired," said the other.  "They have travelled here from the
+desert, and by a wide _détour_ through Nazareth, Cana, and Chorazin."
+
+"Are you one of them?" asked Simon.  "I ought to know you.  Haven't we
+been fishing together at Hamath?"
+
+"It may be that we know each other," was the somewhat roguish reply.
+In fact, they knew each other very well.  Only Simon had become so
+strange.
+
+Now he said: "If it will really be of service to you, I'll go gladly.
+But you see for yourself that my boat is bad.  You are exhausted, my
+friend; you have travelled far while I have rested in the shade the
+whole day.  I haven't deserved any fine food.  May I offer you these
+grapes?"
+
+The black-bearded man bent down, took the grapes, and vanished behind
+the cypresses.
+
+He went to a shady spot where were two other men, both dressed in long,
+dark woollen garments.  One was young and had delicate, almost
+feminine, features, and long hair.  He lay sleeping, stretched out on
+the grass, his staff leaning against a rock near him.  The other sat
+upright.  We recognise Him.  He is Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth.
+He has come hither from the wilderness, through Judaea and Galilee,
+where sympathising companions joined Him, a boatman, called James, and
+His former apprentice, John.  With one hand He supported His brow, the
+other rested protectingly on the sleeping John's head.  The
+long-bearded man came hurrying up, crying:
+
+"Master, I have received some grapes for you."
+
+He who was thus addressed pointed to the sleeping youth, lest He should
+be waked with loud talking.  Then he said softly; "James!  Shall I
+forgive the lie for the sake of the good you wish to do me?  Who knows
+anything of me?  The grapes were given to you."
+
+"And I will eat them," returned James; "only permit me to eat them in
+the way in which they taste best to me."
+
+"Do so."
+
+"They taste best to me if I see you eat them."
+
+Jesus took the gift, and said: "If we both satisfy ourselves, my dear
+James, what will there be for poor John?  We are inured to fatigue; he
+is unaccustomed to it.  I think that, of the three of us, it is John
+who ought to eat the grapes."
+
+Since the long-bearded man offered no objection, John ate the grapes
+when he awoke.  James announced that the fisherman was willing to take
+them, so they proceeded to the bank and got into the boat.
+
+Simon looked at the tired strangers with sympathy, and vigorously plied
+his oars.  The waves rippled and the rocking skiff glided over the
+broad expanse of waters which, on the south side, appeared endless.
+From the way in which the two men spoke to the Master, Simon thought to
+himself: "A rabbi, and they are his pupils."  To the Master's questions
+regarding his life and trade, the fisherman gave respectful answers,
+taking care to remark that he had not to complain of overmuch good
+fortune, for often he fished all day and all night without catching
+anything, a success he could equally well obtain if he lay all day idle
+in his boat and let himself be rocked.
+
+The Master asked him with a smile what he would say to fishing for men.
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"You've already three in your net," said James gaily.
+
+"And God help me!" exclaimed the fisherman, "for we must pray to Him
+for help to-day.  Look over there at the mountains of Hium.  Just now
+it looks so beautifully blue that you would take it for a sunny sky.
+But the white edges!  In an hour there'll be more of them."
+
+"Hoist the sail, fisherman, and bale out," advised James.  "I
+understand something of the business."
+
+"Then you wouldn't say hoist the sail to-day," returned Simon.
+
+"Listen," said James; "you know the river which brings the black sand
+and the little red fishes with the sharp heads down to this lake from
+the mountains of Golan.  My cottage was by that river--you surely know
+it?"
+
+"Isn't it there still?" asked Simon.
+
+"It is there, but it is no longer mine," said James.  "I have left it
+in order to follow the Master.  Do you know Him, Simon?"
+
+He had whispered the last words behind the back of the Master, who sat
+silent on the bench, and looked out over the calm waters.  He seemed to
+be enjoying the rest; the breeze played softly with His hair, As a
+protection from the sun's rays John had fashioned a piece of cloth into
+a sort of turban and wound it round his head.  He looked with amusement
+at the reflection of the head-dress in the water.
+
+"For whom do you take Him?" asked James, pointing to Jesus.
+
+And the fisherman answered, "For whom do you take that?"  He pointed to
+the distance; he saw the storm.  The mountains were enveloped in a grey
+mist which, pierced by the lightning, moved slowly downwards.  Before
+them surged the foaming waters, the waves white-crested.  A gust of
+wind struck the boat; the water began to beat heavily against it, so
+that it was tossed about like a piece of cork.  Since Simon had not put
+up the sail there was now no need to reef it.  Flakes of foam flew over
+the spars, the beams groaned.  The clouds rushed on, driving the
+heaving, thundering waves before them.  Soon the little boat was
+overtaken by darkness, which was only relieved by flashes of lightning.
+Long ago Simon had let go the rudder, and exclaimed, "Jehovah!"
+Thunder claps were the only answer.  Then the fisherman fell on his
+face and groaned; "He gives no help; I thought as much."
+
+James and John sat close to the Master and tried to rouse Him from the
+dream into which He had sunk.
+
+"What do you want of Me?"
+
+"Master!" exclaimed James, "you are so entirely with your Heavenly
+Father that you do not see how terrible is our doom."
+
+"I thought as much," repeated Simon, almost weeping.
+
+Jesus looked at him earnestly, and said: "If you keep on saying: I
+thought as much, well, then, so it must be.  Think rather that God's
+angels are with you!  And you, James!  Have you forgotten the trust you
+had in God on dry land?  Yesterday on the quiet eventide, when, well
+fed and cared for we sat in the inn at Chorazin, you spoke much of
+trust in God.  Trust Him also in distress."
+
+"O Master, I see help nowhere."
+
+"Learn to believe without seeing."
+
+As He spoke a flash of lightning blinded their eyes, and when after a
+time they were able to look up again, a wild terror seized them.  The
+Master was not there.  Now that they no longer saw Him, they shouted
+loudly; shrieked out His name.  Only John remained calm, and looked out
+into the darkness, wrapt in some bewilderment or trance.
+
+The foam flew into their faces and reduced them to utter confusion;
+they could only involuntarily hold tight to the beams of the swaying
+vessel.  "Living or dying we will not leave Him," said James.  But the
+Master had left them.  It seemed as though He had never existed.  They
+seized the rudder again, and, with the courage of men in the presence
+of death, wrestled with the storm which seemed disinclined to let its
+victims go.  "God is with us!" exclaimed Simon quickly, and worked with
+all that remained of his strength.  "God is with us!" exclaimed James,
+and planted the rudder firmly in the water.  Only John did not stir.
+Bending over the side, he stared out into the wild, grey, whirling
+waters.  He espied in the midst a circle of light in which appeared a
+figure that came nearer, and behold!  Jesus was walking on the sea
+slowly towards the ship.  The waves grew smooth under His feet, the sea
+grew light all over, the rock-towers of Hippos could be seen in the
+distance, with the evening sun sinking behind them.  Jesus sat among
+His friends, and with kindly words chid them for their despondency.
+
+"Oh, wonderful!" exclaimed James.  "While you were with us, we were of
+little faith, and when we could not see you, we believed."
+
+"'Twas your faith that helped," said James.  Then, laying his hand on
+the youth's shoulder: "And what is My wrapt John dreaming of?  I was
+not yonder in the mist; I was here with you, I tell you, friends: He is
+blind who sees without believing, and clear-sighted who believes
+without seeing."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+An earthly light penetrates the holy darkness, and animated scenes at
+Magdala, on the lake, are visible to me.  Fishermen and boatmen,
+shepherds, artisans from the town, people from the neighbouring
+villages and from the mountains, are gathered together on the quay
+where the boats land their passengers.  For the rumour has gone forth
+that the new prophet is coming.  And in the chattering crowd it is said
+that he is a magician from the East who possesses miraculous powers,
+and can make the sick whole.  An amusing thing had happened at
+Capernaum.  The prophet had been there, and a man ill with rheumatism,
+a beggar who lived on his lame leg, had been dragged in his bed to him.
+Now the prophet could not endure beggars who nursed their infirmities
+in order to display them, who pretended poverty, troubled themselves
+about nothing, and yet wished to live in comfort.  The prophet liked to
+deprive them of their begging tool, namely, the infirmity, so that they
+were compelled to work.  He healed the man's rheumatic leg, and said;
+"Take up thy bed and walk."  And the sick man was much astounded over
+the turn things had taken; the bed had carried him there, but he must
+carry the bed back.
+
+Others said the prophet was an Egyptian, and could foretell the future.
+Whereupon someone observed that if he could not foretell the future he
+would not be a prophet.
+
+"By Father Abraham!" exclaimed an old ferryman, "if prophets had always
+foretold truly the universe would have fallen into the sea and been
+drowned long ago.  I can prophesy too; if he comes, well, he'll be
+here."
+
+"Then he'll soon be here," said a fisher-boy, laughing, "for there he
+comes."
+
+A boat, tossed up and down on the waves, was approaching, and in it sat
+four men.
+
+"Which is he?"
+
+"The one with the black beard."
+
+"Oh, that's rubbish!  The man with the beard is James, the boatman from
+the Jordan Valley."
+
+"Then it must be the bald man."
+
+"But, Assam, you surely know Simon the fisherman of Bethsaida, who
+comes every month to the market here and spoils other men's business
+with his absurdly low prices."
+
+When they had landed, His companions could scarcely steer a way for Him
+through the crowd, The people looked at Him; some were disappointed.
+That prophet was not sufficiently different from themselves.  Was it
+really He?  The carpenter of Nazareth!  Well, then, we've had a nice
+run for nothing.  We know what He has to say, and what He can do He
+does not do.
+
+"He will do it, though.  He did it in Cana.  Bring up the water
+pitchers--we'll be merry today."
+
+The crowd pressed forward more and more eagerly, for many had come a
+long distance, and desired to see Him close and hear Him speak.
+
+The evening presented a good opportunity.  It was already dark; a torch
+fixed to the pillar on the shore diffused a dull red light over the
+surging crowd.  Jesus wished to pass on quickly, but He could not.  A
+woman fleeing from her pursuers cast herself at His feet.  She was
+young, her hair streamed loose, her limbs were trembling with fear; she
+knelt down and put her arms round His legs.  He bent down to her and
+tried to raise her, but she held fast to His feet and could not compose
+herself.  Then the people began to shout: "The traitress, the Bethany
+serpent, what has she to do with Him?"
+
+Jesus put His hand on her head.  He stood up straight and asked aloud:
+"Who is this woman that you have a right to insult her?"
+
+"Who is she?  Ask the son of Job.  She's an adulteress.  Married but a
+few weeks ago to the brave old son of Job, her parents' friend, she
+deceives him with a young coxcomb, the hussy!"
+
+The abuse they hurled against the helpless creature cannot be repeated.
+It was the women, too, who shouted the loudest; especially one, the
+wife of a man who made fishing-nets, was so filled with moral
+indignation that she tore her dress and scattered the rags over the
+sinner.  Words of the most venomous abuse poured from this accuser's
+mouth in bitter complaint that such a creature should shame the sacred
+name of woman; she passionately declared her desire that the evil-doer
+should be stoned.  Soon the crowd followed with "Stone her!" and a
+young porter who stood near the wife of the fishing-net maker stooped
+to pick up a stone from the road, and prepared to cast it at the
+sinner.  Jesus protected her with His hand, and exclaimed; "Do not
+touch her.  Which of you is without sin?  Let him come and cast the
+first stone."
+
+Unwillingly they let their arms fall, and those who already held stones
+in their hands dropped them quietly on to the ground.  But Jesus turned
+to the persecuted woman and said: "They shall not harm you.  Tell me
+what has happened."
+
+"Lord!" she whimpered, and clasped His feet afresh, "I have sinned!  I
+have sinned!" and she sobbed and wept so that His feet were damp with
+her tears.
+
+"You have sinned!" He said in a voice, the gentle sound of which went
+to many a heart--"sinned.  And now you are sorry.  And you do not try
+to vindicate yourself.  Get up, get up!  Your sins will be forgiven."
+
+"How?  What?" grumbled the people.  "What's this we hear?  He speaks
+kindly to the adulteress.  He pardons her sin.  This prophet will
+indeed find followers."
+
+When Jesus heard their grumbling He said aloud: "I tell you I am like a
+shepherd.  He goes out to search for a lost lamb.  He does not fling it
+to the wolves, but takes it home to the fold that it may be saved.  I
+do not rejoice over the proud, but over the repentant.  The former sink
+down; the latter rise up.  Listen to what I tell you.  A certain man
+had two sons.  One was of good disposition and took care of his
+property.  The other was disobedient, and one day said to his father:
+'Give me my share of the substance; I wish to go to a far country.'
+The father was sorry, but as the young man insisted he gave him his
+share, and he went away.  So while one brother worked and gained and
+saved at home, the other lived in pleasure and luxury, and squandered
+his property out in the world, and became so poor that he had to be a
+swineherd and eat husks with the sows.  He got ill and wretched, and
+was despised by every one.  Then he remembered his father, whose
+meanest servant lived in plenty.  Utterly downcast and destitute, he
+returned home, knelt before his father, and said: 'Father, I have
+sinned deeply!  I am no longer worthy to be your son; let me be your
+meanest servant.'  Then his father lifted him up, pressed him to his
+heart, had him robed in costly garments, ordered a calf to be
+slaughtered and the wineskins to be filled in readiness for a banquet,
+and invited all his family to it that they might rejoice with him.  All
+came except his other son.  He sent a message to say that he had
+faithfully served his father all his life, yet no calf or buck had been
+slaughtered on his account.  He found more honour in eating bread and
+figs alone in his room than in sitting at the banquet table with idle
+fellows and spendthrifts.  Then his father sent to him and said:
+'Wrong, wrong you are!  Your brother was lost and is found.  Look to it
+that your envy turns not to your loss.  Come and be merry with me!'  I
+tell you that the Heavenly Father rejoiceth more over a sinner that
+repenteth than over a righteous man."
+
+Then a Pharisee stepped out from the crowd, wrapped his cloak round him
+with much dignity, and uttered the saying of a Jewish scholar: "Only
+the righteous man shall stand before God!"
+
+To which Jesus replied; "Have you not heard of the publican who kneeled
+backwards in the Temple, and did not venture to approach the altar
+because he was a poor sinner?  The Pharisee stands proudly by the altar
+and prays: 'Lord, I thank thee that I am not wicked like that man in
+the corner!'  But when they went forth from the Temple, the publican's
+heart was full of grace, and the Pharisee's heart was empty.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+Thereupon several of them drew back.  Jesus bent over the penitent and
+said: "Woman, rise and depart in peace!"
+
+The people were outwardly rather calmer.  Inwardly they were still
+restless, but they began now to be a little more satisfied with Him.
+
+Meanwhile James had to settle with the fisherman about payment for the
+voyage.  Simon covered his face with his mantle, and said with gentle
+rebuke: "Do not mock me.  I have been punished enough.  I am ashamed of
+my cowardice.  I see now that I'm neither a fisherman nor a sailor, but
+a mere useless creature.  This man whom you call Master, do you know
+what has come over me, thanks to Him?  He who saw Him in the storm, and
+heard His words about sinners, leaves Him not again.  No, I have never
+seen any like Him,  If only Manasseh, the fisherman and his daughter,
+and my brother Andrew had been there!"
+
+"They will come directly," said James.
+
+"How comes it, James," asked the fisherman, "that you are with this man
+and dare to follow Him?"
+
+"That is quite simple, my friend.  I merely follow Him.  Whoever
+pleases can have my little property.  I follow Him."
+
+"But whither, James, whither are you journeying?" And James answered:
+"To the Kingdom of God: to eternal life."
+
+Then the fisherman, with trembling hand, felt for James's arm, and
+said: "I will go too."
+
+An hour had scarcely passed before a fresh tumult arose.  It came from
+the house of the maker of fishing-nets.  He and a neighbour were
+hauling the former's wife along, the same woman who had been so
+indignant against the adulteress shortly before.  It was suggested that
+she should be brought to the prophet, but her husband said: "He is a
+bad judge in such matters," and wished to take her down to the lake.
+But the people crowded round Jesus, and told Him what had happened.
+The woman had been caught with Joel, the porter.  The accused struck
+out round her, violently denied the charge, and bit her husband, who
+had hold of her, in the hand.  Others came up and confirmed the
+accusation.  The woman blasphemed, and reduced her husband to silence
+by proclaiming his crimes.
+
+Jesus burned with anger.  He exclaimed in a loud voice: "Cursed be the
+hypocrite and the faithless, and the violent!  Justice, judgment for
+such as her!"
+
+Then the woman shrieked: "You speak of justice, you who yourself
+recognise no justice!  Is it just that you should bless one of two
+lovers, and curse the other?"
+
+And Jesus: "I tell you: he who repents is accepted; he who will not
+repent is cast out."
+
+Then He turned round, and, wrapt in thought, walked along the bank in
+the mild night.  Simon, the fisherman, followed Him.  He touched His
+wide sleeve and implored: "Master, take me too."
+
+Jesus asked him: "What do you seek with Me, Simon, the fisherman?  If
+anyone seeks a polished crystal and finds a rough diamond, he is vexed;
+he does not recognise its value.  Look at this obdurate woman; she says
+that I am not just because I am severe.  To-morrow ten of the corrupt
+may shout, the day after a hundred; yet ere long he who is applauded
+to-day may be surrounded by cruel enemies, and with him those who
+support him.  My word ruins the worldly and My mercy annoys the
+powerful.  They will destroy with fire and sword the seeds which I sow.
+Simon, you did not strike Me as one of the strongest on the sea.  I
+demand not a little.  If you will come to Me, you must abandon
+everything that is now yours.  You cannot have Me and the world.  If
+you can make sacrifices, if you can forget, if you can suffer, then
+come with Me.  Yes, and if you can die for Me, then come."
+
+"Master, I will go with you."
+
+"If you can do that, then the burden will be easy; then you will have
+the peace which none finds in the world."
+
+"Master," exclaimed Simon, loudly, "I will go with you."
+
+Others who had followed Him along the bank heard the decision.  They
+marvelled at the words that had passed, and the erring woman whom He
+had protected would not leave Him.
+
+In the distance the clamour could still be heard, but gradually the
+crowd dispersed.  Jesus then sought lodging for Himself and His
+disciples.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A short time after, some of those who had formed the crowd at Magdala
+were gathered together in the house of the Rabbi Jairus.  They were
+watching the dead.  For in the centre of the room, on a table, lay the
+body of the Rabbi's daughter shrouded in white linen.  Her father was
+so cast down with grief that his friends knew not how to console him.
+Then someone suggested calling in Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had just
+seen resting with His followers under the cedars of Hirah.  They
+narrated the miracles that He had lately worked.  On the road leading
+to Capernaum a man was lying side by side with his little son, into
+whom had entered the spirit of epilepsy.  The child had fallen down and
+foamed at the mouth, and his teeth and hands were so locked together
+that his father, in his despair, all but strangled him.  He had already
+taken the child to the disciples of Jesus, but they had not been able
+to help him.  Then he sought the Master and exclaimed angrily: "If you
+can do anything, help him!"  "Take heed that we do not all suffer
+because of him," the prophet said, and then made the child whole.  And
+they told yet more.  On the other side of the lake He had made a
+deaf-mute to speak, and at Bethsaida had made a blind man to see.  But,
+above all, every one knew how at Nain He had brought back a young man
+to life who had already been carried out of the house in his coffin!  A
+wine-presser was there who told something about an old woman who had
+vehemently prayed the prophet to cure her sickness.  Thereupon Jesus
+said: "You are old and yet you wish to live!  What makes this earth so
+pleasing to you?" and she replied: "Nothing is pleasing to me on this
+earth.  But I do not want to die until the Saviour comes, who will open
+the gates of Heaven for me."  And He: "Since your faith is so strong,
+woman, you shall live to see the Saviour."  Thereupon she rose up and
+went her way.  These were the things He did, but He did not like them
+to be talked about.
+
+Such was the talk among the people gathered round the little girl's
+corpse.  Among the company was an old man who was of those who liked to
+display their wisdom on every possible occasion.  He declared that
+faith and love, nothing else, produced such miracles.  No
+miracle-worker could help an unbeliever; but a man whom the people
+loved could easily work miracles.  "They forget all his failures, and
+remember and magnify all his successes.  That's all there is in it."
+
+A man answered him: "It is important that he should be loved, but the
+love is compelled by some mysterious power.  No one can make himself
+beloved of his own accord, it must be given him."
+
+They determined, thanks to all this talk--a mingling of truth and
+error--to invite the prophet to the house.
+
+When Jesus entered it, He saw the mourning assembly, and the Rabbi, who
+pulled at his gown until he tore it.  He saw the child lying on the
+table ready for burial, and asked: "Why have you summoned Me?  Where is
+the dead girl?"
+
+The Rabbi undid the shroud so that the girl lay exposed to view.  Jesus
+looked at her, took hold of her hand, felt it, and laid it gently down
+again.  "The child is not dead," He said, "she only sleepeth."
+
+Some began to laugh.  They knew the difference between death and life!
+
+He stepped up to them, and said: "Why did you summon Me if you do not
+believe in Me?  If you have assembled here to watch the dead, there's
+nothing for you to do."
+
+They crept away in annoyance.  He turned to the father and mother: "Be
+comforted.  Prepare some food for your daughter."  Then He took hold of
+the child's cold hand, and whispered: "Little girl!  Little girl! wake
+up, it is morning."
+
+The mother uttered a cry of joy, for the child opened her eyes.  He
+stood by, and they seemed to hear Him say: "Arise, my child.  You are
+too young to have gained heaven yet.  The Father must be long sought so
+that He may be the more beloved.  Go your way and seek Him."
+
+When the girl, who was twelve years old, stood on her feet, and walked
+across the floor, the parents almost fell on Jesus in order to express
+their thanks.  He put them aside.  "I understand your gratitude.  You
+will do what I do not wish.  You will go to the street corners and
+exclaim: 'He raised our child from the dead'; and the people will come
+and ask Me to heal their bodies, while I am come to heal their souls.
+And they will desire Me to raise the dead, while I am here to lead
+their spirits to eternal life."
+
+"Lord, how are we to understand you?"
+
+"When in good time you shall have learned how little the mortal body
+and earthly life signify, then you will understand.  If, as you say, I
+have raised your child from the dead, what thanks do you owe Me?  Do
+you recognise what he who calls back a creature from happiness to
+misery does?
+
+"You said yourself, Master, that the child was too young to gain heaven
+yet."
+
+"She has not gained it; she possessed it in her innocent heart.  She
+will become a maiden, and a wife, and an old woman.  She will lose
+heaven and seek it in agony.  It will be well for her if then she comes
+to the Saviour and begs: 'My soul is dead within me, Lord; wake it to
+eternal life.'  But if she comes not--then it would be better that she
+had not waked to-day."
+
+The mother said in all humility: "Whatsoever Thou doest, Master, that
+is surely right."
+
+He went to the table where the child was comfortably eating her food,
+laid His hand on her head, and said: "You have come to earth from
+heaven, now give up earth for heaven; what is earned is greater that
+what is given."
+
+So the wife of Rabbi Jairus heard as Jesus went out of the door.
+
+They remained His adherents until near the days of the persecution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+About the same time things began to go ill with Levi, the tax-gatherer,
+who lived on the road to Tiberias.  One morning his fellow-residents
+prepared a discordant serenade for him.  They pointed out to Levi with
+animation, from the roof of his house, in what honour he was held, by
+means of the rattling of trays and clashing of pans, since he had
+accepted service with the heathen as toll-keeper and demanded money
+even on the Sabbath.
+
+The lean tax-gatherer sat in a corner of his room and saw the dust fly
+from the ceiling, which seemed to shake beneath the clatter.  He saw,
+too, how the morning sun shining in at the window threw a band of light
+across the room, in which danced particles of dust like little stars.
+He listened, and saw, and was silent.  When they had had enough of
+dancing on the roof they jumped to the ground, made grimaces at the
+window, and departed.
+
+A little, bustling woman came out of the next room, stole up to the
+man, and said: "Levi, it serves you right!"
+
+"Yes, I know, Judith," he answered, and stood up.  He was so tall that
+he had to bend his head in order not to strike it against the ceiling.
+His beard hung down in thin strands; it was not yet grey, despite his
+pale, tired face.
+
+"They will stone you, Levi, if you continue to serve the Romans,"
+exclaimed the woman.
+
+"They hated me even when I did not serve the Romans," said the man.
+"Since that Feast of Tabernacles at Tiberias when I said that Mammon
+and desire of luxury had estranged the God of Abraham from the chosen
+people, and subjected them to Jupiter, they have hated me."
+
+"But you yourself follow Mammon," she returned.
+
+"Because since they hate me I must create a power for myself which will
+support me, if all are against me.  It is the power with which the
+contemned man conquers his bitterest enemies.  You don't understand me?
+Look there!"  He bent down in a dark corner of the chamber, lifted an
+old cloth, and displayed to view a stone vessel like a mortar.  "Real
+Romans," he said, grinning; "soon a small army of them.  And directly
+it is big enough, the neighbours won't climb on to the roof and sing
+praises to Levi with pots and pans, but with harps and cymbals."
+
+"Levi, shall I tell you what you are?" exclaimed the woman, the muscles
+of her red face working.
+
+"I am a publican, as I well know," he returned calmly, carefully
+covering his money chest with the cloth.  "A despised publican who
+takes money from his own people to give to the stranger, who demands
+toll-money of the Jews although they themselves made the roads.  Such a
+one am I, my Judith!  And why did I become a Roman publican?  Because I
+wished to gain money so as to support myself among those who hate me."
+
+"Levi, you are a miser," she said.  "You bury your money in a hole
+instead of buying me a Greek mantle like what Rebecca and Amala wear."
+
+"Then I shall remain a miser," he replied, "for I shall not buy you a
+Greek mantle.  Foreign garments will plunge the Jews into deeper ruin
+than my Roman office and Roman coins.  It is not the receipt of custom,
+my dear wife, that is idolatry, but desire of dress, pleasure, and
+luxury.  Street turnpikes are not bad at a time when our people begin
+to be fugitives in their own land, and with all their trade and barter
+to export the good and import the evil.  Since the law of Moses
+respecting agriculture there has been no better tax than the Roman
+turnpike toll.  What have the Jews to do on the road?"
+
+"You will soon see," said Judith.  "If I don't have the Greek mantle in
+two days from now, you'll see me on the road, but from behind."
+
+"You don't look bad from behind," mischievously returned Levi.
+
+The knocker sounded without.  The tax-gatherer looked through the
+window, and bade his wife undo the barrier.  She went out and raised a
+piercing cry, but did not unclose the barrier.  Several men had come
+along the road, and were standing there; the woman demanded the toll.
+A little man with a bald head stepped forward.  It was the fisherman
+from Bethsaida.  He confessed that they had no money.  Thereupon the
+woman was very angry, for it was her secret intention thenceforth to
+keep the toll money herself in order to buy the Greek purple stuff like
+that worn by Rebecca and Amala.
+
+When Levi heard her cry, he went out and said: "Let them pass, Judith.
+You see they are not traders.  They won't do the road much damage.  Why
+they've scarcely soles to their feet."
+
+Then Judith was quiet, but she took a stolen glance at one of the men
+who stood tall and straight in his blue mantle, his hair falling over
+his shoulders, his pale face turned towards her with an earnest look.
+"What a man?  Is something the matter with me?  Perhaps he misses the
+Greek mantle that he sees other women wear?"
+
+"How far have you come?" the toll-keeper asked the men.
+
+"We've come from Magdala to-day," replied Simon, the fisherman.
+
+"Then it is time that you rested here a little in the shade.  The sun
+has been hot all day."
+
+When Judith saw that they were really preparing to avail themselves of
+the invitation, she hastened to her room, adorned herself with
+gay-coloured stuffs, a sparkling bracelet, and a pearl necklace that
+she had lately acquired from a Sidonian merchant.  She came out again
+with a tray of figs and dates.  The tall, pale man--it was
+Jesus--silently passed on the tray, and took no refreshment Himself.
+His penetrating glance made her uneasy.  Perhaps He would let Himself
+be persuaded.  She placed herself before Him, more striking and bold in
+her splendour.
+
+"Woman," He said suddenly, "yonder grows a thistle.  It has prickles on
+the stem and the flower, it is covered with the dust of the highway and
+eaten away by insects.  But it is more beautiful than an arrogant child
+of man."
+
+Judith started violently.  She rushed into the house, and slammed the
+door behind her so that the walls echoed.  The tax-gatherer gave the
+speaker an approving glance, and sighed.
+
+Then Jesus asked him: "Are you fond of her?"
+
+"She is his neighbour!" observed a cheerful-looking little man who
+formed one of the band of travellers.  The jesting word referred to the
+Master's speech of the day before on love of one's neighbour.
+
+Levi nodded thoughtfully and said: "Yes, gentlemen, she is my
+nearest--enemy."
+
+"Isn't she your wife?" asked Simon.
+
+Without answering him, the tax-gatherer said: "I am a publican, and
+blessed with mistrust as far as my eye can reach.  Yet all those
+without do not cause me as much annoyance as she who is nearest me in
+my house."
+
+One of the men laid his hand on his shoulder: "Then, friend, see that
+she is no longer your nearest.  Come with us.  We have left our wives
+and all the rest of our belongings to go with Him.  Don't you know Him?
+He is the man from Nazareth."
+
+The publican started.  The man of whom the whole land spoke, the
+prophet, the miracle-worker?  This young, kindly man was He?  He who
+preached so severely against the Jews?  Didn't I say almost the same,
+that time at the Feast of Tabernacles?  And yet the people were angry.
+They listen reverently to this man and follow Him.  Shall I do so too?
+What hinders me?  I, the much-hated man, may be dismissed the service
+at any moment.  I may be driven from my house to-day, as soon as
+to-morrow?  And my wife, she'll probably be seen on the road from
+behind?  There's only one thing I can't part with, but I can take that
+with me.
+
+Then, he turned to the Nazarene, held the tray with the remains of the
+fruit towards Him: "Take some, dear Master!"
+
+The Master said gently, in a low voice: "Do you love Me, publican?"
+
+The tax-gatherer began to tremble so that the tray nearly fell from his
+hands.  Those words! and that look!  He could not reply.
+
+"If you love Me, go with Me, and share our hardships."
+
+"Our joys, Lord, our joys," exclaimed Simon.
+
+At that moment a train of pack-mules came along the road.  The drivers
+whipped the creatures with knotted cords, and cursed that there was
+another turnpike.  The tax-gatherer took the prescribed coins from
+them, and pointed out their ill-treatment of the animals.  For answer
+he received a blow in his face from the whip.  Levi angrily raised his
+arm against the driver.  Then Jesus stepped forward, gently pulled his
+arm down, and asked: "Was his act wrong?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Then do not imitate it."
+
+And the little witty man again interposed: "If you go with us,
+publican, you'll have two cheeks, a right and a left.  But no arm, do
+you understand?"
+
+The remark had reference to a favourite saying of the Master when He
+was defenceless and of good-cheer in the presence of a bitter enemy.
+Several received the allusion with an angry expression of countenance.
+
+"But it is true," laughed the little man.  "The Master said: 'Let
+Thaddeus say what he likes.  He suffered yesterday in patience the
+wrath of an Arab.'"
+
+"Yes, indeed; because they found no money, they beat Thaddeus."
+
+"If we meet another of that sort, we'll defend ourselves," said the
+publican, "or robbery 'll become cheap."
+
+"It's easy to see, tax-gatherer, that you haven't known the Master
+long," said the little man whom they called Thaddeus.  "We and money,
+indeed!"
+
+Then the Master said: "A free soul has nothing to do with Mammon.  It's
+not worth speaking of, let alone quarrelling over.  Violence won't undo
+robbery.  If you attempt violence, you may easily turn a thief into a
+murderer."
+
+While they were talking the publican went into his house.  He had made
+his decision.  He would quietly bid his wife farewell, put the money in
+a bag and tie it round his waist.  He did not do the first, because
+Judith had fled by the back door; he did not do the second, because
+Judith had emptied the stone vessel and taken the money with her.
+
+Levi came sadly from the toll-house, went up to Jesus, and lifted his
+hands to heaven: "I am ready, Lord; take me with you."
+
+The Master said: "Levi Matthew, you are mine."
+
+Thaddeus came with the tray of fruit.  "Brother, eat of your table for
+the last time.  Then trust in Him who feeds the birds and makes the
+flowers to grow."
+
+As they went together along the dusty road, the new disciple related
+his loss.
+
+Simon exclaimed cheerfully: "You're lucky, Levi Matthew!  What other
+men give up with difficulty has run away from you of itself."
+
+That day the toll-house was left deserted, and the passers-by were
+surprised to find that the road between Magdala and Tiberias was free.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In this way there gathered round the carpenter of Nazareth more
+disciples and friends, who wished to accompany Him in His wanderings
+through the land.  For Jesus had decided.  He desired only to wander
+through the land and bring men tidings of the Heavenly Father and of
+the Kingdom of God.  He appointed some of His disciples to prepare for
+Him a reception and lodging everywhere.  Then there were the assemblies
+of the people to regulate; and the disciples, so far as they themselves
+understood the new teaching, must act as interpreters and expositors
+for those who could not understand the Master's peculiar language.
+Among those was John, the carpenter, who had once been an apprentice to
+Jesus, a near relative of the Master.  Other of His disciples were
+called James, he was the boat-builder; then Simon, Andrew, and Thomas,
+the fishermen; Levi Matthew, the publican; Thaddeus, the saddler; and
+further--but my memory is weak--James, the little shepherd; Nathan, the
+potter; and his brother Philip, the innkeeper from Jericho;
+Bartholomew, the smith; and Judas, the money-changer from Carioth.
+Like Simon and Matthew, they had all left their trades or offices to
+follow with boundless devotion Him they called Lord and Master.
+
+How shall I dare to describe the Master!  His personality defies
+description.  It left none cold who came in contact with it.  It was
+attractive not only by humility and gentleness, but more by active
+power, and by such sacred and fiery anger as had never before been seen
+in any one.  People were never tired of looking at the man with the
+tall, handsome figure.  His head was crowned with lightly curling,
+reddish, bright-looking hair, which hung down soft and heavy at the
+side and back, and floated over His shoulders.  His brow was broad and
+white, for no sunbeam could penetrate the shade formed by His hair.  He
+had a strong, straight nose, more like that of a Greek than of a Jew,
+and His red lips were shaded with a thick beard.  And His eyes were
+wonderful, large, dark eyes, with a marvellous fire in them.
+Ordinarily it was a fire that burnt warm and soft, but at times it
+shone with a great glow of happiness, or sparkled with anger, like a
+midsummer storm by night in the mountains of Lebanon.  On that account
+many called Him "fiery eye."  He wore a long, straight gown, without
+hat or staff.  He generally wore sandals on His feet, but sometimes He
+forgot to put them on, for in His spiritual communings He did not
+perceive the roughness of the road.  So He wandered through the stony
+desert, as through the flowery meadows of the fertile valleys.  When
+His companions complained of the storm or heat, and tore their limbs on
+the sharp stones and thorns, He remained calm and uncomplaining.  He
+did not, like the holy men of the East, seek for hardships, but He did
+not fear them.  He was an enemy of all external trappings, because they
+distracted the attention from the inner life, and by their attractions
+might induce a false appearance of reality.  He gladly received
+invitations to the houses of the joyful, and rejoiced with them; at
+table He ate and drank with moderation.  He added to the pleasures of
+the table by narrating parables and legends, by means of which He
+brought deep truths home to the people.  Since He left the little house
+at Nazareth, He possessed no worldly goods.  What He needed in His
+wanderings for Himself and His followers, He asked of those who had
+possessions.  His manner was often rough and spiced with bitter irony,
+even where He proved Himself helpful and sympathetic.  Towards His
+disciples, whom He loved deeply--expecially young John--He always
+showed Himself absorbed in His mission to make strong, courageous,
+God-fearing men out of weak creatures.  He was so definite about what
+He liked and what He disliked, that even the blindest could see it.  He
+suffered no compromise between good and evil.  He specially disliked
+ambiguous speakers, hypocrites, and sneaks; He preferred to have to do
+with avowed sinners.
+
+One of His fundamental traits was to be yielding in disposition, but
+unflinching in His teaching.  He avoided all personal dislikes,
+hatreds, all that might poison the heart.  His soul was trust and
+kindness.  So high did He rank kindness, and so heavily did he condemn
+selfishness, that one of His disciples said, to sin from kindness
+brought a man nearer to God than to do good through selfishness.  The
+hostility and reverses He met with He turned into a source of
+happiness.  Happiness!  Did not that word come into the world with
+Jesus?
+
+"He is always talking of being happy," someone once said to John.
+"What do you understand by being happy?"
+
+John replied; "When you feel quite contented inwardly, so that no
+worldly desire or bitterness disturbs your peace, when all within you
+is love and trust, as though you were at rest in the eternity of God
+and nothing can trouble you any more, that is, as I take it, what He
+means by being happy.  But it cannot be put into words, only he who
+feels it understands."
+
+And Jesus possessed, too, the high sense of communion with God, which
+he transmitted to all who followed Him.  But I should like to add that
+where Jesus was most divine, there He was most human.  In thrusting
+from Him all worldly desire, all worldly property, and worldly care, He
+freed Himself from the burden which renders most men unhappy.  In
+communion with God He was at once a simple child, and a wise man of the
+world.  No anxiety existed about accidents, perils, loss and ruin.
+Everything happened according to His will, because it was the will of
+God, and He enjoyed life with simplicity and a pure heart.  Is not that
+the true human lot?  And does not such a natural, glad life come very
+near to the Divine?
+
+Thus, then, He followed the Divine path across that historic ground
+which will be known as the Holy Land to the end of time.
+
+And now that great day, that great Sabbath morning came.
+
+For a long time damp, grey mists had hung over the valleys of Galilee;
+banks of fog had hovered over the mountains of Lebanon; showers of cold
+rain fell.  But after the gloom dawned a bright spring morning.  From
+the rocky heights a fertile land was visible.  Green meadows watered by
+shining streams adorned the valleys, and groups of pines, fig trees,
+olive trees, and cedars, the slopes and the hill-tops.  Vines and dewy
+roses were in the hedges.  A full-voiced choir of birds and fresh
+breezes from the Lake filled the soft air.  Westwards the blue waters
+of the Mediterranean might be discerned, and in the east, through
+distant clefts in the rocks, the shimmer of the Dead Sea.  Southwards
+lay the plain, and the yellowish mounds which marked the beginning of
+the desert.  And towards the west the snow peaks of Lebanon were
+visible above the dark forest and the lighter green of the slopes.  A
+perfect sunny peacefulness lay over everything.
+
+The flat rocks of the gentler slopes were crowded with people, many of
+whom had never seen this district.  And they still came from every
+village and farm.  Instead of going as usual to the synagogue, they
+hastened to this mountain height.  Instead of seeking soft repose, as
+their desire of comfort bade them, they hurried thither over stocks and
+stones.  Instead of visiting friend or neighbour they all climbed the
+heights together.  For they knew that Jesus was there, and would speak.
+And so they stood or sat on the flat stones--men and women, old and
+young, rich and poor.  Many only came out of curiosity, and passed the
+time in witty sallies; others jested together; others, again, waited in
+silent expectation.  Those who already knew Him whispered excitedly,
+and Simon said to James; "My heart has never beat so violently as
+to-day."
+
+And Jesus stood on the summit of the mountain.  As if all men were
+turned to stone at sight of Him, a silence and stillness now took the
+place of the subdued murmur of the crowd.  He stood in His long,
+light-coloured gown, like a white pillar against the blue sky.  His
+left hand hung motionless by His side, the right was pressed against
+His heart.  He began to speak softly, but clearly.  Not in the even
+tone of a preacher, but quickly and eagerly, often hesitating a moment
+while collecting His thoughts for a pregnant saying.  It was not as if
+He had thought out His speech beforehand, or learned it out of books.
+What His own individual temperament had originated, what time had
+matured in Him, He poured forth in the rush of the Holy Spirit.
+
+"I am sent to make appeal to you.  I come to all, but especially to the
+poor.  I come to the afflicted, to the distressed, to the sick, to the
+imprisoned, to the cast down.  I come with glad tidings from the
+Heavenly Father."
+
+After this introduction He, in His humility, looked out into the great
+world of Nature, as if she would supply Him with words.  But Nature was
+silent; indeed, at that hour, all creatures were silent and listened.
+
+Then Jesus lifted His eyes to the crowd, and began to speak as men had
+never heard any one speak before.
+
+"Brothers!  Rejoice!  Again I say, Rejoice!  A good Father lives in
+heaven.  His presence is everywhere, His power is boundless, and we are
+His children whom He loves.  He makes His sun to shine over all; He
+overlooks no one.  He sees into the dark recesses of all hearts, and no
+one can move a hair's breadth without His consent.  He places freely
+before men happiness and eternal life.  Listen to what I say to you in
+His name:
+
+"All ye children of men who seek salvation, come to Me.  I bless the
+poor, for no earthly burden can keep them from the Kingdom of Heaven.
+I bless the suffering, the afflicted, disappointed--abandoned by the
+world they take refuge in life in God.  I bless the kind-hearted and
+the peace-loving.  Their hearts are not troubled with hate and guilt;
+they live as happy children of God.  I bless those who love justice,
+for they are God's companions, and shall find justice.  I bless the
+pure in heart.  No bewildering desire obscures the face of God from
+them.  I bless the merciful.  Sympathetic love gives strength, brings
+compassion where it is needed.  And blessed, thrice blessed, are you
+who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness.  Yours is the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  Rejoice and be glad, all of you--no eye hath yet
+seen, no ear hath yet heard the joys that are laid up for you in
+heaven.  Now hear My mission.  Many say I wish to change the old laws.
+That is not so.  I come to fulfil the old laws, but according to the
+spirit, not according to the letter.  The learned men who preach in the
+synagogues fulfil it according to the letter, and desire to guide the
+people; but if you do as they, you will not be righteous, nor will you
+find the Kingdom of God.  The wise men say, you shall not kill.  I say,
+you shall not get angry, or be contemptuous.  He who grows angry and
+censorious shall himself be judged.  Your pious gifts are of no avail
+if you live at enmity with your neighbour.  In the law of the sages it
+is written, you shall not commit adultery.  I say, you shall not even
+think of breaking your marriage vows.  Rather should you become blind
+than let your eye desire your neighbour's wife.  Better lose your sight
+than your purity.  Rather cut off your hand than reach it after your
+neighbour's goods.  Better lose your strength than your virtue.  It is
+said in the Law, you shall not swear falsely.  I say, you shall not
+swear at all, either by God, or by your soul, or by your child.  Yes or
+no, that is enough.  Now say whether I change the laws.  Rather do I
+desire the strictest obedience to them.  But there are laws which I do
+change.  Listen; An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  I say you
+shall not treat your adversary in a hostile fashion.  What you can in
+justice do for yourself, that do, but go no farther; it is a thousand
+times better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.  Overcome your enemy
+with kindness.  If any one smites you on the right cheek, keep your
+temper and offer him the left.  Maybe that will disarm his wrath.  If
+any one tears off your coat ask him kindly if he would not like the
+undergarment too?  Perhaps he will be ashamed of his greediness.  If
+any asks you for something that you can grant, do not refuse him, and
+if you have two coats give one to him who has none.  In the law of the
+sages it is said: Love your neighbour; hate your enemy.  That is false.
+For it is easy enough to love them that love you, and hate them that
+hate you.  The godless can manage so much.  I tell you, love your
+neighbour, and also love your enemy.  Listen, my brothers, and declare
+it throughout the whole world what I now say to you: Love your enemies,
+do good to them that hate you."
+
+He stopped, and a stir went through the assembly.  Words had been
+spoken the like of which had not before been heard in the world.  A
+holy inspiration, as it were, entered the universe at that hour such as
+had not been felt since the creation.
+
+Jesus continued speaking: "Do good to those who hate you; that is how
+God acts towards men, even when they mock at him.  Try to imitate the
+Father in heaven in all things.  What good ye do, do it for the sake of
+God, not for the sake of men.  Therefore the second commandment is as
+important as the first.  Love God more than everything, and your
+neighbour as yourself.  But you shall not boast of your good works.
+When you give alms, do it secretly, and speak not of it, so that the
+left hand knows not what the right hand doeth.  If you do not give up
+the goods of this world, you will not attain to the Kingdom of Heaven.
+If you fast, do not wear a sad face.  Be cheerful; what matters it that
+others should know that you fast?  If you do not keep the Sabbath holy,
+you cannot see the Father.  But when you pray, do it secretly in your
+chamber; you are nearest your Father in heaven in quiet humility.  Use
+not many words in your praying as idolaters do.  Not he who constantly
+praises the Lord finds Him, but he who does His will.  Lift up your
+heart in trust, and submit to the will of Him who is in heaven.  Honour
+His name, seek His kingdom.  Ask pardon for your own fault, and be
+careful to pardon him who offends against you.  Ask that you may
+receive what you require for your needs each day, so that you may find
+strength against temptation, and freedom from impatience and evil
+desire.  If you pray thus, your prayer will be heard; for he who asks
+in the right way shall receive, and for him who continually knocks
+shall the gate be opened.  Is there a father among you who would give
+his child a stone when he asks for bread?  And if a poor man grants his
+child's request, how much more the mighty, good Father in heaven.  But
+be not too anxious for your daily needs: such anxiety spoils pure
+pleasure.  If you heap up material goods, then death comes.  Gather not
+the treasures which pass away; gather spiritual treasures to your inner
+profit, treasures which your Heavenly Father stores up into life
+eternal.  Such a store will benefit the souls of those who come after
+you.  Man is so fashioned that his heart always inclines to his
+possessions; if his possessions are with God, then will his heart be
+with God.  He who is for the body cannot be for the soul, because he
+cannot serve two masters.  Earn for the day what ye need for the day,
+but take no care for the morrow.  Be not anxious about what you shall
+eat to-morrow, about how you shall be clothed in the years to come.
+Trust in Him who feeds the birds, and makes the flowers bloom.  Shall
+not the Heavenly Father have greater love for the children of men than
+for the sparrow or the lily?  Do not burden your life with cares, but
+be glad, glad, glad in God, your Father.  Set your minds on the Kingdom
+of Heaven; all else is second to that. . . .  I observe, my brothers,
+that these words come home to you; but first see if the teacher follows
+His own precepts.  Beware of preachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, who
+live otherwise than they teach.  Whoever speaks to you in My name, look
+first at his works, as ye recognise the tree by its fruit.  Judge men
+according to their works, but do not condemn them!  Before you condemn,
+remember that you yourself may be condemned.  As you judge others so
+shall you yourself be judged.  How often, my friend, do you see a Mote
+in your brother's eye, while you do not see a whole beam in your own
+eye.  Get rid of your own faults before you censure the faults of your
+brother.  The path which leads to salvation is narrow, and while you
+escape the abyss on the left hand you may fall into that on the right.
+And that you may proceed in safety along the narrow way, take heed to
+My words: _Everything that you wish to be done unto you, that do unto
+others_.  Now, My brothers and sisters, in the land of our fathers, let
+those of you who must return to your work, return and ponder on the
+message I have brought you.  Every one who has heard it, and does not
+live according to it, is like the man who builds his house on sand; but
+he who lives in accordance with this teaching builds his house on the
+rocks, and no storm can destroy it.  The words that I deliver to you in
+the name of the Heavenly Father will outlast all the wisdom of the
+earth.  He who hears and does not heed is lost to Me; he who follows My
+teaching will attain eternal life."
+
+Thus ended the speech which became one of the greatest events of the
+world.  Many were terrified by the concluding sentences, for they heard
+the word but were too weak to follow it.  Their cowardice did not
+escape Jesus, and because He could not let any depart uncomforted, they
+seemed to hear Him murmur: "The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who
+untiringly reach out after it.  Blessed are the weak whose will is
+good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+That Sabbath of the Sermon on the Mount became a most important day.
+When Jesus made an end of speaking, the people did not disperse, but
+pressed round Him to kiss the hem of His garment.  Many who until then
+had been in despair could not tear themselves from Him.  They wished to
+follow Him wherever He went, and to share His destiny.  Whatever He
+might say to the contrary, that destiny, they felt sure, would be
+brilliant.  Was He not tearing the masses from earthly thoughts that
+formed their curse.  All they heard was His counsel upon absence of
+anxiety.  But what would it be when He revealed the universal power of
+the Messiah?  Many said that the Sermon on the Mount was a trial of
+strength intended to steel the will for the holy struggle for the
+Kingdom of the Messiah that was now to be established on earth.
+
+People came out of Judaea; they hastened from the valley of the Jordan;
+they streamed from the hills.  They came from the seaports of Tyre and
+Sidon, and some even came from lands far beyond the sea in order to
+discover if what the people on all sides were saying was true.  They
+brought asses and camels, laden with gifts, and Jesus accepted what He
+and His friends needed, but declined the rest or divided it among the
+people.  For there were many among His followers who were starving, His
+word being all their sustenance.  And sick persons began to drag
+themselves to Him so that He might heal and comfort them.  But the more
+they heard of miracles wrought on the sick and crippled, the more
+miracles they desired, so that He grew angry, and reminded them that He
+did not come on account of their bodies but of their souls.  Moreover,
+He pointed out to them that He was not the Messiah from whom men
+expected deliverance and the establishment of the kingdom of the Jews.
+But they regarded that as an excuse, as prudent reserve, until the time
+was ripe for the entry of the great general.  The curiosity increased
+at every new speech, and they hoped to hear Him sound the call to arms.
+Others held aloof and thought over the deeper meaning of His words, and
+if it was possible to comprehend them and live according to them.  At
+first they found it easy and pleasant to be free from care, and to be
+conciliatory towards their neighbours.  It suited the poor admirably to
+make a virtue of necessity, so that their indolence and poverty
+appeared as meritorious.  But after a few days they began to realise
+that perhaps they had not understood the Master's words aright.  Even
+the Samaritans from over the border listened to the strange teaching
+about heaven or earth.  If the ancient writings spoke of future
+blessedness, Jesus spoke of present blessedness.
+
+A money-changer from Carioth was among His disciples.  So far he had
+only been with the Prophet on Sabbaths; on week-days he sat in his
+office and counted money and reckoned interest.  But things did not go
+well, for while he was doing his accounts his thoughts were with the
+Master, and he made errors; and when he was with the Master his
+thoughts were with his money, and he missed what was being said.  He
+must leave either one or the other, and he could not decide which.  But
+after listening to the Sermon on the Mount he determined to go no more
+to his place of business, but to remain with Jesus, so strong was his
+belief in Him.  And the exchange brought as much joy into his heart as
+if he had lent money to a man at two hundred per cent.  For he would
+have treasure in the Kingdom of the Messiah.
+
+The only people who more or less still held aloof were the Galileans.
+They had known the Prophet as a carpenter, and were uncertain what
+position to take up towards Him.  On the other hand, there were
+Galileans who came to Jerusalem, or Joppa, and were proud to hear their
+Prophet spoken of there, and they pretended to be His acquaintances and
+friends, only to greet Him on their return with the same old contempt.
+He used to say that no man was a prophet in his own country.  At this
+period Jesus often went to Nazareth, and always accompanied by an
+ever-increasing number of followers.  His mother could never get any
+confidential talk with Him.  And His native place disowned Him.  His
+youthful acquaintances fought shy of Him as an eccentric vagrant who
+opposed the law, stirred up the people, and from whose further career
+no great honour was to be expected.  The Rabbi in the synagogue warned
+men of Him as of a public traitor.  He described with ardent zeal the
+ruin in which all would be involved who were persuaded by this man
+without a conscience to renounce the belief of their ancestors.  "There
+is only one true faith," he exclaimed, "and only one God, and that is
+not the faith and God of this heretic, but the faith of Moses and the
+God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  And that God curses the false
+prophet and all his followers, so that the devil has power over him."
+And he continued sorrowfully: "His relations are greatly to be pitied,
+especially the unhappy mother who has borne such a son to the shame of
+the family and the grief of the whole land."  And then the Rabbi
+alluded to a hope that they might perhaps succeed in bringing to reason
+the erring man who sinned so deeply against the law, if not by love, at
+least by a vigorous effort and display of authority, till He was made
+to resume the honourable handicraft in which He had once lived in a
+manner pleasing to God.
+
+And so it happened that Mary, when she left the synagogue and proceeded
+homewards, was scoffed at by her ill-natured neighbours, who gave her
+to understand that she might take herself off, and the sooner the
+better.  She said nothing, but bade her weeping heart be still.
+
+One day Jesus was invited to dine down by the lake with a friend who
+held the same views as Himself.  There were so many people present that
+there was neither room nor food enough.  They expected some miracle.
+Jesus was in a happy mood, and said that He wondered that people should
+rush after little wonders, and overlook the great ones; for all things
+that lived, all things with which we were daily surrounded, were pure
+and incomprehensible wonders.  As for the wonders men desired Him to
+work, the most important thing was not turning of stones into bread or
+the making of the sick whole, but that such miracles should awaken
+faith.  Faith was the greatest miracle-worker.  While He was talking He
+was called away; some one stood under the cedars who wished to speak to
+Him.  He found two of His relations there, who asked Him curtly, and
+without ceremony, what He purposed doing; did He propose to return to
+Nazareth or not?  If not, then He had better realise that His house and
+workshop would be confiscated.
+
+Jesus answered them: "Go and tell your elders in Nazareth: The house
+belongs to him who needs it, and let him who has a use for the workshop
+have it.  And leave Him in peace who would build a House in which there
+are many mansions."
+
+They remained standing there, and said; "If you turn a deaf ear and are
+heedless of us, there is some one else here."  And then His mother came
+forward.  She had thrown a blue shawl over her head.  She looked ill,
+and could hardly speak for sobbing.  She took hold of His hand: "My
+son! where will all this lead?  Can you undertake such responsibility?
+You reject the belief of your fathers, and you deprive others of it."
+
+To which He replied: "I deprive them of their belief.  On the contrary,
+I give them faith."
+
+"But, my child, I can't understand it.  You are stirring up the whole
+country.  The people leave their houses, their families, their work, to
+follow you.  What enchantment do you practise on them?"
+
+"They follow the tidings," He said.  "They thirst after comfort as the
+hart pants for water."
+
+"And you call it comfort to starve and freeze in the wilderness," broke
+in one of his relations; "you call it comfort to deny oneself
+everything till our rags fall off our bodies, and we are taken by the
+soldiers as criminals?  Take heed.  The governors at Caesarea and
+Jerusalem are displeased at the state of affairs.  They mean to put a
+stop to the demagogue's proceedings, and they are right."
+
+"Who is the demagogue?"
+
+"Why, you, of course."
+
+Jesus was surprised at the reply, and said:--"I?  I, who say to you,
+Peace be with you!  Love one another!  Do good to your enemies!  I, a
+demagogue?"
+
+"They say you claim to be the Messiah who shall conquer the kingdom."
+
+"A kingdom that is not of this world."
+
+Mary fell into His arms.  "My dear son, leave all this alone.  If it is
+to be, God will do it all without you.  See how lonely your mother is
+at Nazareth!  Come with me to our peaceful home, and be once again my
+good, dear Jesus.  And these here, they love you, they are your
+brothers."
+
+Then Jesus stretched out His arm and pointed to His followers, who had
+pushed their way into the house.  "Those are My brothers!  Those who
+acknowledge the Heavenly Father as I do, they are My brothers."
+
+His relations stepped back, and wrung their hands in perplexity.  "He
+is out of His mind.  He is possessed by devils."
+
+The people in the road who were looking over the fence felt sorry for
+the forsaken woman, and wanted to interfere; whereupon a voice
+exclaimed loudly: "Happy the mother who has such a son!  The nations
+will arise and call her blessed!"
+
+Jesus turned to them gravely.  "Blessed are those who follow the word
+of God."
+
+His mother felt, as He spoke those words, as if she had been stabbed to
+the heart with a sword.  The people were silent, and whispered to each
+other: "Why is He so hard towards His mother?"
+
+John the younger answered them: "He sees salvation only in God the
+Father.  He has converted many people to His view, but just those whom
+He loves best will not listen to the tidings of the Kingdom of Heaven."
+
+Jesus lifted up His voice and cried: "He who desires to be My disciple,
+and his parents and brothers and sisters do not believe in Me, he must
+forsake his parents and brothers and sisters in order to follow Me.  He
+who has wife and child, and they despise My tidings, he must forsake
+wife and child and follow _Me_ if he wishes to be My disciple.  Who
+does not love God more than mother and child, than brother and sister,
+yea, more than himself and his life, he is not worthy of God."
+
+Many were troubled by this speech, and murmured: "He asks too much."
+
+Then said John: "Whoever is in earnest about his faith in the Heavenly
+Father cannot speak otherwise.  He feels Himself how hard it is to
+destroy all ties.  Do you not observe how He struggles with Himself,
+and must subdue His own heart, so that it may lose its power over Him?
+He asks all from His disciples because He gives them all.  We already
+know that what He has to give us is worth more than all we have given
+up."
+
+His relations went away.  They talked violently against Jesus.  His
+mother could not endure that, so she remained behind and climbed the
+stony path by herself.  In her sorely tried heart she prayed: "My
+Father which art in Heaven, Thy will be done!"  And she had no idea
+that it was her son's prayer, in which she found the same faith and
+comfort as He did.  She knew not that thus she, too, became a disciple
+of Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Elsewhere Jesus's fame had become so great that all men came to Him.
+The poor crowded to Him in order to eat at His table where the word had
+become flesh.  The rich invited Him to their houses, but He mostly
+declined those invitations, accepting, however, one here and there.
+
+He Himself went to those who humbly remained in the background and yet
+desired to go to Him.  A man lived in the district whose greatest
+desire was to see the Prophet.  When he heard that Jesus was coming his
+way, he began to tremble and to think what he should do.  "I should
+like to meet Him face to face, and yet dare not venture to go to Him.
+For I have a bad reputation as a publican, and am not in any way
+worthy.  Then He is always accompanied by so many people, and I am
+short and cannot see over their heads."  When Jesus approached, the man
+climbed a bare sycamore-tree and peeped between the branches.  Jesus
+saw him, and called out; "Zacchaeus, come down from the tree!  I will
+come and visit you to-day."
+
+The publican jumped down from the tree and went over to Him, and said
+humbly: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should go to my house.  Only
+say one word to me, and I shall be content."
+
+The people wondered that the Prophet should so honour this person of
+somewhat doubtful character.  Zacchaeus was almost beside himself to
+think that the Master should have recognised and spoken to him.  He set
+before his guest everything that his house afforded.  Jesus said:
+"These things are good.  But I want the most precious thing you
+possess."
+
+"What is that, sir?" asked Zacchaeus in terror, for he thought he had
+given of his best.  "Everything I possess is yours."
+
+Then Jesus grasped his hand, looked at him lovingly, and said:
+"Zacchaeus, give me your heart!"
+
+The man became His follower.
+
+One day He was dining with a man who was very learned and a strict
+censor of morals.  Several of His disciples were among the guests, and
+the talk, partly intellectual and partly guided by feeling, turned on
+the Scriptures.  At first Jesus took no part; He was thinking how much
+pleasanter it would be to hear simple talk at His mother's fireside at
+home than to dispute with these arrogant scholars about the empty
+letter.  But He was soon drawn into the conversation.  Someone
+mentioned the commandment which enjoins a man to love his neighbour,
+and, as often happens, the simplest things became confused and
+incomprehensible in the varied opinions of the worldly-wise.  One of
+the guests said: "It is remarkable how we do not reflect on the most
+important things because they are so clear; and yet if we do reflect on
+them by any chance, we don't understand them.  So that I really do not
+know who it is I should love as myself."
+
+"Your neighbour!" the disciple Matthew, who was sitting by him at
+table, informed him.
+
+"That is all right, my friend, if only I knew who was my neighbour!  I
+run up against all sorts of people in the day, and if one of them trips
+me up, he is my neighbour for the time being.  At this moment I have
+two neighbours, you and Zachariah.  Which of the two am I to love as
+myself?  It is only stated that you shall love one.  And if it's you or
+Zachariah, why should I love either of you more than the Master who
+sits at the other end of the table and is not my neighbour!"
+
+"Man! that is an impertinent speech," said the disciple Bartholomew
+reprovingly.
+
+"Well then, put me right!" retorted the other.
+
+The disciple began, and tried to explain who the neighbour was, but he
+did not get very far, his thoughts were confused.  Meanwhile the
+question had reached the Master.  Who is, in the correct sense of the
+term, one's neighbour?
+
+Jesus answered, by telling a story: "There was once a man who went from
+Jerusalem to Jericho.  It was a lonely road, and he was attacked by
+highwaymen, who plundered him, beat him, and left him for dead.  After
+a while a high priest came by that way, saw him lying there, and
+noticing that he was a stranger, passed quickly on.  A little later an
+assistant priest came by, saw him lying there, and thought: He's either
+severely wounded or dead, but I'm not going to put myself out for a
+stranger; and he passed on.  At last there came one of the despised
+Samaritans.  He saw the helpless creature, stopped, and had pity on
+him.  He revived him with wine, put healing salve on his wounds, lifted
+him up, and carried him to the nearest inn.  He gave the host money to
+take care of the sufferer until he recovered.  Now, what do you say?
+The priests regarded him as a stranger, but the Samaritan saw in him
+his neighbour."
+
+Then they explained it to themselves: Your neighbour is one whom you
+can help and who is waiting for your help.
+
+The disciple Thomas now joined in the conversation, and doubted if you
+could expect a great prince to dismount from his horse and lift a poor
+beggar out of the gutter.
+
+Jesus asked: "If you rode by as a great prince and found Me lying
+wretchedly in the gutter, would you leave me lying there?"
+
+"Master!" shouted Thomas in horror.
+
+"Do you see, Thomas?  What you would do to the poorest, you would do to
+Me."
+
+One of the others asked: "Are we only to be kind to the poor, and not
+to the rich and noble?"
+
+And Jesus said: "If you are a beggar in the street, and a prince comes
+riding past, there's nothing you can do for him.  But if his horse
+stumbles and he falls, then catch him so that his head may not strike
+against a stone.  At that moment he becomes your neighbour."
+
+Then some whispered: "It often seems as if He desired us to love all
+men.  But that is too difficult."
+
+"It's very easy, brother," said Bartholomew.  "To love the millions of
+men whom you never see, who do not do you any harm, that costs nothing.
+Hypocrites love in that way.  Yet while they claim to love the whole
+human race, they are hard on their neighbour."
+
+"It is easy to love from afar," said Jesus, "and it is easy to love
+good-tempered and amiable men.  But how is it when your brother has
+wronged you, and is always trying to do you harm?  You must forgive
+him, not seven times, but seventy times seven.  Go to him in kindness,
+show him his error.  If he listens to you, then you have won him.  If
+he does not heed you, repeat your warning.  If still he heeds you not,
+seek a friendly intermediary.  If he will not heed him, then let the
+community decide.  And only when you see your brother saved and
+contented will you be glad again."
+
+While they were talking thus, a young woman pushed her way into the
+room.  She was one of those who followed Him everywhere, and waited
+impatiently at the door while the Master visited a house.  Bending low,
+almost unnoticed, she hurried through the crowd, stooped down before
+Jesus, and began to rub His feet with ointment from a casket.  He
+calmly permitted it; but His host thought to himself: No, He is no
+prophet, or He would know who it is that is anointing His feet.  Isn't
+she the sinner of Magdala?
+
+Jesus guessed his thoughts, and said: "My friend, I will tell you
+something.  Here is a man who has two debtors.  One owes him fifty
+pence, and the other five hundred.  But as they cannot pay he cancels
+both the debts.  Now say, which of them owes him most gratitude?"
+
+"Naturally him to whom the most was remitted," answered the host.
+
+And Jesus: "You are right.  Much has been remitted to this woman.  See,
+you invited Me to your house, your servants have filled the room with
+the scent of roses, although fresh air comes in through the window.  My
+ear has been charmed with the strains of sweet bells, and stringed
+instruments, although the clear song of birds can be heard from
+without.  You have given Me wine in costly crystal goblets, although I
+am accustomed to drink out of earthen vessels.  But that My feet might
+feel sore after the long wandering across the desert only this woman
+remembered.  She has much love, therefore much will be forgiven her."
+
+One day when the Master had gone down to Capernaum he noticed that the
+disciples who were walking in front of Him were engaged in quiet but
+animated talk.  They were discussing which of them was most pleasing to
+God.  Each subtly brought forward his meritorious services to the
+Master, his sacrifices, his renunciations and sufferings, his obedience
+to the teaching.  Jesus quickly stepped nearer to them, and said: "Why
+do you indulge in such foolish talk?  While you are boasting of your
+virtues, you prove that you lack the greatest.  Are you the righteous
+that you dare to talk so loudly?"
+
+Whereupon one of them answered timidly: "No, sir, we are not the
+righteous.  But you yourself said that there was more rejoicing in
+heaven over penitents than over righteous men."
+
+"There is rejoicing over penitents when they are humble.  But do you
+know over whom there is greater rejoicing in heaven?"
+
+By this time a crowd had formed round Him.  Women had come up leading
+little children by the hand and carrying smaller ones in their arms in
+order to show them the marvellous man.  Some of the boys got through
+between the people's legs to the front in order to see Him and kiss the
+hem of His garment.  The people tried to keep them back so that they
+should not trouble the Master, but He stood under the fig-tree and
+exclaimed in a loud voice.  "Suffer the little ones to come unto Me!"
+Then round-faced, curly-headed, bright-eyed children ran forward, their
+skirts flying, and crowded about Him, some merry, others shy and
+embarrassed.  He sat down on the grass, drew the children to His side,
+and took the smallest in His lap.  They looked up in His kind face with
+wide-opened eyes.  He played with them, and they smiled tenderly or
+laughed merrily.  And they played with His curls, and flung their arms
+round His neck.  They were so trustful and happy, these little
+creatures hovering so brightly round the Prophet, that the crowd stood
+in silent joy.  But Jesus was so filled with blessed gladness that He
+exclaimed loudly: "This is the Kingdom of Heaven!"
+
+The words swept over the crowd like the scent of the hawthorn.  But
+some were afraid when the Master added: "See how innocent and glad they
+are.  I tell you that he who is not like a little child he shall not
+enter the Kingdom of Heaven!  And woe to him who deceives one of these
+children! it were better he tied a millstone round his neck and were
+drowned in the sea!  But whosoever accepts a child for My sake accepts
+Me!"
+
+Then the disciples thought they understood over whom there was joy in
+heaven, and they disputed no longer over their own merits.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Galilee was rich in poor men and poor in rich men.  And it might have
+been thought that Jesus, the friend of the poor, was the right man in
+the right place there.  And yet His teaching took no hold in that land.
+A few rich men among a multitude of poor have all the more power
+because they are few, and they used all their influence with the people
+to dethrone the Prophet from His height, and to undermine His career.
+These illustrious men found their best tools in the Rabbis, who
+circulated the sophism that the people who followed the teaching of
+this man must quickly come to ruin.  For the poor, who willingly gave
+up their last possessions, must become poorer, and the rich, who
+pursued their advantages, must become still richer, which implied that
+not the rich but only the poor would accept the Prophet's teaching,
+since we know that Jesus especially called on the rich to alter the
+tenor of their ways, and always for the benefit of the poor.  But, they
+answered: The rich will not alter the tenor of their ways, they will
+consume the gentle disciples of Jesus, as the wolf the sheep.  Many
+were impressed by that view, and lost courage: The Prophet means well,
+they reflected, but nothing is to be gained by adopting His methods.
+
+Then it became known that Jesus had allowed Himself to be anointed.  To
+allow Himself to be anointed meant that He regarded Himself as the
+Heaven-sent Messiah!  And that was hostile to the existing order of
+things, to the king.  So said the preachers in the synagogues, the
+houses, and the streets, but they were silent over the fact that the
+anointing was the work of a poor woman who desired to heal His sore
+feet.  In fact, the preachers cared nothing for the people or the king
+but only for the letter of the law.
+
+When the woman who had anointed His feet saw that He was despised
+because of her, she went silently apart by herself.  No human being
+cared so much for Him, and none left Him so calmly.  She did not go
+back to the old man she had married out of pity, and forgotten--out of
+love, but she went to relations at Bethany.  Since the Prophet had
+raised her up before all the people, her relatives no longer closed
+their doors to her, but received her kindly.
+
+Jesus was aware how His native ground tottered under His feet, how the
+people began to shun Him more and more, how the inns made difficulties
+about receiving Him.  So He went, with those who were true to Him, out
+into the rocky desert of Judaea.  He gained new adherents on the way,
+and people came from the surrounding places with pack and staff to hear
+the wonderful preacher.  Some had had enough of the barren wisdom of
+the Pharisees, others were disgusted with the bad administration of the
+country, and with the fine promises of the Romans, they were ruined by
+the agricultural depression, or in despair over the low level of men's
+minds, over the barbarism of men.  There were some, too, who had fled
+before the robber bands of Barabbas which infested the desert to their
+undoing.  They came into His presence, hungering for the living word on
+which to feed their starving souls.  John said to them: "His teaching
+is nourishment.  His word is flesh.  Who eats of His flesh and drinks
+of His blood will not die."
+
+They wondered at those words.  How were they to understand what was
+meant by eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
+
+Then John; "The word is like flesh, it nourishes the soul.  Manna was
+sent from Heaven for our ancestors, yet they died.  His word is bread
+from heaven which makes us immortal."  They remembered another saying:
+"His flesh is food indeed!"  And they explained that a man's body is
+destined to be consumed by the spirit, like tallow and wick by flame.
+So man, in order to become divine, must attain the divine life through
+the medium of humanity.
+
+They remained with Him day and night in their thousands, and were
+satisfied.  And many entreated Him to pour water over their heads as a
+token that they were His adherents and desired to be pure.
+
+It was a starry night in the desert, one of those nights when the stars
+shine down in sparkling brilliance and envelop the rocks in a bluish
+shimmer and vapour, so that it seems like a resurrection of glorified
+souls.  One of the disciples looked up at the stars shining in the sky
+in holy stillness, and said: "Brother, this infinitude of space makes
+me afraid."
+
+The other disciple: "I rejoice over that infinite space."
+
+"My terror causes me to flee to my Heavenly Father."
+
+"I take my joy to my Heavenly Father."
+
+They were all lying on the ground in a wide circle round Jesus.  They
+wished to rest, but the night was too beautiful for sleep.
+
+And one of them began to say softly: "This is like the Kingdom of God."
+
+Another lifted his head, which had been resting on his arm, and said:
+"Do you know, then, what the Kingdom of God is like?"
+
+The first speaker was silent for a space, and then replied: "No,
+indeed, I don't know, but I like to think about it.  He speaks so often
+of the Kingdom of Heaven, I should like to know something more definite
+about it."
+
+"Shall we ask Him?"
+
+"You ask Him."
+
+"I dare not."
+
+"Let us ask John.  He knows Him best, and possibly can tell us
+something."
+
+John was lying on the sand with his head on a stone.  His soft hair was
+his pillow.  But he was not asleep.  They crept up to him, and boldly
+asked him where the Kingdom of Heaven was, of which the Master so often
+spoke.  Was it under the earth or above the sun?  Would it begin soon
+or in a thousand years?
+
+John said; "How long have you been with Him?"
+
+"Seven weeks."
+
+"And you don't know yet where the Kingdom of Heaven is?  Then you do
+not understand His language."
+
+"He speaks the language of our fathers."
+
+"He speaks the language of the Kingdom of God.  Remember, the Kingdom
+of Heaven is where God is.  God is where Love is, where trustful,
+self-sacrificing, glad Love is."
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Where do you think?"
+
+"I think Love must be in the heart."
+
+Whereupon John answered: "Then you do know where the Kingdom of Heaven
+is."
+
+The two looked at each other, but did not quite seem to know.  Then
+John went to Jesus, who was sitting on a rock and looking out into the
+darkness as if it was full of visions.  His countenance was as bright
+as if the stars had lent it their brilliance.
+
+"Master," said John, "we cannot sleep.  Tell us of the Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+Jesus turned round, and pointing to the disciple nearest him, said: "To
+you is it granted to know the Kingdom of Heaven.  To the others it can
+only be explained through parables.  For the Kingdom of God is not
+built of wood or stone like a temple, it cannot be conquered like an
+earthly empire, it cannot be seen by mortal eyes like a garden of
+flowers, neither can we say it is here or there.  The Kingdom of God
+must be conquered with the power of the will, and he who is strong and
+constant will gain it.  His eye and his hand must be continually set to
+the plough which makes furrows in the kingdom of earth for the great
+harvest.  He who sets his hand to the plough, and looks at something
+else, he is not dedicated to the Kingdom of God.  But to him who
+earnestly seeks it, it comes overnight.  The seed thrown on the field
+yesterday has sprung up--man knows not how.  The seed is the Word of
+God which was scattered on all sides.  Part falls on the wayside, and
+the birds devour it.  Part falls among thorns, and is choked.  A part
+falls on a thin covering of earth, it comes up but is parched by the
+hot sun.  Only a very small quantity falls on rich earth and bears much
+fruit.  So it is with the tidings of God.  Evil inclinations devour it,
+earthly cares choke it, burning passions parch it, but the heart that
+desires God receives it, and with him the word becomes the Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+More and more heads were lifted up.  "He is speaking."  Then all
+bestirred themselves and listened.
+
+Jesus raised His voice and went on; "Some of you who listen to Me have
+the Kingdom of Heaven within you.  But be careful!  The enemy comes in
+the night and sows weeds.  Hear more.  The word is like a grain of
+mustard-seed.  It is the smallest of all seeds, and yet it becomes the
+biggest tree.  Perhaps without your knowledge a word has fallen into
+your heart.  You are scarcely aware of it, you pass it by, but it grows
+secretly, and all at once enlightenment is there, and you have the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  Then, again, it is like yeast, and stirs up and
+changes your whole being.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure
+hidden in a field.  A man finds it and buys the field.  And it is like
+a pearl for which a merchant gives all his wealth.  But it is also like
+a lamp which a man must feed with oil lest it be extinguished.  If it
+goes out, you will have no light, and suddenly comes the attack.  And
+hear this also: the Lord of the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who at
+urgent request remits all his slave's debts.  But the slave does not
+remit his debtor's debt, but lets him be cast into prison.  So the king
+summons him before his judgment-seat and says: I have shown you mercy,
+and you have shown your fellow no mercy.  So now I shall have you put
+upon the rack until you have paid me your debts to the last farthing.
+Who does not show mercy to others, to him shall no mercy be shown."
+
+Jesus was silent, and a shudder of terror passed through the crowd.
+John went to the man who had just questioned Him, and said: "Do you
+understand now what He means by the Kingdom of God?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"That is enough for the present.  It is mercy, blessedness, and
+justice. . . .  Consider, it was night He chose in order to unveil the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  For it is not visible to the outward eye, but to
+the inward eye.  Man, if you possess the Kingdom of Heaven, you possess
+it in your soul.  If it is not there, you seek it elsewhere in vain."
+
+"But," someone ventured to say hesitatingly, "it must also be somewhere
+else.  The Master Himself says: 'Father who art in heaven.'"
+
+John answered him: "The Kingdom of Heaven is wherever you are, wherever
+you come with your faith and with your love.  Only do not think that
+you are obliged to understand such mysteries with your reason."
+
+And the man asked no more.
+
+Then an old man tottered up and ventured to ask Jesus what he should
+do.  He was a worldly man, had never lived save for earth, and he was
+told it was now too late to change.  "How shall I reach the Kingdom of
+Heaven?"
+
+Then Jesus spoke as follows:
+
+"There was once a man who employed labourers for his vineyard.  He
+engaged one in the morning, another at noon, and the last towards
+evening when the day's work was almost over.  And when the pay-hour
+came round, he gave each good wages.  Then those who had been hired in
+the morning and at noon complained that they had worked much longer in
+the toil and heat of the day, and ought therefore to receive more wages
+than he who only began towards evening, and had scarcely laboured for
+an hour.  Then said the master of the vineyard; 'I told you beforehand
+the wages I should give you, and you were content.  What is it to you
+how much I give the other?  Let him come to me late, or let him come to
+me as soon as it is morning.  The chief thing is that he comes to me.'"
+
+Then the old man began to weep for joy that although he came so late to
+the vineyard of Jesus, he would still be employed.
+
+Since the Master was so ready to speak, others came to Him at this
+time, and entreated Him to clear up some matters which they did not
+understand.  Once he related a story of a king who, when the guests he
+had invited to his wedding-feast refused to come, invited the people
+out of the highways.  They came, but one had not a wedding garment on,
+and the king ordered him to be cast into the outer darkness.  The
+Master intended it as a parable, but they could not understand it.  The
+king was too severe, they argued; he must have known that people from
+off the highways would not be wearing wedding garments.
+
+Jesus was silent, but James observed: "Why, guests must know that it is
+not seemly to go to a king's wedding in torn and dirty clothes.  All
+are freely invited, but he who comes unwashed and presumptuous will be
+cast out into the darkness.  No one is admitted who is unprepared."
+
+Another of His parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven disturbed
+them.  It was that of the unjust steward whom his master praised
+because he had prudently used the money entrusted to him in order to
+provide for himself.  The steward knew that he would be dismissed, and
+secretly remitted to his master's debtors a part of their debts, so
+that he might stand well with them.  And he did right!  "But, can we
+purchase the Kingdom of Heaven with goods that are not ours?"
+
+A mule-driver interposed: "I understand the story thus: None of us has
+any property on earth.  We are all only the stewards of the property
+and when we give of it to the needy, we are unjust stewards because we
+give what is not ours, and yet we do right."
+
+Some shook their heads over this interpretation; the rich and those
+learned in the Scriptures could not understand it.  But Jesus said in
+prayer: "I praise, O Father, that Thou revealest many things to the
+simple that are hidden from the worldly wise.  Blessed are those who
+are not offended by My teaching!"
+
+Now the disciples always discussed together anything that was not quite
+clear.  Thomas did not exactly understand what the Master meant by the
+word truth, by saying that He was the truth, that we must pray to God
+in truth, and that he who is of truth would understand God's word.
+
+What did John, the youngest of them, say?  "The children of the world
+call it truth if they break a stone with a hammer and find that it is
+chalk; they call it truth to know the difference between the fishes in
+the sea and the worms on the earth, and to be able to measure the
+dimensions of the sky with figures; they call it truth when it is
+established that a seed of corn germinates, and a man's body turns into
+dust after death.  Truly, every one can see those things with his own
+eyes.  But is man's eye the truth?  And did He say: 'You shall _know_
+the truth'?  No; He said: 'You shall _be_ the truth.'"
+
+To _be_ the truth!  To be void of guile and falsehood!  To be true and
+open in mind and heart!
+
+So they sought to increase their knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven;
+hourly and daily did many a one rejoice because he had found what the
+wise men of the ages had sought after.
+
+The poor, the despised, and the unhappy came to Him more and more.
+That strange desert camp was often filled with the sick, the
+over-burdened, and the despairing.  Many came from afar full of great
+troubles, yet borne up by hope, and then when they saw Him, tall and
+earnest, standing there and teaching men in deep sayings, their courage
+deserted them; they could not trust Him.  They were full of fear.  Then
+He spread out His hands and exclaimed:
+
+"Come, come unto Me, all that are over-burdened and oppressed; I will
+relieve you.  I am not come to judge and to punish.  I am come to find
+what is lost, to heal what is sick, and to revive what is dead.  I am
+come to the sad to console them, to the fallen to raise them up.  I
+give Myself for the redemption of many.  My power is not of this world.
+I am Master in the Kingdom of God, where all are blessed in trustful,
+joyful love.  Come to Me, all ye who have erred and gone astray.  I
+have joy and eternal life for you."
+
+The disciples looked at each other in astonishment: He had never before
+spoken with such divine gentleness.  The people, sobbing, crowded round
+Him; His words were as balm to their wounds.  They wondered how it was
+possible for a man to speak so proudly, lovingly and divinely.  They
+gave themselves up to Him, filled with trust and enthusiasm; in His
+presence the hungry were fed, the blind made to see, the lame walked,
+doubters believed, the weak became strong, and dead souls lived.
+
+Simon always rejoiced greatly whenever new wanderers came by and,
+withdrawing from their companions, took a vow to follow the Master's
+teaching.  He was exceedingly angry when they refused, alleging that it
+was not possible to accomplish what He demanded of them.  Jesus related
+a story in connection with Simon's emotions.  "A man had two sons, and
+told each of them to go and work in his field.  One said, 'Yes, father,
+I will go at once.'  But afterwards he reflected that the work was
+hard, and he did not go.  The other son told his father to his face
+that he would not go into the field; it was too much labour.  When he
+was alone he thought, 'I will do my father's will,'  and he went into
+the field and worked.  Which of the two, in your opinion, did right?"
+
+A man learned in the Law replied: "He who promised to go.  For it
+stands written; 'He who declares himself ready to obey the Law.'"
+
+But Jesus was vexed at that reply, and said in sorrow: "It is
+extraordinary how falsely you interpret the Law.  Sinners who sincerely
+repent will find their way to the Kingdom of Heaven before such
+expounders of the Law."
+
+From that time forward Simon rejoiced no more over empty promises, nor
+did he vex himself over the refusals of those who would perhaps come
+later to take up the heavy work.  Patiently as once he had waited at
+the lake for the fish to come to his nets, he now waited until they
+came.  And he understood a mystic saying of his Master: "All are
+called; many come, few remain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+At that time there lived in Jerusalem, the royal city, a man who was
+perfectly happy.  He had everything that makes life pleasant: great
+wealth, powerful friends, and beautiful women who daily crowned his
+head with wreaths of roses.  He was still young, every one of his
+wishes was fulfilled, and it seemed as if things would always be the
+same.  And yet, sometimes, amid all the joy and gladness there would be
+a quiet hour in which he thought over and measured his good fortune,
+and then he felt afraid.  Yes, he was greatly troubled, for every day
+he saw, on all hands, how property vanished, and how the coffins of
+those who the day before had been enjoying life were carried to the
+grave.
+
+Then this man, who, although he was happy, was yet beset with fears,
+heard that there was a prophet out in the wilderness who had eternal
+life.  He knew of everlasting wealth and happiness, and half the world
+were flocking to him in order to share in it.  So Simeon--that was his
+name--determined to seek out this man.  He locked up his precious
+stones in iron chests, delivered his palaces, vineyards, ships and
+servants into the keeping of his steward, gave his women to the
+protection of the gods, and gathered his slaves round him.  He rode out
+of the town on a thoroughbred steed, he wore soft, bright-coloured
+garments adorned with gold and jewels, his scimitar at his side, and
+waving feathers of rare birds in his hat.  A troop of servants
+accompanied him, and by his side rode Moors on African camels, holding
+a canopy over him to protect him from the sun, and fanning him into
+coolness with flowery fans.  They brought with them fruits of the East
+and the South in golden dishes, tasty fishes and game, rare wines and
+incense, and pillows for sleeping on.  During its progress the
+procession met black figures carrying a dead man.  The body lay swathed
+in white linen on a high board, and a raven circled round it in the
+air.  Simeon turned indignantly away; he had a horror of all that was
+dead.  He scattered coins among the mourners, for he would have liked
+to throw a gay covering adorned with precious stones over all sorrow
+and mourning.
+
+When he reached the mountains his horse began to stumble and falter.
+The steed's hoofs were insecure on the ringing flat stones; he reared
+his head and snorted, and would not go on.  Simeon took counsel how he
+was to proceed.  Natives leading mules came by, and offered them to
+him, but he refused.  He could not go to the Prophet who held the key
+to imperishable wealth and eternal life on such contemptible beasts.
+His slaves had to make a litter, and he lay under its glittering canopy
+on soft cushions, while six Moors bore their master thus into the
+desert.  When they rested at an oasis, it was like a royal camp;
+servants handed him water from the spring in a crystal goblet, skilful
+cooks prepared the meal; beautiful women, whose skin was soft as velvet
+and brown as copper, spread out their black hair for him and delighted
+him with harp-playing, while armed men kept watch against the desert
+chief, Barabbas.
+
+The country became more and more uninviting, and it was almost
+impossible to avoid many discomforts.  Simeon remembered the comfort of
+his palace in Jerusalem, and contemplated turning back.  And yet the
+thought of the wise man who could help him to immortality proved too
+attractive.  People came over the bare hills who told of the teacher at
+the other extreme of the desert, how He gathered at times all kinds of
+people round Him and spoke of the everlasting Kingdom of God.  And so
+the swaying litter went on farther, and the next day reached the valley
+through dry rocky ravines, and found there a few olive and fig trees.
+People crowded round one of the fig trees; they were for the most part
+poor, sad-looking creatures, miserable outcasts wandering, homeless and
+loveless, here and there.  Clothed in scanty rags, their forms bent,
+they turned their faces towards the tree, for there He stood and spoke.
+
+"Be ye not sad nor cast down.  You miss nothing of the world's
+attractions.  Yours is the Father and His Kingdom.  Trust in Him; you
+are His.  You shall be made glad through love; things will be easier
+for you if you love than if you hate.  And in every misfortune that
+comes upon you, keep a steadfast soul, and then you have nothing to
+lose."
+
+Simeon clearly heard the strange words, and thought to himself: "Can
+this be He?  No, a wise man does not surround himself with such a
+shabby, poverty-stricken crowd.  And yet they say it is He."  Simeon
+got out of his litter and drew his scimitar.  Then he pressed forward
+amid the disagreeable smell of old clothes and of the perspiring crowd.
+Oh, how repulsive is the odour of the poor!  The multitude shyly gave
+way to the brilliant figure, for never had its like been seen in the
+Master's neighbourhood.  Jesus stood calmly under the fig tree and saw
+the stranger coming.  He stood still three paces off Him, beat his
+head, placed his hand on his brow, like a king who greets another.
+
+"Sir," said the stranger, and his voice was not sharp and shrill as
+when he gave his servants orders, but low and hoarse.  "Sir, I have
+come a long way; I have sought you a long while."
+
+Jesus held out His hand to him in silence.
+
+Simeon was excited.  He wanted to explain his object at once so as to
+return to Jerusalem without delay, but the words would not come.  He
+stammered out; "Sir, I hear that you understand about eternal life.
+Therefore am I come to you.  Tell me where it is to be found.  What
+shall I do in order to possess eternal life?"
+
+Jesus stepped forward a pace, looked earnestly at the man, and said:
+"If you desire to live, keep the commandments of Moses."
+
+"Of Moses?" returned the stranger, surprised.  "But I do.  Although I
+am of pagan descent, in these matters I follow the people among whom I
+live.  But that is not the point.  They die.  I want to live for ever."
+
+Then said Jesus: "If you desire to live for ever, follow Him Who lives
+for ever.  Love God above everything, and your neighbour as yourself."
+
+"Oh, Master," said Simeon, "that is just what I strive to do.  And yet
+I am afraid."
+
+Whereupon Jesus said: "You are afraid because you ought to do it, and
+desire to do it, and yet do it not.  You possess palaces in the town,
+fertile acres in the country, ships on the sea, laden with precious
+things from all quarters of the world.  You possess a thousand slaves.
+Your stewards would fill many volumes if they wrote down all that you
+possess."
+
+"Sir, how do you know everything?"
+
+"My friend, your brilliant train spells wealth; but look at the people
+who follow Me.  They have poor garments but glad souls, they have the
+Kingdom of God within them.  If you are in earnest, you must give up
+all you possess."
+
+"Give up all I possess?"
+
+"You must give it up and become like these.  Then come to Me, and I
+will lead you to everlasting life."
+
+When Jesus had said that and more, the stranger cast down his head, and
+slowly stepped back.  What?  I must become like these lowly, beggarly
+people? must deliberately step out of my accustomed circle into this
+boundless misery?  No, no man could do it.  He returned to his suite in
+very low spirits.
+
+Jesus looked after him thoughtfully with a kindly glance.
+
+"Who is he?" the disciples asked.  "He wears royal garments.  We have
+never seen such silks.  Is he a priest from the East?  If he came in
+order to make us gifts, he has forgotten his intention."
+
+Paying no heed to the jesting words, the Master said thoughtfully: "It
+is difficult to gain a rich man for blessedness.  Men's wills are too
+weak.  Their bodies are lapped in luxury, yet scorn of the soul leaves
+them a prey to fear.  Yes, My friends, it is easier for a camel to go
+through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter our heaven."
+
+The word was spoken more in sorrow than in anger.  And then someone
+ventured to say: "Yes, if the commandments are too hard, there must be
+sin.  Men are bound to transgress them."
+
+Jesus looked at the trembler: "Why, then, am I come?  Why, then, do I
+show you how light the burden is?  Do you not see for yourselves how
+free a man is when he has thrown off great cares and desires?  Nay, you
+will never see that till the grace of God is given you."
+
+They scarcely heard what He said.  The brilliant procession had
+attracted their attention, and as it moved off with its horses, camels,
+riders, Moors, and lovely women, they looked after it with longing
+eyes.  A little old hunchbacked Israelite, who was cowering behind a
+block of stone, murmured with some malice: "Seems to me they'd rather
+go with the heathen than wait here for the grace of the Heavenly
+Father."
+
+Simeon once more lay in the swaying litter and thought.  He tried to
+reconcile his unaccomplished purpose with his conscience.  This
+Prophet--he was a visionary.  What could the Kingdom of God within us
+mean?  Visionary! intended only to make people lazy and incapable.  A
+doctrine for vagabonds and beggars!  And so that was living for ever!
+So long as _he_ lived he should believe himself to be right, and when
+he was dead, he could not know that he had been wrong.  And then the
+social danger.  The possessor not the owner of his own property?  He
+must give it up, share it with the poor.  Such equality of property or
+lack of property would prevent all progress, and plunge everything into
+mediocrity.  No, that is not my salvation!  Ah, well, this journey into
+the desert will be an advantage to me in one way: it will make me feel
+happier than ever in my comfortable house.
+
+He took the opportunity of a last look at the place on which he now
+turned his back.  Several, attracted by the brilliant cavalcade, had
+followed from afar.  Three of the disciples had even come after him in
+order to set right a misunderstanding.  They came up with the stranger
+at a spring which gushed forth from a rock, and grass grew round it.
+The Moors wished to prevent them coming nearer, but Simeon recognised
+that they were not dangerous, and let them approach him.
+
+James, one of the disciples, said: "Great Lord, it is a pity.  You are
+one of the few who have left our Master without accomplishing their
+purpose.  It would not be quite so hard as you think.  He Himself says
+that if a man only has a good will he is never lost.  The will to live
+for ever is the thing."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed Simeon.  "His demands are quite
+impossible."
+
+"Must everything be taken so literally?" said James.  "The Master
+always puts the ideal high, and expresses it in lofty words, so that it
+may the better stay in the memory."
+
+Simeon waved them aside with his gold-encircled hand.  "To give up all
+I possess!  To become horribly poor----?"
+
+Then another disciple stepped forward, stood before him in a
+sad-coloured garment, crying: "Look at us.  Have we given up
+everything?  We never had much more than we have now, and what we had
+we have still.  Our brother Thomas has only one coat because he is
+full-blooded; I have two coats because I easily feel cold.  If I had
+poor legs the Master would allow me an ass like Thaddeus.  Every one
+has what he needs.  You need more than we do because you are accustomed
+to more.  But you cannot use all that you have for yourself.  And yet
+you need it for the many hundreds of men you employ, who work for the
+good of the country, and live by you.  I say that your property belongs
+to you by right just as my second coat to me, and that you can quite
+well be His disciple."
+
+"You chatter too much, Philip," said James reprovingly.  "If a man
+makes a pilgrimage of repentance towards eternal life, he doesn't
+travel like the Emperor of the Indies, or if he does, he doesn't know
+what he wants.  Believe me, noble sir, wealth is always dangerous, even
+for life.  The best protection against envy, hate, and sudden attacks
+is poverty."
+
+There was a third disciple, Matthew, with them, and he addressed
+himself not to the stranger, but to his comrades, and said: "Brothers,
+it must be clearly understood that he who desires the Kingdom of Heaven
+must give up everything that causes him unrest; otherwise he cannot be
+entirely with the Father.  But you," turning to the great man from
+Jerusalem, "you do not wish to break with the world?  Well, then, do
+one thing, love your neighbour.  Keep your silken raiment, but clothe
+the naked.  Keep your riding-horse, but give crutches to the lame.
+Keep your high position, but free your slaves.  Only if you think what
+is brought you from the fields, the mines, the workshops is yours, then
+woe be to you!"
+
+"I would willingly do one thing," said Simeon.  "Good! then say to your
+slaves, 'You are free.  If you will continue to serve me, I will treat
+you well.  If you prefer to go your own way, take what you require of
+good clothing and mules.'  Will you do that, stranger?"
+
+"You fanatic!" shouted Simeon angrily.  "What notions you have about
+men.  They're not like that.  Life's very different from that!"
+
+"But life will be like that some day," said Matthew.
+
+"He is a Messiah who destroys the Kingdom instead of building it,"
+exclaimed Simeon, jumping into his litter and giving the sign to depart.
+
+The procession moved on slowly, its glitter showing up against the dark
+rocks of the desert track.  The disciples gazed after it in silence.
+
+A little old man lay on the yellow sand.  He was so grey and dwarfish
+that he looked like a mountain sprite.  The old fellow was at home in
+the bare, big rocks.  He loved the desert, for it is the home of great
+thoughts.  He loved the desert where he hoped to find the entrance to
+Nirvana.  Now when the disciples passed near him as they were returning
+to the Master, he pushed the upper part of his body out of the sand,
+and asked: "What did the man want to whom you were speaking?"
+
+"He wanted to be able to live for ever."
+
+"To live for ever!" exclaimed the old fellow in surprise.  "And that is
+why the man drags himself across the desert.  What extraordinary people
+there are!  Now I could go any distance to find my Nirvana.  I only
+desire eternal life for my enemies.  It is many a day since people said
+I was a hundred years old.  If you are men of wisdom, teach me, tell me
+what I must do to reach Nirvana?"
+
+They were astonished.  It was something like out of a fairy tale.  A
+living creature who did not wish to live!  But Matthew knew how to
+answer him.
+
+"My friend, your desire is modest, but it can never be fulfilled.  You
+will never be nothing.  If you die, you lose only your body, not
+yourself.  You will, perhaps, not live, but you will be just as the
+same as now: you are not living now, and yet you exist.  Breathing and
+waiting is not living.  Living is fulfilment, is love--is the Kingdom
+of Heaven."
+
+"My Kingdom of Heaven is Nirvana," said the little old man, and buried
+himself again in the sand.
+
+As they went along Matthew said: "He fears everlasting existence
+because he does not recognise a God.  But he is not so far from us as
+the man who loves the world."
+
+Simeon went on his way, and towards evening reached the oasis of Kaba.
+He ordered his people to encamp there for the night.  The servants,
+porters, and animals formed the outer ring, the tent--in which he took
+his supper, stretched himself on his cushions, and let himself be
+fanned to sleep by the maidens--was in the centre.  But he did not
+sleep well.  He had bad dreams: his house in Jerusalem was burnt down,
+his ships were wrecked, faithless stewards broke open his chests.  And
+amid all, always the cry, "Give it all up!"  About midnight he awoke.
+And it was no longer a dream, but terrible reality.  A muffled noise
+could be heard throughout the camp, dark forms with glittering weapons
+moved softly about, in the camp itself crawling figures moved softly
+here and there.  A tall, dark man, accompanied by Bedouins, carrying
+torches and knives, stood in front of Simeon.
+
+"Do not be alarmed, my princely friend!" he said to Simeon, who jumped
+up; but none could tell whether he spoke from arrogance or authority,
+kindly or in scorn.  "It's true we are disturbing your night's repose,
+but, provided you give no trouble, we have no evil designs.  Hand over
+all that you possess."
+
+In the first confusion the wretched man thought he heard the Prophet
+speaking, but he soon noted the difference.  The Prophet and His
+disciples gave up everything that they possessed.  This man took
+everything that others possessed.
+
+"I know you, proud citizen of Jerusalem.  I am Barabbas, called the
+king of the desert.  It is useless to resist.  Three hundred men are at
+this moment keeping watch round your camp.  We've settled matters with
+your servants and slaves; they are powerless."
+
+It was clear to the poor rich man what the chief meant.  His slaves
+were slain, he was menaced by a like fate.  What had that disciple of
+the Prophet said?  Wealth endangered life, and poverty protected it.
+If he had set his followers free, giving them what they needed, and
+wandered about in simple fashion on his own legs, the robber's knife
+would not now be pointed at his breast.  In unrestrained rage he
+uttered a brutal curse: "Take whatever you can find, and do not mock
+me, you infamous beast of the desert!"
+
+"Calmly, calmly, my dear sir," said the chief, while dusky men rolled
+up carpets, clothes, arms, jewels, and golden goblets, and threw them
+into big sacks.  "See, we are helping you to pack up."
+
+"Take the rubbish away," shouted Simeon, "and leave me in peace."
+
+The chief, Barabbas, grinned.  "I fancy, my friend, that you and I know
+each other too well for me to let you go back to Jerusalem.  You would
+then have too great a desire to have me with you.  You would send out
+the Romans to search for me, and bring me to the beautiful city.  The
+desert is much more to my taste: life is pleasanter there.  Now, tell
+me where the bags of coin such as a man like you always carries about
+with him are hidden.  No?  Then you may go to sleep."
+
+He who went forth to seek eternal life is now in danger of losing
+mortal life.  In terror of death, cold sweat on his brow, he began to
+haggle for his life with the desert king.  He not only offered all that
+he had with him.  The next caravans were bringing him rare spices and
+incense; bars of gold, diamonds, and pearls were coming in the Indian
+ships, and he would send all out to the desert, as well as beautiful
+women slaves, with jewels to deck their throats.  Only he must be
+allowed to keep his bare life.
+
+Grinning and wrinkling up his snub nose, Barabbas let it be understood
+that he was not to be won with women and promises--he was no longer
+young enough.  Neither would he have any executioner dispatched in
+search of him--he was not old enough.  And he had his weaknesses.  He
+could not decide which would suit the noble citizen's slender, white
+neck best, metal or silk.  He took a silken string from the pocket of
+his cloak, while two Bedouins roughly held Simeon.
+
+Meanwhile, outside the camp, the second chief was packing the stolen
+treasure on the camels by torchlight.  Whenever he stumbled over a dead
+body he muttered a curse, and when his work was finished he sought his
+comrade.  Women in chains wept loudly, not so much on account of their
+imprisonment--they took that almost as a matter of course--but because
+their master was being murdered in the tent.  So the second chief
+snatched a torch from a servant, hastened to the tent, and arrived just
+in the nick of time.
+
+"Barabbas!" he exclaimed, taking hold of the murderer, "don't you
+remember what we determined?  We only kill those who fight; we do not
+kill defenceless persons."
+
+Barabbas removed his thin arms from his victim and in a tearful voice
+grumbled: "Dismas, you are dreadful.  I'm old now, and am I to have no
+more pleasure?"
+
+Dismas said meaningly: "If the old man does not keep his agreement, the
+troop will have its pleasure, and, for a change, swing him who likes to
+be called king of the desert."
+
+That had the desired effect.  Barabbas knew the band cared much more
+for Dismas than for himself, and he did not wish matters to come to a
+climax.
+
+When day dawned a mule was led to Simeon.  One of his slaves, with his
+wounded arm in a sling, was allowed him, and he carried some bread and
+his cloak, and led the beast.  And so the citizen of Jerusalem returned
+to the town he had left a week before under such brilliant
+circumstances, a defeated and plundered man.
+
+The affair attracted great attention in the city.  Armed incursions
+were eagerly made into the desert between Jerusalem and the Jordan,
+where one evil deed after another was reported.  Even the Rabbis and
+Pharisees preached a campaign to clear the rocks and sandy flats of the
+dangerous and destructive hordes by which they were infested.  The
+famous band of the chiefs, Barabbas and Dismas--so it was said--were
+not the worst.  Much more ominous were the vagrant crowds that gathered
+about the so-called Messiah from Nazareth, who, feeling himself safe in
+the desert, indulged in disorderly speeches and acts.  So it was
+settled to send out a large company of soldiers, led by the violent
+Pharisee, Saul, a weaver who had left his calling out of zeal for the
+law, in order to free the land from the mob of robbers and heretics.
+
+Now about this time Dismas, the old robber-chief, fell into deep
+contrition.  His heart had never really been in his criminal calling.
+Murder was particularly hateful to him, and, so far as he was free to
+do so, he had always sought to avoid it.  Now even plundering and
+robbing became hateful to him.  In the night he had visions of the
+terrible Jehovah.  He thought of John, the desert preacher, and
+considered it high time to repent.  So one day he said to Barabbas:
+
+"Do you know, comrade, there is just now a prince at the oasis of Silam
+who has with him immensely more wealth than that citizen of Jerusalem?
+I know his position and his people, and I know how to get at him.
+Shall we take this lord?"
+
+"If you continue to be so useless, Dismas, you'll be flung to the
+vultures."  Such were the terms in which Barabbas thanked his ally.  It
+was decided that the attack should be made.  Dismas led the band
+towards the oasis of Silam.  Barabbas went with his steed decorated
+with gay-coloured feathers, an iron coronet on his head.  For it was a
+prince whom he was to visit!  Dismas encamped his men under a rocky
+precipice.  And when at night time all rested in order to be fit for
+the attack on the princely train early in the morning, Dismas climbed
+the rocks and gave the signal.  The Roman soldiery hidden behind the
+rocks cut down all who opposed them, and took the rest prisoners,
+Dismas and Barabbas among them.  When the latter saw that he had been
+betrayed, he began to rage in his chains like a wild animal.
+
+"What would you have brother?" said Dismas to Barabbas, who had often
+scorned him so bitterly.  "Am I not a prisoner, too?  Haven't you
+always preached that right lay with the stronger?  So then the Romans
+are right this time.  Once you betrayed me and forced me to join the
+plundering Bedouins, most excellent Barabbas, and now it's my turn.
+I've betrayed you to the arm of Rome.  And we'll probably be impaled!"
+Then, as if that were a real delight, he brought his hand down
+cheerfully on his companion's shoulder so that his chains rattled.
+"Yes, my dearest brother, they will impale us!"
+
+They were brought in gangs to Jerusalem, where they lay in prison for
+many long months awaiting death.  On account of his self-surrender,
+Dismas had been granted his wish for solitary confinement.  He desired,
+undisturbed, to take stock of his wasted life.  A never-ending line of
+dark, bloody figures passed before him.  But there was one patch of
+light amid the gloom.  It had happened many years ago, but he had a
+very clear remembrance of that distant hour.  A young mother with her
+child rode on an ass.  The infant spread out his little arms and looked
+at him.  But never in his life had human creature looked at him like
+that child had looked, with such a glance of ardent love.
+
+If only once again, before he died, he could but see a beam of light
+like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+When the people who had gathered round Jesus heard that Saul, the
+terrible weaver, was scouring the desert with a troop of police, they
+began to melt away.  They feared unpleasant consequences.  They fully
+recognised the right, but most of them were disinclined to suffer
+persecution for that right.  They must return to their domestic duties,
+to their families, industries, and commerce, and, so far as was
+possible, live according to the Master's teaching.  They left Him
+because it seemed to them that His cause was falling.  In the end there
+were just a few faithful ones who stayed with Him, and even some of
+them were in hopes that He would reveal the power of the Messiah.  But
+they all urged Him to repair to some other neighbourhood.  Jesus was
+not afraid of having to render an account of Himself to His adversaries
+in Jerusalem, but the time had not yet come, the work was not yet
+finished.  He knew that He could never retrace His steps, for the more
+incontestable His justification was, the more dangerous it would seem
+to them.  With His now dwindled troop of followers He left the desert
+to revisit once again His native Galilee.
+
+But here His opponents were no better than before; houses were closed
+as He approached, the people got out of His way when He began to speak.
+Only Mary, with all a mother's simple faith, said; "Ah, you have come
+at last, my son!  Now stay, with me!"
+
+There was, however, no place for Him in the house.  A strange
+apprentice from Jericho was established in the workshop.  He worked at
+the wood with the hatchet and saw that Jesus had once handled; sat by
+the hearth and at the table where Jesus had once sat; slept in the bed
+on which Jesus had once reposed.  But it did not seem that he enjoyed
+the same pleasant dreams for he groaned and tossed about, and when he
+awakened was ill-pleased at having to continue the same work which he
+had ill-humouredly laid aside the evening before.  How often did Mary
+look at him in silence, and think of the difference between him and her
+Jesus.  And she saw how the man carelessly ate his meals, and went to
+his bed each day, while her son was perhaps perishing in a strange
+land, and had no stone whereon to lay His head.
+
+And now Jesus was once again with her.  "Mother," He said to Mary,
+"don't speak impatiently to Aaron.  He is poor, discontented, and
+sullen; he has found little kindness in men and without exactly knowing
+it, thirsts for kindness.  When you would bring Me water in the morning
+to wash with, take it to him.  When you would prepare dinner for Me,
+prepare it for him.  When you would bless Me in the evening, bless him.
+Love may perhaps do what words cannot.  Everything that you think to do
+for Me in My absence, do for him."
+
+"And you--you will have nothing more from me?"
+
+"Mother, I want everything from you.  I am always with you.  You can be
+good to Me in showing kindness to every poor creature.  I must lead men
+by stern measures, be you gentle.  I must burn the ulcers from out the
+dead flesh, you shall heal the wounds.  I must be the salt, be you the
+oil."
+
+How happy she was when He spoke to her like that.  For that was her
+life--to be kind, to help, wherever she could.  And here was her son
+consecrating such deeds of kindness till they became a covenant between
+her and Him, a bond of memory for mother and child when parted from
+each other.  Now that He had appealed to her love, she did not feel so
+lonely; she felt once more at one with Him, and had a sort of
+presentiment that in future times her bleeding mother's heart would be
+satisfied beyond measure.
+
+Once again Jesus went through His native land to see if the seed of His
+teaching had sprung up anywhere.  But the earth was barren.  He was not
+so much troubled by the passionate enmity with which many regarded Him,
+or the angry murmurings against Him and His word, as by indolence of
+mind, by obstinate, stupid adherence to commonplace inanities, by
+entire lack of perception, by indifference towards spiritual life.  At
+first the novelty and strangeness of His appearance had compelled
+attention, but that was over.  Whether the Prophet was old or new, it
+was all one to them.  One was just like another, they declared, and
+they remained indifferent.  "The hot and the cold," Jesus exclaimed one
+day, "I can accept, but those who are lukewarm I cast from Me.  Had I
+preached in heathen lands, or in the ruined seaports of Tyre and Sidon,
+they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.  Had I taught in Sodom
+and Gomorrah, those towns would still be standing.  But these places
+here in Galilee are sunk in a quagmire of shame; they scorn their
+Prophet.  When the day of reckoning comes, it will go worse with this
+land than with those towns.  My poor Bethsaida, and thou, fair Magdala!
+And thou, Capernaum the beautiful!  How I loved you, My people, how
+highly did I honour you; I desired to lift you to Heaven.  And now you
+sink in the abyss.  Pray to him, your Mammon, in the days of your need;
+there will be no other consolation for you.  Carouse, laugh, and be
+cruel to-day; to-morrow you will be hungry and you will groan: Ah, we
+have delayed too long!  Believe me a day will come when you fain would
+justify your lives to Me, crying: 'Lord, we would willingly have given
+you food, drink, and lodging, but you did not come to us.'  But I did
+come to you.  I came in the starving, the thirsty, the homeless, only
+you would not recognise Me.  I will not accuse you to the Heavenly
+Father, but Moses, whose commandments you have broken, will accuse you.
+And when you appeal to the Father, He will say: 'I know you not.'"
+
+The disciples trembled and were terrified in mind and soul when He
+spoke those angry words.  But they were not surprised, for the people
+had sunken very low.
+
+He woke His comrades in one of the next nights and said: "Get up and
+let the others sleep; they will not go with us, our way is too hard.
+Enemies will be on us.  Whoever of you fears, let him lie down again."
+Many did lie down again, and those who went with the Master numbered
+twelve.
+
+They wandered over the heights of Cana, over the mountains of Gischala
+till close on midnight, and then again till sundown.  The disciples
+knew not whither they were going; it was enough that they were with
+Him.  On the way they found many of the same mind, and also some who
+invited the Master to their houses for a jest, in order to be able to
+say: I am acquainted with Him.  Men of good position were among those
+who listened to His words with the greatest attention, and then haggled
+with Him to see if the Kingdom of Heaven could not be had at a cheaper
+price than the world.  He always answered: "What use is the world to
+you if you have no soul!  Herein alone is the secret of salvation; a
+man must find his soul and preserve it, and raise it to the Father."
+Or, as He put it differently: "God is to be found in the spirit!"
+
+And when the stranger audience asked what "in the spirit" meant, the
+apostles explained: "He means spiritual life.  He would not have man
+live his life merely in the flesh; man's real self.  He teaches, is a
+spiritual reality, and the more a man works spiritually and lives in
+ideas which are not of the earth, the nearer he comes to God, who is
+wholly spirit."
+
+"Then," said they, "men learned in the law are nearer to God than the
+workers in the field."  To which John replied: "A man learned in the
+law who depends only on the letter is far from the spirit.  The
+labourer who does not draw a profit from the land but thinks and
+imagines how to improve it, is near the spirit."
+
+On the road between Caedasa and Tyre is a farm.  When its owner heard
+that the Prophet was in the neighbourhood, he sent out people to find
+Him and invite Him to go to the farm where He would be safe from the
+snares of the Pharisees.  But the owner was himself a Pharisee and he
+intended to examine Jesus, perhaps to tempt Him to betray Himself and
+then deliver Him over to the government.  Jesus told the messenger that
+He would gladly accept the hospitality if He might bring his companions
+with Him.  That was not in the Pharisee's plan, first, because of the
+quantity of food and drink so many persons would need; and second,
+because under such protection it would be difficult to lay hands on the
+demagogue.  But in order to get the one, there was nothing for it but
+to include the others.  They were respectfully received and
+entertained.  The host testified to his joy at entertaining under his
+roof the "Saviour of Judaea," and was delighted with the Master's
+principles.  He gave a great banquet in His honour with the choicest
+viands and costliest drinks to which the disciples, who were somewhat
+hungry and thirsty, heartily did justice, while the Master, who never
+spoiled a glad hour, cheerfully did the same.  When tongues were
+loosened, the host wanted straightway to begin with artful allusions
+and questions, but his guest was a match for him.
+
+Jesus had observed that, while they were feeding so luxuriously in the
+hall, needy folk were harshly turned away in the courtyard, to slink
+off hungry and embittered.  So He suddenly said that good stories
+suited good wine, and He would tell one.  "That is delightful!"
+exclaimed the host.  And Jesus related the following:
+
+"There was once a rich man who wore the most costly garments, and
+enjoyed the most luxurious food and drink, and lived in complete
+contentment.  One day there came to his door a sick, half-starved man,
+who begged for a few of the crumbs that fell from the table.  The proud
+man was wrathful that the miserable wretch should dare to disturb his
+pleasure, and let loose his hounds.  But instead of worrying the man,
+the dogs licked his ulcers, and he crawled ashamed into a hole.  On the
+very day on which the wretched creature died, death came also to the
+rich man, casting his well-fed body into the grave and his soul into
+hell.  And there his wretched soul endured most horrible torture,
+gnawing hunger and parching thirst, and the pain was increased when the
+dead man looked into Paradise and saw there the man he had sent away
+despised from his door sitting by Abraham.  He saw how ripe fruits grew
+there, and clear springs gushed forth.  Then he called up, 'Father
+Abraham.  I implore you, tell the man sitting by you to dip his
+finger-tips into the water and cool my tongue, for I suffer unbearable
+torture.'  To which Abraham answered, 'No, my son, that cannot be.  You
+received all that was good on earth and forgot the poor, now he forgets
+you.  There is no longer any connection between him and you.'  Then the
+man in hell whimpered, 'Woe! woe! woe!  Let my five brothers who still
+dwell on earth know that they must be merciful to the poor, so that
+they may not be in my case.  And Abraham said: 'They have the prophets
+on earth who tell them that every day.'  Then the man whined: 'Oh,
+Father Abraham, they do not listen to the prophets.  If only you would
+make one of the dead live again, that he might tell them how the
+unmerciful are punished, then they would believe.  And Abraham: 'If
+they do not believe the living, how should they believe the dead?"
+
+During the Master's recital, the host several times stretched forth his
+hand to his glass, but each time drew it back again.  He had not a word
+to say, and the desire to lay snares for the Prophet had gone.  He
+stole unnoticed from the hall, went down to his steward, and ordered
+him henceforth never to send a needy man from the door unrefreshed.
+
+One of his friends who was at the banquet was immensely pleased that
+this betrayer of the people should have so exposed himself.  "You
+understood?  The story was nothing but an attack on the possessors of
+property."
+
+"Let that be," said the host, and turned away.  Then he went and
+furnished the Prophet and His little band with provisions, gave Him
+directions for His journey, and pointed out how He could best avoid
+pursuers.  He looked after them for a long time.  "They have prophets
+on earth and do not heed them."  He would like to accompany this
+prophet.  His little soul had been caught by Him he had wished to catch.
+
+Things did not go so well with our fugitive in other places.  An evil
+slander about the Baptist was spread abroad--that he was a glutton and
+a wine-bibber!  Jesus heard of it, and said: "John the Baptist fasted.
+They said of him that he was possessed by a demon.  It is neither
+eating nor fasting that they object to in the prophets; it is the truth
+which they speak."
+
+Then they came to villages and farms where they wished to rest, but
+none would give them shelter.  This angered the Master.  The dust on
+the ground was not worthy to remain sticking to the feet of those who
+came to bring the Kingdom of God.  The heartless would be thrust aside!
+But anger was turned into pitiful love.  When a contrite man approached
+Him He raised him up with both arms, encouraged him, taught him to be
+kind, showed him the joy of life, and how to penetrate the sacred
+recesses of his own being--self-examination.
+
+Self-examination!  That is the everlasting guide Jesus gave to all who
+sought God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+At last Jesus and His followers reached the sea.  When it lay before
+them in its immensity, and the white-winged ships flew over the blue
+surface; when they saw in the far distance the line drawn between sky
+and water, and the firmament rising behind so darkly mysterious, their
+courage was renewed, and Simon proposed that they should sail across to
+the cheerful Greeks and the strong Romans.
+
+"Why not to the savage Gauls and the terrible Germans?" exclaimed
+Bartholomew, with some ill-temper at such an adventurous spirit.
+
+"Ever since I was a boy I longed to see Rome," said Simon.
+
+Jesus replied: "Seek your strength in your native land.  Here in the
+land of the prophets grows the tree among the branches of which will
+dwell the birds of heaven.  Then the winds will come and carry the
+seeds out into the whole world."
+
+The disciples who had not hitherto travelled much, found a new world in
+the harbours of Tyre and Sidon, a world of folk and wares from every
+quarter of the earth, strange people and strange customs.  They had
+never before seen men work with such industry in the warehouses, on the
+wharves, on the ships; yet others gave themselves up to continual
+idleness, trotting half-naked along the beach, begging with loud
+pertinacity in the harbour, or shamelessly basking in the sun.  Look!
+the lepers are limping about, complacently exhibiting their sores.  One
+of the disciples looked questioningly at the Master, wondering if He
+would heal them?  Then, perhaps, they would believe in Him.
+
+"You know quite well," He said reprovingly, "they would fain be healed
+and then believe, whereas I say they must believe in order to be
+healed."
+
+There were also to be seen in those towns nobles and kings from all
+lands surrounded by dazzling brilliance and gay trains; as others here
+haggled for spices, silks and furs, so they haggled for dignity and
+honour.  And there were wise and learned men from among all peoples;
+they made speeches, and talked in the public places in praise of their
+native prophets and gods.  The Hindoo praised his Brahma, the Magian
+shouted about sacred fire, the Semite spoke zealously for his Jehovah,
+the Egyptian sang the praises of his Osiris, the Greek extolled his
+Zeus, the Roman called on his Jupiter, and the German spoke in hoarse
+tones of his Wotan.  Magicians and astrologers were among them, and
+they boasted of their art and knowledge.  Naked saints stood on blocks
+of stone, flies and wasps buzzing round them, and still as statues they
+endured torments for the glory of their gods.  The disciples of Jesus
+saw and heard all this in astonishment, and were terrified to find
+there were so many gods.  When they were alone together with the Master
+in a cedar-grove near Sidon, one of them who had been deeply wrapt in
+thought said: "An idea has just occurred to me.  Whether it be Brahma
+the reposeful, or Osiris the shining, or Jehovah the wrathful, or Zeus
+the loving, or Jupiter the struggling, or Wotan the conqueror, or our
+God the Father--it occurs to me that it all comes to the same in the
+end."
+
+They were alarmed at this bold speech, and looked at the Master
+expecting an angry reproof.  Jesus was silent for a while, then said
+calmly: "Do good to those who hate you."
+
+They scarcely understood that with these words He marked the incredible
+difference between His teaching and all other doctrines.
+
+They were still speaking when a young man with a beardless face and
+insolent expression came riding by on a tall steed.  When he saw the
+group of Nazarenes he reined in his horse; it would scarcely stop,
+stamped with its legs on the ground, and threw its head snorting into
+the air.
+
+"Isn't this the man with the Kingdom of Heaven?" asked the rider
+contemptuously.
+
+James came forward quickly.  "Sir, stop your mocking.  How do you know
+that you will never need it?"
+
+"I?" said the arrogant cavalier.  "I need a Kingdom of Heaven that is
+not to be seen, heard, or understood!"
+
+"But felt, sir!"
+
+"Then that is He," exclaimed the horseman, pointing to Jesus.  "No,
+Nazarenes, I do not believe in your Heavenly Kingdom."
+
+To which Jesus replied; "Perhaps you will believe in My empty tomb."
+
+"We will see," said the cavalier, putting spurs to his horse so that it
+reared, and galloped off.  Soon all that the disciples saw was a cloud
+of dust.  Matthew looked searchingly at his comrades.  "Did you
+recognise him?  Wasn't it Saul, the dread weaver?  They were saying in
+the town yesterday that he was coming with a legion of soldiers to
+arrest the Nazarenes."
+
+Then they urged in terror; "Master, let us flee."
+
+He was not accustomed to flee before zealous Pharisees, but there was
+another reason for removing his innocent disciples from the atmosphere
+of these big cities.  Simon was always suggesting that it would be no
+bad thing to spend the coming Passover on the Tiber, for he felt less
+afraid of the heathens in Rome than of the Jews in Jerusalem.  He had
+no idea of what was before them.
+
+"Not in Rome," said Jesus, "but rather in Jerusalem will we eat the
+Paschal lamb."
+
+Soon after they wandered forth and left the noisy seaport behind them.
+As the roads became more and more unsafe, they climbed the rocks and
+took the way across the mountains.
+
+The gods came down from high Olympus, the Law came down from Sinai,
+Light came down from Lebanon.  For it was at Lebanon that the great
+revelation came, which my shrinking soul is now to witness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The following incident took place during the journey among the
+mountains of Lebanon.  One day they were resting under an old
+weather-beaten cedar.  The rain trickled through the bristling bush of
+needles from one branch to another on to the hats under the broad brims
+of which the men cowered, their legs drawn up under them, their arms
+crossed over their chests.  Tired and somewhat out of humour, they
+looked out into the damp mist against which the near summits and masses
+of rock stood out.  The hair and beards of the older men had turned
+grey, and even the faces of the younger seemed to have aged.  For their
+hardships had been great.  But the glow in their eyes was not quenched.
+They had laid aside their long staffs; the sacks which some carried on
+their backs were wrinkled and empty.  A little way off was a
+tree-trunk, so big that three men could hardly have encompassed it; the
+bark was white and rough, so that it seemed as if spirits had carved
+mysterious signs thereon in pure silver.  Jesus, a little apart from
+His disciples, was resting under this tree.  He was, as usual, without
+a hat, and His abundant nut-brown hair fell over His shoulders.  His
+indescribably beautiful face was paler than formerly.  He leaned
+against the trunk of the tree and closed His eyes.
+
+The disciples thought He slept, and in order not to wake Him they
+looked at one another and spoke in whispers.  Their hearts were full of
+the impressions of their late experiences.  They thought of the
+persecution in their native land, the attractiveness of the big world,
+and their ignorance of the future.  Many of them during this gloomy
+rest-time thought of their former lives.  Who is managing my boat?  Who
+tends my fruit-trees?  Who works in my workshop?  Who sits in the
+profitable toll-house?  Who is providing for my wife, my children?
+There had been a triumphant progress through the land and then a
+flight.  Men had not recognised the Master.  If He would only say
+distinctly and clearly who He was!  Meanwhile the outlook was
+desperate.  As if they had run after a demagogue, a traitor, an
+anti-Jew!  How could an anti-Jew be King of the Jews?  If He would only
+say who He was!
+
+Snow lay on the mountains.  The ice-wastes stretched down from the
+heights of Hermon.  If our travellers looked up to their summits they
+saw the wild ruggedness of their covering; if they looked downwards
+they saw abysses in which the water thundered.  An eagle flew through
+the solitude and vultures screamed in the storm-beaten cedars.  The men
+from the fertile plains of the Galilean Lake had never seen such wild
+nature.  Simon was so enchanted that he wanted to build huts there for
+himself, his comrades, and the Prophet.  The other disciples shuddered,
+and would gladly have persuaded the Master to return.  He pointed to
+the high mountains, and said: "What frightens you, My children?  When
+the races of men are becoming satiated and stupid, such wildness will
+refresh them."
+
+Simon and John nodded in agreement, but the others, as often was the
+case, did not understand what He--who spoke for all time--said.
+
+They wrapped themselves more closely in their cloaks, climbed up to
+where there was no path, and still went on their way.  The Master
+walked in front and they followed Him through briars, and over stones;
+it never came into their heads that He could miss the way.  At length,
+amid the bare rocks standing high above the cedar tops, they had to
+rest again.  Some of them, especially the young John, were almost
+exhausted.  Matthew dipped into his sack and drew forth a small crust
+of bread, showed it to his companions, and said softly, so that the
+Master, who was sitting on a stone higher up, might not hear: "That is
+all; if we do not soon light upon some human dwelling we must perish."
+
+Then Simon said: "I rely on Him Who has so often fed His people in the
+desert."
+
+"Words won't cure our hunger to-day," remarked Andrew, and was
+frightened at his own temerity.  Then Bartholomew put his hand on
+Matthew's arm and said: "Brother, give that bread to the Master."
+
+"Do you think I'm knave enough to eat it myself?" blazed up Matthew.
+He got up, went to the Master, and gave Him the bread.
+
+"Have you already eaten?" He asked.
+
+"Master, we are all satisfied."
+
+Jesus looked at him searchingly, and took the bread.
+
+Just at that moment a cry of delight broke from the men.  The mist had
+suddenly lifted; they could see far out into the sunny world.  And
+beneath them lay the blue, still plains, stretching away until they cut
+the sky.  Far off in the sky were clouds shining like the golden
+pinnacles of temples.  Along the shore lay a chain of villages, and
+then the sea, studded with sails.  The view was so extensive and so
+bright that they could not but rejoice.
+
+"From over there beyond the water came the heathens," said Matthew.
+
+"And over there will the Christians go," added Simon.
+
+"Who are the Christians?" asked Bartholomew.
+
+"The adherents of the Anointed."
+
+"They will go forth and destroy the Romans," said James.
+
+"Ssh!" they whispered, and laid their fingers on their lips.  "He does
+not like such talk."
+
+He did not seem to have heard them.  He had risen and was looking out
+in silence.  Then He turned to one and another to read in their faces
+how their spirits stood, whether they had lost heart or whether their
+courage was strengthened by the sight of the splendours of God by which
+they saw themselves surrounded.  Simon had become very thoughtful.  He
+pondered on the Master's words and on the miracle they had wrought in
+him.  Of all the wisdom that he had ever heard, none was so lofty and
+clear as this divine teaching.  It created a heaven which had not
+existed formerly.  And yet! why was one still so weak?  He had turned
+sidewards and thoughtfully nodded his head.
+
+"What trouble one has with his own people!" he murmured.  James laughed
+and said: "With your own people?  Who are they?  I see only one of your
+own people, and that is you yourself."
+
+"That's just the one who troubles me," said Simon.  "For, you know, the
+rascal is timid.  I can't forget that.  The suddenness overwhelms him.
+'Twas so for weeks down in Capernaum whenever the soldiers came near
+us, and in Sidon when that weaver suddenly appeared.  Oh, my friend and
+brother!  If it is a question of always sharing want and disgrace with
+Him, I am ready, I have courage for that.  But when I've to stand in
+absolute danger, my heart fails me.  Can such a one be fit to go with
+the Master?"
+
+"We are fishermen, not heroes," assented James.  "I do not know which
+needs more courage, a life of hardship or a swift death."
+
+"I must confess one thing to you, brothers," interposed Andrew.  "I am
+not clever--but I'm not satisfied.  Can anyone tell me what will become
+of us?"
+
+Simon's attention was diverted.  Brother Philip came up and plucked him
+by the sleeve.  He gave him a piece of bread.  Simon took it in order
+to give it to Matthew.
+
+"What is this?" he asked.
+
+"Philip gave it me, but I'm not wanting it."
+
+"But," said Matthew, "it is the piece of bread I just gave the Master."
+
+The piece of bread went round the circle, from Matthew to the Master,
+from Him to John, then on from one to the other until it returned to
+Matthew, When they were amazed to find that no one needed the bread,
+the Master smiled and said: "Now, you like to see miracles.  Here is
+one.  Twelve men fed with one piece of bread."
+
+"The bread did not do that, Lord.  The word did that."
+
+"No, friends; love did it."
+
+Single drops fell from the trees, others hung like long needles and
+sparkled.  Just as the sea lay spread out below, so the summits of the
+mountains were now revealed, the snow-peaks, and the pinnacles of rock,
+while the ice-fields were visible until near midnight.  The deep
+stillness and the softness in the air made the men dreamy.  Some were
+inclined to sleep.  Others thought of what the future might have in
+store for them, and thinking thereon suffered themselves to sink,
+untroubling, into the will of God.
+
+All at once Jesus raised His head a little, and said softly so that
+those nearest Him heard it: "You hear people talk about Me although
+they are silent in My presence.  What do they say?"
+
+The disciples were alarmed at the sudden question, and said: "People
+say all kinds of things."
+
+"What do they say about Me?  Whom do they say I am?"
+
+Then one answered: "They all take you for some one different.  They
+prefer to believe in the most unlikely things."
+
+But as he continued to look questioningly at them, they became
+communicative and told: "One says that you are the prophet Jeremiah;
+another that you are Elijah of whom they know that he was taken up to
+heaven in a fiery chariot.  Or they say you are John the Baptist whom
+Herod caused to be murdered."
+
+Then Jesus lifted His head still higher and said: "People say that, do
+they?  But you, now?  Who do you think I am?"
+
+That came like a thunderbolt.  They were all silent.  Surely He could
+see that they had followed Him, and knew why.  Could He not see into
+their thoughts?  Had He suddenly begun to doubt their faith in Him?  Or
+had He lost faith in Himself?  It is all so mysterious and terrifying.
+As they were silent He went on to say:
+
+"You attached yourselves to Me in innocent trustfulness, like men who
+spread their cloaks at My feet, and paid Me the honours of the Messiah.
+When I announced the Kingdom of God you were with Me.  And when some
+left Me because My way became dangerous, and My person contemned, you
+stayed with Me, and when My words were not fulfilled as you expected,
+leading not to worldly power but to humiliation, you still stayed with
+Me, followed Me into exile among the heathen, and into the desert
+hills.  Who am I, then, that you remain faithful to Me?"
+
+They were so moved that no one was able to utter a word.  Jesus
+continued:
+
+"I shall go down again to Galilee, but I shall find there no stone on
+which to rest My head in peace.  All who are with Me will be persecuted
+for My sake.  I shall go along the Jordan to Judaea, and up to
+Jerusalem, where My most powerful enemies are.  I shall confront them
+and pronounce judgment on them.  My words will pierce them, but My
+flesh will be in their power.  I shall suffer shame and disgrace and a
+contemptible death.  That will happen in a short time.  Will you still
+stay with Me?  Whence is your trust derived?  Who do you think I am?"
+
+Simon jumped up from the ground, and exclaimed loudly and clearly:
+"_You are Jesus the Christ!  You are the Son of the living God!_"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Solemnly it sounded forth to all eternity: Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
+
+He stood up straight.  Was there not a light round His head?  Did not
+the sky grow bright?  The men's eyes were dazzled so that they were
+obliged to shade them with their hands in order not to be blinded.  A
+sound came out of the light, a voice was heard: "He is My Son!  He is
+My beloved Son!"  They were beside themselves; their bodies were
+lifeless, for their souls were in the heights.  Then Jesus came down to
+them out of the light.  His countenance had a strange look; something
+extraordinary had passed over Him.  With outstretched arms He came
+slowly towards the disciples: "Simon!  Did you say that of yourself?
+It was surely an inspiration from above.  Such a faith is the
+foundation of the Kingdom of God; henceforth, then, you shall be named
+Peter, the rock.  I will found My community upon you, and what you do
+on earth in My name will hold good in heaven above."
+
+Simon looked round him.  "What?" he thought in the secret recesses of
+his heart, "am I raised above the others?  Are none of the brothers
+equal to me?  That is because I am humble."  Jesus turned to them all,
+and said: "Prepare yourselves, be strong; evil times are approaching.
+They will kill Me."
+
+As He said that, Simon Peter grasped His arm with both his hands, and
+exclaimed passionately: "In the name of God, Master, that shall not
+happen."
+
+Upon which Jesus said quickly and severely: "Get behind me, Satan!"
+
+They looked round them.  What a sudden change!  For whom were the hard
+words meant?  Simon knew; he went down and hid himself behind the young
+cedars.  There he wept and shook with grief.
+
+"John, He hates me!" muttered the disciple, and hid his face in his
+young companion's gown, for John had gone to comfort him.  "John!  It
+was my pride.  He sees our thoughts.  He hates me!"
+
+"No, Simon, He does not hate you; He loves you.  Think of what He said
+to you just before.  That about the rock.  You know what Jesus is.  You
+know how He has to pour cold water so that the fire of love may not
+consume Him.  And you must have touched on something that He Himself
+finds difficult.  I'm sure of it.  I believe that He is suffering
+something that we know nothing about.  It is as though He saw it was
+the Father's will that He should suffer and die.  He is young, He feels
+dismayed, and then you come and make the struggle harder for Him.
+Stand up, brother; we must be strong and cheerful and a support to Him."
+
+And when they gathered together, prepared for further journeying, Jesus
+looked round the circle of His faithful adherents, and said, with
+solemn seriousness: "In a short time you will see Me no more.  I go to
+the Father.  I build my Kingdom upon your faith, firm as rock, and give
+you all the keys of heaven.  With God, heaven and earth are one, and
+everything you do on earth is also done in heaven."
+
+That is what happened on one of the heights of Lebanon when Jesus
+rested there with His disciples.
+
+And then He went again to His native place, not to stay there, but to
+see it once more.  After days of hardships which they scarcely felt,
+and of want which they never perceived, they came down into the fertile
+plains, and the soft air was filled with scent of roses and of almond
+blossoms.  They found themselves once again in their native land, where
+they were treated with such contempt that they had to avoid the high
+roads and take the side paths.  When they were passing through a ravine
+near Nazareth, they stopped under the scanty shade of some olive trees.
+They were tired, and lay down under the trees.  Jesus went on a little
+farther, where He could obtain a view of the place.  He sat down on a
+stone, leaned His head on His hand, and looked thoughtfully out over
+the country.  Something strange and hostile seemed to pervade it.  But
+He had not come in anger.  Something else remained to be done.  It was
+clear to Him that He Himself must be the pledge of the truth of His
+good tidings.
+
+A woman came toiling over the stones.  It was His mother.  She had
+heard how He had come down from the mountains with His disciples, and
+thought she would go through the ravine.  Now she stood before Him.
+Her face, grown thin with grief, was in the shade, since to protect
+herself from the sun she had thrown her long upper garment over her
+head.  A tress of her dark hair fell over one cheek; she pushed it back
+with one finger, but it always fell down again.  She looked shyly at
+her son, who was resting on a stone.  She hesitated to speak to Him.
+She advanced a step nearer, and as if nothing had ever separated them,
+said; "Your house is quite near, my child.  Why rest here in such
+discomfort?"
+
+He looked at her calmly.  Then he answered: "Woman, I would be alone."
+
+She gently answered: "I am quite alone now in the house."
+
+"Where are our relations?"
+
+"They wished to fetch you home, and have been away for weeks in search
+of you."
+
+Jesus pointed with a motion of His hand to His sleeping disciples:
+"They did not seek Me for weeks, they found Me the first day."
+
+As if she wished to prevent Him complaining again that His kinsmen did
+not understand Him, His mother said: "People have long been annoyed
+that work was no longer done in our workshop, and so they go to a new
+one which has been set up in our street."
+
+"Where is Aaron, the apprentice?"
+
+She replied: "It is not surprising that no one will stay if the
+children of the house depart."
+
+He spoke excitedly: "I tell you, woman, spare Me your reproaches and
+domestic cares.  I have something else to do."
+
+Then she turned to the rocky wall to hide her sobs.  After a while she
+said softly: "How can you be so cruel to your mother!  It's not for
+myself I complain; you may well believe.  All is over for me in this
+world.  But you!  You bring misfortune on the whole family, and will
+yourself destroy everything.  By your departed father, by your unhappy
+mother, I implore you to let the faith of your fathers alone.  I know
+you mean well, but others do not understand that, and nothing you do
+will avail.  Let people be happy in their own way.  If formerly they
+went to Abraham, they will continue to find their way to him without
+your help.  Don't interfere with the Rabbis; that never pays.  Think of
+John the Baptist!  Every one is saying that they are lying in wait for
+you.  Oh, my beloved child, they will disgrace you, and kill you!"  She
+clutched the rock convulsively with her fingers, and could say no more
+for bitter weeping.
+
+Jesus turned His head to her, and looked at her.  And when her whole
+body shook with sobs, He rose and went to her.  He took her head in
+both His hands and drew it towards Him.
+
+"Mother! mother!--mother!"  His voice was dull and broken: "You think I
+do not love you.  I am sometimes obliged to be thus harsh, for
+everything is against Me, even My own kith and kin.  But I must fulfil
+the will of the Heavenly Father.  Dry your tears; see, I love you, more
+than any human heart can understand.  Because the mother suffers double
+what the child suffers, so is your pain greater than that of Him who
+must sacrifice Himself for many.  Mother!  Sit down on this stone so
+that I may once again lay My head in your lap.  It is My last rest."
+
+So He laid His head on her knees, and she stroked His long hair
+tenderly.  She was so happy, in the midst of her grief, so absolutely
+happy, that He should lie on her breast as He did when a child.
+
+But He went on, speaking gently and softly; "I have preached to the
+people in vain about faith in Me.  I need not preach to you, for a
+mother believes in her child.  They will all testify against Me.
+Mother, do not believe them.  Believe your child.  And when the hour
+comes for Me to appear with outstretched arms, not on earth and not in
+heaven, believe then in your child.  Be sure then that your carpenter
+has built the Kingdom of God.  No, mother, do not weep; look up with
+bright eyes.  Your day will be everlasting.  The poor, those forsaken
+by every heaven, will pour out their woes to you, the blessed, the rich
+in grace!  All the races of the earth will _praise_ you!"  He kissed
+her hair, He kissed her eyes, and sobbed Himself.  "And now go, mother.
+My friends are waking.  They must not see Me cast down."
+
+He arose from this sweet rest.  The disciples raised their heads one
+after another.
+
+"Did you get some rest, Master?" asked Simon.
+
+He answered: "Better rest than you had."
+
+A messenger who had been sent out returned with a basket, and they paid
+him with a little gold ring, the last to be found on the fingers of the
+wanderers.  They ate, and rejoiced over God's beautiful world and its
+gifts, and then prepared for further wanderings, Whither?  Towards the
+metropolis.
+
+Mary stood behind the rocks and gazed after Him as long as He was
+visible in the haze of the Galilean sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+And so they made their way towards Jerusalem for the celebration of the
+Passover.  Long ago Moses had delivered the Jews from bondage in Egypt,
+and led them back to their native land.  In grateful remembrance many
+thousands assembled every year at Jerusalem at the time of the first
+full moon of spring, made a pilgrimage to the Temple, and, according to
+the ancient custom, ate of the Paschal lamb, with bitter herbs, and
+bread made without yeast, as once they ate manna in the wilderness.  At
+such an assembly there was of course much commerce and show.  The
+execution of criminals took place at that time, so that people were
+sure of one terrible spectacle in accordance with the words of the
+Rabbis in the Temple who said; He who breaks the Law shall be punished
+according to the Law.
+
+"I should like to see such a thing once," said the disciple Thaddeus to
+his comrades as they went along.  "I mean such a punishment."
+
+"You'll easily find an opportunity in Jerusalem," replied Andrew; and
+added with light mockery, "to see criminals impaled is the correct
+merry-making for poor men.  It costs nothing.  And yet I do not know a
+costlier pleasure."
+
+"How is the impaling done?" Thaddeus wanted to know.
+
+"That's easily described," Matthew informed them.  "Think of an upright
+post planted in the earth and a cross-beam near the top.  The poor
+sinner is bound naked to it, his arms stretched out.  When he has hung
+there in the people's eyes for a while, they break his legs with a
+club.  For very serious crimes they sometimes fasten the limbs to the
+post with iron nails."
+
+Thaddeus turned aside in horror.  "May it never be my lot to look on at
+such a thing."
+
+"Do not imagine that such talk is a jest," said another.  "Every one
+implores God that such a doom may never befall any of his relations or
+friends.  We are all poor sinners.  When our Master establishes His
+Kingdom this horrible mode of death will be abolished.  Don't you think
+so?"
+
+"Then all modes of death will be abolished," said Simon Peter.  "Are
+you asleep when He speaks of eternal life?"
+
+"But He says Himself that they will slay Him."
+
+"That they wish to slay Him He means.  Just wait till He once shows
+them His power!"
+
+So they often talked together, half in pleasantry, half in simplicity,
+but always behind the Master's back.
+
+A change had come over Jesus since the events on the high mountain.  It
+was as if He had now become quite clear about His divine call, as if He
+had only now fully realised that He was God's messenger, the Son of the
+Heavenly Father, summoned from eternity to go down to earth to awake
+men and save them for a life of bliss with God.  He felt that the power
+of God had been given Him to judge souls.  The devils fled before Him,
+He was subject to no human power.  He broke with the history of His
+degraded people; He annulled the ancient writings, falsified by priests
+and learned men.  He recognised that in His unity with the Heavenly
+Father and Eternal God, He was Lord of all power in heaven and on earth.
+
+So it was with Him since that hour of light on the mountain.  But the
+knowledge of all this made Him still more humble as a man on whom such
+an immense burden had been laid, and still more loving towards those
+who were sunken in measureless poverty, distress and subjection,
+resigned to their fate of being lost in blindness and defiance, and yet
+full of wistful longing for salvation.
+
+The relations between Him and His disciples had also changed since that
+day.  Formerly, although they had treated Him with respect they had
+always been on familiar terms with Him.  Now they were more submissive,
+more silent, and their respect had become reverence.  With some, love
+had almost become worship.  And yet they always fell back into
+unruliness and timidity.  There was one especially who disagreed with
+much.  When, in order to avoid the high roads, they went through the
+barren district on the other side of Jordan, and endured all sorts of
+hardships and privations, the disciple Judas could not forbear uttering
+his thoughts.  He had nothing to do now as treasurer of the little
+band, so he had plenty of time to spread discouragement behind the
+Master's back.  Why should not the Messiah's train of followers appear
+in fitting brilliance?  He explained what Jesus taught about death as
+implying that when the beggar prophet died, the glorious Messiah would
+appear!  But why first in Jerusalem?  Why should they not assume their
+high position in the interval; why were the honours of the new era not
+already allotted?
+
+Jesus' popularity had increased once more, and in the more thickly
+inhabited districts the people hurried together.  "The Prophet is
+passing through!"  They streamed forth bringing provisions with them,
+and the sick and crippled came imploring Him to heal them.  He accepted
+enough to meet His immediate needs from the store that was offered Him,
+but He did not work the desired miracles.  He forbade His disciples
+even to speak of them.  He was angry with the crowd who would not
+believe without miracles, and would not understand the signs of the
+times.  "Directly they see a cloud rise in the west they say: It's
+going to rain.  If a south wind blows they know that it is going to be
+hot.  But they do not understand the signs of a new world uprising.  If
+they cannot understand the spiritual tokens, they cannot have others.
+They would fain see the sign of Jonah, who lay three days in the
+whale's belly?  Be it so.  They shall see how the Son of Man, after
+being buried for three days, shall live again."
+
+Judas shook his head over such talk.  "That doesn't help much."  But
+the others, especially John, James and Simon, did not think about the
+kingdom of the Messiah, or about earthly power; their hearts were
+filled with love for the Master.  Yet they, too, had their own
+temptations.  They often talked together of that other world where
+Jesus would be Eternal King, and where they--they who firmly adhered to
+Him--would share His glory.  And in all seriousness they dreamed of the
+offices and honours that would be theirs, and actually disputed who
+among them would hold the highest rank.  Each boasted of his own
+achievements.  James had brought Him the most friends in Galilee.
+Simon rested his claim on the fact that he had been the first to
+recognise in Him the Son of God.  John reminded them that he came from
+the same place, and had once worked with Him as carpenter's apprentice.
+John might have said that the Master was especially fond of him, but he
+did not say so.  Simon, on the contrary, put forward most emphatically
+the fact that the Master had called him the rock on which He should
+found His community.
+
+When Jesus noticed how they were disputing He went to them and asked
+what they were discussing so eagerly.
+
+"Master," said James boldly, "you come to us as if we had called you.
+We want to know who among your disciples will be first in the Eternal
+Kingdom.  See, brother John and I would like to be nearest you, one on
+your right hand, the other on your left, so that we may have you
+between us then as we have you now."
+
+Upon which Jesus said: "This is not the first time that you have talked
+thus foolishly.  You don't know what you want.  I tell you, when you
+have done what I do, and have suffered what I shall suffer, then you
+may come and ask."
+
+They replied: "Lord, we will do what you do and suffer what you suffer."
+
+These resolute words pleased Him, and He said nothing of the enormous
+distance between Him and them.  They were too simple to understand
+that.  He only said: "Leave that to Him who will show you your place.
+For every ruler has rulers over him; One alone has no authority above
+Him.  Consider: if a servant has worked hard and faithfully, he will
+not therefore in the evening sit at the upper end of the table and
+begin to eat before his master, but he will first prepare his master's
+food, and place a footstool under his feet.  And so it is with you.
+Whoso would be greatest must serve the others.  I, too, have come not
+to be ministered to but to minister, and to sacrifice Myself for others
+and to give My life a ransom for many."
+
+It alarmed them that He should speak more and more often of giving up
+His life.  What did it mean?  If he perished Himself how could He save
+others?  That might occur in saving people from fire or from drowning,
+but how could a man free a people and lead it to God by sacrificing his
+life?  True, the heathens had their human sacrifices.  Judas had his
+own ideas about the matter.  The Master was depressed by failure, or He
+merely wished to test His adherents, to find out if they had strength
+enough to follow Him through thick and thin.  If only He could be
+entirely sure of that, then He would hasten like the lightnings of
+heaven to annihilate the enemy and glorify His own adherents.  If, as
+He Himself had said, faith was so strong that it could remove
+mountains, it would be quite easy for Him to show His power at the
+propitious moment.
+
+This firm belief of Judas made the disciple Thomas remember the
+Master's actual words about faith: Whosoever says to the mountain,
+Depart, and cast yourself into the sea, and does not doubt but
+_believes_ that it happens, for him it will happen.  Mark, _for him_ it
+will happen.  Whether others who do not believe will see the mountain
+fall into the sea He did not say.
+
+"Then, brother Thomas," said Bartholomew, "you think things that happen
+through faith happen only for him who believes.  They form only an
+inward experience, but real enough for him, because he sees them happen
+with his spiritual eye.  But they are not real for others.  If that's
+the case, my friend, we should be lost.  Jesus may believe that the
+enemy fall, Jesus may see them fall; all the same they still live and
+live to destroy us."
+
+"That is cheap logic," said the resolute Judas.  "Every one has seen
+how He made the lame to walk and the dead to live; even those who did
+not believe.  Take heed!  If only the Master would make some outward
+demonstration of His power you should see what He could do."
+
+Others were of that opinion, so they followed--followed their Messiah.
+
+But during their long wandering over the bad roads of the desert and
+over the fertile plains they suffered continual distress.  Although
+they had now been some time in the plains they were not always in good
+humour.  They saw how the Master renounced the power and pleasure of
+the world and yet walked the earth strong and cheerful.  It was only
+later that they understood how the two things could be reconciled.  He
+enjoyed what was harmless if it did not hurt others, but He attached
+little value to it.  His bodily senses were all He needed to recognise
+the Father's power in nature, and to be happy in that knowledge.  He
+did not deny the world; He spiritualised it and made it divine.  The
+things of earth were to Him the building-stones for the Kingdom of
+Heaven.  So, in spite of increasing doubt, the disciples always found
+that things came right, and they, too, determined to despise the world
+and to love their simple life.
+
+One day they came to a place in which there was great activity.  Men
+were ploughing in the fields, hammering in the workshops, lithe carmen
+and slow camel-drivers were driving hard bargains.  And it was the
+Sabbath!  "Did heathens dwell here?" the disciples asked.  No; it was a
+Jewish village, and the inhabitants were so pious that they seldom let
+a Passover go by without going up to Jerusalem.  Many years ago they
+had heard a young man speak words in the Temple which they had never
+forgotten.  "Men should work on the Sabbath if it was for the good of
+their fellows," the young man had preached with great impressiveness.
+Now, it is generally admitted that all work is for the good of the
+individual and also of the community.  So they began there and then,
+and had never since stopped working for a single day.  The result was
+great local prosperity.
+
+When Jesus saw how His words at Jerusalem on that occasion had been so
+utterly misunderstood or were misapplied through a desire for gain, He
+was filled with indignation, and began to speak in the market-place: "I
+tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken from these lovers of gain and
+given to a people more worthy of it.  For the good of one's fellow-men?
+Does good depend on the property a man possesses?  Property is harmful
+to men; it hardens their hearts, and makes them continually fearful of
+loss and death.  And you call that good!  There was once a rich man who
+after years of toiling and moiling had his barns full, and thought: Now
+I can rest and enjoy life.  But the next night he died, and the
+property to gain which he had destroyed body and soul he had to leave
+to those who quarrelled and disputed over it and mocked at him.  I tell
+you, if you gain the whole world and lose your soul--all is lost."
+
+When He had so spoken a very old man came up to Him and said: "Rabbi,
+you are poor, and it is easy for you to talk.  You do not know how
+difficult it is for a rich man to cease adding to his wealth.  Oh, the
+delightful time I had when I was poor!  Then I began to get money
+unawares, was glad of it, and began to fear I might lose it.  And then
+as the needs of my family increased more quickly than my means, I
+thought my money was not sufficient, and the more one had the more one
+required.  I am now an old man; I possess thirty sacks full of gold,
+and I know that I cannot enjoy my wealth any more.  But I cannot stop
+gaining and amassing.  I could sooner stop breathing."
+
+Jesus told the old man a little story: "Some children by the roadside
+attacked a strange boy for the sake of some broken potsherds which they
+were collecting.  But when they had got a great heap together the
+roadman came along, and with his spade threw the pieces into the
+gutter.  The children raised a great cry.  But the man saw that there
+was blood on some of the fragments, and asked: 'Where did you get these
+from?'  Whereupon the children grew pale with terror, and the man took
+them off to the magistrate."
+
+The old man understood.  He went away and compensated all who had come
+to harm through him, and then on his way home he started once more to
+amass treasure!
+
+The next day Jesus and His followers reached another village.  There
+all was quiet, and the inhabitants lay under the fig-trees although it
+was not the Sabbath.  Then Jesus asked: "Why do they not work?"
+
+And one of the villagers said: "We should like to work, but we have no
+tools.  We want spades, ploughs, sickles, and axes, but our smith is
+always making holiday.  And it is just he who makes the best knives.
+There are no other smiths here."
+
+Our wanderers then went to the smith.  The man was sitting in his room,
+reading the Holy Scriptures and praying.  One of the disciples asked
+him why he was not at work although it was a week-day.
+
+The smith replied: "Since I heard the Prophet it is always Sabbath with
+me.  For a man should not strive after material property, neither
+should he take any care for the morrow, but seek the Kingdom of Heaven."
+
+Then Jesus went to the entrance of the house, and told, so that the
+smith could hear Him, of the man who made a journey.  "Before he
+departed he called his servants together and gave them money with which
+to carry on the work of the house.  He gave the first five heavy pieces
+of gold, the second two, and the third one.  They were to keep house
+according to their own discretion.  When after a long time the master
+returned, he desired his servants to account for the way in which they
+had employed the money.  The first had increased it tenfold.  'I am
+glad,' said the master, 'and because you are faithful in little I will
+trust you much--keep the gold.'  The second servant had increased the
+money twofold; the master praised him also, and gave him both principal
+and interest.  Then he asked the third servant what he had done with
+his money.  'Master,' replied the man, 'it wasn't much to begin with,
+so I wouldn't risk losing it.  I should have liked to gain a second
+gold piece, but I might have lost the first.  So I did not use it for
+the housekeeping, but buried it in a safe place, so that I could
+faithfully return it to you.'  Then the master snatched the gold piece
+from him and gave it to the fellow who had increased his money tenfold.
+'The little that he has shall be taken away from the lazy and
+unprofitable servant and given to him who knows how to value what he
+has.'"
+
+"Do you understand?" Matthew asked the smith.  "The gold pieces are the
+talents which God gives men--to some more, to others less.  Whoso lets
+his talents lie fallow, and does not use them, is like the man who has
+strength and skill to work the iron, but who lays the hammer aside to
+brood idly over writings he cannot understand."
+
+"How is it then," said someone, "fault is found with him who works, and
+likewise with him who doesn't work?"
+
+Matthew tapped the speaker on the shoulder.  "My friend!  Everything at
+the right time! the point is to do that for which you have a talent,
+not to yearn after things for which you have no talent whatsoever."
+
+The smith laid aside his book and his phylacteries and grasped his
+hammer.
+
+Then a man came by who complained that the new teaching was worthless.
+He had followed it, had given away all his possessions because they
+brought him care.  But since he had become poor, he had had still more
+care.  So now he should begin to earn again.
+
+"Do so," said James the younger, "but take care that your heart is not
+so much in it that your possessions possess you!"
+
+And others came: "Sir, I am a ship's carpenter!  Sir, I am a goldsmith!
+Sir, I am a stone-cutter!  Are we not to put our whole heart into our
+work so as to produce something worthy?  If our heart is not in it we
+cannot do good work."
+
+"Of course," said the disciple, "you must exert your whole strength and
+talent in order to produce worthy work.  But not for the sake of the
+work or the praise, but for the sake of God and the men whom you serve.
+And rejoice from your hearts that God creates His works through you."
+
+A rustic once came to James and discussed prayer.  The Master said you
+should pray in few words and not, as the heathens do, in a great many
+words, for the Father knows our needs.  Well, he had once prayed just
+in that way, using few words, but his prayer had not been heard.
+
+Then James said: "Don't you remember what the Master said of the man to
+whose door a friend came in the night and begged for bread?  He had
+gone to bed, took no heed of his friend's knocking, and at length
+called out: 'Go away and let me sleep.'  But the friend continued to
+knock and to complain that he needed bread, and began noisily to shake
+the door.  That lasted until the man in bed could endure it no longer.
+Out of temper, he got up, took some bread and gave it to his friend
+through the window.  He did not give it him out of love, but only to be
+rid of him.  The Master meant that with perseverence much might be
+attained by prayer."
+
+The man was irritated by the disciple's explanation, and said; "What!
+One time He says, Pray shortly, using few words; and at another time,
+You must not leave off praying until you are heard."
+
+But James replied: "Friend, you misunderstand me again.  Did He say,
+You shall pray little?  No; He said, You shall pray in few words; but
+without ceasing, and with your whole heart, and with faith that the
+Father will at length hear you.  And the longer He keeps you waiting
+for His help, the greater must be your faith that He knows why He keeps
+you waiting, and at last He will give you more than you asked for.  If
+that man gave the bread in order to be rid of the annoyance, how much
+more will the Father give the child whom He loves?"
+
+To which the man replied: "Well, I did pray thus, I kept on and I
+believed, and yet I was not heard."
+
+"What did you pray for?"
+
+"For this," said the rustic.  "I have a neighbour who steals the figs
+from my tree, and I can't catch him at it.  So I prayed that he might
+fall from the tree and break his legs.  But I was not heard."
+
+James was obliged to laugh aloud over the foolish fellow who prayed to
+the merciful Father for vengeance.
+
+"Pray for strength to pardon your neighbour and give him the figs which
+he seems to need more than you, and you will certainly be heard."
+
+"And," continued the disciple, "if it is a question of praying without
+ceasing, that does not mean you are always to be folding your hands and
+uttering pious words; it is rather to direct one's thoughts continually
+with longing to the dwelling of God and things eternal, and to measure
+everything in life, small things as well as great, by that standard, in
+reverence and faith."
+
+A noisy fellow asked: "How can I measure the corn I have to sell by
+that standard?"
+
+"If you refrain from taking advantage of the buyer with mixed, damp
+grain, but give him good stuff, then you are doing God's will, and are
+not harming your immortal soul by deceit, then your corn and your
+method of acting are measured by the standard of God and Eternity."
+
+"But see," exclaimed another, "my business friend gave me bad measure
+when he sold me oil, and gave me half water.  And it stands in the
+Scriptures: As it is measured to you, so shall you measure it again."
+
+As they walked on Jesus shook His head.  To think that His simple
+teaching could meet with so much misunderstanding, especially among
+those wanting in will towards it, those who could think of nothing but
+their desires and bodily comforts!  "No," He exclaimed sorrowfully,
+"they do not understand the word.  They must have an illustration that
+they can see and feel, an illustration they will never forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Gradually they were reaching the end of their journey.  They met with
+no persecution during this last stretch.  Indeed, they rather saw how
+some of the seeds, although mingled with weeds, had taken root.  They
+reached the last hills after a night in which they had encamped under
+sycamore and fig trees.  Jesus was walking in front.  Although He was
+exhausted with the long wandering, and His feet almost refused their
+office, He still walked on ahead.  The disciples came behind, and when
+they reached the top of the hill they gave a great cry.  There opposite
+them on the tableland of the other hill lay the metropolis!  In the
+morning sun it looked as if built of burnished gold, Solomon's Temple
+with its innumerable pinnacles overtopping everything.
+
+Several of the disciples had never before been to Jerusalem, and a
+feeling of inspired reverence came over them at the sight of the Holy
+City of the kings and prophets.  Here--so thought Judas and many
+another--here will the glory begin for us.  They sat down under the
+olive-trees to rest and to put their clothes in order, while some even
+anointed their hair.  Then they ate figs and the fruit of the currant
+bushes.  But they were anxious about the Master.  The exertions of the
+last few weeks had told on Him, and His feet were very sore.  But He
+said nothing.  The disciples agreed that they could not let this go on
+any longer.  James went down the slope to where he saw some cottages,
+and asked if anyone had a riding horse or at least a camel on which a
+traveller could ride into the town.  They would like to borrow it.
+
+A little bent old man sidled up to the stranger and assured him with
+much eloquence that neither horse nor camel was to be had, but that
+there was an ass.  Yet that ass was not to be had either.
+
+Could the Messiah make His entry on an ass?  No, we could not begin
+like that.  Such was the disciple's first thought.  Then it occurred to
+him that ancient prophets had foretold: He would make His entry on an
+ass.  Whereupon James declared himself willing to take the ass.
+
+"You may want him and I mayn't give him," said the old man with a
+cunning laugh.  "If anything happened to this animal I should never get
+over it.  It is no ordinary ass, my friend!"
+
+"It is no ordinary rider who needs him," said James.
+
+The little old man took the disciple to the stable.  The animal stood
+by the manger, and was certainly of a good breed.  It was not gray, but
+rather bright brown and smooth, with slender legs, pretty,
+sharp-pointed ears, and long whiskers round its big intelligent eyes.
+
+"Isn't it the colour of a thoroughbred Arab?" said the old man.
+
+"It's a beautiful creature," assented James.  "Will you lend it for a
+silver piece and much honour?  It can easily be back by noon."
+
+To which the little old man replied: "It stands to reason that we can
+make something out of it during this time of visitors.  Let us make it
+two silver pieces."
+
+"One silver piece and honour!"
+
+"Let us make it two silver pieces without honour," haggled the little
+old man.  "A steed for princes, I tell you.  In the whole of Judaea you
+won't find such another beauty!  It is of noble descent, you must know."
+
+"We can dispense with that honour," said James, "if only it does not
+stumble."
+
+Then the old man related how in the year of Herod's massacre of the
+innocents--"a little over thirty years ago, I think--you must know that
+the Infant Messiah lay in a stable at Bethlehem with the ox and the
+ass.  The child rode away into foreign lands, as far as Egypt, they
+say, on that very ass.  And this ass is descended from that one."
+
+"If that's so," said James brightly, "it's a marvellous coincidence!"
+And he whispered softly in the old man's ear: "The man who will enter
+Jerusalem to-day on that ass is the Messiah who was born in the stable."
+
+"Is it Jesus of Nazareth?" asked the old man.  "I will hire the animal
+to Him for half a silver piece.  In return I shall implore Him to heal
+my wife, who has been rheumatic for years."
+
+So they made their compact, and James led the ass up the mountain where
+they were all sitting together, unable to gaze long enough at
+Jerusalem.  Only Jesus was wrapt in thought and looked gloomily at the
+shining town.
+
+"Oh, Jerusalem!" He said softly to Himself.  "If only thou wouldst heed
+this hour.  If thou wouldst recognise wherein lies thy salvation.  But
+thou dost not recognise it, and I foresee the day when cruel enemies
+will pull down thy walls so that not one stone remains upon another."
+
+John placed his cloak on the animal, and Jesus mounted it.  He rode
+down to the valley followed by His disciples.
+
+And then an extraordinary thing happened.  When they reached the valley
+of Kedron where the roads cross, people hurried up shouting: "The King
+is coming!  The Son of David is coming!"  Soon others ran out of the
+farms and the gardens, and kept alongside them at the edge of the road,
+shouting: "It is the Messiah!  God be praised.  He has come!"
+
+No one knew who had spread the news of His arrival, or who first
+shouted the word Messiah.  Perhaps it was Judas.  It caught on like
+wildfire, awaking cries of acclamation everywhere.  When Jesus rode up
+to the town, the crowd was so great that the ass could only pace slowly
+along, and after He had passed the town gate the streets and squares
+could scarcely contain the people.  The whole of Jerusalem had suddenly
+become aware that the Prophet of Nazareth had come!  Strangers from the
+provinces, who had already seen and heard Him in other places, pressed
+forward.  Now that He entered the metropolis with head erect and the
+cry of the Messiah filling the air, people who had scorned the poor
+fugitive were proud of Him and boasted of meetings with Him, of His
+acquaintance.  Hands were stretched out to Him.  Many cast their
+garments on the ground for the ass to step on.  They greeted Him with
+olive and palm branches, and from hundreds of throats sounded: "All
+hail to Thee!  All hail to Thee!  Welcome, Thou long-expected, eagerly
+desired Saviour!"  The police, with their long staves, made a way
+through the streets that led to the golden house, to the king's palace.
+From all doors and windows they shouted: "Come into my house!  Take
+shelter under my roof, Thou Saviour of the people!"  The crowd poured
+forward to the palace.  The disciples, who walked close behind Him and
+could scarcely control their agitation, were surrounded, overwhelmed,
+fanned with palm-leaves, pelted with rose-buds.  Simon Peter had been
+recognised as soon as the Master, and could not prevent the people
+carrying him on their shoulders; but he bent down and implored them to
+set him on the ground, for he did not wish to be lifted higher than the
+Master, and he feared if they held him up like that over the heads of
+the others many would take him for the Messiah.  John had managed
+better; bending down and breathing heavily, he led the animal, so that
+the people only took him for a donkey-driver.  All the rest of the
+disciples enjoyed the Master's honours as their own.  Had they not
+faithfully shared misery with Him!
+
+"Jerusalem, thou art still Jerusalem!" they said, intoxicated and
+filled with the storm of exultation around Him.  "However well it went
+with us, it has never gone so well as here in Jerusalem."
+
+Judas could not congratulate himself enough that, despite the poor
+procession, the Master was recognised.  "I always said He would work
+His miracle when the time came."
+
+"Well, I am full of fears," said Thomas.  "They shout far too loudly.
+The sounds come from the throat, not from the heart."
+
+"Oh, take yourself off.  You're always full of foreboding."
+
+"I understand people a little.  Idle townsfolk are easily pleased; they
+like to enjoy themselves, and any cause serves their turn."
+
+"Thomas," said Matthew reprovingly, "It is not your humility that makes
+you heedless of the honour.  It is doubt.  See that fat shopkeeper
+there who brings more faith out of his throat.  Listen!  'Hail to Thee,
+Son of David!' he shouts, and is already hoarse through his loud
+shrieks of joy."
+
+Thomas did not answer.  Stooping down in irritation, he hastened
+through the crowd.  Cries of welcome filled the whole town, and the
+streets along which the procession took its way were like animated palm
+groves.  All traffic was at a standstill, windows and roofs were filled
+with people, all stretching their necks to see the Messiah.
+
+Jesus sat on the animal, both feet on the one side, holding the reins
+with His right hand.  He looked calmly and earnestly in front of Him,
+just as if He was riding through the dust clouds of the wilderness.
+When the pinnacles of the royal castle towering above the roofs of the
+houses were in front of Him, He turned the animal into a side street,
+to the Temple square.  Two guards at the entrance to the Temple signed
+violently with their arms to the crowd to go away, but the people
+remained standing there.  The procession stopped, and Jesus got off the
+ass.
+
+"He is not going to the palace, but to the Temple?" many asked in
+surprise.  "To the Temple?"
+
+"To the Rabbis and Pharisees?  Then we'll see what we shall see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Jesus, with serious determination, quickly ascended the steps of the
+Temple, without even glancing at the shouting people.  A part of the
+crowd pressed after Him, the rest gradually dispersed.  But the shout:
+"Praised be He who has come to-day!" never ceased the whole day.
+
+When he entered the forecourt of the Temple and looked in.  He stood
+still in dismay.  It was full of life and movement.  Hundreds of people
+of all kinds were tumbling over each other's heels, in gay-coloured
+coats, in hairy gowns, with tall caps and flat turbans.  They were all
+offering goods for sale with cries and shrieks; there were spread out
+carpets, candlesticks, hanging lamps, pictures of the Temple and of the
+ark of the covenant, fruit, pottery, phylacteries, incense, silken
+garments, and jewels.  Money-changers vaunted their high rate of
+exchange, the advantage of Roman money, broke open their rolls of gold
+and let the pieces fall slowly into the scales in order to delight the
+eyes of the pilgrims.  Buyers made their way through, looked scornfully
+at the goods, haggled, laughed, and bought.  Rabbis glided round in
+long caftans and soft shoes so that they were not heard.  They wore
+velvet caps on their heads below which hung their curly black or grey
+hair.  They carried large parchment scrolls under their arms--for the
+Sabbath was about to begin--slipped around with a dignified yet cunning
+manner, bargained here and there with shopkeepers or their wives,
+vanished behind the curtains and then reappeared.
+
+When Jesus had for some time observed all this confusion from the
+threshold, anger overcame Him.  Pushing the traders aside with His
+arms, He cut Himself a way through.  At the nearest booth He snatched
+up a bundle of phylacteries, swung them over the heads of the crowd,
+and exclaimed so loudly that His voice was heard above everything: "Ye
+learned teachers and ye Temple guards, see how admirably you understand
+the letter of the Word!  It is written in the Scriptures: My house is
+for prayer!  And you have turned Solomon's Temple into a bazaar!"
+Hardly had He so spoken when He overturned a table with His hand, and
+upset several benches with His foot so that the goods fell in confusion
+to the ground under the feet of the crowd which began to give way.
+They stared at one another speechless, and He continued to thunder
+forth: "My house shall be a holy refuge for the downcast and the
+suffering, said the Lord.  And you make it a den of assassins, and,
+with your passion for lucre, leave no place for men's souls.  Out with
+you, ye cheats and thieves, whether you higgle over your goods or with
+the Scriptures!"  He swung the phylacteries high over the Rabbis and
+teachers so that they bent their heads and fled through the curtained
+entrances.  But the Rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Temple guards
+assembled in the side courts, and quickly took counsel how they were to
+seize this madman and render Him harmless.  For see, ever more people
+streamed through the gates into the forecourt, surrounded the angry
+Prophet, and shouted: "Praised be Thou, O Nazarene, who art come to
+cleanse the Temple!  Praise and all hail to Thee, long-looked-for
+Saviour!"
+
+When the Rabbis saw how things were going, they too raised their voices
+and shouted: "Praised be the Prophet!  Hail to thee, O Nazarene!"
+
+"All is won!" whispered the disciples, crowding up together.  "Even the
+Rabbis shout!"
+
+The Rabbis, however, had quickly sent for the police; they came up to
+Jesus and, as soon as the crowd became quieter, entered into
+conversation with Him.
+
+"Master," said one of them, "truly you appear at the right time.  The
+condition of our poor people is such that we know not which way to
+turn.  You are the man who turns aside neither to right nor left, but
+who keeps in the straight path of justice.  Tell us what you think:
+Shall we Jews pay taxes to the Roman Emperor or shall we refuse?"
+
+Jesus saw what they were driving at, and asked to be shown a coin.
+They were surprised that He had no money in His pockets, and handed Him
+one of the Roman coins current in the country.
+
+"From whom do these coins come?" He asked.
+
+"As you see, from the Roman Emperor."
+
+"And whose picture is on the coin?"
+
+"The Emperor's."
+
+"And whose is the inscription on the coin?"
+
+"The Emperor's."
+
+"Whose is the coin?"
+
+They were silent.
+
+Jesus said: "Render unto God what comes from Him, and unto Caesar what
+comes from Caesar."
+
+Those who saw through the case broke out into applause and shouting
+over the decision, and carried the crowd with them.  The Rabbis were
+secretly furious that He had escaped their cunning snare.  They had
+reckoned: If He says, Pay taxes to the Roman Emperor, the people will
+know that He is not the Messiah but rather a servant of the foreigner.
+And if He says, Do not pay taxes to the Emperor, He is a demagogue, and
+will be taken prisoner.  But now He has both Emperor and people on His
+side, and we must let Him alone.
+
+"Everything is going splendidly," the disciples whispered.  "They ask
+His advice, they will do nothing without Him."
+
+The interpreters of the Law had got Him in their midst, and could not
+rest till they outwitted Him.  So one of them asked Him: "Oh, man of
+great wisdom, do you believe that there will be a resurrection of the
+dead?"
+
+"There will be," He answered.
+
+"That marriage between man and woman is indissoluble, and that a woman
+may only have one husband at a time?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+"And that after the death of one the other may marry again?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"You are right, sir," interposed a third speaker.  "But suppose a woman
+had seven husbands one after another because they died one after
+another.  If they all rise from the dead the woman would have seven
+husbands at once, each is her lawful husband, and yet she may only have
+one."
+
+There was immense eagerness to hear what He would say, for the problem
+seemed insoluble.  And Jesus said: "He who asks that question knows
+neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.  The Scriptures promise us
+resurrection, and the power of God the eternal life of the soul.  There
+is no marriage between souls, so the question falls to the ground."
+
+There was fresh shouting and applause, and kerchiefs were waved from
+all sides.  The teachers of the Law drew back in ill-humour, and
+dismissed the police who were waiting in the back court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+After the excellent reception in Jerusalem, and the victory in the
+Temple on the first day, the disciples ventured to walk about the city
+fearlessly and openly.  Jesus remained grave and silent.  They put up
+in a quiet inn by the gate.  The disciples did not see why He should
+not have lodged them in a palace.  They would have liked occasionally
+to accept the invitation of rich people, and enjoy the homage that
+would be paid them, but Jesus would not permit it.  The festival of the
+Passover was at hand; there was something else to do than to be fêted
+and have their heads turned, they would soon need to have their heads
+very cool.  If He accepted any of the invitations it would be the one
+from Bethany, where He knew He had truer friends than in Jerusalem.
+But meanwhile He had something more to say in the Temple.
+
+When He went there the next day the hall was filled to overflowing with
+people, Rabbis, and expounders of the Law.  Some had come in order to
+witness His glorification, others to try and ruin Him.
+
+One of the Pharisees came up to Him and asked Him without any
+preliminaries which was the greatest commandment.
+
+Jesus ascended the pulpit and said; "I have just been asked which is
+the greatest commandment.  Now, I am not come to give new commandments,
+but to fulfil the old ones.  The greatest commandment is: Love God
+above all, and thy neighbour as thyself.  Those who asked Me, your
+teachers and interpreters of the Law, say the same, but their actions
+do not square with their words.  You may believe their words, but you
+must not imitate their deeds.  They exact the uttermost from you, but
+do not themselves stir a finger.  And what good they do, is done in the
+eyes of the people, so that they may win praise.  They like to take the
+first place at festivals, and to be greeted on all sides as the
+expounders of Holy Writ.  That honour they do not offer to God, but to
+themselves.  I tell you he who exalts himself will be cast down."
+
+Some of the Pharisees interrupted Him and contradicted Him.  He turned
+to them face to face, and in a louder voice said: "Yes, you expounders
+of Holy Writ, you seek to shine outwardly.  You keep your vessels clean
+on the outside, and your wool soft, but inside you are full of
+wickedness and lust of plunder.  Ye who sit in the seats of learning
+and preach morals are like tombs adorned with flowers outside, but full
+of corruption inside.  You despise the fathers because they persecuted
+the prophets; while you yourselves kill the prophets whom the Lord
+sends to-day, or else suffer them to be contemned.  And when they are
+dead you build them fine tombs.  Cursed be ye, ye hypocrites!  You
+forbid others to be the heralds of salvation; you even stone them.  You
+will not go yourselves into the Kingdom of Heaven, and you keep out
+those who wish to go in.  Cursed be ye, ye, with your semblance of
+holiness, who take to yourselves the houses of widows and the property
+of orphans under the pretence of love!  Ye fools and blind guides who
+lead the people to petty, unimportant things, to outward observances
+and customs, instead of to the important things--to justice, to mercy,
+and to love!  That is as wise as to strain out the gnat and swallow the
+camel.  Ye snakes and vipers!  Be ye cursed eternally!  Even if God
+sent His Son you would crucify Him, and would pretend you did it for
+the sake of the people because He was a traitor.  But know that you
+will have to pay for the blood of the heaven-sent Messenger!  The time
+is not far off when the blood of your children will flow in streams
+through the streets of Jerusalem!"
+
+While Jesus was speaking His disciples trembled.  They had never seen
+Him so consumed with anger.  But it was too soon!  He had no army to
+protect Him if they should attack Him.  The crowd was immensely
+excited, and the applause grew to a storm.  Many screamed with delight
+that such words were at last spoken; others looked threateningly at the
+Pharisees.  They--the Rabbis and Pharisees--had all kinds of excuses
+ready against the terrible accusations, but it seemed to them wiser not
+to honour the outbreak of this "seeker of the people's favour" with any
+answer, and to leave the Temple at once, unnoticed, by the back
+entrances.
+
+The broad square in front of the Temple was a sea of heads.  As many
+persons as possible had pushed their way in, but the greater number
+surrounded the enormous building, and shouted incessantly: "We, too,
+want to hear Him!  Let Him come out and preach in the open air so that
+we may see Him.  Hail to the Messiah King!  He shall reign in the
+golden palace and in Solomon's glorious Temple!"
+
+When Jesus stepped out of the Temple into the confusion.  He heard the
+shouts, and mounted the plinth of one of the immense pillars that
+surrounded the building.  Here again He spoke.  Looking at the city He
+hurled these words at the crowd:
+
+"You boast of your glorious Temple!  I tell you that not one stone of
+this building shall remain on the other.  For you have heaped up crime
+upon crime.  I find none of you thirsty, but you are all the worse for
+drinking.  The cup is full, and the present generation shall know it.
+When desolation comes over the land, then let him who is in the valley
+flee to the mountain, and let him who is in the field not return into
+the city, and let him who is on the roof not come down, in order to
+fetch his coat from the house.  Fire and sword will meet him.  Woe to
+the women and children in those days: they will cry.  Mountains fall on
+us and crush us.  It will be a wailing and lamentation such as has
+never before been under the sun, and never will be again.  Unappeasable
+anger will overtake the people, Jerusalem will be destroyed, and its
+inhabitants be led into captivity by strange nations.  And men will be
+judged according to their good or evil deed.  Of two who are in the
+field one will be accepted, the other cast out.  Of two who lie in the
+same bed one will be heard, the other ignored.  The grain shall be
+gathered in the barns, the weeds shall be burnt in the fire."
+
+These words caused some murmuring in the crowd, and one of the
+disciples wrung his hands in despair: "There will be trouble over this!"
+
+Then His tone became gentler; "But do not despair; the days of that
+misery shall be shortened.  I will pray for it.  Where there is carrion
+there are eagles, and from the nation of sinners shall arise martyrs of
+the truth of God.  As the trees blossom and sprout after the hard
+winter, so shall the Kingdom of Heaven blossom forth from the purified
+people.  For the glad tidings will penetrate through the whole
+universe, and happy will be the nations which accept it."
+
+"Heaven upon earth?" asked someone from the swaying crowd.  Jesus
+answered: "Not your heaven upon earth!  Not that!  For the earth is too
+weak to bear heaven.  The earth is doomed, and of that doom the
+downfall of Jerusalem is but a parable.  In that day much distress will
+come.  False prophets will come and say, We are the saviours of the
+world!  Their spirit and their truth will blind the people, but it will
+not be the Holy Spirit or the eternal truth.  A great weariness and
+despair will come over men's souls, and they will long for death.  And
+as men gradually lose their light, their reason, so will the stars in
+the sky be extinguished; the sea will cover the land, and the mountains
+be sunk in the sea.  But the fiery token of the Son of God will appear
+in the dark sky."
+
+"What is the token?" asked one of the grey-bearded Rabbis.
+
+"He who has eyes will soon see the token of the Lord's judgment high on
+Golgotha.  His angels will announce Him in the air, but not in His
+lowliness as at Bethlehem.  He will come in all the strength and glory
+in which He sits at the right hand of the Father.  And He will restore
+every soul to its body, and reward the faithful with eternal joy, and
+the unbelieving with everlasting punishment."
+
+With terrified countenances and whispered words the people asked: "When
+will this happen?"
+
+"Watch, my children!  God alone knows the day and hour.  This world is
+passing, as you see, hour by hour.  Everything changes; only the word
+of the Father shall endure for ever."
+
+This speech of the Prophet made a deep impression on the people.  They
+no longer shouted or rejoiced; they no longer looked on His countenance
+as gladly as the day before, the glowing eyes burnt with such terrible
+anger.  They became silent, or only whispered to each other.  Did you
+understand? one asked his neighbour quietly.  Yes, they had all
+understood, but each something different.  They were all impressed with
+the words; every one was moved; and groups of people, as they made
+their way out, talked over the Prophet's speech, and many began to
+dispute about it.
+
+"I don't expect much from this Messiah," said an innkeeper to his
+guests.  "As far as I can see, He promises more ill than good.  If He
+can offer nothing better than the destruction of Jerusalem and the Last
+Judgment, He might just as well have stayed at home at Nazareth."
+
+"No, I've never taken much account of the Last Judgment," said a dealer
+in skins from Jericho.
+
+"It's quite true," shouted a tailor, "nothing good comes from Galilee!"
+
+"Nor from Judaea," laughed an unpatriotic tailor from Joppa.  "I can
+tell you I expect nothing until we have expelled all our Jewish princes
+and Rabbis and become Romans out and out.  The Emperor of Rome is the
+true Messiah.  All the rest should be impaled."
+
+So they gave vent to their various opinions.  The Temple authorities
+rubbed their hands in satisfaction.  "He is not clever enough to be
+dangerous.  He will hardly come within the arm of the law after what He
+has said."
+
+"But the people will judge Him," said one of the oldest among them,
+"the people themselves.  Mark that!  I promise you they will."
+
+"No, indeed.  He is not a man of fair words," said one of the
+overseers.  "He does not flatter the mob, and my contempt for the
+Nazarene is less than it was yesterday.  If He falls in the eyes of the
+people, He rises in mine."
+
+"The man makes me think that He will soon give Himself up.  Did you
+hear His allusion to Golgotha?"
+
+"Bless my soul, a famous prophet has got to be right in something,"
+mocked one of the high priests.  "I think we ought to confer with the
+authorities so as to prevent any disturbance to-morrow at the festival.
+You understand me?"
+
+"That's worth consideration with all this concourse of people."
+
+"I think he has poured enough water on the fire," said the high priest.
+"No one would stir a finger if we took Him."
+
+"Let's wait till the festival is over.  You can never be sure of the
+mob."
+
+"What!  After laying traps for Him all over the country, are we to let
+Him insult us here in the Temple itself?  No, I don't fear the mob any
+more.  The law is more hazardous."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The little town of Bethany was situated in a narrow valley at the foot
+of the Mount of Olives.  There was a large house there belonging to a
+man who had been ill for many years; formerly he had been filled with
+despair, but since he had become an adherent of the Nazarene, he was
+resigned and cheerful.  His incurable disease became almost a blessing,
+for it destroyed all disquieting worldly desires and hopes, and also
+all fears.  In peaceful seclusion he gave up his heart to the Kingdom
+of God.  When he sat in his garden and looked out over the quiet
+working of Nature, he hardly remembered that he was ill.  He was so
+entirely imbued with the happiness of life in the Kingdom of Heaven,
+and his prayers were full of gratitude that death could not destroy
+such a life, since it was immortal, and would be carried into eternity
+with the immortal soul.
+
+Two of the inmates of his house were at one with him in this.
+Magdalen, his wife's sister, the fallen woman of Magdala, lived with
+them since she had been obliged to part from the Master.  Now she heard
+with a fearful joy that Jesus was in Jerusalem.  Her brother, Lazarus,
+was in still greater excitement about it.  The youth declared that the
+Master had accomplished the greatest thing of all in regard to him.  He
+could not talk about it enough, and was irritated if they did not
+receive his tale as the very newest thing, although it had happened
+months before, when Jesus had been in the wilderness of Judaea.  They
+had marvelled at the event beyond all measure, but when the great
+miracle came to be related every day, it got commonplace.  "Just let
+one of you experience what dying is like," Lazarus would often exclaim,
+interrupting a lively conversation.  "When you lie there and turn cold,
+they put on a shroud, tie a kerchief round your head, stretch you out
+on a board, and lament that you are dead.  You are dead, but it isn't
+quite what you thought.  You know about it; you are there when they put
+you into the sack, carry you to the grave, and rend their garments for
+grief.  You are there when your body is buried in the damp, everlasting
+darkness, and begins to mingle with the earth.  Your poor soul gathers
+itself together to utter a cry for help, but your breast is dead, your
+throat is dead.  And in this agony of death, which never ceases, a man
+comes by, lays his hand on your head, and says, 'Lazarus, get up!' and
+your pulse begins to beat, and your limbs grow warm again, and you get
+up and live!  And live!  Do you know what it means--live?"
+
+Then Magdalen would go to her brother and calm him, telling him that it
+was a great thing to awake a dead body to life, but a still greater
+thing to bring a dead soul to life!
+
+Now this family of Bethany had sent to Jerusalem and invited the Master
+to go to their house with two of His travelling companions in order
+that He might repose Himself after His long wanderings in homelike
+security.  Jesus thought it was time to leave the city for a little,
+and accepted the invitation.  His disciples were sorry.  They each
+desired some hospitable house in order that after so long a time of
+hardship they might once again be glad with the Master; they thought
+that was only reasonable, considering His victory.  When the disciples
+found that only two of them could go with Him, they were distressed,
+for all had been obliged to share the hard times with Him.
+
+"Have you ever lacked anything with Me?" He asked.  "Have you suffered
+want?"
+
+"No, Lord, never!"  For by His side they had never felt want.  The
+Master rejoiced over their disinterestedness, and the ten decided that
+the youngest and the oldest should go with Him, as was only fair.  So
+John and Simon Peter were chosen.  The rest found lodging with citizens
+of the town.  Joseph of Arimathea, who had property round Jerusalem,
+received some of the disciples.  There was the rich Simeon, who had
+once ridden out into the wilderness to gain eternal life, and had
+nearly lost his mortal life.  Since then he had changed his opinion
+about the value of great possessions; at least, he let the needy share
+them, and he received some of the disciples.  James had business in
+Bethpage, on the farther slope of the Mount of Olives, where he had
+hired the ass.  He took Andrew with him.  The animal had been sent
+back, but had not yet been paid for.  The little old man came to meet
+them in most friendly fashion.  He was proud beyond everything that his
+noble brown ass had had so great an honour.  He had himself been in the
+city, and had heard how the Prophet reproved the Pharisees in the
+Temple.  That was the finest day of his life.  If the Master would only
+come and heal his wife of her rheumatism, he would be converted.
+
+That was a good thing, said James, because they hadn't any money with
+which to pay him.  The little old man whistled in surprise.  He saw now
+that people were right when they set no store by men of Galilee.
+
+In order to save their countrymen's honour, they offered to work in the
+garden until they had fully paid the debt.  So both the disciples set
+to digging, and thought, perhaps, of the parable of the labourers in
+the vineyard.  Then they discussed the events in Jerusalem, and how
+they would rather be ministers of the Messiah in the golden palace than
+doing such hard work here.
+
+When Jesus with John and Peter reached Bethany, their host Amon had
+himself pushed in his wheeled chair to meet them, and called to his
+wife, Martha, to make haste and come and pay her respects to the
+guests.  She had, she said, no time for that; she had things to look
+after, in the parlour, the dining-room, everywhere, to see that all was
+in order, if need be to lend a helping hand herself.  The children of
+the servants were playing about in the courtyard, and a contented,
+homelike feeling pervaded everything.  Suddenly the slender form of
+Lazarus hurried up, and lay down at the Master's feet.  He recognised
+him, and said: "Lazarus, you have your life in order to stand upright."
+The youth got up.  And then, hesitating and half afraid, Magdalen
+approached.  He greeted her in silence.
+
+She, too, said nothing.  But when they were at table she knelt before
+Him, and anointed His feet.  She dried them with her hair and wept.
+The pleasant odour of the oil filled the room, and Peter whispered to
+his neighbour: "Such ointment must cost a mint of money!  If she had
+given it to the poor, He would have been better pleased."
+
+Jesus heard what he said.  "What is wrong, Peter?  She is kind to Me so
+long as I am here.  When I'm no longer with you, you'll still have the
+poor.  She has shown Me a mark of love that will never be forgotten."
+
+Peter was ashamed, and said softly to his neighbours: "He is right.  It
+often happens that people leave a good deed undone, and say, 'We'll
+give something, therefore, to the poor.'  That's what they say, but
+they do neither one nor the other.  He is right."
+
+They ate and drank amid the pleasant, homely surroundings, and were
+very cheerful.  Magdalen wanted to sit quite at the lower end of the
+table, but the Master desired her to sit on His right hand.  Her
+enthusiastic glance hung on His face, and it seemed as if she drank
+from His mouth every word which He spoke.  Jesus was indefatigable in
+narrating legends and parables, every one of which contained some great
+thought.  If He dealt harshly with human foolishness before the people,
+He treated it as earnestly now, but with a warm sympathy that went to
+the hearts of all His hearers.  The invalid host was delighted, and
+signed to his wife to listen to the Master's words.  But Martha was
+continually occupied in looking after the various courses and dishes,
+in seeing that everything was as perfect as possible, and in serving
+her guests.  She was vexed with her sister Magdalen who sat there by
+His side, and troubled herself about nothing.  When she again brought
+in a dish, Jesus put His hand gently on her arm, and said; "Martha, how
+busy you are.  Do leave off for a little, and come and sit down.  We've
+had more than enough with all these dainties, and you bring us still
+more.  Copy your sister; she has chosen the better part--spiritual food
+instead of bodily."
+
+So Martha sat down, and she too watched His mouth, but less for the
+sake of what He said than to see how He liked the food.  He observed
+this, and said with a smile, "Everyone is kind in his own way."  And He
+continued to reveal in attractive fashion the secrets of the Kingdom of
+Heaven.  But Martha always interrupted Him with remarks on the dishes,
+or with orders to the servants, until Jesus became almost annoyed, and
+said sharply: "Know you not that I will give you food?  The soul is the
+one thing needful."
+
+Then they also spoke of the day's proceedings, and Amon congratulated
+Him prettily on the great victory at Jerusalem.
+
+"Do you call that a victory?" asked Jesus.  "Amon, do you know men so
+little?  They see in Me the Messiah King who will conquer the Empire
+to-morrow.  They, blind creatures, they have no idea of _My_ Kingdom.
+They are pleased with words that destroy, they do not want to hear
+words that build up.  It's an empty-headed people that can only be
+roused by need and oppression.  But they will be aroused."
+
+After dinner He lay down on cushions, the softest that Martha could
+find in the house.  Young John's curly head lay on His breast, Magdalen
+sat at His feet.  Peter lay near by on a carpet; a little farther off
+sat Amon in his wheeled chair, with Martha stroking his white hair.
+John was particularly happy to-day.  He had never seen the Master so
+calm and gentle.  Yet something depressed the disciple.  At the above
+remark about the people he observed: "Master, if they knew how deeply
+you loved them."
+
+"They ought to know it."
+
+"But they cannot know it from the way in which you speak to them."
+
+"The way in which I speak to them?" said Jesus, and stroked the
+disciple's soft hair.  "That is just My John all over.  He cannot
+understand that you do not stroke buffaloes with peacocks' feathers.
+I'm too hard on these hypocrites, these obdurate, indifferent men, am
+I?  When I disappoint those who would extract daily profit from Me in
+the form of miracles, when I lay bare the carefully-concealed thoughts
+of their hearts, then I am hard.  And when I shatter their childish
+love of the world, their craving for vanities, then I am hard.  And
+when they strut about with their condemnations and their
+hard-heartedness, trampling the weak underfoot out of greed and malice,
+haughty as the heathens who bring human sacrifices to their gods, I
+would fain chastise them with a lash of scorpions.  But when the
+forsaken come to Me, and penitent sinners trustfully seek refuge with
+Me, then, John, I am not hard."
+
+The voices of children playing in the courtyard sounded through the
+open windows.  Jesus turned to His hostess and said: "Martha!  You have
+excellently entertained Me in your house.  Will you give Me yet another
+treat?"
+
+"What is it, Master?  I would leave no wish of yours ungratified."
+
+"The little ones--let them come in."
+
+"Ah! my poor boy will cry his eyes out that he wasn't here to-day.
+Dear lad, he's in Jerusalem."
+
+"God be his guard!  Let those who are playing in the courtyard come up."
+
+They came shyly in at the door, two dark little girls, and a fair boy,
+who carried a carved wood camel in his hand.  When Jesus spread out His
+arms, they went to Him, and were soon at home, holding up their little
+red mouths, in which He put fruit from the table.  Peter, who would
+have liked to sleep a little, was not particularly pleased with the
+little guests, but was glad that the Master petted them and joked with
+them.
+
+Then Jesus said to the boy: "Benjamin, mount your camel, ride to that
+man over there, and ask him why he is so silent."
+
+Peter accepted the invitation to join in the conversation, but he was
+not very happy in what he said.  "Master," he said hesitatingly, "what
+I have to say is scarcely suited to this pleasant day."
+
+Such remarks, said Martha humorously, were of the right sort to add to
+the cheerfulness of the company.  Peter was not the man to keep a
+secret long.  Turning to the Master, he said: "Early to-day, in the
+city, I heard some people talking.  They're always doing you some
+injustice."
+
+"What were they saying, Peter?"
+
+"They said that the Prophet was a man of fair words, but that He did
+nothing.  He never once healed the sick who came to Him from great
+distances."
+
+"They say that?"
+
+"Yes, sir, that's the kind of thing they say."
+
+Jesus raised His head, and looked cheerfully round the circle.  While
+He rocked one of the little girls on His knee, He said calmly: "So they
+say I only talk and do nothing.  In their sense they are right.  I
+don't pray, they mean, because they don't see Me do it.  I don't fast,
+because we can't eat less than a little, except when we sit at a
+luxurious table like Martha's.  I don't give alms because My purse is
+empty.  What good do I do, then?  I don't work, because in their eyes
+My work doesn't count.  I don't work miracles on their bodies, because
+I am come to heal their souls.  Amon, say, would you exchange the peace
+of your heart for sound legs?"
+
+"Lord!" exclaimed Amon vivaciously, "if they say you do nothing good,
+just let them come to the house of old Amon at Bethany.  You came under
+my roof, and my soul was healed."
+
+"And you brought me resurrection and life," shouted Lazarus
+passionately from the other end of the room.
+
+"And me, more than that," said Magdalen, looking up at Him with moist
+eyes.  And then she bent down and kissed His feet.
+
+And Peter exclaimed: "I was a mere worm, and He made me a man.  He does
+more than all the Rabbis and physicians and generals put together."
+
+Then John turned to him and asked: "Brother, why didn't you talk like
+that to the people in Jerusalem?  Were you afraid of them?"
+
+"Is yon man a coward?" asked the boy, pointing with his hand to Peter.
+"Then he'll help us to play lion and sheep in the courtyard!"
+
+Jesus shook His head over such talk, and said: "No, My Peter is not a
+coward, but he is still somewhat unstable for a rock.  No one who, at
+his age, can train himself for the Kingdom of God could be a weakling."
+
+Martha, who had gone out to look after the supper, called into the room
+that the children's mother wanted them to go to her to read the
+Haggadah.
+
+The little ones pulled long faces.  "To read the Haggadah!" murmured
+the boy in a tone far too contemptuous of the holy Passover book.
+
+"Don't you like to read about God, my child?" asked Jesus.
+
+"No," replied the boy crossly.
+
+John pinched his red cheek.  "Naughty boy!  Good boys always like to
+hear about God."
+
+"But not always to read about Him!" said the little one.  "The Haggadah
+tires me to death."
+
+Then said Jesus: "He is of the unhappy ones for whom God is spoiled by
+the mere letter of the Word.  Would you rather stay with Me, children,
+than go and read the Haggadah?"
+
+"Yes, yes, we'll stay with you."  And all three hung round His neck.
+
+And Martha sought the mother and told her: "They are reading the
+Haggadah with six arms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Two days were spent in this quiet, cheerful fashion.  Then Jesus said
+to the disciples: "It is over; we must return to Jerusalem."
+
+They were to spend the festival in the city, and James had hired a room
+in which the Master and His twelve faithful friends could solemnly
+celebrate the Passover.  His disciples again gathered round Him; but
+they looked anxious.  For they had had unpleasant experiences in their
+walks through the town.  The mood of the people had entirely changed;
+they spoke little of the Messiah but rather of the demagogue and
+betrayer of the people, just in the same tone as had been used in
+Galilee.  Only here the expressions were more forcible, and accompanied
+with threatening gestures.  In front of the town gates, where there was
+a rocky hill, Thomas had watched two carpenters nailing crossbeams to
+long stakes.  He asked what they were doing, and was told that
+criminals were impaled on the festival.  Questioning them more closely,
+he learned that they were desert robbers.
+
+"Desert robbers?" said a passer-by.  "What are desert robbers?  There
+are desert robbers every year.  This time quite different people are to
+be hoisted up."
+
+"Yes, if they're caught," said another.  "His followers are burrowing
+somewhere in the city, but He Himself has flown.  It's too absurd how
+the police seek everywhere, and can't find out where He is."
+
+Thomas did not want to hear any more, and took himself off.
+
+Judas heard similar things, only more plainly; it was quite clear that
+it was the Master who was meant.  Things had gone as far as that!  And
+all the enthusiasm had been false.  The olive-branches and palm-leaves
+were not yet all trodden down, and they bore witness to the Messianic
+ecstasy of four days ago.  And to-day?  To-day the police were
+searching for Him!  But wasn't it His own fault?  To run into the jaws
+of your enemies, and to irritate and abuse them--to do no more than
+that!  If He had only stirred a fold of His cloak to show who He was.
+Who believed that He had walked on the water: that He had brought the
+dead to life?  They only laughed when such things were related.  Why
+did He not do something now?  Just one miracle, and we should be saved.
+Perhaps He is intentionally letting things come to the worst, so that
+His power may appear the more impressive.  They will take Him and put
+Him in chains, lead Him out amid the joyful cries of the mob, and
+suddenly a troop of angels with fiery swords will come down from
+heaven, destroy the enemy, and the Messiah revealed will ascend the
+throne.  That will happen, must happen.  The sooner the better for all
+of us.  How can it be hurried on?  His indecision must be changed into
+determination.  I wish they had Him already, so that we could celebrate
+a glorious Passover.  Such were the thoughts of the disciple, Judas
+Iscariot.  Sunk in deep reflection he walked through the streets that
+evening.  The pinnacles and towers glowed in the dull red of the
+setting sun.  He met several companies of soldiers: a captain stopped
+him and asked if he did not come from Galilee?
+
+"I suppose you're asking about the Prophet," replied Judas; "no, I'm
+not He."
+
+"But I'm certain you know about Him."
+
+Judas drew a deep breath, as if he were on the point of saying
+something.  But he said nothing, pursued his way, and came to the house
+where they were all gathered round the Master.
+
+The room was large and gloomy.  A single lamp was suspended over the
+large table, covered with a white cloth, that stood in the centre,
+around which they were already seated.  The Master was so placed that
+the whole table could see Him.  A large dish with the roasted Paschal
+lamb stood before Him.  By its side were the Passover herbs in shallow
+bowls.  On the table were other bowls, and the unleavened bread baked
+for the festival in remembrance of the manna eaten in the wilderness.
+Near the centre of the table was a beaker of red wine.  They were
+silent or speaking in whispers, so that the steps of Judas, as he
+entered, echoed.  He was almost terrified by the echo.  Then he greeted
+them in silence with a low bow and sat down, just opposite John, who
+was at the Master's right hand, while Peter sat at His left.
+
+There was solemn silence.  Their first Passover in Jerusalem!  Jesus
+took one of the unleavened cakes, broke it, and laid the pieces down.
+James divided the lamb into thirteen portions.
+
+"We are thirteen at table," whispered Thaddeus to his neighbour
+Bartholomew.  He was silent.  They did not eat, but sat there in
+silence.  The lamp flickered, and the reddish reflection hovered about
+the table.  Then Jesus began to speak.
+
+"Eat and drink.  The hour approaches."
+
+John placed his hand tenderly on His, and asked: "What do you mean,
+Lord, when you say, The hour approaches?"
+
+"My friends," said Jesus, "you will not understand how what will happen
+this night can come to pass.  They will come and condemn Me to death.
+I shall not flee, for it must be so.  I have to bear testimony to the
+Father in heaven and of His tidings, and therefore I am ready to die.
+If I were not willing to die for My words, they would be like sand in
+the desert.  If I were not willing to die, My friends would not be
+justified, and would doubt Me.  A good shepherd must lay down his life
+for his flock."
+
+"Master," said Thomas, and his voice trembled, "not when you live; only
+when you die, could we doubt you."
+
+Then Jesus looked sadly round the circle, and said: "One among you
+doubts Me, though I live."
+
+"What do you mean by that, Lord?" asked Judas.
+
+Jesus said: "The Son of Man goes His appointed way.  Yet it would be
+better for that man never to have been born.  One of My own people will
+betray Me this night."
+
+As if struck down by a heavy weight, they were silent for a moment.
+Then they exclaimed: "Who is it?  Who is it?"
+
+"One of the twelve who sits at this table."
+
+"Master!" exclaimed Peter, "what causes that gloomy thought?  No one is
+unfaithful."
+
+Jesus said to him; "Yes, Simon Peter!  And another at this table will
+deny Me before morning cockcrow."
+
+They were silent, for they were all greatly afraid.  After a while He
+continued speaking.  "It must happen as the Father in His wisdom has
+determined.  But the time of work begins for you.  You will be My
+apostles, My ambassadors, who will travel over the world to tell all
+the nations what I have told you.  You shall be the salt of humanity,
+and season it with wisdom.  You shall be the yeast which causes it to
+ferment.  To others I have said, Do the good work secretly; to you I
+say, Let your light shine forth as an example.  Be wily as the serpent,
+and let not hypocrites deceive you; be like clever money-changers, who
+accept only good coins and refuse the false.  Be without guile, like
+doves, and go forth, innocent as the sheep who go among wolves.  If
+they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.  Where you sow
+peace for others, there will be the sword for you.  It will also come
+to pass that your message of peace will awake discord; one brother will
+dispute with the others, children will be against their parents,
+because some will be for Me and others against Me.  But the time will
+come when they will be united, one flock under the care of one
+shepherd.  Then there will be a great fire on earth, that of enthusiasm
+for the Spirit and for Love.  Would it were already burning!  Do not
+despair because, with your simplicity and want of eloquence, your
+ignorance of foreign tongues, you must travel in strange lands.  The
+moment you have to speak, My Spirit will speak through you in burning
+eloquence.  If you are silent, then the stones must speak, so vital is
+the word that must be spoken.  You must speak to the lowly of the glad
+tidings; you must speak to the mighty who possess the power to kill
+your body, but not your soul.  Days of temptation and persecution will
+come, I will not cease to implore the Father to stand by you.  Be not
+cast down.  If I did not now depart, the Spirit could not come to you.
+The visible is an enemy of the invisible.  I have spoken to you much in
+parables, so that it may the better remain in your memory.  I had still
+much to say to you; but My Spirit will speak to you, and He will make
+you understand more easily than when I spoke in parables.  Upon you I
+build My Church; do you open the Kingdom of God to all who seek it.
+What you do on earth in My name will also hold good in heaven with the
+Father.  And now I give you My peace as the world can never give it.  I
+remain with you in My Spirit and My Love."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The great words were spoken.  A solemn peace fell on their hearts.
+Judas went out.  The rest sat on in silence and looked at the Master
+with unbounded affection.  They could not understand what He had said,
+but they felt these were words before which the earth would tremble and
+the heavens bow down.
+
+And now something extraordinary happened.  It was not a miracle, it was
+more than a miracle.  Jesus stood up, took a towel and a washing-bowl,
+knelt before each, and washed his feet.  In their astonishment they
+offered no resistance.  When He came to Peter, Peter said, "No, Master,
+you shall not wash my feet."
+
+To which Jesus replied: "If I do not, then you are not Mine."
+
+Said Peter: "If that is so, then wash my face and hands, too, O Lord!
+so that it may be evident how utterly I am yours."
+
+Then Jesus said: "You call Me Lord, and yet I wash your feet.  I do
+this so that you may know that among men there is no lord, that all are
+brethren who shall serve one another.  See how I love you.  No one can
+give a greater proof of his love than to die so that his friends may
+live.  So I leave you this legacy: Brothers, love one another.  As I
+love you, love one another."
+
+John, overcome by those words, sank on his knees, and, sobbing, laid
+his head upon His bosom.  And Jesus said once more: "Children, love one
+another."
+
+Then He again sat down with them at the table.  They were all silent.
+Jesus took bread in His hand, lifted it a little towards heaven that it
+might be blessed, and broke it in two.  He handed the pieces to the
+right and left of Him, and said: "Take it and eat.  It is My body that
+will be broken for you."
+
+They took it.  Then He took the beaker of wine, lifted it to heaven
+that it might be blessed, passed it round, and said: "Take it and
+drink.  It is My blood that will be shed for you."
+
+And when they had all drunk.  He added: "Do this in remembrance of Me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+When the disciples separated after the meal, notwithstanding their
+fears, they did not realise that it was a farewell.  They sought their
+lodgings.  Only John, Peter, and James accompanied the Master when He
+left the town in the dark night and descended the valley to the foot of
+the Mount of Olives.  There was a garden there.  White stones lay
+between the savin trees and the weeping cypresses, fresh spring grass
+covered the ground.  Jesus said to His companions: "Stay here a
+little."  He Himself went farther into the garden.  The sky was covered
+by a thin veil of cloud, so that the moon shed a pale light over the
+earth.  The town on the mountain rose up dark and still; no sound was
+to be heard except the rippling of the brook Kedron in the valley.
+Jesus stood and looked up through the trees towards heaven.  He
+breathed heavily, and drops of perspiration stood on His brow.  He felt
+a great agony, an agony He had never before known.  Had He not often
+thought of death, and in His mind felt quite reconciled to it?  Did He
+not know that the Heavenly Father would receive Him?  Only He still
+belonged to this sweet life below, and still the way was open to Him to
+escape death.  Is His soul so weak now that it is troubled by the
+prospect of the enemy at hand, ready to seize Him?  Can He not go over
+the mountain to Jericho, into the wilderness, to the sea?  No, not
+flight.  Of His own free will He is to appear before the judges in
+order to stand by what He said.  Ah! but this surrender to the powers
+He had offended means death.  He sank down on the ground so that His
+head touched the grass, as if He would draw the earth to Him with eager
+arms.  "Must it be, O Father?  Fain would I stay with men in order to
+bring them nearer to Me.  Who will guide My disciples, still so weak?
+Guard them from evil, but do not take them from the world.  Let them
+live and spread Thy name.  If it is possible, let Me stay with them.
+But if it must be, take this agony of soul from Me and stand by Me.
+But I must not demand aught, My God, only humbly entreat.  If it is Thy
+will that I shall suffer all human sorrow and pain, then Thy will be
+done.  Accept this sacrifice for all who have provoked Thee.  If Thou
+desirest it, I will take the sins of the world upon Me, and atone for
+them that Thou mayest pardon.  But if it may be avoided, Father, My
+Father who art in heaven, have mercy on Thy Son, who has proclaimed Thy
+mercy."  So He prayed, and in His infinite distress He longed for His
+disciples.  He went to them and found them asleep.  They were sleeping
+like innocent children, and knew nothing of His terrible struggle.  He
+woke Peter, and said: "I am wellnigh perishing with sorrow.  Surely you
+might watch with Me in this hour."
+
+The disciple pulled himself together with some difficulty and shook the
+others.  But when Jesus looked at the poor fellows.  He thought: "What
+can they do for Me?"  He left them and went away, in order to fight
+through it alone.  And again He prayed: "Help Me, Lord; Oh, My God,
+forsake Me not."  But Heaven was silent, the loneliness was
+intolerable, and lie once more went back to His disciples.  They were
+again fast asleep.  They rested so peacefully, tired out by the cruel
+world, that Jesus thought, Well, let them sleep.  Drops, like blood,
+ran down His forehead and fell on the ground.  A third time He turned
+to the Father: "Forsaken of all, on Thee alone I call.  There is none
+to hear Me in My agony.  They are all asleep, and the clash of spears
+is on the road.  Lord God, send Thine angels to protect Me!"
+
+Not a leaf stirred; there was not a breath of air.  Heaven remained
+deaf and dumb.
+
+"It is the silent word of God.  To His will I submit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+When Judas sat in the room among the twelve, he felt so bewildered and
+confused that he did not hear all that Jesus said.  So he got up, left
+the room, and rushed through the empty streets of the city.  "One of
+those who sit at this table will betray Me!"  He knows men's thoughts.
+That gives Him power over all.  But He does not know how to use that
+power; He must be driven to that.  Judas could think of nothing else.
+The thought with which hitherto he had only played now took violent
+possession of his head and heart.  He went through the city gate, which
+was not closed at this Passover time.  He would spend the night among
+the bushes; but see--there goes the Master along the road with three of
+His disciples.  Judas stretched out his head between the branches in
+order to look after them.  They went towards the valley.  Were they
+going to Bethany?  Now he knew what to do.  He quickly pulled himself
+together, and went straight off to the Roman captain.
+
+"I know where He is."
+
+"You want money for this Jew?"
+
+"That's not my reason for telling you."
+
+"Yet you tell me."
+
+"Because I can't wait any longer.  You will find out who He is, ere
+long."
+
+"Well, where is He?"'
+
+"I'll go with the soldiers.  There are several persons with Him; I will
+go up to one and kiss his cheek.  That will be He."
+
+"How much do you want for this service of love, you brute?" asked the
+captain.
+
+"Insult away!  Seek Him without me.  I know what I'm after."
+
+"Well, how much do you want?  Are thirty silver pieces enough?"
+
+"The Man is worth more."
+
+"I do not haggle over prices."
+
+"Well, give what you please.  I fancy He will cost you very dear."
+
+The bargain was struck.  Judas, the treasurer, put the coins in the
+common purse, and thought: If we had only had this sooner.  And now
+it's hardly any use to us.  Then a troop of soldiers placed him in
+their midst, and, carrying torches, the procession marched out of the
+town and down into the Valley of Kedron.  They crossed the brook, and
+at the entrance to the garden gate intended to proceed to Bethany.  But
+a swift, curious glance of Judas observed, by the glimmer of the moon,
+figures lying on the ground under a bush.  He stopped, looked, and
+recognised the brothers.  He signed to the soldiers to enter the garden
+quietly.  To walk quietly is the way of traitors, not of warriors.  The
+sound of marching and the clash of swords woke the disciples.  A very
+different awakening from the gentle bidding of the Master!  They jumped
+up and hastened to where He was kneeling.
+
+Judas came forward and said: "Did I frighten you?"  Then he went up to
+Jesus: "You are still awake, Master?"  He bent down in greeting, kissed
+Him lightly on the cheek, and thought in tremulous expectation: Messiah
+King, now reveal Thyself!
+
+Then the soldiers rushed up.  They had been joined by a mob armed with
+sticks and cudgels, just as when notorious criminals are taken.  Jesus
+went forward a few steps to meet them and offered His hands to them to
+be bound.  John threw himself between, but he was dashed to the ground.
+James struggled with two of the soldiers; Peter snatched the sword of a
+third, and hacked at one of the Temple guards so that his ear flew from
+his body.
+
+"What are you doing?" Jesus called to the disciple.  "If you interfere
+they will kill you.  You will conquer not with the sword, but with the
+word.  But you, O people of Jerusalem; you treat Me as shamefully as if
+I were a murderer.  And only five days ago you led Me into the city
+with palms and psalms.  What have I done since then?  I sat in the
+Temple among you.  Why did you not take Me then?"
+
+They mocked at Him.  "Isn't to-day soon enough for you?  Can't you wait
+any longer for your ladder to heaven?  Patience, it is set up already."
+
+When the disciples heard such allusions, and saw the Master calmly
+surrendering Himself, they drew back.  The sticks and spears clashed
+together, the crowd jogged along, the torches flickered, and so the
+procession went up to the city.
+
+Judas stood behind the trunk of a tree, looking through the branches at
+the dread procession, and his eyes started from his head in terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The judges were awakened at midnight; the Jewish High Priests that they
+might accuse Him, the heathen judges that they might condemn Him.  The
+High Priest Caiaphas left his couch right gladly; he was delighted that
+they had caught Him at last, but he thought that the High Priest Annas
+should frame the accusation; he was younger, better acquainted with the
+Roman laws, and would carry through the ticklish business most
+effectively.  He, Caiaphas, would hold himself ready for bearing
+testimony or sealing documents at any minute.  Annas, too, was
+delighted that the Galilean, who had insulted the Pharisees in the
+Temple in so unheard-of a fashion, was caught at last.  He would settle
+the matter this very night, before the people, on whom no reliance was
+to be placed, could interfere.  With respect to the accusation, the
+whole high priesthood of Jerusalem must meet in order to take counsel
+over this knotty case.  As a matter of fact there was nothing they
+could legally bring against the fellow.  His speeches to the people.
+His proceedings in the Temple were, unfortunately, not sufficient.
+Some crime--a political one if possible--must be proved against Him, if
+that heathen, the Roman governor, was to condemn Him.
+
+So they met at the house of Caiaphas to take counsel.  They carried
+innumerable scrolls under their arms, in which were written all manner
+of things that had occurred since the first appearance of the Nazarene.
+The Galilean Rabbis especially had sent volumes in order to discredit
+and expose Him.  Yet all this would not be sufficient for the governor.
+Some definite point must be clearly worked up.
+
+Then Jesus was brought in.  His hands were bound, His dress was soiled
+and torn.  His countenance very sad.  The crowd had already had proof
+of His courage.  He stood there quietly.  Terror He no longer felt,
+sadness alone lay in His eyes.  They turned over the scrolls and spoke
+together in whispers.  It was made known that they would be glad to
+hear anyone who could bring any evidence against Him.  But no one
+offered.  The priests looked at each other in bewilderment.  Those who
+struck Him and insulted Him must surely know why they did it!
+
+At length a deformed man came forward.  He was certainly only a poor
+camel-dealer, but he knew something.  The story of the whale!  The
+Galilean said that, just as the whale cast up Jonah after three days,
+so would He come forth from His grave three days after His death.  The
+man had also said that He would destroy Solomon's Temple, which had
+taken forty-seven years to build, and rebuild it in three days.  Other
+witnesses could be found to testify to these things.
+
+Some considered, however, that these stories were empty exaggerations,
+and nothing more.
+
+"They are blasphemy," exclaimed Caiaphas.  "Everything He says has a
+hidden meaning.  What He meant was that three days after His death He
+would rise again, in order to destroy the Kingdom of the Jews and
+establish a new Kingdom."  Then he turned to Jesus: "Did you say that?"
+
+Jesus was silent.
+
+"He does not deny it; He did say it.  The wrath of Jehovah which
+presses heavily on Israel has been evoked by this blasphemer and false
+prophet.  And the guilty creature does not deny it."  Then Caiaphas
+turned to the people who were gathering in increasing numbers in the
+fore-court: "Let him who knows anything further against Him come
+forward and speak."
+
+Then several voices exclaimed: "He is a blasphemer, He is a false
+prophet.  He has brought on us the curse of Jehovah!"
+
+"Do you hear?" said the High Priest.  "That is the voice of the people!
+Yet in order to satisfy the nicest of consciences we will permit Him to
+speak once again that He may defend Himself.  Jesus of Nazareth! many
+know that you have said that you are the Christ, sent by Heaven.
+Answer clearly and without ambiguity.  I ask you, Are you Christ, the
+Son of God?"
+
+"You say so," replied Jesus.
+
+Again, and in a louder voice, Caiaphas asked: "By all you deem sacred,
+speak now on oath.  Are you the Son of God?"
+
+Then said Jesus to the High Priest: "If you do not believe it now that
+I stand before you as a malefactor, you will believe it when I come
+down from heaven in the clouds at the right hand of Almighty God."
+
+When Jesus had spoken these words, Caiaphas turned to the assembly:
+"What do you want more?  If that's not rank blasphemy, I'll resign my
+office.  If that's not blasphemy, then we have punished others, who
+said less, far too severely.  What shall we do with Him?"
+
+Several priests rent their garments in anger, and shouted: "Let Him
+die!"
+
+The cry was taken up by many voices out in the streets.  The priests
+immediately put things in shape for the sentence to be pronounced that
+night, and, if possible, carried into effect before the festival,
+without making a stir.
+
+If the matter had rested with Herod, King of the Jews, he would have
+rid himself of his rival from Nazareth with a snap of his lingers; but
+it was the Roman governor with whom they had to deal.  So Pontius
+Pilate also was awakened in the night.  He was a Roman, and had been
+appointed by the Emperor to hold Judaea in spite of Herod, whose Jewish
+kingdom had become as nothing.  Pilate often declared that this office
+of ruling the Jewish people for the Emperor had been his evil star.  He
+would rather have remained in cultured Rome, whose gods were much more
+amiable than the perverse Jehovah, about whom all kinds of sects
+disputed.  And then came this Nazarene.  When Pilate learnt the reason
+why he was disturbed from his sleep he cursed.  "This stupid business
+again about the Nazarene who, accompanied by a few beggars, rode into
+Jerusalem on an ass, and said He was the Messiah.  The people laughed
+at Him.  And that's to be made a political case!  They should expel Him
+from the Temple and let people sleep."
+
+But the crowd shouted in front of his windows: "He is a blasphemer!  A
+deceiver and a traitor!  An anarchist!  He must be tried!"  Pilate did
+not know what to do.  Then his wife came, and entreated him not to do
+anything to Jesus of Nazareth.  She had had a horrible dream about Him.
+She had seen Him standing in a white garment that shone like the moon.
+Then he had descended into a deep abyss where the souls of the
+condemned were wailing, had raised them up and led them on high.  Then
+dreadful angels with big black wings had seized the judges, and thrown
+them into the abyss.  Pilate had been among them, and his cry of pain
+still rang in her ears.
+
+"Don't make my head more confused than it is already with your
+talking," he commanded.  The noise in the street became more
+threatening every moment.
+
+Jesus was exhausted, and, surrounded by guards, sat down on a stone in
+the courtyard of Pilate's house.  The crowd came up, mocked Him and
+insulted Him.  They draped Him in the torn red cloak of a Bedouin for
+royal purple, they plucked thorns from a hedge in the neighbouring
+garden, wove them into a crown, and set it on His head.  They broke off
+a dry reed and put it into His hand as a sceptre.  They anointed His
+cheek with spittle.  And then they bowed down to the ground before Him,
+and sang in a shrill voice: "Hail to Thee, O anointed Messiah-King!"
+and put out their tongues at Him.
+
+Jesus sat there, calm and unmoved.  He looked at His tormentors with
+sad eyes, not in anger, but in pity.
+
+His disciples, terrified to death, had now come up, but remained
+outside the walls.  Peter was furious over the infamous betrayal that
+had taken place, and could not understand what had possessed Judas.  In
+sore distress he stood in the farthest courtyard where it was dark.
+Then a girl tripped up to him on her way to the well for water.
+
+"Here's another!" she shouted.  "Why are you standing here?  Go and do
+homage to your King."
+
+Peter turned in the direction of the gate.
+
+"You're one of those Galileans, too," she continued.
+
+"What have I to do with Galilee?" he said.
+
+A gatekeeper interposed: "Of course he is a Galilean.  You can see that
+by his dress.  He belongs to the Nazarene."
+
+"I do not know Him," said Peter, and tried to hurry off.  The
+gatekeeper stopped him with the shaft of his spear.  "Halt there, you
+Jew!  Your King is seated yonder on His throne.  Do homage to Him
+before He flies into the clouds."
+
+"Let me alone; I do not know the man," exclaimed Peter, and hastened
+away.  As he went out of the gate, a cock crowed just over his head.
+Peter started.  Did He not speak of a cock at supper?  "And another
+will deny me this night just before cock-crow."  In a flash the old
+disciple saw what he had done.  From terror that he, too, would be
+seized, he had lied about his Master, about Him who had been everything
+to him--everything--everything.  Now in His need they had left Him
+alone, had not even had the courage to acknowledge themselves His
+supporters.  "Oh, Simon!" he said to himself, "you should have stayed
+by your lake instead of playing at being the chosen of God.  He gave me
+His Kingdom of Heaven and this is how I requite Him!"  His life was now
+so broken that he crept out into the desert.  There he threw himself on
+a stone, wrung his hands, and abandoned himself to weeping.
+
+Jesus was at last brought into the hall before the Governor.  When
+Pilate saw Him in that unheard-of disguise, his temper began to rise.
+He was not to be waked from His sleep for a joke.  Well, the Jews had
+mocked at their Messiah-King, and He would mock at them through Him.
+
+He heard the accusation but found nothing in it.  "What?" he said to
+the High Priests and their supporters, "I'm to condemn your King?  Why,
+what are you thinking of?"  Instead of terrifying the accused with his
+judicial dignity, he desired to enter into conversation with Him.
+Although the Nazarene stood there in such wretched plight, He must have
+something in Him to have roused the masses as He did.  He wanted to
+make His acquaintance.  In a friendly manner he put mocking questions
+to Him.  Did he really know anything special of God?  Would He not tell
+him too, for even heathens were sometimes curious about the Kingdom of
+Heaven?  How should a man set about loving a God whom no one had ever
+seen?  Or which among the gods was the true one?  And for the life of
+him he would like to know what truth really was.
+
+Jesus said not a word.
+
+"You do not seem to lack the virtue of pride," continued Pilate, "and
+that's in your favour.  You know, of course, in whose presence you
+stand, in the presence of one who has the power, to put you to death,
+or to set you free."
+
+Jesus was still silent.
+
+The crowd which already filled the large courtyard became more and more
+noisy and unmanageable.  Rabbis slipped through it in order to fan the
+fire, and on all sides sentence of death was eagerly demanded.  Pilate
+shrugged his shoulders.  He did not understand the people.  But he
+could not condemn an innocent man to death.  He would let the Nazarene
+just as He was step out on to the balcony.  He himself took a torch
+from a slave's hand to light up the pitiful figure.  "Look," he called
+down to the crowd, "look at the poor fellow!"
+
+"To the gallows with him!  To the cross with him!" shouted the crowd.
+
+"If," said Pilate, preserving his ironical tone, "if you do not want to
+miss your Passover spectacle, go out there; no fear of criminals not
+being crucified to-day.  What do you say to Barabbas, the desert king?
+O ye men of Jerusalem, be satisfied with one king."
+
+"We want to see this Jesus crucified," raged the people.
+
+"But why, by Jupiter?  I cannot see that He is guilty of anything."
+
+One of the High Priests came up to him.
+
+"If you set free this blasphemer, this demagogue, who, so He says,
+intends to redeem the Jewish nation from bondage, who has the devil's
+eloquence with which to influence the masses, if you let this man go
+about among the people again, then you are your Emperor's bitterest
+enemy.  Then we shall ask for a governor who is as true to the Emperor
+as we are!"
+
+"You would be more imperial than Pontius Pilate!"  He threw out that
+sentence to them, measuring their figures with contempt.  Whenever Rome
+touched any of their chartered rights they seethed with anger; but
+whenever they needed power to accomplish some purpose hostile to the
+people, they cringed to Rome.  They recognised no people and no
+Emperor; their Temple-law was all in all to them.  And they dared to
+advise the Governor to be imperial!  But the crowd murmured angrily.
+The storm of passion was increasing in the courtyard.  A thousand
+voices threatening, shouting shrilly, demanded the Nazarene's death.
+At that moment his wife sent to Pilate and reminded him of her dream.
+He was inclined to set the accused free at once.  Then in the dim light
+of the torches and the dawning day a dark mass appeared above the heads
+of the people.  It was one of those criminals' stakes with the
+cross-beam like those erected out at Golgotha, only more massive and
+imposing.  They had dragged the cross here, and when it became visible
+to the crowd they broke out in heightened fury: "Crucify Him!  Crucify
+Him!  Jesus or Pilate!"
+
+"Jesus--or Pilate?"  Was that what they shouted?
+
+"Jesus or Pilate?" was re-echoed from courtyard to courtyard, from
+street to street.
+
+"Do you hear, Governor?" one of the High Priests asked him.  "There is
+nothing else to be done!  You see, the people haven't been asleep
+to-night.  They are mad!"  So saying, he seized the staff of justice,
+and offered it to Pilate.  He had turned pale at the sight of the
+raging mob.  He signed with his hand that he wished to speak.  The
+tumult subsided sufficiently for his words to be heard, and he shouted
+hoarsely:
+
+"I cannot find that this man has committed any crime.  But you wish to
+crucify Him.  So be it, but His death is on your consciences!"
+Purposely following the Jewish custom, he washed his hands in a bowl,
+so that those who could not hear him might see; then holding them up,
+all dripping wet, before the people, he exclaimed: "My hands are clean
+from His blood.  I accept no responsibility."  He seized the staff,
+broke it in two with his hands, and threw the pieces at Jesus's feet.
+
+Then there arose a storm of jubilation; "Hail to thee, Pilate!  Hail to
+the Governor of the great Emperor!  Hail to the great Governor of the
+Emperor!"
+
+The High Priests humbly bowed before him, and the guards seized the
+condemned man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The big cross, carried by insolent youths, swung to and fro above the
+heads of the people.  Every one tried to get out of the way of the
+sinister thing; if a man, joking, thrust his neighbour towards it, he
+pushed quickly back into the crowd with a shriek.  And the unceasing
+cry went on: "Hail to Pontius Pilate!  To the cross with the Nazarene!"
+
+Jesus was led from the hall into the courtyard, where His guards had to
+protect Him from the fury of the mob.  They led Him up to the cross.
+
+A sentry appeared, and, violently swinging his arm, shouted; "No
+execution can take place here!  Away with Him!  No execution can be
+permitted here!"
+
+"To Golgotha!"
+
+When the youths found that they would have to take the cross back to
+where they had fetched it, they let it fall to the ground, so that the
+wood made a groaning noise, and then ran off.
+
+"Let Him carry His own cross!" shouted several voices.  The plan
+commended itself to the guards; they unbound His hands, and placed the
+cross on His shoulder.  He staggered under the load.  They beat Him
+with cords like a beast of burden; He tottered along with trembling
+steps, carrying the stake on His right shoulder, so that one arm of the
+cross fell against His breast, held fast there by His hands.  The long
+stake was dragged along the ground.  They had tied a cord round His
+waist by which they led Him.  They pulled Him along so violently that
+He stumbled, and often fell.  The crowd which followed tried to do
+everything they could to hurt Him.  So Jesus tottered along, bowed
+under the heavy weight of the wood.  His gown covered with street mud,
+His head pierced by the thorns so that drops of blood trickled down His
+unkempt hair and over His agonised face.  Never before was so wretched
+a figure dragged to the place of execution, never before was a poor
+malefactor so terribly ill-treated on his way to death.  And never
+before had such dignity and gentleness been seen in the countenance of
+a condemned man as in that of this man.  Some women who had got up
+early out of curiosity to see the procession stood crowded together at
+the street corner.  But when they saw it their mood changed, and they
+broke out into loud lamentation, over the unheard-of horror.  Jesus
+raised His trembling hand towards them, as if He wished to warn them:
+"While your husbands murder Me, you are melted to tears.  Do not lament
+for Me, lament for yourselves and for your children, who will have to
+suffer for the sins of their fathers!"  One of the women, heedless of
+the raging mob, tore the white kerchief from her head, and bent down to
+Him who was carrying the cross in order to wipe the blood and
+perspiration from His face.  When she got back to her house and was
+about to wash the cloth, she saw on it--the face of the Prophet.  And
+it seemed as if kindness and gratitude for her service of love looked
+out from its features at her.  The women all came running up to see the
+miracle, and to haggle to get the cloth that bore such a picture for
+themselves.  But its possessor locked it up in her room.
+
+When Jesus fell beneath the cross for the third time, He was unable to
+get up again.  The guards tugged and pulled Him; the Roman soldiers who
+accompanied them were too proud to carry the cross for this wretched
+Jew.  So the crowd was invited to chose someone to lift up Jesus and
+drag the cross along.  The only answer was scornful laughter.  A
+hard-featured cobbler rushed out of a neighbouring house, and, almost
+foaming at the mouth with rage, demanded that the creature should be
+removed from before his door.  "Customers will be frightened away," he
+cried.
+
+"Let Him rest here for a moment," said one of the soldiers, pointing to
+the fallen man, whose breast heaved in short, violent spasms.
+
+Then the cobbler swung a leathern strap and struck the exhausted man.
+He pulled Himself together in order to totter a few steps farther.  An
+old man, full of years and very lonely, stood by.  He had come from the
+desert where great thoughts dwell.  He had come to see if Jerusalem was
+ascending upwards or sinking downwards.  He desired its descent, for he
+longed for rest.  The old man stood in front of the cobbler and said to
+him softly: "Grandson of Uriah!  You refuse a brief rest to this
+poorest of poor creatures?  You yourself will be everlastingly
+restless.  You will experience human misery to the uttermost and never
+be able to rest.  The curse of your people will be fulfilled in
+you--you heartless Jew!"
+
+At that selfsame hour Simeon, the citizen, was sitting alone in his
+house thinking over his fate, and he was sad.  Since the ride into the
+wilderness, from which he had returned beaten and robbed, he had,
+following the word of the Prophet from whom he had sought happiness,
+made many changes in his way of life.  Impossible as it had then
+seemed, much had become possible.  He had emancipated his slaves,
+broken up his harem, given the overflow of his possessions to the
+needy, and dispensed with all show.  And yet he was not happy--his
+heart was bare and empty.  He was pondering the matter when the
+shouting of the crowd reached him from the street.  What was happening
+so early?  He looked down, saw the spears of the soldiers glitter above
+the people's heads, and noted how one of the malefactors who was to be
+executed that day was being led out.  Simeon was turning away from the
+disagreeable sight when he saw that the man was carrying the cross
+Himself, and how, ill-treated by the guards, He became weaker every
+moment, so that the cross struck noisily against the stones.  In a
+flash he understood.  Without stopping to think, he hurried into the
+street, and pushed his way to the tortured creature in order to help
+Him.  And when he looked into the poor man's worn face, down which a
+tear ran, he was so overcome with pity that he placed himself under the
+cross, took it on his shoulder, and carried it along.  The crowd
+howled; insults and mud were thrown at Simeon.  He paid no heed, he
+scarcely observed it.  He was absorbed in what he was doing; he only
+thought of his desire to help the unhappy creature who staggered along
+beside him to bear His load.  A wondrous feeling stirred in him, an
+eager gladness that he had never known before.  All the joy of his life
+was not to be compared with this bliss; he would have liked to go on
+for ever and ever by the side of this Man, helping Him to bear His load
+and loving Him.
+
+Is that it?  Is that what men call life?  To be where Love is and to do
+what Love enjoins?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Anxiety increased in the quiet house at Nazareth.  Mary determined to
+go to Jerusalem for the holy festival to offer her sorrow as a
+sacrifice to God, to implore Him to enlighten her erring son, and to
+restore to Him the faith of His ancestors.  As she journeyed through
+Samaria and Judaea she thought of the days long past, when she had
+travelled that way to Bethlehem with her faithful Joseph, and of the
+inconceivable things that had happened since then.
+
+She reached a valley where the earth was grey and dry.  It was the
+place in which Adam and Eve had settled when they were driven out of
+Paradise.  She thought of the wayward children of our first parents,
+and with her mind's eye saw a dear little descendant of Adam, who was
+perfectly innocent, and yet had to share earth's sorrow with the
+guilty.  The boy stood sadly by a hedge, and peeped over into the Lost
+Paradise.  A white-robed angel standing by the Tree of Knowledge saw
+the child and was sorry for him.  He broke off a branch from the tree,
+handed it over to the boy, and said: "Here is something for you out of
+Paradise.  Plant the bough in the ground.  It will take root and grow,
+and produce fresh seeds until the throne of the Messiah is built out of
+its trunk."  "O, God! where is the trunk, and where is the Messiah's
+throne?" sighed Mary, and she moved away.
+
+When after her tiring journey she reached the town one morning, she
+found the people streaming along the roads and streets in one
+direction.  She asked the innkeeper what was happening.  He replied by
+asking her if she did not also wish to go and see the execution.
+
+"God forbid!" answered Mary; "happy are all who are not obliged to go."
+
+"Look, there they come!" exclaimed the inn-keeper in glad surprise.
+"They'll come past here.  I really believe it's the Messiah-King!  Oh,
+I could have let out my windows for a silver groat apiece!"
+
+The woman from Galilee wanted to go back into the house, but she was
+pushed aside and carried with the crowd into the narrow street, where
+suddenly she stood before Him!  Before Jesus, her son!  When He saw His
+mother His little remaining strength nearly forsook Him, but He managed
+to keep His feet.  He turned to her with a look of unspeakable sadness
+and love, a brief look in which lay all that a son could have to say to
+his mother at such a meeting.  Then they pushed Him on with blows and
+curses.
+
+Mary stood as if turned to stone.  Her eyes were tearless, her head in
+a whirl, her heart scarcely beat.  "That is what God has prepared for
+me!"  That was all she could think, as, unwilling, bewildered, she was
+carried along by the crowd.  Everything seemed sunk in a blue darkness,
+yet stars danced before her eyes.
+
+At length the procession emerged through the vaulted double gateway
+into the open.  A dim, pale light lay over the barren land.  The rocky
+hill stood out clear on the right.  A great stir was there.  Busy
+workmen were digging deep holes on the top, others were preparing the
+stakes for the desert robbers.  Those wild creatures were already half
+naked, and the executioners were slinging cords round them to bind them
+to the wooden frame.  They were the lean, brown Barabbas and the pale,
+sunken-eyed Dismas.  The former gazed around him with his hawk's eyes,
+clenched his hands, and tried to burst his fetters.  The other was
+quite broken down, and his unkempt hair hung about him.  The disciples
+had come as far as the tower of the town walls, but had withdrawn in
+terror, all but John, James, and Peter.  For Peter had decided to
+acknowledge himself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, should it cost him
+his life.  But no one troubled any further about the strangers.  The
+disciples had seen Judas slinking behind the rocky mounds; he looked
+abject and forlorn, the very image of despair, and although their rage
+against the traitor had known no bounds, they were softened by the
+sight of the miserable creature, regarding him only as an object of
+horror.
+
+Simeon carried the cross to the top of the hill.  And when he laid it
+down and looked once again into the face of the malefactor who had
+staggered up beside him, he recognised the Prophet.  He recognised the
+man with whom he had spoken in the desert concerning eternal life.  He
+had then paid scant attention to His words, but he had forgotten none
+of them.  Now he began to understand that whoever lived according to
+the teaching of this man must attain inward happiness.  And was it on
+account of that teaching that the man was to be executed?
+
+The captain ordered Simeon to move away.  Two executioners laid hands
+on Jesus in order to strip away His garments.  He threw one swift
+glance to Heaven, then closed His eyes, and calmly let them proceed.
+The guards seized His gown, fought for it, and because they could not
+agree who had won it they diced for it.  Then they accused each other
+of cheating, and fought afresh.  Up came Schobal, the dealer in old
+clothes, and pointed out with a grin that it was not worth while to
+crack their skulls over a poor wretch's old coat.  The gown was torn
+and bloody; it was not worth a penny; but in order to end a dispute
+between his brave countrymen he would offer fourpence, which they could
+divide in peace among them.  The coat was delivered over to Schobal.
+He went up and down in the crowd with the garment.  It was the coat of
+the Prophet who was being executed!  Who wanted a souvenir of that day?
+He would sell the coat for the half of its value; it might be bought
+for twelve pence!
+
+A man brought long iron nails in a basket.  The Nazarene was not to be
+tied, but nailed, because He had once said that He should descend from
+the cross.  When they noticed that Jesus was nearly swooning, they
+offered Him a refreshing drink of vinegar and myrrh.  He refused it
+with thanks, and when He began to sink down the executioners caught Him
+and laid Him on the cross.
+
+Suddenly the crowd drew back.  Many did not want to see what was going
+on.  They were dumb.  They had never dreamed of this.  The gentleness
+with which He bore all the torture, the scorn, the death before His
+eyes, this heroic calm weighed like a mountain on their hard hearts.
+Those who had formerly despised Him now wanted to hate Him, but they
+could not.  They were powerless before this overwhelming gentleness.
+What a sound!  That of a hammer beating on iron!  "How the blood
+spurts!" whispered someone.  Two hammers hit the nails, and at each
+blow heaven and earth trembled.  The crowd held its breath, and not a
+sound was heard from the town.  Nothing but the ringing of the hammer.
+Then suddenly a heartrending cry was heard in the crowd.  It came from
+a strange woman who had pushed through it and sank to the ground.  The
+mass of people drew away more and more, no one would stand in front,
+yet each stretched his neck so as to see over the others' heads.  They
+saw the stake lifted up and then sink again.  The captain's orders
+could be heard plainly and clearly.  Then the cross stood up straight.
+At first the long stake was seen above their heads, bearing a white
+placard.  Then the cross-beams appeared on which trembling human arms
+were seen, then the head moving in agonising pain.  Thus did the cross
+with the naked human body rise in the air.  Slowly it rose, supported
+by poles, and as soon as it stood straight the foot of the cross was
+set so roughly in its hole that the body shook with a dull groan.  The
+wounds made by the nails in the hands and feet were torn open, the
+blood ran in dark streams over the white body, down the stake, and
+dropped on the ground.  And from the lips of Him on the cross this loud
+cry was heard, "O, Father, forgive them, forgive them!  For they know
+not what they do."
+
+A strange murmur arose in the crowd, and those who had not understood
+the cry asked their neighbours to repeat it.  "He asks pardon for His
+enemies?  For His enemies?  He is praying for His enemies?"
+
+"Then--then He cannot be human!"
+
+"He forgives those who despised, slandered, scorned, beat, crucified
+Him?  When dying He thinks of His enemies and pardons them?  Then it is
+as He said, He is indeed the Christ!  I always thought He was the
+Christ.  I said so only last Sabbath!"  The voices grew louder.
+Schobal, the old clothes dealer, pushed about in the crowd and offered
+the Messiah's coat for twenty pence.
+
+"If He is the Messiah," shouted a Rabbi hoarsely, "let Him free
+Himself.  He who wants to help others and cannot help Himself is a poor
+sort of Messiah."
+
+"Now, Master," exclaimed a Pharisee, "if you would rebuild the
+shattered Temple, now's the time.  Come down from the cross, and we'll
+believe in you."  The man on the cross looked at the two mockers in
+deep sadness, and they became silent.  Suddenly a passage in the
+Scriptures flashed into their minds: "He was wounded for our
+transgressions!"
+
+When they had all drawn back from the cross, and the executioners were
+preparing to raise up the two desert robbers, the woman who had
+swooned, supported by the disciple John, tottered up to the tall cross
+and put her arms round its trunk so that the blood ran down upon her.
+So infinite was her pain that it seemed as if seven swords had pierced
+her heart.  Jesus looked down, and how muffled was the voice in which
+He said: "John, take care of My mother!  Mother, here is John, your
+son!"
+
+A murmur arose in the crowd: "His mother?  Is that His mother?  Oh,
+poor things!  And the handsome young man His brother?  The poor
+creatures!  Look how He turns to them as if He would comfort them."
+
+Many a man passed his hand over his eyes, the women sobbed aloud.  And
+a dull lamentation began to go through the people--the same people who
+had so angrily demanded His death.  And they talked together.
+
+"He can't suffer much longer."
+
+"No, I've had some experience.  I've been here every Passover.  But
+this time----"
+
+"If I only knew what is written on the tablet."
+
+"Over His head?  My sight seems to have gone."
+
+"Inri!" exclaimed somebody,
+
+"Inri!  Somebody calls out 'Inri.'"
+
+"Those are the letters on the tablet."
+
+"But the man's name's not Inri."
+
+"Something quite different, my friend.  That is Pilate's joke.  _Jesus
+Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum_."
+
+"Don't talk to me in that accursed Latin tongue."
+
+"In good Hebrew: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
+
+"Now, they've got Him in the middle," said another, for the two robbers
+had been hoisted up to the right and left of Him.  The one on the left
+stretched out his neck, and mocked at Jesus with a distorted face: "I
+suppose, neighbour, that you too are one of those who get executed just
+because they are weaklings.  Jump from the cross, rush among them, and
+the wretches will idolise you!"
+
+Jesus did not answer him.  He turned His head towards the man who hung
+on His right who saw the moment approaching when his legs would be
+broken.  In the agony of death, and in penitence for his ill-spent
+life, he turned to Him whom they called Messiah and Christ.  And when
+he saw the expression with which Jesus looked at him, a curious shudder
+passed through the criminal's heart.  How the man on the cross gazed at
+him, with His fading eyes--My God!--it was the never-to-be-forgotten
+holy look which a little child had given him in the days of his youth.
+Dismas began to weep, and said: "Lord, you are from heaven!  When you
+return home, remember me."
+
+And Jesus said to him: "There is mercy for all who repent!  To-day,
+Dismas, you and I will be together at the Heavenly Father's home."
+
+"He is from heaven!" was heard in the crowd.  "He is from heaven!"  One
+of the Roman soldiers threw his spear away, and exclaimed in immense
+excitement: "Verily, He is the Son of God!"
+
+"The Son of God!  The Son of God!  Set Him free!  It is the Son of God
+who hangs on the cross!"  The cry rolled through the crowd like the
+dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward
+consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made
+since the world began.  He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of
+God.  Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner.  He struggles
+up to his feet, holding on with his lean hands, he looks up to the
+cross with rolling eyes.  A prayer for mercy wells up from his heart
+like a bloody spring.  And beside him a woman kneels and folds her
+hands against the cross.  And she who thus stands under the cross
+wrings her hands, and implores mercy for her child.
+
+The letters I.N.R.I, over the cross begin to gleam.  And a voice is
+heard in the air: "Jesus Near Redeems Ill-doers."
+
+"The Son of God!  The Son of God!"  The cry went on without ceasing.
+"The Son of God on the cross!"
+
+"The Son of God's coat!  A hundred gold pieces for the coat!" shrieked
+old Schobal, lifting the garment up on a stick like a flag.  The dealer
+swore by that flag, for its value had risen a thousandfold in an hour.
+"A hundred gold pieces for the Son of God's coat!"  But it was high
+time that the dealer made himself scarce, for the people of Jerusalem
+were enraged at a man who wanted to do business in presence of the
+dying Saviour.  The good, pious citizens of Jerusalem!
+
+Not a High Priest was to be seen.  They had all gone away.  The
+hoarse-voiced Rabbi was still there, reciting Psalms aloud to the dying
+man.
+
+"Stop that!" someone shouted at him.  "You killed Him."
+
+"We've killed Him?  Who do you mean?" asked the Rabbi with well-feigned
+innocence.
+
+"Why you, you expounders of the Scriptures, you brought Him to His
+death; it was you, and you alone!"
+
+The Rabbi replied very seriously: "Think, my friend, what you are
+saying.  Can you prove this charge before the dread Jehovah?  We
+expounders of the Law brought Him to His death!  Every one knows who
+condemned Him.  It was the foreigners.  They have ever been the ruin of
+our nation!  Every one knows who crucified Him at the desire of the
+people."
+
+It was high time that he should defend himself.  The voices grew ever
+louder: It was the High Priests who had goaded on the people and
+judges!  They are guilty----
+
+"Silence!  He still lives!"
+
+All looks were centred on the cross.
+
+Jesus turned His head to the crowd and muttered in His weakness: "I am
+thirsty!  I am thirsty!"
+
+The captain ordered a sponge to be dipped in vinegar, and reached up to
+Him on a stick so that the dying man might sip the moisture.
+
+A young woman with her hair flowing loose lay among the rocks.  She
+kneeled, and, supporting her elbows on the ground, wailed softly: "O
+Saviour, Saviour!  My sins!"
+
+He looked once again at His dear ones.  Then He lifted His head quickly
+and uttered a cry to Heaven: "Father, receive My soul!  My Father!  Do
+not forsake Me!"  He looked upwards, gazed at the heavens with
+wide-opened eyes, then His head dropped and fell on His breast.
+
+John sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands.  All was
+over!
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The crowd was almost motionless.  They stood and stared, and their
+faces were white.  The town walls were dun-coloured, the shrubs were
+grey, the young buds were pale and closed.
+
+A lustreless sun stood in the sky like a moon, and its shadows were
+ghostly.  Terrified rooks and bats flew around, and hovered about the
+cross in this horrible twilight.  Rocks on the hills broke away, and
+skulls rolled down the slope.  As for the people, they seemed to have
+lost the power of speech, they stood dumb and looked at one another.
+
+"Something has happened," said an old man to himself.
+
+The crowd began to move, uncertainly at first, then with more animation
+and noise.
+
+"What has happened?" asked a bystander.
+
+"My friend, what has happened now has thrown the world off its balance.
+I do not know what it is, but it has thrown the world off its balance.
+If it is not the end of the world, then it must be its beginning."
+
+"Inri!  Inri!" shouted the voice of a shuddering lunatic.
+
+Then there was a general shout.  "What is it?  It is dark!  I've never
+been so terrified in all my days."
+
+"Look at the cross!  It's growing longer!  Higher, ever higher, higher!
+I can't see the top of it!  It's a giant cross!"
+
+Then came news.  "A pillar has fallen in the Temple.  The curtain of
+the Holy of Holies has been rent in twain.  Outside, in the cemetery,
+the tombs have opened and the dead wrapped in their white shrouds have
+risen from them."
+
+"The end of the world!"
+
+"The beginning of the world!"
+
+"Jesus Christ!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"JESUS CHRIST!" rustles through the crowd like the spring breezes over
+the desert.  The words sound through the whole of Jerusalem, they sound
+throughout the broad land of Judaea, these words of all power.  They
+kindle a fire which has lighted up the universe until the present day.
+
+His dear and faithful ones assembled at the cross where the dead Master
+hung.  There are more of them than there were yesterday, among them
+even some who had shouted in the night: "Crucify Him!"  The disciples
+stood there silent, making no lamentation.  Mary, the mother, stood by
+John's side, and Magdalen by him.  A marvellous quiet had come over
+their hearts, so that they asked themselves:
+
+"How can this be?  Is not our Jesus dead?"
+
+"My brothers," said Peter, "for me it is as if He still lives."
+
+"He in us, and we in Him," said John.
+
+Only Bartholomew was restless.  Hesitatingly he asked James if he had
+not also understood Him to say: "Father, do not forsake Me."  But James
+was thinking of another word and of another of the brothers.  He went
+away from the cross to seek out Judas.  He would tell him that in dying
+the Master had forgiven His enemies, he would tell Judas of the
+Saviour's legacy: Mercy for sinners!
+
+Since the early hours of the morning when the Master had been condemned
+to death in the Governor's house, Judas had wandered aimlessly about.
+He tried to surrender himself to the captain as a false witness and a
+spy, as one who sold men for gold.  He was laughed at and left alone.
+Then he went to one of the High Priests to swear that his statements
+had not been so meant; that his Master was no evil-doer, but rather the
+Messenger of God, who would destroy His enemies.  He had not intended
+to betray Him, and he would return the traitor's pay to the Pharisee.
+The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying that it was no concern of
+his; he had given no money and would receive none.  Then Judas threw
+the silver pieces at his feet and hurried away.  His long hair waved in
+the wind.  He slunk along behind the town walls in order to get in
+advance of the procession and let himself be impaled at Golgotha
+instead of the Master.  But he was too late; he heard the strokes of
+the hammer.  He went down into the valley of Kedron.  Not a soul was to
+be seen there, every one had gone to the place of execution.  Judas was
+thrown aside, even by the gaping crowd, abandoned as a traitor.
+Frightful, inconceivable, was the thing he had done!  Alas! why had He
+not revealed Himself?  He stood patiently, gentle as a lamb before the
+judges, and bore the cross as no one had ever done before.  Could that
+be it after all?  Not to strive against one's enemies, to suffer one's
+fate as the will of God, to lay down one's life for the tidings of the
+Father--was that glory the mission of the Messiah?  "And I?  I expected
+something else of Him.  And I made a mistake, greater than all the
+mistakes of all the fools put together.  And now I am thrust out of the
+fellowship of righteous men, and thrust out of the fellowship of
+sinners.  There is pardon for the murderer, but not for the traitor.
+He Himself said: Better that such a man had never been born.  Others
+dare to atone for their sins in caves of the desert, dare to expiate
+their crimes with their blood--but I am cast out of all Love and all
+expiation for ever and ever."  Such were the endless laments of Judas.
+He wandered to and fro behind walls and among bushes; he hid himself in
+caves all the day long.  Then suddenly it flashed on him: "It is
+unjust.  I believed in Him.  I believed in Him so implicitly.  Is such
+trust thrown away?  Can the Divine Man cast aside such a trust?  No, it
+is not so, it is not so!"
+
+His fate was decided by this shattering of his last hope.  When it was
+dark he slunk past a farm.  Ropes hung over the walls; he pulled one
+off and hurried to the mountain.  The sun was setting behind Jerusalem,
+over the heights, like a huge, red, lustreless pane of glass.  Once
+more for the last time his eye sought the light, the departing light.
+And a cross stood out large and dark against the red circle; the tall
+cross at Golgotha right in the centre of the gloomy sun.  Gigantic and
+dark it towered against the crimson background--horrible!  The
+despairing heart of Judas could not endure it.  With a savage curse he
+went up to a fig-tree.  James was behind him.  He had seen Judas climb
+the slope, had waved his cloak and cried to him: "It is I, James.
+Brother, I come from the Master.  Listen, brother, mercy for sinners.
+Mercy for all who repent.  Listen."  Almost breathless he reached the
+fig-tree.  Arms and legs hung down lifeless, the mouth drawn in, the
+tongue protruding from the lips.  The body swung to and fro in the
+evening breeze.  The wretched man had not waited for the Saviour's
+pardon.
+
+Towards the end of that same day the old man of the East, who came from
+the desert where great thoughts dwell, the weary old man who called
+down twice the curse of everlasting unrest on the grandson of Uriah,
+went to a stonecutter in Jerusalem.  He thought it time to order his
+tombstone.  And on it were to be cut the letters "I.N.R.I."
+
+"Did you also belong to the Nazarene?" asked the stonecutter.
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because it is the inscription on His cross."
+
+"It is the inscription on my grave," said the old man, "and it means:
+'IN NIRVANA REST I.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+When all was over, Joseph of Arimathea, a blunt, outspoken disciple of
+Jesus, went to Pilate, the Governor, to ask him that the Prophet's body
+might be buried that same evening.
+
+"Have His legs been broken?" Pilate inquired of him.
+
+"Sir, that is not necessary.  He is dead."
+
+"I do not believe you."
+
+"It is quite true, sir.  The captain pierced his side."
+
+"I have been warned about you," said Pilate roughly.  "I shall send a
+guard to watch the grave."
+
+"As your lordship pleases."
+
+"The man said that He would rise from the dead on the third day.  It is
+likely that His friends will help Him!"
+
+Joseph drew himself up in front of the Governor and said: "Sir, what
+ground have you for such a suspicion?  Have we Jews proved ourselves so
+absolutely lawless in our fatherland?  Surely not so much so that this
+best of all men, this Divine Man, should have been condemned to death
+without a shadow of reason, and His followers, too, treated with
+contempt as if they were cheats and body-snatchers."
+
+"You have to thank your priests for that," said Pilate, with cold
+indifference.
+
+"We know the breed," replied Joseph, "and so do you.  But you are
+afraid of it.  Our Master would have made an end of it.  But you are a
+broken reed.  Many of our great men have been ruined by Roman
+arrogance, but it was Roman _cowardice_ that cost our Master His life."
+
+The Governor started, but remained impassive.
+
+He signed with his hand: "Let me hear no more of this affair.  Do what
+you like with Him.  Sentries can be placed at the grave.  I've had more
+than enough of you and your Jews to-day."
+
+Thus the Arimathean was dismissed, ungraciously, it is true, but with
+permission to bury the beloved corpse.
+
+Meanwhile the torment of the two desert robbers had ended.  And Dismas
+was at last set free from Barabbas, to whom a demoniacal fate had
+chained him his whole life long.  Jesus had come between them, and had
+divided the penitent man from the impenitent.  It is true that their
+bodies were thrown into the same grave, but the soul of Dismas had
+found the appointed trysting-place.
+
+As soon as the Arimathean returned from his interview with the
+Governor, late as the hour was, Jesus was unfastened from the cross and
+lowered to the ground with cloths.  Then the body was anointed with
+precious oil, wrapped in white linen, and carried to Joseph's garden.
+They laid it in the grave in the stillness of the night.
+
+A holy peace breathed o'er the earth, and the stars shone in the
+heavens like lamps at the repose of the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+In the night which followed this saddest of all sad days, Mary, His
+mother, could not sleep.  And yet she saw a vision such as could not have
+been seen by anyone awake.
+
+Crouching down, leaning against the stone, her eyes resting on the cross
+that rose tall and straight into the sky, she seemed to see a tree
+covered with red and white blossoms.  It was as if that branch of the
+Tree of Paradise which the angel had once handed over the hedge had
+bloomed.  It stood in the midst of a beautiful rose-garden filled with
+pleasant odours, running water, and songs of birds, with a wonderful
+light over all.  Innumerable companies of men and women passed into that
+Eden from out a deep abyss.  They ascended slowly and solemnly out of the
+gloomy depths to the shining heights.  In front of all came a couple, our
+first father, Adam, walking with Eve.  Just behind them Abel, arm-in-arm
+with Cain.  Then crowded up the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the
+prophets, and the psalmists, among them Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, and
+Joseph, Solomon and David, Zachariah and Josiah, Eleazar and Jehoiakim,
+and quite at the back--an old man, walking alone, supporting himself on a
+stick from which lilies sprouted--Joseph, her husband.  He was in no
+hurry; he stopped and looked round at Mary.
+
+So all passed into Paradise.
+
+That was what Mary saw, and then day dawned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+In accordance with the orders, the Nazarene's grave was strictly
+guarded.  A heavy stone had been placed in the opening of the niche in
+the rocks within which the body was laid, and, at the Governor's
+bidding, the captain had sealed it at every end and corner.  Two
+fully-armed soldiers were stationed at the entrance with instructions
+to keep off every suspicious person from the grave.  And then, on the
+third day after the entombment, an incredible rumour ran through
+Jerusalem.  _The Nazarene had risen_!
+
+On the morning of that day, so it was said, two women went to the
+grave, the mother of the dead man, and Magdalen, His devoted follower.
+They were surprised to find that the guards were not there, and then
+they saw that the stone had been rolled away.  The niche in the rock
+was empty, save for the white linen in which He had been wrapped.
+These linen bandages were lying at the edge of the grave, their ends
+hanging down.  The women began to weep, thinking someone had taken the
+corpse away; but presently they saw a white-robed boy standing by, and
+heard him say: "He whom you seek is not here.  He lives, and goes with
+you to Galilee."
+
+As if in some wild dream, the women staggered back from the grave.
+There was a man in the garden whom at first they took to be the
+gardener.  They wanted to question him; He came towards them.  With
+youthful, beautiful, shining countenance, immaculate, without wounds
+except the nail-marks on the hands.  He stood before them.  They were
+terror-stricken.  They heard Him say: "Peace be with you!  It is I."
+As the sun was so bright the women held their hands a moment before
+their eyes, and when they looked up again He was no longer to be seen.
+
+The Nazarene's grave was empty!  Everybody made a pilgrimage from the
+town to see.  The people's mood had entirely changed since the
+crucifixion.  Not another contemptuous word was heard, some even
+secretly beat their breasts.  The High Priests met together, and
+inquired of the guards what had occurred.  They could tell nothing.
+
+"At least confess that you fell asleep and that His disciples stole
+Him."
+
+"Honoured sirs," answered one of the guards, "for two reasons we cannot
+admit we fell asleep; first, because it isn't true, and secondly,
+because we should be punished."
+
+Upon which one of the Temple authorities observed: "But in spite of
+that, you can very well say so.  For you have certainly fallen asleep
+more than once in your lives.  And as for the punishment, we'll make it
+right with the Governor.  Nothing shall happen to you."
+
+The brave Romans thought it best to avoid a dispute with the
+authorities, and to say what the latter preferred to hear.  So the tale
+went that the guards had fallen asleep, and meanwhile the body had been
+removed by the disciples in order to be able to say, "He is risen."
+This was circulated on all hands, and no one thought any more of the
+resurrection of the Nazarene.
+
+The disciples themselves could not believe it.  Some of them declared
+that Pilate and his spies best knew what had become of the corpse.
+Others, on the contrary, were stirred by an unparalleled exaltation of
+spirit, by some divine energy which filled their minds with appallingly
+clear visions of the latter days.
+
+It happened about this time that two of the disciples walked out
+towards Emmaus.  They were sad, and spoke of the incomprehensible
+misfortune that had befallen them.  A stranger joined them, and asked
+why they were so melancholy.
+
+"We belong to His followers," they replied.
+
+When He said nothing, as if He had not understood, they asked whether
+He was quite a stranger in Jerusalem, and did not know what had
+happened these last days?
+
+"What has occurred?" He asked.
+
+Surely He must have heard of Jesus, the Prophet who had done such great
+deeds, and preached a new and wonderful Word of God: Of the Heavenly
+Father full of love, of the Kingdom of Heaven in one's own heart, and
+of eternal life.  It was as if God Himself had assumed human shape in
+the person of this Prophet in order to set them an example of perfect
+life.  And that Divine Man had just been executed in Jerusalem.  Since
+that event they had felt utterly forsaken.  That was why they were sad.
+He had, indeed, promised that He would rise after death as a pledge for
+His tidings of the resurrection of man and eternal life.  But the three
+days were now up.  A story was going about that two women had seen Him
+that morning with the wounds made by the nails.  But until they could
+themselves lay their hands on those wounds, they would not believe it;
+no.  He must needs be like the rest of the dead.
+
+Then the stranger said: "If the Risen Man does not appear to you as He
+appeared to the women, it is because your faith is too weak.  If you do
+not believe in Him, you surely know from the prophecies how God's
+messenger must suffer and die, because only through that gate can
+eternal glory be reached."
+
+With such conversation they reached Emmaus, where the two disciples
+were to visit a friend.  The stranger, they imagined, was going
+farther, but they liked Him, and so invited Him to go to the house with
+them: "Sir, stay with us; the day draws in, it will soon be evening."
+
+So He went with them.  When they sat at supper, and the stranger took
+some bread, one whispered to the other: "Look how He breaks the bread!
+It is not our Jesus?"
+
+But when in joy unspeakable they went to embrace Him, they saw that
+they were alone.
+
+This is what the two disciples related, and no one was more glad to
+believe it than Schobal, the dealer; he now asked three hundred gold
+pieces for the coat of the man who had risen from the dead.
+
+Thomas was less sure of the Resurrection.  "Why should He rise?" asked
+the disciple.  "Did He come to earth for the sake of this bodily life?
+Did He not rest everything on the spiritual life?  The true Jesus
+Christ was to be with us in the spirit."
+
+The disciples who had accompanied the Master from Galilee went back to
+their own land filled with that belief.  Things had somewhat changed
+there.  The condemnation of the Nazarene without any proof of guilt had
+vastly angered the Galileans.  His glorious death had terrified them.
+No, this countryman of theirs was no ordinary man!  They would now make
+up to His disciples for their ill-conduct towards Him.  So His
+adherents were well received in Galilee, and resumed the occupations
+that they had abandoned two years before.  John had brought His mother
+home, and gone with her to the quiet house at Nazareth.  The others
+tried to accustom themselves to the work-a-day world, but they could do
+nothing but think of the Master, and wherever two or three of them were
+gathered together He was with them in spirit.  One day they were
+together in a cottage by the lake.  They spoke of His being the Son of
+God, and some who had looked into the Scriptures brought forward
+proofs: the prophecies which had come to pass in Him, the psalms He had
+fulfilled, the miracles He had worked, and the fact that many had seen
+Him after His death.
+
+Suddenly Thomas said: "I don't much hold with all that.  Other things
+have been prophesied; the Prophets, too, worked miracles, and rose
+after death.  What good is it to me if He is not with us in the flesh?"
+
+They were much alarmed.  They shook with terror.  Not on account of the
+Master, but of their brother.  But Thomas continued: "Why don't you
+name the greatest sign, the true sign of His divinity?  Why don't you
+speak of His Word about divine sonship, about loving your enemy, about
+redemption?  Listen to what I am saying: it is what we have all
+experienced, and still experience every hour.  He freed us from worldly
+desires.  He taught us love and joy.  He assured us of eternal life
+with the Heavenly Father.  He did that through His _Word_.  He died for
+that Word and will live in that Word.  To me, my brothers, that Divine
+Word is proof of His being the Son of God.  I need no other."
+
+"Children!" said John.  He was indeed the youngest of them, but he
+said, "Children!  Do not talk in such a way.  Faith is the knowledge of
+the heart.  Are we not happy in our hearts that we found the Father so
+near us, so true to us, so eternally on our side, that nothing evil can
+befall us in the future?  These bodies of ours will perish, but He is
+the resurrection, and he who believes in Him never dies.  He loved the
+children of men so dearly that He gave them His own Son, so that every
+one who believes in Him may live for ever.  Therefore we are happy,
+because we are in God, and God is in us."
+
+Thus His favourite disciple spoke in wondrous enthusiasm.  They then
+began to understand, and to apprehend the immeasurable significance of
+Him who had lived in human form among them.
+
+Wherever they went, whatever they did. His word sounded in their ears.
+The promise that He would follow them to Galilee was fulfilled.  His
+spirit was with them, they were quite sure of that.  But that spirit
+would not let them rest content with work-a-day life; it was like yeast
+fermenting in their being, it was like a spark kindled into a bright
+flame, and the fiery tongues announced the glad tidings.  They must go
+forth.  None dared be the first to say so, but all at once they all
+declared: "We must go forth into the wide world."  With no great
+preparation, with cloak and staff as they had travelled with Him, they
+went forth.  First to Jerusalem, to stand once more by His grave, and
+then forth in every direction to preach Jesus, the Son of God. . . .
+
+This brings me to the close of my vision.  I will only tell further of
+one meeting which was so remarkable and fraught with such vast results.
+One day when the disciples during their journey to Jerusalem were
+resting under the almond trees, they saw a troop of horsemen in the
+valley.  They were native soldiers with a captain.  He seemed to have
+noticed the disciples, for he put spurs to his horse.  The disciples
+were a little terrified, and Thaddeus, who had good eyes, said: "God be
+merciful to us, that's the cruel weaver!"
+
+"We will calmly wait for him," said the brethren, and they remained
+standing.  When the rider was quite close to them, he dismounted
+quickly and asked: "Do you belong to Jesus of Nazareth?"
+
+"We are His disciples," they answered frankly.
+
+Then he kneeled before Peter, the eldest, spread his arms, and
+exclaimed: "Receive me, receive me; I would become worthy to be His
+disciple."
+
+"But if I do not mistake, you are Saul who laid snares for Him?" said
+Peter.
+
+"Laid snares, persecuted Him and His," said the horseman, and his words
+broke swiftly from his lips: "Two days ago I rode out against those who
+said He had risen.  Yet I was always thinking of this man who saw so
+strangely into men's minds.  I thought of Him day and night, and of
+much that He had said.  And as I was riding across the plain in the
+twilight, a light enveloped me, my horse stumbled, a white figure stood
+in front of me, and in the hand lifted towards Heaven was the mark of a
+wound.  'Who are you, to bar my way?' I exclaimed.  And He answered, 'I
+am He whom you persecute!'  It was your Master risen from the dead.
+'Why persecute me, Saul?  What have I done to you?'  Your Jesus, the
+Christ, stood living before me!  Yes, men of Galilee, now I believe
+that He is risen.  And as, hitherto, I assailed His word, I will now
+help to spread it abroad.  Brothers, receive me!"
+
+That is my picture of how Saul was converted into an apostle.  He sent
+his horse back to the valley, and went himself gladly and humbly along
+with the Galileans to Jerusalem.
+
+When, after some days, they reached the Mount of Olives, whence they
+had first looked on the metropolis, there, standing on the rocks, was
+Jesus.  There He stood, just as He had always been, and the disciples
+felt exactly as they had in the times past when He was always with
+them.  They stood round Him in a circle, and He looked at them
+lovingly.  And suddenly they heard Him ask in a low voice: "Do you love
+Me?"
+
+"Lord," they answered, "we love You."
+
+He asked again: "Do you love Me?"
+
+They said: "Lord, You know that we love You."
+
+Then He asked for a third time; "Do you love Me?"
+
+And they exclaimed all together: "We cannot tell in words, O Lord, how
+we love You!"
+
+"Then go forth.  Go to the poor, and comfort them; to the sinners, and
+raise them up.  Go to all nations, and teach them all that I have told
+you.  Those who believe in Me will be blessed.  I am the way, the
+truth, and the life.  I go now to My Father.  My spirit and My strength
+I leave to you: light to the eyes, the word to the tongue, love to the
+heart.  And mercy to sinners----"
+
+Thus they heard Him speak, and lo!--there was no one there except the
+disciples.  Two footmarks were impressed on the stone.  The heavens
+above were still; they bowed their heads, then watched how He ascended
+to the clouds, how He hovered in the light, how He went to the Father,
+to whom also we shall go through our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+My Father and my God!  I thank Thee that Thou hast permitted me to
+behold the Life, the Passion, and the Resurrection of Thy Son, and to
+steep myself in His words and promises during this terrible time.  In
+the torture of suspense, which is more dreadful than death, I have won
+courage from the great events of His life, and received consolation
+from the appearance of my Redeemer upon earth.  My hope has been
+strengthened by the saints of old who repented.  For the sake of the
+crucified Saviour, O Lord, put mercy into my King's heart.  If it is
+God's will that I die, then let me die like Dismas.  Only pardon me.
+In the name of Jesus, I implore Thee, O Father, for mercy!  Have mercy
+on me, a sinner.  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+Such is the story.  It was written by a common workman awaiting
+sentence of death in a prison cell.  The last prayer was written
+exactly six weeks after his condemnation.
+
+Conrad began to feel a little frightened.  He had been so absorbed in
+his Saviour's story that he felt himself to be almost part of it.  He
+had written it all day, and dreamed of it all night.  He had been in
+the stable at Bethlehem, he had wandered by the Lake of Gennesaret, and
+spent nights in the wilderness of Judaea.  He had journeyed to Sidon,
+and across the mountains to Jerusalem.  He, a prisoner in jail and
+sentenced to death, had stood on the Mount of Olives, he had been in
+Bethany and supped at Jesus' side.  But now he felt almost indifferent
+to the thought.  Had he not lived through that glorious death at
+Golgotha?  All else sank into insignificance beside that.  It almost
+seemed to him as if he had passed beyond the veil.  The Risen One
+possessed all his soul.  He could not get away from all these holy
+memories.  Then suddenly came the thought: when death comes I must be
+brave.  He remembered a story his mother had once told him of a Roman
+executioner who, on receiving orders to behead a young Christian, had
+been so overcome with pity that he had fainted.  The youth had revived
+him, and comforted him as bravely as if it had been his duty to die, as
+it was the executioner's to kill.  But then Conrad told himself: you
+are a guilty creature, and cannot compare yourself with a saint.  Would
+you be brave enough to act like that?  Would you?  It is sweet to die
+with Jesus, but it is still sweeter to live with Him.
+
+The jailer asked him if he would care to go out once more into the open
+air.
+
+Out into the air?  Out into the prison yard, where all the refuse was
+thrown?  No.  He thanked him; he would prefer to remain in his cell.
+It could not be for long now.
+
+"No; it will not be for long now," said the old man.  But he did not
+tell him that in the meantime the Chancellor had died of his wounds,
+although from the "old grumbler's" increased tenderness Conrad might
+have suspected that his case did not stand in a favourable light.
+
+"If you are truly brave," the old man told him, "the next time you go
+out you shall walk under green trees."
+
+"But now?  Not now?"  Conrad thought of a reprieve, and grew excited.
+A red flush stained his cheeks.
+
+"No; I did not mean that.  You know the King is far away.  But it may
+come any time.  I am waiting for it anxiously.  You know, Ferleitner,
+after this I shall resign my post."
+
+At that moment the priest came in.  He always entered the dark cell
+with a cheerful face and a glad "God be with you!"  It was his office
+to bring comfort, if only he had known how.  As a rule the monk came
+in, wiping the perspiration from his brow with a coarse blue
+handkerchief, and loudly assuring the prisoner how pleasantly cool it
+was in his cell.  But this time he was nervous and ill at ease.  How
+did the prisoner look?  Emaciated to a skeleton, his teeth prominent
+between fleshless lips, his eyes wide open, a wondrous fire burning in
+their depths.
+
+"As you will never send for me, my dear Ferleitner, I have come again
+unasked to see how you fare.  You are not ill?"
+
+"Has the sentence come?" asked the prisoner.
+
+"Not that I know of," answered the monk; "but I see I am disturbing you
+at your work."
+
+Conrad had neglected to put away the sheets he had written, and so had
+to confess that he had been writing.
+
+"Isn't it too dark to see to write here?"
+
+"You get accustomed to it.  At first it was dark, but now it seems to
+get lighter and lighter."
+
+"So you've made your will at last?" asked the father, raising his
+eyebrows.  He meant to be humorous.
+
+"A sort of one!"
+
+"Let's see, then.  You have something to leave?"
+
+"I have not.  Another has."
+
+The father turned over the sheets, read a line here and there, shook
+his shaven head a little, and said "It seems to resemble the New
+Testament.  Have you been copying it from the Gospel?"
+
+"No, I haven't got a New Testament.  That's why I had to write this for
+myself."
+
+"This Gospel!  You've written one for yourself out of your own head?"
+
+"Not exactly.  Well, perhaps now and then I have.  I've written what I
+could remember.  I will be responsible for the errors."
+
+"My curiosity grows," cried the father.  "May I read it?"
+
+"It's not worth your trouble, but I knew of nothing else to help me."
+
+"The work has exhausted you, Ferleitner."
+
+"No; on the contrary, I may almost say it has revived me.  I'm sorry it
+is finished.  I thought of nothing else; I forgot everything."
+
+His enthusiasm has consumed him, thought the monk.
+
+"Ferleitner, will you let me take it away with me for a few days?"
+
+Conrad shyly gave permission.  The monk gathered the sheets together,
+and thrust them carelessly into his pouch, so that the roll stuck out
+at the top.  When he had gone, Conrad gazed sadly into emptiness and
+longed for his manuscript.  How happy he had been with it all those
+weeks!  What would the priest think of it?  Everything would be wrong.
+Such people see their God with other eyes than ours.  And if he
+criticised it, all the pleasure would go out of it.
+
+But Conrad did not have to do without it long.  The father brought it
+back the next morning.  He had begun to read it the evening before, and
+had sat up all night to finish it.  But he would not give his opinion,
+and Conrad did not ask for it.  Almost helplessly, they sat at the
+rough table, while the monk tried to think how he could express his
+thoughts.  After a while, he took up the manuscript, laid it down
+again, and said that of course, from the ecclesiastical point of view,
+there would naturally be some objections.
+
+"The details of the history are not altogether correct.  I know,
+Ferleitner, that you asked me for a copy of the New Testament.  If I
+had known that you had gone so far, I would willingly have given you
+one.  But perhaps it is better so.  Though I must tell you, Conrad
+Ferleitner, that nothing has given me so much pleasure for a long while
+as these meditations and--I may also say--fancies of yours.  As for the
+faults, let those who take a pleasure in finding them, look for them.
+The living faith is the one important thing, the living faith and the
+living Jesus, and that is here!  My son," he added, laying his hand on
+the prisoner's head, "I feel your piety of soul is so profound, that I
+will administer the sacrament to you.  Yes, Conrad, you are saved.
+Only, pray fervently."
+
+Conrad covered his face with his hands, and wept quietly.  The priest's
+words made him so happy.
+
+"I even think," continued the father, after a pause, "that others who
+are seeking for the simple word of God, and cannot find it, might read
+your book.  There must be many such people in hospitals, poor-houses,
+and prisons, and especially those who are in your situation.  Would you
+have any objection?"
+
+"My God, why should I?" replied Conrad.  "If this work of mine could be
+the help to other poor wretches that it has been to me!  But I do not
+know--it was not meant for that.  I wrote it only for myself."
+
+"Naturally, one or two things must be altered," said the father.  "We
+would go through it again together."
+
+"But, holy father," asked the prisoner wistfully, "that is--if you
+think there will be time?"
+
+"Above all, we must try and find a suitable title.  Have you not
+thought that your child must have a name?"
+
+"I wrote the letters I.N.R.I. at the top."
+
+"It is rather out of the common.  People won't know what to make of it.
+We must at least have a sub-title."
+
+"The title's a matter of absolute indifference to me," said Conrad:
+"perhaps you can find one."
+
+"I will think it over.  May I take the manuscript away again?  I must
+try and become literary in my old age.  If a carpenter lad can write a
+whole book, surely a Franciscan monk can find a title!  Have you
+anything on your mind, my son?  No?  Then God be with you.  I will come
+again soon."  At the door he turned: "Tell me, my son, does the jailer
+give you food enough?"
+
+"Yes, more than I need."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Outside it was hot summer-time.  Conrad knew nothing of it, he had not
+thought of it.  The jailer came with the permission that, as an
+exception, he would be allowed to walk for half an hour in the garden.
+Conrad felt quite indifferent.  As the warder led him along the vaulted
+passage, he staggered slightly; he had almost forgotten how to walk.
+He steadied himself on his companion's arm and said:
+
+"I feel so strange."
+
+"Hold on to me; nothing will happen to you."
+
+"Are we going right out into the open?"
+
+"From now, you will go for a short walk in the garden every day."
+
+"I do not know if I care to," said Conrad, hesitating.  "I am
+afraid--of the sun."
+
+They were out under the open sky, in the wide, dazzling green light.
+Conrad stood still for a moment and covered his eyes with his hand,
+then he looked up, and covered them again, and began to tremble.  The
+warder remained silent, and supported him as he tottered along under
+the shade of the horse-chestnuts.  On either side stretched green banks
+glowing with flowers and roses, their bright colours quivering like
+flame blown by the wind.  Above was the blue sky with the great burning
+sun.  And all around he heard the songs of the birds.  Oh, life! life!
+He had almost forgotten what it meant--to live!  He groaned aloud, it
+might have been either from sorrow or joy.  Then he sat down on a bench
+and paused, exhausted.  He gazed out into the illimitable light.  Tears
+trickled slowly down his hollow cheeks.
+
+After a time the warder started to go on.  Conrad raised himself
+unsteadily, and they moved slowly forward.  They came to a white marble
+bust standing on a stone pillar surrounded with flowers.
+
+Conrad stood still, shaded his eyes with his hand, looked at the
+statue, and asked: "Who is that?"
+
+"That is the king," answered the warder.  Conrad gazed at it
+thoughtfully.  And then he said softly and much moved: "How kindly he
+looks at me!"
+
+"Yes, he is a kind master."
+
+Then joy slowly entered the heart of the poor sinner.  The world is
+beautiful.  People are good.  Life is everlasting.  And the Heavenly
+Father reigns over all. . . .
+
+The warder looked at his watch.  "It is time to return."
+
+Conrad was taken back to his cell.  He stumbled over the threshold and
+knocked up against the table, it was so dark.  But his heart rejoiced.
+The world Was beautiful.  People were good. . . .
+
+Then, gradually, fear stole back upon him.  He was tired and lay down
+for a little on the straw.  The key grated in the lock.  Conrad started
+to his feet in terror.  What was coming?  What was coming?
+
+The father entered quickly and cheerfully.  Swinging the manuscript in
+his hand, he cried: "Glad tidings!  Glad tidings!"
+
+Conrad's hands fluttered to his breast.  "Glad tidings?  It had come?
+Life--to live again?"  So he cried aloud.  He stood for a moment
+motionless, then he sat down on the wooden bench.
+
+"Yes, my son," the monk continued.  "We will call the book, 'Glad
+Tidings,' I.N.R.I.  Glad tidings of a poor sinner.  That will suit the
+Gospel; that sounds well, does it not?"  He stopped and started:
+"Ferleitner, what is the matter?"
+
+Conrad had fallen against the wall, his head sunk on his breast.  The
+breath rattled in his throat.  The father reached quickly for the
+water-pitcher to revive him.  He reproached him good-naturedly for
+losing heart so quickly, and bathed his forehead tenderly.  Then he
+noticed the stillness of the breast and the eyes--how glazed they were!
+He shouted for help.  The jailer appeared.  He looked, paused a moment,
+and then said, softly: "It is well."
+
+There was silence.  Suddenly the old man cried out:  "It is well.
+Thou art merciful, Holy God!"
+
+Later, the Franciscan passed through the long passages thanking God
+sadly for the blessed miracle of the misunderstanding.  At the gate he
+met the governor.  Heavily, supporting each step by his stick, he came
+along.  When he saw the monk he went up to him: "My dear father," he
+said hoarsely.  "I am sorry; you will have a heavy night of it.
+Ferleitner, the criminal, will need a priest.  To-morrow morning at six
+o'clock all will be over."
+
+
+A short silence.  Then the father answered: "Your Excellency, the
+criminal, Ferleitner, needs neither priest nor judge.  He has been
+pardoned."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I.N.R.I.***
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diff --git a/17011-8.zip b/17011-8.zip
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of I.N.R.I., by Peter Rosegger</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+BODY { color: Black;
+       background: White;
+       margin-right: 10%;
+       margin-left: 10%;
+       font-size: medium;
+       font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;
+       text-align: justify }
+
+P {text-indent: 4% }
+
+P.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+P.poem {text-indent: 0%; margin-left: 10%; font-size: small }
+
+P.letter {font-size: small }
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+	a:hover {color:#ff0000}
+	pre		{font-size: x-small;}
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+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, I.N.R.I., by Peter Rosegger, Translated by
+Elizabeth Lee</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: I.N.R.I.</p>
+<p>       A prisoner's Story of the Cross</p>
+<p>Author: Peter Rosegger</p>
+<p>Release Date: November 5, 2005  [eBook #17011]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I.N.R.I.***</p>
+<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+I. N. R. I.
+</H1>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+A PRISONER'S STORY OF THE CROSS
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+PETER ROSEGGER
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED
+<BR><BR>
+LONDON
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+First Edition, September, 1905.
+<BR><BR>
+Second Edition, September, 1905.
+<BR><BR>
+Third Edition, December, 1905.
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+Translated by Elizabeth Lee
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+Made and Printed in Great Britain.
+<BR><BR>
+Wyman &amp; Sons Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#chap00a">PROLOGUE</A>
+</H4>
+
+<TABLE WIDTH="100%">
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap01"> Chapter I </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap09"> Chapter IX </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap17"> Chapter XVII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap25"> Chapter XXV </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap33"> Chapter XXXIII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap02"> Chapter II </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap10"> Chapter X </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap18"> Chapter XVIII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap26"> Chapter XXVI </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap34"> Chapter XXXIV </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap03"> Chapter III </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap11"> Chapter XI </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap19"> Chapter XIX </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap27"> Chapter XXVII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap35"> Chapter XXXV </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap04"> Chapter IV </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap12"> Chapter XII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap20"> Chapter XX </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap28"> Chapter XXVIII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap36"> Chapter XXXVI </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap05"> Chapter V </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap13"> Chapter XIII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap21"> Chapter XXI </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap29"> Chapter XXIX </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap37"> Chapter XXXVII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap06"> Chapter VI </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap14"> Chapter XIV </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap22"> Chapter XXII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap30"> Chapter XXX </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap38"> Chapter XXXVIII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap07"> Chapter VII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap15"> Chapter XV </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap23"> Chapter XXIII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap31"> Chapter XXXI </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap39"> Chapter XXXIX </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap08"> Chapter VIII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap16"> Chapter XVI </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap24"> Chapter XXIV </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%"><A HREF="#chap32"> Chapter XXXII </A></TD>
+<TD WIDTH="20%">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#chap40">CONCLUSION</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap00a"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+PROLOGUE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The difficult path which leads to the gardens where the waters of life
+sparkle, takes us first to a big city in which the hearts of men
+pulsate with feverish unrest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is such a great crowd in the broad square in front of the law
+courts that the electric cars are forced to stop.  Six or eight of them
+are standing in a row, and the police cannot break through the crowd.
+Every one is making for the law courts; some hurry forward excitedly,
+others push their way through quietly, and fresh streams of people from
+the side streets are continually joining the rest.  The public
+prosecutor is expected every moment to appear on the balcony and
+announce the verdict to the public.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Every one was indulging in remarks about the prisoner who had wished to
+do so terrible a deed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is condemned, sure enough!" shouted one man.  "The like of him gets
+to Heaven with a hempen cord!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't be silly," said another, with lofty superiority.  "In half an
+hour at most he'll pass the gate a free man.  Juries don't condemn the
+like of him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Many agreed with the first speaker, but more with the last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whoever believes that he'll be let off is a fool!" shouted some one.
+"Just consider what he did, what he wished to do!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He wanted to do a splendid thing!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Passionate discussion and wagering began.  It would have struck a keen
+observer that good broadcloth expected condemnation, while fustian and
+rags eagerly desired acquittal.  A big man of imposing presence asked
+in a loud tone, over the heads of the people, if anyone would bet him
+ten ducats that the wretch would hang.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A starved-looking little fellow declared himself willing to take up the
+bet.  The handsome man turned his head in its silk hat, and when he saw
+the starved, undersized creature, murmured sleepily, "He! he'll bet ten
+ducats with me!  My dear sir, you'd better go home to your mother and
+ask her to give you a couple of pennies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Laughter followed; but it was interrupted.  The crowd swayed suddenly,
+as when a gust of wind passes over the surface of water.  A man
+appeared on the balcony of the law courts.  He had a short, dark beard;
+his head with its high forehead was uncovered.  He stepped forward
+ceremoniously to the railing, and raised his hand to enforce silence.
+And when the murmur of the crowd died away, he exclaimed in a thin
+voice, but pronouncing every syllable clearly, "The prisoner, Konrad
+Ferleitner, is found guilty by a majority of two-thirds of the jury,
+and in the name of his Majesty the King is condemned to die by hanging."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stood for a moment after making the announcement, and then went back
+into the house.  A few isolated exclamations came from the crowd.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To make a martyr of him!  Enthusiasm is infectious!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An enthusiast!  If he's an enthusiast, I'm a rascal!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not?" replied a shock-headed man with a laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Move on!" ordered the police, who were now reinforced by the military.
+The crowd yielded on all sides, and the tram rails were once more free.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few minutes later a closed carriage was driven along the same road.
+The glint of a bayonet could be seen through the window.  The crowd
+flocked after the carriage, but it went so swiftly over the paved road
+that the dust flew up under the horses' hoofs, and at length it
+vanished in the poplar avenue that led to the prison.  Some of the
+people stopped, panting, and asked each other why they had run so fast.
+"It won't take place to-day.  We shall see in the papers when it's to
+come off."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you think so?  I tell you it's only for specially invited and
+honoured guests!  The times when executions were conducted in public
+are gone, my dear fellow.  The people are kept out of the way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Patience, my wise compeer!  It'll be a people's holiday when the
+hangman is hung."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd melted into the ordinary traffic of the street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A slender, stooping man sat handcuffed between two policemen in the
+carriage that rolled along the avenue.  He breathed so heavily that his
+shoulders heaved up and down.  He wore his black coat today, and white
+linen appeared at neck and sleeves.  His hair was reddish brown, he had
+brushed it carefully, and cheeks and chin were shaved smoothly.  He had
+felt sure that the day would restore him to liberty, or promise it him
+at no very distant date.  His pale face and sunken cheeks proclaimed
+him about forty, but he might have been younger.  His blue eyes had a
+far-away, dreamy expression, but they were now full of terror.  His
+face would have been handsome had not the look of terror spoiled it.
+His fettered hands lay on his knees, which were closely pressed
+together, his fingers were intertwined, his head sunken so that his
+chin was driven into his chest: he looked an utterly broken man.  He
+drew in his legs so that the policemen might be more comfortable.  One
+of them glanced at him sideways, and wondered how this gentle creature
+could have committed such a crime.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They drove alongside the wall of the large building, the gate of which
+was now opened.  In the courtyard the poor sinner was taken out of the
+carriage and led through a second gate into an inner courtyard where
+his handcuffs were removed.  He was led through vaulted corridors in
+which here and there small doors with barred windows might be seen.
+The dark passage had many windings, and was lighted by an occasional
+lamp.  The air was cold and damp.  The openings high up in the wall,
+through which glimmered a pale daylight, became rarer, until at length
+it was as dark as the tomb.  The new arrival was received by the
+gaoler, a man with bristly grey hair, a prominent forehead, and
+pronounced features which incessant ill-humour had twisted into a
+lasting grimace.  Who would not be ill-humoured indeed, were he forced
+to spend a blameless life in a dungeon among thieves and murderers and
+even&mdash;worst of all&mdash;among those who had been foolishly led astray?
+Directly he saw the tottering, shadowy figure of the prisoner come
+round the pillar, he knew the blow had fallen.  Midnight had struck for
+the poor fellow.  Annoyed that such people should let themselves be so
+stupidly taken by surprise, he had continually snubbed him harshly.
+To-day he accompanied him to his cell in silence, and when opening it
+avoided rattling the keys.  But he could not help looking through the
+spy-hole to see what the poor fellow would do.  What he saw was the
+condemned man falling on to the brick floor and lying there motionless.
+The gaoler was alarmed, and opened the door again.  So the man was
+clever enough to die quickly?  That would be a miscarriage!  But the
+culprit moved slightly, and begged to be left alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he was alone, once again in this damp room with the wooden bench,
+the straw mattress, the water-jug on a table&mdash;things which during the
+long period of probation he had gazed at a hundred times, thinking of
+nothing but "They must acquit me."  Out of the planks that propped up
+the straw mattress he had put together a kind of table, a work of which
+the gaoler disapproved, but he had not destroyed it.  High up in the
+wall was a small barred window, through which mercifully came the
+reflection from an outer opposite wall, now lighted by the sun.  The
+edge of a steep gabled roof and a chimney could be just seen through
+the window, and in between peeped a three-cornered piece of blue sky.
+That was the joy of the cell.  Konrad did not know that he owed this
+room to special kindness.  The scanty light from above had been a
+comfort, almost a promise, all the weary weeks: "They will send you a
+free man out into the sunshine!"  By slow degrees that hope was
+extinguished in his lonely soul.  And to-day?  The little bit of
+reflection was a mockery to him.  He wanted no more twilight.  Daylight
+was gone for ever&mdash;he longed for darkness.  Night! night!  Night would
+be so heavy and dark that he would not behold his misery, even
+inwardly.  He could not think; he felt stifled, giddy, as if someone
+had struck him on the head with a club.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the gaoler on his rounds peeped through the spy-hole again and saw
+the man still lying on the floor, he grew angry.  He noisily opened the
+little door.  "By Jove, are you still there?  Number 19!  Do you hear?
+Is anything the matter?"  The last words were spoken almost gently; a
+stupid fellow might imagine that he was pitied.  But that was not the
+case.  As a man sows, he reaps.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prisoner stood up quickly and looked distractedly about him.  When
+he recognised the gaoler he felt for his hand.  He grasped it firmly,
+and said hoarsely: "I want to ask something.  Send me a priest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, at last!" grumbled the old man.  "These atheists!  In the end they
+crawl to the Cross."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not an atheist," calmly replied the prisoner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No?  Well, it's all the same.  You shall have a father-confessor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Konrad had not meant a confessor.  To set himself right with God?  That
+might come with time.  But what he now most desired was a human being.
+No one else would come.  No one will have anything to do with a ruined
+man.  Each man thanks God that he is not such a one.  But the priest
+must come.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In about half an hour the condemned man started, every sound at the
+door alarmed him&mdash;some one came.  A monk quietly entered the cell.  He
+slipped along in sandals.  The dull light from the window showed an old
+man with a long, grey beard and cheerful-looking eyes.  His gown of
+rough cloth was tied round the waist with a white cord, from which a
+rosary hung.  He greeted the prisoner, reaching for his hand: "May I
+say good evening?  I should like to, if I may."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I sent for you, Father.  I don't know if you are aware how things are
+with me," said Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know, I know.  But the Lord is nearer to you to-day than He was
+yesterday," replied the monk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have many things to say," said Konrad, hesitatingly.  "But I don't
+want to confess.  I want a man to talk to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You want to ease your heart, my poor friend," said the monk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You come to me because it's your duty," returned Konrad.  "It's not
+pleasant.  You have to comfort us, and don't know how to do it.
+There's nothing left for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't speak like that," said the Father.  "If I understand rightly,
+you have not summoned me as a confessor.  Only as a man, isn't that it?
+And I come willingly as such.  I can't convert you.  You must convert
+yourself.  Imagine me to be a brother whom you haven't seen for a long
+time.  And now he comes and finds you here, and wellnigh weeping asks
+you how such a thing could have happened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prisoner sat down on the bench, folded his hands, and bent his head
+and murmured; "I had a brother.  If he had lived I should not be here.
+He was older than I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you no other relatives?" asked the monk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My parents died before I was twelve years old.  Quickly, one after the
+other.  My father could not survive my mother.  My mother&mdash;a poor, good
+woman; always cheerful, pious.  In the village just outside.  No one
+could have had a happier childhood.  Ah! forgive me&mdash;&mdash;"  His words
+seemed to stick in his throat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Compose yourself!" counselled the priest.  "Keep your childhood in
+your memory!  It is a light in such days."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is over," said Konrad, controlling his sobs.  "Father, that memory
+does not comfort me; it accuses me more heavily.  How can such
+misfortune come from such blessing?  If only I dared kneel now before
+my God&mdash;and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well!" said the Father.  "Other mothers had different
+experiences with other sons."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady,"
+muttered Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's right," returned the Father.  "Now tell me more.  Quite young,
+then, you lived among strangers, eh?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He uttered confusedly: "After the deaths of my father and mother I was
+apprenticed.  To a joiner.  That was a splendid time.  Only I read a
+great deal too much to please the master&mdash;all sorts of things, and
+dreamed about them.  And I didn't wish to do anything wrong, at least
+so I imagined.  The master called me a stupid visionary, and gave me
+the sack.  Then came a period of wandering&mdash;Munich, Cologne, Hamburg.
+I was two years with a master at Cologne.  If only I had stayed with
+him!  He didn't want to let me go&mdash;and there was a daughter.  Then to
+Hamburg.  That was bad luck.  I was introduced into a Society for the
+protection of the people against traitors.  To be a saviour, to risk
+one's life!  It came to me very slowly, quite gradually, what was the
+misery of living under such tyranny.  When a boy I once killed a dog
+that bit some poor people's children in the street.  A dog belonging to
+gentlefolk!  I was whipped, but it scarcely hurt&mdash;there was always in
+my mind; 'You freed them from the beast!'  And I felt just the same
+about the Society.  I can't tell you what went on in me.  I'm all
+bewildered.  Everything was laid bare at the trial, the whole horrible
+story.  Only I said yes with hundreds of others, I said it and thought:
+it won't come to me.  And it did come to me, as if our Lord had not
+wished it otherwise.  To me, the lot fell to me, when we drew."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know the story, my poor fellow," said the monk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't," retorted Konrad.  "From the moment they took the revolver
+out of my hand everything has been dark.  I have known nothing.  I only
+heard to-day that he lives.  And they told me&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did they tell you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That I must die."  Then violently addressing the priest: "It was a
+misfortune.  Is it really so great a crime?  Tell me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't think I need tell you that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very well, then.  So it serves me right.  I desired to do the deed,
+and they say that's the same as the accomplishment of it.  Quite
+correct.  Isn't it 'A life for a life'?  It is written so in the Bible.
+Just that, no more.  They must take mine.  But&mdash;they must do it
+unexpectedly, suddenly.  Just as I meant to do to him.  Otherwise it
+won't be fair.  Tell me, holy Father, is it cowardly to be so
+terrified?  I am so terrified&mdash;of what is before me.  There's nothing
+about this terror of death in the Scriptures.  Those who settled my
+fate to-day looked like men.  Then they ought to know that they are
+executing me a thousand times, not once.  Why do I still live, I who
+was slain three hours ago!  Quick!  From behind!  If only they were so
+merciful!  One of them said to-day it was my duty to die.  My God!  I
+think I have the right to die, and they're the criminals!  They haven't
+secured me my rights at once!  It would have been over by now.  O God,
+my God, if only it were over!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he raged on, wringing his hands, groaning under the torture.
+Suddenly his face became deathly white and his features stiffened as if
+his heart had ceased beating.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor fellow," said the priest, putting his arm round his neck and
+drawing his head down on his breast.  "You mustn't talk like that.
+Think, if we've been sinners all our lives, oughtn't we to spend a few
+days in repenting?  Tell me, brother, don't you desire the consolations
+of religion?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed I do," stammered the poor sinner.  "And so I asked&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see, I am ready."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I also want the Gospels, if I may be allowed the book."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The monk looked at him, then demanded quietly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You want the New Testament?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should like to read in it.  My mother had one and used to read it
+aloud and explain it.  It would give me a home-like feeling if I could
+read in it now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Father replied: "I'll tell you something, my dear friend.  The
+Gospel is a very good book, not in vain is it called the glad tidings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My God! yes; what do I need more sorely now than glad tidings?" agreed
+Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course.  But the book's not an easy one.  Out of ten readers
+there's hardly one who understands it.  And even he doesn't really
+understand it.  It's too profound, I might say, too divine a book; as
+they say, seven times sealed.  Therefore it must be explained by
+experts.  I will willingly go through certain parts of it with you
+occasionally, but I shall give you something else for your edification,
+from which you will derive comfort and peace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Konrad covered his face with his hands, and said, almost inaudibly:
+"The Gospel is what I should have liked best."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then the monk said gravely: "My friend, you are the sick man and I
+am the physician.  And the physician knows best what will do the sick
+man good.  You should also prepare yourself for taking the Sacrament."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the poor sinner said no more, the priest spoke a few kind words and
+left him.  An hour later the gaoler brought him a parcel of books.
+"The holy brother sends them so that you can amuse yourself a little."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Amusement!  It was a cruel joke.  Konrad gave a shrill laugh.  It was
+the laugh of a despairing man who cannot shut out the vision of his
+last journey, which became more hideous every moment.  What did the
+Father send?  Simple prayer-books and religious manuals.  Book-markers
+were placed to show the passages that applied especially to the
+penitent and the dying man, and also prayers for poor souls in
+purgatory.  The soul physician, all unacquainted with souls, sent the
+inconsolable man new anguish of death instead of life.  Konrad searched
+for the bread he needed, turned over the leaves of the books, began to
+read here and there, but always put them down sadly.  The more eagerly
+did he exercise his memory in order to recall the pictures of his
+childhood.  His mother, who had been dead many years, stood before him
+in order to help her unhappy child.  Her figure, her words, her songs,
+her sacred stories from the Saviour's life on earth&mdash;brought peace to
+his soul.  It suddenly came upon him; "God has not forgotten me."  Just
+as before he had raged in despair, so now beautiful shadows out of the
+past appeared before him, and tears of redemption flowed from his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not have an hour's sleep the night of his condemnation.  He
+prayed, he dreamed, and then the horrid terror, which made him shiver
+in all his limbs, came again.  He kept looking towards the window to
+see if daylight was beginning.  Early in the morning, just at the first
+dawn&mdash;so he had often heard&mdash;the warders come.  The window showed only
+darkness.  But look, in the little three-cornered bit of sky, there is
+a star.  He had not seen it on other nights.  It sailed up to the crack
+in the roof and shone down through the window in kindly fashion.  His
+eye was riveted on the spark of light until it vanished behind the
+walls.  When at length day dawned, and the key rattled in the door,
+Konrad's hands and feet began to tremble.  It was the gaoler, who
+brought him a bundle of coarse cotton clothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Konrad asked in a dull voice if it was his gallows dress, the old
+man answered roughly: "What are you chattering about?  Put on your
+house clothes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The convict went up to the gaoler, clasped his hands, and said: "Only
+one thing, if I knew&mdash;when, when?  This suspense is unbearable!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh! how impatient we are!" mocked the old man.  "My dear fellow, we
+don't do things so quickly.  The decision was only made yesterday.
+Why, they haven't yet settled about the banquet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The banquet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The bill of fare&mdash;don't you understand?  No orders have come yet.
+You're safe for twenty-four hours.  But if there's anything you'd like
+to eat&mdash;I'll make an exception for once.  And now, get on with your
+toilet!  You can will away your own things as you please," he pointed
+to his clothes.  "Have you anyone?  No?  Well, I know some poor people.
+But get on, get on.  The hot season is coming on, and cotton isn't bad
+wear then."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rough gaoler's good-humoured chatter was particularly distasteful
+to the poor man.  To be snubbed and railed at would have pointed to a
+long life to come, one not to be measured by hours.  Did he know?  And
+was he silent out of pity? or was it malice?  Before, the old man had
+been easily moved to anger, and when heated would swing his arms up and
+down and plainly threaten to have the obstinate convict sent off.  Now
+there was no more grim humour nor raging round.  He looked at the poor
+sinner, sunk in deep gloom, with a sad calmness.  "Poor devil!"
+Suddenly it was too much for him, and he broke out violently: "But come
+now!  You must have known it.  Be sensible; I can't stand this misery.
+Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone
+by to help.  And then&mdash;who knows whether you won't live after all.  Do
+be sensible!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried
+his books afresh.  The Father had provided for a varied taste.  The
+"Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart,"
+"Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The
+Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in
+Distress."  What a wealth of edification!  The joiner's apprentice had
+always loved books.  He had once reckoned out as a joke that three
+asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood.
+They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all
+provinces of human life.  Now he asked himself what it had all brought
+him.  Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides.  He had thought about
+everything, but he could not be clear about anything.  That was not
+generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement
+pacified him.  He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily
+and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in
+childhood, but it had not gone deeper.  Now that they ought to prove
+their worth, they left him in the lurch.  He turned over the pages, he
+read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need.
+Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell
+over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never
+dream had been.  It was a dark country, and he had lost his way.  He
+wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path.  Then
+his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the
+darkness.  The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him
+into his sunny native valley, to the place with the old gabled houses,
+to his father's house which stood amidst the fruit-trees, and the
+thread to which his fingers still clung involuntarily led him into the
+room where it had been spun from his mother's distaff.  And there she
+sat and span the thread, with her pale face and soft wrinkles and kind
+eyes, and directly the boy stood near her she told him tales of the
+Saviour.  He listened to her and was a happy child.  That was his
+dream.  And when he awoke in the prison cell, his mother's gentle voice
+still sounded in his ears: "My child, you must cling to Jesus."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Konrad was taken every day for half an hour into the dirty and sunless
+courtyard.  But he dreaded that half-hour.  It stirred a vain longing
+for light.  And the rough and insolent fellow-prisoners with whom he
+was brought in contact!  He preferred to be alone in his quiet cell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During his imprisonment he had often asked for work, but was always
+informed that nothing of the sort had been provided for by the
+authorities.  Besides&mdash;work was an honourable thing, and it must first
+be proved that he was worthy of it.  But now it was not a time for
+work, rather a time for preparation.  What could he do in order to get
+through these days?  Or what could he do in order to keep the days from
+flying so quickly?  Look how a flash of lightning seems sometimes to
+pass over the floor.  Then it is gone again.  High up in the opposite
+wall, on which the sun sometimes shone, was a casement window, and its
+glass doors, swayed by the breeze, were reflected in the prison.
+Konrad was terrified by these sparks from heaven; he would grope on the
+ground as if for a gold piece that had rolled away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then came visitors, unexpected, alarming visitors!  The judge's stiff
+figure and serious face appeared in company with the gaoler.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Konrad felt stunned, and could only think: "The hour has come!"  The
+man had pronounced his sentence as coldly and unfeelingly as if he had
+been a machine which, when its keys are pressed, gives forth sounds
+like words.  The judge ordered the gaoler to withdraw.  The old man
+hesitated&mdash;what could that mean?  The judge had to repeat his order
+before the old man would go.  When the judge was alone with the
+prisoner, he bent down and felt with his hands, for he was not yet
+accustomed to the darkness.  Then he said kindly: "Konrad Ferleitner, I
+have come to ask you if there's anything you wish for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prisoner wrung his hands convulsively; wild pulsations, that beat
+in strong double strokes at irregular intervals, coursed through his
+body.  So violent was his agitation that the poor wretch stuttered
+forth words that the judge could not understand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Compose yourself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he caught the words "Father-confessor!" amid the sounds uttered by
+the prisoner, it occurred to the judge that the poor fellow imagined
+that the hour of execution had arrived.  "Ferleitner," he said, "come
+and sit by me on the bench.  You think it's the end&mdash;no, it hasn't come
+so far yet, and perhaps it won't come so far at all.  I may tell you
+that a petition for mercy has been sent to His Majesty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Konrad looked up as if in a dream, and the dim light showed how
+terribly pale and sunken his cheeks were.  "Mercy!" he muttered in
+suppressed tones.  "Mercy for me?  Then&mdash;why did you condemn me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The question appeared to puzzle the judge.  The delinquent seemed in
+all seriousness to think himself innocent.  "You were there yourself,
+Ferleitner, and heard how the jury decided after listening to the
+witnesses.  After that the judge must condemn; he has no choice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For mercy?  The king?" asked Konrad, who, more bewildered than
+consoled, had sat down on the bench, for his legs would scarcely
+support him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The advocate ventured it," replied the judge.  "Your whole bearing
+proves that you were inveigled into the business.  We want nothing
+further.  You see, Ferleitner, that evil cannot be eradicated from the
+world with evil.  To fight evil with evil only increases its power.
+But a large heart can pardon such a deed or purpose.  Let us hope
+meanwhile that our king possesses one.  The Chancellor is getting
+better.  Here, just look&mdash;sign the paper."  He pulled out a folded
+sheet, then an inkpot and a pen.  Konrad bent over the table and
+groaned while signing his name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah," he said, "if only I could be free again!  I should never think of
+such things again.  The world could go on as it pleased.  I should do
+my work, and not trouble about anything else.  Only," and he said it
+softly, uncertainly, "only I shall not forget God again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is naturally only a moderate chance," said the judge.  "In some
+cases, where it is concerned with the whole&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is very uncertain, then?" asked Konrad.  "But, my God! how is it to
+be borne?  If this time is lengthened, how is it to be borne?  This
+terrible suspense!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It can be a time of hope," said the judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But how long will it last?" asked Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The judge shrugged his shoulders.  "It may last three weeks, but it
+might last double that time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Konrad asked confidingly: "Do you think, sir, that a man can hold
+out?&mdash;with the terror of death lasting for weeks?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Haven't you just a little confidence?" asked the judge.  "Haven't we
+all to endure uncertainty?&mdash;the judge as well as the condemned man?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what am I to do?" demanded Konrad.  "How am I to employ myself all
+the dreadful time?  It's being buried alive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Unhappily it's not in my power to give you a better room, though you
+haven't the worst cell in the building.  But perhaps you have some
+other desire that can be granted.  Speak out frankly, Ferleitner," said
+the judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Therewith he folded the paper, and put the writing materials into his
+coat pocket.  Konrad followed his proceedings with his eyes.  He could
+not comprehend how this dread personage came to speak to him in so
+kindly a fashion.  "As to the room," he said, "it's all I need&mdash;when
+you've nothing to do, and are not likely to have anything to do, what
+can a man want?  If a man isn't free, nothing else matters.  But one
+thing&mdash;I have one request, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then speak it," said the judge, and holding Konrad's hand firmly in
+his, broke out with: "Don't you see, it's cruel to think, to believe,
+that we must be the personal enemies of all whom we're obliged to
+condemn.  You think the proceedings in court were so callous, you've no
+idea how we actually feel about the business.  It is not only the
+accused who passes sleepless nights&mdash;the judge, too, knows them.  We
+lawyers&mdash;outside our profession&mdash;have founded an association to support
+and encourage those we are obliged to pronounce guilty, that they may
+not sink down uncomforted.  So, my dear Ferleitner, you may trust me
+that, as far as I can, I will alleviate your position."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Konrad, looking down on the floor, said: "I should like to have
+writing materials."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You want to write?" asked the Judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I might ask for paper, pens, and ink," returned Konrad.  "In former
+years I used to like writing down my thoughts&mdash;just as they came, I had
+little education."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You wish to write to your friends?" inquired the judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh no!  If I had any, they'd be glad not to hear from me," said Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Or to draw up a plea of justification?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Or an account of your life?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not that either.  My life has not been good enough.  Misfortune
+should be forgotten rather than recorded.  No, I think I can write
+something else," stated Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You shall have writing materials," said the judge.  "And is there
+anything else?  A more comfortable bed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, thank you.  It's right enough as it is.  If a hard bed was the
+only thing&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And is everything kept properly neat and clean?" interrupted the judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you're always waiting and thinking, 'Now, now, they're coming!' I
+tell you, sir, you don't sleep well," replied Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't keep worrying yourself with ideas, Ferleitner," said the judge
+warningly to the man, who had again worked himself up into a state of
+excitement.  "Not one of us knows what the next hour may bring, and yet
+we live on calmly.  Use the time," he continued playfully, "in avenging
+your condemnation by some great literary work.  In olden times great
+minds often did it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't write a great work," answered Konrad.  "And I've nothing to
+avenge.  I deserve death.  But it's this waiting for it.  The torments
+of hell cannot be worse."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've nothing to do with hell.  We've merely to think of the purgatory
+in which we are placed.  Let heaven, as they say, follow.  Haven't you
+any business to arrange?  Nothing to settle for anyone?" asked the
+judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No one, no one!" Konrad assured him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a piece of luck that many of your comrades in misfortune would
+envy you.  A man can settle things easily for himself alone.  If it's
+any consolation, Ferleitner, I may tell you that we don't regard you as
+a scoundrel, only as a poor creature who has been led astray.  Now
+that's enough for the present.  Your modest request shall be granted at
+once."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After this remarkable conversation with the poor sinner, the judge left
+the cell.  He was not satisfied.  Had he not listened enough, or had he
+spoken too much?  How could so childlike a creature take an oath to
+commit murder?  In the corridor he spoke seriously to the gaoler.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must point out to you that the man is very ill.  Don't treat him
+harshly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man was annoyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon, sir!  To treat a poor devil like that harshly!  If
+you pity him, why were you so rough with him?"  He rubbed a lamp-glass
+with a coarse rag in order to get the black off.  "'To die by hanging.'
+Even said as gently as that, it hurts more than when we roundly abuse
+the people, and yet that's at once taken amiss.  Only to prove it.
+Ill!  Of course he's ill, poor devil.  I am only surprised the doctors
+haven't been to cure him.  I suppose he's well enough to be hanged?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That will do, Trapser."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gaoler put down his work, stood up straight in military fashion,
+and said: "Sir, I beg to resign my post."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!" exclaimed the judge, "you wish to go?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I respectfully hand in my resignation."  He stood up straight as a
+dart.  "Do you know, I've got accustomed to most things here in
+six-and-twenty years, I've seen seventeen hanged&mdash;just seventeen, sir.
+There ought to have been twenty-four, but seven were granted
+imprisonment for life.  They're still undergoing that mercy.  Do you
+know, sir, it's a miserable calling!  But as to that Ferleitner, I
+never afore saw anything like him.  What has he done, I ask you?  He's
+done nothing.  You see we've had quite different gallows-birds here.  A
+speculator who had ruined six families and driven the seventh to
+suicide&mdash;eight months.  A student with two duel murders on his
+conscience&mdash;six months.  But he is there now&mdash;because he's done
+nothing, it seems to me.  Well, the long and the short of it is, it
+horrifies me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Always the same in temper and disposition, you old bear!  God keep
+you!"  And then a kindly tap on the shoulder.  The attempt at
+resignation was again met with a refusal.  The judge formally put it
+aside.  But the old man growled on for a long time.  "Old bear! old
+bear!  That's his whole stock of wit every time, I'll show him the old
+bear.  Good God! that's how things are with us!"  He whistled and made
+a harsh noise with his bunch of keys so that the prisoners could make
+their preparations before he performed his duty of looking through the
+spyhole to see how his charges were spending their time.  Then he went
+and procured a big bottle of ink and a packet of foolscap paper for
+Number 19.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that enough?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, thank you!" said Ferleitner; "only now I want a pen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh no, my dear sir, no.  We know that sort of thing.  Since the notary
+in Number 43 stabbed himself with a steel pen five years ago, I don't
+give any more," said the gaoler.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I can't write without a pen," returned Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's not my business; I can't let you have a pen," the old man
+assured him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The judge gave me permission to have one," Konrad remonstrated
+modestly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the old man exclaimed afresh: "Do you know this judge, he just
+comes up as far as this," and he placed his hand on a level with his
+chin.  "He crumbles everything up and then we're to spoon it out."
+Then he muttered indistinctly in his beard; "I say just this, if they
+let a man hang for a week before they hang him, it's a&mdash;a&mdash;good God!  I
+can't properly&mdash;I can't find any more fine words!  If a man puts a
+knife into himself, no wonder!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shan't kill myself," said Konrad quietly.  "They say I may put my
+hopes in the king."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you want to write to him?  That won't help much, but you can do it
+if you like; there's time.  For once it's a good thing that our
+officials are so slow.  If it's any comfort to you, you may know that
+they wrong me, too.  They won't accept my resignation.  Yes, that's how
+it is with us," concluded the old man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he went and brought a pot with rusty steel pens.  "But don't you
+spoil them!"  For they were the very pens with which death-warrants had
+been signed&mdash;the old man had a collection of such things and hoped to
+sell it to a rich Englishman.  "Does your honour require anything
+else?"  With those mocking words he left the cell and raged and cursed
+all along the corridor.  The prisoners thought he was cursing them.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The judge, his hands behind his back, walked up and down his large
+study.  What a cursed critical case!  If the Chancellor had not been
+given up by the doctors on the day of the trial, the sentence would
+have been different.  The petition for mercy!  Would it have any result
+except that of prolonging the poor man's torture?  Whether in the end
+it would not have been better&mdash;&mdash;?  Everything would have been over
+then.  An old official came out of the adjoining room and laid a bundle
+of papers on the table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One moment.  Has the petition for mercy been sent to His Majesty?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It has, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's your opinion?" asked the judge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The counsellor raised his shoulders and let them fall again.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Konrad cowered down and stared at the table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On it lay everything&mdash;paper, ink, pens.  What should he write?  He
+might describe his sadness, but how did a man begin to do that?  He
+lifted up his face as if searching for something.  His glance fell
+through the window on to the wall, the upper part of which was lighted
+by the evening sun.  The mountain tops glowed like that.  Ah, world,
+beautiful world!  Still three weeks.  Or double that time.  Then&mdash;the
+very beating of his heart hurt him; his temple throbbed as though
+struck by a hammer.  For he always thought of the one thing&mdash;and it
+suddenly flashed into his mind&mdash;there were other executioners!  His
+supper was there&mdash;a tin can with rice soup and a piece of bread.  He
+swallowed it mechanically to the last crumb.  Then came night, and the
+star was again visible in the scrap of sky between the roof and the
+chimney.  Konrad gazed at it reverently for the few minutes until it
+vanished.  Then the long, dark, miserable night.  And this was called
+living!  And it was for such life that you petitioned the king.  But if
+a king grants mercy, then the sun shines.  The kindness shown him by
+the judge had strengthened him a little, but the last of his surging
+thoughts was always, "Hopeless!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next night Konrad had another visitor&mdash;his mother, in her Sunday
+gown, just as she used to go to communion.  And there was some one with
+her.  She went up to her son's bed, and said: "Konrad, I bring you a
+kind friend."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he felt for her hand, she was no longer there, but in the middle
+of the dim cell stood the Lord Jesus.  His white garment hung down to
+the ground, His long hair lay over His shoulders.  His shining face was
+turned towards Konrad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the poor sinner woke in the morning his heart was full of wonder.
+The night had brought healing.  He jumped blithely out of bed.  "My
+Saviour, I will never more leave you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something of which he had hardly been conscious suddenly became clear
+to him.  He would take refuge in the Saviour.  He would sink himself in
+Jesus, in whom everything was united that had formed and must form his
+happiness&mdash;his mother, his innocent childhood, his joy in God, his
+repose and hope, his immortal life.  Now he knew, he would rely on his
+Saviour.  He would write a book about Jesus.  Not a proper literary
+work; he could not do that, he had no talent for it.  But he would
+represent the Lord as He lived, he would inweave his whole soul with
+the being of his Saviour so that he might have a friend in the cell.
+Then perhaps his terrors would vanish.  In former days it had pleased
+him, so to speak, to write away an anxiety from his heart, not in
+letters to others, but only for himself.  Many things which were not
+clear to him, which he found incomprehensible&mdash;with pen in hand he
+succeeded in making clearer to his inward eye, so that vague pictures
+almost assumed corporeal shape.  He had in that fashion created many
+comrades and many companions during his wanderings in strange lands
+when he was afraid.  So now in his forlorn and deserted condition he
+would try to invite the Saviour into the poor sinner's cell.  No
+outward help was to be hoped, he must evoke it all out of himself.  He
+would venture to implore the Lord Jesus until He came, using his
+childish memories, the remains of his school learning, the fragments of
+his reading, and, above all, his mother's Bible stories.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now the condemned man began to write a book in so far as it was
+possible to him.  At first his dreams and thoughts and figures were
+disconnected through timidity, and the painful excitement which often
+made his pulses gallop and his heart stop beating.  Then he cowered in
+the corner, and wept and groaned and struggled in vain with the desire
+for mortal life.  When he succeeded in collecting his thoughts again,
+and he took up his pen afresh, he gradually regained calm, and each
+time it lasted longer.  And it happened that he often wrote for hours
+at a stretch, that his cheeks began to glow and his eyes to shine&mdash;for
+he wandered with Jesus in Galilee.  Suddenly he would awake from his
+visions and find himself in his prison cell, and sadness overcame him,
+but it was no longer a falling into the pit of hell; he was strong
+enough to save himself on his island of the blessed.  And so he wrote
+and wrote.  He did not ask if it was the Saviour of the books.  It was
+his Saviour as he lived in him, the only Saviour who could redeem him.
+And so there was accomplished in this poor sinner on a small scale what
+was accomplished among the nations on a large scale; if it was not
+always the historical Jesus as Saviour, it was the Saviour in whom men
+believed become historical, since he affected the world's history
+through the hearts of men.  He whom the books present may not be for
+all men; He who lives in men's hearts is for all.  That is the secret
+of the Saviour's undying power: He is for each man just what that man
+needs.  We read in the Gospels that Jesus appeared at different times
+and to different men in different forms.  That should be a warning to
+us to let every man have his own Jesus.  As long as it is the Jesus of
+love and trust, it is the right Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It often happened that during the prisoner's composition and writing, a
+wider, softer light from the window spread through the cell, flickered
+over the wall, the floor, the table, and then rested for a space on the
+white paper.  And so light even entered the lonely room, but
+unspeakably more light entered the writer's heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gaoler saw little of the writing.  Directly he rattled his keys, it
+was hidden under the sheet&mdash;just as children hide their treasures from
+intrusive eyes.  When five or six weeks had gone by, hundreds of
+written sheets lay there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Konrad placed them in a cover and wrote on it
+</P>
+
+<P>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I.N.R.I.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+When darkness covers the world men look gladly towards the east.  There
+light dawns.  All lights come from out of the east.  And the races of
+men are said to have come hither from that quarter.  There is an
+ancient book, in which is written the beginning of things and of men.
+The book came from the nation of the Jews, and the old Jews were called
+the people of God, for they recognised only one eternal God.  And great
+men and holy prophets arose in that nation.  The greatest of them was
+named Moses, and it is written that he it was who brought down to men
+the Ten Commandments.  But the Jews fell on evil times, they sank lower
+and lower and were heavily oppressed by stronger nations.  Like us,
+they suffered poverty and curses and despair, and this lasted for a
+thousand years and more.  Prophets appeared from time to time, and with
+words of mercy announced that a Saviour would come to lead the Jews
+into the kingdom of glory.  For that Saviour they waited many hundreds
+of years.  Oftentimes one would appear whom they took for Him, but they
+were deceived.  And when at last the real Saviour, the real, mighty
+Saviour appeared, they did not recognise Him.  For He was different
+from what they had imagined.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shall I try to tell how it happened, just as my mother used to tell me,
+her little boy, the story on winter evenings?  Shall I recite it to
+myself like one who desires to wake himself at midnight before the Lord
+comes?  Shall I, who am without learning, search in my poor confused
+head for the fragments that have remained in it?  So much has been lost
+in the wear and tear of the world, and yet since it has grown so dark
+with me something flashes out, and shines forth on high, like some
+starry crown in the night!  Shall I invoke the holy figures that they
+may stand by me through the anguish of my last days, that they may
+surround me with their glad eternal light, and let no spirit of despair
+come near me?&mdash;The path between the walls of this cruel fortress is
+narrow, and through it only a feeble light penetrates to me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As God wills.  I am grateful for and content with the pale reflection
+of the sky that comes to me from the holy east through the cracks in
+the wall.  Oh, God, my Father, let glad tidings come to me from distant
+lands and far-off times, so that my simple heart can hold and
+understand them.  I am thirsty for God's truth, and whatever shall
+strengthen, comfort, and save me, will be for me God's truth.  Oh, thou
+pale light!  Art thou my mother's heritage and blessing?  Oh, my
+mother!  From out the eternal dwelling speak to thy unhappy son&mdash;oh,
+speak!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Did I not always see you in the woman who, during the cold winter
+season, was compelled to go across the mountains far from home?  And so
+I will begin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that time the land of the Jews was under the dominion of the Romans.
+The Roman Emperor wished to know how many Jews there were, and
+commanded that an enrolment of the people should be made in Judaea.
+All the Jews were to go to the place of their birth, and there report
+themselves to the Imperial officer.  In the little town of Nazareth, in
+Galilee&mdash;a mountainous district of Judaea&mdash;there lived a carpenter.  He
+was an elderly man, and had married a young wife of whom a folk-song
+still sings&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"As beautifully white as milk,<BR>
+As marvellously soft as silk;<BR>
+A woman very fair to see,<BR>
+Yet full of deep humility."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were poor people, but pious and industrious and obedient.  No man
+in the wide world troubled about them, and yet had it not been for them
+the Roman Empire might not have fallen.  Years afterwards, indeed, it
+fell because of that carpenter.  People from all quarters of the globe
+dwelt in Galilee, even barbarians who had wandered there from the west
+and the north.  And it was often difficult to distinguish their
+descent.  Our carpenter was born in the south of Judaea, in the town of
+Bethlehem, which, in olden times, had been the native place of King
+David.  Joseph, the carpenter, was not unwilling to speak of that, and
+even to let it be known that he was of the house of David, the great
+king.  But yet he might well have thought it a finer thing to rise up
+from below than to come down from above.  And is it not so?  Does not
+man rise up from below, and God come down from high?  In his boyhood
+David was a shepherd; it is said that he slew the leader of the enemy
+with stones from his sling, and that was why he rose so high.  Now for
+that reason, and because Joseph, the carpenter, was glad to visit his
+native town once again, and to take his wife with him and show her the
+land of his youth, the enrolment of the people was right pleasing unto
+him.  So the two made their plans, and set out for Bethlehem.  It was
+three days' journey and more, and they might well have complained.  If
+a workman to-day has not all that is of the best, he should think of
+Master Joseph, who always cared more for good work than good money.
+They probably took a packet of food with them from home, and the bride
+was often obliged to rest by the way.  The path over the rocky
+mountains was difficult and tiring, and they had to pass through the
+suspected land of Samaria.  But Joseph never grumbled.  And at last
+they reached Judaea.  And when they came upon ancient monuments, he
+liked to stop, first in order to see how they were built, and then to
+ponder over the great men and great deeds of olden times.  They spent a
+night at a place called Bethel, and there Joseph dreamed that he saw a
+ladder before him, and that it reached from earth to heaven.  And
+Joseph thought, if the rungs would bear him, he might perhaps ascend
+it; meanwhile, he saw how an angel, robed in white, slowly descended it
+until he came down to where Joseph was.  But when Joseph stretched out
+his hand to him, the angel was no longer to be seen.  Joseph awoke, and
+the sweet dream filled his soul.  It was the place where once the
+Patriarch Jacob saw the heavenly ladder, and there it had remained ever
+since, so that angels might continually descend and ascend between
+heaven and earth.  And then they cheerfully continued their way.
+Joseph was afraid when he heard the jackals shriek in the desert and
+saw the Bedouin camps.  But he thought the angel who had come down was
+hovering near him, and often imagined that he felt his wings fanning
+his cheek.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The land through which they journeyed was barren; the plants were dried
+up by the frost and were all faded.  Snow lay on the summits of
+Lebanon, which the travellers now saw from afar, away in their native
+land, and pale gleams fell on to the lowlands of Judaea through the
+cloudy atmosphere, so that stones and grass were white.  When they
+rested beside a brook the woman gazed thoughtfully into the pool and
+said, "Look, Joseph; what are the wonderful plants and flowers on the
+surface of the water?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Joseph said, "Haven't you ever seen them before, Mary?  You are
+young and have only known a few cold winters.  And you don't know what
+these flowers mean?  Let me tell you.  A maiden stands in the dawn.
+Her feet are on the moon and the stars circle round her head.  And
+under her foot she crushes the head of the serpent who betrayed our
+first parents in Paradise.  And see, Spring courts the maiden and
+brings her his roses.  And Winter, too, courts the maiden, and because
+he has no other flowers he makes these to grow on the surface of the
+water and on the window-panes.  But they are stiff and cold, and the
+maiden, the mysterious rose, of whom a prophet sang, 'All nations shall
+call thee blessed!' she chose the Spring."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was the story Joseph told, Joseph whose beard was white as the
+ice-flowers.  Mary listened to the tale and was silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the third day the royal city lay before our wanderers.  Magnificent
+it stood on the hill-top with the domes and pinnacles of its temples.
+At that time Herod, king of the Jews, sat on the throne and imagined
+that he ruled.  But he only ruled in so far as the strangers allowed
+him to rule.  The town which had once been the pride of the chosen
+people, now swarmed with Roman warriors, who filled the streets with
+noise and unruly conduct.  Joseph led his young wife down towards the
+sloping rocks where were the graves of the prophets.  There he was so
+overcome that suddenly he stretched forth his hands to heaven:
+"Almighty Jehovah, when will the Messiah come?"  His cry was re-echoed
+in the hollows of the rocks, and Mary said: "You should not shout so,
+Joseph.  The dead will not awaken, and Jehovah hears a prayer that is
+quietly spoken."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary had hoped in her heart that they would enter Jerusalem and spend
+the night there.  Joseph said it could not be, for he had no relatives
+in the town who could give them lodging, and he had not money enough to
+pay strangers for a lodging.  Also he did not like the strange ways of
+the place; he yearned for his beloved Bethlehem.  It wasn't very far
+off now; could she manage it?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary signed "Yes" with her head, and gathered together all her
+remaining strength.  But just beyond the city walls she sank down
+exhausted, and Joseph said: "We will stay here so that you may rest,
+and to-morrow I can show you the Temple."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a man on a stony hillock nailing two beams of wood together.
+Joseph understood something of that sort of work, but he was not quite
+clear over this particular thing.  So he asked what it might be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He for whose use it is, doesn't want it," replied the workman.  It
+then flashed into Joseph's mind that it was a gallows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary grasped his arm: "Joseph, let us go on to Bethlehem."  For she
+began to be frightened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They staggered along the road.  A draught of the spring of the Valley
+of Jehoshaphat refreshed them.  Farther on in the fertile plain of
+Judaea lambs and kids were feeding, and Joseph began to speak of his
+childhood.  His whole being was fresh and joyful.  Home!  And by
+evening time Bethlehem, lighted by the setting sun, lay before them on
+the hill-top.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They stood still for a space and looked at it.  Then Joseph went into
+the town to inquire about the place and the time of the enrolment, and
+to seek lodging for the night.  The young woman sat down before the
+gate under the fan-shaped leaves of a palm-tree and looked about her.
+The western land seemed very strange to her and yet sweet, for it was
+her Joseph's childish home.  How noisy it was in Jerusalem, and how
+peaceful it was here&mdash;almost as still and solemn as a Sabbath evening
+at Nazareth!  Beloved Nazareth!  How far away, how far away!  Sometimes
+the sound of a shepherd's pipe was heard from the green hills.  A youth
+leaned up against an olive tree and made a wreath of twigs and sang:
+"Behold, thou art fair, my love.  Thine eyes are as doves in thy
+fragrant locks, thy lips are rosebuds, and thy two breasts are like
+roes which feed among the lilies.  Thou hast ravished my heart, my
+sister, my spouse."  Then he was silent, and the leaves rustled softly
+in the evening breeze.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary looked out for Joseph, but he came not.  And the singer continued:
+"Who art thou that shinest like the day-dawn, fair as the moon, and
+clear as the sun, divine daughter of Eve?"  And Mary still waited under
+the palm-tree and listened, and she began to feel strange pangs.  She
+drew her cloak more closely round her, and saw that the stars already
+stood in the sky.  But still Joseph came not.  And from the hill the
+singer: "And from the root of Jesse a twig shall spring."  And a second
+voice: "And all nations shall rise up and sing her praises."  So did
+the shepherds sing the songs of their old kings and prophets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last Joseph came slowly from the town.  The enrolment was to take
+place to-morrow at nine o'clock; that was all right.  But there was
+difficulty over the lodging for the night.  He had spoken with rich
+relations; they would have been very glad, but unfortunately a wedding
+feast was going forward, and wanderers in homely garments might easily
+feel uncomfortable.  He quite understood that.  Then he went to his
+poorer relations, who would have been even more glad, but it was
+deplorable that their house was so small and their hearth so cramped.
+All the inns were overcrowded with strangers.  They did not seem to
+think much here of people from Galilee because all kinds of heathenish
+folk lived there&mdash;as if any one who was born in Bethlehem could be a
+heathen!  And so he did not know what to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary leaned her head on her hand and said nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your hands and feet are trembling, Mary," said Joseph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shook her head; it was nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come, my wife, we will go in together," said Joseph.  "We are not
+vagabonds to whom they can refuse assistance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then they both went into the town.  Mine host of the inn was stern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I told you already, old man, that there's no place for the like of you
+in my house.  Take your little daughter somewhere else."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's not my daughter, sir, but my true wife, trusted to me by God
+that I may protect her," returned Joseph, and he lifted up his
+carpenter's hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The door was slammed in their faces.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A fruit-seller, who had witnessed the scene, stretched forth his brown
+neck and asked for their passport.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you show me your papers and three pieces of silver, I'll take you
+in for the love of God.  For we are all wanderers on the earth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've no passport.  We've come from Nazareth in Galilee for the
+enrolment, because I am of the house of David," replied Joseph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of the house of David!  Why, you don't seem to know whether you're on
+your head or your heels," and with a laugh the fruit-seller went his
+way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is true," thought Joseph, "noble ancestors are useless to a man of
+no importance."  For the future he would let David alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary now advised him to go outside the town again.  Perhaps the very
+poor or entire strangers would have pity on them.  And as they
+staggered along the stony road to the valley the woman sank down on the
+grass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph looked at her searchingly.  "Mary, Mary, what is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shepherd came along, looked at them, and listened to their request
+for shelter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My wife is ill, and no one will take us in," complained Joseph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you must go to the beasts," said the shepherd cheerfully.  "Come
+with me.  I'll gladly share my house with you.  The earth is my bed,
+the sky my roof, and a rocky cave my bedchamber."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he led them to a hollow in the mossy rocks, and it had a roof woven
+out of rushes.  Inside an ox was chewing the hay it had eaten out of
+the manger.  A brown ass stood near by and licked the ox's big head.
+There was still some hay left in the manger and in the corner was a bed
+of dry leaves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Since you have nothing better, lie down here and rest as well as you
+can.  I will seek a bed at my neighbour's."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So saying the shepherd went away.  It had now grown dark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The young woman lay down on the bed of leaves and heaved a sigh from
+her terrified heart.  Joseph looked at her&mdash;and looked at her.  Lightly
+the angel's wings touched his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Joseph, be not afraid.  Lift up your heart and pray.  It is the secret
+of all eternities, and you are chosen to be the foster-father of Him
+who comes from heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked round him, not knowing whence came these thoughts, these
+voices, this wondrous singing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are tired, Joseph, you must sleep," said Mary.  And when he
+slumbered peacefully she prayed in her heart: "I am a poor handmaiden
+of the Lord.  The will of the Lord be done."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It is midnight and, wakeful shepherds see a bright star.  A strange
+star, too; they had never seen its like before.  It sparkled so
+brightly that the shepherds' shadows on the plain were long.  And it is
+said that they saw other stars approach it, and at length surround it.
+And then the new star threw off white sparks, which flew down
+earthwards and stopped in mid-air; and there were children with white
+wings and golden hair.  And they sang beautiful words to the honour of
+God and the good-will of men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In that selfsame hour a boy brought tidings that a tall, white-robed
+youth stood in front of the shepherd Ishmael's cave, and that within
+lay a young woman on the bed of leaves, an infant at her breast.  And
+high up in the air they heard singing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The story quickly spread through the mountains round Bethlehem.  The
+shepherds who were awake roused those who slept.  Everywhere a
+delicious tremor was felt, a sense of mighty wonder.  A poor, strange
+woman and a naked child!  What was the use of singing?  Swaddling
+clothes and wraps and milk were what was needed.  One brought the
+fleece of a slaughtered sheep.  Another brought dried figs and grapes
+and a skin of red wine.  Other shepherds brought milk and bread and a
+fat kid; every one brought something, just as they took tithes to the
+officer.  An old shepherd came with a patched bagpipe, and when the
+bystanders laughed, Ishmael said: "Do you expect our poor, good Isaac,
+to bring David's golden harp?  He gives what he has, and that's often
+worth more than golden harps."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they came down they no longer saw the star or the angels, but they
+found the cave, and the father and the mother and the child.  He lay in
+the manger on the hay, and the beasts stood round and gazed at him with
+their big, melancholy, black eyes.  The shepherd's pity for the poor
+people was so great that no one thought he was doing a good work for
+which people would praise him and God would bless him.  No one looked
+slyly at his neighbour to see who gave more and who less.  Their one
+feeling was pity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+People came from the town; and a wiry shepherd, placing himself before
+the entrance to the grotto, and using his staff as a spear, said: "Men
+of Bethlehem, ye cannot enter; the babe sleeps."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Near by stood an old man, who said dreamily: "The town cast him out.  I
+always said there was no salvation yonder.  That's to be found with the
+poor under the open sky.  Miracles are happening here, men are pitiful.
+What does it mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down below in a cleft of the rock cowered a poor sinner, and burrowed
+in the earth with his lean fingers as if he would dig himself a grave
+in its depths.  He gazed at the cave where the child was with glassy,
+staring eyes.  A prayer for mercy surged up in his heart like a stream
+of blood.  Those who saw him turned from him shuddering.  They took him
+for Cain, his brother's murderer.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A stranger was riding a lazy camel across the lonely Arabian desert.
+All men are Moors in the dark, but this man was a Moor in the
+starlight.  A newly discovered star brought the man from the banks of
+the Indus.  He consulted all the calendars of the East, but none could
+tell him about the star.  Balthasar, however, was not the man to let
+the strange, incomprehensible star escape him.  Nothing can be
+concealed in God's bosom from an Eastern scholar, for not even God
+Himself has a passport for the land of the all-wise.  The world is
+through them alone and for them alone; man must grow of himself towards
+the light as the lotus grows out of the mud.  So thought Balthasar, and
+felt that life was a failure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In such wisdom the faith of Orientals lives and moves and has its
+being.  If man honestly aspires to higher things and tortures his
+flesh, it may go better with him in another life.  For he must be born
+again many times, and must torture his body until it shrivels up, is
+freed from sin, and is without desires.  Then the soul is released and
+is not born again, for Nirvana, the last goal, is reached.  Only bad
+men continue to live.  The nations of India had been demoralised by
+that doctrine for centuries.  But it did not satisfy wise men.
+Balthasar thought: If a man starves through a few dozen lives, then
+something good must come out of it.  Or is evil good enough to
+continue, and good evil enough to cease?  Balthasar sought better
+counsel.  He sought throughout the universe for a peg on which to hang
+a new, more beneficial philosophy of life.  When, then, he saw the new
+star in the sky, he never ceased looking at it.  And, lo! it too took
+the road from east to west which all men traversed.  What was there
+yonder in the sunset that all went towards it, on earth as in heaven?
+Could not one particular star swim against the stream?  True, this new
+heavenly pilgrim took an unusual path; he leaned somewhat to the north
+of the barbarous folk.  So the wise man of the east left the fragrant
+gardens of India and followed the star.  On the road he was joined by
+two Oriental princes and their suites, who were also seeking they knew
+not what.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And one night the three wise men saw in the heavens an extraordinary
+constellation, a group of stars hitherto unknown to any of them.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-046"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-046.jpg" ALT="Diagram of constellation of stars." BORDER="2" WIDTH="471" HEIGHT="236">
+<H4>
+[Illustration: Diagram of constellation of stars, <BR>
+using asterisks for the stars, spelling out "INRI".]
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+They looked at the constellation for a long while, and Balthasar
+thought it was like writing.  They brought all their wisdom to bear on
+it, but could not explain it, for all it shone so brightly.  Did the
+gods mean to write some message?  Who could understand it?  An uncanny
+appearance, which no knowledge or faith could explain!  The next night
+they did not see it, but the guiding star still went before them and
+yielded to no sun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One morning, just as day began to dawn, they rode through the streets
+of Jericho.  A man was lying on his face in the road, and the Moor
+asked him why he lay in the dust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I lie in the dust," answered the man of Judah, "because I must
+practise myself in humility in order not to become too proud.  We have
+become great beyond measure these last days.  The King of the Jews is
+born, the Messiah promised of God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the wise man from India remembered how the Jews had been expecting
+their Messiah for ages, the royal deliverer from bondage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought you had King Herod," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's not the right king," answered the man in the dust.  "Herod is a
+heathen, and cringes to the Romans."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now clouds from Lebanon hid the star, and the travellers knew not
+which way to go.  Balthasar, perplexed, went towards the neighbouring
+city of Jerusalem; there surely he would be able to learn more.  He
+asked at the royal palace about the new-born king.  Such a question was
+news to King Herod.  A son born to him?  He knew nothing about it.  He
+would see the strangers who asked such a question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sire," said the Moor, "something is in the air.  Your people are
+whispering of the Messiah."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll have them beheaded!" shouted Herod angrily; then, more gently:
+"I'll have them beheaded if they don't kneel before the Messiah.  I
+myself will bow before him.  If only I knew where to find him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll go and look round a little," said the complacent Balthasar, "and
+if I find him I'll come and tell you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do, do, noble stranger," said Herod, "And then, pray take your ease at
+my palace as long as you like.  Are you fond of golden wine?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I drink red wine," answered the Moor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Or of the fair women of the west?" asked the king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I love dark-skinned women," said Balthasar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good!  Then come, my friend, and bring me news of the new-born king."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Balthasar rode on farther with his companions, and directly he left the
+town the star again shone in front of him.  It hung high up in the
+heavens, and after they had followed it for some hours it slowly turned
+its course eastwards, and stopped above a cave in the rocks.  And there
+the strangers who had ridden out of the east to seek for truth, there
+they found truth and life, there they found a child, a child who was as
+tender and beautiful as a rosebud in the moonlight, a little child born
+to poor people, and other poor folk stood round and offered the very
+last of their possessions, and were full of joy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dusky Balthasar peered inside.  Had he ever seen eyes shine as in this
+shepherd's cave?  It seemed to him that he saw a new light and a new
+life there; but he could not understand it.  And in the air he heard a
+strange song, more a suggestion than words: "You will be blessed!  You
+will live for ever!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The strangers hearkened.  What was that?  You will be blessed, and you
+will live for ever!  For us happiness is to be found only in
+non-existence.  At sight of this new-born infant the idea of immortal
+life came to them for the first time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They offered the poor mother precious jewels, and their hearts were
+glad and happy and strange within them.  Formerly these princes and
+wise men had only found pleasure in receiving, now they found it in
+giving.  Formerly Balthasar had been all sufficient unto himself, he
+had woven his thoughts in entire loneliness, had despised the rest of
+the world, and had only cared for himself.  And suddenly there came to
+him this joy in the joy of poor men, and this suffering at their
+suffering!  He shivered in his silken cloak, and when he took it off
+and wrapped it about the child he was warm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all offered gifts, precious gold and rich perfumes and healing
+ointments.  But they were ashamed of their gifts beside the royal
+offerings of the shepherds, who, though it was not much, brought all
+that they possessed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Balthasar in his joy wished to hasten to Jerusalem in order to tell
+Herod: I have not yet found the King of the Jews, but I have found a
+poor child and whoever looks upon him is happy, he knows not why.  Now
+kings are not so anxious to be happy; they prefer to be powerful.  A
+youth came forward from the back of the cave and said to Balthasar: "Do
+you know the man to whom you would go?  Why, he would strangle the
+Emperor Tiberius if he could.  Be silent, then, about a helpless child
+who is loved by the people as a prince."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, child!" said Balthasar, "you have the misfortune to be the
+people's favourite.  Therefore the great hate thee."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stranger, go not to Jerusalem.  Say nothing of the child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The strangers did not feel at ease in a land which had an emperor and a
+king, neither of whom was the right ruler!  And so they mounted their
+camels.  They took one more look at the child in the manger and they
+rode away straight over the stony desert.  They directed their course
+towards the east, towards all the starry constellations, and dreamed of
+a new revelation which might enable them henceforth to live rich in
+love and ever glad.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile King Herod, sleeping or waking, was not at peace.  It was not
+on account of his wife or his brothers whom he had had murdered from a
+suspicion that they might kill him to secure the throne.  It was
+something else that caused his anxiety.  The new-born king!  No one
+mentioned the news at court, but he heard it from the walls of his
+palace, from the flowers of his garden, from the pillows of his couch.
+Who had first spoken the word?  Whence did it come?  A new-born king!
+Where?  He must forthwith hasten to do him homage, to present him with
+a gift tied with a silken string.  And one day the decree came to
+Bethlehem that every mother who had an infant son should bring it to
+the king's palace at Jerusalem for the king desired to see the progeny
+of his subjects in order to discover what hope there was for the
+delivery of the land of the Jews from bondage: he wished to present
+gifts to the boys; yes, he was preparing a great surprise for his
+people.  No little excitement prevailed among the women, who declared
+that the childless king intended to adopt the handsomest boy as his own
+son.  Since each mother considered her son the handsomest and most
+attractive, she took the boy that she had and carried him to Jerusalem
+to the palace of King Herod.  And those who refused to go were sought
+out by the guards.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unhappy day, O Herod! which bears thy name for all time!  The angry
+king, desiring to kill the anti-king, commanded the wholesale murder of
+the future protectors of his realm!  He destroyed the race which had
+formerly saved the beautiful city from ruin!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All hail to our king, long may he live!" shouted the mothers in the
+courtyard of the palace.  Then knaves rushed out from the doors, tore
+the children from their mothers' arms, and slew them.  None can
+describe, indeed none would attempt to describe, how the unhappy
+mothers strove frantically with the tyrants until they fell fainting or
+lifeless upon the bodies of their dear ones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Tremble, O men, before the terrible decree of Herod, murderer of the
+innocents, yet despair not.  He for whom they spilled their blood by
+God's decree will requite it in full measure.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+He at whom Herod had struck was not among the slaughtered innocents.
+For Mary had no desire to show her babe to the king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They kept in hiding with their great treasure.  They remained in hiding
+a long time.  The rite of circumcision made the boy a member of the
+nation which God had named His chosen people.  The child's ancestors
+reached back to Abraham, to whom the promise was made.  And if
+according to Holy Writ I trace his descent from the race of Abraham,
+branch by branch, it comes at last to Joseph, Mary's husband.  And it
+is here that the glad tidings turn us aside with firm hand from all
+earthly existence&mdash;to the Spirit through which Mary had borne Him, Him
+whom with holy awe we call Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now it came to pass one night that Joseph awoke from his sleep: "Arise,
+Joseph, wake them, and flee!"  The voice called to him clearly and
+distinctly: twice, thrice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Flee? before whom?  The shepherds protect us," Joseph ventured to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The king will have the child.  Make your preparations quickly and
+flee."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph looked at his wife and child.  Their faces were white in the
+moonlight.  To think that such as they had an enemy on the earth!
+Flee!  But whither?  Where could the king not reach them?  His arm
+extended throughout the whole of Judaea.  We must not dream of going to
+Nazareth; he would be sure to seek us there.  Shall we go towards the
+land where the sun rises?  There dwell wild men of the desert.  Or
+towards the setting sun?  There are the boundless waters, and we have
+no boat in which to sail thither, where the heathens live who have
+kinder hearts than the grim princes of Israel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wake them!" called the voice clearly and urgingly.  "Take them to the
+land of the Pharaohs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To Egypt, where our forefathers were slaves, and were only delivered
+with difficulty?" asked Joseph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Joseph, delay not.  Go to the people whose faith is folly, but whose
+will is just, yonder where the waters of the Nile make the land fertile
+and bless it; There you will find peace and livelihood, safety for your
+wife, and teaching for the child.  When the time comes, God will lead
+you back as once He led Moses and Joshua across the sea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph knew not whose voice it was; he did not seek to know, and
+doubted not his soul rested trustfully in the arms of the Lord.  He put
+his hand on the shoulders of his dearest one, and said softly: "Mary,
+awake, and be not afraid.  Gather together our few possessions, put
+them in a sack, and I will fasten it to the beast Ishmael gave us.
+Then take the child.  We must away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary pushed her long, soft, silky hair from her face.  Her husband's
+sudden decision, the departure in the middle of the night, made her
+wonder, but she said not a word.  She gathered together their scanty
+possessions, took the sleeping child in her arms, and mounted the ass,
+who pricked up his ears and thought what a day's work must be before
+him since it began so terribly early.  His former owner had not
+pampered him; his short legs were firm and willing.  They gave one last
+grateful look at the cave, the stones of which were softer than the
+hearts of the men of Bethlehem.  Joseph took his stick and a leathern
+strap and walked beside the ass, leading it, the ass which carried his
+whole world and his heaven, and&mdash;the heaven of the whole world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After going some way, they thought to rest under some palm-trees, not
+far from Hebron.  But the ass would not stop, and they let him have his
+will.  Then soldiers of Herod rode that way; they saw a brown-skinned
+woman with a child sitting on the sand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it a boy?" they called to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A girl," answered the woman.  "But strangers have just passed by, and
+I think they had a boy with them, if you can come up with them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the horsemen galloped on.  Meanwhile the fugitives from Nazareth
+had reached bad roads, and were tired and wretched.  Was not Jacob's
+favourite son also taken into Egypt just like this child?  What will
+become of this one?  They became aware of their pursuers galloping
+behind over the bare plain.  Not a tree, not a shrub which could afford
+them protection.  They took refuge in the cleft of a rock, but Joseph
+said: "What is the use of hiding?  They must have seen us."  But as
+soon as they were well inside the dark hole, down came a spider from
+the mossy wall, summoned all her brood and her most distant relations
+in great haste, and they speedily spun a web over the opening, a web
+that was stronger than the iron railings in Solomon's temple, at the
+entrance to the Holy of Holies.  Hardly was the weaving finished when
+the knaves came riding up.  One said: "They crept into the hole in the
+rock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!" shouted another, "no one could have crept in there since the
+time of David the shepherd.  Look at the thick cobwebs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's true," they laughed, and straightway rode off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An old man who seemed to have risen from the grave now stood before the
+dusky woman who had denied her own son and betrayed the stranger
+wanderers.  Whence he came he did not know himself.  He loved the
+lonely desert, the home of great thoughts.  He did not fear the robbers
+of the desert, for he was stronger than they because he had nothing.
+Now and again the desire came to him to behold a human face, so that he
+might read therein whether the souls of men looked upwards or sank
+downwards.  The old man went up to the woman who had denied her own son
+and betrayed the fugitives.  And he said: "Daughter of Uriah! twice
+have you given your son life: once through pleasure, once through a
+lie.  So his life will be a lie.  He will breathe without living, and
+yet he will not be able to die!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mercy!" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will see Jerusalem fall!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Woe is me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will see Rome burn!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mercy!" she groaned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will see the old world perish.  He will see the barbarians of the
+north prevail.  He will wander restless, he will be ill-treated and
+despised everywhere, he will suffer the boundless despair of universal
+misery, and he will not be able to die.  He will envy men their death
+anguish and their right to die.  He will learn how they suck sweet
+poison from the loveliest blossoms, and how twelve-year-old boys kill
+themselves from sheer weariness.  He is the son of lies and is banished
+into the kingdom of lies.  He will lament over the torments of old age,
+and he will not be able to die.  He will call those children whom Herod
+slew blessed, and gnash his teeth at the memory of the woman who saved
+him through a lie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, stop!" shrieked the woman.  "When will he be redeemed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps when the eternal Truth is come."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The desert lay under a leaden sky.  The yellow undulating sandy plain
+was like a frozen sea that had no end, and so far as eye could see was
+only bounded by the dark orb of heaven.  Here and there, grey, cleft,
+cone-shaped rocks and blunt-cornered stone boulders or blocks and
+flat-topped stones not unlike a table rose out of the sand-ocean.  Two
+such stones were situated close together; one was partly covered by the
+yellow quicksand, the other stood higher out of the ground.  On each of
+them lay a man stretched at full length.  One, strong and sinewy, lay
+on his face, supporting his black-bearded cheeks with his hands so that
+his half-raised face could gaze over the barren plain.  The other, a
+smaller-made man, lay on his back, making a pillow of his arms, and
+gazed at the gloomy sky.  Both wore the Bedouin dress and were provided
+with arms which were fastened into, or suspended from, their clothes.
+Their woolly heads were protected by kerchiefs.  Their complexion was
+as brown as the bark of the pine-tree, their eyes big and sparkling,
+their lips full and red.  The one had a snub nose; the nose of the
+other was long and thin.  So do these men of the desert appear to my
+mind's eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dismas," said the snub-nosed man, "What do you see in the sky?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barabbas," replied the other, "what do you see in the desert?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you waiting for manna to fall from the sky?" said Barabbas.  "Do
+you know that I'm almost starved to death?  I must go down to the
+caravan route."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, go.  I'll to the oasis of Sheba," said Dismas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dismas, I hate you," growled the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dismas said nothing, and steadfastly looked at the sky, which had not
+for a long while been so softly sunless as to-day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Since the day when you refused to help me hold up the caravan of
+Orientals with my men, I have hated you.  They had much frankincense
+and precious spices and gold.  With one blow we should have provided
+ourselves with enough for many a long year.  And you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wanderers who were seeking the Messiah!  I do not attack such as
+they," said Dismas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You, too, are seeking him, you pious highwayman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, I seek him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed he of the snub-nose, pressing his pointed chin
+into his hand.  "The Messiah! the fairy-tale of dreaming old men.  All
+weak men dream and believe.  Don't you see that when you have to strive
+and struggle for your little bit of life there isn't time to wait for
+the Messiah!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just what I've believed for many a year and day," answered
+Dismas sadly.  "I left my home to follow you; I've plundered men of
+silks and precious stones here in the desert, and time has flown
+nevertheless.  All the treasure in the world cannot bid it stand still
+for an hour; comfort only makes the days fly quicker.  We should not
+struggle for life, but hold it fast, for existence is a wondrous thing.
+Oh, in vain&mdash;the days vanish.  So I've determined to have nought to say
+to the hours which pass, but to a time that endures for aye.  And only
+he whom God sends can bring such a time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barabbas pressed his face against the stone, and said with comfortable
+conviction; "We've only the life we have; there's no other."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If it was as you say," returned Dismas, "we must make this one life
+great&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If there's no life to come," said Barabbas, "we must live this one
+out.  That is nature, and to deny it folly.  No, I will enjoy my life.
+Enjoyment is a duty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is what bad men think," said Dismas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are no bad men," exclaimed Barabbas, "and no good men either.
+Friend, look at the lamb, he harms no one; he would rather be torn to
+pieces by the lion than tear the lion to pieces himself.  Is he good,
+therefore?  No, only weak.  And the lion who kills and eats the lamb?
+Is he bad, therefore?  No, only strong.  And so it is his right to
+destroy the weak.  Strength is the only virtue, and the only good deed
+is to exterminate the weak."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he made an end of speaking, the other turned his face towards him
+and said: "What extraordinary words are those?  I never heard such talk
+before.  In whose heart were such ideas born?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They were not born in the heart," said Barabbas.  "The heart is dumb.
+Dismas, if I must dwell in desert caves and do nothing, I must search
+out and inquire.  I break stones in pieces and search.  I pull the
+corpses of animals and men to pieces and inquire.  And I find that
+things are not as the old writings tell us.  There's only one Messiah:
+the truth.  Man is an animal like any of the lower creatures&mdash;that is
+the truth.  Ha, ha, ha!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shudder went through Dismas's body.  How he disliked this man!  And
+yet, on account of his companion's strong will, and through the habit
+of years, he could not free himself.  He had often fled away from him,
+but had always come back.  Now he stood up, lifted his arms to heaven,
+and exclaimed: "Oh, Lord, in the holy heights, save me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Invoke the stars," said Barabbas, with a scornful laugh.  "You'll be
+right then.  They know nothing of you and your God.  They're made of
+common dust.  They themselves, and all the beings on them, live in the
+same base struggle as does our earth and everything on it.  An enormous
+dust-heap, swarming with vermin, that's all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dismas sat on his stone with folded hands, pale as a corpse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barabbas, my comrade," he said at last, "it is your bad angel that
+speaks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why don't you praise him, Dismas?  Why don't you shout for joy?  My
+message has redeemed you.  You think because you've attacked, slain,
+and plundered unsuspecting travellers that everlasting hell must be
+your portion.  My strong message does away with hell.  Do you see that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other replied: "I heard a prophet in the wilderness cry that a man
+whom God had damned could be saved by repentance.  Your damnation,
+Barabbas, never!  No Almighty God!  Everything a dry, swarming
+dust-heap, and no escape!  Frightful, frightful!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know, Dismas, your lamentations don't amuse me?" said the
+other, supporting himself on his hands and knees like a four-footed
+beast.  "I have a more important matter on hand.  I'm hungry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dismas jumped on his stone, and made ready for flight.  "If he's
+hungry, he's capable of killing and eating me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barabbas had assumed a listening attitude, and his eagle eyes stared
+out into the desert.  A red banner was visible between the rocks and
+stones; it moved and came nearer.  It was a woman's red garment.  She
+rode on an ass, and seen closer, carried a child in her arms.  A man,
+tired out, limped beside her, leading the ass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dismas, there's someone," whispered Barabbas, grasping the handle of
+his weapon.  "Come, let's hide behind the stone until they come up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll fall on those defenceless folk from an ambush?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you're going to help me," said Barabbas coolly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'll take what we need for to-day, no more.  I'll only help you so
+far, mark that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little group came nearer.  The man and the ass waded deep in the
+sand, which in some places lay scantily over the rough stones, and in
+others had drifted into high heaps.  The guide was leading the animal
+quickly, for during this sunless day he had lost his bearings, but said
+nothing about it, in order not to make his wife anxious.  His eyes
+sought the right road.  They ought to reach the oasis of Descheme that
+day.  Now he saw two men standing on blocks of stone which reached up
+into the sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Praised be God!" said Joseph of Nazareth, "these men will put me
+right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before he had time to frame his question, they quickly descended.  One
+seized the ass's bridle, the other grasped Joseph's arm, and said:
+"Give us what you have with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The pale woman on the ass sent an imploring glance to Heaven.  The
+little child in her lap looked straight out of his clear eyes, and was
+not afraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you've bread with you, give it us," said Dismas, who was holding
+the ass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fool!" shouted Barabbas of the snub-nose, "everything they have
+belongs to us.  Whether we will give anything, that's the question.  I
+will give you the most precious thing&mdash;life.  Such a beautiful woman
+without life would be a horror."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dismas reached at the sack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why are you doing that, brother?" said Barabbas.  "We'll lead them to
+our castle.  The simoon may be blowing up.  There they'll have shelter
+for the night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He tore the bridle from Dismas's hand, and led the ass bearing the
+mother and child down between the stones to the cave,  Joseph saw the
+men's weapons, and followed gloomily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the shades of evening fell, and the desert was shut out and the
+sky dark, when the blocks of stone and the cone-shaped rocks resembled
+black monsters, the wanderers were settled in the depths of the cave.
+The ass lay in front of it sleeping, his big head resting on the sand.
+Near by lurked the robbers, and ate their plunder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now we'll share our guests in brotherly fashion," said Barabbas.  "You
+shall have the old man and the child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are father, mother, and child," replied Dismas; "they belong
+together, we will protect them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Brother," said Barabbas, who was in high good humour at the ease of
+the capture, "your dice.  We'll throw for them.  First, for the ass."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right, Barabbas."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He threw the eight-cornered stone with the black marks, and it fell on
+his outspread cloak.  The ass was his.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for the father and son!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right, Barabbas."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dice fell.  Barabbas rejoiced.  Dismas was winner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A third time for the woman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right, Barabbas."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He threw the dice; they fell on his cloak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is that?  The dice have no marks!  Dismas, stop this joke!
+You've changed the dice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he took them up in his hand the black marks were there again all
+right.  They drew a second and a third time.  As before the dice had no
+marks when they fell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What does it mean, Dismas?  The dice are blind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think it's you who are blind, Barabbas," laughed Dismas.  "Here,
+drink these drops, and then lie down and sleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The strong man soon rolled on to the sand beside the ass, and snored
+loudly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Dismas crawled into the cave and woke the strangers, in order to
+get them away from the libertine.  For he dared not venture a trial of
+strength with Barabbas.  He had some trouble with Joseph, but at last
+they were beneath the starry sky, Mary and the child on the ass, Joseph
+leading it.  Dismas walked in front in order to show them the way.
+They went slowly through the darkness; no one spoke a word.  Dismas was
+sunk in thought.  Past days, when he had rested like this child in his
+mother's arms and his father had led them over the Arabian desert, rose
+before him.  Many a holy saying of the prophets had echoed through his
+robber life and would not be silenced.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After they had waded through the sand and clambered over the rocks for
+hours, a golden band of light shone in the east.  The bushes and trees
+of the oasis of Descheme stood out against it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here Dismas left the wanderers to their safe road, in order to return
+to the cave.  When he turned back with good wishes for the rest of
+their journey, he was met by a look from the child's shining eyes.  The
+beaming glance terrified him with the terror of wonderment.  Never
+before had child or man looked at him with look so grateful, so
+glowing, so loving as this boy, his pretty curly head turned towards
+him, his hands stretched out in form of a cross, as if he wished to
+embrace him.  Dismas's limbs trembled as if a flash of lightning had
+fallen at his side, and yet it was only a child's eyes.  Holding his
+head with both hands, he fled, without knowing why he fled, for he
+would rather have fallen on his knees before the wondrous child.  But
+something like a judgment seemed to thrust him forth, back into the
+horror of the desert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For three days our fugitives rested in the oasis.  Mary liked to sit on
+the grass under an olive-tree near the spring, and let the boy stretch
+his little soft arms to pluck a flower.  He reached it, but did not
+break it from its stem; he only stroked it with his soft fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And when the child fell asleep in the flowers, his mother kneeled
+before him and looked at him.  And she gazed and gazed at him, and
+could not turn her face from him.  Then she bent down and took one
+little plump, soft hand and shut it into hers so that only the
+finger-tips could be seen, and she lifted them to her mouth and kissed
+them, and could not cease kissing the white, childish hands, the tears
+running down her cheeks the while.  And with her large dark eyes she
+looked out into the empty air&mdash;afraid of pursuers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph walked up and down near at hand between the trees and shrubs,
+but always kept mother and child in view.  He was gathering dates for
+their further travels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now new faces rise before me as they wander farther into the barren
+desert, swept by the simoon, parched by the rays of the sun.  Mary is
+full of peace, and wraps the child in her cloak so that he rests like a
+pearl in its shell.  He nestles against her warm breast and sucks his
+fill.  Whenever Joseph begins to be afraid, he feels the angel's wing
+fanning his face.  And then he is full of courage and leads his loved
+ones past hissing snakes and roaring lions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After many days they reached a fertile valley lying between rocky
+hills; a clear stream flowed through it.  They rested under a hedge of
+thorns, and looked at a terribly wild mountain that rose high above the
+rest.  It was bare and rocky from top to bottom, and deep clefts
+divided it in its whole length, so that the mountain seemed to be
+formed of upright blocks of stone, which looked like the fingers of two
+giant hands placed one on the other.  A hermit was feeding his goat in
+the meadow, and Joseph went up to him and asked the name of the
+remarkable mountain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are travelling through the district, and you don't know the
+mountain?" said the hermit.  "If you are a Jew, incline your face to
+the earth and kiss it.  It is the spot where eternity floated down from
+Sinai."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That&mdash;the Mountain of the Law?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See how it stretches forth its fingers swearing.  As true as God
+lives!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph bowed down and kissed the ground.  Mary looked at the stony
+mountain with a thrill of awe.  Little Jesus slept in the shade of the
+thorn-bush.  The threatening rock and the lovely child.  There dark
+menaces, and here&mdash;&mdash;?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph tried to picture to himself the scene when Moses, on the summit
+of the mountain, received the tables of stone from Jehovah.  Then a
+cloud slowly covered the mountain top as if to veil the secret.  Joseph
+was ashamed of his presumption and kept silence.  Before he departed he
+cut a bough from the thorn-bush and pulled off the leaves and twigs, so
+that it formed a pilgrim's staff for the rest of the journey.  They
+were always meeting new dangers.  And one day a hunter of the desert
+came running after them.  They were not frightened of his tiger skin,
+but of what he had to tell them.  If they had come from Judaea with
+their boy, they had better hasten into the land of Egypt, for Herod's
+men were on their track.  So they had no rest until at last they came
+to the land of the Pharaohs.  But one day they found themselves not on
+its frontier, but on the seashore.  They were dumb with astonishment.
+There lay the sea, its waves dashing against the black, jagged cliffs,
+and beyond them was a smooth, level plain as far as the eye could see.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once in the past fugitives had stood on the other side of the sea,
+their enemies behind them.  And Joseph lifted up his arms and called
+upon the God of his forefathers to divide the waters of the sea once
+again and make a passage for them.  Belief in the God of ancestors is
+strong.  He appealed also to his ancestors themselves and entreated
+them to come to his assistance, for are we not one with them and strong
+in the same faith?  But the sea lay in calm repose and divided not.
+Six horsemen came riding over the sand, shouting for joy at the thought
+of their reward, when they saw those they had so long pursued standing
+by the water, unable to proceed farther.  Quickly they approached the
+shore, and were about to let fly the stones from their slings against
+the couple who had the little King of the Jews with them, when they saw
+the fugitives descend the wave-dashed cliffs and go out upon the
+surface of the sea.  The man led the ass on which sat the woman with
+the child, and just as they passed over the sand of the desert, with
+even steps, they passed over the waters of the sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their pursuers rode after them in blind rage, urged their horses into
+the sea, and were the first to reach&mdash;not Egypt, but the other world.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The family of the poor carpenter from Nazareth stood on the soil of
+ancient Egypt.  How had they crossed the sea?  Joseph thought in a
+fishing boat, but it had all happened as in a dream.  He opened his
+eyes, and sought the mountains of Nazareth, and saw the dark grove of
+palm-trees with their bare trunks and sword-shaped leaves, and he saw
+the gate flanked by enormous stone figures which, lying on their
+bellies, stretched out two paws in front of them and lifted huge human
+heads high in the air.  He saw the triangular form of the pyramids rise
+against the yellow background.  Strange odours filled the air, as well
+as shrill noises made by fantastic figures, and every sound struck hard
+and sharp on the ear.  Joseph's heart was heavy.  His home was
+abandoned, and they were in a strange land in which they must certainly
+be lost.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary, who was always outwardly calm, but inwardly bound up passionately
+in the child, looked at Joseph's stick, and said: "Joseph, it is a nice
+thought of yours to deck your staff with a flower in token of our safe
+arrival."  Then Joseph looked at his stick and marvelled.  For from the
+branch which he had cut at Sinai there sprouted a living, snow-white
+lily.  Oh, Joseph, 'tis the flower of purity!  But what was the use of
+all the flowers in the world when he was so full of care?  He lifted
+the child in his arms, and when he looked at his sunny countenance the
+shadows were dispersed.  But they experienced shadows enough in the
+land of the sun, where men had built a splendid temple to the sun-god
+like that which the Israelites at home had built to the great Jehovah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Things did not go very well with these poor Jews during the long years
+they remained in this land.  They did not understand the language; but
+their simple, kindly character and their readiness to be of use told in
+their favour.  In that treeless land carpentry was at a discount.  They
+built themselves a hut out of reeds and mud on the bank of the Nile
+near the royal city of Memphis, but in such a building the carpenter's
+skill did not shine.  Still it was better than the dwellings of other
+poor people by the riverside.  Joseph thought of fishing for a
+livelihood; but the fish-basket that he wove was so successful that the
+neighbours supplied him with food so that he might make such baskets
+for them.  And soon people came from the town to buy his baskets, and
+when he carried his wares to market, he got rid of them all on the way.
+So basket-making became his trade, and he thought how once the little
+Moses was saved in a basket on the Nile.  And just as his work was
+liked, so also did Mary and himself win affection, and they confessed
+that life went better on the banks of the Nile than in poor little
+Nazareth, for veritably there were fleshpots in Egypt.  If only they
+could have crushed their hearts' longing for home!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the little Jesus began to walk, the mothers who were their
+neighbours wished him to make friends with their children and play with
+them.  But the boy was reserved and awkward with strangers.  He
+preferred to wander alone at evening-time besides the stream and gaze
+at the big lotus flowers growing out of the mud, and at the crocodiles
+which sometimes crawled out of the water, and lifting their heads
+towards the sky, opened their great jaws as if they would drink in the
+sunshine.  He often remained out longer than he ought, and came back
+with glowing cheeks, excited by some pleasure about which he said
+nothing.  When he had eaten his figs or dates, and lay in his little
+bed, his father and mother sat close by, and spoke of the land of their
+fathers, or told ancient tales of their ancestors until he fell asleep.
+Joseph instructed the boy in the Jewish writings; but it was soon
+apparent that Joseph was the pupil, for what he read with difficulty
+from the roll, little Jesus spoke out spontaneously from his innermost
+soul.  So he grew into a slender, delicate stripling, learned the
+foreign tongue, marked the customs, and followed them so far as they
+pleased him.  There was much in him that he did not owe to education;
+although he said little, his mother observed it.  And once she asked
+Joseph: "Tell me, are other children like our Jesus?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered; "So far as I know them&mdash;he is different."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day, when Jesus was a little older, something happened.  Joseph had
+gone with the boy to the place where the boats land, in order to offer
+his baskets for sale.  There was a stir among the people: soldiers in
+brilliant uniforms and carrying long spears marched along; then came
+two heralds blowing their horns as if they would split the air with
+their sharp tones; and behind came six black slaves drawing a golden
+chariot in which sat Pharaoh.  He was a pale man with piercing eyes,
+dressed in costly robes, a sparkling coronet on his black, twisted
+hair.  The people shouted joyfully, but he heeded them not; he leaned
+back wearily on his cushions.  But all at once he lifted his head a
+little; a boy in the crowd, the stranger basket-maker's little son,
+attracted his attention.  Whether it was his beauty or something
+unusual about the boy that struck him, we cannot say, but he ordered
+the carriage to be stopped, and the child to be brought to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph humbly came forward with the boy, crossed his hands on his
+breast, and made a deep obeisance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is your son?" said the king in his own language.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph bowed affirmatively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are a Jew!  Will you sell me the boy?" asked Pharaoh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then Joseph: "Pharaoh! although I am a descendant of Jacob, whose
+sons sold their brother Joseph into Egypt, I do not deserve your irony.
+We are poor people, but the child is our most cherished possession."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I only spoke in kindness about the selling," said the king.  "You are
+my subjects, and the boy is my property.  Take him, Hamar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The servant was ready to put his hand on the little boy, who stood by
+quietly and looked resolutely at the king.  Joseph fell on his knees
+and respectfully represented that he and his family were not Egyptian
+subjects, but lived there as strangers, and implored the almighty
+Pharaoh to allow him the rights of hospitality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know nothing about all that, my good man," said the king.  Then,
+catching sight of the boy's angry face, he laughed.  "Meseems, my young
+Jew, that you would crush me to powder.  Let me live a little longer in
+this pleasant land of Egypt.  I shall not harm you.  You are much too
+beautiful a child for that."  He stopped, and then continued in a
+different tone: "Wait, and look more closely at Pharaoh, and see if he
+is really so terribly wicked, and whether it would be so dreadful to
+live in his palace and hand him the goblet when he is thirsty.  Well?
+Be assured, old man, I shall do you no violence.  Boy, you shall come
+to my court of your own free will, you shall share the education and
+instruction of the children of my nobles; only sometimes I shall have
+you with me, you fine young gazelle.  Now go home with your father.
+To-morrow I will send and ask, mark you&mdash;only ask, not command.  He who
+is tired of plundered booty knows how to value a free gift.  You hear
+what I say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the crowd heard Pharaoh speak to these poor people with such
+unwonted kindness, the like of which they had never heard before, they
+uttered mad shouts of joy.  As the king proceeded on his way in his
+two-wheeled golden chariot, a long array of soldiers, cymbal players,
+and dancing girls following behind, the palm-groves resounded with the
+cries of the people.  Joseph fled with the boy down narrow streets so
+as to avoid the crowd that wanted to press round him and look at and
+pet Pharaoh's little favourite.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The same evening an anxious council was held in the little hut.  The
+boy, Jesus, was drawn to Pharaoh without saying why.  They were
+terrified about it.  The two working people had no idea that their life
+was becoming too narrow for his young soul, that he wanted to fortify
+himself with the knowledge to be obtained from the papyrus rolls of the
+ancient men of wisdom, with the intellectual products of the land of
+the Pharaohs.  And still less did they imagine that a deeper reason led
+their boy to desire to learn something of life in the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph admitted that the manuscripts in the royal collection counted
+for something.  But Mary put little trust in the writings, and still
+less in Pharaoh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've had," she said, "a painful experience of the good intentions of
+kings.  Having escaped the violence of Herod with difficulty, are we to
+submit to that of Pharaoh?  They all play the same game, only in a
+different way.  What Jerusalem could not accomplish by force, Memphis
+will accomplish by cunning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph said: "My dear wife, you are not naturally so mistrustful.  Yet
+after what we have gone through it is no wonder.  This legend of a
+young King of the Jews has been a real fatality to us.  Whoever started
+it can never answer for all the woes it brings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us leave that to the Lord, Joseph, and do what it is ours to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Joseph was alone with her he said: "It seems to me, Mary, that you
+believe our Jesus is destined for great things.  But you must remember
+that a basket-maker's hut is not exactly the right place for that.  He
+would have a better chance at Pharaoh's court&mdash;like Moses.  And we know
+that the King of Egypt is no friend of Herod.  No, that is not his
+line; he really wishes well to the child, and no one can better
+understand that than ourselves.  Did he not say that our darling should
+be treated like the children of the nobles?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the end she decided to do what was best for the child.  He was past
+ten years old, and if he wished to go from the mud hut to the palace,
+well, she would not forbid it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus heard her words.  "Mother," he said, and stood in front of her,
+"I do not wish to go from the mud hut to the palace, but I want to see
+the world and men and how they live.  I am not abandoning my parents to
+go to Pharaoh&mdash;although I go, I remain here with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You remain with us," said his mother, "and yet I see that even now you
+are no longer here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But she would not let him know how it was with her.  He should not see
+her weep.  She would not spoil his pleasure.  And then they discovered
+that after all he was not going very far away, only from the Nile to
+the town, and that Pharaoh had promised him liberty; he could visit his
+parents, and return to them whenever he so wished.  But he would no
+longer be the same child who went from them.  Mary reflected that that
+was the usual case with mother and son; the youth gave himself up more
+and more to strangers, and less and less of him remained to his mother.
+There remained to her the memory that she had borne him in pain, that
+she had nourished him with her life; she had a claim on him more sacred
+and everlasting than any other could have.  But gradually and
+inevitably he separated himself from his mother, and what she would do
+for him, and give him, and be to him, he kindly but decidedly set
+aside.  She must even give him her prayerful blessing in secret; she
+hardly dared to touch his head with her trembling hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day at noon a royal litter stood before the hut.  Two slaves were
+the bearers, one of whom was old and feeble.  When Mary saw the litter
+she exclaimed that she would not allow her child to lie on so soft a
+couch.  The boy smiled a little, so that two dimples appeared on his
+rosy cheeks, and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, mother, do you think I would ride on those cushions?  Now, let
+the sick slave get in, and I will take his place."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the leader of the little procession was not agreeable.  The boy
+could do as he liked, stay, or go with them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall stay," said Jesus, "and go to Pharaoh when I please."  The
+litter returned empty to the palace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day the boy made up his mind to go.  His parents accompanied
+him through the palm-grove to the town.  He walked between father and
+mother in his humble garb, and Joseph gave him good advice the while.
+Mary was silent and invoked the heavenly powers to protect her child.
+Only the boy was admitted through the gateway of the palace; father and
+mother remained behind and looked fearfully after their Jesus, who
+turned round to wave to them.  His face was glad, and that comforted
+the mother.  The father thought it incomprehensible that a child could
+so cheerfully and heedlessly part from the only creatures who cared for
+him; but he kept his thought to himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy felt curiosity, satisfaction, and repugnance all at the same
+time, when he gave himself into the hands of the servants, who led him
+to a refreshing bath, anointed him with sweet-smelling oil, and clad
+him in a silken garment.  But he desired to learn what life in the
+royal palace was like.  And gradually its splendour began to enfold
+him.  The Arabian tales which his father loved to tell him contained
+marvels and splendours, but nothing to be compared with the
+magnificence and brilliance that now assailed his senses.  Marble
+staircases as broad as streets, halls as lofty as temples, marble
+pillars, brilliantly painted domes.  The sun came through the windows
+in every colour there is, and was reflected red, blue, green, and gold
+by the shining walls.  But more fairy-like were the nights, when
+thousands of lamps burned in the halls, a forest of candelabra shone
+like a conflagration kept within bounds; when the courtiers seemed to
+sink into the carpets and divans and silken and down coverlets; when
+the sweet-smelling incense rose from the golden censers and intoxicated
+the brain; when a hundred servants made ready the banquet of
+indescribable luxury, and carried it in silver dishes, alabaster bowls,
+and crystal goblets; when youths and maidens, with arms entwined,
+crowned each other with wreaths of roses; when the fanfares sounded,
+and the cymbals clashed, and song gushed from maidens' throats; and
+when at length Pharaoh entered in flowing purple robes adorned with a
+thousand sparkling diamond stars&mdash;on his head an indented coronet,
+shining like carbuncle&mdash;the god! the sun-god!  On all this our boy from
+the Nile hut looked as at something wonderful that had nothing to do
+with him.  A fan of shimmering peacocks' feathers was put into his
+hand.  Other boys had similar fans, and with half-bared limbs stood
+close to the guests and fanned them into coolness.  Young Jesus was to
+do that for Pharaoh, but he did not do it, and sat on the floor and
+never grew weary of looking at Pharaoh's pale face.  The king answered
+his gaze kindly: "I think that is the proud youth from the Nile, who
+does not desire to sit at the feet of Pharaoh."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He shall sit at the right hand of God," sang the choir.  Slowly, with
+the air of an irritated lion, the king turned his head in order to see
+what stupid choirmaster mingled Hebrew verses with the hymn of Osiris.
+Then ensued noise and confusion.  The windows, behind which was the
+darkness, shone with a red light.  The people had assembled before the
+palace with torches in order to do homage to Pharaoh, the son of Light.
+The king looked annoyed.  Such homage was repeated every new moon&mdash;he
+desired it, and yet it bored him.  He beckoned to the cup-bearers, he
+wanted a goblet of wine.  That brought the blood to his cheeks, and the
+light to his eyes.  He joined in the hymn of praise to Osiris, and his
+whole form glowed with strength and gladness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the quiet night succeeded the luxurious day, so still was it that
+the lapping of the waves of the Nile might be heard.  Jesus lay on a
+curtained couch of down, and could not sleep.  How well he had slept in
+the hut by the Nile!  He was hot and rose and looked out of the window.
+The stars sparkled like tiny suns.  He lay down again, prayed to his
+Father, and fell asleep.  The next day, when the feast was over, he
+would find the rooms in which the old writings were kept, and the
+teachers who would instruct him.  But it was not like the feast that
+comes to an end; it was repeated every day at the king's court.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It happened one night that the slaves stole around and woke each other.
+Jesus became aware of the subdued noise and asked the cause.  One
+approached him and whispered, "Pharaoh weeps!"  Like a mysterious
+breath of wind it went through the palace, "Pharaoh weeps!"  Then all
+was still again, and the dreaming night lay over everything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus did not lie down again on the soft cushions, he rested on the
+cool floor and thought.  The king weeps!  Arabia and India, Greece and
+Rome have sent their costliest treasures to Memphis.  Phoenician ships
+cruise off the coasts of Gaul, Albion, and Germany in order to obtain
+treasure for the great Pharaoh.  His people surround him day after day
+with homage, his life is at its prime.  And he weeps?  Was it not
+perhaps that he sobbed in his dreams, or it may be laughed?  But the
+watchers think he weeps.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+And the days passed by.  As the king had said, the boy was free.  But
+he stayed on at the palace because he hoped one day to find the room in
+which the manuscripts were kept.  He often strolled through the town
+and the palm-grove down to the river to see his parents.  Thousands of
+slaves were working at the sluices of the stream which fertilised the
+land.  The overseer scourged them lustily, so that many of them fell
+down exhausted and even dying.  Jesus looked on and denounced such
+barbarity, until he, too, received a blow.  Then he went out to the
+Pyramids where the Pharaohs slept, and listened if they were not
+weeping.  He went into the Temple of Osiris and looked at the monster
+idols, fat, soulless, ugly, between the rounded pillars.  He searched
+the palace untiringly for the hall in which the writings were kept, and
+at last he came upon it.  But it was closed: its custodians were
+hunting jackals and tigers in the desert.  They found it dark and
+dreary there among the great minds of old; the splendour and luxury of
+the court did not penetrate to the hall of writings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then nights came again when whispers ran through the halls, "Pharaoh
+weeps."  And the reason, too, was whispered.  He had caused the woman
+he loved best to be strangled, and now the astrologers declared that
+she was innocent.  One day the king lay on his couch and desired that
+the boy from the Nile should be summoned to fan him.  As the king was
+sick, Jesus agreed to go.  Pharaoh was ill-humoured and impatient,
+neither fan nor fanning was right, and when the boy left off that was
+not right either.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus said suddenly: "Pharaoh, you are sick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The king stared at him in astonishment.  A page dare to open his mouth
+and speak to the Son of Light!  When, however, he saw the sad, sincere
+expression of sympathy in the boy's countenance ho became calmer, and
+said; "Yes, my boy, I am sick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"King," said Jesus, "I know what is the matter with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You keep shadows within and light without.  Reverse it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Directly the boy had said that Pharaoh got up, thinner and taller than
+he usually appeared to be, and haughtily pointed to the door, an angry
+light in his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy went out quietly, and did not look back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But his words were not forgotten.  In the noise and tumult of the
+daytime Pharaoh did not hear them; in the night, when all the
+brilliance was extinguished and only the miserable and unhappy waked,
+he heard softly echoed from wall to wall of his chamber, "Reverse it!
+Bring the light inside!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shortly before that time Jesus had discovered an aged scholar who dwelt
+outside the gate of Thebes, in a vaulted cave at the foot of the
+Pyramid.  He would have nothing to do with any living thing except a
+goat of the desert which furnished him with milk.  And as he kept
+always within the darkness of the vault, bending over endless
+hieroglyphics on half-decomposed slabs of stone, on excavated household
+vessels, and papyrus rolls, the goat likewise never saw the sun.  Both
+were contented with the food brought them daily by an old fellah.  The
+hermit was one who had surely reversed things&mdash;shadow without and light
+within.  When Pharaoh dismissed Jesus, he sought the learned
+cave-dweller in order to find wisdom.  At first the old man would not
+let him come in.  What had young blood to do with wisdom?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My son, first grow old, and then come and seek wisdom in the old
+writings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy answered: "Do you give wisdom only for dying?  I want it for
+living."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the old man let him in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus now visited the wise man every day and listened to his teachings
+about the world and life, and also about eternal life.  The hermit
+spoke of the transmigration of souls, how in the course of ages souls
+must pass through all beings, live through all the circles of
+existence, according as their conduct led them upwards to the gods, or
+downwards to the worms in the mud.  Therefore we should love the
+animals which the souls of men may inhabit.  He spoke with deep awe of
+the serpent Kebados, and of the sublime Apis in the Temple of Memphis.
+He lost himself in all the depths and shoals of thought, verified
+everything by the hieroglyphics, and declared it to be scientific
+truth.  So that the man who lived in the dark discoursed to the boy on
+light.  He spoke of the all-holy sun-god Osiris who created everything
+and destroyed everything&mdash;the great, the adorable Osiris by whose eye
+every creature was absorbed.  Then he would again solemnly and
+mysteriously murmur incomprehensible formulae, and the eager boy grew
+weary.  Here, too, something evidently had to be reversed.  So
+thinking, he went quietly forth and left the little gate open.  When
+the old man looked up at him, there he was in the open air pasturing
+the goat, who, delighted at her liberty, was capering round on the
+grass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you not show your reverence for truth?" he said, reprovingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus: "Don't you see that I am proving my reverence for your
+teaching.  You say: We must love animals.  Therefore I led the goat out
+into the open air, that she may feed on the fragrant grass.  You say
+that we should kindle our eye at that of the sun-god, therefore I went
+out with the goat from the dark vault into the bright sunlight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must learn to understand the writings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want to know living creatures."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man looked at the boy with an air of vexation.  "Tell me, you
+bold son of man, under what sign of the zodiac were you born?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Under that of the ox and the ass," answered the boy Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man of learning immediately hurried into his cave, lighted his
+lamp, and consulted his hieroglyphics.  Under the ox and the ass&mdash;he
+grew afraid.  Away with Libra, away with Libra!  He investigated yet
+again.  It stood written on the stone and in the roll.  He went out
+again, and looked at the boy, but differently from before, uneasily, in
+great excitement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, boy, I've cast your horoscope."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By the ancient and sacred signs I've read your fate.  Knowing under
+what sign of the zodiac and under which stars you were born, I can
+enlighten you as to the fate you go to meet so callously.  Do you
+desire to know it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I desire to know it, I will ask my Father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is your father an astrologer?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He guides the stars in their courses,"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He guides the stars in their courses?  What do you mean?  You are a
+fool, a godless fool.  You will learn what terrors await you.  This
+arrogance is the beginning.  His Father guides the stars in their
+courses indeed!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+News came from Judaea that King Herod was dead.  It was also reported
+that his successor, called Herod the younger, was of milder temperament
+and a true friend of his people.  So Joseph considered that the time
+was now come when he might return to his native land with his wife and
+his tall, slender son.  His basket-making, through industry and thrift,
+had, almost without his noticing it, put so much money into his pocket
+that he was able to treat with a Phoenician merchant regarding the
+journey home.  For they would not go back across the desert: Joseph
+wanted to show his family the sea.  He took willow twigs with him in
+order to have something to do during the voyage.  Mary occupied herself
+in repairing and making clothes, so that she might be nicely dressed
+when she arrived home.  The other passengers who were in the big ship
+were glad of the idleness, and amused themselves in all sorts of ways.
+Jesus often joined them, and rejoiced with those who were glad.  But
+when the amusement degenerated into extravagance and shamelessness, he
+retired to the cabin, or looked at the wide expanse of waters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One moonlight night when they were on the high seas, a storm sprang up.
+The ship's keel was lifted high at one moment only to dip low the next,
+so that the waves broke over the deck; bundles and chests were thrown
+about, and a salt stream struck the travellers' faces.  The rigging
+broke away from the masts, and fluttered loosely in the air out into
+the dark sea which heaved endlessly in mountains of foam, and
+threatened to engulf the groaning ship.  The people were mad with
+terror and anguish, and, reeling and staggering, sought refuge in every
+corner in order to avoid the falling beams and splinters.  Joseph and
+Mary looked for Jesus, and found him quietly asleep on a bench.  The
+storm thundered over his head, the masts cracked, but he slept
+peacefully.  Mary bent over him, and climbed on to the bench so that
+they might not be hurled apart.  She would let him sleep on, what could
+a mother's love do more?  But Joseph thought it time to be prepared,
+and so they woke him.  He stood on the deck and looked out into the
+wild confusion.  He saw the moon fly from one wall of mist to the
+other, he saw dark monsters shoot up from the roaring abyss, and throw
+themselves on the ship with a crashing noise, and turn it on its side
+so that the masts almost touched the surface of the water, while birds
+of prey hovered above.  The ship heaved from its inmost recesses, and
+cracked from end to end as if it would burst.  Jesus, pale-faced, his
+eyes sparkling with delight, held on to the railing.  Joseph and Mary
+tried to protect him.  He thrust them back, and without ceasing to gaze
+at the awful splendour, said: "Let me alone!  Don't you see that I'm
+with my Father?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is written of him that he is the only man who had no father on
+earth, and so he sought and found Him in heaven.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Others who saw the youth that night became almost calm in spite of
+their terror.  If he is not afraid for his young life, is ours so much
+more valuable?  And then, whether to conquer or to fail, they went to
+work with more courage to steer the ship, to mend the tackle with tow,
+to bale out the water, until gradually the storm subsided.  When day
+dawned Jesus was still gazing with delight at the open sea, where he
+had watched the struggle of winds and waves of light and darkness.  At
+last he had found it&mdash;light both within and without!  The helmsman blew
+his horn, and announced, "Land in sight!"  Far away over the dark-green
+water shone the cliffs of Joppa.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the ship was safely steered through the high cliffs into the
+harbour, our family landed in order to journey thence to Jerusalem on
+foot.  For it was the time of the Passover, and it was many years since
+Joseph had celebrated it in Solomon's Temple.  The feast&mdash;a memorial of
+the deliverance from Egypt&mdash;had now a double meaning for him.  So he
+wished to make this <I>détour</I> to the royal city on his way to his native
+Galilee, and especially that, after their sojourn in the land of the
+heathen, he might introduce Jesus to the public worship of the chosen
+people.  Joseph and Mary clasped each other's hands in quiet joy when
+they were once again journeying through their native land, breathing
+its fresh air, seeing the well-known plants and creatures, hearing the
+familiar tongue.  Jesus remained calm.  If he found any childish
+memories there, they would be of the king who had persecuted him.  He
+could regard the land with calm impartiality.  And when he saw his
+parents so glad to be at home again, he thought how strange it was that
+lifeless earth should have so much power over the heart.  Does not the
+Heavenly Father hold the whole earth in his hand?  Does not man carry
+his home within his own bosom?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their possessions were tied on to the back of a camel, and they trudged
+cheerfully after it.  Joseph carried an axe at his waist in order to
+defend them from attacks, but he only had occasion to try it on the
+blocks of wood that lay in the road, which he liked to hack at a little
+if they were good timber.  The nearer they approached the capital the
+more animated the stony roads became.  Pilgrims who were proceeding to
+the great festival in the holy place streamed along the paths.  After
+sunset on the second day our travellers found themselves at an inn in
+Jerusalem.  Joseph could afford to be more independent than he had been
+twelve years back&mdash;he had money in his pocket!  Their first walk was to
+the Temple.  They hastened their steps when passing Herod's palace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Temple stood in wondrous splendour.  All sorts of people filled the
+forecourt, hurrying, pushing, and shouting, pressing forward through
+the lines of pillars into the Holy Place, and thence into the Holy of
+Holies, where the ark of the covenant stood, flanked by golden
+candelabra.  Every fifth man wore the robes of a rabbi, and was thus
+sure of his place in the Temple as one learned in the law.  Pharisees
+and Sadducees, two hostile parties in the interpretation of the law,
+talked together of tithes and tribute, or entered on lively disputes
+over the laws of the Scriptures, a subject on which they never agreed.
+Joseph and Mary did not observe that others were quarrelling; they
+humbly obeyed the rules, and stood in a niche of the Holy Place and
+prayed.  But Jesus stood by the pillars and listened to the disputants
+with astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day they inspected the city as far as the crowds rendered it
+possible.  Joseph wished to visit the grave of his noble ancestor, and
+pushed through the crowds that filled the dark, narrow streets, noisy
+with buyers and sellers, donkey-drivers, porters, shouting rabbis, and
+an endless stream of pilgrims.  When they reached David's tomb Jesus
+was not with them.  Joseph thought that he had remained behind in the
+crowd, and, feeling quite easy about him, paid his devotions at the
+tomb of his royal ancestor.  When they returned to the inn, where they
+thought to find Jesus, He was not there; time passed, and He did not
+come.  Someone said He had joined a party of pilgrims going to Galilee,
+because He thought that His parents had already set out.  "How could He
+think that?" exclaimed Joseph.  "As if we should go without Him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They hurried off to fetch their son, but when they came up with the
+pilgrims, Jesus was not there, nothing was known of him, and his
+parents returned to the town.  They sought him there for two whole
+days.  They visited every quarter of the city, searched all the public
+buildings, inquired of every curator, asked at the strangers' office,
+questioned all the shop-keepers about the tall boy with pale face,
+brown hair, and an Egyptian fez on his head.  But no one had seen him.
+They returned to the inn, fully expecting to find him there.  But there
+was no sign of him.  Mary, who was almost fainting with anxiety,
+declared that he must have fallen into the hands of Herod.  Joseph
+comforted her, though he was himself in sad need of consolation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor mother," he said, drawing her head down on his breast, "let us go
+and place our trouble before the Lord."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And when they had gone up into the Temple, there, among the scholars
+and the men learned in the law they found Jesus.  The youth sat among
+the grey-bearded rabbis, and carried on a lively conversation with
+them, so that his cheeks glowed and his eyes shone.  Judgment had to be
+pronounced on a serious case of transgression of the law.  A man in
+Jerusalem had baked bread on the Sabbath, because his neighbour had
+been unable to lend him the oven the day before.  The Pharisees met
+together, and eagerly brought forward a crowd of statutes regarding the
+culpability of the transgressor.  Young Jesus listened attentively for
+a while, and then suddenly stepped out of the crowd.  Placing himself
+in front of the learned men, he asked: "Rabbis, ought a man to do good
+on the Sabbath or not?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They did not know at first whether to honour this bold young man with
+an answer.  But there is a precept in the law which declares that every
+inquirer must be answered, so one of them said curtly and roughly: "Of
+course a man should do good."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus inquired further; "Is life a good thing or not?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As it is the gift of God, it is a good thing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Should a man then preserve life or harm it on the Sabbath?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wise men were silent, for they would have been compelled to
+acknowledge that life must be preserved on the Sabbath, and their
+accusation of the man who had baked bread for his food would have
+fallen to the ground.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus walked quickly up the steps to the table, and said: "Rabbis, if a
+sheep fell into a brook on the Sabbath, would you leave it there till
+the next day?  You would not first think: To-day is the Sabbath day,
+but you would pull it out before it was drowned.  Which is of greater
+value, a sheep or a man?  If a sick man comes on the Sabbath day, and
+needs help, it is given him at once.  And if you have a splinter in
+your flesh, no one asks if it is the Sabbath; the splinter must be
+taken out.  But you come with your laws against a poor man who was
+obliged to prepare his food on the Sabbath, and you imagine yourselves
+better than he is.  No, that will not do.  The intention must decide.
+If any one bakes bread on the Sabbath, I should say to him: 'Is it for
+your own good or for gain?'  In the first case you are acting rightly,
+in the last you desecrate the Sabbath."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they now did not know what to say, they decided that the youth was
+too insignificant for them to dispute with.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus, still excited, came down and joined the crowd, where his mother
+was wringing her hands over the boldness with which her son had spoken
+to the elders and the wise men.  She stretched her arms towards him.
+"Child! child!  What are you doing here?  Why treat us so?  What we
+have not suffered on your behalf!  We have sought you for three whole
+days in the greatest anxiety."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus said: "Why did you seek me?  He who has a task to do, cannot
+always stay with his own people.  I have been about my Heavenly
+Father's business."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where were you all the time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not answer.  Others might have told how he stood between the
+pillars listening to the discussions of the Rabbis until he could keep
+silence no longer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph said to him with some severity: "If you are learned enough to
+interpret the Scriptures to those honourable men, you must know the
+fifth commandment: 'Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may
+be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus said nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now, my son, we will betake ourselves to that land."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so they set out on the last stage of their journey.  It was hard
+walking over the vineyards of Judaea and Samaria, and Mary, when they
+were quite near home, asked if she should ever see Nazareth again.
+Jesus marched the distance, so to speak, twice, for he was never tired
+of turning aside to gather dates, currants, and figs, or to fetch a
+pitcher of water in order that his parents might quench their thirst.
+So they went slowly over the rocky land, and when the mule-path led to
+an eminence over which flat stones lay scattered, and which was thickly
+sown with stumpy shrubs, the fertile plain of Israel lay before them.
+It was surrounded by wooded hills, while villages were scattered about
+its surface, and shining rivers wound through it.  Opposite, one range
+of mountains showed behind the other, and the highest lifted their
+snowy peaks into the blue sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph let fall the camel's guiding rein and his staff, extended his
+arms and exclaimed: "Praise the Lord, oh my soul!"  For Galilee, his
+native place, lay before him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they saw the little town of Nazareth nestling in a bend of the
+hills&mdash;ah! how small the place was, and how peaceful amid the green
+hills!&mdash;Mary wept for joy.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The inhabitants of Nazareth were not a little astonished to see Joseph,
+the carpenter, who had so long disappeared from their midst, walk up
+the street with his wife and a handsome boy.  It was a good thing that
+they had baggage with them.  But Cousin Nathaniel made a very wry face,
+in which the smile of welcome struggled with the anxiety this
+unexpected arrival caused him.  Cousin Nathaniel had taken possession
+of, and settled comfortably in the house, regarding himself as the
+heir.  Now he must pack up and go.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph was delighted to see his workshop again, with its vice, bench,
+yardstick, plane, and saw.  The red dyeing vat was also there, and the
+cord with which the timber was measured before the axe was used on it.
+Cousin Nathaniel declared that many of the tools belonged to him, until
+Joseph pointed to the J with which all the things were marked for the
+sake of order.  When the old workman tied on his apron, and for the
+first time set to work with the plane so that the fine shavings flew
+whirring about, his blood flowed swiftly for delight, and his eye
+looked like that of a young man.  And so the carpenter began cheerfully
+to work again, not only in his own shop, but anywhere in the
+neighbourhood where building or repairing was required, or tables,
+chests, or benches were needed.  The little property he had brought
+from Egypt would be increased here, so that when the time came his son
+should make a good start in life.  Mary helped him with careful and
+economical housekeeping, and made undergarments and cloaks for the
+women of Nazareth.  Jesus had a room to himself to which he could
+withdraw when work was over.  Joseph hoped, by making him comfortable
+at home, to counteract the attractions of the outside world.  The vine
+trellises could be clearly seen through the windows of the room, and a
+hill with olive-trees, and clouds from Lebanon passing over the sky,
+and the stars that rose in the east.  The first gleam of sun, moon, and
+stars, when they rose, fell into that peaceful chamber.  The Books of
+Moses, the Maccabees, the Kings, the Prophets, and Psalmists which
+Jesus gradually collected in Nazareth, Cana, Nain, and in villages
+below round the lake, filled a shelf.  The men of Galilee had become
+indifferent to the works which their forefathers wrote with toil and
+reverence; they had had to wait too long for the fulfilment of the
+prophecies, and began to doubt that a Messiah would ever come to the
+Jews, so that they were quite pleased to give the parchments to that
+nice boy of Joseph's.  If they wanted to know anything, they had only
+to ask him, and he explained it so clearly and concisely, and sometimes
+so impressively, that they never forgot it again.  That was much easier
+than awkwardly searching for themselves, and labouring hard to decipher
+the words only to be unable to understand them when they had done so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Many a night, by the light of the moon, did Jesus read in his books.
+They were the same as those we read to-day when we open the Old
+Testament.  So that it is as if we sat with Jesus on the same school
+bench.  He read of Adam and his sin, of Cain and his murder, of Abraham
+and his promise, of Noah and the deluge.  He read of Jacob and his
+sons, of Joseph whom his brothers sold into Egypt, and of his fate in
+that land.  And he read of Moses the great lawgiver, of David the
+shepherd, minstrel and king, and of Solomon's wisdom and of his temple,
+and of the Prophets who judged the people for their misdeeds, and
+prophesied the future kingdom.  Jesus read the history of his people
+with a burning heart.  He saw how the race had gradually gone from bad
+to worse.  If he had at first rejoiced with all enthusiasm, later on he
+became angry at the degeneration.  Grief made him sleepless, and he
+peered thoughtfully into the starry heavens, asking: "What will deliver
+them from this misery?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stars were silent.  But out of the distance, out of the stillness
+of eternity, it was proclaimed: I love them so deeply, that I shall
+send my own Son to make them happy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By day Joseph took care that the youth should not dream too much.
+Jesus must learn his trade.  He did so willingly but not gladly, for
+his head was not with his hands, and while he should have joined two
+beams to make a door frame, the dark saying of the Prophet sounded in
+his head: "He is numbered among the transgressors."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you doing there?  Is that a door frame?  It's a cross!"  So
+Joseph awoke him out of his reverie, and Jesus was terrified to see
+that he had nailed the pieces of wood crosswise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me," said Joseph to the boy, "what are you thinking of?  If
+you've any sense in your head use it for your honest work.  The
+simplest handicraft needs it all, and not only a piece here and there.
+And especially carpentering, which builds people houses, bridges,
+ships, and yea, temples for Jehovah.  You cannot imagine what mischief
+a bad carpenter may do.  You're thinking of divine things?  Well, work
+is a divine thing.  With work in his hands, man continues the creation
+of God.  People say that you are clever; then let your master see it.
+You make the tools blunt and the work is not clean and sharp.  This
+can't go on, child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus let the lecture pass in silence, and worked far into the night to
+make the mischief good.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph confided his grief to his wife.  Not that the boy would turn out
+a bad carpenter.  If he liked he could succeed in anything.  But Joseph
+was grieved to have to scold his favourite so often.  He had to do that
+to every apprentice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary said: "Joseph, you are quite right, to direct him.  I am indeed
+anxious.  I observe the child carefully, and I am not satisfied.  He is
+so different, so very different from boys of his age."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think, too, that he is different," said Joseph.  "We must not forget
+that from the very beginning it was different with this child.  Jehovah
+understands it; I can't fit it together.  He reads too much, and that's
+bad for young people."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I almost fear he reads the Law in order to criticise it," said
+Mary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He'll find himself.  At his age boys exaggerate in everything."  So
+Joseph consoled himself.  "He's a singular boy.  Look at him when he
+plays with other children!  The tallest of them all!  No, after all, I
+wouldn't have him other than he is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had talked in sorrow and joy while Jesus was nailing the wood
+correctly out in the workshop.  And when he had gone to bed, Joseph
+crept into his room, and laid his hand gently on his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so the years went by.  Jesus improved in his work, and grew in
+intelligence, and in cheerfulness.  The Sabbath day was all his own.
+He liked to go up to the hill top where the sheep were feeding among
+the stones and the olive-trees, whence he could see the mighty
+mountains of Lebanon and, the wide landscape, partly green and fertile
+and partly barren, down to the lake.  He stood there and thought.  He
+was always friendly with the people he met or who were employed about
+him, but he seldom became intimate with them.  Occasionally he would
+join in some athletic exercise with youths from Cana, and in wrestling,
+strive who could overcome the other.  Then his soft brown hair would
+fly in the wind, his cheeks would glow, and when the game was over, he
+would return arm-in-arm with his adversary to the valley below.  But he
+preferred to be alone with himself, or with silent nature.  Beautiful
+ideas came springing like lambs in that peaceful place, but there also
+came thoughts strong as lions.  He dreamed.  He did not think; thought,
+as it were, lay within himself, and then he spoke out many a word at
+which he was himself terrified.  Ideas began to shape themselves within
+him, and before he was aware of it they were clearly spoken by his
+tongue, as if it was another who spoke for him.  And so he came out of
+the mysterious depths to the light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was often challenged to dispute; he never defended himself except by
+words, but they were so weighty and fiery that people soon left him in
+peace.  If he struck, he knew how to make the injury good.  One day
+when he was going down the defile to the stony moor, a mischievous boy
+ran up behind him and knocked him down.  Jesus quickly picked himself
+up, and shouted angrily to the boy, "Die!"  When he saw the blazing
+eye, the boy turned deathly pale and began to tremble so that, near to
+fainting, he had to lean up against the rocky wall.  Jesus went up to
+him, laid his hand on his shoulder and said kindly, "Live!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No one in the whole country-side had ever seen such an eye as his.
+Like lightning in anger, in calmer moods like the gleam of dewdrops
+upon flowers.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+As Jesus gradually grew to manhood he worked at his trade as a master.
+For Joseph was old and feeble, and could only sit by the bench,
+overlook the carpenters and tell them what it would be best to do.
+They had a young apprentice, a near relation, named John, who helped
+Jesus with the carpentering and building.  When they built a cottage in
+Nazareth, or roofed a house, he was severe and strict with the youth.
+But when on the Sabbath day they wandered together through the country
+between the vines, over the meadows with the stones and herds,
+sometimes through the dark cedar forests to the lower slopes of
+Lebanon, they said not a word about the work.  They watched the
+animals, the plants, the streams, the heavens, and their everlasting
+lights, and rejoiced exceedingly.  Sometimes they assisted poor
+gardeners and shepherds, and did them trifling services.  They taught
+John to blow the horn, and Jesus sang joyful psalms with a clear voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Joseph's death was approaching.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay half-blind on his bed, and asked Mary how she would manage when
+he was gone.  Then he felt with his cold hand for Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My son, my son!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus wiped the dying man's brow with the hem of his garment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had hoped," said Joseph softly, "but it is not to be.  I must depart
+in darkness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Father," said Jesus, and tenderly stroked his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is hard, my child.  Stay beside me.  I had hoped to see the Messiah
+and his light.  But I must be gathered to my fathers in darkness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will soon come and lead you to paradise."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man grasped his hand convulsively.  "It is quite dark.  I am
+afraid.  Stay with me, my Jesus."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so he fell asleep for ever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They buried him outside the city under the walls.  Jesus planted the
+staff which Joseph had cut during the flight into Egypt, and had always
+carried with him, on the mound.  And no sooner was it planted in the
+earth than it began to bear young shoots.  And when Mary went the next
+day to pray there, behold the grave was surrounded with white lilies,
+which grew from the stick and spread themselves in rows over the mound.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After the old master's death trouble befell the family.  People began
+to take their orders for work elsewhere, for they found it difficult to
+get on with the young master.  A man who went against the Scriptures
+and traditional custom in so many things could not do his work
+properly.  He seldom attended public worship in the Temple, and was
+never seen to give alms.  In the morning he went down to the spring and
+washed himself, but otherwise he omitted all the prescribed ablutions.
+When the Rabbi of Nazareth reproached him for such conduct, he replied;
+"Who ought to wash, the clean or the unclean?  Moses knew this people
+when he made washing a law for them.  Does uncleanness come from within
+or without?  It is not the dust of the street that soils a man, but the
+evil thoughts of his heart.  Is it unseemly to eat honest bread with
+dusty hands?  Is it not more unseemly to take away your brother's bread
+with clean hands?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Rabbi considered that it would be foolish to waste more words on
+this transgressor of the law, and went his way.  But next day he
+informed the carpenter that he was to stand on the Sabbath behind the
+poor-box, in order to see whether the well-washed hands of believing
+Jews took the bread away from their brothers, or, rather, did not
+bestow it liberally upon them.  And as Jesus stood in the Temple, he
+observed the well-to-do Nazarenes dip their hands into the basin, with
+pious air throw large pieces of money into the poor-box, and then look
+round to see if their good example was observed.  When it grew dark, a
+poor woman came and with her lean fingers put a farthing into the
+poor-box.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, what do you say now?" asked the Rabbi of the carpenter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus answered: "I think the haughty rich people have washed
+themselves, and that still they give with unclean hands.  They give
+away a small part of what they have taken from others, and give from
+their superabundance.  The poor woman gave the largest gift in God's
+eyes.  She gave all that she possessed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so it happened that Jesus became more and more estranged from
+Nazareth.  Only poor folk and little children were attracted to him: he
+cheered the former and played with the latter.  But otherwise men drew
+apart from him, considering him an eccentric creature and perhaps a
+little dangerous.  His mother sometimes tried to defend him: he had
+grown up in a foreign land among strange customs and ways of thought.
+At bottom he had the best of natures, so kind and helpful to others and
+so severe towards himself.  How like a mother!  What mother has not had
+the best of children?  They despised her remarks and pitied her because
+her son was so unlike other boys and caused her anxiety.  There was
+nothing to complain of in his work when he stuck to it.  What a
+carpenter he might be with such aptness!  Only he should not interfere
+in things he could not understand, and should not disturb people's
+belief in the religion of their fathers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day there was a marriage in the neighbouring town of Cana.  Mary
+and her relatives were invited, for the bridegroom was a distant
+cousin.  So far as Jesus was concerned, there would have been no great
+grief had he stayed away.  Possibly he would not take any pleasure in
+the old marriage customs and the traditions to which they still held.
+Jesus understood the irony, but it did not hurt him, and so he went to
+the marriage in order to rejoice with the joyful.  When the merriment
+was at its height, Mary drew her son aside and said: "I think it would
+be well if we went home now; we are not regarded with favour here.
+They would be glad of fewer guests, for I hear the wine has given out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What matters it to me if there's no more wine," answered Jesus, almost
+roughly.  "I do not want any."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But the other guests do.  The host is greatly embarrassed.  I wish
+someone could help him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If they are thirsty, have the water jugs brought in," he said.  "If
+the drinker has faith in his God then the water will be wine.  He will
+be well content."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The host, in fact, saw no other way of satisfying his guests' thirst
+than in ordering large stone pitchers of water to be brought in from
+the well.  He was vastly amazed when the guests found it delicious, and
+praised the wine that had just been poured out for them.  "Usually,"
+they said, "the host produces his best wine first, and when the
+carousers have drunk freely, he brings in worse.  Our good host thinks
+differently, and to the best food adds the best wine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Jesus and his relations saw how the pitchers were filled at the
+well, and when they tasted their contents, some declared that things
+could not be all right here.  Jesus himself drank, and saw that it was
+wine.  Much moved, he went out into the starry night.  "Oh, Father!" he
+said in his heart, "what dost thou intend with regard to this son of
+man?  If it is thy will that water shall be turned into wine, it may
+then be possible to pour new wine into the old skins, the spirit and
+strength of God into the dead letter!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John went out into the night to seek his master.  "Sir," said the
+youth, when he stood before him, "what does it mean?  They say that you
+have turned water into wine.  I have often thought that you were
+different from all of us.  You must be from Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And why not you also, John, who look up to it?  Can anyone attain the
+height who has not come from it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John remained standing by his side for a while.  It was not always easy
+to grasp what he meant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On their homeward way by night, the mother unburdened her anxious heart
+to her son.  "You are so good, my child, and help people wherever you
+can.  Why are you often so rough of speech?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because they do not understand me," he replied; "because you, none of
+you, understand me.  You think that if a man works at his wood in the
+carpenter's shop, then he's doing all that is necessary."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wood?  Of course a carpenter has to work with wood.  Do you want to be
+a stonemason?  Think, stones are harder than wood."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But they give fire when struck together.  Wood gives no sparks, nor
+would the Nazarenes yield any sparks, even if lightning struck them.
+They are like earth and damp straw.  They are incapable of enthusiasm:
+they are only capable of languid irritation.  But you'll not build a
+kingdom of heaven with irritation.  I despise the wood that always
+smokes and never burns."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My son, I fear you will make such enemies of them that&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That I shall not be able to stay in Nazareth.  Isn't that what you
+mean, mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am anxious about you, my son."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Happy the mother who is nothing worse.  I am quite safe."  He stopped
+and took her hand.  "Mother, I'm no longer a child or a boy.  Do not
+trouble about me.  Let me be as I am, and go where I will.  There are
+other tasks to be fulfilled than building Jonas a cottage or Sarah a
+sheep-pen.  The old world is breaking up, and the old heaven is falling
+into ruin.  Let me go, mother; let me be the carpenter who shall build
+up the kingdom of heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The constellations spread themselves across the sky.  Mary let her son
+go on before, down to the little town; she walked slowly behind and
+wept.  She stood alone and had no influence with him.  Every day he
+became more incomprehensible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To what would it lead?
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+A strange excitement prevailed among the people in Galilee, and spread
+through Samaria and Judaea even to Jerusalem.  A new prophet had
+arisen.  There were many in those days, but this one was different from
+the rest.  As is always the way in such times, at first a few people
+paid heed feverishly, then they infected others with their unrest, and
+finally roused families and whole villages which had hitherto stood
+aloof.  So at last all heeded the new prophet.  At the time of the
+foreign rule old men had spoken of the King and Saviour who was to make
+the chosen people great and mighty.  Expounders of the Scriptures had
+from generation to generation consoled those who were waiting and
+longing.  Men had grown impatient under the intolerable foreign
+oppression, and a national desire and a religious expectation such as
+had never before been known in so high a degree had manifested itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And lo! strange rumours went through the land.  As the south wind of
+spring blows over Lebanon, melts the ice, and brings forth buds, so
+were the hearts of men filled with new hope.  A man out in the
+wilderness was preaching a new doctrine.  For a long while he preached
+to stones, because, he said, they were not so hard as men's
+understanding.  The stones themselves would soon speak, the mountains
+be levelled and the valleys filled up so that a smooth road might be
+ready for the Holy Spirit which was drawing nigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Men grew keenly interested in those tidings.  Some said: "Let us go out
+and hear him just for amusement's sake."  They came back and summoned
+others to go out and see the extraordinary man.  He wore a garment of
+camel's hair instead of a cloak, and a leather girdle round his loins.
+His hair was long, black, and in disorder, his face sunburnt, and his
+eyes flamed as if in frenzy.  But he was not an Arab nor an Amalekite;
+he was one of the chosen people.  Down by the lake he was better known.
+He was the son of Zacharias, a priest and a native of the wonderful
+land of Galilee.  The Galileans had at first mocked at him, and with a
+side glance at Jesus, said: "What a blessed land is Galilee, where new
+teachers of virtue are as plentiful as mushrooms in rainy weather!"
+Jesus retorted by asking whether they knew what kind of a people it was
+that only produced preachers of repentance?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The name of the preacher in the wilderness was John.  More and more
+people went out to hear him, and everyone related marvels.  He chased
+locusts and fed on them, and took the honey from the wild bees and
+swallowed it.  He seemed to despise the ordinary food and customs of
+men.  Since the murder of the innocents at Bethlehem, he had lived in
+the wilderness, dwelling in a cave high up in the rocks of the
+mountain.  It almost seemed that he loved wild beasts better than men,
+whose cloak of virtue he hated because it was woven out of
+evil-smelling hypocrisy and wickedness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They called him the herald.  "We are surprised," they said, "that the
+Rabbis and High Priests in Capernaum, Tiberias, and Jerusalem should
+keep silent.  They could put this man to death for his words."  But the
+herald had no fear.  He preached a new doctrine, and he poured water
+over the heads of those who joined him as a sign of the covenant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what is his teaching?" asked others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go and hear for yourselves!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so more and more people went out from Judaea and Galilee into the
+wilderness.  The preacher had withdrawn a little way above the point
+where the river Jordan flows into the Dead Sea.  The district, usually
+so deserted, was alive with all sorts of people, among them Rabbis and
+men learned in the law, who represented themselves as penitents, but
+desired to outwit the prophet with cunning.  The preacher stood on a
+stone; he held a corner of his camel's hair garment, pressed against
+his hairy breast with one hand, and the other he stretched heavenwards
+and said: "Rabbis, are ye here too?  Are ye at last afraid of the wrath
+of heaven which ye see approaching, and so take refuge with him who
+calls on ye to repent?  Ye learned hypocrites!  Ye stone him who can
+hurt you with a breath, and praise him who brings with him a human
+sacrifice.  See that your repentance does not become your judge.  But
+if it is sincere, then receive the water on your head as a token that
+you desire to be pure in heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such were the words he spoke.  The scholars laughed, scornfully; others
+grumbled at the severity of his remarks, but kneeled down.  He took an
+earthen vessel, dipped it in the waters of Jordan, and poured it over
+their heads so that little streams ran down their necks and over their
+brows.  A man raised his head and asked: "Will you give us
+commandments?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prophet answered: "You have two coats and only one body.  Yonder
+against the oak is a man who has likewise a body but no coat.  I give
+no commandments; but you know what to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the man went and gave his second coat to him who had none.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A lean old man, a tax-gatherer from Jerusalem, asked what he should do,
+since everyone he met in the streets had a coat on his back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do not ask more payment than is legal.  Do not open your hand for
+silver pieces, nor shut your eyes to stolen goods."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And we?" asked a Roman mercenary.  "We are not the owners of our
+lives; are we, too, to have no commandments?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have the sword.  But the sword is violence, hatred, lust, greed.
+Take care!  The sword is your sin and your judgment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then women came to him with a triumphant air, and exclaimed: "You
+wise man, you!  We have no rights, so we have no duties?  Is that not
+so?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the prophet said; "You assume rights for yourselves, and duties
+will be given you.  The woman's commandment is: 'Thou shall not commit
+adultery.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what do you say to men?" asked one of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Men have many commandments besides that one.  You must not tempt them
+with snares of the flesh, for they have more important things to do in
+the world than to make themselves pleasant to women.  You must not
+allure them with the colour of your cheeks, nor with the tangles of
+your hair, nor with your swelling breasts.  You shall not attract the
+eye of man through beautiful garments and sparkling jewels.  You shall
+not glisten like doves when you are false like snakes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The women were angry, and tried to set snares for him.  So they smiled
+sweetly, and asked: "Your words of wisdom, oh prophet! only concern the
+women of the people.  Royally-born women are excepted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then spoke the preacher; "Women born in the purple are of the same
+stuff as the leprous beggar-woman who lies in the street.  No woman is
+excepted.  The wives of kings live in the sight of all, and must obey
+the law twice and thrice as strictly.  Since Herod put away his
+rightful wife, the Arab king's daughter, and lives openly in incest
+with his brother's wife, the angel of hell will strike at her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You all hear," said the women, turning to the assembled crowd.  Then
+they pulled up their gowns high over their ankles, stepped into the
+river where it is shallow, and bared their brown necks, in order that
+the wild preacher might pour the water over them.  The men pressed
+closer, but the prophet tore a branch from the cedar and drove the
+hypocritical penitents back.  Some were glad that sin had no power over
+this holy man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they sent an old man to him to ask who he really was.  "Are you
+the Messiah whom we are expecting?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not the Messiah," answered the preacher.  "But he is coming after
+me.  I prepare the way for him like the morning breeze ere the sun
+rises.  As the heaven is above the earth, so is he greater than I.  It
+is my prayer that I may be worthy to loosen his shoe latchets.  I
+sprinkle your heads with water; he will sprinkle them with fire.  He
+will separate you according as your hearts be good or evil.  He will
+lay up the wheat in the garner with his fan and burn the chaff.
+Prepare yourselves&mdash;the kingdom of God is nearer than ye think."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people were uneasy.  Clouds came up over the mountains of Galilee,
+and their edges shone like silver.  The air lay like a heavy weight
+over the valley of the Jordan, and not a twig stirred in the cedars.
+The strangers from Samaria and Judaea did not know the man who climbed
+down over the stones and went towards the preacher.  He wore a blue
+woollen gown that came down over his knees, so that only his sandalled
+feet were seen.  He might have been taken for a working man had not his
+head, with its high, pale forehead and heavy waving locks, been so
+royal.  A soft beard sprang from his upper lip, and there was such a
+wonderful light in his dark blue eyes that some were almost frightened
+by it.  And they asked each other: "Who is the man with the fiery eyes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He reached the prophet.  One hand hung down: he held the other against
+his breast.  He said softly; "John, pour water over my head, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prophet looked at the young man and was terrified.  He went back
+two steps&mdash;they knew not why.  Did he himself know?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You!" he said, almost under his breath.  "You desire to receive the
+token of repentance from me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will do penance&mdash;for them all.  I will begin with water what will be
+ended with blood."  That is what they thought to hear.  In a man who
+speaks like this, there is something incredibly spiritual.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is a dreamer!  He is a madman!" the people whisper one to another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, he's not, he's not!" others declare.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did he not speak of blood?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It seemed so.  Such young blood, and already repenting!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And as proud of it as a Roman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"With eyes glowing like an Arab's."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Looking at his hair, you might take him for a German."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is neither a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a German," someone exclaimed,
+laughing; "he is the carpenter of Nazareth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The same who turned water into wine?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There are lots of stories about him.  We know plenty of them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is said that Herod's murder of the innocents was on his account."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the crowd heard that, they were quiet, and looked at the new
+arrival with a sort of awe.  And so old Herod had taken him for the
+Messiah-King!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A feeling of reverence spread among the people.  For Jesus stepped into
+the river.  The prophet dipped his vessel in the water and poured it
+over his lightly-bent head.  The edges of the clouds in the heavens
+shone with the crimson light of evening.  The eyes of the bystanders
+were riveted by a white speck which showed itself in the windows of
+heaven, first like a flower-bloom and then like a fluttering pennon.
+It was a dove that flew down and circled round the head of him who had
+just been baptized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dearly beloved son!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people whispered; "Whose voice was it that said: 'My dearly beloved
+son'?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Didn't it refer to him over whom the water has just been poured?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A shudder seized many of them.  It was just as if he was presented to
+men by the invisible God!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will ask him himself whose son he is," they said, and pressed
+towards the river.  But he had gone away, and the twilight of the
+desert lay over the stream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The same night Mary sat in her room at Nazareth, and sewed.  She kept
+looking out of the window, for she would not go to bed till Jesus
+returned.  When he had gone out of the door two days ago, he had turned
+to her again, looked at her, and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother, I go to my Father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She thought he was going to the cemetery to pray at Joseph's tomb, as
+he often did.  For in the city of the dead solitude may be found.  When
+he returned neither on the first day nor on the second, she began to
+feel anxious.  She waited up the whole night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning the little town rang with the news: "The carpenter has
+been seen with the preacher.  He has been baptized."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just like him.  One enthusiast keeps company with another."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would be more correct to say with false prophets.  For what else is
+it when a man declares that he can wash away sin with a dash of water?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thereupon a Sidonian donkey-driver, who had come down the street;
+"That's excellent!  You Israelites can do so much with your ablutions.
+That would be a capital thing!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah! what things one hears!  Everything points to the speedy
+destruction of the world."  And one whispered in his ear, "I tell you,
+frankly, 'twould be no great misfortune."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now John has caught it.  Do you know what he's always shouting?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The young carpenter, his apprentice?  He's never said anything that
+matters."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know what he's always exclaiming?  He strides through the
+streets, and his hair flies in the wind.  He spreads out his hands
+before him, and says: 'The word has become flesh!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They shook their heads.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Mary sat at the window and waited and watched.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+A very short time after these events there came two soldiers to the
+Jordan, not to have the water poured over their heads, but to arrest
+the desert preacher and take him to Jerusalem to Herod.  Herod received
+him politely, and said: "I have summoned you here because I am told
+that you are the preacher."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They call me preacher and Baptist."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want to hear you.  And, indeed, you must refute what your enemies
+say against you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If it was only my enemies, it would be easy to refute them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say that you insult my royal house, that you say the prince lives
+in incest with his brother's wife.  Did you say that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not deny it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have come to withdraw it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sire," said the prophet, "I have come to repeat it.  You are living in
+incest with your brother's wife.  Know that the day of reckoning is at
+hand.  It will come with its mercy, and it will come with its justice.
+Put away this woman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Herod grew white with rage that a man of the people should dare to
+speak thus to him.  Royal ears cannot endure such a thing, so he put
+the preacher in prison.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the next night the prince had a bad dream.  From the battlements he
+saw the city fall stone by stone into the abyss; he saw flames break
+out in the palace and temple, and the sound of infinite wailing rang
+through the air.  When he awoke the words came into his mind: You who
+stone the prophets! and he determined to set the preacher free.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was now the time when Herod should celebrate his birthday.  Although
+Oriental wisdom advised that a birthday should be celebrated with
+mourning, a prince had no reason for so doing.  Herod gave a banquet in
+honour of the day, and invited all the most important people in the
+province in order that while enjoying themselves they might have the
+opportunity of doing homage to him.  He enjoyed himself royally, for
+Herodias, his brother's wife, was present, and her daughter, who was as
+lovely as her mother.  She danced before him a series of dances which
+showed her beautiful figure, set off by the flowing white gown confined
+at the waist with a girdle of gold, to every advantage.  Intoxicated by
+the feast and inflamed by the girl's beauty, the prince approached her,
+put his arm, from which the purple cloak had fallen back so that it was
+bare, round her warm neck, and held a goblet of wine to her lips.  She
+smiled, did not drink, but said: "My lord and king!  If I drank now
+from your goblet, you would drink at my lips.  Those roses belong to my
+bridegroom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is the man who dares to be more fortunate than a king?" asked
+Herod.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not yet know him," whispered the girl.  "He is the man who shall
+give me the rarest bridal gift."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And if it was Herod?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl raised her almond eyes to the prince and said nothing.  He
+almost lost his head with the sweetness of the shining eyes.  "You are
+an enchanting witch, you!" he whispered.  "Desire of me what you will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The beauty had been primed by her mother, who wished to be revenged on
+John, whose prophecies might tear her from her kingly lover.  The
+daughter breathed the words: "A dish for your table, O king!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A dish of meat?  Speak more plainly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let your bridal gift be a dish of rare meat on a golden charger."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not understand what you want."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The head of the Baptist."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The king understood, turned aside, and said: "Horror, thy name is
+woman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she wept and murmured between her sobs: "I knew it.  A woman is
+nothing to you but a flower of the field.  You cut it down so that it
+turns to hay.  And hay is for asses.  You care more for the man who has
+mortally insulted yourself and my mother than you do for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed, I do not!  If he deserves death, you shall have your desire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When does he whom the king loves deserve death?" groaned the girl, and
+sank into a swoon.  He lifted her up, drew her to his breast, and what
+her words could not accomplish the embrace did&mdash;it cost the Baptist his
+life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The banquet was most sumptuous.  The most delicious viands, gathered
+from every quarter, and sparkling wines graced the table.  Harp players
+stood by the marble pillars, and sang praises to the king.  Herod, a
+garland of red roses round his head, sat between the two women.  He
+drank freely of the wine, and so hurriedly that the liquid dripped from
+his long, thin beard.  Was he afraid of the last course?  It appeared
+at midnight.  It was covered with a white cloth, and only the
+beautifully-chased edge of the charger was visible.  Herod shuddered
+and signed that the dish should be placed before the young woman who
+sat on his left.  She hastily pulled off the cloth, and behold! a man's
+head; the black hair and beard, steeped in the blood that ran from the
+neck, lay in the charger.  It stared with open eyes at the woman who,
+filled with voluptuous horror, leaned closely against the prince.  Then
+the mouth of the head opened and spoke the words: "The Kingdom of God
+is near at hand!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horror and confusion filled the banqueting hall.  "Who dared to say
+that?" shouted several voices.  "'Twas the head of the prophet who
+prophesies even in death!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then a tumult arose in the palace, for this was the most terrible
+horror that the golden halls had ever seen.  Long-restrained fury
+suddenly burst forth&mdash;the town was in flames, the men of Jerusalem
+rioted.  The women were torn from Herod's side, and flung into the
+streets to the mercy of the mob.  The prince was forced to fly.  The
+story goes that in his flight he fell into the hands of the Arab king,
+who avenged his despised daughter in a terrible manner.  Thus were
+godless hands stretched forth from Herod's house against him who bore
+witness to the coming One.
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+After the act of baptism was accomplished, Jesus wandered for a long,
+long while&mdash;indeed, he paid no heed to time&mdash;along the banks of Jordan.
+Then he climbed the rocks, and when in the twilight he came to himself
+again and looked about, he saw that he was in the wilderness.  The
+revelation vouchsafed at his baptism had snatched him from the earth.
+In that mysterious vision he had opened to him the new path which he
+had chosen to follow.  What eternal peace surrounded him.  Yet he was
+not alone among the barren rocks; never in his life had he been less
+lonely than here in the dim terrors of the wilderness.  A deep silence
+prevailed.  The stars in the sky sparkled and sparkled, and the longer
+he gazed at them the more ardently they seemed to burn.  Gradually they
+seemed to sink downwards, and to become suns, while fresh legions
+pressed ever forward from the background, flying down unceasingly, the
+large and the small and the smallest, with new ones ever welling up
+from space&mdash;an inexhaustible source of heavenly light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus stood up erect.  And when he lifted up his face it seemed as if
+his eye was the nucleus of all light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he forgot the world and remained in the wilderness.  Each day he
+penetrated deeper into it, past abysses and roaring beasts.  The stones
+tore his feet, but he marked it not; snakes stung his heels, but he
+noticed it not.  Whence did he obtain nourishment?  What cleft in the
+rocks afforded him shelter?&mdash;that is immaterial to him who lives in
+God.  Once he had regarded the world and its powers as hard
+taskmasters, and now they seemed to him to be as nothing, for in him
+and with him was eternal strength.  The old traditional Jehovah of
+Jewish hearts was no more; his was the all-embracing One, who carried
+the heavens and the earth in his hand, who called to the children of
+men: Return! and who stooped down to every seedling in order to awaken
+it.  He himself became conscious of God&mdash;and after that, what could
+befall him?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day he descended between the rocky stones to the coast of the Dead
+Sea that lay dark and still, little foam-tipped waves breaking on the
+shore.  The expanse of water was lost in darkness in the distance, and
+stretched away heavy and lifeless.  Cleft blocks of stone were
+scattered along the beach, and their tops glowed as red as iron in the
+forge.  It was the hour of sunset.  The towering stones stood like
+giant torches, and the bright colour was reflected on the bare pebbles
+on which the water lapped.  For many thousands of years the fine yellow
+sand had drifted down from the walls of rock, and lay over the wide
+sloping plains of the shore.  It was like dry, light "stone-snow," and
+Jesus, who strode over it, left his footprints in it.  The next gust of
+wind disturbed it, the "stone-snow" was whirled about, and the dark
+stones were laid bare.  Men are engulfed in those sand-fields, which,
+broken by blocks of stone, stretch away into infinity.  Witness the
+bones which may be seen here and there, remains of dead beasts, and
+also legs and skulls of men who perished as hermits, or became the prey
+of lions.  Such skulls with their grinning teeth, warned the traveller
+to turn back as he valued his life.  Here is death!  Jesus laid his
+hands over his breast.  Here is life!  The greater the loneliness, the
+more keenly may the nearness of God be realised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus preferred the rocky heights to the plain.  He could see the wide
+expanse of the sky, and the clouds which wandered over its face and
+then disappeared like nations of nomads.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day, in such a spot, he met an Arab chief.  He was of gigantic
+stature, dressed in the dark cloak of the Bedouins, with a wild, grey
+beard, and a snub nose in a bony face.  Beneath bushy eyebrows were a
+pair of unsteady eyes.  His belt was full of weapons, his head was
+adorned with an iron band which kept his wild hair in some sort of
+order.  The man looked at the young hermit not unkindly and called him
+a worm who should pray that he might be mercifully trodden under foot.
+He must either swear allegiance to the desert chief, or be burned up by
+the hot stones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus scarcely heeded the impertinent speech.  He only saw in the
+stranger a man on whom he would like to bestow all the happiness that
+was triumphant in his soul.  So full of love was he that he could not
+bear it alone.  And he said: "I am no worm to be trodden under foot.  I
+am that Son of Man who brings you the new kingdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah! the Messiah!  Jesus of Nazareth, are you not?  I have heard of
+you.  Where are your soldiers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall not conquer with the sword, but with the spirit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Arab shook his head mockingly.  "Who will conquer with the spirit!
+Well, I won't play the scoffer.  You are an orator, and that's
+something.  Listen, son of man; I like you.  I, too, desire the new
+kingdom; let us go together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus replied: "Whoever wishes can go with me.  I go with no one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friend, don't you know me?" asked the stranger.  "I am Barabbas,
+king of the desert.  Three thousand Arabs obey my behests.  Look down
+into the valley.  There is the key to the kingdom of the Messiah."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What the chief called the key to the kingdom of the Messiah was an army
+which, scattered over the plain, resembled a dark spot spreading out in
+the desert, as busy and animated as an ant-hill.  The chief pointed
+down to it and said: "Look, there is my weapon.  But I shall not
+conquer with that weapon, nor will you conquer with your words.  For my
+weapons lack words, and your words lack weapons.  I need the prophet
+and you the army.  Warrior and orator allied, we shall take Jerusalem.
+I have made a mistake.  For many years it has been my illusion that all
+strength lay in the body.  And so I have cared for their bodies, fed
+and nourished them that they might become strong.  But instead of
+becoming strong and daring, they have become indolent and cowardly.
+And now that I wish to use this army to free Judaea from the yoke of
+the Romans, they laugh in my face and answer me with words I once
+taught them.  We have only this life, they cry, and we will not risk it
+any more.  And when I ask, 'Not even for freedom?' they reply, 'Not
+even for freedom, because what is the use of freedom to us if we are
+slain.'  Indolent beasts! they lack enthusiasm.  And now I find you.
+You are a master of oratory.  You say that you will conquer with the
+spirit.  Come with me!  Descend into the valley and inspire them with
+ardour.  The legions are ours, our weapons are of perfect temper,
+nothing is wanting but fire, and that you have.  The king must be
+allied with the zealot, otherwise the kingdom cannot be conquered.
+Come down with me.  Tell them that you are the prophet.  Incite them
+against Jerusalem, and exclaim: 'It is God's will!'  If only fire can
+be made to burn within them, they will march like the very devil,
+overcome the foreigners, and you will instruct them in Solomon's Temple
+about the Messiah.  You can tell them that he is coming, or that you
+yourself are he, just as you please.  Then, according to your desire,
+you can establish your kingdom, and all the glory of the world will lie
+at your feet as at those of a god.  Come, prophet, you give me the
+word, and I'll give you the sword!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Begone, you tempter of hell!" exclaimed Jesus and his eye shot forth a
+ray of light that the other could not bear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then Jesus was once more alone among the rocks, under the open sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was under the sacred sky of the desert where his Father came down to
+him that his spirit became quite free&mdash;his heart more animated, glowing
+with love.  And thus was Jesus perfected.  Leaving the desert, he then
+sought out the fertile land; he sought out men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His earthly task stood clear and fixed before him.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The Lake of Gennesaret, also called the Sea of Galilee, lies to the
+east of Nazareth, where the land makes a gradual descent, and where,
+among the hills and the fertile plains, pleasant villages are situated.
+The mountains of Naphtali, which in some places rise up steeply from
+its banks, were clothed with herbage in the days of David.  But
+gradually, as stranger peoples cultivated them, fertility descended to
+the hills and valleys.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Near where the Jordan flows into the sea, on the left of the river
+under the sandy cliffs of Bethsaida, a small cedar forest, the seeds of
+which may have been blown thither from Lebanon, grows close down to the
+shore of the lake.  A fisher-boat, rocking in the shade on the dark
+waters, was tied to one of the trees.  The holes in it were stuffed
+with seaweed, the beams fastened with olive twigs.  Two tall poles
+crossed were intended for the sail, which now lay spread out in the
+boat because the boatman was sleeping on it.  The brown stuff, made of
+camel's hair, was the man's most valuable possession.  On the water it
+caught the wind for him, on land it served as a cloak, if he slept it
+formed his bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little elderly man's face was tickled by a cedar twig for so long
+that at length he awoke.  He saw a young woman sitting on a rock.  She
+was just going to hurry off with her round basket when the fisherman
+called loudly to her; "Well, Beka, daughter of Manasseh, whither are
+you taking your ivory white feet?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My feet are as brown as yours," replied Beka.  "Stop mocking at me,
+Simon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How can I be mocking at you?  You're a fisherman's child, like me.
+But your basket is too heavy for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am taking my father his dinner."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Manasseh has had a good catch.  Look, smoke is rising yonder behind
+the palms of Hium.  He is cooking the fish.  But I have eaten nothing
+since yesterday at the sixth hour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can well believe that, Simon.  The fish of the Lake of Gennesaret do
+not swim ready-cooked into the mouth.  He who lies like a child in the
+cradle, and lets the gods provide&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon, with his legs apart in order to preserve the balance, stood up
+in the boat.  "Beka," he said, "let the gods alone, they won't feed us;
+they eat the best that men have."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then hold to the one God who feeds the birds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And who delivers the Jews to the Romans.  No; Jehovah won't help me
+either.  So I'm forsaken and stand alone, a tottering reed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How can I help it if you stand alone?" asked the daughter of Manasseh.
+"Are there not daughters in Galilee who also stand alone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Beka, I am glad that you speak so," replied the fisherman.  "Why, how
+can Simon come to an understanding with anybody so long as he can't
+come to an understanding with himself?  And fishing delights me not.
+Everything is a burden.  Often when I lie here and look up into the
+blue sky, I think: If only a storm would come and drive me out on the
+open sea&mdash;into the wild, dark terror, then, Simon, you would lie there
+and extend your arms and say: Gods or God, do with me what you will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't talk like that, Simon.  You must not jest with the Lord.  There,
+take it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so saying, Beka took a magnificent bunch of grapes out of her
+basket, and handed it to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took it, and by way of thanks said: "Beka, a year hence there'll be
+some one who will find in you that sweet experience which I vainly seek
+in the Prophets."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon she swiftly went her way towards the blue smoke that rose up
+behind the palms of Hium.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was no wonder that the fisherman gazed after her for a long time.
+Although he cared little for the society of his fellow-creatures,
+because they were too shallow to sympathise with what occupied his
+thoughts, he felt a cheerless void when he was alone.  He was
+misunderstood on earth, and forsaken by Heaven.  He feared the
+elements, and the Scriptures did not satisfy him.  Then the little man
+threw himself on his face, put his hand into the water of the lake, and
+sprinkled his brow with it.  He seated himself on the bench of the boat
+in order to enjoy Beka's gift.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the same moment the sand on the bank crackled, and a tall man, in a
+long brown cloak, and carrying a pilgrim's staff, came forward.  His
+black beard fell almost to his waist, where a cord held the cloak
+together.  His high forehead was shaded by a broad-brimmed hat; his eye
+was directed to the fisherman in the boat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boatman, can you take three men across the lake?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The lake is wide," answered Simon, pointing to his fragile craft.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They want to get to Magdala to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then they can take the road by Bethsaida and Capernaum."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are tired," said the other.  "They have travelled here from the
+desert, and by a wide <I>détour</I> through Nazareth, Cana, and Chorazin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you one of them?" asked Simon.  "I ought to know you.  Haven't we
+been fishing together at Hamath?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It may be that we know each other," was the somewhat roguish reply.
+In fact, they knew each other very well.  Only Simon had become so
+strange.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now he said: "If it will really be of service to you, I'll go gladly.
+But you see for yourself that my boat is bad.  You are exhausted, my
+friend; you have travelled far while I have rested in the shade the
+whole day.  I haven't deserved any fine food.  May I offer you these
+grapes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The black-bearded man bent down, took the grapes, and vanished behind
+the cypresses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went to a shady spot where were two other men, both dressed in long,
+dark woollen garments.  One was young and had delicate, almost
+feminine, features, and long hair.  He lay sleeping, stretched out on
+the grass, his staff leaning against a rock near him.  The other sat
+upright.  We recognise Him.  He is Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth.
+He has come hither from the wilderness, through Judaea and Galilee,
+where sympathising companions joined Him, a boatman, called James, and
+His former apprentice, John.  With one hand He supported His brow, the
+other rested protectingly on the sleeping John's head.  The
+long-bearded man came hurrying up, crying:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master, I have received some grapes for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He who was thus addressed pointed to the sleeping youth, lest He should
+be waked with loud talking.  Then he said softly; "James!  Shall I
+forgive the lie for the sake of the good you wish to do me?  Who knows
+anything of me?  The grapes were given to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I will eat them," returned James; "only permit me to eat them in
+the way in which they taste best to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They taste best to me if I see you eat them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus took the gift, and said: "If we both satisfy ourselves, my dear
+James, what will there be for poor John?  We are inured to fatigue; he
+is unaccustomed to it.  I think that, of the three of us, it is John
+who ought to eat the grapes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since the long-bearded man offered no objection, John ate the grapes
+when he awoke.  James announced that the fisherman was willing to take
+them, so they proceeded to the bank and got into the boat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon looked at the tired strangers with sympathy, and vigorously plied
+his oars.  The waves rippled and the rocking skiff glided over the
+broad expanse of waters which, on the south side, appeared endless.
+From the way in which the two men spoke to the Master, Simon thought to
+himself: "A rabbi, and they are his pupils."  To the Master's questions
+regarding his life and trade, the fisherman gave respectful answers,
+taking care to remark that he had not to complain of overmuch good
+fortune, for often he fished all day and all night without catching
+anything, a success he could equally well obtain if he lay all day idle
+in his boat and let himself be rocked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Master asked him with a smile what he would say to fishing for men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know what you mean."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You've already three in your net," said James gaily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And God help me!" exclaimed the fisherman, "for we must pray to Him
+for help to-day.  Look over there at the mountains of Hium.  Just now
+it looks so beautifully blue that you would take it for a sunny sky.
+But the white edges!  In an hour there'll be more of them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hoist the sail, fisherman, and bale out," advised James.  "I
+understand something of the business."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you wouldn't say hoist the sail to-day," returned Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen," said James; "you know the river which brings the black sand
+and the little red fishes with the sharp heads down to this lake from
+the mountains of Golan.  My cottage was by that river&mdash;you surely know
+it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Isn't it there still?" asked Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is there, but it is no longer mine," said James.  "I have left it
+in order to follow the Master.  Do you know Him, Simon?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had whispered the last words behind the back of the Master, who sat
+silent on the bench, and looked out over the calm waters.  He seemed to
+be enjoying the rest; the breeze played softly with His hair, As a
+protection from the sun's rays John had fashioned a piece of cloth into
+a sort of turban and wound it round his head.  He looked with amusement
+at the reflection of the head-dress in the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For whom do you take Him?" asked James, pointing to Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the fisherman answered, "For whom do you take that?"  He pointed to
+the distance; he saw the storm.  The mountains were enveloped in a grey
+mist which, pierced by the lightning, moved slowly downwards.  Before
+them surged the foaming waters, the waves white-crested.  A gust of
+wind struck the boat; the water began to beat heavily against it, so
+that it was tossed about like a piece of cork.  Since Simon had not put
+up the sail there was now no need to reef it.  Flakes of foam flew over
+the spars, the beams groaned.  The clouds rushed on, driving the
+heaving, thundering waves before them.  Soon the little boat was
+overtaken by darkness, which was only relieved by flashes of lightning.
+Long ago Simon had let go the rudder, and exclaimed, "Jehovah!"
+Thunder claps were the only answer.  Then the fisherman fell on his
+face and groaned; "He gives no help; I thought as much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+James and John sat close to the Master and tried to rouse Him from the
+dream into which He had sunk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you want of Me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master!" exclaimed James, "you are so entirely with your Heavenly
+Father that you do not see how terrible is our doom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought as much," repeated Simon, almost weeping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus looked at him earnestly, and said: "If you keep on saying: I
+thought as much, well, then, so it must be.  Think rather that God's
+angels are with you!  And you, James!  Have you forgotten the trust you
+had in God on dry land?  Yesterday on the quiet eventide, when, well
+fed and cared for we sat in the inn at Chorazin, you spoke much of
+trust in God.  Trust Him also in distress."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O Master, I see help nowhere."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Learn to believe without seeing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As He spoke a flash of lightning blinded their eyes, and when after a
+time they were able to look up again, a wild terror seized them.  The
+Master was not there.  Now that they no longer saw Him, they shouted
+loudly; shrieked out His name.  Only John remained calm, and looked out
+into the darkness, wrapt in some bewilderment or trance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The foam flew into their faces and reduced them to utter confusion;
+they could only involuntarily hold tight to the beams of the swaying
+vessel.  "Living or dying we will not leave Him," said James.  But the
+Master had left them.  It seemed as though He had never existed.  They
+seized the rudder again, and, with the courage of men in the presence
+of death, wrestled with the storm which seemed disinclined to let its
+victims go.  "God is with us!" exclaimed Simon quickly, and worked with
+all that remained of his strength.  "God is with us!" exclaimed James,
+and planted the rudder firmly in the water.  Only John did not stir.
+Bending over the side, he stared out into the wild, grey, whirling
+waters.  He espied in the midst a circle of light in which appeared a
+figure that came nearer, and behold!  Jesus was walking on the sea
+slowly towards the ship.  The waves grew smooth under His feet, the sea
+grew light all over, the rock-towers of Hippos could be seen in the
+distance, with the evening sun sinking behind them.  Jesus sat among
+His friends, and with kindly words chid them for their despondency.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, wonderful!" exclaimed James.  "While you were with us, we were of
+little faith, and when we could not see you, we believed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Twas your faith that helped," said James.  Then, laying his hand on
+the youth's shoulder: "And what is My wrapt John dreaming of?  I was
+not yonder in the mist; I was here with you, I tell you, friends: He is
+blind who sees without believing, and clear-sighted who believes
+without seeing."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+An earthly light penetrates the holy darkness, and animated scenes at
+Magdala, on the lake, are visible to me.  Fishermen and boatmen,
+shepherds, artisans from the town, people from the neighbouring
+villages and from the mountains, are gathered together on the quay
+where the boats land their passengers.  For the rumour has gone forth
+that the new prophet is coming.  And in the chattering crowd it is said
+that he is a magician from the East who possesses miraculous powers,
+and can make the sick whole.  An amusing thing had happened at
+Capernaum.  The prophet had been there, and a man ill with rheumatism,
+a beggar who lived on his lame leg, had been dragged in his bed to him.
+Now the prophet could not endure beggars who nursed their infirmities
+in order to display them, who pretended poverty, troubled themselves
+about nothing, and yet wished to live in comfort.  The prophet liked to
+deprive them of their begging tool, namely, the infirmity, so that they
+were compelled to work.  He healed the man's rheumatic leg, and said;
+"Take up thy bed and walk."  And the sick man was much astounded over
+the turn things had taken; the bed had carried him there, but he must
+carry the bed back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Others said the prophet was an Egyptian, and could foretell the future.
+Whereupon someone observed that if he could not foretell the future he
+would not be a prophet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By Father Abraham!" exclaimed an old ferryman, "if prophets had always
+foretold truly the universe would have fallen into the sea and been
+drowned long ago.  I can prophesy too; if he comes, well, he'll be
+here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then he'll soon be here," said a fisher-boy, laughing, "for there he
+comes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A boat, tossed up and down on the waves, was approaching, and in it sat
+four men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Which is he?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The one with the black beard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that's rubbish!  The man with the beard is James, the boatman from
+the Jordan Valley."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then it must be the bald man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Assam, you surely know Simon the fisherman of Bethsaida, who
+comes every month to the market here and spoils other men's business
+with his absurdly low prices."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they had landed, His companions could scarcely steer a way for Him
+through the crowd, The people looked at Him; some were disappointed.
+That prophet was not sufficiently different from themselves.  Was it
+really He?  The carpenter of Nazareth!  Well, then, we've had a nice
+run for nothing.  We know what He has to say, and what He can do He
+does not do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He will do it, though.  He did it in Cana.  Bring up the water
+pitchers&mdash;we'll be merry today."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd pressed forward more and more eagerly, for many had come a
+long distance, and desired to see Him close and hear Him speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The evening presented a good opportunity.  It was already dark; a torch
+fixed to the pillar on the shore diffused a dull red light over the
+surging crowd.  Jesus wished to pass on quickly, but He could not.  A
+woman fleeing from her pursuers cast herself at His feet.  She was
+young, her hair streamed loose, her limbs were trembling with fear; she
+knelt down and put her arms round His legs.  He bent down to her and
+tried to raise her, but she held fast to His feet and could not compose
+herself.  Then the people began to shout: "The traitress, the Bethany
+serpent, what has she to do with Him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus put His hand on her head.  He stood up straight and asked aloud:
+"Who is this woman that you have a right to insult her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is she?  Ask the son of Job.  She's an adulteress.  Married but a
+few weeks ago to the brave old son of Job, her parents' friend, she
+deceives him with a young coxcomb, the hussy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The abuse they hurled against the helpless creature cannot be repeated.
+It was the women, too, who shouted the loudest; especially one, the
+wife of a man who made fishing-nets, was so filled with moral
+indignation that she tore her dress and scattered the rags over the
+sinner.  Words of the most venomous abuse poured from this accuser's
+mouth in bitter complaint that such a creature should shame the sacred
+name of woman; she passionately declared her desire that the evil-doer
+should be stoned.  Soon the crowd followed with "Stone her!" and a
+young porter who stood near the wife of the fishing-net maker stooped
+to pick up a stone from the road, and prepared to cast it at the
+sinner.  Jesus protected her with His hand, and exclaimed; "Do not
+touch her.  Which of you is without sin?  Let him come and cast the
+first stone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unwillingly they let their arms fall, and those who already held stones
+in their hands dropped them quietly on to the ground.  But Jesus turned
+to the persecuted woman and said: "They shall not harm you.  Tell me
+what has happened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord!" she whimpered, and clasped His feet afresh, "I have sinned!  I
+have sinned!" and she sobbed and wept so that His feet were damp with
+her tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have sinned!" He said in a voice, the gentle sound of which went
+to many a heart&mdash;"sinned.  And now you are sorry.  And you do not try
+to vindicate yourself.  Get up, get up!  Your sins will be forgiven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How?  What?" grumbled the people.  "What's this we hear?  He speaks
+kindly to the adulteress.  He pardons her sin.  This prophet will
+indeed find followers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus heard their grumbling He said aloud: "I tell you I am like a
+shepherd.  He goes out to search for a lost lamb.  He does not fling it
+to the wolves, but takes it home to the fold that it may be saved.  I
+do not rejoice over the proud, but over the repentant.  The former sink
+down; the latter rise up.  Listen to what I tell you.  A certain man
+had two sons.  One was of good disposition and took care of his
+property.  The other was disobedient, and one day said to his father:
+'Give me my share of the substance; I wish to go to a far country.'
+The father was sorry, but as the young man insisted he gave him his
+share, and he went away.  So while one brother worked and gained and
+saved at home, the other lived in pleasure and luxury, and squandered
+his property out in the world, and became so poor that he had to be a
+swineherd and eat husks with the sows.  He got ill and wretched, and
+was despised by every one.  Then he remembered his father, whose
+meanest servant lived in plenty.  Utterly downcast and destitute, he
+returned home, knelt before his father, and said: 'Father, I have
+sinned deeply!  I am no longer worthy to be your son; let me be your
+meanest servant.'  Then his father lifted him up, pressed him to his
+heart, had him robed in costly garments, ordered a calf to be
+slaughtered and the wineskins to be filled in readiness for a banquet,
+and invited all his family to it that they might rejoice with him.  All
+came except his other son.  He sent a message to say that he had
+faithfully served his father all his life, yet no calf or buck had been
+slaughtered on his account.  He found more honour in eating bread and
+figs alone in his room than in sitting at the banquet table with idle
+fellows and spendthrifts.  Then his father sent to him and said:
+'Wrong, wrong you are!  Your brother was lost and is found.  Look to it
+that your envy turns not to your loss.  Come and be merry with me!'  I
+tell you that the Heavenly Father rejoiceth more over a sinner that
+repenteth than over a righteous man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then a Pharisee stepped out from the crowd, wrapped his cloak round him
+with much dignity, and uttered the saying of a Jewish scholar: "Only
+the righteous man shall stand before God!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To which Jesus replied; "Have you not heard of the publican who kneeled
+backwards in the Temple, and did not venture to approach the altar
+because he was a poor sinner?  The Pharisee stands proudly by the altar
+and prays: 'Lord, I thank thee that I am not wicked like that man in
+the corner!'  But when they went forth from the Temple, the publican's
+heart was full of grace, and the Pharisee's heart was empty.  Do you
+understand?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thereupon several of them drew back.  Jesus bent over the penitent and
+said: "Woman, rise and depart in peace!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people were outwardly rather calmer.  Inwardly they were still
+restless, but they began now to be a little more satisfied with Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile James had to settle with the fisherman about payment for the
+voyage.  Simon covered his face with his mantle, and said with gentle
+rebuke: "Do not mock me.  I have been punished enough.  I am ashamed of
+my cowardice.  I see now that I'm neither a fisherman nor a sailor, but
+a mere useless creature.  This man whom you call Master, do you know
+what has come over me, thanks to Him?  He who saw Him in the storm, and
+heard His words about sinners, leaves Him not again.  No, I have never
+seen any like Him,  If only Manasseh, the fisherman and his daughter,
+and my brother Andrew had been there!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They will come directly," said James.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How comes it, James," asked the fisherman, "that you are with this man
+and dare to follow Him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is quite simple, my friend.  I merely follow Him.  Whoever
+pleases can have my little property.  I follow Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But whither, James, whither are you journeying?" And James answered:
+"To the Kingdom of God: to eternal life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the fisherman, with trembling hand, felt for James's arm, and
+said: "I will go too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An hour had scarcely passed before a fresh tumult arose.  It came from
+the house of the maker of fishing-nets.  He and a neighbour were
+hauling the former's wife along, the same woman who had been so
+indignant against the adulteress shortly before.  It was suggested that
+she should be brought to the prophet, but her husband said: "He is a
+bad judge in such matters," and wished to take her down to the lake.
+But the people crowded round Jesus, and told Him what had happened.
+The woman had been caught with Joel, the porter.  The accused struck
+out round her, violently denied the charge, and bit her husband, who
+had hold of her, in the hand.  Others came up and confirmed the
+accusation.  The woman blasphemed, and reduced her husband to silence
+by proclaiming his crimes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus burned with anger.  He exclaimed in a loud voice: "Cursed be the
+hypocrite and the faithless, and the violent!  Justice, judgment for
+such as her!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the woman shrieked: "You speak of justice, you who yourself
+recognise no justice!  Is it just that you should bless one of two
+lovers, and curse the other?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus: "I tell you: he who repents is accepted; he who will not
+repent is cast out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then He turned round, and, wrapt in thought, walked along the bank in
+the mild night.  Simon, the fisherman, followed Him.  He touched His
+wide sleeve and implored: "Master, take me too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus asked him: "What do you seek with Me, Simon, the fisherman?  If
+anyone seeks a polished crystal and finds a rough diamond, he is vexed;
+he does not recognise its value.  Look at this obdurate woman; she says
+that I am not just because I am severe.  To-morrow ten of the corrupt
+may shout, the day after a hundred; yet ere long he who is applauded
+to-day may be surrounded by cruel enemies, and with him those who
+support him.  My word ruins the worldly and My mercy annoys the
+powerful.  They will destroy with fire and sword the seeds which I sow.
+Simon, you did not strike Me as one of the strongest on the sea.  I
+demand not a little.  If you will come to Me, you must abandon
+everything that is now yours.  You cannot have Me and the world.  If
+you can make sacrifices, if you can forget, if you can suffer, then
+come with Me.  Yes, and if you can die for Me, then come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master, I will go with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you can do that, then the burden will be easy; then you will have
+the peace which none finds in the world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master," exclaimed Simon, loudly, "I will go with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Others who had followed Him along the bank heard the decision.  They
+marvelled at the words that had passed, and the erring woman whom He
+had protected would not leave Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the distance the clamour could still be heard, but gradually the
+crowd dispersed.  Jesus then sought lodging for Himself and His
+disciples.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+A short time after, some of those who had formed the crowd at Magdala
+were gathered together in the house of the Rabbi Jairus.  They were
+watching the dead.  For in the centre of the room, on a table, lay the
+body of the Rabbi's daughter shrouded in white linen.  Her father was
+so cast down with grief that his friends knew not how to console him.
+Then someone suggested calling in Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had just
+seen resting with His followers under the cedars of Hirah.  They
+narrated the miracles that He had lately worked.  On the road leading
+to Capernaum a man was lying side by side with his little son, into
+whom had entered the spirit of epilepsy.  The child had fallen down and
+foamed at the mouth, and his teeth and hands were so locked together
+that his father, in his despair, all but strangled him.  He had already
+taken the child to the disciples of Jesus, but they had not been able
+to help him.  Then he sought the Master and exclaimed angrily: "If you
+can do anything, help him!"  "Take heed that we do not all suffer
+because of him," the prophet said, and then made the child whole.  And
+they told yet more.  On the other side of the lake He had made a
+deaf-mute to speak, and at Bethsaida had made a blind man to see.  But,
+above all, every one knew how at Nain He had brought back a young man
+to life who had already been carried out of the house in his coffin!  A
+wine-presser was there who told something about an old woman who had
+vehemently prayed the prophet to cure her sickness.  Thereupon Jesus
+said: "You are old and yet you wish to live!  What makes this earth so
+pleasing to you?" and she replied: "Nothing is pleasing to me on this
+earth.  But I do not want to die until the Saviour comes, who will open
+the gates of Heaven for me."  And He: "Since your faith is so strong,
+woman, you shall live to see the Saviour."  Thereupon she rose up and
+went her way.  These were the things He did, but He did not like them
+to be talked about.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such was the talk among the people gathered round the little girl's
+corpse.  Among the company was an old man who was of those who liked to
+display their wisdom on every possible occasion.  He declared that
+faith and love, nothing else, produced such miracles.  No
+miracle-worker could help an unbeliever; but a man whom the people
+loved could easily work miracles.  "They forget all his failures, and
+remember and magnify all his successes.  That's all there is in it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man answered him: "It is important that he should be loved, but the
+love is compelled by some mysterious power.  No one can make himself
+beloved of his own accord, it must be given him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They determined, thanks to all this talk&mdash;a mingling of truth and
+error&mdash;to invite the prophet to the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus entered it, He saw the mourning assembly, and the Rabbi, who
+pulled at his gown until he tore it.  He saw the child lying on the
+table ready for burial, and asked: "Why have you summoned Me?  Where is
+the dead girl?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Rabbi undid the shroud so that the girl lay exposed to view.  Jesus
+looked at her, took hold of her hand, felt it, and laid it gently down
+again.  "The child is not dead," He said, "she only sleepeth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some began to laugh.  They knew the difference between death and life!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stepped up to them, and said: "Why did you summon Me if you do not
+believe in Me?  If you have assembled here to watch the dead, there's
+nothing for you to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They crept away in annoyance.  He turned to the father and mother: "Be
+comforted.  Prepare some food for your daughter."  Then He took hold of
+the child's cold hand, and whispered: "Little girl!  Little girl! wake
+up, it is morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mother uttered a cry of joy, for the child opened her eyes.  He
+stood by, and they seemed to hear Him say: "Arise, my child.  You are
+too young to have gained heaven yet.  The Father must be long sought so
+that He may be the more beloved.  Go your way and seek Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the girl, who was twelve years old, stood on her feet, and walked
+across the floor, the parents almost fell on Jesus in order to express
+their thanks.  He put them aside.  "I understand your gratitude.  You
+will do what I do not wish.  You will go to the street corners and
+exclaim: 'He raised our child from the dead'; and the people will come
+and ask Me to heal their bodies, while I am come to heal their souls.
+And they will desire Me to raise the dead, while I am here to lead
+their spirits to eternal life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord, how are we to understand you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When in good time you shall have learned how little the mortal body
+and earthly life signify, then you will understand.  If, as you say, I
+have raised your child from the dead, what thanks do you owe Me?  Do
+you recognise what he who calls back a creature from happiness to
+misery does?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You said yourself, Master, that the child was too young to gain heaven
+yet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She has not gained it; she possessed it in her innocent heart.  She
+will become a maiden, and a wife, and an old woman.  She will lose
+heaven and seek it in agony.  It will be well for her if then she comes
+to the Saviour and begs: 'My soul is dead within me, Lord; wake it to
+eternal life.'  But if she comes not&mdash;then it would be better that she
+had not waked to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mother said in all humility: "Whatsoever Thou doest, Master, that
+is surely right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went to the table where the child was comfortably eating her food,
+laid His hand on her head, and said: "You have come to earth from
+heaven, now give up earth for heaven; what is earned is greater that
+what is given."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So the wife of Rabbi Jairus heard as Jesus went out of the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They remained His adherents until near the days of the persecution.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+About the same time things began to go ill with Levi, the tax-gatherer,
+who lived on the road to Tiberias.  One morning his fellow-residents
+prepared a discordant serenade for him.  They pointed out to Levi with
+animation, from the roof of his house, in what honour he was held, by
+means of the rattling of trays and clashing of pans, since he had
+accepted service with the heathen as toll-keeper and demanded money
+even on the Sabbath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lean tax-gatherer sat in a corner of his room and saw the dust fly
+from the ceiling, which seemed to shake beneath the clatter.  He saw,
+too, how the morning sun shining in at the window threw a band of light
+across the room, in which danced particles of dust like little stars.
+He listened, and saw, and was silent.  When they had had enough of
+dancing on the roof they jumped to the ground, made grimaces at the
+window, and departed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little, bustling woman came out of the next room, stole up to the
+man, and said: "Levi, it serves you right!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know, Judith," he answered, and stood up.  He was so tall that
+he had to bend his head in order not to strike it against the ceiling.
+His beard hung down in thin strands; it was not yet grey, despite his
+pale, tired face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They will stone you, Levi, if you continue to serve the Romans,"
+exclaimed the woman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They hated me even when I did not serve the Romans," said the man.
+"Since that Feast of Tabernacles at Tiberias when I said that Mammon
+and desire of luxury had estranged the God of Abraham from the chosen
+people, and subjected them to Jupiter, they have hated me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you yourself follow Mammon," she returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because since they hate me I must create a power for myself which will
+support me, if all are against me.  It is the power with which the
+contemned man conquers his bitterest enemies.  You don't understand me?
+Look there!"  He bent down in a dark corner of the chamber, lifted an
+old cloth, and displayed to view a stone vessel like a mortar.  "Real
+Romans," he said, grinning; "soon a small army of them.  And directly
+it is big enough, the neighbours won't climb on to the roof and sing
+praises to Levi with pots and pans, but with harps and cymbals."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Levi, shall I tell you what you are?" exclaimed the woman, the muscles
+of her red face working.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am a publican, as I well know," he returned calmly, carefully
+covering his money chest with the cloth.  "A despised publican who
+takes money from his own people to give to the stranger, who demands
+toll-money of the Jews although they themselves made the roads.  Such a
+one am I, my Judith!  And why did I become a Roman publican?  Because I
+wished to gain money so as to support myself among those who hate me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Levi, you are a miser," she said.  "You bury your money in a hole
+instead of buying me a Greek mantle like what Rebecca and Amala wear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I shall remain a miser," he replied, "for I shall not buy you a
+Greek mantle.  Foreign garments will plunge the Jews into deeper ruin
+than my Roman office and Roman coins.  It is not the receipt of custom,
+my dear wife, that is idolatry, but desire of dress, pleasure, and
+luxury.  Street turnpikes are not bad at a time when our people begin
+to be fugitives in their own land, and with all their trade and barter
+to export the good and import the evil.  Since the law of Moses
+respecting agriculture there has been no better tax than the Roman
+turnpike toll.  What have the Jews to do on the road?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will soon see," said Judith.  "If I don't have the Greek mantle in
+two days from now, you'll see me on the road, but from behind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't look bad from behind," mischievously returned Levi.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The knocker sounded without.  The tax-gatherer looked through the
+window, and bade his wife undo the barrier.  She went out and raised a
+piercing cry, but did not unclose the barrier.  Several men had come
+along the road, and were standing there; the woman demanded the toll.
+A little man with a bald head stepped forward.  It was the fisherman
+from Bethsaida.  He confessed that they had no money.  Thereupon the
+woman was very angry, for it was her secret intention thenceforth to
+keep the toll money herself in order to buy the Greek purple stuff like
+that worn by Rebecca and Amala.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Levi heard her cry, he went out and said: "Let them pass, Judith.
+You see they are not traders.  They won't do the road much damage.  Why
+they've scarcely soles to their feet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Judith was quiet, but she took a stolen glance at one of the men
+who stood tall and straight in his blue mantle, his hair falling over
+his shoulders, his pale face turned towards her with an earnest look.
+"What a man?  Is something the matter with me?  Perhaps he misses the
+Greek mantle that he sees other women wear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How far have you come?" the toll-keeper asked the men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've come from Magdala to-day," replied Simon, the fisherman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then it is time that you rested here a little in the shade.  The sun
+has been hot all day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Judith saw that they were really preparing to avail themselves of
+the invitation, she hastened to her room, adorned herself with
+gay-coloured stuffs, a sparkling bracelet, and a pearl necklace that
+she had lately acquired from a Sidonian merchant.  She came out again
+with a tray of figs and dates.  The tall, pale man&mdash;it was
+Jesus&mdash;silently passed on the tray, and took no refreshment Himself.
+His penetrating glance made her uneasy.  Perhaps He would let Himself
+be persuaded.  She placed herself before Him, more striking and bold in
+her splendour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Woman," He said suddenly, "yonder grows a thistle.  It has prickles on
+the stem and the flower, it is covered with the dust of the highway and
+eaten away by insects.  But it is more beautiful than an arrogant child
+of man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judith started violently.  She rushed into the house, and slammed the
+door behind her so that the walls echoed.  The tax-gatherer gave the
+speaker an approving glance, and sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus asked him: "Are you fond of her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She is his neighbour!" observed a cheerful-looking little man who
+formed one of the band of travellers.  The jesting word referred to the
+Master's speech of the day before on love of one's neighbour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Levi nodded thoughtfully and said: "Yes, gentlemen, she is my
+nearest&mdash;enemy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Isn't she your wife?" asked Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without answering him, the tax-gatherer said: "I am a publican, and
+blessed with mistrust as far as my eye can reach.  Yet all those
+without do not cause me as much annoyance as she who is nearest me in
+my house."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the men laid his hand on his shoulder: "Then, friend, see that
+she is no longer your nearest.  Come with us.  We have left our wives
+and all the rest of our belongings to go with Him.  Don't you know Him?
+He is the man from Nazareth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The publican started.  The man of whom the whole land spoke, the
+prophet, the miracle-worker?  This young, kindly man was He?  He who
+preached so severely against the Jews?  Didn't I say almost the same,
+that time at the Feast of Tabernacles?  And yet the people were angry.
+They listen reverently to this man and follow Him.  Shall I do so too?
+What hinders me?  I, the much-hated man, may be dismissed the service
+at any moment.  I may be driven from my house to-day, as soon as
+to-morrow?  And my wife, she'll probably be seen on the road from
+behind?  There's only one thing I can't part with, but I can take that
+with me.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, he turned to the Nazarene, held the tray with the remains of the
+fruit towards Him: "Take some, dear Master!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Master said gently, in a low voice: "Do you love Me, publican?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tax-gatherer began to tremble so that the tray nearly fell from his
+hands.  Those words! and that look!  He could not reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you love Me, go with Me, and share our hardships."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our joys, Lord, our joys," exclaimed Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment a train of pack-mules came along the road.  The drivers
+whipped the creatures with knotted cords, and cursed that there was
+another turnpike.  The tax-gatherer took the prescribed coins from
+them, and pointed out their ill-treatment of the animals.  For answer
+he received a blow in his face from the whip.  Levi angrily raised his
+arm against the driver.  Then Jesus stepped forward, gently pulled his
+arm down, and asked: "Was his act wrong?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then do not imitate it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the little witty man again interposed: "If you go with us,
+publican, you'll have two cheeks, a right and a left.  But no arm, do
+you understand?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The remark had reference to a favourite saying of the Master when He
+was defenceless and of good-cheer in the presence of a bitter enemy.
+Several received the allusion with an angry expression of countenance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But it is true," laughed the little man.  "The Master said: 'Let
+Thaddeus say what he likes.  He suffered yesterday in patience the
+wrath of an Arab.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, indeed; because they found no money, they beat Thaddeus."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we meet another of that sort, we'll defend ourselves," said the
+publican, "or robbery 'll become cheap."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's easy to see, tax-gatherer, that you haven't known the Master
+long," said the little man whom they called Thaddeus.  "We and money,
+indeed!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the Master said: "A free soul has nothing to do with Mammon.  It's
+not worth speaking of, let alone quarrelling over.  Violence won't undo
+robbery.  If you attempt violence, you may easily turn a thief into a
+murderer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While they were talking the publican went into his house.  He had made
+his decision.  He would quietly bid his wife farewell, put the money in
+a bag and tie it round his waist.  He did not do the first, because
+Judith had fled by the back door; he did not do the second, because
+Judith had emptied the stone vessel and taken the money with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Levi came sadly from the toll-house, went up to Jesus, and lifted his
+hands to heaven: "I am ready, Lord; take me with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Master said: "Levi Matthew, you are mine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thaddeus came with the tray of fruit.  "Brother, eat of your table for
+the last time.  Then trust in Him who feeds the birds and makes the
+flowers to grow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they went together along the dusty road, the new disciple related
+his loss.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon exclaimed cheerfully: "You're lucky, Levi Matthew!  What other
+men give up with difficulty has run away from you of itself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That day the toll-house was left deserted, and the passers-by were
+surprised to find that the road between Magdala and Tiberias was free.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+In this way there gathered round the carpenter of Nazareth more
+disciples and friends, who wished to accompany Him in His wanderings
+through the land.  For Jesus had decided.  He desired only to wander
+through the land and bring men tidings of the Heavenly Father and of
+the Kingdom of God.  He appointed some of His disciples to prepare for
+Him a reception and lodging everywhere.  Then there were the assemblies
+of the people to regulate; and the disciples, so far as they themselves
+understood the new teaching, must act as interpreters and expositors
+for those who could not understand the Master's peculiar language.
+Among those was John, the carpenter, who had once been an apprentice to
+Jesus, a near relative of the Master.  Other of His disciples were
+called James, he was the boat-builder; then Simon, Andrew, and Thomas,
+the fishermen; Levi Matthew, the publican; Thaddeus, the saddler; and
+further&mdash;but my memory is weak&mdash;James, the little shepherd; Nathan, the
+potter; and his brother Philip, the innkeeper from Jericho;
+Bartholomew, the smith; and Judas, the money-changer from Carioth.
+Like Simon and Matthew, they had all left their trades or offices to
+follow with boundless devotion Him they called Lord and Master.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How shall I dare to describe the Master!  His personality defies
+description.  It left none cold who came in contact with it.  It was
+attractive not only by humility and gentleness, but more by active
+power, and by such sacred and fiery anger as had never before been seen
+in any one.  People were never tired of looking at the man with the
+tall, handsome figure.  His head was crowned with lightly curling,
+reddish, bright-looking hair, which hung down soft and heavy at the
+side and back, and floated over His shoulders.  His brow was broad and
+white, for no sunbeam could penetrate the shade formed by His hair.  He
+had a strong, straight nose, more like that of a Greek than of a Jew,
+and His red lips were shaded with a thick beard.  And His eyes were
+wonderful, large, dark eyes, with a marvellous fire in them.
+Ordinarily it was a fire that burnt warm and soft, but at times it
+shone with a great glow of happiness, or sparkled with anger, like a
+midsummer storm by night in the mountains of Lebanon.  On that account
+many called Him "fiery eye."  He wore a long, straight gown, without
+hat or staff.  He generally wore sandals on His feet, but sometimes He
+forgot to put them on, for in His spiritual communings He did not
+perceive the roughness of the road.  So He wandered through the stony
+desert, as through the flowery meadows of the fertile valleys.  When
+His companions complained of the storm or heat, and tore their limbs on
+the sharp stones and thorns, He remained calm and uncomplaining.  He
+did not, like the holy men of the East, seek for hardships, but He did
+not fear them.  He was an enemy of all external trappings, because they
+distracted the attention from the inner life, and by their attractions
+might induce a false appearance of reality.  He gladly received
+invitations to the houses of the joyful, and rejoiced with them; at
+table He ate and drank with moderation.  He added to the pleasures of
+the table by narrating parables and legends, by means of which He
+brought deep truths home to the people.  Since He left the little house
+at Nazareth, He possessed no worldly goods.  What He needed in His
+wanderings for Himself and His followers, He asked of those who had
+possessions.  His manner was often rough and spiced with bitter irony,
+even where He proved Himself helpful and sympathetic.  Towards His
+disciples, whom He loved deeply&mdash;expecially young John&mdash;He always
+showed Himself absorbed in His mission to make strong, courageous,
+God-fearing men out of weak creatures.  He was so definite about what
+He liked and what He disliked, that even the blindest could see it.  He
+suffered no compromise between good and evil.  He specially disliked
+ambiguous speakers, hypocrites, and sneaks; He preferred to have to do
+with avowed sinners.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of His fundamental traits was to be yielding in disposition, but
+unflinching in His teaching.  He avoided all personal dislikes,
+hatreds, all that might poison the heart.  His soul was trust and
+kindness.  So high did He rank kindness, and so heavily did he condemn
+selfishness, that one of His disciples said, to sin from kindness
+brought a man nearer to God than to do good through selfishness.  The
+hostility and reverses He met with He turned into a source of
+happiness.  Happiness!  Did not that word come into the world with
+Jesus?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is always talking of being happy," someone once said to John.
+"What do you understand by being happy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John replied; "When you feel quite contented inwardly, so that no
+worldly desire or bitterness disturbs your peace, when all within you
+is love and trust, as though you were at rest in the eternity of God
+and nothing can trouble you any more, that is, as I take it, what He
+means by being happy.  But it cannot be put into words, only he who
+feels it understands."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus possessed, too, the high sense of communion with God, which
+he transmitted to all who followed Him.  But I should like to add that
+where Jesus was most divine, there He was most human.  In thrusting
+from Him all worldly desire, all worldly property, and worldly care, He
+freed Himself from the burden which renders most men unhappy.  In
+communion with God He was at once a simple child, and a wise man of the
+world.  No anxiety existed about accidents, perils, loss and ruin.
+Everything happened according to His will, because it was the will of
+God, and He enjoyed life with simplicity and a pure heart.  Is not that
+the true human lot?  And does not such a natural, glad life come very
+near to the Divine?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus, then, He followed the Divine path across that historic ground
+which will be known as the Holy Land to the end of time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now that great day, that great Sabbath morning came.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a long time damp, grey mists had hung over the valleys of Galilee;
+banks of fog had hovered over the mountains of Lebanon; showers of cold
+rain fell.  But after the gloom dawned a bright spring morning.  From
+the rocky heights a fertile land was visible.  Green meadows watered by
+shining streams adorned the valleys, and groups of pines, fig trees,
+olive trees, and cedars, the slopes and the hill-tops.  Vines and dewy
+roses were in the hedges.  A full-voiced choir of birds and fresh
+breezes from the Lake filled the soft air.  Westwards the blue waters
+of the Mediterranean might be discerned, and in the east, through
+distant clefts in the rocks, the shimmer of the Dead Sea.  Southwards
+lay the plain, and the yellowish mounds which marked the beginning of
+the desert.  And towards the west the snow peaks of Lebanon were
+visible above the dark forest and the lighter green of the slopes.  A
+perfect sunny peacefulness lay over everything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The flat rocks of the gentler slopes were crowded with people, many of
+whom had never seen this district.  And they still came from every
+village and farm.  Instead of going as usual to the synagogue, they
+hastened to this mountain height.  Instead of seeking soft repose, as
+their desire of comfort bade them, they hurried thither over stocks and
+stones.  Instead of visiting friend or neighbour they all climbed the
+heights together.  For they knew that Jesus was there, and would speak.
+And so they stood or sat on the flat stones&mdash;men and women, old and
+young, rich and poor.  Many only came out of curiosity, and passed the
+time in witty sallies; others jested together; others, again, waited in
+silent expectation.  Those who already knew Him whispered excitedly,
+and Simon said to James; "My heart has never beat so violently as
+to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus stood on the summit of the mountain.  As if all men were
+turned to stone at sight of Him, a silence and stillness now took the
+place of the subdued murmur of the crowd.  He stood in His long,
+light-coloured gown, like a white pillar against the blue sky.  His
+left hand hung motionless by His side, the right was pressed against
+His heart.  He began to speak softly, but clearly.  Not in the even
+tone of a preacher, but quickly and eagerly, often hesitating a moment
+while collecting His thoughts for a pregnant saying.  It was not as if
+He had thought out His speech beforehand, or learned it out of books.
+What His own individual temperament had originated, what time had
+matured in Him, He poured forth in the rush of the Holy Spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sent to make appeal to you.  I come to all, but especially to the
+poor.  I come to the afflicted, to the distressed, to the sick, to the
+imprisoned, to the cast down.  I come with glad tidings from the
+Heavenly Father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After this introduction He, in His humility, looked out into the great
+world of Nature, as if she would supply Him with words.  But Nature was
+silent; indeed, at that hour, all creatures were silent and listened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus lifted His eyes to the crowd, and began to speak as men had
+never heard any one speak before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Brothers!  Rejoice!  Again I say, Rejoice!  A good Father lives in
+heaven.  His presence is everywhere, His power is boundless, and we are
+His children whom He loves.  He makes His sun to shine over all; He
+overlooks no one.  He sees into the dark recesses of all hearts, and no
+one can move a hair's breadth without His consent.  He places freely
+before men happiness and eternal life.  Listen to what I say to you in
+His name:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All ye children of men who seek salvation, come to Me.  I bless the
+poor, for no earthly burden can keep them from the Kingdom of Heaven.
+I bless the suffering, the afflicted, disappointed&mdash;abandoned by the
+world they take refuge in life in God.  I bless the kind-hearted and
+the peace-loving.  Their hearts are not troubled with hate and guilt;
+they live as happy children of God.  I bless those who love justice,
+for they are God's companions, and shall find justice.  I bless the
+pure in heart.  No bewildering desire obscures the face of God from
+them.  I bless the merciful.  Sympathetic love gives strength, brings
+compassion where it is needed.  And blessed, thrice blessed, are you
+who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness.  Yours is the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  Rejoice and be glad, all of you&mdash;no eye hath yet
+seen, no ear hath yet heard the joys that are laid up for you in
+heaven.  Now hear My mission.  Many say I wish to change the old laws.
+That is not so.  I come to fulfil the old laws, but according to the
+spirit, not according to the letter.  The learned men who preach in the
+synagogues fulfil it according to the letter, and desire to guide the
+people; but if you do as they, you will not be righteous, nor will you
+find the Kingdom of God.  The wise men say, you shall not kill.  I say,
+you shall not get angry, or be contemptuous.  He who grows angry and
+censorious shall himself be judged.  Your pious gifts are of no avail
+if you live at enmity with your neighbour.  In the law of the sages it
+is written, you shall not commit adultery.  I say, you shall not even
+think of breaking your marriage vows.  Rather should you become blind
+than let your eye desire your neighbour's wife.  Better lose your sight
+than your purity.  Rather cut off your hand than reach it after your
+neighbour's goods.  Better lose your strength than your virtue.  It is
+said in the Law, you shall not swear falsely.  I say, you shall not
+swear at all, either by God, or by your soul, or by your child.  Yes or
+no, that is enough.  Now say whether I change the laws.  Rather do I
+desire the strictest obedience to them.  But there are laws which I do
+change.  Listen; An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  I say you
+shall not treat your adversary in a hostile fashion.  What you can in
+justice do for yourself, that do, but go no farther; it is a thousand
+times better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.  Overcome your enemy
+with kindness.  If any one smites you on the right cheek, keep your
+temper and offer him the left.  Maybe that will disarm his wrath.  If
+any one tears off your coat ask him kindly if he would not like the
+undergarment too?  Perhaps he will be ashamed of his greediness.  If
+any asks you for something that you can grant, do not refuse him, and
+if you have two coats give one to him who has none.  In the law of the
+sages it is said: Love your neighbour; hate your enemy.  That is false.
+For it is easy enough to love them that love you, and hate them that
+hate you.  The godless can manage so much.  I tell you, love your
+neighbour, and also love your enemy.  Listen, my brothers, and declare
+it throughout the whole world what I now say to you: Love your enemies,
+do good to them that hate you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stopped, and a stir went through the assembly.  Words had been
+spoken the like of which had not before been heard in the world.  A
+holy inspiration, as it were, entered the universe at that hour such as
+had not been felt since the creation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus continued speaking: "Do good to those who hate you; that is how
+God acts towards men, even when they mock at him.  Try to imitate the
+Father in heaven in all things.  What good ye do, do it for the sake of
+God, not for the sake of men.  Therefore the second commandment is as
+important as the first.  Love God more than everything, and your
+neighbour as yourself.  But you shall not boast of your good works.
+When you give alms, do it secretly, and speak not of it, so that the
+left hand knows not what the right hand doeth.  If you do not give up
+the goods of this world, you will not attain to the Kingdom of Heaven.
+If you fast, do not wear a sad face.  Be cheerful; what matters it that
+others should know that you fast?  If you do not keep the Sabbath holy,
+you cannot see the Father.  But when you pray, do it secretly in your
+chamber; you are nearest your Father in heaven in quiet humility.  Use
+not many words in your praying as idolaters do.  Not he who constantly
+praises the Lord finds Him, but he who does His will.  Lift up your
+heart in trust, and submit to the will of Him who is in heaven.  Honour
+His name, seek His kingdom.  Ask pardon for your own fault, and be
+careful to pardon him who offends against you.  Ask that you may
+receive what you require for your needs each day, so that you may find
+strength against temptation, and freedom from impatience and evil
+desire.  If you pray thus, your prayer will be heard; for he who asks
+in the right way shall receive, and for him who continually knocks
+shall the gate be opened.  Is there a father among you who would give
+his child a stone when he asks for bread?  And if a poor man grants his
+child's request, how much more the mighty, good Father in heaven.  But
+be not too anxious for your daily needs: such anxiety spoils pure
+pleasure.  If you heap up material goods, then death comes.  Gather not
+the treasures which pass away; gather spiritual treasures to your inner
+profit, treasures which your Heavenly Father stores up into life
+eternal.  Such a store will benefit the souls of those who come after
+you.  Man is so fashioned that his heart always inclines to his
+possessions; if his possessions are with God, then will his heart be
+with God.  He who is for the body cannot be for the soul, because he
+cannot serve two masters.  Earn for the day what ye need for the day,
+but take no care for the morrow.  Be not anxious about what you shall
+eat to-morrow, about how you shall be clothed in the years to come.
+Trust in Him who feeds the birds, and makes the flowers bloom.  Shall
+not the Heavenly Father have greater love for the children of men than
+for the sparrow or the lily?  Do not burden your life with cares, but
+be glad, glad, glad in God, your Father.  Set your minds on the Kingdom
+of Heaven; all else is second to that.&#8230;  I observe, my brothers,
+that these words come home to you; but first see if the teacher follows
+His own precepts.  Beware of preachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, who
+live otherwise than they teach.  Whoever speaks to you in My name, look
+first at his works, as ye recognise the tree by its fruit.  Judge men
+according to their works, but do not condemn them!  Before you condemn,
+remember that you yourself may be condemned.  As you judge others so
+shall you yourself be judged.  How often, my friend, do you see a Mote
+in your brother's eye, while you do not see a whole beam in your own
+eye.  Get rid of your own faults before you censure the faults of your
+brother.  The path which leads to salvation is narrow, and while you
+escape the abyss on the left hand you may fall into that on the right.
+And that you may proceed in safety along the narrow way, take heed to
+My words: <I>Everything that you wish to be done unto you, that do unto
+others</I>.  Now, My brothers and sisters, in the land of our fathers, let
+those of you who must return to your work, return and ponder on the
+message I have brought you.  Every one who has heard it, and does not
+live according to it, is like the man who builds his house on sand; but
+he who lives in accordance with this teaching builds his house on the
+rocks, and no storm can destroy it.  The words that I deliver to you in
+the name of the Heavenly Father will outlast all the wisdom of the
+earth.  He who hears and does not heed is lost to Me; he who follows My
+teaching will attain eternal life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus ended the speech which became one of the greatest events of the
+world.  Many were terrified by the concluding sentences, for they heard
+the word but were too weak to follow it.  Their cowardice did not
+escape Jesus, and because He could not let any depart uncomforted, they
+seemed to hear Him murmur: "The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who
+untiringly reach out after it.  Blessed are the weak whose will is
+good."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+That Sabbath of the Sermon on the Mount became a most important day.
+When Jesus made an end of speaking, the people did not disperse, but
+pressed round Him to kiss the hem of His garment.  Many who until then
+had been in despair could not tear themselves from Him.  They wished to
+follow Him wherever He went, and to share His destiny.  Whatever He
+might say to the contrary, that destiny, they felt sure, would be
+brilliant.  Was He not tearing the masses from earthly thoughts that
+formed their curse.  All they heard was His counsel upon absence of
+anxiety.  But what would it be when He revealed the universal power of
+the Messiah?  Many said that the Sermon on the Mount was a trial of
+strength intended to steel the will for the holy struggle for the
+Kingdom of the Messiah that was now to be established on earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+People came out of Judaea; they hastened from the valley of the Jordan;
+they streamed from the hills.  They came from the seaports of Tyre and
+Sidon, and some even came from lands far beyond the sea in order to
+discover if what the people on all sides were saying was true.  They
+brought asses and camels, laden with gifts, and Jesus accepted what He
+and His friends needed, but declined the rest or divided it among the
+people.  For there were many among His followers who were starving, His
+word being all their sustenance.  And sick persons began to drag
+themselves to Him so that He might heal and comfort them.  But the more
+they heard of miracles wrought on the sick and crippled, the more
+miracles they desired, so that He grew angry, and reminded them that He
+did not come on account of their bodies but of their souls.  Moreover,
+He pointed out to them that He was not the Messiah from whom men
+expected deliverance and the establishment of the kingdom of the Jews.
+But they regarded that as an excuse, as prudent reserve, until the time
+was ripe for the entry of the great general.  The curiosity increased
+at every new speech, and they hoped to hear Him sound the call to arms.
+Others held aloof and thought over the deeper meaning of His words, and
+if it was possible to comprehend them and live according to them.  At
+first they found it easy and pleasant to be free from care, and to be
+conciliatory towards their neighbours.  It suited the poor admirably to
+make a virtue of necessity, so that their indolence and poverty
+appeared as meritorious.  But after a few days they began to realise
+that perhaps they had not understood the Master's words aright.  Even
+the Samaritans from over the border listened to the strange teaching
+about heaven or earth.  If the ancient writings spoke of future
+blessedness, Jesus spoke of present blessedness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A money-changer from Carioth was among His disciples.  So far he had
+only been with the Prophet on Sabbaths; on week-days he sat in his
+office and counted money and reckoned interest.  But things did not go
+well, for while he was doing his accounts his thoughts were with the
+Master, and he made errors; and when he was with the Master his
+thoughts were with his money, and he missed what was being said.  He
+must leave either one or the other, and he could not decide which.  But
+after listening to the Sermon on the Mount he determined to go no more
+to his place of business, but to remain with Jesus, so strong was his
+belief in Him.  And the exchange brought as much joy into his heart as
+if he had lent money to a man at two hundred per cent.  For he would
+have treasure in the Kingdom of the Messiah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only people who more or less still held aloof were the Galileans.
+They had known the Prophet as a carpenter, and were uncertain what
+position to take up towards Him.  On the other hand, there were
+Galileans who came to Jerusalem, or Joppa, and were proud to hear their
+Prophet spoken of there, and they pretended to be His acquaintances and
+friends, only to greet Him on their return with the same old contempt.
+He used to say that no man was a prophet in his own country.  At this
+period Jesus often went to Nazareth, and always accompanied by an
+ever-increasing number of followers.  His mother could never get any
+confidential talk with Him.  And His native place disowned Him.  His
+youthful acquaintances fought shy of Him as an eccentric vagrant who
+opposed the law, stirred up the people, and from whose further career
+no great honour was to be expected.  The Rabbi in the synagogue warned
+men of Him as of a public traitor.  He described with ardent zeal the
+ruin in which all would be involved who were persuaded by this man
+without a conscience to renounce the belief of their ancestors.  "There
+is only one true faith," he exclaimed, "and only one God, and that is
+not the faith and God of this heretic, but the faith of Moses and the
+God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  And that God curses the false
+prophet and all his followers, so that the devil has power over him."
+And he continued sorrowfully: "His relations are greatly to be pitied,
+especially the unhappy mother who has borne such a son to the shame of
+the family and the grief of the whole land."  And then the Rabbi
+alluded to a hope that they might perhaps succeed in bringing to reason
+the erring man who sinned so deeply against the law, if not by love, at
+least by a vigorous effort and display of authority, till He was made
+to resume the honourable handicraft in which He had once lived in a
+manner pleasing to God.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so it happened that Mary, when she left the synagogue and proceeded
+homewards, was scoffed at by her ill-natured neighbours, who gave her
+to understand that she might take herself off, and the sooner the
+better.  She said nothing, but bade her weeping heart be still.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day Jesus was invited to dine down by the lake with a friend who
+held the same views as Himself.  There were so many people present that
+there was neither room nor food enough.  They expected some miracle.
+Jesus was in a happy mood, and said that He wondered that people should
+rush after little wonders, and overlook the great ones; for all things
+that lived, all things with which we were daily surrounded, were pure
+and incomprehensible wonders.  As for the wonders men desired Him to
+work, the most important thing was not turning of stones into bread or
+the making of the sick whole, but that such miracles should awaken
+faith.  Faith was the greatest miracle-worker.  While He was talking He
+was called away; some one stood under the cedars who wished to speak to
+Him.  He found two of His relations there, who asked Him curtly, and
+without ceremony, what He purposed doing; did He propose to return to
+Nazareth or not?  If not, then He had better realise that His house and
+workshop would be confiscated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus answered them: "Go and tell your elders in Nazareth: The house
+belongs to him who needs it, and let him who has a use for the workshop
+have it.  And leave Him in peace who would build a House in which there
+are many mansions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They remained standing there, and said; "If you turn a deaf ear and are
+heedless of us, there is some one else here."  And then His mother came
+forward.  She had thrown a blue shawl over her head.  She looked ill,
+and could hardly speak for sobbing.  She took hold of His hand: "My
+son! where will all this lead?  Can you undertake such responsibility?
+You reject the belief of your fathers, and you deprive others of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To which He replied: "I deprive them of their belief.  On the contrary,
+I give them faith."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, my child, I can't understand it.  You are stirring up the whole
+country.  The people leave their houses, their families, their work, to
+follow you.  What enchantment do you practise on them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They follow the tidings," He said.  "They thirst after comfort as the
+hart pants for water."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you call it comfort to starve and freeze in the wilderness," broke
+in one of his relations; "you call it comfort to deny oneself
+everything till our rags fall off our bodies, and we are taken by the
+soldiers as criminals?  Take heed.  The governors at Caesarea and
+Jerusalem are displeased at the state of affairs.  They mean to put a
+stop to the demagogue's proceedings, and they are right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is the demagogue?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, you, of course."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was surprised at the reply, and said:&mdash;"I?  I, who say to you,
+Peace be with you!  Love one another!  Do good to your enemies!  I, a
+demagogue?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say you claim to be the Messiah who shall conquer the kingdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A kingdom that is not of this world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary fell into His arms.  "My dear son, leave all this alone.  If it is
+to be, God will do it all without you.  See how lonely your mother is
+at Nazareth!  Come with me to our peaceful home, and be once again my
+good, dear Jesus.  And these here, they love you, they are your
+brothers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus stretched out His arm and pointed to His followers, who had
+pushed their way into the house.  "Those are My brothers!  Those who
+acknowledge the Heavenly Father as I do, they are My brothers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His relations stepped back, and wrung their hands in perplexity.  "He
+is out of His mind.  He is possessed by devils."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people in the road who were looking over the fence felt sorry for
+the forsaken woman, and wanted to interfere; whereupon a voice
+exclaimed loudly: "Happy the mother who has such a son!  The nations
+will arise and call her blessed!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus turned to them gravely.  "Blessed are those who follow the word
+of God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His mother felt, as He spoke those words, as if she had been stabbed to
+the heart with a sword.  The people were silent, and whispered to each
+other: "Why is He so hard towards His mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John the younger answered them: "He sees salvation only in God the
+Father.  He has converted many people to His view, but just those whom
+He loves best will not listen to the tidings of the Kingdom of Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus lifted up His voice and cried: "He who desires to be My disciple,
+and his parents and brothers and sisters do not believe in Me, he must
+forsake his parents and brothers and sisters in order to follow Me.  He
+who has wife and child, and they despise My tidings, he must forsake
+wife and child and follow <I>Me</I> if he wishes to be My disciple.  Who
+does not love God more than mother and child, than brother and sister,
+yea, more than himself and his life, he is not worthy of God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Many were troubled by this speech, and murmured: "He asks too much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then said John: "Whoever is in earnest about his faith in the Heavenly
+Father cannot speak otherwise.  He feels Himself how hard it is to
+destroy all ties.  Do you not observe how He struggles with Himself,
+and must subdue His own heart, so that it may lose its power over Him?
+He asks all from His disciples because He gives them all.  We already
+know that what He has to give us is worth more than all we have given
+up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His relations went away.  They talked violently against Jesus.  His
+mother could not endure that, so she remained behind and climbed the
+stony path by herself.  In her sorely tried heart she prayed: "My
+Father which art in Heaven, Thy will be done!"  And she had no idea
+that it was her son's prayer, in which she found the same faith and
+comfort as He did.  She knew not that thus she, too, became a disciple
+of Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Elsewhere Jesus's fame had become so great that all men came to Him.
+The poor crowded to Him in order to eat at His table where the word had
+become flesh.  The rich invited Him to their houses, but He mostly
+declined those invitations, accepting, however, one here and there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He Himself went to those who humbly remained in the background and yet
+desired to go to Him.  A man lived in the district whose greatest
+desire was to see the Prophet.  When he heard that Jesus was coming his
+way, he began to tremble and to think what he should do.  "I should
+like to meet Him face to face, and yet dare not venture to go to Him.
+For I have a bad reputation as a publican, and am not in any way
+worthy.  Then He is always accompanied by so many people, and I am
+short and cannot see over their heads."  When Jesus approached, the man
+climbed a bare sycamore-tree and peeped between the branches.  Jesus
+saw him, and called out; "Zacchaeus, come down from the tree!  I will
+come and visit you to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The publican jumped down from the tree and went over to Him, and said
+humbly: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should go to my house.  Only
+say one word to me, and I shall be content."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The people wondered that the Prophet should so honour this person of
+somewhat doubtful character.  Zacchaeus was almost beside himself to
+think that the Master should have recognised and spoken to him.  He set
+before his guest everything that his house afforded.  Jesus said:
+"These things are good.  But I want the most precious thing you
+possess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is that, sir?" asked Zacchaeus in terror, for he thought he had
+given of his best.  "Everything I possess is yours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus grasped his hand, looked at him lovingly, and said:
+"Zacchaeus, give me your heart!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man became His follower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day He was dining with a man who was very learned and a strict
+censor of morals.  Several of His disciples were among the guests, and
+the talk, partly intellectual and partly guided by feeling, turned on
+the Scriptures.  At first Jesus took no part; He was thinking how much
+pleasanter it would be to hear simple talk at His mother's fireside at
+home than to dispute with these arrogant scholars about the empty
+letter.  But He was soon drawn into the conversation.  Someone
+mentioned the commandment which enjoins a man to love his neighbour,
+and, as often happens, the simplest things became confused and
+incomprehensible in the varied opinions of the worldly-wise.  One of
+the guests said: "It is remarkable how we do not reflect on the most
+important things because they are so clear; and yet if we do reflect on
+them by any chance, we don't understand them.  So that I really do not
+know who it is I should love as myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your neighbour!" the disciple Matthew, who was sitting by him at
+table, informed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is all right, my friend, if only I knew who was my neighbour!  I
+run up against all sorts of people in the day, and if one of them trips
+me up, he is my neighbour for the time being.  At this moment I have
+two neighbours, you and Zachariah.  Which of the two am I to love as
+myself?  It is only stated that you shall love one.  And if it's you or
+Zachariah, why should I love either of you more than the Master who
+sits at the other end of the table and is not my neighbour!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Man! that is an impertinent speech," said the disciple Bartholomew
+reprovingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well then, put me right!" retorted the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciple began, and tried to explain who the neighbour was, but he
+did not get very far, his thoughts were confused.  Meanwhile the
+question had reached the Master.  Who is, in the correct sense of the
+term, one's neighbour?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus answered, by telling a story: "There was once a man who went from
+Jerusalem to Jericho.  It was a lonely road, and he was attacked by
+highwaymen, who plundered him, beat him, and left him for dead.  After
+a while a high priest came by that way, saw him lying there, and
+noticing that he was a stranger, passed quickly on.  A little later an
+assistant priest came by, saw him lying there, and thought: He's either
+severely wounded or dead, but I'm not going to put myself out for a
+stranger; and he passed on.  At last there came one of the despised
+Samaritans.  He saw the helpless creature, stopped, and had pity on
+him.  He revived him with wine, put healing salve on his wounds, lifted
+him up, and carried him to the nearest inn.  He gave the host money to
+take care of the sufferer until he recovered.  Now, what do you say?
+The priests regarded him as a stranger, but the Samaritan saw in him
+his neighbour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they explained it to themselves: Your neighbour is one whom you
+can help and who is waiting for your help.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciple Thomas now joined in the conversation, and doubted if you
+could expect a great prince to dismount from his horse and lift a poor
+beggar out of the gutter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus asked: "If you rode by as a great prince and found Me lying
+wretchedly in the gutter, would you leave me lying there?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master!" shouted Thomas in horror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you see, Thomas?  What you would do to the poorest, you would do to
+Me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the others asked: "Are we only to be kind to the poor, and not
+to the rich and noble?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus said: "If you are a beggar in the street, and a prince comes
+riding past, there's nothing you can do for him.  But if his horse
+stumbles and he falls, then catch him so that his head may not strike
+against a stone.  At that moment he becomes your neighbour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then some whispered: "It often seems as if He desired us to love all
+men.  But that is too difficult."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's very easy, brother," said Bartholomew.  "To love the millions of
+men whom you never see, who do not do you any harm, that costs nothing.
+Hypocrites love in that way.  Yet while they claim to love the whole
+human race, they are hard on their neighbour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is easy to love from afar," said Jesus, "and it is easy to love
+good-tempered and amiable men.  But how is it when your brother has
+wronged you, and is always trying to do you harm?  You must forgive
+him, not seven times, but seventy times seven.  Go to him in kindness,
+show him his error.  If he listens to you, then you have won him.  If
+he does not heed you, repeat your warning.  If still he heeds you not,
+seek a friendly intermediary.  If he will not heed him, then let the
+community decide.  And only when you see your brother saved and
+contented will you be glad again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While they were talking thus, a young woman pushed her way into the
+room.  She was one of those who followed Him everywhere, and waited
+impatiently at the door while the Master visited a house.  Bending low,
+almost unnoticed, she hurried through the crowd, stooped down before
+Jesus, and began to rub His feet with ointment from a casket.  He
+calmly permitted it; but His host thought to himself: No, He is no
+prophet, or He would know who it is that is anointing His feet.  Isn't
+she the sinner of Magdala?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus guessed his thoughts, and said: "My friend, I will tell you
+something.  Here is a man who has two debtors.  One owes him fifty
+pence, and the other five hundred.  But as they cannot pay he cancels
+both the debts.  Now say, which of them owes him most gratitude?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Naturally him to whom the most was remitted," answered the host.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus: "You are right.  Much has been remitted to this woman.  See,
+you invited Me to your house, your servants have filled the room with
+the scent of roses, although fresh air comes in through the window.  My
+ear has been charmed with the strains of sweet bells, and stringed
+instruments, although the clear song of birds can be heard from
+without.  You have given Me wine in costly crystal goblets, although I
+am accustomed to drink out of earthen vessels.  But that My feet might
+feel sore after the long wandering across the desert only this woman
+remembered.  She has much love, therefore much will be forgiven her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day when the Master had gone down to Capernaum he noticed that the
+disciples who were walking in front of Him were engaged in quiet but
+animated talk.  They were discussing which of them was most pleasing to
+God.  Each subtly brought forward his meritorious services to the
+Master, his sacrifices, his renunciations and sufferings, his obedience
+to the teaching.  Jesus quickly stepped nearer to them, and said: "Why
+do you indulge in such foolish talk?  While you are boasting of your
+virtues, you prove that you lack the greatest.  Are you the righteous
+that you dare to talk so loudly?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon one of them answered timidly: "No, sir, we are not the
+righteous.  But you yourself said that there was more rejoicing in
+heaven over penitents than over righteous men."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is rejoicing over penitents when they are humble.  But do you
+know over whom there is greater rejoicing in heaven?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time a crowd had formed round Him.  Women had come up leading
+little children by the hand and carrying smaller ones in their arms in
+order to show them the marvellous man.  Some of the boys got through
+between the people's legs to the front in order to see Him and kiss the
+hem of His garment.  The people tried to keep them back so that they
+should not trouble the Master, but He stood under the fig-tree and
+exclaimed in a loud voice.  "Suffer the little ones to come unto Me!"
+Then round-faced, curly-headed, bright-eyed children ran forward, their
+skirts flying, and crowded about Him, some merry, others shy and
+embarrassed.  He sat down on the grass, drew the children to His side,
+and took the smallest in His lap.  They looked up in His kind face with
+wide-opened eyes.  He played with them, and they smiled tenderly or
+laughed merrily.  And they played with His curls, and flung their arms
+round His neck.  They were so trustful and happy, these little
+creatures hovering so brightly round the Prophet, that the crowd stood
+in silent joy.  But Jesus was so filled with blessed gladness that He
+exclaimed loudly: "This is the Kingdom of Heaven!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The words swept over the crowd like the scent of the hawthorn.  But
+some were afraid when the Master added: "See how innocent and glad they
+are.  I tell you that he who is not like a little child he shall not
+enter the Kingdom of Heaven!  And woe to him who deceives one of these
+children! it were better he tied a millstone round his neck and were
+drowned in the sea!  But whosoever accepts a child for My sake accepts
+Me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the disciples thought they understood over whom there was joy in
+heaven, and they disputed no longer over their own merits.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Galilee was rich in poor men and poor in rich men.  And it might have
+been thought that Jesus, the friend of the poor, was the right man in
+the right place there.  And yet His teaching took no hold in that land.
+A few rich men among a multitude of poor have all the more power
+because they are few, and they used all their influence with the people
+to dethrone the Prophet from His height, and to undermine His career.
+These illustrious men found their best tools in the Rabbis, who
+circulated the sophism that the people who followed the teaching of
+this man must quickly come to ruin.  For the poor, who willingly gave
+up their last possessions, must become poorer, and the rich, who
+pursued their advantages, must become still richer, which implied that
+not the rich but only the poor would accept the Prophet's teaching,
+since we know that Jesus especially called on the rich to alter the
+tenor of their ways, and always for the benefit of the poor.  But, they
+answered: The rich will not alter the tenor of their ways, they will
+consume the gentle disciples of Jesus, as the wolf the sheep.  Many
+were impressed by that view, and lost courage: The Prophet means well,
+they reflected, but nothing is to be gained by adopting His methods.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then it became known that Jesus had allowed Himself to be anointed.  To
+allow Himself to be anointed meant that He regarded Himself as the
+Heaven-sent Messiah!  And that was hostile to the existing order of
+things, to the king.  So said the preachers in the synagogues, the
+houses, and the streets, but they were silent over the fact that the
+anointing was the work of a poor woman who desired to heal His sore
+feet.  In fact, the preachers cared nothing for the people or the king
+but only for the letter of the law.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the woman who had anointed His feet saw that He was despised
+because of her, she went silently apart by herself.  No human being
+cared so much for Him, and none left Him so calmly.  She did not go
+back to the old man she had married out of pity, and forgotten&mdash;out of
+love, but she went to relations at Bethany.  Since the Prophet had
+raised her up before all the people, her relatives no longer closed
+their doors to her, but received her kindly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was aware how His native ground tottered under His feet, how the
+people began to shun Him more and more, how the inns made difficulties
+about receiving Him.  So He went, with those who were true to Him, out
+into the rocky desert of Judaea.  He gained new adherents on the way,
+and people came from the surrounding places with pack and staff to hear
+the wonderful preacher.  Some had had enough of the barren wisdom of
+the Pharisees, others were disgusted with the bad administration of the
+country, and with the fine promises of the Romans, they were ruined by
+the agricultural depression, or in despair over the low level of men's
+minds, over the barbarism of men.  There were some, too, who had fled
+before the robber bands of Barabbas which infested the desert to their
+undoing.  They came into His presence, hungering for the living word on
+which to feed their starving souls.  John said to them: "His teaching
+is nourishment.  His word is flesh.  Who eats of His flesh and drinks
+of His blood will not die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They wondered at those words.  How were they to understand what was
+meant by eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then John; "The word is like flesh, it nourishes the soul.  Manna was
+sent from Heaven for our ancestors, yet they died.  His word is bread
+from heaven which makes us immortal."  They remembered another saying:
+"His flesh is food indeed!"  And they explained that a man's body is
+destined to be consumed by the spirit, like tallow and wick by flame.
+So man, in order to become divine, must attain the divine life through
+the medium of humanity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They remained with Him day and night in their thousands, and were
+satisfied.  And many entreated Him to pour water over their heads as a
+token that they were His adherents and desired to be pure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a starry night in the desert, one of those nights when the stars
+shine down in sparkling brilliance and envelop the rocks in a bluish
+shimmer and vapour, so that it seems like a resurrection of glorified
+souls.  One of the disciples looked up at the stars shining in the sky
+in holy stillness, and said: "Brother, this infinitude of space makes
+me afraid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other disciple: "I rejoice over that infinite space."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My terror causes me to flee to my Heavenly Father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I take my joy to my Heavenly Father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were all lying on the ground in a wide circle round Jesus.  They
+wished to rest, but the night was too beautiful for sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And one of them began to say softly: "This is like the Kingdom of God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another lifted his head, which had been resting on his arm, and said:
+"Do you know, then, what the Kingdom of God is like?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first speaker was silent for a space, and then replied: "No,
+indeed, I don't know, but I like to think about it.  He speaks so often
+of the Kingdom of Heaven, I should like to know something more definite
+about it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shall we ask Him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You ask Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I dare not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us ask John.  He knows Him best, and possibly can tell us
+something."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John was lying on the sand with his head on a stone.  His soft hair was
+his pillow.  But he was not asleep.  They crept up to him, and boldly
+asked him where the Kingdom of Heaven was, of which the Master so often
+spoke.  Was it under the earth or above the sun?  Would it begin soon
+or in a thousand years?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John said; "How long have you been with Him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Seven weeks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you don't know yet where the Kingdom of Heaven is?  Then you do
+not understand His language."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He speaks the language of our fathers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He speaks the language of the Kingdom of God.  Remember, the Kingdom
+of Heaven is where God is.  God is where Love is, where trustful,
+self-sacrificing, glad Love is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And where is that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where do you think?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think Love must be in the heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon John answered: "Then you do know where the Kingdom of Heaven
+is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two looked at each other, but did not quite seem to know.  Then
+John went to Jesus, who was sitting on a rock and looking out into the
+darkness as if it was full of visions.  His countenance was as bright
+as if the stars had lent it their brilliance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master," said John, "we cannot sleep.  Tell us of the Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus turned round, and pointing to the disciple nearest him, said: "To
+you is it granted to know the Kingdom of Heaven.  To the others it can
+only be explained through parables.  For the Kingdom of God is not
+built of wood or stone like a temple, it cannot be conquered like an
+earthly empire, it cannot be seen by mortal eyes like a garden of
+flowers, neither can we say it is here or there.  The Kingdom of God
+must be conquered with the power of the will, and he who is strong and
+constant will gain it.  His eye and his hand must be continually set to
+the plough which makes furrows in the kingdom of earth for the great
+harvest.  He who sets his hand to the plough, and looks at something
+else, he is not dedicated to the Kingdom of God.  But to him who
+earnestly seeks it, it comes overnight.  The seed thrown on the field
+yesterday has sprung up&mdash;man knows not how.  The seed is the Word of
+God which was scattered on all sides.  Part falls on the wayside, and
+the birds devour it.  Part falls among thorns, and is choked.  A part
+falls on a thin covering of earth, it comes up but is parched by the
+hot sun.  Only a very small quantity falls on rich earth and bears much
+fruit.  So it is with the tidings of God.  Evil inclinations devour it,
+earthly cares choke it, burning passions parch it, but the heart that
+desires God receives it, and with him the word becomes the Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More and more heads were lifted up.  "He is speaking."  Then all
+bestirred themselves and listened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus raised His voice and went on; "Some of you who listen to Me have
+the Kingdom of Heaven within you.  But be careful!  The enemy comes in
+the night and sows weeds.  Hear more.  The word is like a grain of
+mustard-seed.  It is the smallest of all seeds, and yet it becomes the
+biggest tree.  Perhaps without your knowledge a word has fallen into
+your heart.  You are scarcely aware of it, you pass it by, but it grows
+secretly, and all at once enlightenment is there, and you have the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  Then, again, it is like yeast, and stirs up and
+changes your whole being.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure
+hidden in a field.  A man finds it and buys the field.  And it is like
+a pearl for which a merchant gives all his wealth.  But it is also like
+a lamp which a man must feed with oil lest it be extinguished.  If it
+goes out, you will have no light, and suddenly comes the attack.  And
+hear this also: the Lord of the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who at
+urgent request remits all his slave's debts.  But the slave does not
+remit his debtor's debt, but lets him be cast into prison.  So the king
+summons him before his judgment-seat and says: I have shown you mercy,
+and you have shown your fellow no mercy.  So now I shall have you put
+upon the rack until you have paid me your debts to the last farthing.
+Who does not show mercy to others, to him shall no mercy be shown."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was silent, and a shudder of terror passed through the crowd.
+John went to the man who had just questioned Him, and said: "Do you
+understand now what He means by the Kingdom of God?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is enough for the present.  It is mercy, blessedness, and
+justice.&#8230;  Consider, it was night He chose in order to unveil the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  For it is not visible to the outward eye, but to
+the inward eye.  Man, if you possess the Kingdom of Heaven, you possess
+it in your soul.  If it is not there, you seek it elsewhere in vain."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," someone ventured to say hesitatingly, "it must also be somewhere
+else.  The Master Himself says: 'Father who art in heaven.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John answered him: "The Kingdom of Heaven is wherever you are, wherever
+you come with your faith and with your love.  Only do not think that
+you are obliged to understand such mysteries with your reason."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the man asked no more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then an old man tottered up and ventured to ask Jesus what he should
+do.  He was a worldly man, had never lived save for earth, and he was
+told it was now too late to change.  "How shall I reach the Kingdom of
+Heaven?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus spoke as follows:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was once a man who employed labourers for his vineyard.  He
+engaged one in the morning, another at noon, and the last towards
+evening when the day's work was almost over.  And when the pay-hour
+came round, he gave each good wages.  Then those who had been hired in
+the morning and at noon complained that they had worked much longer in
+the toil and heat of the day, and ought therefore to receive more wages
+than he who only began towards evening, and had scarcely laboured for
+an hour.  Then said the master of the vineyard; 'I told you beforehand
+the wages I should give you, and you were content.  What is it to you
+how much I give the other?  Let him come to me late, or let him come to
+me as soon as it is morning.  The chief thing is that he comes to me.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the old man began to weep for joy that although he came so late to
+the vineyard of Jesus, he would still be employed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since the Master was so ready to speak, others came to Him at this
+time, and entreated Him to clear up some matters which they did not
+understand.  Once he related a story of a king who, when the guests he
+had invited to his wedding-feast refused to come, invited the people
+out of the highways.  They came, but one had not a wedding garment on,
+and the king ordered him to be cast into the outer darkness.  The
+Master intended it as a parable, but they could not understand it.  The
+king was too severe, they argued; he must have known that people from
+off the highways would not be wearing wedding garments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was silent, but James observed: "Why, guests must know that it is
+not seemly to go to a king's wedding in torn and dirty clothes.  All
+are freely invited, but he who comes unwashed and presumptuous will be
+cast out into the darkness.  No one is admitted who is unprepared."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another of His parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven disturbed
+them.  It was that of the unjust steward whom his master praised
+because he had prudently used the money entrusted to him in order to
+provide for himself.  The steward knew that he would be dismissed, and
+secretly remitted to his master's debtors a part of their debts, so
+that he might stand well with them.  And he did right!  "But, can we
+purchase the Kingdom of Heaven with goods that are not ours?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A mule-driver interposed: "I understand the story thus: None of us has
+any property on earth.  We are all only the stewards of the property
+and when we give of it to the needy, we are unjust stewards because we
+give what is not ours, and yet we do right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some shook their heads over this interpretation; the rich and those
+learned in the Scriptures could not understand it.  But Jesus said in
+prayer: "I praise, O Father, that Thou revealest many things to the
+simple that are hidden from the worldly wise.  Blessed are those who
+are not offended by My teaching!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the disciples always discussed together anything that was not quite
+clear.  Thomas did not exactly understand what the Master meant by the
+word truth, by saying that He was the truth, that we must pray to God
+in truth, and that he who is of truth would understand God's word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What did John, the youngest of them, say?  "The children of the world
+call it truth if they break a stone with a hammer and find that it is
+chalk; they call it truth to know the difference between the fishes in
+the sea and the worms on the earth, and to be able to measure the
+dimensions of the sky with figures; they call it truth when it is
+established that a seed of corn germinates, and a man's body turns into
+dust after death.  Truly, every one can see those things with his own
+eyes.  But is man's eye the truth?  And did He say: 'You shall <I>know</I>
+the truth'?  No; He said: 'You shall <I>be</I> the truth.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To <I>be</I> the truth!  To be void of guile and falsehood!  To be true and
+open in mind and heart!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they sought to increase their knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven;
+hourly and daily did many a one rejoice because he had found what the
+wise men of the ages had sought after.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The poor, the despised, and the unhappy came to Him more and more.
+That strange desert camp was often filled with the sick, the
+over-burdened, and the despairing.  Many came from afar full of great
+troubles, yet borne up by hope, and then when they saw Him, tall and
+earnest, standing there and teaching men in deep sayings, their courage
+deserted them; they could not trust Him.  They were full of fear.  Then
+He spread out His hands and exclaimed:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come, come unto Me, all that are over-burdened and oppressed; I will
+relieve you.  I am not come to judge and to punish.  I am come to find
+what is lost, to heal what is sick, and to revive what is dead.  I am
+come to the sad to console them, to the fallen to raise them up.  I
+give Myself for the redemption of many.  My power is not of this world.
+I am Master in the Kingdom of God, where all are blessed in trustful,
+joyful love.  Come to Me, all ye who have erred and gone astray.  I
+have joy and eternal life for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples looked at each other in astonishment: He had never before
+spoken with such divine gentleness.  The people, sobbing, crowded round
+Him; His words were as balm to their wounds.  They wondered how it was
+possible for a man to speak so proudly, lovingly and divinely.  They
+gave themselves up to Him, filled with trust and enthusiasm; in His
+presence the hungry were fed, the blind made to see, the lame walked,
+doubters believed, the weak became strong, and dead souls lived.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon always rejoiced greatly whenever new wanderers came by and,
+withdrawing from their companions, took a vow to follow the Master's
+teaching.  He was exceedingly angry when they refused, alleging that it
+was not possible to accomplish what He demanded of them.  Jesus related
+a story in connection with Simon's emotions.  "A man had two sons, and
+told each of them to go and work in his field.  One said, 'Yes, father,
+I will go at once.'  But afterwards he reflected that the work was
+hard, and he did not go.  The other son told his father to his face
+that he would not go into the field; it was too much labour.  When he
+was alone he thought, 'I will do my father's will,'  and he went into
+the field and worked.  Which of the two, in your opinion, did right?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man learned in the Law replied: "He who promised to go.  For it
+stands written; 'He who declares himself ready to obey the Law.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Jesus was vexed at that reply, and said in sorrow: "It is
+extraordinary how falsely you interpret the Law.  Sinners who sincerely
+repent will find their way to the Kingdom of Heaven before such
+expounders of the Law."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From that time forward Simon rejoiced no more over empty promises, nor
+did he vex himself over the refusals of those who would perhaps come
+later to take up the heavy work.  Patiently as once he had waited at
+the lake for the fish to come to his nets, he now waited until they
+came.  And he understood a mystic saying of his Master: "All are
+called; many come, few remain."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap21"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+At that time there lived in Jerusalem, the royal city, a man who was
+perfectly happy.  He had everything that makes life pleasant: great
+wealth, powerful friends, and beautiful women who daily crowned his
+head with wreaths of roses.  He was still young, every one of his
+wishes was fulfilled, and it seemed as if things would always be the
+same.  And yet, sometimes, amid all the joy and gladness there would be
+a quiet hour in which he thought over and measured his good fortune,
+and then he felt afraid.  Yes, he was greatly troubled, for every day
+he saw, on all hands, how property vanished, and how the coffins of
+those who the day before had been enjoying life were carried to the
+grave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then this man, who, although he was happy, was yet beset with fears,
+heard that there was a prophet out in the wilderness who had eternal
+life.  He knew of everlasting wealth and happiness, and half the world
+were flocking to him in order to share in it.  So Simeon&mdash;that was his
+name&mdash;determined to seek out this man.  He locked up his precious
+stones in iron chests, delivered his palaces, vineyards, ships and
+servants into the keeping of his steward, gave his women to the
+protection of the gods, and gathered his slaves round him.  He rode out
+of the town on a thoroughbred steed, he wore soft, bright-coloured
+garments adorned with gold and jewels, his scimitar at his side, and
+waving feathers of rare birds in his hat.  A troop of servants
+accompanied him, and by his side rode Moors on African camels, holding
+a canopy over him to protect him from the sun, and fanning him into
+coolness with flowery fans.  They brought with them fruits of the East
+and the South in golden dishes, tasty fishes and game, rare wines and
+incense, and pillows for sleeping on.  During its progress the
+procession met black figures carrying a dead man.  The body lay swathed
+in white linen on a high board, and a raven circled round it in the
+air.  Simeon turned indignantly away; he had a horror of all that was
+dead.  He scattered coins among the mourners, for he would have liked
+to throw a gay covering adorned with precious stones over all sorrow
+and mourning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he reached the mountains his horse began to stumble and falter.
+The steed's hoofs were insecure on the ringing flat stones; he reared
+his head and snorted, and would not go on.  Simeon took counsel how he
+was to proceed.  Natives leading mules came by, and offered them to
+him, but he refused.  He could not go to the Prophet who held the key
+to imperishable wealth and eternal life on such contemptible beasts.
+His slaves had to make a litter, and he lay under its glittering canopy
+on soft cushions, while six Moors bore their master thus into the
+desert.  When they rested at an oasis, it was like a royal camp;
+servants handed him water from the spring in a crystal goblet, skilful
+cooks prepared the meal; beautiful women, whose skin was soft as velvet
+and brown as copper, spread out their black hair for him and delighted
+him with harp-playing, while armed men kept watch against the desert
+chief, Barabbas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The country became more and more uninviting, and it was almost
+impossible to avoid many discomforts.  Simeon remembered the comfort of
+his palace in Jerusalem, and contemplated turning back.  And yet the
+thought of the wise man who could help him to immortality proved too
+attractive.  People came over the bare hills who told of the teacher at
+the other extreme of the desert, how He gathered at times all kinds of
+people round Him and spoke of the everlasting Kingdom of God.  And so
+the swaying litter went on farther, and the next day reached the valley
+through dry rocky ravines, and found there a few olive and fig trees.
+People crowded round one of the fig trees; they were for the most part
+poor, sad-looking creatures, miserable outcasts wandering, homeless and
+loveless, here and there.  Clothed in scanty rags, their forms bent,
+they turned their faces towards the tree, for there He stood and spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Be ye not sad nor cast down.  You miss nothing of the world's
+attractions.  Yours is the Father and His Kingdom.  Trust in Him; you
+are His.  You shall be made glad through love; things will be easier
+for you if you love than if you hate.  And in every misfortune that
+comes upon you, keep a steadfast soul, and then you have nothing to
+lose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simeon clearly heard the strange words, and thought to himself: "Can
+this be He?  No, a wise man does not surround himself with such a
+shabby, poverty-stricken crowd.  And yet they say it is He."  Simeon
+got out of his litter and drew his scimitar.  Then he pressed forward
+amid the disagreeable smell of old clothes and of the perspiring crowd.
+Oh, how repulsive is the odour of the poor!  The multitude shyly gave
+way to the brilliant figure, for never had its like been seen in the
+Master's neighbourhood.  Jesus stood calmly under the fig tree and saw
+the stranger coming.  He stood still three paces off Him, beat his
+head, placed his hand on his brow, like a king who greets another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sir," said the stranger, and his voice was not sharp and shrill as
+when he gave his servants orders, but low and hoarse.  "Sir, I have
+come a long way; I have sought you a long while."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus held out His hand to him in silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simeon was excited.  He wanted to explain his object at once so as to
+return to Jerusalem without delay, but the words would not come.  He
+stammered out; "Sir, I hear that you understand about eternal life.
+Therefore am I come to you.  Tell me where it is to be found.  What
+shall I do in order to possess eternal life?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus stepped forward a pace, looked earnestly at the man, and said:
+"If you desire to live, keep the commandments of Moses."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of Moses?" returned the stranger, surprised.  "But I do.  Although I
+am of pagan descent, in these matters I follow the people among whom I
+live.  But that is not the point.  They die.  I want to live for ever."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then said Jesus: "If you desire to live for ever, follow Him Who lives
+for ever.  Love God above everything, and your neighbour as yourself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Master," said Simeon, "that is just what I strive to do.  And yet
+I am afraid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon Jesus said: "You are afraid because you ought to do it, and
+desire to do it, and yet do it not.  You possess palaces in the town,
+fertile acres in the country, ships on the sea, laden with precious
+things from all quarters of the world.  You possess a thousand slaves.
+Your stewards would fill many volumes if they wrote down all that you
+possess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sir, how do you know everything?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friend, your brilliant train spells wealth; but look at the people
+who follow Me.  They have poor garments but glad souls, they have the
+Kingdom of God within them.  If you are in earnest, you must give up
+all you possess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Give up all I possess?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must give it up and become like these.  Then come to Me, and I
+will lead you to everlasting life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus had said that and more, the stranger cast down his head, and
+slowly stepped back.  What?  I must become like these lowly, beggarly
+people? must deliberately step out of my accustomed circle into this
+boundless misery?  No, no man could do it.  He returned to his suite in
+very low spirits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus looked after him thoughtfully with a kindly glance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is he?" the disciples asked.  "He wears royal garments.  We have
+never seen such silks.  Is he a priest from the East?  If he came in
+order to make us gifts, he has forgotten his intention."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Paying no heed to the jesting words, the Master said thoughtfully: "It
+is difficult to gain a rich man for blessedness.  Men's wills are too
+weak.  Their bodies are lapped in luxury, yet scorn of the soul leaves
+them a prey to fear.  Yes, My friends, it is easier for a camel to go
+through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter our heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The word was spoken more in sorrow than in anger.  And then someone
+ventured to say: "Yes, if the commandments are too hard, there must be
+sin.  Men are bound to transgress them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus looked at the trembler: "Why, then, am I come?  Why, then, do I
+show you how light the burden is?  Do you not see for yourselves how
+free a man is when he has thrown off great cares and desires?  Nay, you
+will never see that till the grace of God is given you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They scarcely heard what He said.  The brilliant procession had
+attracted their attention, and as it moved off with its horses, camels,
+riders, Moors, and lovely women, they looked after it with longing
+eyes.  A little old hunchbacked Israelite, who was cowering behind a
+block of stone, murmured with some malice: "Seems to me they'd rather
+go with the heathen than wait here for the grace of the Heavenly
+Father."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simeon once more lay in the swaying litter and thought.  He tried to
+reconcile his unaccomplished purpose with his conscience.  This
+Prophet&mdash;he was a visionary.  What could the Kingdom of God within us
+mean?  Visionary! intended only to make people lazy and incapable.  A
+doctrine for vagabonds and beggars!  And so that was living for ever!
+So long as <I>he</I> lived he should believe himself to be right, and when
+he was dead, he could not know that he had been wrong.  And then the
+social danger.  The possessor not the owner of his own property?  He
+must give it up, share it with the poor.  Such equality of property or
+lack of property would prevent all progress, and plunge everything into
+mediocrity.  No, that is not my salvation!  Ah, well, this journey into
+the desert will be an advantage to me in one way: it will make me feel
+happier than ever in my comfortable house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took the opportunity of a last look at the place on which he now
+turned his back.  Several, attracted by the brilliant cavalcade, had
+followed from afar.  Three of the disciples had even come after him in
+order to set right a misunderstanding.  They came up with the stranger
+at a spring which gushed forth from a rock, and grass grew round it.
+The Moors wished to prevent them coming nearer, but Simeon recognised
+that they were not dangerous, and let them approach him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+James, one of the disciples, said: "Great Lord, it is a pity.  You are
+one of the few who have left our Master without accomplishing their
+purpose.  It would not be quite so hard as you think.  He Himself says
+that if a man only has a good will he is never lost.  The will to live
+for ever is the thing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed Simeon.  "His demands are quite
+impossible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Must everything be taken so literally?" said James.  "The Master
+always puts the ideal high, and expresses it in lofty words, so that it
+may the better stay in the memory."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simeon waved them aside with his gold-encircled hand.  "To give up all
+I possess!  To become horribly poor&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then another disciple stepped forward, stood before him in a
+sad-coloured garment, crying: "Look at us.  Have we given up
+everything?  We never had much more than we have now, and what we had
+we have still.  Our brother Thomas has only one coat because he is
+full-blooded; I have two coats because I easily feel cold.  If I had
+poor legs the Master would allow me an ass like Thaddeus.  Every one
+has what he needs.  You need more than we do because you are accustomed
+to more.  But you cannot use all that you have for yourself.  And yet
+you need it for the many hundreds of men you employ, who work for the
+good of the country, and live by you.  I say that your property belongs
+to you by right just as my second coat to me, and that you can quite
+well be His disciple."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You chatter too much, Philip," said James reprovingly.  "If a man
+makes a pilgrimage of repentance towards eternal life, he doesn't
+travel like the Emperor of the Indies, or if he does, he doesn't know
+what he wants.  Believe me, noble sir, wealth is always dangerous, even
+for life.  The best protection against envy, hate, and sudden attacks
+is poverty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a third disciple, Matthew, with them, and he addressed
+himself not to the stranger, but to his comrades, and said: "Brothers,
+it must be clearly understood that he who desires the Kingdom of Heaven
+must give up everything that causes him unrest; otherwise he cannot be
+entirely with the Father.  But you," turning to the great man from
+Jerusalem, "you do not wish to break with the world?  Well, then, do
+one thing, love your neighbour.  Keep your silken raiment, but clothe
+the naked.  Keep your riding-horse, but give crutches to the lame.
+Keep your high position, but free your slaves.  Only if you think what
+is brought you from the fields, the mines, the workshops is yours, then
+woe be to you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would willingly do one thing," said Simeon.  "Good! then say to your
+slaves, 'You are free.  If you will continue to serve me, I will treat
+you well.  If you prefer to go your own way, take what you require of
+good clothing and mules.'  Will you do that, stranger?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You fanatic!" shouted Simeon angrily.  "What notions you have about
+men.  They're not like that.  Life's very different from that!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But life will be like that some day," said Matthew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is a Messiah who destroys the Kingdom instead of building it,"
+exclaimed Simeon, jumping into his litter and giving the sign to depart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The procession moved on slowly, its glitter showing up against the dark
+rocks of the desert track.  The disciples gazed after it in silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little old man lay on the yellow sand.  He was so grey and dwarfish
+that he looked like a mountain sprite.  The old fellow was at home in
+the bare, big rocks.  He loved the desert, for it is the home of great
+thoughts.  He loved the desert where he hoped to find the entrance to
+Nirvana.  Now when the disciples passed near him as they were returning
+to the Master, he pushed the upper part of his body out of the sand,
+and asked: "What did the man want to whom you were speaking?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He wanted to be able to live for ever."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To live for ever!" exclaimed the old fellow in surprise.  "And that is
+why the man drags himself across the desert.  What extraordinary people
+there are!  Now I could go any distance to find my Nirvana.  I only
+desire eternal life for my enemies.  It is many a day since people said
+I was a hundred years old.  If you are men of wisdom, teach me, tell me
+what I must do to reach Nirvana?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were astonished.  It was something like out of a fairy tale.  A
+living creature who did not wish to live!  But Matthew knew how to
+answer him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friend, your desire is modest, but it can never be fulfilled.  You
+will never be nothing.  If you die, you lose only your body, not
+yourself.  You will, perhaps, not live, but you will be just as the
+same as now: you are not living now, and yet you exist.  Breathing and
+waiting is not living.  Living is fulfilment, is love&mdash;is the Kingdom
+of Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My Kingdom of Heaven is Nirvana," said the little old man, and buried
+himself again in the sand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they went along Matthew said: "He fears everlasting existence
+because he does not recognise a God.  But he is not so far from us as
+the man who loves the world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simeon went on his way, and towards evening reached the oasis of Kaba.
+He ordered his people to encamp there for the night.  The servants,
+porters, and animals formed the outer ring, the tent&mdash;in which he took
+his supper, stretched himself on his cushions, and let himself be
+fanned to sleep by the maidens&mdash;was in the centre.  But he did not
+sleep well.  He had bad dreams: his house in Jerusalem was burnt down,
+his ships were wrecked, faithless stewards broke open his chests.  And
+amid all, always the cry, "Give it all up!"  About midnight he awoke.
+And it was no longer a dream, but terrible reality.  A muffled noise
+could be heard throughout the camp, dark forms with glittering weapons
+moved softly about, in the camp itself crawling figures moved softly
+here and there.  A tall, dark man, accompanied by Bedouins, carrying
+torches and knives, stood in front of Simeon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do not be alarmed, my princely friend!" he said to Simeon, who jumped
+up; but none could tell whether he spoke from arrogance or authority,
+kindly or in scorn.  "It's true we are disturbing your night's repose,
+but, provided you give no trouble, we have no evil designs.  Hand over
+all that you possess."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the first confusion the wretched man thought he heard the Prophet
+speaking, but he soon noted the difference.  The Prophet and His
+disciples gave up everything that they possessed.  This man took
+everything that others possessed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know you, proud citizen of Jerusalem.  I am Barabbas, called the
+king of the desert.  It is useless to resist.  Three hundred men are at
+this moment keeping watch round your camp.  We've settled matters with
+your servants and slaves; they are powerless."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was clear to the poor rich man what the chief meant.  His slaves
+were slain, he was menaced by a like fate.  What had that disciple of
+the Prophet said?  Wealth endangered life, and poverty protected it.
+If he had set his followers free, giving them what they needed, and
+wandered about in simple fashion on his own legs, the robber's knife
+would not now be pointed at his breast.  In unrestrained rage he
+uttered a brutal curse: "Take whatever you can find, and do not mock
+me, you infamous beast of the desert!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Calmly, calmly, my dear sir," said the chief, while dusky men rolled
+up carpets, clothes, arms, jewels, and golden goblets, and threw them
+into big sacks.  "See, we are helping you to pack up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take the rubbish away," shouted Simeon, "and leave me in peace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The chief, Barabbas, grinned.  "I fancy, my friend, that you and I know
+each other too well for me to let you go back to Jerusalem.  You would
+then have too great a desire to have me with you.  You would send out
+the Romans to search for me, and bring me to the beautiful city.  The
+desert is much more to my taste: life is pleasanter there.  Now, tell
+me where the bags of coin such as a man like you always carries about
+with him are hidden.  No?  Then you may go to sleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He who went forth to seek eternal life is now in danger of losing
+mortal life.  In terror of death, cold sweat on his brow, he began to
+haggle for his life with the desert king.  He not only offered all that
+he had with him.  The next caravans were bringing him rare spices and
+incense; bars of gold, diamonds, and pearls were coming in the Indian
+ships, and he would send all out to the desert, as well as beautiful
+women slaves, with jewels to deck their throats.  Only he must be
+allowed to keep his bare life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Grinning and wrinkling up his snub nose, Barabbas let it be understood
+that he was not to be won with women and promises&mdash;he was no longer
+young enough.  Neither would he have any executioner dispatched in
+search of him&mdash;he was not old enough.  And he had his weaknesses.  He
+could not decide which would suit the noble citizen's slender, white
+neck best, metal or silk.  He took a silken string from the pocket of
+his cloak, while two Bedouins roughly held Simeon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, outside the camp, the second chief was packing the stolen
+treasure on the camels by torchlight.  Whenever he stumbled over a dead
+body he muttered a curse, and when his work was finished he sought his
+comrade.  Women in chains wept loudly, not so much on account of their
+imprisonment&mdash;they took that almost as a matter of course&mdash;but because
+their master was being murdered in the tent.  So the second chief
+snatched a torch from a servant, hastened to the tent, and arrived just
+in the nick of time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barabbas!" he exclaimed, taking hold of the murderer, "don't you
+remember what we determined?  We only kill those who fight; we do not
+kill defenceless persons."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barabbas removed his thin arms from his victim and in a tearful voice
+grumbled: "Dismas, you are dreadful.  I'm old now, and am I to have no
+more pleasure?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dismas said meaningly: "If the old man does not keep his agreement, the
+troop will have its pleasure, and, for a change, swing him who likes to
+be called king of the desert."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That had the desired effect.  Barabbas knew the band cared much more
+for Dismas than for himself, and he did not wish matters to come to a
+climax.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When day dawned a mule was led to Simeon.  One of his slaves, with his
+wounded arm in a sling, was allowed him, and he carried some bread and
+his cloak, and led the beast.  And so the citizen of Jerusalem returned
+to the town he had left a week before under such brilliant
+circumstances, a defeated and plundered man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The affair attracted great attention in the city.  Armed incursions
+were eagerly made into the desert between Jerusalem and the Jordan,
+where one evil deed after another was reported.  Even the Rabbis and
+Pharisees preached a campaign to clear the rocks and sandy flats of the
+dangerous and destructive hordes by which they were infested.  The
+famous band of the chiefs, Barabbas and Dismas&mdash;so it was said&mdash;were
+not the worst.  Much more ominous were the vagrant crowds that gathered
+about the so-called Messiah from Nazareth, who, feeling himself safe in
+the desert, indulged in disorderly speeches and acts.  So it was
+settled to send out a large company of soldiers, led by the violent
+Pharisee, Saul, a weaver who had left his calling out of zeal for the
+law, in order to free the land from the mob of robbers and heretics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now about this time Dismas, the old robber-chief, fell into deep
+contrition.  His heart had never really been in his criminal calling.
+Murder was particularly hateful to him, and, so far as he was free to
+do so, he had always sought to avoid it.  Now even plundering and
+robbing became hateful to him.  In the night he had visions of the
+terrible Jehovah.  He thought of John, the desert preacher, and
+considered it high time to repent.  So one day he said to Barabbas:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know, comrade, there is just now a prince at the oasis of Silam
+who has with him immensely more wealth than that citizen of Jerusalem?
+I know his position and his people, and I know how to get at him.
+Shall we take this lord?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you continue to be so useless, Dismas, you'll be flung to the
+vultures."  Such were the terms in which Barabbas thanked his ally.  It
+was decided that the attack should be made.  Dismas led the band
+towards the oasis of Silam.  Barabbas went with his steed decorated
+with gay-coloured feathers, an iron coronet on his head.  For it was a
+prince whom he was to visit!  Dismas encamped his men under a rocky
+precipice.  And when at night time all rested in order to be fit for
+the attack on the princely train early in the morning, Dismas climbed
+the rocks and gave the signal.  The Roman soldiery hidden behind the
+rocks cut down all who opposed them, and took the rest prisoners,
+Dismas and Barabbas among them.  When the latter saw that he had been
+betrayed, he began to rage in his chains like a wild animal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What would you have brother?" said Dismas to Barabbas, who had often
+scorned him so bitterly.  "Am I not a prisoner, too?  Haven't you
+always preached that right lay with the stronger?  So then the Romans
+are right this time.  Once you betrayed me and forced me to join the
+plundering Bedouins, most excellent Barabbas, and now it's my turn.
+I've betrayed you to the arm of Rome.  And we'll probably be impaled!"
+Then, as if that were a real delight, he brought his hand down
+cheerfully on his companion's shoulder so that his chains rattled.
+"Yes, my dearest brother, they will impale us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were brought in gangs to Jerusalem, where they lay in prison for
+many long months awaiting death.  On account of his self-surrender,
+Dismas had been granted his wish for solitary confinement.  He desired,
+undisturbed, to take stock of his wasted life.  A never-ending line of
+dark, bloody figures passed before him.  But there was one patch of
+light amid the gloom.  It had happened many years ago, but he had a
+very clear remembrance of that distant hour.  A young mother with her
+child rode on an ass.  The infant spread out his little arms and looked
+at him.  But never in his life had human creature looked at him like
+that child had looked, with such a glance of ardent love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If only once again, before he died, he could but see a beam of light
+like that.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap22"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+When the people who had gathered round Jesus heard that Saul, the
+terrible weaver, was scouring the desert with a troop of police, they
+began to melt away.  They feared unpleasant consequences.  They fully
+recognised the right, but most of them were disinclined to suffer
+persecution for that right.  They must return to their domestic duties,
+to their families, industries, and commerce, and, so far as was
+possible, live according to the Master's teaching.  They left Him
+because it seemed to them that His cause was falling.  In the end there
+were just a few faithful ones who stayed with Him, and even some of
+them were in hopes that He would reveal the power of the Messiah.  But
+they all urged Him to repair to some other neighbourhood.  Jesus was
+not afraid of having to render an account of Himself to His adversaries
+in Jerusalem, but the time had not yet come, the work was not yet
+finished.  He knew that He could never retrace His steps, for the more
+incontestable His justification was, the more dangerous it would seem
+to them.  With His now dwindled troop of followers He left the desert
+to revisit once again His native Galilee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But here His opponents were no better than before; houses were closed
+as He approached, the people got out of His way when He began to speak.
+Only Mary, with all a mother's simple faith, said; "Ah, you have come
+at last, my son!  Now stay, with me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was, however, no place for Him in the house.  A strange
+apprentice from Jericho was established in the workshop.  He worked at
+the wood with the hatchet and saw that Jesus had once handled; sat by
+the hearth and at the table where Jesus had once sat; slept in the bed
+on which Jesus had once reposed.  But it did not seem that he enjoyed
+the same pleasant dreams for he groaned and tossed about, and when he
+awakened was ill-pleased at having to continue the same work which he
+had ill-humouredly laid aside the evening before.  How often did Mary
+look at him in silence, and think of the difference between him and her
+Jesus.  And she saw how the man carelessly ate his meals, and went to
+his bed each day, while her son was perhaps perishing in a strange
+land, and had no stone whereon to lay His head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now Jesus was once again with her.  "Mother," He said to Mary,
+"don't speak impatiently to Aaron.  He is poor, discontented, and
+sullen; he has found little kindness in men and without exactly knowing
+it, thirsts for kindness.  When you would bring Me water in the morning
+to wash with, take it to him.  When you would prepare dinner for Me,
+prepare it for him.  When you would bless Me in the evening, bless him.
+Love may perhaps do what words cannot.  Everything that you think to do
+for Me in My absence, do for him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you&mdash;you will have nothing more from me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother, I want everything from you.  I am always with you.  You can be
+good to Me in showing kindness to every poor creature.  I must lead men
+by stern measures, be you gentle.  I must burn the ulcers from out the
+dead flesh, you shall heal the wounds.  I must be the salt, be you the
+oil."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How happy she was when He spoke to her like that.  For that was her
+life&mdash;to be kind, to help, wherever she could.  And here was her son
+consecrating such deeds of kindness till they became a covenant between
+her and Him, a bond of memory for mother and child when parted from
+each other.  Now that He had appealed to her love, she did not feel so
+lonely; she felt once more at one with Him, and had a sort of
+presentiment that in future times her bleeding mother's heart would be
+satisfied beyond measure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once again Jesus went through His native land to see if the seed of His
+teaching had sprung up anywhere.  But the earth was barren.  He was not
+so much troubled by the passionate enmity with which many regarded Him,
+or the angry murmurings against Him and His word, as by indolence of
+mind, by obstinate, stupid adherence to commonplace inanities, by
+entire lack of perception, by indifference towards spiritual life.  At
+first the novelty and strangeness of His appearance had compelled
+attention, but that was over.  Whether the Prophet was old or new, it
+was all one to them.  One was just like another, they declared, and
+they remained indifferent.  "The hot and the cold," Jesus exclaimed one
+day, "I can accept, but those who are lukewarm I cast from Me.  Had I
+preached in heathen lands, or in the ruined seaports of Tyre and Sidon,
+they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.  Had I taught in Sodom
+and Gomorrah, those towns would still be standing.  But these places
+here in Galilee are sunk in a quagmire of shame; they scorn their
+Prophet.  When the day of reckoning comes, it will go worse with this
+land than with those towns.  My poor Bethsaida, and thou, fair Magdala!
+And thou, Capernaum the beautiful!  How I loved you, My people, how
+highly did I honour you; I desired to lift you to Heaven.  And now you
+sink in the abyss.  Pray to him, your Mammon, in the days of your need;
+there will be no other consolation for you.  Carouse, laugh, and be
+cruel to-day; to-morrow you will be hungry and you will groan: Ah, we
+have delayed too long!  Believe me a day will come when you fain would
+justify your lives to Me, crying: 'Lord, we would willingly have given
+you food, drink, and lodging, but you did not come to us.'  But I did
+come to you.  I came in the starving, the thirsty, the homeless, only
+you would not recognise Me.  I will not accuse you to the Heavenly
+Father, but Moses, whose commandments you have broken, will accuse you.
+And when you appeal to the Father, He will say: 'I know you not.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples trembled and were terrified in mind and soul when He
+spoke those angry words.  But they were not surprised, for the people
+had sunken very low.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He woke His comrades in one of the next nights and said: "Get up and
+let the others sleep; they will not go with us, our way is too hard.
+Enemies will be on us.  Whoever of you fears, let him lie down again."
+Many did lie down again, and those who went with the Master numbered
+twelve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They wandered over the heights of Cana, over the mountains of Gischala
+till close on midnight, and then again till sundown.  The disciples
+knew not whither they were going; it was enough that they were with
+Him.  On the way they found many of the same mind, and also some who
+invited the Master to their houses for a jest, in order to be able to
+say: I am acquainted with Him.  Men of good position were among those
+who listened to His words with the greatest attention, and then haggled
+with Him to see if the Kingdom of Heaven could not be had at a cheaper
+price than the world.  He always answered: "What use is the world to
+you if you have no soul!  Herein alone is the secret of salvation; a
+man must find his soul and preserve it, and raise it to the Father."
+Or, as He put it differently: "God is to be found in the spirit!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And when the stranger audience asked what "in the spirit" meant, the
+apostles explained: "He means spiritual life.  He would not have man
+live his life merely in the flesh; man's real self.  He teaches, is a
+spiritual reality, and the more a man works spiritually and lives in
+ideas which are not of the earth, the nearer he comes to God, who is
+wholly spirit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said they, "men learned in the law are nearer to God than the
+workers in the field."  To which John replied: "A man learned in the
+law who depends only on the letter is far from the spirit.  The
+labourer who does not draw a profit from the land but thinks and
+imagines how to improve it, is near the spirit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the road between Caedasa and Tyre is a farm.  When its owner heard
+that the Prophet was in the neighbourhood, he sent out people to find
+Him and invite Him to go to the farm where He would be safe from the
+snares of the Pharisees.  But the owner was himself a Pharisee and he
+intended to examine Jesus, perhaps to tempt Him to betray Himself and
+then deliver Him over to the government.  Jesus told the messenger that
+He would gladly accept the hospitality if He might bring his companions
+with Him.  That was not in the Pharisee's plan, first, because of the
+quantity of food and drink so many persons would need; and second,
+because under such protection it would be difficult to lay hands on the
+demagogue.  But in order to get the one, there was nothing for it but
+to include the others.  They were respectfully received and
+entertained.  The host testified to his joy at entertaining under his
+roof the "Saviour of Judaea," and was delighted with the Master's
+principles.  He gave a great banquet in His honour with the choicest
+viands and costliest drinks to which the disciples, who were somewhat
+hungry and thirsty, heartily did justice, while the Master, who never
+spoiled a glad hour, cheerfully did the same.  When tongues were
+loosened, the host wanted straightway to begin with artful allusions
+and questions, but his guest was a match for him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus had observed that, while they were feeding so luxuriously in the
+hall, needy folk were harshly turned away in the courtyard, to slink
+off hungry and embittered.  So He suddenly said that good stories
+suited good wine, and He would tell one.  "That is delightful!"
+exclaimed the host.  And Jesus related the following:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was once a rich man who wore the most costly garments, and
+enjoyed the most luxurious food and drink, and lived in complete
+contentment.  One day there came to his door a sick, half-starved man,
+who begged for a few of the crumbs that fell from the table.  The proud
+man was wrathful that the miserable wretch should dare to disturb his
+pleasure, and let loose his hounds.  But instead of worrying the man,
+the dogs licked his ulcers, and he crawled ashamed into a hole.  On the
+very day on which the wretched creature died, death came also to the
+rich man, casting his well-fed body into the grave and his soul into
+hell.  And there his wretched soul endured most horrible torture,
+gnawing hunger and parching thirst, and the pain was increased when the
+dead man looked into Paradise and saw there the man he had sent away
+despised from his door sitting by Abraham.  He saw how ripe fruits grew
+there, and clear springs gushed forth.  Then he called up, 'Father
+Abraham.  I implore you, tell the man sitting by you to dip his
+finger-tips into the water and cool my tongue, for I suffer unbearable
+torture.'  To which Abraham answered, 'No, my son, that cannot be.  You
+received all that was good on earth and forgot the poor, now he forgets
+you.  There is no longer any connection between him and you.'  Then the
+man in hell whimpered, 'Woe! woe! woe!  Let my five brothers who still
+dwell on earth know that they must be merciful to the poor, so that
+they may not be in my case.  And Abraham said: 'They have the prophets
+on earth who tell them that every day.'  Then the man whined: 'Oh,
+Father Abraham, they do not listen to the prophets.  If only you would
+make one of the dead live again, that he might tell them how the
+unmerciful are punished, then they would believe.  And Abraham: 'If
+they do not believe the living, how should they believe the dead?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the Master's recital, the host several times stretched forth his
+hand to his glass, but each time drew it back again.  He had not a word
+to say, and the desire to lay snares for the Prophet had gone.  He
+stole unnoticed from the hall, went down to his steward, and ordered
+him henceforth never to send a needy man from the door unrefreshed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of his friends who was at the banquet was immensely pleased that
+this betrayer of the people should have so exposed himself.  "You
+understood?  The story was nothing but an attack on the possessors of
+property."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let that be," said the host, and turned away.  Then he went and
+furnished the Prophet and His little band with provisions, gave Him
+directions for His journey, and pointed out how He could best avoid
+pursuers.  He looked after them for a long time.  "They have prophets
+on earth and do not heed them."  He would like to accompany this
+prophet.  His little soul had been caught by Him he had wished to catch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Things did not go so well with our fugitive in other places.  An evil
+slander about the Baptist was spread abroad&mdash;that he was a glutton and
+a wine-bibber!  Jesus heard of it, and said: "John the Baptist fasted.
+They said of him that he was possessed by a demon.  It is neither
+eating nor fasting that they object to in the prophets; it is the truth
+which they speak."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they came to villages and farms where they wished to rest, but
+none would give them shelter.  This angered the Master.  The dust on
+the ground was not worthy to remain sticking to the feet of those who
+came to bring the Kingdom of God.  The heartless would be thrust aside!
+But anger was turned into pitiful love.  When a contrite man approached
+Him He raised him up with both arms, encouraged him, taught him to be
+kind, showed him the joy of life, and how to penetrate the sacred
+recesses of his own being&mdash;self-examination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Self-examination!  That is the everlasting guide Jesus gave to all who
+sought God.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap23"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+At last Jesus and His followers reached the sea.  When it lay before
+them in its immensity, and the white-winged ships flew over the blue
+surface; when they saw in the far distance the line drawn between sky
+and water, and the firmament rising behind so darkly mysterious, their
+courage was renewed, and Simon proposed that they should sail across to
+the cheerful Greeks and the strong Romans.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not to the savage Gauls and the terrible Germans?" exclaimed
+Bartholomew, with some ill-temper at such an adventurous spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ever since I was a boy I longed to see Rome," said Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus replied: "Seek your strength in your native land.  Here in the
+land of the prophets grows the tree among the branches of which will
+dwell the birds of heaven.  Then the winds will come and carry the
+seeds out into the whole world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples who had not hitherto travelled much, found a new world in
+the harbours of Tyre and Sidon, a world of folk and wares from every
+quarter of the earth, strange people and strange customs.  They had
+never before seen men work with such industry in the warehouses, on the
+wharves, on the ships; yet others gave themselves up to continual
+idleness, trotting half-naked along the beach, begging with loud
+pertinacity in the harbour, or shamelessly basking in the sun.  Look!
+the lepers are limping about, complacently exhibiting their sores.  One
+of the disciples looked questioningly at the Master, wondering if He
+would heal them?  Then, perhaps, they would believe in Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know quite well," He said reprovingly, "they would fain be healed
+and then believe, whereas I say they must believe in order to be
+healed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were also to be seen in those towns nobles and kings from all
+lands surrounded by dazzling brilliance and gay trains; as others here
+haggled for spices, silks and furs, so they haggled for dignity and
+honour.  And there were wise and learned men from among all peoples;
+they made speeches, and talked in the public places in praise of their
+native prophets and gods.  The Hindoo praised his Brahma, the Magian
+shouted about sacred fire, the Semite spoke zealously for his Jehovah,
+the Egyptian sang the praises of his Osiris, the Greek extolled his
+Zeus, the Roman called on his Jupiter, and the German spoke in hoarse
+tones of his Wotan.  Magicians and astrologers were among them, and
+they boasted of their art and knowledge.  Naked saints stood on blocks
+of stone, flies and wasps buzzing round them, and still as statues they
+endured torments for the glory of their gods.  The disciples of Jesus
+saw and heard all this in astonishment, and were terrified to find
+there were so many gods.  When they were alone together with the Master
+in a cedar-grove near Sidon, one of them who had been deeply wrapt in
+thought said: "An idea has just occurred to me.  Whether it be Brahma
+the reposeful, or Osiris the shining, or Jehovah the wrathful, or Zeus
+the loving, or Jupiter the struggling, or Wotan the conqueror, or our
+God the Father&mdash;it occurs to me that it all comes to the same in the
+end."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were alarmed at this bold speech, and looked at the Master
+expecting an angry reproof.  Jesus was silent for a while, then said
+calmly: "Do good to those who hate you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They scarcely understood that with these words He marked the incredible
+difference between His teaching and all other doctrines.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were still speaking when a young man with a beardless face and
+insolent expression came riding by on a tall steed.  When he saw the
+group of Nazarenes he reined in his horse; it would scarcely stop,
+stamped with its legs on the ground, and threw its head snorting into
+the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Isn't this the man with the Kingdom of Heaven?" asked the rider
+contemptuously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+James came forward quickly.  "Sir, stop your mocking.  How do you know
+that you will never need it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I?" said the arrogant cavalier.  "I need a Kingdom of Heaven that is
+not to be seen, heard, or understood!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But felt, sir!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then that is He," exclaimed the horseman, pointing to Jesus.  "No,
+Nazarenes, I do not believe in your Heavenly Kingdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To which Jesus replied; "Perhaps you will believe in My empty tomb."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will see," said the cavalier, putting spurs to his horse so that it
+reared, and galloped off.  Soon all that the disciples saw was a cloud
+of dust.  Matthew looked searchingly at his comrades.  "Did you
+recognise him?  Wasn't it Saul, the dread weaver?  They were saying in
+the town yesterday that he was coming with a legion of soldiers to
+arrest the Nazarenes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they urged in terror; "Master, let us flee."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was not accustomed to flee before zealous Pharisees, but there was
+another reason for removing his innocent disciples from the atmosphere
+of these big cities.  Simon was always suggesting that it would be no
+bad thing to spend the coming Passover on the Tiber, for he felt less
+afraid of the heathens in Rome than of the Jews in Jerusalem.  He had
+no idea of what was before them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not in Rome," said Jesus, "but rather in Jerusalem will we eat the
+Paschal lamb."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Soon after they wandered forth and left the noisy seaport behind them.
+As the roads became more and more unsafe, they climbed the rocks and
+took the way across the mountains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gods came down from high Olympus, the Law came down from Sinai,
+Light came down from Lebanon.  For it was at Lebanon that the great
+revelation came, which my shrinking soul is now to witness.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap24"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The following incident took place during the journey among the
+mountains of Lebanon.  One day they were resting under an old
+weather-beaten cedar.  The rain trickled through the bristling bush of
+needles from one branch to another on to the hats under the broad brims
+of which the men cowered, their legs drawn up under them, their arms
+crossed over their chests.  Tired and somewhat out of humour, they
+looked out into the damp mist against which the near summits and masses
+of rock stood out.  The hair and beards of the older men had turned
+grey, and even the faces of the younger seemed to have aged.  For their
+hardships had been great.  But the glow in their eyes was not quenched.
+They had laid aside their long staffs; the sacks which some carried on
+their backs were wrinkled and empty.  A little way off was a
+tree-trunk, so big that three men could hardly have encompassed it; the
+bark was white and rough, so that it seemed as if spirits had carved
+mysterious signs thereon in pure silver.  Jesus, a little apart from
+His disciples, was resting under this tree.  He was, as usual, without
+a hat, and His abundant nut-brown hair fell over His shoulders.  His
+indescribably beautiful face was paler than formerly.  He leaned
+against the trunk of the tree and closed His eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples thought He slept, and in order not to wake Him they
+looked at one another and spoke in whispers.  Their hearts were full of
+the impressions of their late experiences.  They thought of the
+persecution in their native land, the attractiveness of the big world,
+and their ignorance of the future.  Many of them during this gloomy
+rest-time thought of their former lives.  Who is managing my boat?  Who
+tends my fruit-trees?  Who works in my workshop?  Who sits in the
+profitable toll-house?  Who is providing for my wife, my children?
+There had been a triumphant progress through the land and then a
+flight.  Men had not recognised the Master.  If He would only say
+distinctly and clearly who He was!  Meanwhile the outlook was
+desperate.  As if they had run after a demagogue, a traitor, an
+anti-Jew!  How could an anti-Jew be King of the Jews?  If He would only
+say who He was!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Snow lay on the mountains.  The ice-wastes stretched down from the
+heights of Hermon.  If our travellers looked up to their summits they
+saw the wild ruggedness of their covering; if they looked downwards
+they saw abysses in which the water thundered.  An eagle flew through
+the solitude and vultures screamed in the storm-beaten cedars.  The men
+from the fertile plains of the Galilean Lake had never seen such wild
+nature.  Simon was so enchanted that he wanted to build huts there for
+himself, his comrades, and the Prophet.  The other disciples shuddered,
+and would gladly have persuaded the Master to return.  He pointed to
+the high mountains, and said: "What frightens you, My children?  When
+the races of men are becoming satiated and stupid, such wildness will
+refresh them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon and John nodded in agreement, but the others, as often was the
+case, did not understand what He&mdash;who spoke for all time&mdash;said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They wrapped themselves more closely in their cloaks, climbed up to
+where there was no path, and still went on their way.  The Master
+walked in front and they followed Him through briars, and over stones;
+it never came into their heads that He could miss the way.  At length,
+amid the bare rocks standing high above the cedar tops, they had to
+rest again.  Some of them, especially the young John, were almost
+exhausted.  Matthew dipped into his sack and drew forth a small crust
+of bread, showed it to his companions, and said softly, so that the
+Master, who was sitting on a stone higher up, might not hear: "That is
+all; if we do not soon light upon some human dwelling we must perish."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Simon said: "I rely on Him Who has so often fed His people in the
+desert."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Words won't cure our hunger to-day," remarked Andrew, and was
+frightened at his own temerity.  Then Bartholomew put his hand on
+Matthew's arm and said: "Brother, give that bread to the Master."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you think I'm knave enough to eat it myself?" blazed up Matthew.
+He got up, went to the Master, and gave Him the bread.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you already eaten?" He asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master, we are all satisfied."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus looked at him searchingly, and took the bread.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just at that moment a cry of delight broke from the men.  The mist had
+suddenly lifted; they could see far out into the sunny world.  And
+beneath them lay the blue, still plains, stretching away until they cut
+the sky.  Far off in the sky were clouds shining like the golden
+pinnacles of temples.  Along the shore lay a chain of villages, and
+then the sea, studded with sails.  The view was so extensive and so
+bright that they could not but rejoice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From over there beyond the water came the heathens," said Matthew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And over there will the Christians go," added Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who are the Christians?" asked Bartholomew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The adherents of the Anointed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They will go forth and destroy the Romans," said James.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ssh!" they whispered, and laid their fingers on their lips.  "He does
+not like such talk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not seem to have heard them.  He had risen and was looking out
+in silence.  Then He turned to one and another to read in their faces
+how their spirits stood, whether they had lost heart or whether their
+courage was strengthened by the sight of the splendours of God by which
+they saw themselves surrounded.  Simon had become very thoughtful.  He
+pondered on the Master's words and on the miracle they had wrought in
+him.  Of all the wisdom that he had ever heard, none was so lofty and
+clear as this divine teaching.  It created a heaven which had not
+existed formerly.  And yet! why was one still so weak?  He had turned
+sidewards and thoughtfully nodded his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What trouble one has with his own people!" he murmured.  James laughed
+and said: "With your own people?  Who are they?  I see only one of your
+own people, and that is you yourself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just the one who troubles me," said Simon.  "For, you know, the
+rascal is timid.  I can't forget that.  The suddenness overwhelms him.
+'Twas so for weeks down in Capernaum whenever the soldiers came near
+us, and in Sidon when that weaver suddenly appeared.  Oh, my friend and
+brother!  If it is a question of always sharing want and disgrace with
+Him, I am ready, I have courage for that.  But when I've to stand in
+absolute danger, my heart fails me.  Can such a one be fit to go with
+the Master?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are fishermen, not heroes," assented James.  "I do not know which
+needs more courage, a life of hardship or a swift death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must confess one thing to you, brothers," interposed Andrew.  "I am
+not clever&mdash;but I'm not satisfied.  Can anyone tell me what will become
+of us?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon's attention was diverted.  Brother Philip came up and plucked him
+by the sleeve.  He gave him a piece of bread.  Simon took it in order
+to give it to Matthew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is this?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Philip gave it me, but I'm not wanting it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," said Matthew, "it is the piece of bread I just gave the Master."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The piece of bread went round the circle, from Matthew to the Master,
+from Him to John, then on from one to the other until it returned to
+Matthew, When they were amazed to find that no one needed the bread,
+the Master smiled and said: "Now, you like to see miracles.  Here is
+one.  Twelve men fed with one piece of bread."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The bread did not do that, Lord.  The word did that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, friends; love did it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Single drops fell from the trees, others hung like long needles and
+sparkled.  Just as the sea lay spread out below, so the summits of the
+mountains were now revealed, the snow-peaks, and the pinnacles of rock,
+while the ice-fields were visible until near midnight.  The deep
+stillness and the softness in the air made the men dreamy.  Some were
+inclined to sleep.  Others thought of what the future might have in
+store for them, and thinking thereon suffered themselves to sink,
+untroubling, into the will of God.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All at once Jesus raised His head a little, and said softly so that
+those nearest Him heard it: "You hear people talk about Me although
+they are silent in My presence.  What do they say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples were alarmed at the sudden question, and said: "People
+say all kinds of things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do they say about Me?  Whom do they say I am?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then one answered: "They all take you for some one different.  They
+prefer to believe in the most unlikely things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But as he continued to look questioningly at them, they became
+communicative and told: "One says that you are the prophet Jeremiah;
+another that you are Elijah of whom they know that he was taken up to
+heaven in a fiery chariot.  Or they say you are John the Baptist whom
+Herod caused to be murdered."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus lifted His head still higher and said: "People say that, do
+they?  But you, now?  Who do you think I am?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That came like a thunderbolt.  They were all silent.  Surely He could
+see that they had followed Him, and knew why.  Could He not see into
+their thoughts?  Had He suddenly begun to doubt their faith in Him?  Or
+had He lost faith in Himself?  It is all so mysterious and terrifying.
+As they were silent He went on to say:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You attached yourselves to Me in innocent trustfulness, like men who
+spread their cloaks at My feet, and paid Me the honours of the Messiah.
+When I announced the Kingdom of God you were with Me.  And when some
+left Me because My way became dangerous, and My person contemned, you
+stayed with Me, and when My words were not fulfilled as you expected,
+leading not to worldly power but to humiliation, you still stayed with
+Me, followed Me into exile among the heathen, and into the desert
+hills.  Who am I, then, that you remain faithful to Me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were so moved that no one was able to utter a word.  Jesus
+continued:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall go down again to Galilee, but I shall find there no stone on
+which to rest My head in peace.  All who are with Me will be persecuted
+for My sake.  I shall go along the Jordan to Judaea, and up to
+Jerusalem, where My most powerful enemies are.  I shall confront them
+and pronounce judgment on them.  My words will pierce them, but My
+flesh will be in their power.  I shall suffer shame and disgrace and a
+contemptible death.  That will happen in a short time.  Will you still
+stay with Me?  Whence is your trust derived?  Who do you think I am?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon jumped up from the ground, and exclaimed loudly and clearly:
+"<I>You are Jesus the Christ!  You are the Son of the living God!</I>"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+Solemnly it sounded forth to all eternity: Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stood up straight.  Was there not a light round His head?  Did not
+the sky grow bright?  The men's eyes were dazzled so that they were
+obliged to shade them with their hands in order not to be blinded.  A
+sound came out of the light, a voice was heard: "He is My Son!  He is
+My beloved Son!"  They were beside themselves; their bodies were
+lifeless, for their souls were in the heights.  Then Jesus came down to
+them out of the light.  His countenance had a strange look; something
+extraordinary had passed over Him.  With outstretched arms He came
+slowly towards the disciples: "Simon!  Did you say that of yourself?
+It was surely an inspiration from above.  Such a faith is the
+foundation of the Kingdom of God; henceforth, then, you shall be named
+Peter, the rock.  I will found My community upon you, and what you do
+on earth in My name will hold good in heaven above."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simon looked round him.  "What?" he thought in the secret recesses of
+his heart, "am I raised above the others?  Are none of the brothers
+equal to me?  That is because I am humble."  Jesus turned to them all,
+and said: "Prepare yourselves, be strong; evil times are approaching.
+They will kill Me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As He said that, Simon Peter grasped His arm with both his hands, and
+exclaimed passionately: "In the name of God, Master, that shall not
+happen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon which Jesus said quickly and severely: "Get behind me, Satan!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They looked round them.  What a sudden change!  For whom were the hard
+words meant?  Simon knew; he went down and hid himself behind the young
+cedars.  There he wept and shook with grief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John, He hates me!" muttered the disciple, and hid his face in his
+young companion's gown, for John had gone to comfort him.  "John!  It
+was my pride.  He sees our thoughts.  He hates me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Simon, He does not hate you; He loves you.  Think of what He said
+to you just before.  That about the rock.  You know what Jesus is.  You
+know how He has to pour cold water so that the fire of love may not
+consume Him.  And you must have touched on something that He Himself
+finds difficult.  I'm sure of it.  I believe that He is suffering
+something that we know nothing about.  It is as though He saw it was
+the Father's will that He should suffer and die.  He is young, He feels
+dismayed, and then you come and make the struggle harder for Him.
+Stand up, brother; we must be strong and cheerful and a support to Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And when they gathered together, prepared for further journeying, Jesus
+looked round the circle of His faithful adherents, and said, with
+solemn seriousness: "In a short time you will see Me no more.  I go to
+the Father.  I build my Kingdom upon your faith, firm as rock, and give
+you all the keys of heaven.  With God, heaven and earth are one, and
+everything you do on earth is also done in heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That is what happened on one of the heights of Lebanon when Jesus
+rested there with His disciples.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then He went again to His native place, not to stay there, but to
+see it once more.  After days of hardships which they scarcely felt,
+and of want which they never perceived, they came down into the fertile
+plains, and the soft air was filled with scent of roses and of almond
+blossoms.  They found themselves once again in their native land, where
+they were treated with such contempt that they had to avoid the high
+roads and take the side paths.  When they were passing through a ravine
+near Nazareth, they stopped under the scanty shade of some olive trees.
+They were tired, and lay down under the trees.  Jesus went on a little
+farther, where He could obtain a view of the place.  He sat down on a
+stone, leaned His head on His hand, and looked thoughtfully out over
+the country.  Something strange and hostile seemed to pervade it.  But
+He had not come in anger.  Something else remained to be done.  It was
+clear to Him that He Himself must be the pledge of the truth of His
+good tidings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A woman came toiling over the stones.  It was His mother.  She had
+heard how He had come down from the mountains with His disciples, and
+thought she would go through the ravine.  Now she stood before Him.
+Her face, grown thin with grief, was in the shade, since to protect
+herself from the sun she had thrown her long upper garment over her
+head.  A tress of her dark hair fell over one cheek; she pushed it back
+with one finger, but it always fell down again.  She looked shyly at
+her son, who was resting on a stone.  She hesitated to speak to Him.
+She advanced a step nearer, and as if nothing had ever separated them,
+said; "Your house is quite near, my child.  Why rest here in such
+discomfort?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked at her calmly.  Then he answered: "Woman, I would be alone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She gently answered: "I am quite alone now in the house."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where are our relations?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They wished to fetch you home, and have been away for weeks in search
+of you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus pointed with a motion of His hand to His sleeping disciples:
+"They did not seek Me for weeks, they found Me the first day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As if she wished to prevent Him complaining again that His kinsmen did
+not understand Him, His mother said: "People have long been annoyed
+that work was no longer done in our workshop, and so they go to a new
+one which has been set up in our street."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where is Aaron, the apprentice?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She replied: "It is not surprising that no one will stay if the
+children of the house depart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spoke excitedly: "I tell you, woman, spare Me your reproaches and
+domestic cares.  I have something else to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she turned to the rocky wall to hide her sobs.  After a while she
+said softly: "How can you be so cruel to your mother!  It's not for
+myself I complain; you may well believe.  All is over for me in this
+world.  But you!  You bring misfortune on the whole family, and will
+yourself destroy everything.  By your departed father, by your unhappy
+mother, I implore you to let the faith of your fathers alone.  I know
+you mean well, but others do not understand that, and nothing you do
+will avail.  Let people be happy in their own way.  If formerly they
+went to Abraham, they will continue to find their way to him without
+your help.  Don't interfere with the Rabbis; that never pays.  Think of
+John the Baptist!  Every one is saying that they are lying in wait for
+you.  Oh, my beloved child, they will disgrace you, and kill you!"  She
+clutched the rock convulsively with her fingers, and could say no more
+for bitter weeping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus turned His head to her, and looked at her.  And when her whole
+body shook with sobs, He rose and went to her.  He took her head in
+both His hands and drew it towards Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother! mother!&mdash;mother!"  His voice was dull and broken: "You think I
+do not love you.  I am sometimes obliged to be thus harsh, for
+everything is against Me, even My own kith and kin.  But I must fulfil
+the will of the Heavenly Father.  Dry your tears; see, I love you, more
+than any human heart can understand.  Because the mother suffers double
+what the child suffers, so is your pain greater than that of Him who
+must sacrifice Himself for many.  Mother!  Sit down on this stone so
+that I may once again lay My head in your lap.  It is My last rest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So He laid His head on her knees, and she stroked His long hair
+tenderly.  She was so happy, in the midst of her grief, so absolutely
+happy, that He should lie on her breast as He did when a child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But He went on, speaking gently and softly; "I have preached to the
+people in vain about faith in Me.  I need not preach to you, for a
+mother believes in her child.  They will all testify against Me.
+Mother, do not believe them.  Believe your child.  And when the hour
+comes for Me to appear with outstretched arms, not on earth and not in
+heaven, believe then in your child.  Be sure then that your carpenter
+has built the Kingdom of God.  No, mother, do not weep; look up with
+bright eyes.  Your day will be everlasting.  The poor, those forsaken
+by every heaven, will pour out their woes to you, the blessed, the rich
+in grace!  All the races of the earth will <I>praise</I> you!"  He kissed
+her hair, He kissed her eyes, and sobbed Himself.  "And now go, mother.
+My friends are waking.  They must not see Me cast down."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He arose from this sweet rest.  The disciples raised their heads one
+after another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you get some rest, Master?" asked Simon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered: "Better rest than you had."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A messenger who had been sent out returned with a basket, and they paid
+him with a little gold ring, the last to be found on the fingers of the
+wanderers.  They ate, and rejoiced over God's beautiful world and its
+gifts, and then prepared for further wanderings, Whither?  Towards the
+metropolis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary stood behind the rocks and gazed after Him as long as He was
+visible in the haze of the Galilean sun.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap25"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+And so they made their way towards Jerusalem for the celebration of the
+Passover.  Long ago Moses had delivered the Jews from bondage in Egypt,
+and led them back to their native land.  In grateful remembrance many
+thousands assembled every year at Jerusalem at the time of the first
+full moon of spring, made a pilgrimage to the Temple, and, according to
+the ancient custom, ate of the Paschal lamb, with bitter herbs, and
+bread made without yeast, as once they ate manna in the wilderness.  At
+such an assembly there was of course much commerce and show.  The
+execution of criminals took place at that time, so that people were
+sure of one terrible spectacle in accordance with the words of the
+Rabbis in the Temple who said; He who breaks the Law shall be punished
+according to the Law.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should like to see such a thing once," said the disciple Thaddeus to
+his comrades as they went along.  "I mean such a punishment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll easily find an opportunity in Jerusalem," replied Andrew; and
+added with light mockery, "to see criminals impaled is the correct
+merry-making for poor men.  It costs nothing.  And yet I do not know a
+costlier pleasure."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How is the impaling done?" Thaddeus wanted to know.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's easily described," Matthew informed them.  "Think of an upright
+post planted in the earth and a cross-beam near the top.  The poor
+sinner is bound naked to it, his arms stretched out.  When he has hung
+there in the people's eyes for a while, they break his legs with a
+club.  For very serious crimes they sometimes fasten the limbs to the
+post with iron nails."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thaddeus turned aside in horror.  "May it never be my lot to look on at
+such a thing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do not imagine that such talk is a jest," said another.  "Every one
+implores God that such a doom may never befall any of his relations or
+friends.  We are all poor sinners.  When our Master establishes His
+Kingdom this horrible mode of death will be abolished.  Don't you think
+so?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then all modes of death will be abolished," said Simon Peter.  "Are
+you asleep when He speaks of eternal life?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But He says Himself that they will slay Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That they wish to slay Him He means.  Just wait till He once shows
+them His power!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they often talked together, half in pleasantry, half in simplicity,
+but always behind the Master's back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A change had come over Jesus since the events on the high mountain.  It
+was as if He had now become quite clear about His divine call, as if He
+had only now fully realised that He was God's messenger, the Son of the
+Heavenly Father, summoned from eternity to go down to earth to awake
+men and save them for a life of bliss with God.  He felt that the power
+of God had been given Him to judge souls.  The devils fled before Him,
+He was subject to no human power.  He broke with the history of His
+degraded people; He annulled the ancient writings, falsified by priests
+and learned men.  He recognised that in His unity with the Heavenly
+Father and Eternal God, He was Lord of all power in heaven and on earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it was with Him since that hour of light on the mountain.  But the
+knowledge of all this made Him still more humble as a man on whom such
+an immense burden had been laid, and still more loving towards those
+who were sunken in measureless poverty, distress and subjection,
+resigned to their fate of being lost in blindness and defiance, and yet
+full of wistful longing for salvation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The relations between Him and His disciples had also changed since that
+day.  Formerly, although they had treated Him with respect they had
+always been on familiar terms with Him.  Now they were more submissive,
+more silent, and their respect had become reverence.  With some, love
+had almost become worship.  And yet they always fell back into
+unruliness and timidity.  There was one especially who disagreed with
+much.  When, in order to avoid the high roads, they went through the
+barren district on the other side of Jordan, and endured all sorts of
+hardships and privations, the disciple Judas could not forbear uttering
+his thoughts.  He had nothing to do now as treasurer of the little
+band, so he had plenty of time to spread discouragement behind the
+Master's back.  Why should not the Messiah's train of followers appear
+in fitting brilliance?  He explained what Jesus taught about death as
+implying that when the beggar prophet died, the glorious Messiah would
+appear!  But why first in Jerusalem?  Why should they not assume their
+high position in the interval; why were the honours of the new era not
+already allotted?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus' popularity had increased once more, and in the more thickly
+inhabited districts the people hurried together.  "The Prophet is
+passing through!"  They streamed forth bringing provisions with them,
+and the sick and crippled came imploring Him to heal them.  He accepted
+enough to meet His immediate needs from the store that was offered Him,
+but He did not work the desired miracles.  He forbade His disciples
+even to speak of them.  He was angry with the crowd who would not
+believe without miracles, and would not understand the signs of the
+times.  "Directly they see a cloud rise in the west they say: It's
+going to rain.  If a south wind blows they know that it is going to be
+hot.  But they do not understand the signs of a new world uprising.  If
+they cannot understand the spiritual tokens, they cannot have others.
+They would fain see the sign of Jonah, who lay three days in the
+whale's belly?  Be it so.  They shall see how the Son of Man, after
+being buried for three days, shall live again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judas shook his head over such talk.  "That doesn't help much."  But
+the others, especially John, James and Simon, did not think about the
+kingdom of the Messiah, or about earthly power; their hearts were
+filled with love for the Master.  Yet they, too, had their own
+temptations.  They often talked together of that other world where
+Jesus would be Eternal King, and where they&mdash;they who firmly adhered to
+Him&mdash;would share His glory.  And in all seriousness they dreamed of the
+offices and honours that would be theirs, and actually disputed who
+among them would hold the highest rank.  Each boasted of his own
+achievements.  James had brought Him the most friends in Galilee.
+Simon rested his claim on the fact that he had been the first to
+recognise in Him the Son of God.  John reminded them that he came from
+the same place, and had once worked with Him as carpenter's apprentice.
+John might have said that the Master was especially fond of him, but he
+did not say so.  Simon, on the contrary, put forward most emphatically
+the fact that the Master had called him the rock on which He should
+found His community.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus noticed how they were disputing He went to them and asked
+what they were discussing so eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master," said James boldly, "you come to us as if we had called you.
+We want to know who among your disciples will be first in the Eternal
+Kingdom.  See, brother John and I would like to be nearest you, one on
+your right hand, the other on your left, so that we may have you
+between us then as we have you now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon which Jesus said: "This is not the first time that you have talked
+thus foolishly.  You don't know what you want.  I tell you, when you
+have done what I do, and have suffered what I shall suffer, then you
+may come and ask."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They replied: "Lord, we will do what you do and suffer what you suffer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These resolute words pleased Him, and He said nothing of the enormous
+distance between Him and them.  They were too simple to understand
+that.  He only said: "Leave that to Him who will show you your place.
+For every ruler has rulers over him; One alone has no authority above
+Him.  Consider: if a servant has worked hard and faithfully, he will
+not therefore in the evening sit at the upper end of the table and
+begin to eat before his master, but he will first prepare his master's
+food, and place a footstool under his feet.  And so it is with you.
+Whoso would be greatest must serve the others.  I, too, have come not
+to be ministered to but to minister, and to sacrifice Myself for others
+and to give My life a ransom for many."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It alarmed them that He should speak more and more often of giving up
+His life.  What did it mean?  If he perished Himself how could He save
+others?  That might occur in saving people from fire or from drowning,
+but how could a man free a people and lead it to God by sacrificing his
+life?  True, the heathens had their human sacrifices.  Judas had his
+own ideas about the matter.  The Master was depressed by failure, or He
+merely wished to test His adherents, to find out if they had strength
+enough to follow Him through thick and thin.  If only He could be
+entirely sure of that, then He would hasten like the lightnings of
+heaven to annihilate the enemy and glorify His own adherents.  If, as
+He Himself had said, faith was so strong that it could remove
+mountains, it would be quite easy for Him to show His power at the
+propitious moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This firm belief of Judas made the disciple Thomas remember the
+Master's actual words about faith: Whosoever says to the mountain,
+Depart, and cast yourself into the sea, and does not doubt but
+<I>believes</I> that it happens, for him it will happen.  Mark, <I>for him</I> it
+will happen.  Whether others who do not believe will see the mountain
+fall into the sea He did not say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then, brother Thomas," said Bartholomew, "you think things that happen
+through faith happen only for him who believes.  They form only an
+inward experience, but real enough for him, because he sees them happen
+with his spiritual eye.  But they are not real for others.  If that's
+the case, my friend, we should be lost.  Jesus may believe that the
+enemy fall, Jesus may see them fall; all the same they still live and
+live to destroy us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is cheap logic," said the resolute Judas.  "Every one has seen
+how He made the lame to walk and the dead to live; even those who did
+not believe.  Take heed!  If only the Master would make some outward
+demonstration of His power you should see what He could do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Others were of that opinion, so they followed&mdash;followed their Messiah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But during their long wandering over the bad roads of the desert and
+over the fertile plains they suffered continual distress.  Although
+they had now been some time in the plains they were not always in good
+humour.  They saw how the Master renounced the power and pleasure of
+the world and yet walked the earth strong and cheerful.  It was only
+later that they understood how the two things could be reconciled.  He
+enjoyed what was harmless if it did not hurt others, but He attached
+little value to it.  His bodily senses were all He needed to recognise
+the Father's power in nature, and to be happy in that knowledge.  He
+did not deny the world; He spiritualised it and made it divine.  The
+things of earth were to Him the building-stones for the Kingdom of
+Heaven.  So, in spite of increasing doubt, the disciples always found
+that things came right, and they, too, determined to despise the world
+and to love their simple life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day they came to a place in which there was great activity.  Men
+were ploughing in the fields, hammering in the workshops, lithe carmen
+and slow camel-drivers were driving hard bargains.  And it was the
+Sabbath!  "Did heathens dwell here?" the disciples asked.  No; it was a
+Jewish village, and the inhabitants were so pious that they seldom let
+a Passover go by without going up to Jerusalem.  Many years ago they
+had heard a young man speak words in the Temple which they had never
+forgotten.  "Men should work on the Sabbath if it was for the good of
+their fellows," the young man had preached with great impressiveness.
+Now, it is generally admitted that all work is for the good of the
+individual and also of the community.  So they began there and then,
+and had never since stopped working for a single day.  The result was
+great local prosperity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus saw how His words at Jerusalem on that occasion had been so
+utterly misunderstood or were misapplied through a desire for gain, He
+was filled with indignation, and began to speak in the market-place: "I
+tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken from these lovers of gain and
+given to a people more worthy of it.  For the good of one's fellow-men?
+Does good depend on the property a man possesses?  Property is harmful
+to men; it hardens their hearts, and makes them continually fearful of
+loss and death.  And you call that good!  There was once a rich man who
+after years of toiling and moiling had his barns full, and thought: Now
+I can rest and enjoy life.  But the next night he died, and the
+property to gain which he had destroyed body and soul he had to leave
+to those who quarrelled and disputed over it and mocked at him.  I tell
+you, if you gain the whole world and lose your soul&mdash;all is lost."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When He had so spoken a very old man came up to Him and said: "Rabbi,
+you are poor, and it is easy for you to talk.  You do not know how
+difficult it is for a rich man to cease adding to his wealth.  Oh, the
+delightful time I had when I was poor!  Then I began to get money
+unawares, was glad of it, and began to fear I might lose it.  And then
+as the needs of my family increased more quickly than my means, I
+thought my money was not sufficient, and the more one had the more one
+required.  I am now an old man; I possess thirty sacks full of gold,
+and I know that I cannot enjoy my wealth any more.  But I cannot stop
+gaining and amassing.  I could sooner stop breathing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus told the old man a little story: "Some children by the roadside
+attacked a strange boy for the sake of some broken potsherds which they
+were collecting.  But when they had got a great heap together the
+roadman came along, and with his spade threw the pieces into the
+gutter.  The children raised a great cry.  But the man saw that there
+was blood on some of the fragments, and asked: 'Where did you get these
+from?'  Whereupon the children grew pale with terror, and the man took
+them off to the magistrate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old man understood.  He went away and compensated all who had come
+to harm through him, and then on his way home he started once more to
+amass treasure!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day Jesus and His followers reached another village.  There
+all was quiet, and the inhabitants lay under the fig-trees although it
+was not the Sabbath.  Then Jesus asked: "Why do they not work?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And one of the villagers said: "We should like to work, but we have no
+tools.  We want spades, ploughs, sickles, and axes, but our smith is
+always making holiday.  And it is just he who makes the best knives.
+There are no other smiths here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Our wanderers then went to the smith.  The man was sitting in his room,
+reading the Holy Scriptures and praying.  One of the disciples asked
+him why he was not at work although it was a week-day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The smith replied: "Since I heard the Prophet it is always Sabbath with
+me.  For a man should not strive after material property, neither
+should he take any care for the morrow, but seek the Kingdom of Heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus went to the entrance of the house, and told, so that the
+smith could hear Him, of the man who made a journey.  "Before he
+departed he called his servants together and gave them money with which
+to carry on the work of the house.  He gave the first five heavy pieces
+of gold, the second two, and the third one.  They were to keep house
+according to their own discretion.  When after a long time the master
+returned, he desired his servants to account for the way in which they
+had employed the money.  The first had increased it tenfold.  'I am
+glad,' said the master, 'and because you are faithful in little I will
+trust you much&mdash;keep the gold.'  The second servant had increased the
+money twofold; the master praised him also, and gave him both principal
+and interest.  Then he asked the third servant what he had done with
+his money.  'Master,' replied the man, 'it wasn't much to begin with,
+so I wouldn't risk losing it.  I should have liked to gain a second
+gold piece, but I might have lost the first.  So I did not use it for
+the housekeeping, but buried it in a safe place, so that I could
+faithfully return it to you.'  Then the master snatched the gold piece
+from him and gave it to the fellow who had increased his money tenfold.
+'The little that he has shall be taken away from the lazy and
+unprofitable servant and given to him who knows how to value what he
+has.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you understand?" Matthew asked the smith.  "The gold pieces are the
+talents which God gives men&mdash;to some more, to others less.  Whoso lets
+his talents lie fallow, and does not use them, is like the man who has
+strength and skill to work the iron, but who lays the hammer aside to
+brood idly over writings he cannot understand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How is it then," said someone, "fault is found with him who works, and
+likewise with him who doesn't work?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Matthew tapped the speaker on the shoulder.  "My friend!  Everything at
+the right time! the point is to do that for which you have a talent,
+not to yearn after things for which you have no talent whatsoever."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The smith laid aside his book and his phylacteries and grasped his
+hammer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then a man came by who complained that the new teaching was worthless.
+He had followed it, had given away all his possessions because they
+brought him care.  But since he had become poor, he had had still more
+care.  So now he should begin to earn again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do so," said James the younger, "but take care that your heart is not
+so much in it that your possessions possess you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And others came: "Sir, I am a ship's carpenter!  Sir, I am a goldsmith!
+Sir, I am a stone-cutter!  Are we not to put our whole heart into our
+work so as to produce something worthy?  If our heart is not in it we
+cannot do good work."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course," said the disciple, "you must exert your whole strength and
+talent in order to produce worthy work.  But not for the sake of the
+work or the praise, but for the sake of God and the men whom you serve.
+And rejoice from your hearts that God creates His works through you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A rustic once came to James and discussed prayer.  The Master said you
+should pray in few words and not, as the heathens do, in a great many
+words, for the Father knows our needs.  Well, he had once prayed just
+in that way, using few words, but his prayer had not been heard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then James said: "Don't you remember what the Master said of the man to
+whose door a friend came in the night and begged for bread?  He had
+gone to bed, took no heed of his friend's knocking, and at length
+called out: 'Go away and let me sleep.'  But the friend continued to
+knock and to complain that he needed bread, and began noisily to shake
+the door.  That lasted until the man in bed could endure it no longer.
+Out of temper, he got up, took some bread and gave it to his friend
+through the window.  He did not give it him out of love, but only to be
+rid of him.  The Master meant that with perseverence much might be
+attained by prayer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man was irritated by the disciple's explanation, and said; "What!
+One time He says, Pray shortly, using few words; and at another time,
+You must not leave off praying until you are heard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But James replied: "Friend, you misunderstand me again.  Did He say,
+You shall pray little?  No; He said, You shall pray in few words; but
+without ceasing, and with your whole heart, and with faith that the
+Father will at length hear you.  And the longer He keeps you waiting
+for His help, the greater must be your faith that He knows why He keeps
+you waiting, and at last He will give you more than you asked for.  If
+that man gave the bread in order to be rid of the annoyance, how much
+more will the Father give the child whom He loves?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To which the man replied: "Well, I did pray thus, I kept on and I
+believed, and yet I was not heard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did you pray for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For this," said the rustic.  "I have a neighbour who steals the figs
+from my tree, and I can't catch him at it.  So I prayed that he might
+fall from the tree and break his legs.  But I was not heard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+James was obliged to laugh aloud over the foolish fellow who prayed to
+the merciful Father for vengeance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pray for strength to pardon your neighbour and give him the figs which
+he seems to need more than you, and you will certainly be heard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And," continued the disciple, "if it is a question of praying without
+ceasing, that does not mean you are always to be folding your hands and
+uttering pious words; it is rather to direct one's thoughts continually
+with longing to the dwelling of God and things eternal, and to measure
+everything in life, small things as well as great, by that standard, in
+reverence and faith."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A noisy fellow asked: "How can I measure the corn I have to sell by
+that standard?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you refrain from taking advantage of the buyer with mixed, damp
+grain, but give him good stuff, then you are doing God's will, and are
+not harming your immortal soul by deceit, then your corn and your
+method of acting are measured by the standard of God and Eternity."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But see," exclaimed another, "my business friend gave me bad measure
+when he sold me oil, and gave me half water.  And it stands in the
+Scriptures: As it is measured to you, so shall you measure it again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they walked on Jesus shook His head.  To think that His simple
+teaching could meet with so much misunderstanding, especially among
+those wanting in will towards it, those who could think of nothing but
+their desires and bodily comforts!  "No," He exclaimed sorrowfully,
+"they do not understand the word.  They must have an illustration that
+they can see and feel, an illustration they will never forget."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap26"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Gradually they were reaching the end of their journey.  They met with
+no persecution during this last stretch.  Indeed, they rather saw how
+some of the seeds, although mingled with weeds, had taken root.  They
+reached the last hills after a night in which they had encamped under
+sycamore and fig trees.  Jesus was walking in front.  Although He was
+exhausted with the long wandering, and His feet almost refused their
+office, He still walked on ahead.  The disciples came behind, and when
+they reached the top of the hill they gave a great cry.  There opposite
+them on the tableland of the other hill lay the metropolis!  In the
+morning sun it looked as if built of burnished gold, Solomon's Temple
+with its innumerable pinnacles overtopping everything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Several of the disciples had never before been to Jerusalem, and a
+feeling of inspired reverence came over them at the sight of the Holy
+City of the kings and prophets.  Here&mdash;so thought Judas and many
+another&mdash;here will the glory begin for us.  They sat down under the
+olive-trees to rest and to put their clothes in order, while some even
+anointed their hair.  Then they ate figs and the fruit of the currant
+bushes.  But they were anxious about the Master.  The exertions of the
+last few weeks had told on Him, and His feet were very sore.  But He
+said nothing.  The disciples agreed that they could not let this go on
+any longer.  James went down the slope to where he saw some cottages,
+and asked if anyone had a riding horse or at least a camel on which a
+traveller could ride into the town.  They would like to borrow it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A little bent old man sidled up to the stranger and assured him with
+much eloquence that neither horse nor camel was to be had, but that
+there was an ass.  Yet that ass was not to be had either.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Could the Messiah make His entry on an ass?  No, we could not begin
+like that.  Such was the disciple's first thought.  Then it occurred to
+him that ancient prophets had foretold: He would make His entry on an
+ass.  Whereupon James declared himself willing to take the ass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may want him and I mayn't give him," said the old man with a
+cunning laugh.  "If anything happened to this animal I should never get
+over it.  It is no ordinary ass, my friend!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is no ordinary rider who needs him," said James.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little old man took the disciple to the stable.  The animal stood
+by the manger, and was certainly of a good breed.  It was not gray, but
+rather bright brown and smooth, with slender legs, pretty,
+sharp-pointed ears, and long whiskers round its big intelligent eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Isn't it the colour of a thoroughbred Arab?" said the old man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a beautiful creature," assented James.  "Will you lend it for a
+silver piece and much honour?  It can easily be back by noon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To which the little old man replied: "It stands to reason that we can
+make something out of it during this time of visitors.  Let us make it
+two silver pieces."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One silver piece and honour!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us make it two silver pieces without honour," haggled the little
+old man.  "A steed for princes, I tell you.  In the whole of Judaea you
+won't find such another beauty!  It is of noble descent, you must know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We can dispense with that honour," said James, "if only it does not
+stumble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the old man related how in the year of Herod's massacre of the
+innocents&mdash;"a little over thirty years ago, I think&mdash;you must know that
+the Infant Messiah lay in a stable at Bethlehem with the ox and the
+ass.  The child rode away into foreign lands, as far as Egypt, they
+say, on that very ass.  And this ass is descended from that one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If that's so," said James brightly, "it's a marvellous coincidence!"
+And he whispered softly in the old man's ear: "The man who will enter
+Jerusalem to-day on that ass is the Messiah who was born in the stable."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it Jesus of Nazareth?" asked the old man.  "I will hire the animal
+to Him for half a silver piece.  In return I shall implore Him to heal
+my wife, who has been rheumatic for years."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they made their compact, and James led the ass up the mountain where
+they were all sitting together, unable to gaze long enough at
+Jerusalem.  Only Jesus was wrapt in thought and looked gloomily at the
+shining town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Jerusalem!" He said softly to Himself.  "If only thou wouldst heed
+this hour.  If thou wouldst recognise wherein lies thy salvation.  But
+thou dost not recognise it, and I foresee the day when cruel enemies
+will pull down thy walls so that not one stone remains upon another."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John placed his cloak on the animal, and Jesus mounted it.  He rode
+down to the valley followed by His disciples.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then an extraordinary thing happened.  When they reached the valley
+of Kedron where the roads cross, people hurried up shouting: "The King
+is coming!  The Son of David is coming!"  Soon others ran out of the
+farms and the gardens, and kept alongside them at the edge of the road,
+shouting: "It is the Messiah!  God be praised.  He has come!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No one knew who had spread the news of His arrival, or who first
+shouted the word Messiah.  Perhaps it was Judas.  It caught on like
+wildfire, awaking cries of acclamation everywhere.  When Jesus rode up
+to the town, the crowd was so great that the ass could only pace slowly
+along, and after He had passed the town gate the streets and squares
+could scarcely contain the people.  The whole of Jerusalem had suddenly
+become aware that the Prophet of Nazareth had come!  Strangers from the
+provinces, who had already seen and heard Him in other places, pressed
+forward.  Now that He entered the metropolis with head erect and the
+cry of the Messiah filling the air, people who had scorned the poor
+fugitive were proud of Him and boasted of meetings with Him, of His
+acquaintance.  Hands were stretched out to Him.  Many cast their
+garments on the ground for the ass to step on.  They greeted Him with
+olive and palm branches, and from hundreds of throats sounded: "All
+hail to Thee!  All hail to Thee!  Welcome, Thou long-expected, eagerly
+desired Saviour!"  The police, with their long staves, made a way
+through the streets that led to the golden house, to the king's palace.
+From all doors and windows they shouted: "Come into my house!  Take
+shelter under my roof, Thou Saviour of the people!"  The crowd poured
+forward to the palace.  The disciples, who walked close behind Him and
+could scarcely control their agitation, were surrounded, overwhelmed,
+fanned with palm-leaves, pelted with rose-buds.  Simon Peter had been
+recognised as soon as the Master, and could not prevent the people
+carrying him on their shoulders; but he bent down and implored them to
+set him on the ground, for he did not wish to be lifted higher than the
+Master, and he feared if they held him up like that over the heads of
+the others many would take him for the Messiah.  John had managed
+better; bending down and breathing heavily, he led the animal, so that
+the people only took him for a donkey-driver.  All the rest of the
+disciples enjoyed the Master's honours as their own.  Had they not
+faithfully shared misery with Him!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jerusalem, thou art still Jerusalem!" they said, intoxicated and
+filled with the storm of exultation around Him.  "However well it went
+with us, it has never gone so well as here in Jerusalem."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judas could not congratulate himself enough that, despite the poor
+procession, the Master was recognised.  "I always said He would work
+His miracle when the time came."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I am full of fears," said Thomas.  "They shout far too loudly.
+The sounds come from the throat, not from the heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, take yourself off.  You're always full of foreboding."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I understand people a little.  Idle townsfolk are easily pleased; they
+like to enjoy themselves, and any cause serves their turn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thomas," said Matthew reprovingly, "It is not your humility that makes
+you heedless of the honour.  It is doubt.  See that fat shopkeeper
+there who brings more faith out of his throat.  Listen!  'Hail to Thee,
+Son of David!' he shouts, and is already hoarse through his loud
+shrieks of joy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thomas did not answer.  Stooping down in irritation, he hastened
+through the crowd.  Cries of welcome filled the whole town, and the
+streets along which the procession took its way were like animated palm
+groves.  All traffic was at a standstill, windows and roofs were filled
+with people, all stretching their necks to see the Messiah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus sat on the animal, both feet on the one side, holding the reins
+with His right hand.  He looked calmly and earnestly in front of Him,
+just as if He was riding through the dust clouds of the wilderness.
+When the pinnacles of the royal castle towering above the roofs of the
+houses were in front of Him, He turned the animal into a side street,
+to the Temple square.  Two guards at the entrance to the Temple signed
+violently with their arms to the crowd to go away, but the people
+remained standing there.  The procession stopped, and Jesus got off the
+ass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is not going to the palace, but to the Temple?" many asked in
+surprise.  "To the Temple?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To the Rabbis and Pharisees?  Then we'll see what we shall see."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap27"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Jesus, with serious determination, quickly ascended the steps of the
+Temple, without even glancing at the shouting people.  A part of the
+crowd pressed after Him, the rest gradually dispersed.  But the shout:
+"Praised be He who has come to-day!" never ceased the whole day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he entered the forecourt of the Temple and looked in.  He stood
+still in dismay.  It was full of life and movement.  Hundreds of people
+of all kinds were tumbling over each other's heels, in gay-coloured
+coats, in hairy gowns, with tall caps and flat turbans.  They were all
+offering goods for sale with cries and shrieks; there were spread out
+carpets, candlesticks, hanging lamps, pictures of the Temple and of the
+ark of the covenant, fruit, pottery, phylacteries, incense, silken
+garments, and jewels.  Money-changers vaunted their high rate of
+exchange, the advantage of Roman money, broke open their rolls of gold
+and let the pieces fall slowly into the scales in order to delight the
+eyes of the pilgrims.  Buyers made their way through, looked scornfully
+at the goods, haggled, laughed, and bought.  Rabbis glided round in
+long caftans and soft shoes so that they were not heard.  They wore
+velvet caps on their heads below which hung their curly black or grey
+hair.  They carried large parchment scrolls under their arms&mdash;for the
+Sabbath was about to begin&mdash;slipped around with a dignified yet cunning
+manner, bargained here and there with shopkeepers or their wives,
+vanished behind the curtains and then reappeared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus had for some time observed all this confusion from the
+threshold, anger overcame Him.  Pushing the traders aside with His
+arms, He cut Himself a way through.  At the nearest booth He snatched
+up a bundle of phylacteries, swung them over the heads of the crowd,
+and exclaimed so loudly that His voice was heard above everything: "Ye
+learned teachers and ye Temple guards, see how admirably you understand
+the letter of the Word!  It is written in the Scriptures: My house is
+for prayer!  And you have turned Solomon's Temple into a bazaar!"
+Hardly had He so spoken when He overturned a table with His hand, and
+upset several benches with His foot so that the goods fell in confusion
+to the ground under the feet of the crowd which began to give way.
+They stared at one another speechless, and He continued to thunder
+forth: "My house shall be a holy refuge for the downcast and the
+suffering, said the Lord.  And you make it a den of assassins, and,
+with your passion for lucre, leave no place for men's souls.  Out with
+you, ye cheats and thieves, whether you higgle over your goods or with
+the Scriptures!"  He swung the phylacteries high over the Rabbis and
+teachers so that they bent their heads and fled through the curtained
+entrances.  But the Rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Temple guards
+assembled in the side courts, and quickly took counsel how they were to
+seize this madman and render Him harmless.  For see, ever more people
+streamed through the gates into the forecourt, surrounded the angry
+Prophet, and shouted: "Praised be Thou, O Nazarene, who art come to
+cleanse the Temple!  Praise and all hail to Thee, long-looked-for
+Saviour!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the Rabbis saw how things were going, they too raised their voices
+and shouted: "Praised be the Prophet!  Hail to thee, O Nazarene!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All is won!" whispered the disciples, crowding up together.  "Even the
+Rabbis shout!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Rabbis, however, had quickly sent for the police; they came up to
+Jesus and, as soon as the crowd became quieter, entered into
+conversation with Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master," said one of them, "truly you appear at the right time.  The
+condition of our poor people is such that we know not which way to
+turn.  You are the man who turns aside neither to right nor left, but
+who keeps in the straight path of justice.  Tell us what you think:
+Shall we Jews pay taxes to the Roman Emperor or shall we refuse?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus saw what they were driving at, and asked to be shown a coin.
+They were surprised that He had no money in His pockets, and handed Him
+one of the Roman coins current in the country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From whom do these coins come?" He asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As you see, from the Roman Emperor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And whose picture is on the coin?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Emperor's."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And whose is the inscription on the coin?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Emperor's."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whose is the coin?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus said: "Render unto God what comes from Him, and unto Caesar what
+comes from Caesar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Those who saw through the case broke out into applause and shouting
+over the decision, and carried the crowd with them.  The Rabbis were
+secretly furious that He had escaped their cunning snare.  They had
+reckoned: If He says, Pay taxes to the Roman Emperor, the people will
+know that He is not the Messiah but rather a servant of the foreigner.
+And if He says, Do not pay taxes to the Emperor, He is a demagogue, and
+will be taken prisoner.  But now He has both Emperor and people on His
+side, and we must let Him alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Everything is going splendidly," the disciples whispered.  "They ask
+His advice, they will do nothing without Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The interpreters of the Law had got Him in their midst, and could not
+rest till they outwitted Him.  So one of them asked Him: "Oh, man of
+great wisdom, do you believe that there will be a resurrection of the
+dead?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There will be," He answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That marriage between man and woman is indissoluble, and that a woman
+may only have one husband at a time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And that after the death of one the other may marry again?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are right, sir," interposed a third speaker.  "But suppose a woman
+had seven husbands one after another because they died one after
+another.  If they all rise from the dead the woman would have seven
+husbands at once, each is her lawful husband, and yet she may only have
+one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was immense eagerness to hear what He would say, for the problem
+seemed insoluble.  And Jesus said: "He who asks that question knows
+neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.  The Scriptures promise us
+resurrection, and the power of God the eternal life of the soul.  There
+is no marriage between souls, so the question falls to the ground."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was fresh shouting and applause, and kerchiefs were waved from
+all sides.  The teachers of the Law drew back in ill-humour, and
+dismissed the police who were waiting in the back court.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap28"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+After the excellent reception in Jerusalem, and the victory in the
+Temple on the first day, the disciples ventured to walk about the city
+fearlessly and openly.  Jesus remained grave and silent.  They put up
+in a quiet inn by the gate.  The disciples did not see why He should
+not have lodged them in a palace.  They would have liked occasionally
+to accept the invitation of rich people, and enjoy the homage that
+would be paid them, but Jesus would not permit it.  The festival of the
+Passover was at hand; there was something else to do than to be fêted
+and have their heads turned, they would soon need to have their heads
+very cool.  If He accepted any of the invitations it would be the one
+from Bethany, where He knew He had truer friends than in Jerusalem.
+But meanwhile He had something more to say in the Temple.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When He went there the next day the hall was filled to overflowing with
+people, Rabbis, and expounders of the Law.  Some had come in order to
+witness His glorification, others to try and ruin Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the Pharisees came up to Him and asked Him without any
+preliminaries which was the greatest commandment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus ascended the pulpit and said; "I have just been asked which is
+the greatest commandment.  Now, I am not come to give new commandments,
+but to fulfil the old ones.  The greatest commandment is: Love God
+above all, and thy neighbour as thyself.  Those who asked Me, your
+teachers and interpreters of the Law, say the same, but their actions
+do not square with their words.  You may believe their words, but you
+must not imitate their deeds.  They exact the uttermost from you, but
+do not themselves stir a finger.  And what good they do, is done in the
+eyes of the people, so that they may win praise.  They like to take the
+first place at festivals, and to be greeted on all sides as the
+expounders of Holy Writ.  That honour they do not offer to God, but to
+themselves.  I tell you he who exalts himself will be cast down."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some of the Pharisees interrupted Him and contradicted Him.  He turned
+to them face to face, and in a louder voice said: "Yes, you expounders
+of Holy Writ, you seek to shine outwardly.  You keep your vessels clean
+on the outside, and your wool soft, but inside you are full of
+wickedness and lust of plunder.  Ye who sit in the seats of learning
+and preach morals are like tombs adorned with flowers outside, but full
+of corruption inside.  You despise the fathers because they persecuted
+the prophets; while you yourselves kill the prophets whom the Lord
+sends to-day, or else suffer them to be contemned.  And when they are
+dead you build them fine tombs.  Cursed be ye, ye hypocrites!  You
+forbid others to be the heralds of salvation; you even stone them.  You
+will not go yourselves into the Kingdom of Heaven, and you keep out
+those who wish to go in.  Cursed be ye, ye, with your semblance of
+holiness, who take to yourselves the houses of widows and the property
+of orphans under the pretence of love!  Ye fools and blind guides who
+lead the people to petty, unimportant things, to outward observances
+and customs, instead of to the important things&mdash;to justice, to mercy,
+and to love!  That is as wise as to strain out the gnat and swallow the
+camel.  Ye snakes and vipers!  Be ye cursed eternally!  Even if God
+sent His Son you would crucify Him, and would pretend you did it for
+the sake of the people because He was a traitor.  But know that you
+will have to pay for the blood of the heaven-sent Messenger!  The time
+is not far off when the blood of your children will flow in streams
+through the streets of Jerusalem!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While Jesus was speaking His disciples trembled.  They had never seen
+Him so consumed with anger.  But it was too soon!  He had no army to
+protect Him if they should attack Him.  The crowd was immensely
+excited, and the applause grew to a storm.  Many screamed with delight
+that such words were at last spoken; others looked threateningly at the
+Pharisees.  They&mdash;the Rabbis and Pharisees&mdash;had all kinds of excuses
+ready against the terrible accusations, but it seemed to them wiser not
+to honour the outbreak of this "seeker of the people's favour" with any
+answer, and to leave the Temple at once, unnoticed, by the back
+entrances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The broad square in front of the Temple was a sea of heads.  As many
+persons as possible had pushed their way in, but the greater number
+surrounded the enormous building, and shouted incessantly: "We, too,
+want to hear Him!  Let Him come out and preach in the open air so that
+we may see Him.  Hail to the Messiah King!  He shall reign in the
+golden palace and in Solomon's glorious Temple!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus stepped out of the Temple into the confusion.  He heard the
+shouts, and mounted the plinth of one of the immense pillars that
+surrounded the building.  Here again He spoke.  Looking at the city He
+hurled these words at the crowd:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You boast of your glorious Temple!  I tell you that not one stone of
+this building shall remain on the other.  For you have heaped up crime
+upon crime.  I find none of you thirsty, but you are all the worse for
+drinking.  The cup is full, and the present generation shall know it.
+When desolation comes over the land, then let him who is in the valley
+flee to the mountain, and let him who is in the field not return into
+the city, and let him who is on the roof not come down, in order to
+fetch his coat from the house.  Fire and sword will meet him.  Woe to
+the women and children in those days: they will cry.  Mountains fall on
+us and crush us.  It will be a wailing and lamentation such as has
+never before been under the sun, and never will be again.  Unappeasable
+anger will overtake the people, Jerusalem will be destroyed, and its
+inhabitants be led into captivity by strange nations.  And men will be
+judged according to their good or evil deed.  Of two who are in the
+field one will be accepted, the other cast out.  Of two who lie in the
+same bed one will be heard, the other ignored.  The grain shall be
+gathered in the barns, the weeds shall be burnt in the fire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These words caused some murmuring in the crowd, and one of the
+disciples wrung his hands in despair: "There will be trouble over this!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then His tone became gentler; "But do not despair; the days of that
+misery shall be shortened.  I will pray for it.  Where there is carrion
+there are eagles, and from the nation of sinners shall arise martyrs of
+the truth of God.  As the trees blossom and sprout after the hard
+winter, so shall the Kingdom of Heaven blossom forth from the purified
+people.  For the glad tidings will penetrate through the whole
+universe, and happy will be the nations which accept it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heaven upon earth?" asked someone from the swaying crowd.  Jesus
+answered: "Not your heaven upon earth!  Not that!  For the earth is too
+weak to bear heaven.  The earth is doomed, and of that doom the
+downfall of Jerusalem is but a parable.  In that day much distress will
+come.  False prophets will come and say, We are the saviours of the
+world!  Their spirit and their truth will blind the people, but it will
+not be the Holy Spirit or the eternal truth.  A great weariness and
+despair will come over men's souls, and they will long for death.  And
+as men gradually lose their light, their reason, so will the stars in
+the sky be extinguished; the sea will cover the land, and the mountains
+be sunk in the sea.  But the fiery token of the Son of God will appear
+in the dark sky."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is the token?" asked one of the grey-bearded Rabbis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He who has eyes will soon see the token of the Lord's judgment high on
+Golgotha.  His angels will announce Him in the air, but not in His
+lowliness as at Bethlehem.  He will come in all the strength and glory
+in which He sits at the right hand of the Father.  And He will restore
+every soul to its body, and reward the faithful with eternal joy, and
+the unbelieving with everlasting punishment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With terrified countenances and whispered words the people asked: "When
+will this happen?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Watch, my children!  God alone knows the day and hour.  This world is
+passing, as you see, hour by hour.  Everything changes; only the word
+of the Father shall endure for ever."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This speech of the Prophet made a deep impression on the people.  They
+no longer shouted or rejoiced; they no longer looked on His countenance
+as gladly as the day before, the glowing eyes burnt with such terrible
+anger.  They became silent, or only whispered to each other.  Did you
+understand? one asked his neighbour quietly.  Yes, they had all
+understood, but each something different.  They were all impressed with
+the words; every one was moved; and groups of people, as they made
+their way out, talked over the Prophet's speech, and many began to
+dispute about it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't expect much from this Messiah," said an innkeeper to his
+guests.  "As far as I can see, He promises more ill than good.  If He
+can offer nothing better than the destruction of Jerusalem and the Last
+Judgment, He might just as well have stayed at home at Nazareth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I've never taken much account of the Last Judgment," said a dealer
+in skins from Jericho.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's quite true," shouted a tailor, "nothing good comes from Galilee!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nor from Judaea," laughed an unpatriotic tailor from Joppa.  "I can
+tell you I expect nothing until we have expelled all our Jewish princes
+and Rabbis and become Romans out and out.  The Emperor of Rome is the
+true Messiah.  All the rest should be impaled."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they gave vent to their various opinions.  The Temple authorities
+rubbed their hands in satisfaction.  "He is not clever enough to be
+dangerous.  He will hardly come within the arm of the law after what He
+has said."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But the people will judge Him," said one of the oldest among them,
+"the people themselves.  Mark that!  I promise you they will."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, indeed.  He is not a man of fair words," said one of the
+overseers.  "He does not flatter the mob, and my contempt for the
+Nazarene is less than it was yesterday.  If He falls in the eyes of the
+people, He rises in mine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man makes me think that He will soon give Himself up.  Did you
+hear His allusion to Golgotha?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bless my soul, a famous prophet has got to be right in something,"
+mocked one of the high priests.  "I think we ought to confer with the
+authorities so as to prevent any disturbance to-morrow at the festival.
+You understand me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's worth consideration with all this concourse of people."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think he has poured enough water on the fire," said the high priest.
+"No one would stir a finger if we took Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's wait till the festival is over.  You can never be sure of the
+mob."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What!  After laying traps for Him all over the country, are we to let
+Him insult us here in the Temple itself?  No, I don't fear the mob any
+more.  The law is more hazardous."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap29"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The little town of Bethany was situated in a narrow valley at the foot
+of the Mount of Olives.  There was a large house there belonging to a
+man who had been ill for many years; formerly he had been filled with
+despair, but since he had become an adherent of the Nazarene, he was
+resigned and cheerful.  His incurable disease became almost a blessing,
+for it destroyed all disquieting worldly desires and hopes, and also
+all fears.  In peaceful seclusion he gave up his heart to the Kingdom
+of God.  When he sat in his garden and looked out over the quiet
+working of Nature, he hardly remembered that he was ill.  He was so
+entirely imbued with the happiness of life in the Kingdom of Heaven,
+and his prayers were full of gratitude that death could not destroy
+such a life, since it was immortal, and would be carried into eternity
+with the immortal soul.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two of the inmates of his house were at one with him in this.
+Magdalen, his wife's sister, the fallen woman of Magdala, lived with
+them since she had been obliged to part from the Master.  Now she heard
+with a fearful joy that Jesus was in Jerusalem.  Her brother, Lazarus,
+was in still greater excitement about it.  The youth declared that the
+Master had accomplished the greatest thing of all in regard to him.  He
+could not talk about it enough, and was irritated if they did not
+receive his tale as the very newest thing, although it had happened
+months before, when Jesus had been in the wilderness of Judaea.  They
+had marvelled at the event beyond all measure, but when the great
+miracle came to be related every day, it got commonplace.  "Just let
+one of you experience what dying is like," Lazarus would often exclaim,
+interrupting a lively conversation.  "When you lie there and turn cold,
+they put on a shroud, tie a kerchief round your head, stretch you out
+on a board, and lament that you are dead.  You are dead, but it isn't
+quite what you thought.  You know about it; you are there when they put
+you into the sack, carry you to the grave, and rend their garments for
+grief.  You are there when your body is buried in the damp, everlasting
+darkness, and begins to mingle with the earth.  Your poor soul gathers
+itself together to utter a cry for help, but your breast is dead, your
+throat is dead.  And in this agony of death, which never ceases, a man
+comes by, lays his hand on your head, and says, 'Lazarus, get up!' and
+your pulse begins to beat, and your limbs grow warm again, and you get
+up and live!  And live!  Do you know what it means&mdash;live?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Magdalen would go to her brother and calm him, telling him that it
+was a great thing to awake a dead body to life, but a still greater
+thing to bring a dead soul to life!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now this family of Bethany had sent to Jerusalem and invited the Master
+to go to their house with two of His travelling companions in order
+that He might repose Himself after His long wanderings in homelike
+security.  Jesus thought it was time to leave the city for a little,
+and accepted the invitation.  His disciples were sorry.  They each
+desired some hospitable house in order that after so long a time of
+hardship they might once again be glad with the Master; they thought
+that was only reasonable, considering His victory.  When the disciples
+found that only two of them could go with Him, they were distressed,
+for all had been obliged to share the hard times with Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you ever lacked anything with Me?" He asked.  "Have you suffered
+want?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Lord, never!"  For by His side they had never felt want.  The
+Master rejoiced over their disinterestedness, and the ten decided that
+the youngest and the oldest should go with Him, as was only fair.  So
+John and Simon Peter were chosen.  The rest found lodging with citizens
+of the town.  Joseph of Arimathea, who had property round Jerusalem,
+received some of the disciples.  There was the rich Simeon, who had
+once ridden out into the wilderness to gain eternal life, and had
+nearly lost his mortal life.  Since then he had changed his opinion
+about the value of great possessions; at least, he let the needy share
+them, and he received some of the disciples.  James had business in
+Bethpage, on the farther slope of the Mount of Olives, where he had
+hired the ass.  He took Andrew with him.  The animal had been sent
+back, but had not yet been paid for.  The little old man came to meet
+them in most friendly fashion.  He was proud beyond everything that his
+noble brown ass had had so great an honour.  He had himself been in the
+city, and had heard how the Prophet reproved the Pharisees in the
+Temple.  That was the finest day of his life.  If the Master would only
+come and heal his wife of her rheumatism, he would be converted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was a good thing, said James, because they hadn't any money with
+which to pay him.  The little old man whistled in surprise.  He saw now
+that people were right when they set no store by men of Galilee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In order to save their countrymen's honour, they offered to work in the
+garden until they had fully paid the debt.  So both the disciples set
+to digging, and thought, perhaps, of the parable of the labourers in
+the vineyard.  Then they discussed the events in Jerusalem, and how
+they would rather be ministers of the Messiah in the golden palace than
+doing such hard work here.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus with John and Peter reached Bethany, their host Amon had
+himself pushed in his wheeled chair to meet them, and called to his
+wife, Martha, to make haste and come and pay her respects to the
+guests.  She had, she said, no time for that; she had things to look
+after, in the parlour, the dining-room, everywhere, to see that all was
+in order, if need be to lend a helping hand herself.  The children of
+the servants were playing about in the courtyard, and a contented,
+homelike feeling pervaded everything.  Suddenly the slender form of
+Lazarus hurried up, and lay down at the Master's feet.  He recognised
+him, and said: "Lazarus, you have your life in order to stand upright."
+The youth got up.  And then, hesitating and half afraid, Magdalen
+approached.  He greeted her in silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She, too, said nothing.  But when they were at table she knelt before
+Him, and anointed His feet.  She dried them with her hair and wept.
+The pleasant odour of the oil filled the room, and Peter whispered to
+his neighbour: "Such ointment must cost a mint of money!  If she had
+given it to the poor, He would have been better pleased."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus heard what he said.  "What is wrong, Peter?  She is kind to Me so
+long as I am here.  When I'm no longer with you, you'll still have the
+poor.  She has shown Me a mark of love that will never be forgotten."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peter was ashamed, and said softly to his neighbours: "He is right.  It
+often happens that people leave a good deed undone, and say, 'We'll
+give something, therefore, to the poor.'  That's what they say, but
+they do neither one nor the other.  He is right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They ate and drank amid the pleasant, homely surroundings, and were
+very cheerful.  Magdalen wanted to sit quite at the lower end of the
+table, but the Master desired her to sit on His right hand.  Her
+enthusiastic glance hung on His face, and it seemed as if she drank
+from His mouth every word which He spoke.  Jesus was indefatigable in
+narrating legends and parables, every one of which contained some great
+thought.  If He dealt harshly with human foolishness before the people,
+He treated it as earnestly now, but with a warm sympathy that went to
+the hearts of all His hearers.  The invalid host was delighted, and
+signed to his wife to listen to the Master's words.  But Martha was
+continually occupied in looking after the various courses and dishes,
+in seeing that everything was as perfect as possible, and in serving
+her guests.  She was vexed with her sister Magdalen who sat there by
+His side, and troubled herself about nothing.  When she again brought
+in a dish, Jesus put His hand gently on her arm, and said; "Martha, how
+busy you are.  Do leave off for a little, and come and sit down.  We've
+had more than enough with all these dainties, and you bring us still
+more.  Copy your sister; she has chosen the better part&mdash;spiritual food
+instead of bodily."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Martha sat down, and she too watched His mouth, but less for the
+sake of what He said than to see how He liked the food.  He observed
+this, and said with a smile, "Everyone is kind in his own way."  And He
+continued to reveal in attractive fashion the secrets of the Kingdom of
+Heaven.  But Martha always interrupted Him with remarks on the dishes,
+or with orders to the servants, until Jesus became almost annoyed, and
+said sharply: "Know you not that I will give you food?  The soul is the
+one thing needful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they also spoke of the day's proceedings, and Amon congratulated
+Him prettily on the great victory at Jerusalem.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you call that a victory?" asked Jesus.  "Amon, do you know men so
+little?  They see in Me the Messiah King who will conquer the Empire
+to-morrow.  They, blind creatures, they have no idea of <I>My</I> Kingdom.
+They are pleased with words that destroy, they do not want to hear
+words that build up.  It's an empty-headed people that can only be
+roused by need and oppression.  But they will be aroused."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After dinner He lay down on cushions, the softest that Martha could
+find in the house.  Young John's curly head lay on His breast, Magdalen
+sat at His feet.  Peter lay near by on a carpet; a little farther off
+sat Amon in his wheeled chair, with Martha stroking his white hair.
+John was particularly happy to-day.  He had never seen the Master so
+calm and gentle.  Yet something depressed the disciple.  At the above
+remark about the people he observed: "Master, if they knew how deeply
+you loved them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They ought to know it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But they cannot know it from the way in which you speak to them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The way in which I speak to them?" said Jesus, and stroked the
+disciple's soft hair.  "That is just My John all over.  He cannot
+understand that you do not stroke buffaloes with peacocks' feathers.
+I'm too hard on these hypocrites, these obdurate, indifferent men, am
+I?  When I disappoint those who would extract daily profit from Me in
+the form of miracles, when I lay bare the carefully-concealed thoughts
+of their hearts, then I am hard.  And when I shatter their childish
+love of the world, their craving for vanities, then I am hard.  And
+when they strut about with their condemnations and their
+hard-heartedness, trampling the weak underfoot out of greed and malice,
+haughty as the heathens who bring human sacrifices to their gods, I
+would fain chastise them with a lash of scorpions.  But when the
+forsaken come to Me, and penitent sinners trustfully seek refuge with
+Me, then, John, I am not hard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The voices of children playing in the courtyard sounded through the
+open windows.  Jesus turned to His hostess and said: "Martha!  You have
+excellently entertained Me in your house.  Will you give Me yet another
+treat?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it, Master?  I would leave no wish of yours ungratified."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The little ones&mdash;let them come in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah! my poor boy will cry his eyes out that he wasn't here to-day.
+Dear lad, he's in Jerusalem."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God be his guard!  Let those who are playing in the courtyard come up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They came shyly in at the door, two dark little girls, and a fair boy,
+who carried a carved wood camel in his hand.  When Jesus spread out His
+arms, they went to Him, and were soon at home, holding up their little
+red mouths, in which He put fruit from the table.  Peter, who would
+have liked to sleep a little, was not particularly pleased with the
+little guests, but was glad that the Master petted them and joked with
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus said to the boy: "Benjamin, mount your camel, ride to that
+man over there, and ask him why he is so silent."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peter accepted the invitation to join in the conversation, but he was
+not very happy in what he said.  "Master," he said hesitatingly, "what
+I have to say is scarcely suited to this pleasant day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such remarks, said Martha humorously, were of the right sort to add to
+the cheerfulness of the company.  Peter was not the man to keep a
+secret long.  Turning to the Master, he said: "Early to-day, in the
+city, I heard some people talking.  They're always doing you some
+injustice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What were they saying, Peter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They said that the Prophet was a man of fair words, but that He did
+nothing.  He never once healed the sick who came to Him from great
+distances."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They say that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir, that's the kind of thing they say."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus raised His head, and looked cheerfully round the circle.  While
+He rocked one of the little girls on His knee, He said calmly: "So they
+say I only talk and do nothing.  In their sense they are right.  I
+don't pray, they mean, because they don't see Me do it.  I don't fast,
+because we can't eat less than a little, except when we sit at a
+luxurious table like Martha's.  I don't give alms because My purse is
+empty.  What good do I do, then?  I don't work, because in their eyes
+My work doesn't count.  I don't work miracles on their bodies, because
+I am come to heal their souls.  Amon, say, would you exchange the peace
+of your heart for sound legs?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord!" exclaimed Amon vivaciously, "if they say you do nothing good,
+just let them come to the house of old Amon at Bethany.  You came under
+my roof, and my soul was healed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you brought me resurrection and life," shouted Lazarus
+passionately from the other end of the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And me, more than that," said Magdalen, looking up at Him with moist
+eyes.  And then she bent down and kissed His feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Peter exclaimed: "I was a mere worm, and He made me a man.  He does
+more than all the Rabbis and physicians and generals put together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then John turned to him and asked: "Brother, why didn't you talk like
+that to the people in Jerusalem?  Were you afraid of them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is yon man a coward?" asked the boy, pointing with his hand to Peter.
+"Then he'll help us to play lion and sheep in the courtyard!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus shook His head over such talk, and said: "No, My Peter is not a
+coward, but he is still somewhat unstable for a rock.  No one who, at
+his age, can train himself for the Kingdom of God could be a weakling."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Martha, who had gone out to look after the supper, called into the room
+that the children's mother wanted them to go to her to read the
+Haggadah.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little ones pulled long faces.  "To read the Haggadah!" murmured
+the boy in a tone far too contemptuous of the holy Passover book.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you like to read about God, my child?" asked Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," replied the boy crossly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John pinched his red cheek.  "Naughty boy!  Good boys always like to
+hear about God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But not always to read about Him!" said the little one.  "The Haggadah
+tires me to death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then said Jesus: "He is of the unhappy ones for whom God is spoiled by
+the mere letter of the Word.  Would you rather stay with Me, children,
+than go and read the Haggadah?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, yes, we'll stay with you."  And all three hung round His neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Martha sought the mother and told her: "They are reading the
+Haggadah with six arms."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap30"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Two days were spent in this quiet, cheerful fashion.  Then Jesus said
+to the disciples: "It is over; we must return to Jerusalem."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were to spend the festival in the city, and James had hired a room
+in which the Master and His twelve faithful friends could solemnly
+celebrate the Passover.  His disciples again gathered round Him; but
+they looked anxious.  For they had had unpleasant experiences in their
+walks through the town.  The mood of the people had entirely changed;
+they spoke little of the Messiah but rather of the demagogue and
+betrayer of the people, just in the same tone as had been used in
+Galilee.  Only here the expressions were more forcible, and accompanied
+with threatening gestures.  In front of the town gates, where there was
+a rocky hill, Thomas had watched two carpenters nailing crossbeams to
+long stakes.  He asked what they were doing, and was told that
+criminals were impaled on the festival.  Questioning them more closely,
+he learned that they were desert robbers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Desert robbers?" said a passer-by.  "What are desert robbers?  There
+are desert robbers every year.  This time quite different people are to
+be hoisted up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, if they're caught," said another.  "His followers are burrowing
+somewhere in the city, but He Himself has flown.  It's too absurd how
+the police seek everywhere, and can't find out where He is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thomas did not want to hear any more, and took himself off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judas heard similar things, only more plainly; it was quite clear that
+it was the Master who was meant.  Things had gone as far as that!  And
+all the enthusiasm had been false.  The olive-branches and palm-leaves
+were not yet all trodden down, and they bore witness to the Messianic
+ecstasy of four days ago.  And to-day?  To-day the police were
+searching for Him!  But wasn't it His own fault?  To run into the jaws
+of your enemies, and to irritate and abuse them&mdash;to do no more than
+that!  If He had only stirred a fold of His cloak to show who He was.
+Who believed that He had walked on the water: that He had brought the
+dead to life?  They only laughed when such things were related.  Why
+did He not do something now?  Just one miracle, and we should be saved.
+Perhaps He is intentionally letting things come to the worst, so that
+His power may appear the more impressive.  They will take Him and put
+Him in chains, lead Him out amid the joyful cries of the mob, and
+suddenly a troop of angels with fiery swords will come down from
+heaven, destroy the enemy, and the Messiah revealed will ascend the
+throne.  That will happen, must happen.  The sooner the better for all
+of us.  How can it be hurried on?  His indecision must be changed into
+determination.  I wish they had Him already, so that we could celebrate
+a glorious Passover.  Such were the thoughts of the disciple, Judas
+Iscariot.  Sunk in deep reflection he walked through the streets that
+evening.  The pinnacles and towers glowed in the dull red of the
+setting sun.  He met several companies of soldiers: a captain stopped
+him and asked if he did not come from Galilee?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you're asking about the Prophet," replied Judas; "no, I'm
+not He."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I'm certain you know about Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judas drew a deep breath, as if he were on the point of saying
+something.  But he said nothing, pursued his way, and came to the house
+where they were all gathered round the Master.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The room was large and gloomy.  A single lamp was suspended over the
+large table, covered with a white cloth, that stood in the centre,
+around which they were already seated.  The Master was so placed that
+the whole table could see Him.  A large dish with the roasted Paschal
+lamb stood before Him.  By its side were the Passover herbs in shallow
+bowls.  On the table were other bowls, and the unleavened bread baked
+for the festival in remembrance of the manna eaten in the wilderness.
+Near the centre of the table was a beaker of red wine.  They were
+silent or speaking in whispers, so that the steps of Judas, as he
+entered, echoed.  He was almost terrified by the echo.  Then he greeted
+them in silence with a low bow and sat down, just opposite John, who
+was at the Master's right hand, while Peter sat at His left.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was solemn silence.  Their first Passover in Jerusalem!  Jesus
+took one of the unleavened cakes, broke it, and laid the pieces down.
+James divided the lamb into thirteen portions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are thirteen at table," whispered Thaddeus to his neighbour
+Bartholomew.  He was silent.  They did not eat, but sat there in
+silence.  The lamp flickered, and the reddish reflection hovered about
+the table.  Then Jesus began to speak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eat and drink.  The hour approaches."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John placed his hand tenderly on His, and asked: "What do you mean,
+Lord, when you say, The hour approaches?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friends," said Jesus, "you will not understand how what will happen
+this night can come to pass.  They will come and condemn Me to death.
+I shall not flee, for it must be so.  I have to bear testimony to the
+Father in heaven and of His tidings, and therefore I am ready to die.
+If I were not willing to die for My words, they would be like sand in
+the desert.  If I were not willing to die, My friends would not be
+justified, and would doubt Me.  A good shepherd must lay down his life
+for his flock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master," said Thomas, and his voice trembled, "not when you live; only
+when you die, could we doubt you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus looked sadly round the circle, and said: "One among you
+doubts Me, though I live."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean by that, Lord?" asked Judas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus said: "The Son of Man goes His appointed way.  Yet it would be
+better for that man never to have been born.  One of My own people will
+betray Me this night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As if struck down by a heavy weight, they were silent for a moment.
+Then they exclaimed: "Who is it?  Who is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of the twelve who sits at this table."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Master!" exclaimed Peter, "what causes that gloomy thought?  No one is
+unfaithful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus said to him; "Yes, Simon Peter!  And another at this table will
+deny Me before morning cockcrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were silent, for they were all greatly afraid.  After a while He
+continued speaking.  "It must happen as the Father in His wisdom has
+determined.  But the time of work begins for you.  You will be My
+apostles, My ambassadors, who will travel over the world to tell all
+the nations what I have told you.  You shall be the salt of humanity,
+and season it with wisdom.  You shall be the yeast which causes it to
+ferment.  To others I have said, Do the good work secretly; to you I
+say, Let your light shine forth as an example.  Be wily as the serpent,
+and let not hypocrites deceive you; be like clever money-changers, who
+accept only good coins and refuse the false.  Be without guile, like
+doves, and go forth, innocent as the sheep who go among wolves.  If
+they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.  Where you sow
+peace for others, there will be the sword for you.  It will also come
+to pass that your message of peace will awake discord; one brother will
+dispute with the others, children will be against their parents,
+because some will be for Me and others against Me.  But the time will
+come when they will be united, one flock under the care of one
+shepherd.  Then there will be a great fire on earth, that of enthusiasm
+for the Spirit and for Love.  Would it were already burning!  Do not
+despair because, with your simplicity and want of eloquence, your
+ignorance of foreign tongues, you must travel in strange lands.  The
+moment you have to speak, My Spirit will speak through you in burning
+eloquence.  If you are silent, then the stones must speak, so vital is
+the word that must be spoken.  You must speak to the lowly of the glad
+tidings; you must speak to the mighty who possess the power to kill
+your body, but not your soul.  Days of temptation and persecution will
+come, I will not cease to implore the Father to stand by you.  Be not
+cast down.  If I did not now depart, the Spirit could not come to you.
+The visible is an enemy of the invisible.  I have spoken to you much in
+parables, so that it may the better remain in your memory.  I had still
+much to say to you; but My Spirit will speak to you, and He will make
+you understand more easily than when I spoke in parables.  Upon you I
+build My Church; do you open the Kingdom of God to all who seek it.
+What you do on earth in My name will also hold good in heaven with the
+Father.  And now I give you My peace as the world can never give it.  I
+remain with you in My Spirit and My Love."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+The great words were spoken.  A solemn peace fell on their hearts.
+Judas went out.  The rest sat on in silence and looked at the Master
+with unbounded affection.  They could not understand what He had said,
+but they felt these were words before which the earth would tremble and
+the heavens bow down.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now something extraordinary happened.  It was not a miracle, it was
+more than a miracle.  Jesus stood up, took a towel and a washing-bowl,
+knelt before each, and washed his feet.  In their astonishment they
+offered no resistance.  When He came to Peter, Peter said, "No, Master,
+you shall not wash my feet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To which Jesus replied: "If I do not, then you are not Mine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Said Peter: "If that is so, then wash my face and hands, too, O Lord!
+so that it may be evident how utterly I am yours."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus said: "You call Me Lord, and yet I wash your feet.  I do
+this so that you may know that among men there is no lord, that all are
+brethren who shall serve one another.  See how I love you.  No one can
+give a greater proof of his love than to die so that his friends may
+live.  So I leave you this legacy: Brothers, love one another.  As I
+love you, love one another."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John, overcome by those words, sank on his knees, and, sobbing, laid
+his head upon His bosom.  And Jesus said once more: "Children, love one
+another."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then He again sat down with them at the table.  They were all silent.
+Jesus took bread in His hand, lifted it a little towards heaven that it
+might be blessed, and broke it in two.  He handed the pieces to the
+right and left of Him, and said: "Take it and eat.  It is My body that
+will be broken for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They took it.  Then He took the beaker of wine, lifted it to heaven
+that it might be blessed, passed it round, and said: "Take it and
+drink.  It is My blood that will be shed for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And when they had all drunk.  He added: "Do this in remembrance of Me."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap31"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+When the disciples separated after the meal, notwithstanding their
+fears, they did not realise that it was a farewell.  They sought their
+lodgings.  Only John, Peter, and James accompanied the Master when He
+left the town in the dark night and descended the valley to the foot of
+the Mount of Olives.  There was a garden there.  White stones lay
+between the savin trees and the weeping cypresses, fresh spring grass
+covered the ground.  Jesus said to His companions: "Stay here a
+little."  He Himself went farther into the garden.  The sky was covered
+by a thin veil of cloud, so that the moon shed a pale light over the
+earth.  The town on the mountain rose up dark and still; no sound was
+to be heard except the rippling of the brook Kedron in the valley.
+Jesus stood and looked up through the trees towards heaven.  He
+breathed heavily, and drops of perspiration stood on His brow.  He felt
+a great agony, an agony He had never before known.  Had He not often
+thought of death, and in His mind felt quite reconciled to it?  Did He
+not know that the Heavenly Father would receive Him?  Only He still
+belonged to this sweet life below, and still the way was open to Him to
+escape death.  Is His soul so weak now that it is troubled by the
+prospect of the enemy at hand, ready to seize Him?  Can He not go over
+the mountain to Jericho, into the wilderness, to the sea?  No, not
+flight.  Of His own free will He is to appear before the judges in
+order to stand by what He said.  Ah! but this surrender to the powers
+He had offended means death.  He sank down on the ground so that His
+head touched the grass, as if He would draw the earth to Him with eager
+arms.  "Must it be, O Father?  Fain would I stay with men in order to
+bring them nearer to Me.  Who will guide My disciples, still so weak?
+Guard them from evil, but do not take them from the world.  Let them
+live and spread Thy name.  If it is possible, let Me stay with them.
+But if it must be, take this agony of soul from Me and stand by Me.
+But I must not demand aught, My God, only humbly entreat.  If it is Thy
+will that I shall suffer all human sorrow and pain, then Thy will be
+done.  Accept this sacrifice for all who have provoked Thee.  If Thou
+desirest it, I will take the sins of the world upon Me, and atone for
+them that Thou mayest pardon.  But if it may be avoided, Father, My
+Father who art in heaven, have mercy on Thy Son, who has proclaimed Thy
+mercy."  So He prayed, and in His infinite distress He longed for His
+disciples.  He went to them and found them asleep.  They were sleeping
+like innocent children, and knew nothing of His terrible struggle.  He
+woke Peter, and said: "I am wellnigh perishing with sorrow.  Surely you
+might watch with Me in this hour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciple pulled himself together with some difficulty and shook the
+others.  But when Jesus looked at the poor fellows.  He thought: "What
+can they do for Me?"  He left them and went away, in order to fight
+through it alone.  And again He prayed: "Help Me, Lord; Oh, My God,
+forsake Me not."  But Heaven was silent, the loneliness was
+intolerable, and lie once more went back to His disciples.  They were
+again fast asleep.  They rested so peacefully, tired out by the cruel
+world, that Jesus thought, Well, let them sleep.  Drops, like blood,
+ran down His forehead and fell on the ground.  A third time He turned
+to the Father: "Forsaken of all, on Thee alone I call.  There is none
+to hear Me in My agony.  They are all asleep, and the clash of spears
+is on the road.  Lord God, send Thine angels to protect Me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not a leaf stirred; there was not a breath of air.  Heaven remained
+deaf and dumb.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the silent word of God.  To His will I submit."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap32"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+When Judas sat in the room among the twelve, he felt so bewildered and
+confused that he did not hear all that Jesus said.  So he got up, left
+the room, and rushed through the empty streets of the city.  "One of
+those who sit at this table will betray Me!"  He knows men's thoughts.
+That gives Him power over all.  But He does not know how to use that
+power; He must be driven to that.  Judas could think of nothing else.
+The thought with which hitherto he had only played now took violent
+possession of his head and heart.  He went through the city gate, which
+was not closed at this Passover time.  He would spend the night among
+the bushes; but see&mdash;there goes the Master along the road with three of
+His disciples.  Judas stretched out his head between the branches in
+order to look after them.  They went towards the valley.  Were they
+going to Bethany?  Now he knew what to do.  He quickly pulled himself
+together, and went straight off to the Roman captain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know where He is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You want money for this Jew?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's not my reason for telling you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet you tell me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because I can't wait any longer.  You will find out who He is, ere
+long."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, where is He?"'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll go with the soldiers.  There are several persons with Him; I will
+go up to one and kiss his cheek.  That will be He."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How much do you want for this service of love, you brute?" asked the
+captain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Insult away!  Seek Him without me.  I know what I'm after."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, how much do you want?  Are thirty silver pieces enough?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Man is worth more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not haggle over prices."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, give what you please.  I fancy He will cost you very dear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bargain was struck.  Judas, the treasurer, put the coins in the
+common purse, and thought: If we had only had this sooner.  And now
+it's hardly any use to us.  Then a troop of soldiers placed him in
+their midst, and, carrying torches, the procession marched out of the
+town and down into the Valley of Kedron.  They crossed the brook, and
+at the entrance to the garden gate intended to proceed to Bethany.  But
+a swift, curious glance of Judas observed, by the glimmer of the moon,
+figures lying on the ground under a bush.  He stopped, looked, and
+recognised the brothers.  He signed to the soldiers to enter the garden
+quietly.  To walk quietly is the way of traitors, not of warriors.  The
+sound of marching and the clash of swords woke the disciples.  A very
+different awakening from the gentle bidding of the Master!  They jumped
+up and hastened to where He was kneeling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judas came forward and said: "Did I frighten you?"  Then he went up to
+Jesus: "You are still awake, Master?"  He bent down in greeting, kissed
+Him lightly on the cheek, and thought in tremulous expectation: Messiah
+King, now reveal Thyself!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the soldiers rushed up.  They had been joined by a mob armed with
+sticks and cudgels, just as when notorious criminals are taken.  Jesus
+went forward a few steps to meet them and offered His hands to them to
+be bound.  John threw himself between, but he was dashed to the ground.
+James struggled with two of the soldiers; Peter snatched the sword of a
+third, and hacked at one of the Temple guards so that his ear flew from
+his body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you doing?" Jesus called to the disciple.  "If you interfere
+they will kill you.  You will conquer not with the sword, but with the
+word.  But you, O people of Jerusalem; you treat Me as shamefully as if
+I were a murderer.  And only five days ago you led Me into the city
+with palms and psalms.  What have I done since then?  I sat in the
+Temple among you.  Why did you not take Me then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They mocked at Him.  "Isn't to-day soon enough for you?  Can't you wait
+any longer for your ladder to heaven?  Patience, it is set up already."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the disciples heard such allusions, and saw the Master calmly
+surrendering Himself, they drew back.  The sticks and spears clashed
+together, the crowd jogged along, the torches flickered, and so the
+procession went up to the city.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Judas stood behind the trunk of a tree, looking through the branches at
+the dread procession, and his eyes started from his head in terror.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap33"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The judges were awakened at midnight; the Jewish High Priests that they
+might accuse Him, the heathen judges that they might condemn Him.  The
+High Priest Caiaphas left his couch right gladly; he was delighted that
+they had caught Him at last, but he thought that the High Priest Annas
+should frame the accusation; he was younger, better acquainted with the
+Roman laws, and would carry through the ticklish business most
+effectively.  He, Caiaphas, would hold himself ready for bearing
+testimony or sealing documents at any minute.  Annas, too, was
+delighted that the Galilean, who had insulted the Pharisees in the
+Temple in so unheard-of a fashion, was caught at last.  He would settle
+the matter this very night, before the people, on whom no reliance was
+to be placed, could interfere.  With respect to the accusation, the
+whole high priesthood of Jerusalem must meet in order to take counsel
+over this knotty case.  As a matter of fact there was nothing they
+could legally bring against the fellow.  His speeches to the people.
+His proceedings in the Temple were, unfortunately, not sufficient.
+Some crime&mdash;a political one if possible&mdash;must be proved against Him, if
+that heathen, the Roman governor, was to condemn Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they met at the house of Caiaphas to take counsel.  They carried
+innumerable scrolls under their arms, in which were written all manner
+of things that had occurred since the first appearance of the Nazarene.
+The Galilean Rabbis especially had sent volumes in order to discredit
+and expose Him.  Yet all this would not be sufficient for the governor.
+Some definite point must be clearly worked up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Jesus was brought in.  His hands were bound, His dress was soiled
+and torn.  His countenance very sad.  The crowd had already had proof
+of His courage.  He stood there quietly.  Terror He no longer felt,
+sadness alone lay in His eyes.  They turned over the scrolls and spoke
+together in whispers.  It was made known that they would be glad to
+hear anyone who could bring any evidence against Him.  But no one
+offered.  The priests looked at each other in bewilderment.  Those who
+struck Him and insulted Him must surely know why they did it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length a deformed man came forward.  He was certainly only a poor
+camel-dealer, but he knew something.  The story of the whale!  The
+Galilean said that, just as the whale cast up Jonah after three days,
+so would He come forth from His grave three days after His death.  The
+man had also said that He would destroy Solomon's Temple, which had
+taken forty-seven years to build, and rebuild it in three days.  Other
+witnesses could be found to testify to these things.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some considered, however, that these stories were empty exaggerations,
+and nothing more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are blasphemy," exclaimed Caiaphas.  "Everything He says has a
+hidden meaning.  What He meant was that three days after His death He
+would rise again, in order to destroy the Kingdom of the Jews and
+establish a new Kingdom."  Then he turned to Jesus: "Did you say that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He does not deny it; He did say it.  The wrath of Jehovah which
+presses heavily on Israel has been evoked by this blasphemer and false
+prophet.  And the guilty creature does not deny it."  Then Caiaphas
+turned to the people who were gathering in increasing numbers in the
+fore-court: "Let him who knows anything further against Him come
+forward and speak."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then several voices exclaimed: "He is a blasphemer, He is a false
+prophet.  He has brought on us the curse of Jehovah!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you hear?" said the High Priest.  "That is the voice of the people!
+Yet in order to satisfy the nicest of consciences we will permit Him to
+speak once again that He may defend Himself.  Jesus of Nazareth! many
+know that you have said that you are the Christ, sent by Heaven.
+Answer clearly and without ambiguity.  I ask you, Are you Christ, the
+Son of God?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You say so," replied Jesus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again, and in a louder voice, Caiaphas asked: "By all you deem sacred,
+speak now on oath.  Are you the Son of God?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then said Jesus to the High Priest: "If you do not believe it now that
+I stand before you as a malefactor, you will believe it when I come
+down from heaven in the clouds at the right hand of Almighty God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus had spoken these words, Caiaphas turned to the assembly:
+"What do you want more?  If that's not rank blasphemy, I'll resign my
+office.  If that's not blasphemy, then we have punished others, who
+said less, far too severely.  What shall we do with Him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Several priests rent their garments in anger, and shouted: "Let Him
+die!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cry was taken up by many voices out in the streets.  The priests
+immediately put things in shape for the sentence to be pronounced that
+night, and, if possible, carried into effect before the festival,
+without making a stir.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If the matter had rested with Herod, King of the Jews, he would have
+rid himself of his rival from Nazareth with a snap of his lingers; but
+it was the Roman governor with whom they had to deal.  So Pontius
+Pilate also was awakened in the night.  He was a Roman, and had been
+appointed by the Emperor to hold Judaea in spite of Herod, whose Jewish
+kingdom had become as nothing.  Pilate often declared that this office
+of ruling the Jewish people for the Emperor had been his evil star.  He
+would rather have remained in cultured Rome, whose gods were much more
+amiable than the perverse Jehovah, about whom all kinds of sects
+disputed.  And then came this Nazarene.  When Pilate learnt the reason
+why he was disturbed from his sleep he cursed.  "This stupid business
+again about the Nazarene who, accompanied by a few beggars, rode into
+Jerusalem on an ass, and said He was the Messiah.  The people laughed
+at Him.  And that's to be made a political case!  They should expel Him
+from the Temple and let people sleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the crowd shouted in front of his windows: "He is a blasphemer!  A
+deceiver and a traitor!  An anarchist!  He must be tried!"  Pilate did
+not know what to do.  Then his wife came, and entreated him not to do
+anything to Jesus of Nazareth.  She had had a horrible dream about Him.
+She had seen Him standing in a white garment that shone like the moon.
+Then he had descended into a deep abyss where the souls of the
+condemned were wailing, had raised them up and led them on high.  Then
+dreadful angels with big black wings had seized the judges, and thrown
+them into the abyss.  Pilate had been among them, and his cry of pain
+still rang in her ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't make my head more confused than it is already with your
+talking," he commanded.  The noise in the street became more
+threatening every moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was exhausted, and, surrounded by guards, sat down on a stone in
+the courtyard of Pilate's house.  The crowd came up, mocked Him and
+insulted Him.  They draped Him in the torn red cloak of a Bedouin for
+royal purple, they plucked thorns from a hedge in the neighbouring
+garden, wove them into a crown, and set it on His head.  They broke off
+a dry reed and put it into His hand as a sceptre.  They anointed His
+cheek with spittle.  And then they bowed down to the ground before Him,
+and sang in a shrill voice: "Hail to Thee, O anointed Messiah-King!"
+and put out their tongues at Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus sat there, calm and unmoved.  He looked at His tormentors with
+sad eyes, not in anger, but in pity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His disciples, terrified to death, had now come up, but remained
+outside the walls.  Peter was furious over the infamous betrayal that
+had taken place, and could not understand what had possessed Judas.  In
+sore distress he stood in the farthest courtyard where it was dark.
+Then a girl tripped up to him on her way to the well for water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here's another!" she shouted.  "Why are you standing here?  Go and do
+homage to your King."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peter turned in the direction of the gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're one of those Galileans, too," she continued.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What have I to do with Galilee?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A gatekeeper interposed: "Of course he is a Galilean.  You can see that
+by his dress.  He belongs to the Nazarene."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know Him," said Peter, and tried to hurry off.  The
+gatekeeper stopped him with the shaft of his spear.  "Halt there, you
+Jew!  Your King is seated yonder on His throne.  Do homage to Him
+before He flies into the clouds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me alone; I do not know the man," exclaimed Peter, and hastened
+away.  As he went out of the gate, a cock crowed just over his head.
+Peter started.  Did He not speak of a cock at supper?  "And another
+will deny me this night just before cock-crow."  In a flash the old
+disciple saw what he had done.  From terror that he, too, would be
+seized, he had lied about his Master, about Him who had been everything
+to him&mdash;everything&mdash;everything.  Now in His need they had left Him
+alone, had not even had the courage to acknowledge themselves His
+supporters.  "Oh, Simon!" he said to himself, "you should have stayed
+by your lake instead of playing at being the chosen of God.  He gave me
+His Kingdom of Heaven and this is how I requite Him!"  His life was now
+so broken that he crept out into the desert.  There he threw himself on
+a stone, wrung his hands, and abandoned himself to weeping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was at last brought into the hall before the Governor.  When
+Pilate saw Him in that unheard-of disguise, his temper began to rise.
+He was not to be waked from His sleep for a joke.  Well, the Jews had
+mocked at their Messiah-King, and He would mock at them through Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He heard the accusation but found nothing in it.  "What?" he said to
+the High Priests and their supporters, "I'm to condemn your King?  Why,
+what are you thinking of?"  Instead of terrifying the accused with his
+judicial dignity, he desired to enter into conversation with Him.
+Although the Nazarene stood there in such wretched plight, He must have
+something in Him to have roused the masses as He did.  He wanted to
+make His acquaintance.  In a friendly manner he put mocking questions
+to Him.  Did he really know anything special of God?  Would He not tell
+him too, for even heathens were sometimes curious about the Kingdom of
+Heaven?  How should a man set about loving a God whom no one had ever
+seen?  Or which among the gods was the true one?  And for the life of
+him he would like to know what truth really was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus said not a word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You do not seem to lack the virtue of pride," continued Pilate, "and
+that's in your favour.  You know, of course, in whose presence you
+stand, in the presence of one who has the power, to put you to death,
+or to set you free."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was still silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd which already filled the large courtyard became more and more
+noisy and unmanageable.  Rabbis slipped through it in order to fan the
+fire, and on all sides sentence of death was eagerly demanded.  Pilate
+shrugged his shoulders.  He did not understand the people.  But he
+could not condemn an innocent man to death.  He would let the Nazarene
+just as He was step out on to the balcony.  He himself took a torch
+from a slave's hand to light up the pitiful figure.  "Look," he called
+down to the crowd, "look at the poor fellow!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To the gallows with him!  To the cross with him!" shouted the crowd.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If," said Pilate, preserving his ironical tone, "if you do not want to
+miss your Passover spectacle, go out there; no fear of criminals not
+being crucified to-day.  What do you say to Barabbas, the desert king?
+O ye men of Jerusalem, be satisfied with one king."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We want to see this Jesus crucified," raged the people.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But why, by Jupiter?  I cannot see that He is guilty of anything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the High Priests came up to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you set free this blasphemer, this demagogue, who, so He says,
+intends to redeem the Jewish nation from bondage, who has the devil's
+eloquence with which to influence the masses, if you let this man go
+about among the people again, then you are your Emperor's bitterest
+enemy.  Then we shall ask for a governor who is as true to the Emperor
+as we are!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You would be more imperial than Pontius Pilate!"  He threw out that
+sentence to them, measuring their figures with contempt.  Whenever Rome
+touched any of their chartered rights they seethed with anger; but
+whenever they needed power to accomplish some purpose hostile to the
+people, they cringed to Rome.  They recognised no people and no
+Emperor; their Temple-law was all in all to them.  And they dared to
+advise the Governor to be imperial!  But the crowd murmured angrily.
+The storm of passion was increasing in the courtyard.  A thousand
+voices threatening, shouting shrilly, demanded the Nazarene's death.
+At that moment his wife sent to Pilate and reminded him of her dream.
+He was inclined to set the accused free at once.  Then in the dim light
+of the torches and the dawning day a dark mass appeared above the heads
+of the people.  It was one of those criminals' stakes with the
+cross-beam like those erected out at Golgotha, only more massive and
+imposing.  They had dragged the cross here, and when it became visible
+to the crowd they broke out in heightened fury: "Crucify Him!  Crucify
+Him!  Jesus or Pilate!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jesus&mdash;or Pilate?"  Was that what they shouted?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jesus or Pilate?" was re-echoed from courtyard to courtyard, from
+street to street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you hear, Governor?" one of the High Priests asked him.  "There is
+nothing else to be done!  You see, the people haven't been asleep
+to-night.  They are mad!"  So saying, he seized the staff of justice,
+and offered it to Pilate.  He had turned pale at the sight of the
+raging mob.  He signed with his hand that he wished to speak.  The
+tumult subsided sufficiently for his words to be heard, and he shouted
+hoarsely:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I cannot find that this man has committed any crime.  But you wish to
+crucify Him.  So be it, but His death is on your consciences!"
+Purposely following the Jewish custom, he washed his hands in a bowl,
+so that those who could not hear him might see; then holding them up,
+all dripping wet, before the people, he exclaimed: "My hands are clean
+from His blood.  I accept no responsibility."  He seized the staff,
+broke it in two with his hands, and threw the pieces at Jesus's feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then there arose a storm of jubilation; "Hail to thee, Pilate!  Hail to
+the Governor of the great Emperor!  Hail to the great Governor of the
+Emperor!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The High Priests humbly bowed before him, and the guards seized the
+condemned man.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap34"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The big cross, carried by insolent youths, swung to and fro above the
+heads of the people.  Every one tried to get out of the way of the
+sinister thing; if a man, joking, thrust his neighbour towards it, he
+pushed quickly back into the crowd with a shriek.  And the unceasing
+cry went on: "Hail to Pontius Pilate!  To the cross with the Nazarene!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus was led from the hall into the courtyard, where His guards had to
+protect Him from the fury of the mob.  They led Him up to the cross.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sentry appeared, and, violently swinging his arm, shouted; "No
+execution can take place here!  Away with Him!  No execution can be
+permitted here!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To Golgotha!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the youths found that they would have to take the cross back to
+where they had fetched it, they let it fall to the ground, so that the
+wood made a groaning noise, and then ran off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let Him carry His own cross!" shouted several voices.  The plan
+commended itself to the guards; they unbound His hands, and placed the
+cross on His shoulder.  He staggered under the load.  They beat Him
+with cords like a beast of burden; He tottered along with trembling
+steps, carrying the stake on His right shoulder, so that one arm of the
+cross fell against His breast, held fast there by His hands.  The long
+stake was dragged along the ground.  They had tied a cord round His
+waist by which they led Him.  They pulled Him along so violently that
+He stumbled, and often fell.  The crowd which followed tried to do
+everything they could to hurt Him.  So Jesus tottered along, bowed
+under the heavy weight of the wood.  His gown covered with street mud,
+His head pierced by the thorns so that drops of blood trickled down His
+unkempt hair and over His agonised face.  Never before was so wretched
+a figure dragged to the place of execution, never before was a poor
+malefactor so terribly ill-treated on his way to death.  And never
+before had such dignity and gentleness been seen in the countenance of
+a condemned man as in that of this man.  Some women who had got up
+early out of curiosity to see the procession stood crowded together at
+the street corner.  But when they saw it their mood changed, and they
+broke out into loud lamentation, over the unheard-of horror.  Jesus
+raised His trembling hand towards them, as if He wished to warn them:
+"While your husbands murder Me, you are melted to tears.  Do not lament
+for Me, lament for yourselves and for your children, who will have to
+suffer for the sins of their fathers!"  One of the women, heedless of
+the raging mob, tore the white kerchief from her head, and bent down to
+Him who was carrying the cross in order to wipe the blood and
+perspiration from His face.  When she got back to her house and was
+about to wash the cloth, she saw on it&mdash;the face of the Prophet.  And
+it seemed as if kindness and gratitude for her service of love looked
+out from its features at her.  The women all came running up to see the
+miracle, and to haggle to get the cloth that bore such a picture for
+themselves.  But its possessor locked it up in her room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Jesus fell beneath the cross for the third time, He was unable to
+get up again.  The guards tugged and pulled Him; the Roman soldiers who
+accompanied them were too proud to carry the cross for this wretched
+Jew.  So the crowd was invited to chose someone to lift up Jesus and
+drag the cross along.  The only answer was scornful laughter.  A
+hard-featured cobbler rushed out of a neighbouring house, and, almost
+foaming at the mouth with rage, demanded that the creature should be
+removed from before his door.  "Customers will be frightened away," he
+cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let Him rest here for a moment," said one of the soldiers, pointing to
+the fallen man, whose breast heaved in short, violent spasms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the cobbler swung a leathern strap and struck the exhausted man.
+He pulled Himself together in order to totter a few steps farther.  An
+old man, full of years and very lonely, stood by.  He had come from the
+desert where great thoughts dwell.  He had come to see if Jerusalem was
+ascending upwards or sinking downwards.  He desired its descent, for he
+longed for rest.  The old man stood in front of the cobbler and said to
+him softly: "Grandson of Uriah!  You refuse a brief rest to this
+poorest of poor creatures?  You yourself will be everlastingly
+restless.  You will experience human misery to the uttermost and never
+be able to rest.  The curse of your people will be fulfilled in
+you&mdash;you heartless Jew!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that selfsame hour Simeon, the citizen, was sitting alone in his
+house thinking over his fate, and he was sad.  Since the ride into the
+wilderness, from which he had returned beaten and robbed, he had,
+following the word of the Prophet from whom he had sought happiness,
+made many changes in his way of life.  Impossible as it had then
+seemed, much had become possible.  He had emancipated his slaves,
+broken up his harem, given the overflow of his possessions to the
+needy, and dispensed with all show.  And yet he was not happy&mdash;his
+heart was bare and empty.  He was pondering the matter when the
+shouting of the crowd reached him from the street.  What was happening
+so early?  He looked down, saw the spears of the soldiers glitter above
+the people's heads, and noted how one of the malefactors who was to be
+executed that day was being led out.  Simeon was turning away from the
+disagreeable sight when he saw that the man was carrying the cross
+Himself, and how, ill-treated by the guards, He became weaker every
+moment, so that the cross struck noisily against the stones.  In a
+flash he understood.  Without stopping to think, he hurried into the
+street, and pushed his way to the tortured creature in order to help
+Him.  And when he looked into the poor man's worn face, down which a
+tear ran, he was so overcome with pity that he placed himself under the
+cross, took it on his shoulder, and carried it along.  The crowd
+howled; insults and mud were thrown at Simeon.  He paid no heed, he
+scarcely observed it.  He was absorbed in what he was doing; he only
+thought of his desire to help the unhappy creature who staggered along
+beside him to bear His load.  A wondrous feeling stirred in him, an
+eager gladness that he had never known before.  All the joy of his life
+was not to be compared with this bliss; he would have liked to go on
+for ever and ever by the side of this Man, helping Him to bear His load
+and loving Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Is that it?  Is that what men call life?  To be where Love is and to do
+what Love enjoins?
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap35"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Anxiety increased in the quiet house at Nazareth.  Mary determined to
+go to Jerusalem for the holy festival to offer her sorrow as a
+sacrifice to God, to implore Him to enlighten her erring son, and to
+restore to Him the faith of His ancestors.  As she journeyed through
+Samaria and Judaea she thought of the days long past, when she had
+travelled that way to Bethlehem with her faithful Joseph, and of the
+inconceivable things that had happened since then.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She reached a valley where the earth was grey and dry.  It was the
+place in which Adam and Eve had settled when they were driven out of
+Paradise.  She thought of the wayward children of our first parents,
+and with her mind's eye saw a dear little descendant of Adam, who was
+perfectly innocent, and yet had to share earth's sorrow with the
+guilty.  The boy stood sadly by a hedge, and peeped over into the Lost
+Paradise.  A white-robed angel standing by the Tree of Knowledge saw
+the child and was sorry for him.  He broke off a branch from the tree,
+handed it over to the boy, and said: "Here is something for you out of
+Paradise.  Plant the bough in the ground.  It will take root and grow,
+and produce fresh seeds until the throne of the Messiah is built out of
+its trunk."  "O, God! where is the trunk, and where is the Messiah's
+throne?" sighed Mary, and she moved away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When after her tiring journey she reached the town one morning, she
+found the people streaming along the roads and streets in one
+direction.  She asked the innkeeper what was happening.  He replied by
+asking her if she did not also wish to go and see the execution.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God forbid!" answered Mary; "happy are all who are not obliged to go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look, there they come!" exclaimed the inn-keeper in glad surprise.
+"They'll come past here.  I really believe it's the Messiah-King!  Oh,
+I could have let out my windows for a silver groat apiece!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman from Galilee wanted to go back into the house, but she was
+pushed aside and carried with the crowd into the narrow street, where
+suddenly she stood before Him!  Before Jesus, her son!  When He saw His
+mother His little remaining strength nearly forsook Him, but He managed
+to keep His feet.  He turned to her with a look of unspeakable sadness
+and love, a brief look in which lay all that a son could have to say to
+his mother at such a meeting.  Then they pushed Him on with blows and
+curses.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mary stood as if turned to stone.  Her eyes were tearless, her head in
+a whirl, her heart scarcely beat.  "That is what God has prepared for
+me!"  That was all she could think, as, unwilling, bewildered, she was
+carried along by the crowd.  Everything seemed sunk in a blue darkness,
+yet stars danced before her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length the procession emerged through the vaulted double gateway
+into the open.  A dim, pale light lay over the barren land.  The rocky
+hill stood out clear on the right.  A great stir was there.  Busy
+workmen were digging deep holes on the top, others were preparing the
+stakes for the desert robbers.  Those wild creatures were already half
+naked, and the executioners were slinging cords round them to bind them
+to the wooden frame.  They were the lean, brown Barabbas and the pale,
+sunken-eyed Dismas.  The former gazed around him with his hawk's eyes,
+clenched his hands, and tried to burst his fetters.  The other was
+quite broken down, and his unkempt hair hung about him.  The disciples
+had come as far as the tower of the town walls, but had withdrawn in
+terror, all but John, James, and Peter.  For Peter had decided to
+acknowledge himself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, should it cost him
+his life.  But no one troubled any further about the strangers.  The
+disciples had seen Judas slinking behind the rocky mounds; he looked
+abject and forlorn, the very image of despair, and although their rage
+against the traitor had known no bounds, they were softened by the
+sight of the miserable creature, regarding him only as an object of
+horror.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Simeon carried the cross to the top of the hill.  And when he laid it
+down and looked once again into the face of the malefactor who had
+staggered up beside him, he recognised the Prophet.  He recognised the
+man with whom he had spoken in the desert concerning eternal life.  He
+had then paid scant attention to His words, but he had forgotten none
+of them.  Now he began to understand that whoever lived according to
+the teaching of this man must attain inward happiness.  And was it on
+account of that teaching that the man was to be executed?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The captain ordered Simeon to move away.  Two executioners laid hands
+on Jesus in order to strip away His garments.  He threw one swift
+glance to Heaven, then closed His eyes, and calmly let them proceed.
+The guards seized His gown, fought for it, and because they could not
+agree who had won it they diced for it.  Then they accused each other
+of cheating, and fought afresh.  Up came Schobal, the dealer in old
+clothes, and pointed out with a grin that it was not worth while to
+crack their skulls over a poor wretch's old coat.  The gown was torn
+and bloody; it was not worth a penny; but in order to end a dispute
+between his brave countrymen he would offer fourpence, which they could
+divide in peace among them.  The coat was delivered over to Schobal.
+He went up and down in the crowd with the garment.  It was the coat of
+the Prophet who was being executed!  Who wanted a souvenir of that day?
+He would sell the coat for the half of its value; it might be bought
+for twelve pence!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man brought long iron nails in a basket.  The Nazarene was not to be
+tied, but nailed, because He had once said that He should descend from
+the cross.  When they noticed that Jesus was nearly swooning, they
+offered Him a refreshing drink of vinegar and myrrh.  He refused it
+with thanks, and when He began to sink down the executioners caught Him
+and laid Him on the cross.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly the crowd drew back.  Many did not want to see what was going
+on.  They were dumb.  They had never dreamed of this.  The gentleness
+with which He bore all the torture, the scorn, the death before His
+eyes, this heroic calm weighed like a mountain on their hard hearts.
+Those who had formerly despised Him now wanted to hate Him, but they
+could not.  They were powerless before this overwhelming gentleness.
+What a sound!  That of a hammer beating on iron!  "How the blood
+spurts!" whispered someone.  Two hammers hit the nails, and at each
+blow heaven and earth trembled.  The crowd held its breath, and not a
+sound was heard from the town.  Nothing but the ringing of the hammer.
+Then suddenly a heartrending cry was heard in the crowd.  It came from
+a strange woman who had pushed through it and sank to the ground.  The
+mass of people drew away more and more, no one would stand in front,
+yet each stretched his neck so as to see over the others' heads.  They
+saw the stake lifted up and then sink again.  The captain's orders
+could be heard plainly and clearly.  Then the cross stood up straight.
+At first the long stake was seen above their heads, bearing a white
+placard.  Then the cross-beams appeared on which trembling human arms
+were seen, then the head moving in agonising pain.  Thus did the cross
+with the naked human body rise in the air.  Slowly it rose, supported
+by poles, and as soon as it stood straight the foot of the cross was
+set so roughly in its hole that the body shook with a dull groan.  The
+wounds made by the nails in the hands and feet were torn open, the
+blood ran in dark streams over the white body, down the stake, and
+dropped on the ground.  And from the lips of Him on the cross this loud
+cry was heard, "O, Father, forgive them, forgive them!  For they know
+not what they do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A strange murmur arose in the crowd, and those who had not understood
+the cry asked their neighbours to repeat it.  "He asks pardon for His
+enemies?  For His enemies?  He is praying for His enemies?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then&mdash;then He cannot be human!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He forgives those who despised, slandered, scorned, beat, crucified
+Him?  When dying He thinks of His enemies and pardons them?  Then it is
+as He said, He is indeed the Christ!  I always thought He was the
+Christ.  I said so only last Sabbath!"  The voices grew louder.
+Schobal, the old clothes dealer, pushed about in the crowd and offered
+the Messiah's coat for twenty pence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If He is the Messiah," shouted a Rabbi hoarsely, "let Him free
+Himself.  He who wants to help others and cannot help Himself is a poor
+sort of Messiah."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Master," exclaimed a Pharisee, "if you would rebuild the
+shattered Temple, now's the time.  Come down from the cross, and we'll
+believe in you."  The man on the cross looked at the two mockers in
+deep sadness, and they became silent.  Suddenly a passage in the
+Scriptures flashed into their minds: "He was wounded for our
+transgressions!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they had all drawn back from the cross, and the executioners were
+preparing to raise up the two desert robbers, the woman who had
+swooned, supported by the disciple John, tottered up to the tall cross
+and put her arms round its trunk so that the blood ran down upon her.
+So infinite was her pain that it seemed as if seven swords had pierced
+her heart.  Jesus looked down, and how muffled was the voice in which
+He said: "John, take care of My mother!  Mother, here is John, your
+son!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A murmur arose in the crowd: "His mother?  Is that His mother?  Oh,
+poor things!  And the handsome young man His brother?  The poor
+creatures!  Look how He turns to them as if He would comfort them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Many a man passed his hand over his eyes, the women sobbed aloud.  And
+a dull lamentation began to go through the people&mdash;the same people who
+had so angrily demanded His death.  And they talked together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He can't suffer much longer."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I've had some experience.  I've been here every Passover.  But
+this time&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I only knew what is written on the tablet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Over His head?  My sight seems to have gone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Inri!" exclaimed somebody,
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Inri!  Somebody calls out 'Inri.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those are the letters on the tablet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But the man's name's not Inri."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something quite different, my friend.  That is Pilate's joke.  <I>Jesus
+Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't talk to me in that accursed Latin tongue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In good Hebrew: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, they've got Him in the middle," said another, for the two robbers
+had been hoisted up to the right and left of Him.  The one on the left
+stretched out his neck, and mocked at Jesus with a distorted face: "I
+suppose, neighbour, that you too are one of those who get executed just
+because they are weaklings.  Jump from the cross, rush among them, and
+the wretches will idolise you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus did not answer him.  He turned His head towards the man who hung
+on His right who saw the moment approaching when his legs would be
+broken.  In the agony of death, and in penitence for his ill-spent
+life, he turned to Him whom they called Messiah and Christ.  And when
+he saw the expression with which Jesus looked at him, a curious shudder
+passed through the criminal's heart.  How the man on the cross gazed at
+him, with His fading eyes&mdash;My God!&mdash;it was the never-to-be-forgotten
+holy look which a little child had given him in the days of his youth.
+Dismas began to weep, and said: "Lord, you are from heaven!  When you
+return home, remember me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Jesus said to him: "There is mercy for all who repent!  To-day,
+Dismas, you and I will be together at the Heavenly Father's home."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is from heaven!" was heard in the crowd.  "He is from heaven!"  One
+of the Roman soldiers threw his spear away, and exclaimed in immense
+excitement: "Verily, He is the Son of God!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Son of God!  The Son of God!  Set Him free!  It is the Son of God
+who hangs on the cross!"  The cry rolled through the crowd like the
+dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward
+consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made
+since the world began.  He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of
+God.  Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner.  He struggles
+up to his feet, holding on with his lean hands, he looks up to the
+cross with rolling eyes.  A prayer for mercy wells up from his heart
+like a bloody spring.  And beside him a woman kneels and folds her
+hands against the cross.  And she who thus stands under the cross
+wrings her hands, and implores mercy for her child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The letters I.N.R.I, over the cross begin to gleam.  And a voice is
+heard in the air: "Jesus Near Redeems Ill-doers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Son of God!  The Son of God!"  The cry went on without ceasing.
+"The Son of God on the cross!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Son of God's coat!  A hundred gold pieces for the coat!" shrieked
+old Schobal, lifting the garment up on a stick like a flag.  The dealer
+swore by that flag, for its value had risen a thousandfold in an hour.
+"A hundred gold pieces for the Son of God's coat!"  But it was high
+time that the dealer made himself scarce, for the people of Jerusalem
+were enraged at a man who wanted to do business in presence of the
+dying Saviour.  The good, pious citizens of Jerusalem!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not a High Priest was to be seen.  They had all gone away.  The
+hoarse-voiced Rabbi was still there, reciting Psalms aloud to the dying
+man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop that!" someone shouted at him.  "You killed Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've killed Him?  Who do you mean?" asked the Rabbi with well-feigned
+innocence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why you, you expounders of the Scriptures, you brought Him to His
+death; it was you, and you alone!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Rabbi replied very seriously: "Think, my friend, what you are
+saying.  Can you prove this charge before the dread Jehovah?  We
+expounders of the Law brought Him to His death!  Every one knows who
+condemned Him.  It was the foreigners.  They have ever been the ruin of
+our nation!  Every one knows who crucified Him at the desire of the
+people."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was high time that he should defend himself.  The voices grew ever
+louder: It was the High Priests who had goaded on the people and
+judges!  They are guilty&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Silence!  He still lives!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All looks were centred on the cross.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jesus turned His head to the crowd and muttered in His weakness: "I am
+thirsty!  I am thirsty!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The captain ordered a sponge to be dipped in vinegar, and reached up to
+Him on a stick so that the dying man might sip the moisture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A young woman with her hair flowing loose lay among the rocks.  She
+kneeled, and, supporting her elbows on the ground, wailed softly: "O
+Saviour, Saviour!  My sins!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked once again at His dear ones.  Then He lifted His head quickly
+and uttered a cry to Heaven: "Father, receive My soul!  My Father!  Do
+not forsake Me!"  He looked upwards, gazed at the heavens with
+wide-opened eyes, then His head dropped and fell on His breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands.  All was
+over!
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+The crowd was almost motionless.  They stood and stared, and their
+faces were white.  The town walls were dun-coloured, the shrubs were
+grey, the young buds were pale and closed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A lustreless sun stood in the sky like a moon, and its shadows were
+ghostly.  Terrified rooks and bats flew around, and hovered about the
+cross in this horrible twilight.  Rocks on the hills broke away, and
+skulls rolled down the slope.  As for the people, they seemed to have
+lost the power of speech, they stood dumb and looked at one another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something has happened," said an old man to himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd began to move, uncertainly at first, then with more animation
+and noise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What has happened?" asked a bystander.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friend, what has happened now has thrown the world off its balance.
+I do not know what it is, but it has thrown the world off its balance.
+If it is not the end of the world, then it must be its beginning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Inri!  Inri!" shouted the voice of a shuddering lunatic.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then there was a general shout.  "What is it?  It is dark!  I've never
+been so terrified in all my days."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look at the cross!  It's growing longer!  Higher, ever higher, higher!
+I can't see the top of it!  It's a giant cross!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then came news.  "A pillar has fallen in the Temple.  The curtain of
+the Holy of Holies has been rent in twain.  Outside, in the cemetery,
+the tombs have opened and the dead wrapped in their white shrouds have
+risen from them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The end of the world!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The beginning of the world!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jesus Christ!"
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+"JESUS CHRIST!" rustles through the crowd like the spring breezes over
+the desert.  The words sound through the whole of Jerusalem, they sound
+throughout the broad land of Judaea, these words of all power.  They
+kindle a fire which has lighted up the universe until the present day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His dear and faithful ones assembled at the cross where the dead Master
+hung.  There are more of them than there were yesterday, among them
+even some who had shouted in the night: "Crucify Him!"  The disciples
+stood there silent, making no lamentation.  Mary, the mother, stood by
+John's side, and Magdalen by him.  A marvellous quiet had come over
+their hearts, so that they asked themselves:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How can this be?  Is not our Jesus dead?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My brothers," said Peter, "for me it is as if He still lives."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He in us, and we in Him," said John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Only Bartholomew was restless.  Hesitatingly he asked James if he had
+not also understood Him to say: "Father, do not forsake Me."  But James
+was thinking of another word and of another of the brothers.  He went
+away from the cross to seek out Judas.  He would tell him that in dying
+the Master had forgiven His enemies, he would tell Judas of the
+Saviour's legacy: Mercy for sinners!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since the early hours of the morning when the Master had been condemned
+to death in the Governor's house, Judas had wandered aimlessly about.
+He tried to surrender himself to the captain as a false witness and a
+spy, as one who sold men for gold.  He was laughed at and left alone.
+Then he went to one of the High Priests to swear that his statements
+had not been so meant; that his Master was no evil-doer, but rather the
+Messenger of God, who would destroy His enemies.  He had not intended
+to betray Him, and he would return the traitor's pay to the Pharisee.
+The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying that it was no concern of
+his; he had given no money and would receive none.  Then Judas threw
+the silver pieces at his feet and hurried away.  His long hair waved in
+the wind.  He slunk along behind the town walls in order to get in
+advance of the procession and let himself be impaled at Golgotha
+instead of the Master.  But he was too late; he heard the strokes of
+the hammer.  He went down into the valley of Kedron.  Not a soul was to
+be seen there, every one had gone to the place of execution.  Judas was
+thrown aside, even by the gaping crowd, abandoned as a traitor.
+Frightful, inconceivable, was the thing he had done!  Alas! why had He
+not revealed Himself?  He stood patiently, gentle as a lamb before the
+judges, and bore the cross as no one had ever done before.  Could that
+be it after all?  Not to strive against one's enemies, to suffer one's
+fate as the will of God, to lay down one's life for the tidings of the
+Father&mdash;was that glory the mission of the Messiah?  "And I?  I expected
+something else of Him.  And I made a mistake, greater than all the
+mistakes of all the fools put together.  And now I am thrust out of the
+fellowship of righteous men, and thrust out of the fellowship of
+sinners.  There is pardon for the murderer, but not for the traitor.
+He Himself said: Better that such a man had never been born.  Others
+dare to atone for their sins in caves of the desert, dare to expiate
+their crimes with their blood&mdash;but I am cast out of all Love and all
+expiation for ever and ever."  Such were the endless laments of Judas.
+He wandered to and fro behind walls and among bushes; he hid himself in
+caves all the day long.  Then suddenly it flashed on him: "It is
+unjust.  I believed in Him.  I believed in Him so implicitly.  Is such
+trust thrown away?  Can the Divine Man cast aside such a trust?  No, it
+is not so, it is not so!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His fate was decided by this shattering of his last hope.  When it was
+dark he slunk past a farm.  Ropes hung over the walls; he pulled one
+off and hurried to the mountain.  The sun was setting behind Jerusalem,
+over the heights, like a huge, red, lustreless pane of glass.  Once
+more for the last time his eye sought the light, the departing light.
+And a cross stood out large and dark against the red circle; the tall
+cross at Golgotha right in the centre of the gloomy sun.  Gigantic and
+dark it towered against the crimson background&mdash;horrible!  The
+despairing heart of Judas could not endure it.  With a savage curse he
+went up to a fig-tree.  James was behind him.  He had seen Judas climb
+the slope, had waved his cloak and cried to him: "It is I, James.
+Brother, I come from the Master.  Listen, brother, mercy for sinners.
+Mercy for all who repent.  Listen."  Almost breathless he reached the
+fig-tree.  Arms and legs hung down lifeless, the mouth drawn in, the
+tongue protruding from the lips.  The body swung to and fro in the
+evening breeze.  The wretched man had not waited for the Saviour's
+pardon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Towards the end of that same day the old man of the East, who came from
+the desert where great thoughts dwell, the weary old man who called
+down twice the curse of everlasting unrest on the grandson of Uriah,
+went to a stonecutter in Jerusalem.  He thought it time to order his
+tombstone.  And on it were to be cut the letters "I.N.R.I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you also belong to the Nazarene?" asked the stonecutter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you ask that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because it is the inscription on His cross."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the inscription on my grave," said the old man, "and it means:
+'IN NIRVANA REST I.'"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap36"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+When all was over, Joseph of Arimathea, a blunt, outspoken disciple of
+Jesus, went to Pilate, the Governor, to ask him that the Prophet's body
+might be buried that same evening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have His legs been broken?" Pilate inquired of him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sir, that is not necessary.  He is dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not believe you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is quite true, sir.  The captain pierced his side."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have been warned about you," said Pilate roughly.  "I shall send a
+guard to watch the grave."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As your lordship pleases."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The man said that He would rise from the dead on the third day.  It is
+likely that His friends will help Him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Joseph drew himself up in front of the Governor and said: "Sir, what
+ground have you for such a suspicion?  Have we Jews proved ourselves so
+absolutely lawless in our fatherland?  Surely not so much so that this
+best of all men, this Divine Man, should have been condemned to death
+without a shadow of reason, and His followers, too, treated with
+contempt as if they were cheats and body-snatchers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have to thank your priests for that," said Pilate, with cold
+indifference.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We know the breed," replied Joseph, "and so do you.  But you are
+afraid of it.  Our Master would have made an end of it.  But you are a
+broken reed.  Many of our great men have been ruined by Roman
+arrogance, but it was Roman <I>cowardice</I> that cost our Master His life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Governor started, but remained impassive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He signed with his hand: "Let me hear no more of this affair.  Do what
+you like with Him.  Sentries can be placed at the grave.  I've had more
+than enough of you and your Jews to-day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the Arimathean was dismissed, ungraciously, it is true, but with
+permission to bury the beloved corpse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile the torment of the two desert robbers had ended.  And Dismas
+was at last set free from Barabbas, to whom a demoniacal fate had
+chained him his whole life long.  Jesus had come between them, and had
+divided the penitent man from the impenitent.  It is true that their
+bodies were thrown into the same grave, but the soul of Dismas had
+found the appointed trysting-place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as the Arimathean returned from his interview with the
+Governor, late as the hour was, Jesus was unfastened from the cross and
+lowered to the ground with cloths.  Then the body was anointed with
+precious oil, wrapped in white linen, and carried to Joseph's garden.
+They laid it in the grave in the stillness of the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A holy peace breathed o'er the earth, and the stars shone in the
+heavens like lamps at the repose of the Lord.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap37"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+In the night which followed this saddest of all sad days, Mary, His
+mother, could not sleep.  And yet she saw a vision such as could not have
+been seen by anyone awake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Crouching down, leaning against the stone, her eyes resting on the cross
+that rose tall and straight into the sky, she seemed to see a tree
+covered with red and white blossoms.  It was as if that branch of the
+Tree of Paradise which the angel had once handed over the hedge had
+bloomed.  It stood in the midst of a beautiful rose-garden filled with
+pleasant odours, running water, and songs of birds, with a wonderful
+light over all.  Innumerable companies of men and women passed into that
+Eden from out a deep abyss.  They ascended slowly and solemnly out of the
+gloomy depths to the shining heights.  In front of all came a couple, our
+first father, Adam, walking with Eve.  Just behind them Abel, arm-in-arm
+with Cain.  Then crowded up the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the
+prophets, and the psalmists, among them Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, and
+Joseph, Solomon and David, Zachariah and Josiah, Eleazar and Jehoiakim,
+and quite at the back&mdash;an old man, walking alone, supporting himself on a
+stick from which lilies sprouted&mdash;Joseph, her husband.  He was in no
+hurry; he stopped and looked round at Mary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So all passed into Paradise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was what Mary saw, and then day dawned.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap38"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+In accordance with the orders, the Nazarene's grave was strictly
+guarded.  A heavy stone had been placed in the opening of the niche in
+the rocks within which the body was laid, and, at the Governor's
+bidding, the captain had sealed it at every end and corner.  Two
+fully-armed soldiers were stationed at the entrance with instructions
+to keep off every suspicious person from the grave.  And then, on the
+third day after the entombment, an incredible rumour ran through
+Jerusalem.  <I>The Nazarene had risen</I>!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the morning of that day, so it was said, two women went to the
+grave, the mother of the dead man, and Magdalen, His devoted follower.
+They were surprised to find that the guards were not there, and then
+they saw that the stone had been rolled away.  The niche in the rock
+was empty, save for the white linen in which He had been wrapped.
+These linen bandages were lying at the edge of the grave, their ends
+hanging down.  The women began to weep, thinking someone had taken the
+corpse away; but presently they saw a white-robed boy standing by, and
+heard him say: "He whom you seek is not here.  He lives, and goes with
+you to Galilee."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As if in some wild dream, the women staggered back from the grave.
+There was a man in the garden whom at first they took to be the
+gardener.  They wanted to question him; He came towards them.  With
+youthful, beautiful, shining countenance, immaculate, without wounds
+except the nail-marks on the hands.  He stood before them.  They were
+terror-stricken.  They heard Him say: "Peace be with you!  It is I."
+As the sun was so bright the women held their hands a moment before
+their eyes, and when they looked up again He was no longer to be seen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Nazarene's grave was empty!  Everybody made a pilgrimage from the
+town to see.  The people's mood had entirely changed since the
+crucifixion.  Not another contemptuous word was heard, some even
+secretly beat their breasts.  The High Priests met together, and
+inquired of the guards what had occurred.  They could tell nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At least confess that you fell asleep and that His disciples stole
+Him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Honoured sirs," answered one of the guards, "for two reasons we cannot
+admit we fell asleep; first, because it isn't true, and secondly,
+because we should be punished."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon which one of the Temple authorities observed: "But in spite of
+that, you can very well say so.  For you have certainly fallen asleep
+more than once in your lives.  And as for the punishment, we'll make it
+right with the Governor.  Nothing shall happen to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The brave Romans thought it best to avoid a dispute with the
+authorities, and to say what the latter preferred to hear.  So the tale
+went that the guards had fallen asleep, and meanwhile the body had been
+removed by the disciples in order to be able to say, "He is risen."
+This was circulated on all hands, and no one thought any more of the
+resurrection of the Nazarene.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples themselves could not believe it.  Some of them declared
+that Pilate and his spies best knew what had become of the corpse.
+Others, on the contrary, were stirred by an unparalleled exaltation of
+spirit, by some divine energy which filled their minds with appallingly
+clear visions of the latter days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It happened about this time that two of the disciples walked out
+towards Emmaus.  They were sad, and spoke of the incomprehensible
+misfortune that had befallen them.  A stranger joined them, and asked
+why they were so melancholy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We belong to His followers," they replied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When He said nothing, as if He had not understood, they asked whether
+He was quite a stranger in Jerusalem, and did not know what had
+happened these last days?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What has occurred?" He asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Surely He must have heard of Jesus, the Prophet who had done such great
+deeds, and preached a new and wonderful Word of God: Of the Heavenly
+Father full of love, of the Kingdom of Heaven in one's own heart, and
+of eternal life.  It was as if God Himself had assumed human shape in
+the person of this Prophet in order to set them an example of perfect
+life.  And that Divine Man had just been executed in Jerusalem.  Since
+that event they had felt utterly forsaken.  That was why they were sad.
+He had, indeed, promised that He would rise after death as a pledge for
+His tidings of the resurrection of man and eternal life.  But the three
+days were now up.  A story was going about that two women had seen Him
+that morning with the wounds made by the nails.  But until they could
+themselves lay their hands on those wounds, they would not believe it;
+no.  He must needs be like the rest of the dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the stranger said: "If the Risen Man does not appear to you as He
+appeared to the women, it is because your faith is too weak.  If you do
+not believe in Him, you surely know from the prophecies how God's
+messenger must suffer and die, because only through that gate can
+eternal glory be reached."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With such conversation they reached Emmaus, where the two disciples
+were to visit a friend.  The stranger, they imagined, was going
+farther, but they liked Him, and so invited Him to go to the house with
+them: "Sir, stay with us; the day draws in, it will soon be evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So He went with them.  When they sat at supper, and the stranger took
+some bread, one whispered to the other: "Look how He breaks the bread!
+It is not our Jesus?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when in joy unspeakable they went to embrace Him, they saw that
+they were alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This is what the two disciples related, and no one was more glad to
+believe it than Schobal, the dealer; he now asked three hundred gold
+pieces for the coat of the man who had risen from the dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thomas was less sure of the Resurrection.  "Why should He rise?" asked
+the disciple.  "Did He come to earth for the sake of this bodily life?
+Did He not rest everything on the spiritual life?  The true Jesus
+Christ was to be with us in the spirit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disciples who had accompanied the Master from Galilee went back to
+their own land filled with that belief.  Things had somewhat changed
+there.  The condemnation of the Nazarene without any proof of guilt had
+vastly angered the Galileans.  His glorious death had terrified them.
+No, this countryman of theirs was no ordinary man!  They would now make
+up to His disciples for their ill-conduct towards Him.  So His
+adherents were well received in Galilee, and resumed the occupations
+that they had abandoned two years before.  John had brought His mother
+home, and gone with her to the quiet house at Nazareth.  The others
+tried to accustom themselves to the work-a-day world, but they could do
+nothing but think of the Master, and wherever two or three of them were
+gathered together He was with them in spirit.  One day they were
+together in a cottage by the lake.  They spoke of His being the Son of
+God, and some who had looked into the Scriptures brought forward
+proofs: the prophecies which had come to pass in Him, the psalms He had
+fulfilled, the miracles He had worked, and the fact that many had seen
+Him after His death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly Thomas said: "I don't much hold with all that.  Other things
+have been prophesied; the Prophets, too, worked miracles, and rose
+after death.  What good is it to me if He is not with us in the flesh?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were much alarmed.  They shook with terror.  Not on account of the
+Master, but of their brother.  But Thomas continued: "Why don't you
+name the greatest sign, the true sign of His divinity?  Why don't you
+speak of His Word about divine sonship, about loving your enemy, about
+redemption?  Listen to what I am saying: it is what we have all
+experienced, and still experience every hour.  He freed us from worldly
+desires.  He taught us love and joy.  He assured us of eternal life
+with the Heavenly Father.  He did that through His <I>Word</I>.  He died for
+that Word and will live in that Word.  To me, my brothers, that Divine
+Word is proof of His being the Son of God.  I need no other."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Children!" said John.  He was indeed the youngest of them, but he
+said, "Children!  Do not talk in such a way.  Faith is the knowledge of
+the heart.  Are we not happy in our hearts that we found the Father so
+near us, so true to us, so eternally on our side, that nothing evil can
+befall us in the future?  These bodies of ours will perish, but He is
+the resurrection, and he who believes in Him never dies.  He loved the
+children of men so dearly that He gave them His own Son, so that every
+one who believes in Him may live for ever.  Therefore we are happy,
+because we are in God, and God is in us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus His favourite disciple spoke in wondrous enthusiasm.  They then
+began to understand, and to apprehend the immeasurable significance of
+Him who had lived in human form among them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wherever they went, whatever they did. His word sounded in their ears.
+The promise that He would follow them to Galilee was fulfilled.  His
+spirit was with them, they were quite sure of that.  But that spirit
+would not let them rest content with work-a-day life; it was like yeast
+fermenting in their being, it was like a spark kindled into a bright
+flame, and the fiery tongues announced the glad tidings.  They must go
+forth.  None dared be the first to say so, but all at once they all
+declared: "We must go forth into the wide world."  With no great
+preparation, with cloak and staff as they had travelled with Him, they
+went forth.  First to Jerusalem, to stand once more by His grave, and
+then forth in every direction to preach Jesus, the Son of God.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This brings me to the close of my vision.  I will only tell further of
+one meeting which was so remarkable and fraught with such vast results.
+One day when the disciples during their journey to Jerusalem were
+resting under the almond trees, they saw a troop of horsemen in the
+valley.  They were native soldiers with a captain.  He seemed to have
+noticed the disciples, for he put spurs to his horse.  The disciples
+were a little terrified, and Thaddeus, who had good eyes, said: "God be
+merciful to us, that's the cruel weaver!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will calmly wait for him," said the brethren, and they remained
+standing.  When the rider was quite close to them, he dismounted
+quickly and asked: "Do you belong to Jesus of Nazareth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are His disciples," they answered frankly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he kneeled before Peter, the eldest, spread his arms, and
+exclaimed: "Receive me, receive me; I would become worthy to be His
+disciple."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But if I do not mistake, you are Saul who laid snares for Him?" said
+Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Laid snares, persecuted Him and His," said the horseman, and his words
+broke swiftly from his lips: "Two days ago I rode out against those who
+said He had risen.  Yet I was always thinking of this man who saw so
+strangely into men's minds.  I thought of Him day and night, and of
+much that He had said.  And as I was riding across the plain in the
+twilight, a light enveloped me, my horse stumbled, a white figure stood
+in front of me, and in the hand lifted towards Heaven was the mark of a
+wound.  'Who are you, to bar my way?' I exclaimed.  And He answered, 'I
+am He whom you persecute!'  It was your Master risen from the dead.
+'Why persecute me, Saul?  What have I done to you?'  Your Jesus, the
+Christ, stood living before me!  Yes, men of Galilee, now I believe
+that He is risen.  And as, hitherto, I assailed His word, I will now
+help to spread it abroad.  Brothers, receive me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That is my picture of how Saul was converted into an apostle.  He sent
+his horse back to the valley, and went himself gladly and humbly along
+with the Galileans to Jerusalem.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When, after some days, they reached the Mount of Olives, whence they
+had first looked on the metropolis, there, standing on the rocks, was
+Jesus.  There He stood, just as He had always been, and the disciples
+felt exactly as they had in the times past when He was always with
+them.  They stood round Him in a circle, and He looked at them
+lovingly.  And suddenly they heard Him ask in a low voice: "Do you love
+Me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord," they answered, "we love You."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He asked again: "Do you love Me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They said: "Lord, You know that we love You."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then He asked for a third time; "Do you love Me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And they exclaimed all together: "We cannot tell in words, O Lord, how
+we love You!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then go forth.  Go to the poor, and comfort them; to the sinners, and
+raise them up.  Go to all nations, and teach them all that I have told
+you.  Those who believe in Me will be blessed.  I am the way, the
+truth, and the life.  I go now to My Father.  My spirit and My strength
+I leave to you: light to the eyes, the word to the tongue, love to the
+heart.  And mercy to sinners&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus they heard Him speak, and lo!&mdash;there was no one there except the
+disciples.  Two footmarks were impressed on the stone.  The heavens
+above were still; they bowed their heads, then watched how He ascended
+to the clouds, how He hovered in the light, how He went to the Father,
+to whom also we shall go through our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap39"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+My Father and my God!  I thank Thee that Thou hast permitted me to
+behold the Life, the Passion, and the Resurrection of Thy Son, and to
+steep myself in His words and promises during this terrible time.  In
+the torture of suspense, which is more dreadful than death, I have won
+courage from the great events of His life, and received consolation
+from the appearance of my Redeemer upon earth.  My hope has been
+strengthened by the saints of old who repented.  For the sake of the
+crucified Saviour, O Lord, put mercy into my King's heart.  If it is
+God's will that I die, then let me die like Dismas.  Only pardon me.
+In the name of Jesus, I implore Thee, O Father, for mercy!  Have mercy
+on me, a sinner.  Amen.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap40"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CONCLUSION
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Such is the story.  It was written by a common workman awaiting
+sentence of death in a prison cell.  The last prayer was written
+exactly six weeks after his condemnation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad began to feel a little frightened.  He had been so absorbed in
+his Saviour's story that he felt himself to be almost part of it.  He
+had written it all day, and dreamed of it all night.  He had been in
+the stable at Bethlehem, he had wandered by the Lake of Gennesaret, and
+spent nights in the wilderness of Judaea.  He had journeyed to Sidon,
+and across the mountains to Jerusalem.  He, a prisoner in jail and
+sentenced to death, had stood on the Mount of Olives, he had been in
+Bethany and supped at Jesus' side.  But now he felt almost indifferent
+to the thought.  Had he not lived through that glorious death at
+Golgotha?  All else sank into insignificance beside that.  It almost
+seemed to him as if he had passed beyond the veil.  The Risen One
+possessed all his soul.  He could not get away from all these holy
+memories.  Then suddenly came the thought: when death comes I must be
+brave.  He remembered a story his mother had once told him of a Roman
+executioner who, on receiving orders to behead a young Christian, had
+been so overcome with pity that he had fainted.  The youth had revived
+him, and comforted him as bravely as if it had been his duty to die, as
+it was the executioner's to kill.  But then Conrad told himself: you
+are a guilty creature, and cannot compare yourself with a saint.  Would
+you be brave enough to act like that?  Would you?  It is sweet to die
+with Jesus, but it is still sweeter to live with Him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The jailer asked him if he would care to go out once more into the open
+air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out into the air?  Out into the prison yard, where all the refuse was
+thrown?  No.  He thanked him; he would prefer to remain in his cell.
+It could not be for long now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; it will not be for long now," said the old man.  But he did not
+tell him that in the meantime the Chancellor had died of his wounds,
+although from the "old grumbler's" increased tenderness Conrad might
+have suspected that his case did not stand in a favourable light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you are truly brave," the old man told him, "the next time you go
+out you shall walk under green trees."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But now?  Not now?"  Conrad thought of a reprieve, and grew excited.
+A red flush stained his cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; I did not mean that.  You know the King is far away.  But it may
+come any time.  I am waiting for it anxiously.  You know, Ferleitner,
+after this I shall resign my post."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment the priest came in.  He always entered the dark cell
+with a cheerful face and a glad "God be with you!"  It was his office
+to bring comfort, if only he had known how.  As a rule the monk came
+in, wiping the perspiration from his brow with a coarse blue
+handkerchief, and loudly assuring the prisoner how pleasantly cool it
+was in his cell.  But this time he was nervous and ill at ease.  How
+did the prisoner look?  Emaciated to a skeleton, his teeth prominent
+between fleshless lips, his eyes wide open, a wondrous fire burning in
+their depths.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As you will never send for me, my dear Ferleitner, I have come again
+unasked to see how you fare.  You are not ill?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Has the sentence come?" asked the prisoner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not that I know of," answered the monk; "but I see I am disturbing you
+at your work."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad had neglected to put away the sheets he had written, and so had
+to confess that he had been writing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Isn't it too dark to see to write here?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You get accustomed to it.  At first it was dark, but now it seems to
+get lighter and lighter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So you've made your will at last?" asked the father, raising his
+eyebrows.  He meant to be humorous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A sort of one!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's see, then.  You have something to leave?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have not.  Another has."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The father turned over the sheets, read a line here and there, shook
+his shaven head a little, and said "It seems to resemble the New
+Testament.  Have you been copying it from the Gospel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I haven't got a New Testament.  That's why I had to write this for
+myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This Gospel!  You've written one for yourself out of your own head?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not exactly.  Well, perhaps now and then I have.  I've written what I
+could remember.  I will be responsible for the errors."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My curiosity grows," cried the father.  "May I read it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's not worth your trouble, but I knew of nothing else to help me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The work has exhausted you, Ferleitner."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; on the contrary, I may almost say it has revived me.  I'm sorry it
+is finished.  I thought of nothing else; I forgot everything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His enthusiasm has consumed him, thought the monk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ferleitner, will you let me take it away with me for a few days?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad shyly gave permission.  The monk gathered the sheets together,
+and thrust them carelessly into his pouch, so that the roll stuck out
+at the top.  When he had gone, Conrad gazed sadly into emptiness and
+longed for his manuscript.  How happy he had been with it all those
+weeks!  What would the priest think of it?  Everything would be wrong.
+Such people see their God with other eyes than ours.  And if he
+criticised it, all the pleasure would go out of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Conrad did not have to do without it long.  The father brought it
+back the next morning.  He had begun to read it the evening before, and
+had sat up all night to finish it.  But he would not give his opinion,
+and Conrad did not ask for it.  Almost helplessly, they sat at the
+rough table, while the monk tried to think how he could express his
+thoughts.  After a while, he took up the manuscript, laid it down
+again, and said that of course, from the ecclesiastical point of view,
+there would naturally be some objections.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The details of the history are not altogether correct.  I know,
+Ferleitner, that you asked me for a copy of the New Testament.  If I
+had known that you had gone so far, I would willingly have given you
+one.  But perhaps it is better so.  Though I must tell you, Conrad
+Ferleitner, that nothing has given me so much pleasure for a long while
+as these meditations and&mdash;I may also say&mdash;fancies of yours.  As for the
+faults, let those who take a pleasure in finding them, look for them.
+The living faith is the one important thing, the living faith and the
+living Jesus, and that is here!  My son," he added, laying his hand on
+the prisoner's head, "I feel your piety of soul is so profound, that I
+will administer the sacrament to you.  Yes, Conrad, you are saved.
+Only, pray fervently."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad covered his face with his hands, and wept quietly.  The priest's
+words made him so happy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I even think," continued the father, after a pause, "that others who
+are seeking for the simple word of God, and cannot find it, might read
+your book.  There must be many such people in hospitals, poor-houses,
+and prisons, and especially those who are in your situation.  Would you
+have any objection?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My God, why should I?" replied Conrad.  "If this work of mine could be
+the help to other poor wretches that it has been to me!  But I do not
+know&mdash;it was not meant for that.  I wrote it only for myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Naturally, one or two things must be altered," said the father.  "We
+would go through it again together."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, holy father," asked the prisoner wistfully, "that is&mdash;if you
+think there will be time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Above all, we must try and find a suitable title.  Have you not
+thought that your child must have a name?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wrote the letters I.N.R.I. at the top."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is rather out of the common.  People won't know what to make of it.
+We must at least have a sub-title."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The title's a matter of absolute indifference to me," said Conrad:
+"perhaps you can find one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will think it over.  May I take the manuscript away again?  I must
+try and become literary in my old age.  If a carpenter lad can write a
+whole book, surely a Franciscan monk can find a title!  Have you
+anything on your mind, my son?  No?  Then God be with you.  I will come
+again soon."  At the door he turned: "Tell me, my son, does the jailer
+give you food enough?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, more than I need."
+</P>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<P>
+Outside it was hot summer-time.  Conrad knew nothing of it, he had not
+thought of it.  The jailer came with the permission that, as an
+exception, he would be allowed to walk for half an hour in the garden.
+Conrad felt quite indifferent.  As the warder led him along the vaulted
+passage, he staggered slightly; he had almost forgotten how to walk.
+He steadied himself on his companion's arm and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I feel so strange."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hold on to me; nothing will happen to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are we going right out into the open?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"From now, you will go for a short walk in the garden every day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not know if I care to," said Conrad, hesitating.  "I am
+afraid&mdash;of the sun."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were out under the open sky, in the wide, dazzling green light.
+Conrad stood still for a moment and covered his eyes with his hand,
+then he looked up, and covered them again, and began to tremble.  The
+warder remained silent, and supported him as he tottered along under
+the shade of the horse-chestnuts.  On either side stretched green banks
+glowing with flowers and roses, their bright colours quivering like
+flame blown by the wind.  Above was the blue sky with the great burning
+sun.  And all around he heard the songs of the birds.  Oh, life! life!
+He had almost forgotten what it meant&mdash;to live!  He groaned aloud, it
+might have been either from sorrow or joy.  Then he sat down on a bench
+and paused, exhausted.  He gazed out into the illimitable light.  Tears
+trickled slowly down his hollow cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a time the warder started to go on.  Conrad raised himself
+unsteadily, and they moved slowly forward.  They came to a white marble
+bust standing on a stone pillar surrounded with flowers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad stood still, shaded his eyes with his hand, looked at the
+statue, and asked: "Who is that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is the king," answered the warder.  Conrad gazed at it
+thoughtfully.  And then he said softly and much moved: "How kindly he
+looks at me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, he is a kind master."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then joy slowly entered the heart of the poor sinner.  The world is
+beautiful.  People are good.  Life is everlasting.  And the Heavenly
+Father reigns over all.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The warder looked at his watch.  "It is time to return."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad was taken back to his cell.  He stumbled over the threshold and
+knocked up against the table, it was so dark.  But his heart rejoiced.
+The world Was beautiful.  People were good.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, gradually, fear stole back upon him.  He was tired and lay down
+for a little on the straw.  The key grated in the lock.  Conrad started
+to his feet in terror.  What was coming?  What was coming?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The father entered quickly and cheerfully.  Swinging the manuscript in
+his hand, he cried: "Glad tidings!  Glad tidings!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad's hands fluttered to his breast.  "Glad tidings?  It had come?
+Life&mdash;to live again?"  So he cried aloud.  He stood for a moment
+motionless, then he sat down on the wooden bench.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, my son," the monk continued.  "We will call the book, 'Glad
+Tidings,' I.N.R.I.  Glad tidings of a poor sinner.  That will suit the
+Gospel; that sounds well, does it not?"  He stopped and started:
+"Ferleitner, what is the matter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Conrad had fallen against the wall, his head sunk on his breast.  The
+breath rattled in his throat.  The father reached quickly for the
+water-pitcher to revive him.  He reproached him good-naturedly for
+losing heart so quickly, and bathed his forehead tenderly.  Then he
+noticed the stillness of the breast and the eyes&mdash;how glazed they were!
+He shouted for help.  The jailer appeared.  He looked, paused a moment,
+and then said, softly: "It is well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was silence.  Suddenly the old man cried out:  "It is well.
+Thou art merciful, Holy God!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Later, the Franciscan passed through the long passages thanking God
+sadly for the blessed miracle of the misunderstanding.  At the gate he
+met the governor.  Heavily, supporting each step by his stick, he came
+along.  When he saw the monk he went up to him: "My dear father," he
+said hoarsely.  "I am sorry; you will have a heavy night of it.
+Ferleitner, the criminal, will need a priest.  To-morrow morning at six
+o'clock all will be over."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+A short silence.  Then the father answered: "Your Excellency, the
+criminal, Ferleitner, needs neither priest nor judge.  He has been
+pardoned."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+<hr class="full" noshade>
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, I.N.R.I., by Peter Rosegger, Translated by
+Elizabeth Lee
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: I.N.R.I.
+       A prisoner's Story of the Cross
+
+
+Author: Peter Rosegger
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 5, 2005  [eBook #17011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I.N.R.I.***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+I. N. R. I.
+
+A Prisoner's Story of the Cross
+
+by
+
+PETER ROSEGGER
+
+Translated by Elizabeth Lee
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Hodder and Stoughton Limited
+London
+First Edition, September, 1905.
+Second Edition, September, 1905.
+Third Edition, December, 1905.
+Made and Printed in Great Britain.
+Wyman & Sons Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham
+
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+The difficult path which leads to the gardens where the waters of life
+sparkle, takes us first to a big city in which the hearts of men
+pulsate with feverish unrest.
+
+There is such a great crowd in the broad square in front of the law
+courts that the electric cars are forced to stop.  Six or eight of them
+are standing in a row, and the police cannot break through the crowd.
+Every one is making for the law courts; some hurry forward excitedly,
+others push their way through quietly, and fresh streams of people from
+the side streets are continually joining the rest.  The public
+prosecutor is expected every moment to appear on the balcony and
+announce the verdict to the public.
+
+Every one was indulging in remarks about the prisoner who had wished to
+do so terrible a deed.
+
+"He is condemned, sure enough!" shouted one man.  "The like of him gets
+to Heaven with a hempen cord!"
+
+"Don't be silly," said another, with lofty superiority.  "In half an
+hour at most he'll pass the gate a free man.  Juries don't condemn the
+like of him."
+
+Many agreed with the first speaker, but more with the last.
+
+"Whoever believes that he'll be let off is a fool!" shouted some one.
+"Just consider what he did, what he wished to do!"
+
+"He wanted to do a splendid thing!"
+
+Passionate discussion and wagering began.  It would have struck a keen
+observer that good broadcloth expected condemnation, while fustian and
+rags eagerly desired acquittal.  A big man of imposing presence asked
+in a loud tone, over the heads of the people, if anyone would bet him
+ten ducats that the wretch would hang.
+
+A starved-looking little fellow declared himself willing to take up the
+bet.  The handsome man turned his head in its silk hat, and when he saw
+the starved, undersized creature, murmured sleepily, "He! he'll bet ten
+ducats with me!  My dear sir, you'd better go home to your mother and
+ask her to give you a couple of pennies."
+
+Laughter followed; but it was interrupted.  The crowd swayed suddenly,
+as when a gust of wind passes over the surface of water.  A man
+appeared on the balcony of the law courts.  He had a short, dark beard;
+his head with its high forehead was uncovered.  He stepped forward
+ceremoniously to the railing, and raised his hand to enforce silence.
+And when the murmur of the crowd died away, he exclaimed in a thin
+voice, but pronouncing every syllable clearly, "The prisoner, Konrad
+Ferleitner, is found guilty by a majority of two-thirds of the jury,
+and in the name of his Majesty the King is condemned to die by hanging."
+
+He stood for a moment after making the announcement, and then went back
+into the house.  A few isolated exclamations came from the crowd.
+
+"To make a martyr of him!  Enthusiasm is infectious!"
+
+"An enthusiast!  If he's an enthusiast, I'm a rascal!"
+
+"Why not?" replied a shock-headed man with a laugh.
+
+"Move on!" ordered the police, who were now reinforced by the military.
+The crowd yielded on all sides, and the tram rails were once more free.
+
+A few minutes later a closed carriage was driven along the same road.
+The glint of a bayonet could be seen through the window.  The crowd
+flocked after the carriage, but it went so swiftly over the paved road
+that the dust flew up under the horses' hoofs, and at length it
+vanished in the poplar avenue that led to the prison.  Some of the
+people stopped, panting, and asked each other why they had run so fast.
+"It won't take place to-day.  We shall see in the papers when it's to
+come off."
+
+"Do you think so?  I tell you it's only for specially invited and
+honoured guests!  The times when executions were conducted in public
+are gone, my dear fellow.  The people are kept out of the way."
+
+"Patience, my wise compeer!  It'll be a people's holiday when the
+hangman is hung."
+
+The crowd melted into the ordinary traffic of the street.
+
+A slender, stooping man sat handcuffed between two policemen in the
+carriage that rolled along the avenue.  He breathed so heavily that his
+shoulders heaved up and down.  He wore his black coat today, and white
+linen appeared at neck and sleeves.  His hair was reddish brown, he had
+brushed it carefully, and cheeks and chin were shaved smoothly.  He had
+felt sure that the day would restore him to liberty, or promise it him
+at no very distant date.  His pale face and sunken cheeks proclaimed
+him about forty, but he might have been younger.  His blue eyes had a
+far-away, dreamy expression, but they were now full of terror.  His
+face would have been handsome had not the look of terror spoiled it.
+His fettered hands lay on his knees, which were closely pressed
+together, his fingers were intertwined, his head sunken so that his
+chin was driven into his chest: he looked an utterly broken man.  He
+drew in his legs so that the policemen might be more comfortable.  One
+of them glanced at him sideways, and wondered how this gentle creature
+could have committed such a crime.
+
+They drove alongside the wall of the large building, the gate of which
+was now opened.  In the courtyard the poor sinner was taken out of the
+carriage and led through a second gate into an inner courtyard where
+his handcuffs were removed.  He was led through vaulted corridors in
+which here and there small doors with barred windows might be seen.
+The dark passage had many windings, and was lighted by an occasional
+lamp.  The air was cold and damp.  The openings high up in the wall,
+through which glimmered a pale daylight, became rarer, until at length
+it was as dark as the tomb.  The new arrival was received by the
+gaoler, a man with bristly grey hair, a prominent forehead, and
+pronounced features which incessant ill-humour had twisted into a
+lasting grimace.  Who would not be ill-humoured indeed, were he forced
+to spend a blameless life in a dungeon among thieves and murderers and
+even--worst of all--among those who had been foolishly led astray?
+Directly he saw the tottering, shadowy figure of the prisoner come
+round the pillar, he knew the blow had fallen.  Midnight had struck for
+the poor fellow.  Annoyed that such people should let themselves be so
+stupidly taken by surprise, he had continually snubbed him harshly.
+To-day he accompanied him to his cell in silence, and when opening it
+avoided rattling the keys.  But he could not help looking through the
+spy-hole to see what the poor fellow would do.  What he saw was the
+condemned man falling on to the brick floor and lying there motionless.
+The gaoler was alarmed, and opened the door again.  So the man was
+clever enough to die quickly?  That would be a miscarriage!  But the
+culprit moved slightly, and begged to be left alone.
+
+And he was alone, once again in this damp room with the wooden bench,
+the straw mattress, the water-jug on a table--things which during the
+long period of probation he had gazed at a hundred times, thinking of
+nothing but "They must acquit me."  Out of the planks that propped up
+the straw mattress he had put together a kind of table, a work of which
+the gaoler disapproved, but he had not destroyed it.  High up in the
+wall was a small barred window, through which mercifully came the
+reflection from an outer opposite wall, now lighted by the sun.  The
+edge of a steep gabled roof and a chimney could be just seen through
+the window, and in between peeped a three-cornered piece of blue sky.
+That was the joy of the cell.  Konrad did not know that he owed this
+room to special kindness.  The scanty light from above had been a
+comfort, almost a promise, all the weary weeks: "They will send you a
+free man out into the sunshine!"  By slow degrees that hope was
+extinguished in his lonely soul.  And to-day?  The little bit of
+reflection was a mockery to him.  He wanted no more twilight.  Daylight
+was gone for ever--he longed for darkness.  Night! night!  Night would
+be so heavy and dark that he would not behold his misery, even
+inwardly.  He could not think; he felt stifled, giddy, as if someone
+had struck him on the head with a club.
+
+When the gaoler on his rounds peeped through the spy-hole again and saw
+the man still lying on the floor, he grew angry.  He noisily opened the
+little door.  "By Jove, are you still there?  Number 19!  Do you hear?
+Is anything the matter?"  The last words were spoken almost gently; a
+stupid fellow might imagine that he was pitied.  But that was not the
+case.  As a man sows, he reaps.
+
+The prisoner stood up quickly and looked distractedly about him.  When
+he recognised the gaoler he felt for his hand.  He grasped it firmly,
+and said hoarsely: "I want to ask something.  Send me a priest."
+
+"Oh, at last!" grumbled the old man.  "These atheists!  In the end they
+crawl to the Cross."
+
+"I'm not an atheist," calmly replied the prisoner.
+
+"No?  Well, it's all the same.  You shall have a father-confessor."
+
+Konrad had not meant a confessor.  To set himself right with God?  That
+might come with time.  But what he now most desired was a human being.
+No one else would come.  No one will have anything to do with a ruined
+man.  Each man thanks God that he is not such a one.  But the priest
+must come.
+
+In about half an hour the condemned man started, every sound at the
+door alarmed him--some one came.  A monk quietly entered the cell.  He
+slipped along in sandals.  The dull light from the window showed an old
+man with a long, grey beard and cheerful-looking eyes.  His gown of
+rough cloth was tied round the waist with a white cord, from which a
+rosary hung.  He greeted the prisoner, reaching for his hand: "May I
+say good evening?  I should like to, if I may."
+
+"I sent for you, Father.  I don't know if you are aware how things are
+with me," said Konrad.
+
+"Yes, I know, I know.  But the Lord is nearer to you to-day than He was
+yesterday," replied the monk.
+
+"I have many things to say," said Konrad, hesitatingly.  "But I don't
+want to confess.  I want a man to talk to."
+
+"You want to ease your heart, my poor friend," said the monk.
+
+"You come to me because it's your duty," returned Konrad.  "It's not
+pleasant.  You have to comfort us, and don't know how to do it.
+There's nothing left for me."
+
+"Don't speak like that," said the Father.  "If I understand rightly,
+you have not summoned me as a confessor.  Only as a man, isn't that it?
+And I come willingly as such.  I can't convert you.  You must convert
+yourself.  Imagine me to be a brother whom you haven't seen for a long
+time.  And now he comes and finds you here, and wellnigh weeping asks
+you how such a thing could have happened."
+
+The prisoner sat down on the bench, folded his hands, and bent his head
+and murmured; "I had a brother.  If he had lived I should not be here.
+He was older than I."
+
+"Have you no other relatives?" asked the monk.
+
+"My parents died before I was twelve years old.  Quickly, one after the
+other.  My father could not survive my mother.  My mother--a poor, good
+woman; always cheerful, pious.  In the village just outside.  No one
+could have had a happier childhood.  Ah! forgive me----"  His words
+seemed to stick in his throat.
+
+"Compose yourself!" counselled the priest.  "Keep your childhood in
+your memory!  It is a light in such days."
+
+"It is over," said Konrad, controlling his sobs.  "Father, that memory
+does not comfort me; it accuses me more heavily.  How can such
+misfortune come from such blessing?  If only I dared kneel now before
+my God--and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."
+
+"Well, well!" said the Father.  "Other mothers had different
+experiences with other sons."
+
+"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady,"
+muttered Konrad.
+
+"That's right," returned the Father.  "Now tell me more.  Quite young,
+then, you lived among strangers, eh?"
+
+He uttered confusedly: "After the deaths of my father and mother I was
+apprenticed.  To a joiner.  That was a splendid time.  Only I read a
+great deal too much to please the master--all sorts of things, and
+dreamed about them.  And I didn't wish to do anything wrong, at least
+so I imagined.  The master called me a stupid visionary, and gave me
+the sack.  Then came a period of wandering--Munich, Cologne, Hamburg.
+I was two years with a master at Cologne.  If only I had stayed with
+him!  He didn't want to let me go--and there was a daughter.  Then to
+Hamburg.  That was bad luck.  I was introduced into a Society for the
+protection of the people against traitors.  To be a saviour, to risk
+one's life!  It came to me very slowly, quite gradually, what was the
+misery of living under such tyranny.  When a boy I once killed a dog
+that bit some poor people's children in the street.  A dog belonging to
+gentlefolk!  I was whipped, but it scarcely hurt--there was always in
+my mind; 'You freed them from the beast!'  And I felt just the same
+about the Society.  I can't tell you what went on in me.  I'm all
+bewildered.  Everything was laid bare at the trial, the whole horrible
+story.  Only I said yes with hundreds of others, I said it and thought:
+it won't come to me.  And it did come to me, as if our Lord had not
+wished it otherwise.  To me, the lot fell to me, when we drew."
+
+"I know the story, my poor fellow," said the monk.
+
+"I don't," retorted Konrad.  "From the moment they took the revolver
+out of my hand everything has been dark.  I have known nothing.  I only
+heard to-day that he lives.  And they told me----"
+
+"What did they tell you?"
+
+"That I must die."  Then violently addressing the priest: "It was a
+misfortune.  Is it really so great a crime?  Tell me."
+
+"I don't think I need tell you that."
+
+"Very well, then.  So it serves me right.  I desired to do the deed,
+and they say that's the same as the accomplishment of it.  Quite
+correct.  Isn't it 'A life for a life'?  It is written so in the Bible.
+Just that, no more.  They must take mine.  But--they must do it
+unexpectedly, suddenly.  Just as I meant to do to him.  Otherwise it
+won't be fair.  Tell me, holy Father, is it cowardly to be so
+terrified?  I am so terrified--of what is before me.  There's nothing
+about this terror of death in the Scriptures.  Those who settled my
+fate to-day looked like men.  Then they ought to know that they are
+executing me a thousand times, not once.  Why do I still live, I who
+was slain three hours ago!  Quick!  From behind!  If only they were so
+merciful!  One of them said to-day it was my duty to die.  My God!  I
+think I have the right to die, and they're the criminals!  They haven't
+secured me my rights at once!  It would have been over by now.  O God,
+my God, if only it were over!"
+
+So he raged on, wringing his hands, groaning under the torture.
+Suddenly his face became deathly white and his features stiffened as if
+his heart had ceased beating.
+
+"Poor fellow," said the priest, putting his arm round his neck and
+drawing his head down on his breast.  "You mustn't talk like that.
+Think, if we've been sinners all our lives, oughtn't we to spend a few
+days in repenting?  Tell me, brother, don't you desire the consolations
+of religion?"
+
+"Indeed I do," stammered the poor sinner.  "And so I asked----"
+
+"You see, I am ready."
+
+"And I also want the Gospels, if I may be allowed the book."
+
+The monk looked at him, then demanded quietly:
+
+"You want the New Testament?"
+
+"I should like to read in it.  My mother had one and used to read it
+aloud and explain it.  It would give me a home-like feeling if I could
+read in it now."
+
+The Father replied: "I'll tell you something, my dear friend.  The
+Gospel is a very good book, not in vain is it called the glad tidings."
+
+"My God! yes; what do I need more sorely now than glad tidings?" agreed
+Konrad.
+
+"Of course.  But the book's not an easy one.  Out of ten readers
+there's hardly one who understands it.  And even he doesn't really
+understand it.  It's too profound, I might say, too divine a book; as
+they say, seven times sealed.  Therefore it must be explained by
+experts.  I will willingly go through certain parts of it with you
+occasionally, but I shall give you something else for your edification,
+from which you will derive comfort and peace."
+
+Konrad covered his face with his hands, and said, almost inaudibly:
+"The Gospel is what I should have liked best."
+
+And then the monk said gravely: "My friend, you are the sick man and I
+am the physician.  And the physician knows best what will do the sick
+man good.  You should also prepare yourself for taking the Sacrament."
+
+As the poor sinner said no more, the priest spoke a few kind words and
+left him.  An hour later the gaoler brought him a parcel of books.
+"The holy brother sends them so that you can amuse yourself a little."
+
+Amusement!  It was a cruel joke.  Konrad gave a shrill laugh.  It was
+the laugh of a despairing man who cannot shut out the vision of his
+last journey, which became more hideous every moment.  What did the
+Father send?  Simple prayer-books and religious manuals.  Book-markers
+were placed to show the passages that applied especially to the
+penitent and the dying man, and also prayers for poor souls in
+purgatory.  The soul physician, all unacquainted with souls, sent the
+inconsolable man new anguish of death instead of life.  Konrad searched
+for the bread he needed, turned over the leaves of the books, began to
+read here and there, but always put them down sadly.  The more eagerly
+did he exercise his memory in order to recall the pictures of his
+childhood.  His mother, who had been dead many years, stood before him
+in order to help her unhappy child.  Her figure, her words, her songs,
+her sacred stories from the Saviour's life on earth--brought peace to
+his soul.  It suddenly came upon him; "God has not forgotten me."  Just
+as before he had raged in despair, so now beautiful shadows out of the
+past appeared before him, and tears of redemption flowed from his eyes.
+
+He did not have an hour's sleep the night of his condemnation.  He
+prayed, he dreamed, and then the horrid terror, which made him shiver
+in all his limbs, came again.  He kept looking towards the window to
+see if daylight was beginning.  Early in the morning, just at the first
+dawn--so he had often heard--the warders come.  The window showed only
+darkness.  But look, in the little three-cornered bit of sky, there is
+a star.  He had not seen it on other nights.  It sailed up to the crack
+in the roof and shone down through the window in kindly fashion.  His
+eye was riveted on the spark of light until it vanished behind the
+walls.  When at length day dawned, and the key rattled in the door,
+Konrad's hands and feet began to tremble.  It was the gaoler, who
+brought him a bundle of coarse cotton clothing.
+
+When Konrad asked in a dull voice if it was his gallows dress, the old
+man answered roughly: "What are you chattering about?  Put on your
+house clothes."
+
+The convict went up to the gaoler, clasped his hands, and said: "Only
+one thing, if I knew--when, when?  This suspense is unbearable!"
+
+"Eh! how impatient we are!" mocked the old man.  "My dear fellow, we
+don't do things so quickly.  The decision was only made yesterday.
+Why, they haven't yet settled about the banquet."
+
+"The banquet!"
+
+"The bill of fare--don't you understand?  No orders have come yet.
+You're safe for twenty-four hours.  But if there's anything you'd like
+to eat--I'll make an exception for once.  And now, get on with your
+toilet!  You can will away your own things as you please," he pointed
+to his clothes.  "Have you anyone?  No?  Well, I know some poor people.
+But get on, get on.  The hot season is coming on, and cotton isn't bad
+wear then."
+
+The rough gaoler's good-humoured chatter was particularly distasteful
+to the poor man.  To be snubbed and railed at would have pointed to a
+long life to come, one not to be measured by hours.  Did he know?  And
+was he silent out of pity? or was it malice?  Before, the old man had
+been easily moved to anger, and when heated would swing his arms up and
+down and plainly threaten to have the obstinate convict sent off.  Now
+there was no more grim humour nor raging round.  He looked at the poor
+sinner, sunk in deep gloom, with a sad calmness.  "Poor devil!"
+Suddenly it was too much for him, and he broke out violently: "But come
+now!  You must have known it.  Be sensible; I can't stand this misery.
+Dying is not easy, of course; you should be glad that there's someone
+by to help.  And then--who knows whether you won't live after all.  Do
+be sensible!"
+
+When at last deep silence again gathered round him, the prisoner tried
+his books afresh.  The Father had provided for a varied taste.  The
+"Devotion to the Holy Rosary," the "Prayers to the Virgin's Heart,"
+"Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell," the "Life of St. Theresa," "The
+Seven Bolts of Heaven," and "Prayers of Intercession for Souls in
+Distress."  What a wealth of edification!  The joiner's apprentice had
+always loved books.  He had once reckoned out as a joke that three
+asses could not carry the books which he had read since his childhood.
+They had afforded him a glimpse of all times and places, and of all
+provinces of human life.  Now he asked himself what it had all brought
+him.  Confusion, perplexity, nothing besides.  He had thought about
+everything, but he could not be clear about anything.  That was not
+generally possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement
+pacified him.  He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily
+and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in
+childhood, but it had not gone deeper.  Now that they ought to prove
+their worth, they left him in the lurch.  He turned over the pages, he
+read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need.
+Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell
+over the edge of the table on to the brick floor.
+
+In the night that followed Konrad had a dream, vivid and clear as never
+dream had been.  It was a dark country, and he had lost his way.  He
+wandered about amid cold, damp rocks, and could not find a path.  Then
+his fingers felt a thread; he seized it, and it guided him through the
+darkness.  The land grew brighter and brighter; the thread brought him
+into his sunny native valley, to the place with the old gabled houses,
+to his father's house which stood amidst the fruit-trees, and the
+thread to which his fingers still clung involuntarily led him into the
+room where it had been spun from his mother's distaff.  And there she
+sat and span the thread, with her pale face and soft wrinkles and kind
+eyes, and directly the boy stood near her she told him tales of the
+Saviour.  He listened to her and was a happy child.  That was his
+dream.  And when he awoke in the prison cell, his mother's gentle voice
+still sounded in his ears: "My child, you must cling to Jesus."
+
+
+Konrad was taken every day for half an hour into the dirty and sunless
+courtyard.  But he dreaded that half-hour.  It stirred a vain longing
+for light.  And the rough and insolent fellow-prisoners with whom he
+was brought in contact!  He preferred to be alone in his quiet cell.
+
+During his imprisonment he had often asked for work, but was always
+informed that nothing of the sort had been provided for by the
+authorities.  Besides--work was an honourable thing, and it must first
+be proved that he was worthy of it.  But now it was not a time for
+work, rather a time for preparation.  What could he do in order to get
+through these days?  Or what could he do in order to keep the days from
+flying so quickly?  Look how a flash of lightning seems sometimes to
+pass over the floor.  Then it is gone again.  High up in the opposite
+wall, on which the sun sometimes shone, was a casement window, and its
+glass doors, swayed by the breeze, were reflected in the prison.
+Konrad was terrified by these sparks from heaven; he would grope on the
+ground as if for a gold piece that had rolled away.
+
+Then came visitors, unexpected, alarming visitors!  The judge's stiff
+figure and serious face appeared in company with the gaoler.
+
+Konrad felt stunned, and could only think: "The hour has come!"  The
+man had pronounced his sentence as coldly and unfeelingly as if he had
+been a machine which, when its keys are pressed, gives forth sounds
+like words.  The judge ordered the gaoler to withdraw.  The old man
+hesitated--what could that mean?  The judge had to repeat his order
+before the old man would go.  When the judge was alone with the
+prisoner, he bent down and felt with his hands, for he was not yet
+accustomed to the darkness.  Then he said kindly: "Konrad Ferleitner, I
+have come to ask you if there's anything you wish for?"
+
+The prisoner wrung his hands convulsively; wild pulsations, that beat
+in strong double strokes at irregular intervals, coursed through his
+body.  So violent was his agitation that the poor wretch stuttered
+forth words that the judge could not understand.
+
+"Compose yourself!"
+
+When he caught the words "Father-confessor!" amid the sounds uttered by
+the prisoner, it occurred to the judge that the poor fellow imagined
+that the hour of execution had arrived.  "Ferleitner," he said, "come
+and sit by me on the bench.  You think it's the end--no, it hasn't come
+so far yet, and perhaps it won't come so far at all.  I may tell you
+that a petition for mercy has been sent to His Majesty."
+
+Konrad looked up as if in a dream, and the dim light showed how
+terribly pale and sunken his cheeks were.  "Mercy!" he muttered in
+suppressed tones.  "Mercy for me?  Then--why did you condemn me?"
+
+The question appeared to puzzle the judge.  The delinquent seemed in
+all seriousness to think himself innocent.  "You were there yourself,
+Ferleitner, and heard how the jury decided after listening to the
+witnesses.  After that the judge must condemn; he has no choice."
+
+"For mercy?  The king?" asked Konrad, who, more bewildered than
+consoled, had sat down on the bench, for his legs would scarcely
+support him.
+
+"The advocate ventured it," replied the judge.  "Your whole bearing
+proves that you were inveigled into the business.  We want nothing
+further.  You see, Ferleitner, that evil cannot be eradicated from the
+world with evil.  To fight evil with evil only increases its power.
+But a large heart can pardon such a deed or purpose.  Let us hope
+meanwhile that our king possesses one.  The Chancellor is getting
+better.  Here, just look--sign the paper."  He pulled out a folded
+sheet, then an inkpot and a pen.  Konrad bent over the table and
+groaned while signing his name.
+
+"Ah," he said, "if only I could be free again!  I should never think of
+such things again.  The world could go on as it pleased.  I should do
+my work, and not trouble about anything else.  Only," and he said it
+softly, uncertainly, "only I shall not forget God again."
+
+"There is naturally only a moderate chance," said the judge.  "In some
+cases, where it is concerned with the whole----"
+
+"It is very uncertain, then?" asked Konrad.  "But, my God! how is it to
+be borne?  If this time is lengthened, how is it to be borne?  This
+terrible suspense!"
+
+"It can be a time of hope," said the judge.
+
+"But how long will it last?" asked Konrad.
+
+The judge shrugged his shoulders.  "It may last three weeks, but it
+might last double that time."
+
+Konrad asked confidingly: "Do you think, sir, that a man can hold
+out?--with the terror of death lasting for weeks?"
+
+"Haven't you just a little confidence?" asked the judge.  "Haven't we
+all to endure uncertainty?--the judge as well as the condemned man?"
+
+"But what am I to do?" demanded Konrad.  "How am I to employ myself all
+the dreadful time?  It's being buried alive."
+
+"Unhappily it's not in my power to give you a better room, though you
+haven't the worst cell in the building.  But perhaps you have some
+other desire that can be granted.  Speak out frankly, Ferleitner," said
+the judge.
+
+Therewith he folded the paper, and put the writing materials into his
+coat pocket.  Konrad followed his proceedings with his eyes.  He could
+not comprehend how this dread personage came to speak to him in so
+kindly a fashion.  "As to the room," he said, "it's all I need--when
+you've nothing to do, and are not likely to have anything to do, what
+can a man want?  If a man isn't free, nothing else matters.  But one
+thing--I have one request, sir."
+
+"Then speak it," said the judge, and holding Konrad's hand firmly in
+his, broke out with: "Don't you see, it's cruel to think, to believe,
+that we must be the personal enemies of all whom we're obliged to
+condemn.  You think the proceedings in court were so callous, you've no
+idea how we actually feel about the business.  It is not only the
+accused who passes sleepless nights--the judge, too, knows them.  We
+lawyers--outside our profession--have founded an association to support
+and encourage those we are obliged to pronounce guilty, that they may
+not sink down uncomforted.  So, my dear Ferleitner, you may trust me
+that, as far as I can, I will alleviate your position."
+
+Then Konrad, looking down on the floor, said: "I should like to have
+writing materials."
+
+"You want to write?" asked the Judge.
+
+"If I might ask for paper, pens, and ink," returned Konrad.  "In former
+years I used to like writing down my thoughts--just as they came, I had
+little education."
+
+"You wish to write to your friends?" inquired the judge.
+
+"Oh no!  If I had any, they'd be glad not to hear from me," said Konrad.
+
+"Or to draw up a plea of justification?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or an account of your life?"
+
+"No, not that either.  My life has not been good enough.  Misfortune
+should be forgotten rather than recorded.  No, I think I can write
+something else," stated Konrad.
+
+"You shall have writing materials," said the judge.  "And is there
+anything else?  A more comfortable bed?"
+
+"No, thank you.  It's right enough as it is.  If a hard bed was the
+only thing----"
+
+"And is everything kept properly neat and clean?" interrupted the judge.
+
+"If you're always waiting and thinking, 'Now, now, they're coming!' I
+tell you, sir, you don't sleep well," replied Konrad.
+
+"Don't keep worrying yourself with ideas, Ferleitner," said the judge
+warningly to the man, who had again worked himself up into a state of
+excitement.  "Not one of us knows what the next hour may bring, and yet
+we live on calmly.  Use the time," he continued playfully, "in avenging
+your condemnation by some great literary work.  In olden times great
+minds often did it."
+
+"I can't write a great work," answered Konrad.  "And I've nothing to
+avenge.  I deserve death.  But it's this waiting for it.  The torments
+of hell cannot be worse."
+
+"We've nothing to do with hell.  We've merely to think of the purgatory
+in which we are placed.  Let heaven, as they say, follow.  Haven't you
+any business to arrange?  Nothing to settle for anyone?" asked the
+judge.
+
+"No one, no one!" Konrad assured him.
+
+"That's a piece of luck that many of your comrades in misfortune would
+envy you.  A man can settle things easily for himself alone.  If it's
+any consolation, Ferleitner, I may tell you that we don't regard you as
+a scoundrel, only as a poor creature who has been led astray.  Now
+that's enough for the present.  Your modest request shall be granted at
+once."
+
+After this remarkable conversation with the poor sinner, the judge left
+the cell.  He was not satisfied.  Had he not listened enough, or had he
+spoken too much?  How could so childlike a creature take an oath to
+commit murder?  In the corridor he spoke seriously to the gaoler.
+
+"I must point out to you that the man is very ill.  Don't treat him
+harshly."
+
+The old man was annoyed.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir!  To treat a poor devil like that harshly!  If
+you pity him, why were you so rough with him?"  He rubbed a lamp-glass
+with a coarse rag in order to get the black off.  "'To die by hanging.'
+Even said as gently as that, it hurts more than when we roundly abuse
+the people, and yet that's at once taken amiss.  Only to prove it.
+Ill!  Of course he's ill, poor devil.  I am only surprised the doctors
+haven't been to cure him.  I suppose he's well enough to be hanged?"
+
+"That will do, Trapser."
+
+The gaoler put down his work, stood up straight in military fashion,
+and said: "Sir, I beg to resign my post."
+
+"What!" exclaimed the judge, "you wish to go?"
+
+"I respectfully hand in my resignation."  He stood up straight as a
+dart.  "Do you know, I've got accustomed to most things here in
+six-and-twenty years, I've seen seventeen hanged--just seventeen, sir.
+There ought to have been twenty-four, but seven were granted
+imprisonment for life.  They're still undergoing that mercy.  Do you
+know, sir, it's a miserable calling!  But as to that Ferleitner, I
+never afore saw anything like him.  What has he done, I ask you?  He's
+done nothing.  You see we've had quite different gallows-birds here.  A
+speculator who had ruined six families and driven the seventh to
+suicide--eight months.  A student with two duel murders on his
+conscience--six months.  But he is there now--because he's done
+nothing, it seems to me.  Well, the long and the short of it is, it
+horrifies me."
+
+"Always the same in temper and disposition, you old bear!  God keep
+you!"  And then a kindly tap on the shoulder.  The attempt at
+resignation was again met with a refusal.  The judge formally put it
+aside.  But the old man growled on for a long time.  "Old bear! old
+bear!  That's his whole stock of wit every time, I'll show him the old
+bear.  Good God! that's how things are with us!"  He whistled and made
+a harsh noise with his bunch of keys so that the prisoners could make
+their preparations before he performed his duty of looking through the
+spyhole to see how his charges were spending their time.  Then he went
+and procured a big bottle of ink and a packet of foolscap paper for
+Number 19.
+
+"Is that enough?" he asked.
+
+"Thank you, thank you!" said Ferleitner; "only now I want a pen."
+
+"Oh no, my dear sir, no.  We know that sort of thing.  Since the notary
+in Number 43 stabbed himself with a steel pen five years ago, I don't
+give any more," said the gaoler.
+
+"But I can't write without a pen," returned Konrad.
+
+"That's not my business; I can't let you have a pen," the old man
+assured him.
+
+"The judge gave me permission to have one," Konrad remonstrated
+modestly.
+
+Then the old man exclaimed afresh: "Do you know this judge, he just
+comes up as far as this," and he placed his hand on a level with his
+chin.  "He crumbles everything up and then we're to spoon it out."
+Then he muttered indistinctly in his beard; "I say just this, if they
+let a man hang for a week before they hang him, it's a--a--good God!  I
+can't properly--I can't find any more fine words!  If a man puts a
+knife into himself, no wonder!"
+
+"I shan't kill myself," said Konrad quietly.  "They say I may put my
+hopes in the king."
+
+"And you want to write to him?  That won't help much, but you can do it
+if you like; there's time.  For once it's a good thing that our
+officials are so slow.  If it's any comfort to you, you may know that
+they wrong me, too.  They won't accept my resignation.  Yes, that's how
+it is with us," concluded the old man.
+
+Then he went and brought a pot with rusty steel pens.  "But don't you
+spoil them!"  For they were the very pens with which death-warrants had
+been signed--the old man had a collection of such things and hoped to
+sell it to a rich Englishman.  "Does your honour require anything
+else?"  With those mocking words he left the cell and raged and cursed
+all along the corridor.  The prisoners thought he was cursing them.
+
+
+The judge, his hands behind his back, walked up and down his large
+study.  What a cursed critical case!  If the Chancellor had not been
+given up by the doctors on the day of the trial, the sentence would
+have been different.  The petition for mercy!  Would it have any result
+except that of prolonging the poor man's torture?  Whether in the end
+it would not have been better----?  Everything would have been over
+then.  An old official came out of the adjoining room and laid a bundle
+of papers on the table.
+
+"One moment.  Has the petition for mercy been sent to His Majesty?"
+
+"It has, sir."
+
+"What's your opinion?" asked the judge.
+
+The counsellor raised his shoulders and let them fall again.
+
+
+Konrad cowered down and stared at the table.
+
+On it lay everything--paper, ink, pens.  What should he write?  He
+might describe his sadness, but how did a man begin to do that?  He
+lifted up his face as if searching for something.  His glance fell
+through the window on to the wall, the upper part of which was lighted
+by the evening sun.  The mountain tops glowed like that.  Ah, world,
+beautiful world!  Still three weeks.  Or double that time.  Then--the
+very beating of his heart hurt him; his temple throbbed as though
+struck by a hammer.  For he always thought of the one thing--and it
+suddenly flashed into his mind--there were other executioners!  His
+supper was there--a tin can with rice soup and a piece of bread.  He
+swallowed it mechanically to the last crumb.  Then came night, and the
+star was again visible in the scrap of sky between the roof and the
+chimney.  Konrad gazed at it reverently for the few minutes until it
+vanished.  Then the long, dark, miserable night.  And this was called
+living!  And it was for such life that you petitioned the king.  But if
+a king grants mercy, then the sun shines.  The kindness shown him by
+the judge had strengthened him a little, but the last of his surging
+thoughts was always, "Hopeless!"
+
+The next night Konrad had another visitor--his mother, in her Sunday
+gown, just as she used to go to communion.  And there was some one with
+her.  She went up to her son's bed, and said: "Konrad, I bring you a
+kind friend."
+
+When he felt for her hand, she was no longer there, but in the middle
+of the dim cell stood the Lord Jesus.  His white garment hung down to
+the ground, His long hair lay over His shoulders.  His shining face was
+turned towards Konrad.
+
+When the poor sinner woke in the morning his heart was full of wonder.
+The night had brought healing.  He jumped blithely out of bed.  "My
+Saviour, I will never more leave you."
+
+Something of which he had hardly been conscious suddenly became clear
+to him.  He would take refuge in the Saviour.  He would sink himself in
+Jesus, in whom everything was united that had formed and must form his
+happiness--his mother, his innocent childhood, his joy in God, his
+repose and hope, his immortal life.  Now he knew, he would rely on his
+Saviour.  He would write a book about Jesus.  Not a proper literary
+work; he could not do that, he had no talent for it.  But he would
+represent the Lord as He lived, he would inweave his whole soul with
+the being of his Saviour so that he might have a friend in the cell.
+Then perhaps his terrors would vanish.  In former days it had pleased
+him, so to speak, to write away an anxiety from his heart, not in
+letters to others, but only for himself.  Many things which were not
+clear to him, which he found incomprehensible--with pen in hand he
+succeeded in making clearer to his inward eye, so that vague pictures
+almost assumed corporeal shape.  He had in that fashion created many
+comrades and many companions during his wanderings in strange lands
+when he was afraid.  So now in his forlorn and deserted condition he
+would try to invite the Saviour into the poor sinner's cell.  No
+outward help was to be hoped, he must evoke it all out of himself.  He
+would venture to implore the Lord Jesus until He came, using his
+childish memories, the remains of his school learning, the fragments of
+his reading, and, above all, his mother's Bible stories.
+
+And now the condemned man began to write a book in so far as it was
+possible to him.  At first his dreams and thoughts and figures were
+disconnected through timidity, and the painful excitement which often
+made his pulses gallop and his heart stop beating.  Then he cowered in
+the corner, and wept and groaned and struggled in vain with the desire
+for mortal life.  When he succeeded in collecting his thoughts again,
+and he took up his pen afresh, he gradually regained calm, and each
+time it lasted longer.  And it happened that he often wrote for hours
+at a stretch, that his cheeks began to glow and his eyes to shine--for
+he wandered with Jesus in Galilee.  Suddenly he would awake from his
+visions and find himself in his prison cell, and sadness overcame him,
+but it was no longer a falling into the pit of hell; he was strong
+enough to save himself on his island of the blessed.  And so he wrote
+and wrote.  He did not ask if it was the Saviour of the books.  It was
+his Saviour as he lived in him, the only Saviour who could redeem him.
+And so there was accomplished in this poor sinner on a small scale what
+was accomplished among the nations on a large scale; if it was not
+always the historical Jesus as Saviour, it was the Saviour in whom men
+believed become historical, since he affected the world's history
+through the hearts of men.  He whom the books present may not be for
+all men; He who lives in men's hearts is for all.  That is the secret
+of the Saviour's undying power: He is for each man just what that man
+needs.  We read in the Gospels that Jesus appeared at different times
+and to different men in different forms.  That should be a warning to
+us to let every man have his own Jesus.  As long as it is the Jesus of
+love and trust, it is the right Jesus.
+
+It often happened that during the prisoner's composition and writing, a
+wider, softer light from the window spread through the cell, flickered
+over the wall, the floor, the table, and then rested for a space on the
+white paper.  And so light even entered the lonely room, but
+unspeakably more light entered the writer's heart.
+
+The gaoler saw little of the writing.  Directly he rattled his keys, it
+was hidden under the sheet--just as children hide their treasures from
+intrusive eyes.  When five or six weeks had gone by, hundreds of
+written sheets lay there.
+
+Konrad placed them in a cover and wrote on it
+
+    I.N.R.I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+When darkness covers the world men look gladly towards the east.  There
+light dawns.  All lights come from out of the east.  And the races of
+men are said to have come hither from that quarter.  There is an
+ancient book, in which is written the beginning of things and of men.
+The book came from the nation of the Jews, and the old Jews were called
+the people of God, for they recognised only one eternal God.  And great
+men and holy prophets arose in that nation.  The greatest of them was
+named Moses, and it is written that he it was who brought down to men
+the Ten Commandments.  But the Jews fell on evil times, they sank lower
+and lower and were heavily oppressed by stronger nations.  Like us,
+they suffered poverty and curses and despair, and this lasted for a
+thousand years and more.  Prophets appeared from time to time, and with
+words of mercy announced that a Saviour would come to lead the Jews
+into the kingdom of glory.  For that Saviour they waited many hundreds
+of years.  Oftentimes one would appear whom they took for Him, but they
+were deceived.  And when at last the real Saviour, the real, mighty
+Saviour appeared, they did not recognise Him.  For He was different
+from what they had imagined.
+
+Shall I try to tell how it happened, just as my mother used to tell me,
+her little boy, the story on winter evenings?  Shall I recite it to
+myself like one who desires to wake himself at midnight before the Lord
+comes?  Shall I, who am without learning, search in my poor confused
+head for the fragments that have remained in it?  So much has been lost
+in the wear and tear of the world, and yet since it has grown so dark
+with me something flashes out, and shines forth on high, like some
+starry crown in the night!  Shall I invoke the holy figures that they
+may stand by me through the anguish of my last days, that they may
+surround me with their glad eternal light, and let no spirit of despair
+come near me?--The path between the walls of this cruel fortress is
+narrow, and through it only a feeble light penetrates to me.
+
+As God wills.  I am grateful for and content with the pale reflection
+of the sky that comes to me from the holy east through the cracks in
+the wall.  Oh, God, my Father, let glad tidings come to me from distant
+lands and far-off times, so that my simple heart can hold and
+understand them.  I am thirsty for God's truth, and whatever shall
+strengthen, comfort, and save me, will be for me God's truth.  Oh, thou
+pale light!  Art thou my mother's heritage and blessing?  Oh, my
+mother!  From out the eternal dwelling speak to thy unhappy son--oh,
+speak!
+
+Did I not always see you in the woman who, during the cold winter
+season, was compelled to go across the mountains far from home?  And so
+I will begin.
+
+At that time the land of the Jews was under the dominion of the Romans.
+The Roman Emperor wished to know how many Jews there were, and
+commanded that an enrolment of the people should be made in Judaea.
+All the Jews were to go to the place of their birth, and there report
+themselves to the Imperial officer.  In the little town of Nazareth, in
+Galilee--a mountainous district of Judaea--there lived a carpenter.  He
+was an elderly man, and had married a young wife of whom a folk-song
+still sings--
+
+  "As beautifully white as milk,
+  As marvellously soft as silk;
+  A woman very fair to see,
+  Yet full of deep humility."
+
+They were poor people, but pious and industrious and obedient.  No man
+in the wide world troubled about them, and yet had it not been for them
+the Roman Empire might not have fallen.  Years afterwards, indeed, it
+fell because of that carpenter.  People from all quarters of the globe
+dwelt in Galilee, even barbarians who had wandered there from the west
+and the north.  And it was often difficult to distinguish their
+descent.  Our carpenter was born in the south of Judaea, in the town of
+Bethlehem, which, in olden times, had been the native place of King
+David.  Joseph, the carpenter, was not unwilling to speak of that, and
+even to let it be known that he was of the house of David, the great
+king.  But yet he might well have thought it a finer thing to rise up
+from below than to come down from above.  And is it not so?  Does not
+man rise up from below, and God come down from high?  In his boyhood
+David was a shepherd; it is said that he slew the leader of the enemy
+with stones from his sling, and that was why he rose so high.  Now for
+that reason, and because Joseph, the carpenter, was glad to visit his
+native town once again, and to take his wife with him and show her the
+land of his youth, the enrolment of the people was right pleasing unto
+him.  So the two made their plans, and set out for Bethlehem.  It was
+three days' journey and more, and they might well have complained.  If
+a workman to-day has not all that is of the best, he should think of
+Master Joseph, who always cared more for good work than good money.
+They probably took a packet of food with them from home, and the bride
+was often obliged to rest by the way.  The path over the rocky
+mountains was difficult and tiring, and they had to pass through the
+suspected land of Samaria.  But Joseph never grumbled.  And at last
+they reached Judaea.  And when they came upon ancient monuments, he
+liked to stop, first in order to see how they were built, and then to
+ponder over the great men and great deeds of olden times.  They spent a
+night at a place called Bethel, and there Joseph dreamed that he saw a
+ladder before him, and that it reached from earth to heaven.  And
+Joseph thought, if the rungs would bear him, he might perhaps ascend
+it; meanwhile, he saw how an angel, robed in white, slowly descended it
+until he came down to where Joseph was.  But when Joseph stretched out
+his hand to him, the angel was no longer to be seen.  Joseph awoke, and
+the sweet dream filled his soul.  It was the place where once the
+Patriarch Jacob saw the heavenly ladder, and there it had remained ever
+since, so that angels might continually descend and ascend between
+heaven and earth.  And then they cheerfully continued their way.
+Joseph was afraid when he heard the jackals shriek in the desert and
+saw the Bedouin camps.  But he thought the angel who had come down was
+hovering near him, and often imagined that he felt his wings fanning
+his cheek.
+
+The land through which they journeyed was barren; the plants were dried
+up by the frost and were all faded.  Snow lay on the summits of
+Lebanon, which the travellers now saw from afar, away in their native
+land, and pale gleams fell on to the lowlands of Judaea through the
+cloudy atmosphere, so that stones and grass were white.  When they
+rested beside a brook the woman gazed thoughtfully into the pool and
+said, "Look, Joseph; what are the wonderful plants and flowers on the
+surface of the water?"
+
+And Joseph said, "Haven't you ever seen them before, Mary?  You are
+young and have only known a few cold winters.  And you don't know what
+these flowers mean?  Let me tell you.  A maiden stands in the dawn.
+Her feet are on the moon and the stars circle round her head.  And
+under her foot she crushes the head of the serpent who betrayed our
+first parents in Paradise.  And see, Spring courts the maiden and
+brings her his roses.  And Winter, too, courts the maiden, and because
+he has no other flowers he makes these to grow on the surface of the
+water and on the window-panes.  But they are stiff and cold, and the
+maiden, the mysterious rose, of whom a prophet sang, 'All nations shall
+call thee blessed!' she chose the Spring."
+
+That was the story Joseph told, Joseph whose beard was white as the
+ice-flowers.  Mary listened to the tale and was silent.
+
+On the third day the royal city lay before our wanderers.  Magnificent
+it stood on the hill-top with the domes and pinnacles of its temples.
+At that time Herod, king of the Jews, sat on the throne and imagined
+that he ruled.  But he only ruled in so far as the strangers allowed
+him to rule.  The town which had once been the pride of the chosen
+people, now swarmed with Roman warriors, who filled the streets with
+noise and unruly conduct.  Joseph led his young wife down towards the
+sloping rocks where were the graves of the prophets.  There he was so
+overcome that suddenly he stretched forth his hands to heaven:
+"Almighty Jehovah, when will the Messiah come?"  His cry was re-echoed
+in the hollows of the rocks, and Mary said: "You should not shout so,
+Joseph.  The dead will not awaken, and Jehovah hears a prayer that is
+quietly spoken."
+
+Mary had hoped in her heart that they would enter Jerusalem and spend
+the night there.  Joseph said it could not be, for he had no relatives
+in the town who could give them lodging, and he had not money enough to
+pay strangers for a lodging.  Also he did not like the strange ways of
+the place; he yearned for his beloved Bethlehem.  It wasn't very far
+off now; could she manage it?
+
+Mary signed "Yes" with her head, and gathered together all her
+remaining strength.  But just beyond the city walls she sank down
+exhausted, and Joseph said: "We will stay here so that you may rest,
+and to-morrow I can show you the Temple."
+
+There was a man on a stony hillock nailing two beams of wood together.
+Joseph understood something of that sort of work, but he was not quite
+clear over this particular thing.  So he asked what it might be.
+
+"He for whose use it is, doesn't want it," replied the workman.  It
+then flashed into Joseph's mind that it was a gallows.
+
+Mary grasped his arm: "Joseph, let us go on to Bethlehem."  For she
+began to be frightened.
+
+They staggered along the road.  A draught of the spring of the Valley
+of Jehoshaphat refreshed them.  Farther on in the fertile plain of
+Judaea lambs and kids were feeding, and Joseph began to speak of his
+childhood.  His whole being was fresh and joyful.  Home!  And by
+evening time Bethlehem, lighted by the setting sun, lay before them on
+the hill-top.
+
+They stood still for a space and looked at it.  Then Joseph went into
+the town to inquire about the place and the time of the enrolment, and
+to seek lodging for the night.  The young woman sat down before the
+gate under the fan-shaped leaves of a palm-tree and looked about her.
+The western land seemed very strange to her and yet sweet, for it was
+her Joseph's childish home.  How noisy it was in Jerusalem, and how
+peaceful it was here--almost as still and solemn as a Sabbath evening
+at Nazareth!  Beloved Nazareth!  How far away, how far away!  Sometimes
+the sound of a shepherd's pipe was heard from the green hills.  A youth
+leaned up against an olive tree and made a wreath of twigs and sang:
+"Behold, thou art fair, my love.  Thine eyes are as doves in thy
+fragrant locks, thy lips are rosebuds, and thy two breasts are like
+roes which feed among the lilies.  Thou hast ravished my heart, my
+sister, my spouse."  Then he was silent, and the leaves rustled softly
+in the evening breeze.
+
+Mary looked out for Joseph, but he came not.  And the singer continued:
+"Who art thou that shinest like the day-dawn, fair as the moon, and
+clear as the sun, divine daughter of Eve?"  And Mary still waited under
+the palm-tree and listened, and she began to feel strange pangs.  She
+drew her cloak more closely round her, and saw that the stars already
+stood in the sky.  But still Joseph came not.  And from the hill the
+singer: "And from the root of Jesse a twig shall spring."  And a second
+voice: "And all nations shall rise up and sing her praises."  So did
+the shepherds sing the songs of their old kings and prophets.
+
+At last Joseph came slowly from the town.  The enrolment was to take
+place to-morrow at nine o'clock; that was all right.  But there was
+difficulty over the lodging for the night.  He had spoken with rich
+relations; they would have been very glad, but unfortunately a wedding
+feast was going forward, and wanderers in homely garments might easily
+feel uncomfortable.  He quite understood that.  Then he went to his
+poorer relations, who would have been even more glad, but it was
+deplorable that their house was so small and their hearth so cramped.
+All the inns were overcrowded with strangers.  They did not seem to
+think much here of people from Galilee because all kinds of heathenish
+folk lived there--as if any one who was born in Bethlehem could be a
+heathen!  And so he did not know what to do.
+
+Mary leaned her head on her hand and said nothing.
+
+"Your hands and feet are trembling, Mary," said Joseph.
+
+She shook her head; it was nothing.
+
+"Come, my wife, we will go in together," said Joseph.  "We are not
+vagabonds to whom they can refuse assistance."
+
+And then they both went into the town.  Mine host of the inn was stern.
+
+"I told you already, old man, that there's no place for the like of you
+in my house.  Take your little daughter somewhere else."
+
+"She's not my daughter, sir, but my true wife, trusted to me by God
+that I may protect her," returned Joseph, and he lifted up his
+carpenter's hand.
+
+The door was slammed in their faces.
+
+A fruit-seller, who had witnessed the scene, stretched forth his brown
+neck and asked for their passport.
+
+"If you show me your papers and three pieces of silver, I'll take you
+in for the love of God.  For we are all wanderers on the earth."
+
+"We've no passport.  We've come from Nazareth in Galilee for the
+enrolment, because I am of the house of David," replied Joseph.
+
+"Of the house of David!  Why, you don't seem to know whether you're on
+your head or your heels," and with a laugh the fruit-seller went his
+way.
+
+"It is true," thought Joseph, "noble ancestors are useless to a man of
+no importance."  For the future he would let David alone.
+
+Mary now advised him to go outside the town again.  Perhaps the very
+poor or entire strangers would have pity on them.  And as they
+staggered along the stony road to the valley the woman sank down on the
+grass.
+
+Joseph looked at her searchingly.  "Mary, Mary, what is it?"
+
+A shepherd came along, looked at them, and listened to their request
+for shelter.
+
+"My wife is ill, and no one will take us in," complained Joseph.
+
+"Then you must go to the beasts," said the shepherd cheerfully.  "Come
+with me.  I'll gladly share my house with you.  The earth is my bed,
+the sky my roof, and a rocky cave my bedchamber."
+
+And he led them to a hollow in the mossy rocks, and it had a roof woven
+out of rushes.  Inside an ox was chewing the hay it had eaten out of
+the manger.  A brown ass stood near by and licked the ox's big head.
+There was still some hay left in the manger and in the corner was a bed
+of dry leaves.
+
+"Since you have nothing better, lie down here and rest as well as you
+can.  I will seek a bed at my neighbour's."
+
+So saying the shepherd went away.  It had now grown dark.
+
+The young woman lay down on the bed of leaves and heaved a sigh from
+her terrified heart.  Joseph looked at her--and looked at her.  Lightly
+the angel's wings touched his face.
+
+"Joseph, be not afraid.  Lift up your heart and pray.  It is the secret
+of all eternities, and you are chosen to be the foster-father of Him
+who comes from heaven."
+
+He looked round him, not knowing whence came these thoughts, these
+voices, this wondrous singing.
+
+"You are tired, Joseph, you must sleep," said Mary.  And when he
+slumbered peacefully she prayed in her heart: "I am a poor handmaiden
+of the Lord.  The will of the Lord be done."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+It is midnight and, wakeful shepherds see a bright star.  A strange
+star, too; they had never seen its like before.  It sparkled so
+brightly that the shepherds' shadows on the plain were long.  And it is
+said that they saw other stars approach it, and at length surround it.
+And then the new star threw off white sparks, which flew down
+earthwards and stopped in mid-air; and there were children with white
+wings and golden hair.  And they sang beautiful words to the honour of
+God and the good-will of men.
+
+In that selfsame hour a boy brought tidings that a tall, white-robed
+youth stood in front of the shepherd Ishmael's cave, and that within
+lay a young woman on the bed of leaves, an infant at her breast.  And
+high up in the air they heard singing.
+
+The story quickly spread through the mountains round Bethlehem.  The
+shepherds who were awake roused those who slept.  Everywhere a
+delicious tremor was felt, a sense of mighty wonder.  A poor, strange
+woman and a naked child!  What was the use of singing?  Swaddling
+clothes and wraps and milk were what was needed.  One brought the
+fleece of a slaughtered sheep.  Another brought dried figs and grapes
+and a skin of red wine.  Other shepherds brought milk and bread and a
+fat kid; every one brought something, just as they took tithes to the
+officer.  An old shepherd came with a patched bagpipe, and when the
+bystanders laughed, Ishmael said: "Do you expect our poor, good Isaac,
+to bring David's golden harp?  He gives what he has, and that's often
+worth more than golden harps."
+
+When they came down they no longer saw the star or the angels, but they
+found the cave, and the father and the mother and the child.  He lay in
+the manger on the hay, and the beasts stood round and gazed at him with
+their big, melancholy, black eyes.  The shepherd's pity for the poor
+people was so great that no one thought he was doing a good work for
+which people would praise him and God would bless him.  No one looked
+slyly at his neighbour to see who gave more and who less.  Their one
+feeling was pity.
+
+People came from the town; and a wiry shepherd, placing himself before
+the entrance to the grotto, and using his staff as a spear, said: "Men
+of Bethlehem, ye cannot enter; the babe sleeps."
+
+Near by stood an old man, who said dreamily: "The town cast him out.  I
+always said there was no salvation yonder.  That's to be found with the
+poor under the open sky.  Miracles are happening here, men are pitiful.
+What does it mean?"
+
+Down below in a cleft of the rock cowered a poor sinner, and burrowed
+in the earth with his lean fingers as if he would dig himself a grave
+in its depths.  He gazed at the cave where the child was with glassy,
+staring eyes.  A prayer for mercy surged up in his heart like a stream
+of blood.  Those who saw him turned from him shuddering.  They took him
+for Cain, his brother's murderer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A stranger was riding a lazy camel across the lonely Arabian desert.
+All men are Moors in the dark, but this man was a Moor in the
+starlight.  A newly discovered star brought the man from the banks of
+the Indus.  He consulted all the calendars of the East, but none could
+tell him about the star.  Balthasar, however, was not the man to let
+the strange, incomprehensible star escape him.  Nothing can be
+concealed in God's bosom from an Eastern scholar, for not even God
+Himself has a passport for the land of the all-wise.  The world is
+through them alone and for them alone; man must grow of himself towards
+the light as the lotus grows out of the mud.  So thought Balthasar, and
+felt that life was a failure.
+
+In such wisdom the faith of Orientals lives and moves and has its
+being.  If man honestly aspires to higher things and tortures his
+flesh, it may go better with him in another life.  For he must be born
+again many times, and must torture his body until it shrivels up, is
+freed from sin, and is without desires.  Then the soul is released and
+is not born again, for Nirvana, the last goal, is reached.  Only bad
+men continue to live.  The nations of India had been demoralised by
+that doctrine for centuries.  But it did not satisfy wise men.
+Balthasar thought: If a man starves through a few dozen lives, then
+something good must come out of it.  Or is evil good enough to
+continue, and good evil enough to cease?  Balthasar sought better
+counsel.  He sought throughout the universe for a peg on which to hang
+a new, more beneficial philosophy of life.  When, then, he saw the new
+star in the sky, he never ceased looking at it.  And, lo! it too took
+the road from east to west which all men traversed.  What was there
+yonder in the sunset that all went towards it, on earth as in heaven?
+Could not one particular star swim against the stream?  True, this new
+heavenly pilgrim took an unusual path; he leaned somewhat to the north
+of the barbarous folk.  So the wise man of the east left the fragrant
+gardens of India and followed the star.  On the road he was joined by
+two Oriental princes and their suites, who were also seeking they knew
+not what.
+
+And one night the three wise men saw in the heavens an extraordinary
+constellation, a group of stars hitherto unknown to any of them.
+
+[Illustration: Diagram of constellation of stars, using asterisks for
+the stars, spelling out "INRI".]
+
+They looked at the constellation for a long while, and Balthasar
+thought it was like writing.  They brought all their wisdom to bear on
+it, but could not explain it, for all it shone so brightly.  Did the
+gods mean to write some message?  Who could understand it?  An uncanny
+appearance, which no knowledge or faith could explain!  The next night
+they did not see it, but the guiding star still went before them and
+yielded to no sun.
+
+One morning, just as day began to dawn, they rode through the streets
+of Jericho.  A man was lying on his face in the road, and the Moor
+asked him why he lay in the dust.
+
+"I lie in the dust," answered the man of Judah, "because I must
+practise myself in humility in order not to become too proud.  We have
+become great beyond measure these last days.  The King of the Jews is
+born, the Messiah promised of God."
+
+Then the wise man from India remembered how the Jews had been expecting
+their Messiah for ages, the royal deliverer from bondage.
+
+"I thought you had King Herod," he said.
+
+"He's not the right king," answered the man in the dust.  "Herod is a
+heathen, and cringes to the Romans."
+
+And now clouds from Lebanon hid the star, and the travellers knew not
+which way to go.  Balthasar, perplexed, went towards the neighbouring
+city of Jerusalem; there surely he would be able to learn more.  He
+asked at the royal palace about the new-born king.  Such a question was
+news to King Herod.  A son born to him?  He knew nothing about it.  He
+would see the strangers who asked such a question.
+
+"Sire," said the Moor, "something is in the air.  Your people are
+whispering of the Messiah."
+
+"I'll have them beheaded!" shouted Herod angrily; then, more gently:
+"I'll have them beheaded if they don't kneel before the Messiah.  I
+myself will bow before him.  If only I knew where to find him!"
+
+"I'll go and look round a little," said the complacent Balthasar, "and
+if I find him I'll come and tell you."
+
+"Do, do, noble stranger," said Herod, "And then, pray take your ease at
+my palace as long as you like.  Are you fond of golden wine?"
+
+"I drink red wine," answered the Moor.
+
+"Or of the fair women of the west?" asked the king.
+
+"I love dark-skinned women," said Balthasar.
+
+"Good!  Then come, my friend, and bring me news of the new-born king."
+
+Balthasar rode on farther with his companions, and directly he left the
+town the star again shone in front of him.  It hung high up in the
+heavens, and after they had followed it for some hours it slowly turned
+its course eastwards, and stopped above a cave in the rocks.  And there
+the strangers who had ridden out of the east to seek for truth, there
+they found truth and life, there they found a child, a child who was as
+tender and beautiful as a rosebud in the moonlight, a little child born
+to poor people, and other poor folk stood round and offered the very
+last of their possessions, and were full of joy.
+
+Dusky Balthasar peered inside.  Had he ever seen eyes shine as in this
+shepherd's cave?  It seemed to him that he saw a new light and a new
+life there; but he could not understand it.  And in the air he heard a
+strange song, more a suggestion than words: "You will be blessed!  You
+will live for ever!"
+
+The strangers hearkened.  What was that?  You will be blessed, and you
+will live for ever!  For us happiness is to be found only in
+non-existence.  At sight of this new-born infant the idea of immortal
+life came to them for the first time.
+
+They offered the poor mother precious jewels, and their hearts were
+glad and happy and strange within them.  Formerly these princes and
+wise men had only found pleasure in receiving, now they found it in
+giving.  Formerly Balthasar had been all sufficient unto himself, he
+had woven his thoughts in entire loneliness, had despised the rest of
+the world, and had only cared for himself.  And suddenly there came to
+him this joy in the joy of poor men, and this suffering at their
+suffering!  He shivered in his silken cloak, and when he took it off
+and wrapped it about the child he was warm.
+
+They all offered gifts, precious gold and rich perfumes and healing
+ointments.  But they were ashamed of their gifts beside the royal
+offerings of the shepherds, who, though it was not much, brought all
+that they possessed.
+
+Balthasar in his joy wished to hasten to Jerusalem in order to tell
+Herod: I have not yet found the King of the Jews, but I have found a
+poor child and whoever looks upon him is happy, he knows not why.  Now
+kings are not so anxious to be happy; they prefer to be powerful.  A
+youth came forward from the back of the cave and said to Balthasar: "Do
+you know the man to whom you would go?  Why, he would strangle the
+Emperor Tiberius if he could.  Be silent, then, about a helpless child
+who is loved by the people as a prince."
+
+"Oh, child!" said Balthasar, "you have the misfortune to be the
+people's favourite.  Therefore the great hate thee."
+
+"Stranger, go not to Jerusalem.  Say nothing of the child."
+
+The strangers did not feel at ease in a land which had an emperor and a
+king, neither of whom was the right ruler!  And so they mounted their
+camels.  They took one more look at the child in the manger and they
+rode away straight over the stony desert.  They directed their course
+towards the east, towards all the starry constellations, and dreamed of
+a new revelation which might enable them henceforth to live rich in
+love and ever glad.
+
+Meanwhile King Herod, sleeping or waking, was not at peace.  It was not
+on account of his wife or his brothers whom he had had murdered from a
+suspicion that they might kill him to secure the throne.  It was
+something else that caused his anxiety.  The new-born king!  No one
+mentioned the news at court, but he heard it from the walls of his
+palace, from the flowers of his garden, from the pillows of his couch.
+Who had first spoken the word?  Whence did it come?  A new-born king!
+Where?  He must forthwith hasten to do him homage, to present him with
+a gift tied with a silken string.  And one day the decree came to
+Bethlehem that every mother who had an infant son should bring it to
+the king's palace at Jerusalem for the king desired to see the progeny
+of his subjects in order to discover what hope there was for the
+delivery of the land of the Jews from bondage: he wished to present
+gifts to the boys; yes, he was preparing a great surprise for his
+people.  No little excitement prevailed among the women, who declared
+that the childless king intended to adopt the handsomest boy as his own
+son.  Since each mother considered her son the handsomest and most
+attractive, she took the boy that she had and carried him to Jerusalem
+to the palace of King Herod.  And those who refused to go were sought
+out by the guards.
+
+Unhappy day, O Herod! which bears thy name for all time!  The angry
+king, desiring to kill the anti-king, commanded the wholesale murder of
+the future protectors of his realm!  He destroyed the race which had
+formerly saved the beautiful city from ruin!
+
+"All hail to our king, long may he live!" shouted the mothers in the
+courtyard of the palace.  Then knaves rushed out from the doors, tore
+the children from their mothers' arms, and slew them.  None can
+describe, indeed none would attempt to describe, how the unhappy
+mothers strove frantically with the tyrants until they fell fainting or
+lifeless upon the bodies of their dear ones.
+
+Tremble, O men, before the terrible decree of Herod, murderer of the
+innocents, yet despair not.  He for whom they spilled their blood by
+God's decree will requite it in full measure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+He at whom Herod had struck was not among the slaughtered innocents.
+For Mary had no desire to show her babe to the king.
+
+They kept in hiding with their great treasure.  They remained in hiding
+a long time.  The rite of circumcision made the boy a member of the
+nation which God had named His chosen people.  The child's ancestors
+reached back to Abraham, to whom the promise was made.  And if
+according to Holy Writ I trace his descent from the race of Abraham,
+branch by branch, it comes at last to Joseph, Mary's husband.  And it
+is here that the glad tidings turn us aside with firm hand from all
+earthly existence--to the Spirit through which Mary had borne Him, Him
+whom with holy awe we call Jesus.
+
+Now it came to pass one night that Joseph awoke from his sleep: "Arise,
+Joseph, wake them, and flee!"  The voice called to him clearly and
+distinctly: twice, thrice.
+
+"Flee? before whom?  The shepherds protect us," Joseph ventured to say.
+
+"The king will have the child.  Make your preparations quickly and
+flee."
+
+Joseph looked at his wife and child.  Their faces were white in the
+moonlight.  To think that such as they had an enemy on the earth!
+Flee!  But whither?  Where could the king not reach them?  His arm
+extended throughout the whole of Judaea.  We must not dream of going to
+Nazareth; he would be sure to seek us there.  Shall we go towards the
+land where the sun rises?  There dwell wild men of the desert.  Or
+towards the setting sun?  There are the boundless waters, and we have
+no boat in which to sail thither, where the heathens live who have
+kinder hearts than the grim princes of Israel.
+
+"Wake them!" called the voice clearly and urgingly.  "Take them to the
+land of the Pharaohs."
+
+"To Egypt, where our forefathers were slaves, and were only delivered
+with difficulty?" asked Joseph.
+
+"Joseph, delay not.  Go to the people whose faith is folly, but whose
+will is just, yonder where the waters of the Nile make the land fertile
+and bless it; There you will find peace and livelihood, safety for your
+wife, and teaching for the child.  When the time comes, God will lead
+you back as once He led Moses and Joshua across the sea."
+
+Joseph knew not whose voice it was; he did not seek to know, and
+doubted not his soul rested trustfully in the arms of the Lord.  He put
+his hand on the shoulders of his dearest one, and said softly: "Mary,
+awake, and be not afraid.  Gather together our few possessions, put
+them in a sack, and I will fasten it to the beast Ishmael gave us.
+Then take the child.  We must away."
+
+Mary pushed her long, soft, silky hair from her face.  Her husband's
+sudden decision, the departure in the middle of the night, made her
+wonder, but she said not a word.  She gathered together their scanty
+possessions, took the sleeping child in her arms, and mounted the ass,
+who pricked up his ears and thought what a day's work must be before
+him since it began so terribly early.  His former owner had not
+pampered him; his short legs were firm and willing.  They gave one last
+grateful look at the cave, the stones of which were softer than the
+hearts of the men of Bethlehem.  Joseph took his stick and a leathern
+strap and walked beside the ass, leading it, the ass which carried his
+whole world and his heaven, and--the heaven of the whole world.
+
+After going some way, they thought to rest under some palm-trees, not
+far from Hebron.  But the ass would not stop, and they let him have his
+will.  Then soldiers of Herod rode that way; they saw a brown-skinned
+woman with a child sitting on the sand.
+
+"Is it a boy?" they called to her.
+
+"A girl," answered the woman.  "But strangers have just passed by, and
+I think they had a boy with them, if you can come up with them."
+
+And the horsemen galloped on.  Meanwhile the fugitives from Nazareth
+had reached bad roads, and were tired and wretched.  Was not Jacob's
+favourite son also taken into Egypt just like this child?  What will
+become of this one?  They became aware of their pursuers galloping
+behind over the bare plain.  Not a tree, not a shrub which could afford
+them protection.  They took refuge in the cleft of a rock, but Joseph
+said: "What is the use of hiding?  They must have seen us."  But as
+soon as they were well inside the dark hole, down came a spider from
+the mossy wall, summoned all her brood and her most distant relations
+in great haste, and they speedily spun a web over the opening, a web
+that was stronger than the iron railings in Solomon's temple, at the
+entrance to the Holy of Holies.  Hardly was the weaving finished when
+the knaves came riding up.  One said: "They crept into the hole in the
+rock."
+
+"What!" shouted another, "no one could have crept in there since the
+time of David the shepherd.  Look at the thick cobwebs."
+
+"That's true," they laughed, and straightway rode off.
+
+An old man who seemed to have risen from the grave now stood before the
+dusky woman who had denied her own son and betrayed the stranger
+wanderers.  Whence he came he did not know himself.  He loved the
+lonely desert, the home of great thoughts.  He did not fear the robbers
+of the desert, for he was stronger than they because he had nothing.
+Now and again the desire came to him to behold a human face, so that he
+might read therein whether the souls of men looked upwards or sank
+downwards.  The old man went up to the woman who had denied her own son
+and betrayed the fugitives.  And he said: "Daughter of Uriah! twice
+have you given your son life: once through pleasure, once through a
+lie.  So his life will be a lie.  He will breathe without living, and
+yet he will not be able to die!"
+
+"Mercy!" she cried.
+
+"He will see Jerusalem fall!"
+
+"Woe is me!"
+
+"He will see Rome burn!"
+
+"Mercy!" she groaned.
+
+"He will see the old world perish.  He will see the barbarians of the
+north prevail.  He will wander restless, he will be ill-treated and
+despised everywhere, he will suffer the boundless despair of universal
+misery, and he will not be able to die.  He will envy men their death
+anguish and their right to die.  He will learn how they suck sweet
+poison from the loveliest blossoms, and how twelve-year-old boys kill
+themselves from sheer weariness.  He is the son of lies and is banished
+into the kingdom of lies.  He will lament over the torments of old age,
+and he will not be able to die.  He will call those children whom Herod
+slew blessed, and gnash his teeth at the memory of the woman who saved
+him through a lie."
+
+"Oh, stop!" shrieked the woman.  "When will he be redeemed?"
+
+"Perhaps when the eternal Truth is come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The desert lay under a leaden sky.  The yellow undulating sandy plain
+was like a frozen sea that had no end, and so far as eye could see was
+only bounded by the dark orb of heaven.  Here and there, grey, cleft,
+cone-shaped rocks and blunt-cornered stone boulders or blocks and
+flat-topped stones not unlike a table rose out of the sand-ocean.  Two
+such stones were situated close together; one was partly covered by the
+yellow quicksand, the other stood higher out of the ground.  On each of
+them lay a man stretched at full length.  One, strong and sinewy, lay
+on his face, supporting his black-bearded cheeks with his hands so that
+his half-raised face could gaze over the barren plain.  The other, a
+smaller-made man, lay on his back, making a pillow of his arms, and
+gazed at the gloomy sky.  Both wore the Bedouin dress and were provided
+with arms which were fastened into, or suspended from, their clothes.
+Their woolly heads were protected by kerchiefs.  Their complexion was
+as brown as the bark of the pine-tree, their eyes big and sparkling,
+their lips full and red.  The one had a snub nose; the nose of the
+other was long and thin.  So do these men of the desert appear to my
+mind's eye.
+
+"Dismas," said the snub-nosed man, "What do you see in the sky?"
+
+"Barabbas," replied the other, "what do you see in the desert?"
+
+"Are you waiting for manna to fall from the sky?" said Barabbas.  "Do
+you know that I'm almost starved to death?  I must go down to the
+caravan route."
+
+"Well, go.  I'll to the oasis of Sheba," said Dismas.
+
+"Dismas, I hate you," growled the other.
+
+Dismas said nothing, and steadfastly looked at the sky, which had not
+for a long while been so softly sunless as to-day.
+
+"Since the day when you refused to help me hold up the caravan of
+Orientals with my men, I have hated you.  They had much frankincense
+and precious spices and gold.  With one blow we should have provided
+ourselves with enough for many a long year.  And you----"
+
+"Wanderers who were seeking the Messiah!  I do not attack such as
+they," said Dismas.
+
+"You, too, are seeking him, you pious highwayman."
+
+"Of course, I seek him."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed he of the snub-nose, pressing his pointed chin
+into his hand.  "The Messiah! the fairy-tale of dreaming old men.  All
+weak men dream and believe.  Don't you see that when you have to strive
+and struggle for your little bit of life there isn't time to wait for
+the Messiah!"
+
+"That's just what I've believed for many a year and day," answered
+Dismas sadly.  "I left my home to follow you; I've plundered men of
+silks and precious stones here in the desert, and time has flown
+nevertheless.  All the treasure in the world cannot bid it stand still
+for an hour; comfort only makes the days fly quicker.  We should not
+struggle for life, but hold it fast, for existence is a wondrous thing.
+Oh, in vain--the days vanish.  So I've determined to have nought to say
+to the hours which pass, but to a time that endures for aye.  And only
+he whom God sends can bring such a time."
+
+Barabbas pressed his face against the stone, and said with comfortable
+conviction; "We've only the life we have; there's no other."
+
+"If it was as you say," returned Dismas, "we must make this one life
+great----"
+
+"If there's no life to come," said Barabbas, "we must live this one
+out.  That is nature, and to deny it folly.  No, I will enjoy my life.
+Enjoyment is a duty."
+
+"That is what bad men think," said Dismas.
+
+"There are no bad men," exclaimed Barabbas, "and no good men either.
+Friend, look at the lamb, he harms no one; he would rather be torn to
+pieces by the lion than tear the lion to pieces himself.  Is he good,
+therefore?  No, only weak.  And the lion who kills and eats the lamb?
+Is he bad, therefore?  No, only strong.  And so it is his right to
+destroy the weak.  Strength is the only virtue, and the only good deed
+is to exterminate the weak."
+
+When he made an end of speaking, the other turned his face towards him
+and said: "What extraordinary words are those?  I never heard such talk
+before.  In whose heart were such ideas born?"
+
+"They were not born in the heart," said Barabbas.  "The heart is dumb.
+Dismas, if I must dwell in desert caves and do nothing, I must search
+out and inquire.  I break stones in pieces and search.  I pull the
+corpses of animals and men to pieces and inquire.  And I find that
+things are not as the old writings tell us.  There's only one Messiah:
+the truth.  Man is an animal like any of the lower creatures--that is
+the truth.  Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+A shudder went through Dismas's body.  How he disliked this man!  And
+yet, on account of his companion's strong will, and through the habit
+of years, he could not free himself.  He had often fled away from him,
+but had always come back.  Now he stood up, lifted his arms to heaven,
+and exclaimed: "Oh, Lord, in the holy heights, save me!"
+
+"Invoke the stars," said Barabbas, with a scornful laugh.  "You'll be
+right then.  They know nothing of you and your God.  They're made of
+common dust.  They themselves, and all the beings on them, live in the
+same base struggle as does our earth and everything on it.  An enormous
+dust-heap, swarming with vermin, that's all."
+
+Dismas sat on his stone with folded hands, pale as a corpse.
+
+"Barabbas, my comrade," he said at last, "it is your bad angel that
+speaks."
+
+"Why don't you praise him, Dismas?  Why don't you shout for joy?  My
+message has redeemed you.  You think because you've attacked, slain,
+and plundered unsuspecting travellers that everlasting hell must be
+your portion.  My strong message does away with hell.  Do you see that?"
+
+The other replied: "I heard a prophet in the wilderness cry that a man
+whom God had damned could be saved by repentance.  Your damnation,
+Barabbas, never!  No Almighty God!  Everything a dry, swarming
+dust-heap, and no escape!  Frightful, frightful!"
+
+"Do you know, Dismas, your lamentations don't amuse me?" said the
+other, supporting himself on his hands and knees like a four-footed
+beast.  "I have a more important matter on hand.  I'm hungry."
+
+Dismas jumped on his stone, and made ready for flight.  "If he's
+hungry, he's capable of killing and eating me."
+
+Barabbas had assumed a listening attitude, and his eagle eyes stared
+out into the desert.  A red banner was visible between the rocks and
+stones; it moved and came nearer.  It was a woman's red garment.  She
+rode on an ass, and seen closer, carried a child in her arms.  A man,
+tired out, limped beside her, leading the ass.
+
+"Dismas, there's someone," whispered Barabbas, grasping the handle of
+his weapon.  "Come, let's hide behind the stone until they come up."
+
+"You'll fall on those defenceless folk from an ambush?"
+
+"And you're going to help me," said Barabbas coolly.
+
+"We'll take what we need for to-day, no more.  I'll only help you so
+far, mark that."
+
+The little group came nearer.  The man and the ass waded deep in the
+sand, which in some places lay scantily over the rough stones, and in
+others had drifted into high heaps.  The guide was leading the animal
+quickly, for during this sunless day he had lost his bearings, but said
+nothing about it, in order not to make his wife anxious.  His eyes
+sought the right road.  They ought to reach the oasis of Descheme that
+day.  Now he saw two men standing on blocks of stone which reached up
+into the sky.
+
+"Praised be God!" said Joseph of Nazareth, "these men will put me
+right."
+
+Before he had time to frame his question, they quickly descended.  One
+seized the ass's bridle, the other grasped Joseph's arm, and said:
+"Give us what you have with you."
+
+The pale woman on the ass sent an imploring glance to Heaven.  The
+little child in her lap looked straight out of his clear eyes, and was
+not afraid.
+
+"If you've bread with you, give it us," said Dismas, who was holding
+the ass.
+
+"Fool!" shouted Barabbas of the snub-nose, "everything they have
+belongs to us.  Whether we will give anything, that's the question.  I
+will give you the most precious thing--life.  Such a beautiful woman
+without life would be a horror."
+
+Dismas reached at the sack.
+
+"Why are you doing that, brother?" said Barabbas.  "We'll lead them to
+our castle.  The simoon may be blowing up.  There they'll have shelter
+for the night."
+
+He tore the bridle from Dismas's hand, and led the ass bearing the
+mother and child down between the stones to the cave,  Joseph saw the
+men's weapons, and followed gloomily.
+
+When the shades of evening fell, and the desert was shut out and the
+sky dark, when the blocks of stone and the cone-shaped rocks resembled
+black monsters, the wanderers were settled in the depths of the cave.
+The ass lay in front of it sleeping, his big head resting on the sand.
+Near by lurked the robbers, and ate their plunder.
+
+"Now we'll share our guests in brotherly fashion," said Barabbas.  "You
+shall have the old man and the child."
+
+"They are father, mother, and child," replied Dismas; "they belong
+together, we will protect them."
+
+"Brother," said Barabbas, who was in high good humour at the ease of
+the capture, "your dice.  We'll throw for them.  First, for the ass."
+
+"Right, Barabbas."
+
+He threw the eight-cornered stone with the black marks, and it fell on
+his outspread cloak.  The ass was his.
+
+"Now for the father and son!"
+
+"Right, Barabbas."
+
+The dice fell.  Barabbas rejoiced.  Dismas was winner.
+
+"A third time for the woman!"
+
+"Right, Barabbas."
+
+He threw the dice; they fell on his cloak.
+
+"What is that?  The dice have no marks!  Dismas, stop this joke!
+You've changed the dice."
+
+When he took them up in his hand the black marks were there again all
+right.  They drew a second and a third time.  As before the dice had no
+marks when they fell.
+
+"What does it mean, Dismas?  The dice are blind."
+
+"I think it's you who are blind, Barabbas," laughed Dismas.  "Here,
+drink these drops, and then lie down and sleep."
+
+The strong man soon rolled on to the sand beside the ass, and snored
+loudly.
+
+Then Dismas crawled into the cave and woke the strangers, in order to
+get them away from the libertine.  For he dared not venture a trial of
+strength with Barabbas.  He had some trouble with Joseph, but at last
+they were beneath the starry sky, Mary and the child on the ass, Joseph
+leading it.  Dismas walked in front in order to show them the way.
+They went slowly through the darkness; no one spoke a word.  Dismas was
+sunk in thought.  Past days, when he had rested like this child in his
+mother's arms and his father had led them over the Arabian desert, rose
+before him.  Many a holy saying of the prophets had echoed through his
+robber life and would not be silenced.
+
+After they had waded through the sand and clambered over the rocks for
+hours, a golden band of light shone in the east.  The bushes and trees
+of the oasis of Descheme stood out against it.
+
+Here Dismas left the wanderers to their safe road, in order to return
+to the cave.  When he turned back with good wishes for the rest of
+their journey, he was met by a look from the child's shining eyes.  The
+beaming glance terrified him with the terror of wonderment.  Never
+before had child or man looked at him with look so grateful, so
+glowing, so loving as this boy, his pretty curly head turned towards
+him, his hands stretched out in form of a cross, as if he wished to
+embrace him.  Dismas's limbs trembled as if a flash of lightning had
+fallen at his side, and yet it was only a child's eyes.  Holding his
+head with both hands, he fled, without knowing why he fled, for he
+would rather have fallen on his knees before the wondrous child.  But
+something like a judgment seemed to thrust him forth, back into the
+horror of the desert.
+
+For three days our fugitives rested in the oasis.  Mary liked to sit on
+the grass under an olive-tree near the spring, and let the boy stretch
+his little soft arms to pluck a flower.  He reached it, but did not
+break it from its stem; he only stroked it with his soft fingers.
+
+And when the child fell asleep in the flowers, his mother kneeled
+before him and looked at him.  And she gazed and gazed at him, and
+could not turn her face from him.  Then she bent down and took one
+little plump, soft hand and shut it into hers so that only the
+finger-tips could be seen, and she lifted them to her mouth and kissed
+them, and could not cease kissing the white, childish hands, the tears
+running down her cheeks the while.  And with her large dark eyes she
+looked out into the empty air--afraid of pursuers.
+
+Joseph walked up and down near at hand between the trees and shrubs,
+but always kept mother and child in view.  He was gathering dates for
+their further travels.
+
+And now new faces rise before me as they wander farther into the barren
+desert, swept by the simoon, parched by the rays of the sun.  Mary is
+full of peace, and wraps the child in her cloak so that he rests like a
+pearl in its shell.  He nestles against her warm breast and sucks his
+fill.  Whenever Joseph begins to be afraid, he feels the angel's wing
+fanning his face.  And then he is full of courage and leads his loved
+ones past hissing snakes and roaring lions.
+
+After many days they reached a fertile valley lying between rocky
+hills; a clear stream flowed through it.  They rested under a hedge of
+thorns, and looked at a terribly wild mountain that rose high above the
+rest.  It was bare and rocky from top to bottom, and deep clefts
+divided it in its whole length, so that the mountain seemed to be
+formed of upright blocks of stone, which looked like the fingers of two
+giant hands placed one on the other.  A hermit was feeding his goat in
+the meadow, and Joseph went up to him and asked the name of the
+remarkable mountain.
+
+"You are travelling through the district, and you don't know the
+mountain?" said the hermit.  "If you are a Jew, incline your face to
+the earth and kiss it.  It is the spot where eternity floated down from
+Sinai."
+
+"That--the Mountain of the Law?"
+
+"See how it stretches forth its fingers swearing.  As true as God
+lives!"
+
+Joseph bowed down and kissed the ground.  Mary looked at the stony
+mountain with a thrill of awe.  Little Jesus slept in the shade of the
+thorn-bush.  The threatening rock and the lovely child.  There dark
+menaces, and here----?
+
+Joseph tried to picture to himself the scene when Moses, on the summit
+of the mountain, received the tables of stone from Jehovah.  Then a
+cloud slowly covered the mountain top as if to veil the secret.  Joseph
+was ashamed of his presumption and kept silence.  Before he departed he
+cut a bough from the thorn-bush and pulled off the leaves and twigs, so
+that it formed a pilgrim's staff for the rest of the journey.  They
+were always meeting new dangers.  And one day a hunter of the desert
+came running after them.  They were not frightened of his tiger skin,
+but of what he had to tell them.  If they had come from Judaea with
+their boy, they had better hasten into the land of Egypt, for Herod's
+men were on their track.  So they had no rest until at last they came
+to the land of the Pharaohs.  But one day they found themselves not on
+its frontier, but on the seashore.  They were dumb with astonishment.
+There lay the sea, its waves dashing against the black, jagged cliffs,
+and beyond them was a smooth, level plain as far as the eye could see.
+
+Once in the past fugitives had stood on the other side of the sea,
+their enemies behind them.  And Joseph lifted up his arms and called
+upon the God of his forefathers to divide the waters of the sea once
+again and make a passage for them.  Belief in the God of ancestors is
+strong.  He appealed also to his ancestors themselves and entreated
+them to come to his assistance, for are we not one with them and strong
+in the same faith?  But the sea lay in calm repose and divided not.
+Six horsemen came riding over the sand, shouting for joy at the thought
+of their reward, when they saw those they had so long pursued standing
+by the water, unable to proceed farther.  Quickly they approached the
+shore, and were about to let fly the stones from their slings against
+the couple who had the little King of the Jews with them, when they saw
+the fugitives descend the wave-dashed cliffs and go out upon the
+surface of the sea.  The man led the ass on which sat the woman with
+the child, and just as they passed over the sand of the desert, with
+even steps, they passed over the waters of the sea.
+
+Their pursuers rode after them in blind rage, urged their horses into
+the sea, and were the first to reach--not Egypt, but the other world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The family of the poor carpenter from Nazareth stood on the soil of
+ancient Egypt.  How had they crossed the sea?  Joseph thought in a
+fishing boat, but it had all happened as in a dream.  He opened his
+eyes, and sought the mountains of Nazareth, and saw the dark grove of
+palm-trees with their bare trunks and sword-shaped leaves, and he saw
+the gate flanked by enormous stone figures which, lying on their
+bellies, stretched out two paws in front of them and lifted huge human
+heads high in the air.  He saw the triangular form of the pyramids rise
+against the yellow background.  Strange odours filled the air, as well
+as shrill noises made by fantastic figures, and every sound struck hard
+and sharp on the ear.  Joseph's heart was heavy.  His home was
+abandoned, and they were in a strange land in which they must certainly
+be lost.
+
+Mary, who was always outwardly calm, but inwardly bound up passionately
+in the child, looked at Joseph's stick, and said: "Joseph, it is a nice
+thought of yours to deck your staff with a flower in token of our safe
+arrival."  Then Joseph looked at his stick and marvelled.  For from the
+branch which he had cut at Sinai there sprouted a living, snow-white
+lily.  Oh, Joseph, 'tis the flower of purity!  But what was the use of
+all the flowers in the world when he was so full of care?  He lifted
+the child in his arms, and when he looked at his sunny countenance the
+shadows were dispersed.  But they experienced shadows enough in the
+land of the sun, where men had built a splendid temple to the sun-god
+like that which the Israelites at home had built to the great Jehovah.
+
+Things did not go very well with these poor Jews during the long years
+they remained in this land.  They did not understand the language; but
+their simple, kindly character and their readiness to be of use told in
+their favour.  In that treeless land carpentry was at a discount.  They
+built themselves a hut out of reeds and mud on the bank of the Nile
+near the royal city of Memphis, but in such a building the carpenter's
+skill did not shine.  Still it was better than the dwellings of other
+poor people by the riverside.  Joseph thought of fishing for a
+livelihood; but the fish-basket that he wove was so successful that the
+neighbours supplied him with food so that he might make such baskets
+for them.  And soon people came from the town to buy his baskets, and
+when he carried his wares to market, he got rid of them all on the way.
+So basket-making became his trade, and he thought how once the little
+Moses was saved in a basket on the Nile.  And just as his work was
+liked, so also did Mary and himself win affection, and they confessed
+that life went better on the banks of the Nile than in poor little
+Nazareth, for veritably there were fleshpots in Egypt.  If only they
+could have crushed their hearts' longing for home!
+
+When the little Jesus began to walk, the mothers who were their
+neighbours wished him to make friends with their children and play with
+them.  But the boy was reserved and awkward with strangers.  He
+preferred to wander alone at evening-time besides the stream and gaze
+at the big lotus flowers growing out of the mud, and at the crocodiles
+which sometimes crawled out of the water, and lifting their heads
+towards the sky, opened their great jaws as if they would drink in the
+sunshine.  He often remained out longer than he ought, and came back
+with glowing cheeks, excited by some pleasure about which he said
+nothing.  When he had eaten his figs or dates, and lay in his little
+bed, his father and mother sat close by, and spoke of the land of their
+fathers, or told ancient tales of their ancestors until he fell asleep.
+Joseph instructed the boy in the Jewish writings; but it was soon
+apparent that Joseph was the pupil, for what he read with difficulty
+from the roll, little Jesus spoke out spontaneously from his innermost
+soul.  So he grew into a slender, delicate stripling, learned the
+foreign tongue, marked the customs, and followed them so far as they
+pleased him.  There was much in him that he did not owe to education;
+although he said little, his mother observed it.  And once she asked
+Joseph: "Tell me, are other children like our Jesus?"
+
+He answered; "So far as I know them--he is different."
+
+One day, when Jesus was a little older, something happened.  Joseph had
+gone with the boy to the place where the boats land, in order to offer
+his baskets for sale.  There was a stir among the people: soldiers in
+brilliant uniforms and carrying long spears marched along; then came
+two heralds blowing their horns as if they would split the air with
+their sharp tones; and behind came six black slaves drawing a golden
+chariot in which sat Pharaoh.  He was a pale man with piercing eyes,
+dressed in costly robes, a sparkling coronet on his black, twisted
+hair.  The people shouted joyfully, but he heeded them not; he leaned
+back wearily on his cushions.  But all at once he lifted his head a
+little; a boy in the crowd, the stranger basket-maker's little son,
+attracted his attention.  Whether it was his beauty or something
+unusual about the boy that struck him, we cannot say, but he ordered
+the carriage to be stopped, and the child to be brought to him.
+
+Joseph humbly came forward with the boy, crossed his hands on his
+breast, and made a deep obeisance.
+
+"That is your son?" said the king in his own language.
+
+Joseph bowed affirmatively.
+
+"You are a Jew!  Will you sell me the boy?" asked Pharaoh.
+
+And then Joseph: "Pharaoh! although I am a descendant of Jacob, whose
+sons sold their brother Joseph into Egypt, I do not deserve your irony.
+We are poor people, but the child is our most cherished possession."
+
+"I only spoke in kindness about the selling," said the king.  "You are
+my subjects, and the boy is my property.  Take him, Hamar."
+
+The servant was ready to put his hand on the little boy, who stood by
+quietly and looked resolutely at the king.  Joseph fell on his knees
+and respectfully represented that he and his family were not Egyptian
+subjects, but lived there as strangers, and implored the almighty
+Pharaoh to allow him the rights of hospitality.
+
+"I know nothing about all that, my good man," said the king.  Then,
+catching sight of the boy's angry face, he laughed.  "Meseems, my young
+Jew, that you would crush me to powder.  Let me live a little longer in
+this pleasant land of Egypt.  I shall not harm you.  You are much too
+beautiful a child for that."  He stopped, and then continued in a
+different tone: "Wait, and look more closely at Pharaoh, and see if he
+is really so terribly wicked, and whether it would be so dreadful to
+live in his palace and hand him the goblet when he is thirsty.  Well?
+Be assured, old man, I shall do you no violence.  Boy, you shall come
+to my court of your own free will, you shall share the education and
+instruction of the children of my nobles; only sometimes I shall have
+you with me, you fine young gazelle.  Now go home with your father.
+To-morrow I will send and ask, mark you--only ask, not command.  He who
+is tired of plundered booty knows how to value a free gift.  You hear
+what I say?"
+
+When the crowd heard Pharaoh speak to these poor people with such
+unwonted kindness, the like of which they had never heard before, they
+uttered mad shouts of joy.  As the king proceeded on his way in his
+two-wheeled golden chariot, a long array of soldiers, cymbal players,
+and dancing girls following behind, the palm-groves resounded with the
+cries of the people.  Joseph fled with the boy down narrow streets so
+as to avoid the crowd that wanted to press round him and look at and
+pet Pharaoh's little favourite.
+
+The same evening an anxious council was held in the little hut.  The
+boy, Jesus, was drawn to Pharaoh without saying why.  They were
+terrified about it.  The two working people had no idea that their life
+was becoming too narrow for his young soul, that he wanted to fortify
+himself with the knowledge to be obtained from the papyrus rolls of the
+ancient men of wisdom, with the intellectual products of the land of
+the Pharaohs.  And still less did they imagine that a deeper reason led
+their boy to desire to learn something of life in the world.
+
+Joseph admitted that the manuscripts in the royal collection counted
+for something.  But Mary put little trust in the writings, and still
+less in Pharaoh.
+
+"We've had," she said, "a painful experience of the good intentions of
+kings.  Having escaped the violence of Herod with difficulty, are we to
+submit to that of Pharaoh?  They all play the same game, only in a
+different way.  What Jerusalem could not accomplish by force, Memphis
+will accomplish by cunning."
+
+Joseph said: "My dear wife, you are not naturally so mistrustful.  Yet
+after what we have gone through it is no wonder.  This legend of a
+young King of the Jews has been a real fatality to us.  Whoever started
+it can never answer for all the woes it brings."
+
+"Let us leave that to the Lord, Joseph, and do what it is ours to do."
+
+When Joseph was alone with her he said: "It seems to me, Mary, that you
+believe our Jesus is destined for great things.  But you must remember
+that a basket-maker's hut is not exactly the right place for that.  He
+would have a better chance at Pharaoh's court--like Moses.  And we know
+that the King of Egypt is no friend of Herod.  No, that is not his
+line; he really wishes well to the child, and no one can better
+understand that than ourselves.  Did he not say that our darling should
+be treated like the children of the nobles?"
+
+In the end she decided to do what was best for the child.  He was past
+ten years old, and if he wished to go from the mud hut to the palace,
+well, she would not forbid it.
+
+Jesus heard her words.  "Mother," he said, and stood in front of her,
+"I do not wish to go from the mud hut to the palace, but I want to see
+the world and men and how they live.  I am not abandoning my parents to
+go to Pharaoh--although I go, I remain here with you."
+
+"You remain with us," said his mother, "and yet I see that even now you
+are no longer here."
+
+But she would not let him know how it was with her.  He should not see
+her weep.  She would not spoil his pleasure.  And then they discovered
+that after all he was not going very far away, only from the Nile to
+the town, and that Pharaoh had promised him liberty; he could visit his
+parents, and return to them whenever he so wished.  But he would no
+longer be the same child who went from them.  Mary reflected that that
+was the usual case with mother and son; the youth gave himself up more
+and more to strangers, and less and less of him remained to his mother.
+There remained to her the memory that she had borne him in pain, that
+she had nourished him with her life; she had a claim on him more sacred
+and everlasting than any other could have.  But gradually and
+inevitably he separated himself from his mother, and what she would do
+for him, and give him, and be to him, he kindly but decidedly set
+aside.  She must even give him her prayerful blessing in secret; she
+hardly dared to touch his head with her trembling hands.
+
+Next day at noon a royal litter stood before the hut.  Two slaves were
+the bearers, one of whom was old and feeble.  When Mary saw the litter
+she exclaimed that she would not allow her child to lie on so soft a
+couch.  The boy smiled a little, so that two dimples appeared on his
+rosy cheeks, and said:
+
+"Why, mother, do you think I would ride on those cushions?  Now, let
+the sick slave get in, and I will take his place."
+
+But the leader of the little procession was not agreeable.  The boy
+could do as he liked, stay, or go with them.
+
+"I shall stay," said Jesus, "and go to Pharaoh when I please."  The
+litter returned empty to the palace.
+
+The next day the boy made up his mind to go.  His parents accompanied
+him through the palm-grove to the town.  He walked between father and
+mother in his humble garb, and Joseph gave him good advice the while.
+Mary was silent and invoked the heavenly powers to protect her child.
+Only the boy was admitted through the gateway of the palace; father and
+mother remained behind and looked fearfully after their Jesus, who
+turned round to wave to them.  His face was glad, and that comforted
+the mother.  The father thought it incomprehensible that a child could
+so cheerfully and heedlessly part from the only creatures who cared for
+him; but he kept his thought to himself.
+
+The boy felt curiosity, satisfaction, and repugnance all at the same
+time, when he gave himself into the hands of the servants, who led him
+to a refreshing bath, anointed him with sweet-smelling oil, and clad
+him in a silken garment.  But he desired to learn what life in the
+royal palace was like.  And gradually its splendour began to enfold
+him.  The Arabian tales which his father loved to tell him contained
+marvels and splendours, but nothing to be compared with the
+magnificence and brilliance that now assailed his senses.  Marble
+staircases as broad as streets, halls as lofty as temples, marble
+pillars, brilliantly painted domes.  The sun came through the windows
+in every colour there is, and was reflected red, blue, green, and gold
+by the shining walls.  But more fairy-like were the nights, when
+thousands of lamps burned in the halls, a forest of candelabra shone
+like a conflagration kept within bounds; when the courtiers seemed to
+sink into the carpets and divans and silken and down coverlets; when
+the sweet-smelling incense rose from the golden censers and intoxicated
+the brain; when a hundred servants made ready the banquet of
+indescribable luxury, and carried it in silver dishes, alabaster bowls,
+and crystal goblets; when youths and maidens, with arms entwined,
+crowned each other with wreaths of roses; when the fanfares sounded,
+and the cymbals clashed, and song gushed from maidens' throats; and
+when at length Pharaoh entered in flowing purple robes adorned with a
+thousand sparkling diamond stars--on his head an indented coronet,
+shining like carbuncle--the god! the sun-god!  On all this our boy from
+the Nile hut looked as at something wonderful that had nothing to do
+with him.  A fan of shimmering peacocks' feathers was put into his
+hand.  Other boys had similar fans, and with half-bared limbs stood
+close to the guests and fanned them into coolness.  Young Jesus was to
+do that for Pharaoh, but he did not do it, and sat on the floor and
+never grew weary of looking at Pharaoh's pale face.  The king answered
+his gaze kindly: "I think that is the proud youth from the Nile, who
+does not desire to sit at the feet of Pharaoh."
+
+"He shall sit at the right hand of God," sang the choir.  Slowly, with
+the air of an irritated lion, the king turned his head in order to see
+what stupid choirmaster mingled Hebrew verses with the hymn of Osiris.
+Then ensued noise and confusion.  The windows, behind which was the
+darkness, shone with a red light.  The people had assembled before the
+palace with torches in order to do homage to Pharaoh, the son of Light.
+The king looked annoyed.  Such homage was repeated every new moon--he
+desired it, and yet it bored him.  He beckoned to the cup-bearers, he
+wanted a goblet of wine.  That brought the blood to his cheeks, and the
+light to his eyes.  He joined in the hymn of praise to Osiris, and his
+whole form glowed with strength and gladness.
+
+When the quiet night succeeded the luxurious day, so still was it that
+the lapping of the waves of the Nile might be heard.  Jesus lay on a
+curtained couch of down, and could not sleep.  How well he had slept in
+the hut by the Nile!  He was hot and rose and looked out of the window.
+The stars sparkled like tiny suns.  He lay down again, prayed to his
+Father, and fell asleep.  The next day, when the feast was over, he
+would find the rooms in which the old writings were kept, and the
+teachers who would instruct him.  But it was not like the feast that
+comes to an end; it was repeated every day at the king's court.
+
+It happened one night that the slaves stole around and woke each other.
+Jesus became aware of the subdued noise and asked the cause.  One
+approached him and whispered, "Pharaoh weeps!"  Like a mysterious
+breath of wind it went through the palace, "Pharaoh weeps!"  Then all
+was still again, and the dreaming night lay over everything.
+
+Jesus did not lie down again on the soft cushions, he rested on the
+cool floor and thought.  The king weeps!  Arabia and India, Greece and
+Rome have sent their costliest treasures to Memphis.  Phoenician ships
+cruise off the coasts of Gaul, Albion, and Germany in order to obtain
+treasure for the great Pharaoh.  His people surround him day after day
+with homage, his life is at its prime.  And he weeps?  Was it not
+perhaps that he sobbed in his dreams, or it may be laughed?  But the
+watchers think he weeps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+And the days passed by.  As the king had said, the boy was free.  But
+he stayed on at the palace because he hoped one day to find the room in
+which the manuscripts were kept.  He often strolled through the town
+and the palm-grove down to the river to see his parents.  Thousands of
+slaves were working at the sluices of the stream which fertilised the
+land.  The overseer scourged them lustily, so that many of them fell
+down exhausted and even dying.  Jesus looked on and denounced such
+barbarity, until he, too, received a blow.  Then he went out to the
+Pyramids where the Pharaohs slept, and listened if they were not
+weeping.  He went into the Temple of Osiris and looked at the monster
+idols, fat, soulless, ugly, between the rounded pillars.  He searched
+the palace untiringly for the hall in which the writings were kept, and
+at last he came upon it.  But it was closed: its custodians were
+hunting jackals and tigers in the desert.  They found it dark and
+dreary there among the great minds of old; the splendour and luxury of
+the court did not penetrate to the hall of writings.
+
+Then nights came again when whispers ran through the halls, "Pharaoh
+weeps."  And the reason, too, was whispered.  He had caused the woman
+he loved best to be strangled, and now the astrologers declared that
+she was innocent.  One day the king lay on his couch and desired that
+the boy from the Nile should be summoned to fan him.  As the king was
+sick, Jesus agreed to go.  Pharaoh was ill-humoured and impatient,
+neither fan nor fanning was right, and when the boy left off that was
+not right either.
+
+Then Jesus said suddenly: "Pharaoh, you are sick."
+
+The king stared at him in astonishment.  A page dare to open his mouth
+and speak to the Son of Light!  When, however, he saw the sad, sincere
+expression of sympathy in the boy's countenance ho became calmer, and
+said; "Yes, my boy, I am sick."
+
+"King," said Jesus, "I know what is the matter with you."
+
+"You know!"
+
+"You keep shadows within and light without.  Reverse it."
+
+Directly the boy had said that Pharaoh got up, thinner and taller than
+he usually appeared to be, and haughtily pointed to the door, an angry
+light in his eyes.
+
+The boy went out quietly, and did not look back.
+
+But his words were not forgotten.  In the noise and tumult of the
+daytime Pharaoh did not hear them; in the night, when all the
+brilliance was extinguished and only the miserable and unhappy waked,
+he heard softly echoed from wall to wall of his chamber, "Reverse it!
+Bring the light inside!"
+
+Shortly before that time Jesus had discovered an aged scholar who dwelt
+outside the gate of Thebes, in a vaulted cave at the foot of the
+Pyramid.  He would have nothing to do with any living thing except a
+goat of the desert which furnished him with milk.  And as he kept
+always within the darkness of the vault, bending over endless
+hieroglyphics on half-decomposed slabs of stone, on excavated household
+vessels, and papyrus rolls, the goat likewise never saw the sun.  Both
+were contented with the food brought them daily by an old fellah.  The
+hermit was one who had surely reversed things--shadow without and light
+within.  When Pharaoh dismissed Jesus, he sought the learned
+cave-dweller in order to find wisdom.  At first the old man would not
+let him come in.  What had young blood to do with wisdom?
+
+"My son, first grow old, and then come and seek wisdom in the old
+writings."
+
+The boy answered: "Do you give wisdom only for dying?  I want it for
+living."
+
+Then the old man let him in.
+
+Jesus now visited the wise man every day and listened to his teachings
+about the world and life, and also about eternal life.  The hermit
+spoke of the transmigration of souls, how in the course of ages souls
+must pass through all beings, live through all the circles of
+existence, according as their conduct led them upwards to the gods, or
+downwards to the worms in the mud.  Therefore we should love the
+animals which the souls of men may inhabit.  He spoke with deep awe of
+the serpent Kebados, and of the sublime Apis in the Temple of Memphis.
+He lost himself in all the depths and shoals of thought, verified
+everything by the hieroglyphics, and declared it to be scientific
+truth.  So that the man who lived in the dark discoursed to the boy on
+light.  He spoke of the all-holy sun-god Osiris who created everything
+and destroyed everything--the great, the adorable Osiris by whose eye
+every creature was absorbed.  Then he would again solemnly and
+mysteriously murmur incomprehensible formulae, and the eager boy grew
+weary.  Here, too, something evidently had to be reversed.  So
+thinking, he went quietly forth and left the little gate open.  When
+the old man looked up at him, there he was in the open air pasturing
+the goat, who, delighted at her liberty, was capering round on the
+grass.
+
+"Why do you not show your reverence for truth?" he said, reprovingly.
+
+And Jesus: "Don't you see that I am proving my reverence for your
+teaching.  You say: We must love animals.  Therefore I led the goat out
+into the open air, that she may feed on the fragrant grass.  You say
+that we should kindle our eye at that of the sun-god, therefore I went
+out with the goat from the dark vault into the bright sunlight."
+
+"You must learn to understand the writings."
+
+"I want to know living creatures."
+
+The old man looked at the boy with an air of vexation.  "Tell me, you
+bold son of man, under what sign of the zodiac were you born?"
+
+"Under that of the ox and the ass," answered the boy Jesus.
+
+The man of learning immediately hurried into his cave, lighted his
+lamp, and consulted his hieroglyphics.  Under the ox and the ass--he
+grew afraid.  Away with Libra, away with Libra!  He investigated yet
+again.  It stood written on the stone and in the roll.  He went out
+again, and looked at the boy, but differently from before, uneasily, in
+great excitement.
+
+"Listen, boy, I've cast your horoscope."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"By the ancient and sacred signs I've read your fate.  Knowing under
+what sign of the zodiac and under which stars you were born, I can
+enlighten you as to the fate you go to meet so callously.  Do you
+desire to know it?"
+
+"If I desire to know it, I will ask my Father."
+
+"Is your father an astrologer?"
+
+"He guides the stars in their courses,"
+
+"He guides the stars in their courses?  What do you mean?  You are a
+fool, a godless fool.  You will learn what terrors await you.  This
+arrogance is the beginning.  His Father guides the stars in their
+courses indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+News came from Judaea that King Herod was dead.  It was also reported
+that his successor, called Herod the younger, was of milder temperament
+and a true friend of his people.  So Joseph considered that the time
+was now come when he might return to his native land with his wife and
+his tall, slender son.  His basket-making, through industry and thrift,
+had, almost without his noticing it, put so much money into his pocket
+that he was able to treat with a Phoenician merchant regarding the
+journey home.  For they would not go back across the desert: Joseph
+wanted to show his family the sea.  He took willow twigs with him in
+order to have something to do during the voyage.  Mary occupied herself
+in repairing and making clothes, so that she might be nicely dressed
+when she arrived home.  The other passengers who were in the big ship
+were glad of the idleness, and amused themselves in all sorts of ways.
+Jesus often joined them, and rejoiced with those who were glad.  But
+when the amusement degenerated into extravagance and shamelessness, he
+retired to the cabin, or looked at the wide expanse of waters.
+
+One moonlight night when they were on the high seas, a storm sprang up.
+The ship's keel was lifted high at one moment only to dip low the next,
+so that the waves broke over the deck; bundles and chests were thrown
+about, and a salt stream struck the travellers' faces.  The rigging
+broke away from the masts, and fluttered loosely in the air out into
+the dark sea which heaved endlessly in mountains of foam, and
+threatened to engulf the groaning ship.  The people were mad with
+terror and anguish, and, reeling and staggering, sought refuge in every
+corner in order to avoid the falling beams and splinters.  Joseph and
+Mary looked for Jesus, and found him quietly asleep on a bench.  The
+storm thundered over his head, the masts cracked, but he slept
+peacefully.  Mary bent over him, and climbed on to the bench so that
+they might not be hurled apart.  She would let him sleep on, what could
+a mother's love do more?  But Joseph thought it time to be prepared,
+and so they woke him.  He stood on the deck and looked out into the
+wild confusion.  He saw the moon fly from one wall of mist to the
+other, he saw dark monsters shoot up from the roaring abyss, and throw
+themselves on the ship with a crashing noise, and turn it on its side
+so that the masts almost touched the surface of the water, while birds
+of prey hovered above.  The ship heaved from its inmost recesses, and
+cracked from end to end as if it would burst.  Jesus, pale-faced, his
+eyes sparkling with delight, held on to the railing.  Joseph and Mary
+tried to protect him.  He thrust them back, and without ceasing to gaze
+at the awful splendour, said: "Let me alone!  Don't you see that I'm
+with my Father?"
+
+It is written of him that he is the only man who had no father on
+earth, and so he sought and found Him in heaven.
+
+Others who saw the youth that night became almost calm in spite of
+their terror.  If he is not afraid for his young life, is ours so much
+more valuable?  And then, whether to conquer or to fail, they went to
+work with more courage to steer the ship, to mend the tackle with tow,
+to bale out the water, until gradually the storm subsided.  When day
+dawned Jesus was still gazing with delight at the open sea, where he
+had watched the struggle of winds and waves of light and darkness.  At
+last he had found it--light both within and without!  The helmsman blew
+his horn, and announced, "Land in sight!"  Far away over the dark-green
+water shone the cliffs of Joppa.
+
+When the ship was safely steered through the high cliffs into the
+harbour, our family landed in order to journey thence to Jerusalem on
+foot.  For it was the time of the Passover, and it was many years since
+Joseph had celebrated it in Solomon's Temple.  The feast--a memorial of
+the deliverance from Egypt--had now a double meaning for him.  So he
+wished to make this _detour_ to the royal city on his way to his native
+Galilee, and especially that, after their sojourn in the land of the
+heathen, he might introduce Jesus to the public worship of the chosen
+people.  Joseph and Mary clasped each other's hands in quiet joy when
+they were once again journeying through their native land, breathing
+its fresh air, seeing the well-known plants and creatures, hearing the
+familiar tongue.  Jesus remained calm.  If he found any childish
+memories there, they would be of the king who had persecuted him.  He
+could regard the land with calm impartiality.  And when he saw his
+parents so glad to be at home again, he thought how strange it was that
+lifeless earth should have so much power over the heart.  Does not the
+Heavenly Father hold the whole earth in his hand?  Does not man carry
+his home within his own bosom?
+
+Their possessions were tied on to the back of a camel, and they trudged
+cheerfully after it.  Joseph carried an axe at his waist in order to
+defend them from attacks, but he only had occasion to try it on the
+blocks of wood that lay in the road, which he liked to hack at a little
+if they were good timber.  The nearer they approached the capital the
+more animated the stony roads became.  Pilgrims who were proceeding to
+the great festival in the holy place streamed along the paths.  After
+sunset on the second day our travellers found themselves at an inn in
+Jerusalem.  Joseph could afford to be more independent than he had been
+twelve years back--he had money in his pocket!  Their first walk was to
+the Temple.  They hastened their steps when passing Herod's palace.
+
+The Temple stood in wondrous splendour.  All sorts of people filled the
+forecourt, hurrying, pushing, and shouting, pressing forward through
+the lines of pillars into the Holy Place, and thence into the Holy of
+Holies, where the ark of the covenant stood, flanked by golden
+candelabra.  Every fifth man wore the robes of a rabbi, and was thus
+sure of his place in the Temple as one learned in the law.  Pharisees
+and Sadducees, two hostile parties in the interpretation of the law,
+talked together of tithes and tribute, or entered on lively disputes
+over the laws of the Scriptures, a subject on which they never agreed.
+Joseph and Mary did not observe that others were quarrelling; they
+humbly obeyed the rules, and stood in a niche of the Holy Place and
+prayed.  But Jesus stood by the pillars and listened to the disputants
+with astonishment.
+
+The next day they inspected the city as far as the crowds rendered it
+possible.  Joseph wished to visit the grave of his noble ancestor, and
+pushed through the crowds that filled the dark, narrow streets, noisy
+with buyers and sellers, donkey-drivers, porters, shouting rabbis, and
+an endless stream of pilgrims.  When they reached David's tomb Jesus
+was not with them.  Joseph thought that he had remained behind in the
+crowd, and, feeling quite easy about him, paid his devotions at the
+tomb of his royal ancestor.  When they returned to the inn, where they
+thought to find Jesus, He was not there; time passed, and He did not
+come.  Someone said He had joined a party of pilgrims going to Galilee,
+because He thought that His parents had already set out.  "How could He
+think that?" exclaimed Joseph.  "As if we should go without Him!"
+
+They hurried off to fetch their son, but when they came up with the
+pilgrims, Jesus was not there, nothing was known of him, and his
+parents returned to the town.  They sought him there for two whole
+days.  They visited every quarter of the city, searched all the public
+buildings, inquired of every curator, asked at the strangers' office,
+questioned all the shop-keepers about the tall boy with pale face,
+brown hair, and an Egyptian fez on his head.  But no one had seen him.
+They returned to the inn, fully expecting to find him there.  But there
+was no sign of him.  Mary, who was almost fainting with anxiety,
+declared that he must have fallen into the hands of Herod.  Joseph
+comforted her, though he was himself in sad need of consolation.
+
+"Poor mother," he said, drawing her head down on his breast, "let us go
+and place our trouble before the Lord."
+
+And when they had gone up into the Temple, there, among the scholars
+and the men learned in the law they found Jesus.  The youth sat among
+the grey-bearded rabbis, and carried on a lively conversation with
+them, so that his cheeks glowed and his eyes shone.  Judgment had to be
+pronounced on a serious case of transgression of the law.  A man in
+Jerusalem had baked bread on the Sabbath, because his neighbour had
+been unable to lend him the oven the day before.  The Pharisees met
+together, and eagerly brought forward a crowd of statutes regarding the
+culpability of the transgressor.  Young Jesus listened attentively for
+a while, and then suddenly stepped out of the crowd.  Placing himself
+in front of the learned men, he asked: "Rabbis, ought a man to do good
+on the Sabbath or not?"
+
+They did not know at first whether to honour this bold young man with
+an answer.  But there is a precept in the law which declares that every
+inquirer must be answered, so one of them said curtly and roughly: "Of
+course a man should do good."
+
+Jesus inquired further; "Is life a good thing or not?"
+
+"As it is the gift of God, it is a good thing."
+
+"Should a man then preserve life or harm it on the Sabbath?"
+
+The wise men were silent, for they would have been compelled to
+acknowledge that life must be preserved on the Sabbath, and their
+accusation of the man who had baked bread for his food would have
+fallen to the ground.
+
+Jesus walked quickly up the steps to the table, and said: "Rabbis, if a
+sheep fell into a brook on the Sabbath, would you leave it there till
+the next day?  You would not first think: To-day is the Sabbath day,
+but you would pull it out before it was drowned.  Which is of greater
+value, a sheep or a man?  If a sick man comes on the Sabbath day, and
+needs help, it is given him at once.  And if you have a splinter in
+your flesh, no one asks if it is the Sabbath; the splinter must be
+taken out.  But you come with your laws against a poor man who was
+obliged to prepare his food on the Sabbath, and you imagine yourselves
+better than he is.  No, that will not do.  The intention must decide.
+If any one bakes bread on the Sabbath, I should say to him: 'Is it for
+your own good or for gain?'  In the first case you are acting rightly,
+in the last you desecrate the Sabbath."
+
+As they now did not know what to say, they decided that the youth was
+too insignificant for them to dispute with.
+
+Jesus, still excited, came down and joined the crowd, where his mother
+was wringing her hands over the boldness with which her son had spoken
+to the elders and the wise men.  She stretched her arms towards him.
+"Child! child!  What are you doing here?  Why treat us so?  What we
+have not suffered on your behalf!  We have sought you for three whole
+days in the greatest anxiety."
+
+Then Jesus said: "Why did you seek me?  He who has a task to do, cannot
+always stay with his own people.  I have been about my Heavenly
+Father's business."
+
+"Where were you all the time?"
+
+He did not answer.  Others might have told how he stood between the
+pillars listening to the discussions of the Rabbis until he could keep
+silence no longer.
+
+Joseph said to him with some severity: "If you are learned enough to
+interpret the Scriptures to those honourable men, you must know the
+fifth commandment: 'Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may
+be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.'"
+
+Jesus said nothing.
+
+"And now, my son, we will betake ourselves to that land."
+
+And so they set out on the last stage of their journey.  It was hard
+walking over the vineyards of Judaea and Samaria, and Mary, when they
+were quite near home, asked if she should ever see Nazareth again.
+Jesus marched the distance, so to speak, twice, for he was never tired
+of turning aside to gather dates, currants, and figs, or to fetch a
+pitcher of water in order that his parents might quench their thirst.
+So they went slowly over the rocky land, and when the mule-path led to
+an eminence over which flat stones lay scattered, and which was thickly
+sown with stumpy shrubs, the fertile plain of Israel lay before them.
+It was surrounded by wooded hills, while villages were scattered about
+its surface, and shining rivers wound through it.  Opposite, one range
+of mountains showed behind the other, and the highest lifted their
+snowy peaks into the blue sky.
+
+Joseph let fall the camel's guiding rein and his staff, extended his
+arms and exclaimed: "Praise the Lord, oh my soul!"  For Galilee, his
+native place, lay before him.
+
+When they saw the little town of Nazareth nestling in a bend of the
+hills--ah! how small the place was, and how peaceful amid the green
+hills!--Mary wept for joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The inhabitants of Nazareth were not a little astonished to see Joseph,
+the carpenter, who had so long disappeared from their midst, walk up
+the street with his wife and a handsome boy.  It was a good thing that
+they had baggage with them.  But Cousin Nathaniel made a very wry face,
+in which the smile of welcome struggled with the anxiety this
+unexpected arrival caused him.  Cousin Nathaniel had taken possession
+of, and settled comfortably in the house, regarding himself as the
+heir.  Now he must pack up and go.
+
+Joseph was delighted to see his workshop again, with its vice, bench,
+yardstick, plane, and saw.  The red dyeing vat was also there, and the
+cord with which the timber was measured before the axe was used on it.
+Cousin Nathaniel declared that many of the tools belonged to him, until
+Joseph pointed to the J with which all the things were marked for the
+sake of order.  When the old workman tied on his apron, and for the
+first time set to work with the plane so that the fine shavings flew
+whirring about, his blood flowed swiftly for delight, and his eye
+looked like that of a young man.  And so the carpenter began cheerfully
+to work again, not only in his own shop, but anywhere in the
+neighbourhood where building or repairing was required, or tables,
+chests, or benches were needed.  The little property he had brought
+from Egypt would be increased here, so that when the time came his son
+should make a good start in life.  Mary helped him with careful and
+economical housekeeping, and made undergarments and cloaks for the
+women of Nazareth.  Jesus had a room to himself to which he could
+withdraw when work was over.  Joseph hoped, by making him comfortable
+at home, to counteract the attractions of the outside world.  The vine
+trellises could be clearly seen through the windows of the room, and a
+hill with olive-trees, and clouds from Lebanon passing over the sky,
+and the stars that rose in the east.  The first gleam of sun, moon, and
+stars, when they rose, fell into that peaceful chamber.  The Books of
+Moses, the Maccabees, the Kings, the Prophets, and Psalmists which
+Jesus gradually collected in Nazareth, Cana, Nain, and in villages
+below round the lake, filled a shelf.  The men of Galilee had become
+indifferent to the works which their forefathers wrote with toil and
+reverence; they had had to wait too long for the fulfilment of the
+prophecies, and began to doubt that a Messiah would ever come to the
+Jews, so that they were quite pleased to give the parchments to that
+nice boy of Joseph's.  If they wanted to know anything, they had only
+to ask him, and he explained it so clearly and concisely, and sometimes
+so impressively, that they never forgot it again.  That was much easier
+than awkwardly searching for themselves, and labouring hard to decipher
+the words only to be unable to understand them when they had done so.
+
+Many a night, by the light of the moon, did Jesus read in his books.
+They were the same as those we read to-day when we open the Old
+Testament.  So that it is as if we sat with Jesus on the same school
+bench.  He read of Adam and his sin, of Cain and his murder, of Abraham
+and his promise, of Noah and the deluge.  He read of Jacob and his
+sons, of Joseph whom his brothers sold into Egypt, and of his fate in
+that land.  And he read of Moses the great lawgiver, of David the
+shepherd, minstrel and king, and of Solomon's wisdom and of his temple,
+and of the Prophets who judged the people for their misdeeds, and
+prophesied the future kingdom.  Jesus read the history of his people
+with a burning heart.  He saw how the race had gradually gone from bad
+to worse.  If he had at first rejoiced with all enthusiasm, later on he
+became angry at the degeneration.  Grief made him sleepless, and he
+peered thoughtfully into the starry heavens, asking: "What will deliver
+them from this misery?"
+
+The stars were silent.  But out of the distance, out of the stillness
+of eternity, it was proclaimed: I love them so deeply, that I shall
+send my own Son to make them happy.
+
+By day Joseph took care that the youth should not dream too much.
+Jesus must learn his trade.  He did so willingly but not gladly, for
+his head was not with his hands, and while he should have joined two
+beams to make a door frame, the dark saying of the Prophet sounded in
+his head: "He is numbered among the transgressors."
+
+"What are you doing there?  Is that a door frame?  It's a cross!"  So
+Joseph awoke him out of his reverie, and Jesus was terrified to see
+that he had nailed the pieces of wood crosswise.
+
+"Tell me," said Joseph to the boy, "what are you thinking of?  If
+you've any sense in your head use it for your honest work.  The
+simplest handicraft needs it all, and not only a piece here and there.
+And especially carpentering, which builds people houses, bridges,
+ships, and yea, temples for Jehovah.  You cannot imagine what mischief
+a bad carpenter may do.  You're thinking of divine things?  Well, work
+is a divine thing.  With work in his hands, man continues the creation
+of God.  People say that you are clever; then let your master see it.
+You make the tools blunt and the work is not clean and sharp.  This
+can't go on, child."
+
+Jesus let the lecture pass in silence, and worked far into the night to
+make the mischief good.
+
+Joseph confided his grief to his wife.  Not that the boy would turn out
+a bad carpenter.  If he liked he could succeed in anything.  But Joseph
+was grieved to have to scold his favourite so often.  He had to do that
+to every apprentice.
+
+Mary said: "Joseph, you are quite right, to direct him.  I am indeed
+anxious.  I observe the child carefully, and I am not satisfied.  He is
+so different, so very different from boys of his age."
+
+"I think, too, that he is different," said Joseph.  "We must not forget
+that from the very beginning it was different with this child.  Jehovah
+understands it; I can't fit it together.  He reads too much, and that's
+bad for young people."
+
+"And I almost fear he reads the Law in order to criticise it," said
+Mary.
+
+"He'll find himself.  At his age boys exaggerate in everything."  So
+Joseph consoled himself.  "He's a singular boy.  Look at him when he
+plays with other children!  The tallest of them all!  No, after all, I
+wouldn't have him other than he is."
+
+They had talked in sorrow and joy while Jesus was nailing the wood
+correctly out in the workshop.  And when he had gone to bed, Joseph
+crept into his room, and laid his hand gently on his head.
+
+And so the years went by.  Jesus improved in his work, and grew in
+intelligence, and in cheerfulness.  The Sabbath day was all his own.
+He liked to go up to the hill top where the sheep were feeding among
+the stones and the olive-trees, whence he could see the mighty
+mountains of Lebanon and, the wide landscape, partly green and fertile
+and partly barren, down to the lake.  He stood there and thought.  He
+was always friendly with the people he met or who were employed about
+him, but he seldom became intimate with them.  Occasionally he would
+join in some athletic exercise with youths from Cana, and in wrestling,
+strive who could overcome the other.  Then his soft brown hair would
+fly in the wind, his cheeks would glow, and when the game was over, he
+would return arm-in-arm with his adversary to the valley below.  But he
+preferred to be alone with himself, or with silent nature.  Beautiful
+ideas came springing like lambs in that peaceful place, but there also
+came thoughts strong as lions.  He dreamed.  He did not think; thought,
+as it were, lay within himself, and then he spoke out many a word at
+which he was himself terrified.  Ideas began to shape themselves within
+him, and before he was aware of it they were clearly spoken by his
+tongue, as if it was another who spoke for him.  And so he came out of
+the mysterious depths to the light.
+
+He was often challenged to dispute; he never defended himself except by
+words, but they were so weighty and fiery that people soon left him in
+peace.  If he struck, he knew how to make the injury good.  One day
+when he was going down the defile to the stony moor, a mischievous boy
+ran up behind him and knocked him down.  Jesus quickly picked himself
+up, and shouted angrily to the boy, "Die!"  When he saw the blazing
+eye, the boy turned deathly pale and began to tremble so that, near to
+fainting, he had to lean up against the rocky wall.  Jesus went up to
+him, laid his hand on his shoulder and said kindly, "Live!"
+
+No one in the whole country-side had ever seen such an eye as his.
+Like lightning in anger, in calmer moods like the gleam of dewdrops
+upon flowers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+As Jesus gradually grew to manhood he worked at his trade as a master.
+For Joseph was old and feeble, and could only sit by the bench,
+overlook the carpenters and tell them what it would be best to do.
+They had a young apprentice, a near relation, named John, who helped
+Jesus with the carpentering and building.  When they built a cottage in
+Nazareth, or roofed a house, he was severe and strict with the youth.
+But when on the Sabbath day they wandered together through the country
+between the vines, over the meadows with the stones and herds,
+sometimes through the dark cedar forests to the lower slopes of
+Lebanon, they said not a word about the work.  They watched the
+animals, the plants, the streams, the heavens, and their everlasting
+lights, and rejoiced exceedingly.  Sometimes they assisted poor
+gardeners and shepherds, and did them trifling services.  They taught
+John to blow the horn, and Jesus sang joyful psalms with a clear voice.
+
+But Joseph's death was approaching.
+
+He lay half-blind on his bed, and asked Mary how she would manage when
+he was gone.  Then he felt with his cold hand for Jesus.
+
+"My son, my son!"
+
+Jesus wiped the dying man's brow with the hem of his garment.
+
+"I had hoped," said Joseph softly, "but it is not to be.  I must depart
+in darkness."
+
+"Father," said Jesus, and tenderly stroked his head.
+
+"It is hard, my child.  Stay beside me.  I had hoped to see the Messiah
+and his light.  But I must be gathered to my fathers in darkness."
+
+"He will soon come and lead you to paradise."
+
+The old man grasped his hand convulsively.  "It is quite dark.  I am
+afraid.  Stay with me, my Jesus."
+
+And so he fell asleep for ever.
+
+They buried him outside the city under the walls.  Jesus planted the
+staff which Joseph had cut during the flight into Egypt, and had always
+carried with him, on the mound.  And no sooner was it planted in the
+earth than it began to bear young shoots.  And when Mary went the next
+day to pray there, behold the grave was surrounded with white lilies,
+which grew from the stick and spread themselves in rows over the mound.
+
+After the old master's death trouble befell the family.  People began
+to take their orders for work elsewhere, for they found it difficult to
+get on with the young master.  A man who went against the Scriptures
+and traditional custom in so many things could not do his work
+properly.  He seldom attended public worship in the Temple, and was
+never seen to give alms.  In the morning he went down to the spring and
+washed himself, but otherwise he omitted all the prescribed ablutions.
+When the Rabbi of Nazareth reproached him for such conduct, he replied;
+"Who ought to wash, the clean or the unclean?  Moses knew this people
+when he made washing a law for them.  Does uncleanness come from within
+or without?  It is not the dust of the street that soils a man, but the
+evil thoughts of his heart.  Is it unseemly to eat honest bread with
+dusty hands?  Is it not more unseemly to take away your brother's bread
+with clean hands?"
+
+The Rabbi considered that it would be foolish to waste more words on
+this transgressor of the law, and went his way.  But next day he
+informed the carpenter that he was to stand on the Sabbath behind the
+poor-box, in order to see whether the well-washed hands of believing
+Jews took the bread away from their brothers, or, rather, did not
+bestow it liberally upon them.  And as Jesus stood in the Temple, he
+observed the well-to-do Nazarenes dip their hands into the basin, with
+pious air throw large pieces of money into the poor-box, and then look
+round to see if their good example was observed.  When it grew dark, a
+poor woman came and with her lean fingers put a farthing into the
+poor-box.
+
+"Well, what do you say now?" asked the Rabbi of the carpenter.
+
+Jesus answered: "I think the haughty rich people have washed
+themselves, and that still they give with unclean hands.  They give
+away a small part of what they have taken from others, and give from
+their superabundance.  The poor woman gave the largest gift in God's
+eyes.  She gave all that she possessed."
+
+And so it happened that Jesus became more and more estranged from
+Nazareth.  Only poor folk and little children were attracted to him: he
+cheered the former and played with the latter.  But otherwise men drew
+apart from him, considering him an eccentric creature and perhaps a
+little dangerous.  His mother sometimes tried to defend him: he had
+grown up in a foreign land among strange customs and ways of thought.
+At bottom he had the best of natures, so kind and helpful to others and
+so severe towards himself.  How like a mother!  What mother has not had
+the best of children?  They despised her remarks and pitied her because
+her son was so unlike other boys and caused her anxiety.  There was
+nothing to complain of in his work when he stuck to it.  What a
+carpenter he might be with such aptness!  Only he should not interfere
+in things he could not understand, and should not disturb people's
+belief in the religion of their fathers.
+
+One day there was a marriage in the neighbouring town of Cana.  Mary
+and her relatives were invited, for the bridegroom was a distant
+cousin.  So far as Jesus was concerned, there would have been no great
+grief had he stayed away.  Possibly he would not take any pleasure in
+the old marriage customs and the traditions to which they still held.
+Jesus understood the irony, but it did not hurt him, and so he went to
+the marriage in order to rejoice with the joyful.  When the merriment
+was at its height, Mary drew her son aside and said: "I think it would
+be well if we went home now; we are not regarded with favour here.
+They would be glad of fewer guests, for I hear the wine has given out."
+
+"What matters it to me if there's no more wine," answered Jesus, almost
+roughly.  "I do not want any."
+
+"But the other guests do.  The host is greatly embarrassed.  I wish
+someone could help him."
+
+"If they are thirsty, have the water jugs brought in," he said.  "If
+the drinker has faith in his God then the water will be wine.  He will
+be well content."
+
+The host, in fact, saw no other way of satisfying his guests' thirst
+than in ordering large stone pitchers of water to be brought in from
+the well.  He was vastly amazed when the guests found it delicious, and
+praised the wine that had just been poured out for them.  "Usually,"
+they said, "the host produces his best wine first, and when the
+carousers have drunk freely, he brings in worse.  Our good host thinks
+differently, and to the best food adds the best wine."
+
+But Jesus and his relations saw how the pitchers were filled at the
+well, and when they tasted their contents, some declared that things
+could not be all right here.  Jesus himself drank, and saw that it was
+wine.  Much moved, he went out into the starry night.  "Oh, Father!" he
+said in his heart, "what dost thou intend with regard to this son of
+man?  If it is thy will that water shall be turned into wine, it may
+then be possible to pour new wine into the old skins, the spirit and
+strength of God into the dead letter!"
+
+John went out into the night to seek his master.  "Sir," said the
+youth, when he stood before him, "what does it mean?  They say that you
+have turned water into wine.  I have often thought that you were
+different from all of us.  You must be from Heaven."
+
+"And why not you also, John, who look up to it?  Can anyone attain the
+height who has not come from it?"
+
+John remained standing by his side for a while.  It was not always easy
+to grasp what he meant.
+
+On their homeward way by night, the mother unburdened her anxious heart
+to her son.  "You are so good, my child, and help people wherever you
+can.  Why are you often so rough of speech?"
+
+"Because they do not understand me," he replied; "because you, none of
+you, understand me.  You think that if a man works at his wood in the
+carpenter's shop, then he's doing all that is necessary."
+
+"Wood?  Of course a carpenter has to work with wood.  Do you want to be
+a stonemason?  Think, stones are harder than wood."
+
+"But they give fire when struck together.  Wood gives no sparks, nor
+would the Nazarenes yield any sparks, even if lightning struck them.
+They are like earth and damp straw.  They are incapable of enthusiasm:
+they are only capable of languid irritation.  But you'll not build a
+kingdom of heaven with irritation.  I despise the wood that always
+smokes and never burns."
+
+"My son, I fear you will make such enemies of them that----"
+
+"That I shall not be able to stay in Nazareth.  Isn't that what you
+mean, mother?"
+
+"I am anxious about you, my son."
+
+"Happy the mother who is nothing worse.  I am quite safe."  He stopped
+and took her hand.  "Mother, I'm no longer a child or a boy.  Do not
+trouble about me.  Let me be as I am, and go where I will.  There are
+other tasks to be fulfilled than building Jonas a cottage or Sarah a
+sheep-pen.  The old world is breaking up, and the old heaven is falling
+into ruin.  Let me go, mother; let me be the carpenter who shall build
+up the kingdom of heaven."
+
+The constellations spread themselves across the sky.  Mary let her son
+go on before, down to the little town; she walked slowly behind and
+wept.  She stood alone and had no influence with him.  Every day he
+became more incomprehensible.
+
+To what would it lead?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A strange excitement prevailed among the people in Galilee, and spread
+through Samaria and Judaea even to Jerusalem.  A new prophet had
+arisen.  There were many in those days, but this one was different from
+the rest.  As is always the way in such times, at first a few people
+paid heed feverishly, then they infected others with their unrest, and
+finally roused families and whole villages which had hitherto stood
+aloof.  So at last all heeded the new prophet.  At the time of the
+foreign rule old men had spoken of the King and Saviour who was to make
+the chosen people great and mighty.  Expounders of the Scriptures had
+from generation to generation consoled those who were waiting and
+longing.  Men had grown impatient under the intolerable foreign
+oppression, and a national desire and a religious expectation such as
+had never before been known in so high a degree had manifested itself.
+
+And lo! strange rumours went through the land.  As the south wind of
+spring blows over Lebanon, melts the ice, and brings forth buds, so
+were the hearts of men filled with new hope.  A man out in the
+wilderness was preaching a new doctrine.  For a long while he preached
+to stones, because, he said, they were not so hard as men's
+understanding.  The stones themselves would soon speak, the mountains
+be levelled and the valleys filled up so that a smooth road might be
+ready for the Holy Spirit which was drawing nigh.
+
+Men grew keenly interested in those tidings.  Some said: "Let us go out
+and hear him just for amusement's sake."  They came back and summoned
+others to go out and see the extraordinary man.  He wore a garment of
+camel's hair instead of a cloak, and a leather girdle round his loins.
+His hair was long, black, and in disorder, his face sunburnt, and his
+eyes flamed as if in frenzy.  But he was not an Arab nor an Amalekite;
+he was one of the chosen people.  Down by the lake he was better known.
+He was the son of Zacharias, a priest and a native of the wonderful
+land of Galilee.  The Galileans had at first mocked at him, and with a
+side glance at Jesus, said: "What a blessed land is Galilee, where new
+teachers of virtue are as plentiful as mushrooms in rainy weather!"
+Jesus retorted by asking whether they knew what kind of a people it was
+that only produced preachers of repentance?
+
+The name of the preacher in the wilderness was John.  More and more
+people went out to hear him, and everyone related marvels.  He chased
+locusts and fed on them, and took the honey from the wild bees and
+swallowed it.  He seemed to despise the ordinary food and customs of
+men.  Since the murder of the innocents at Bethlehem, he had lived in
+the wilderness, dwelling in a cave high up in the rocks of the
+mountain.  It almost seemed that he loved wild beasts better than men,
+whose cloak of virtue he hated because it was woven out of
+evil-smelling hypocrisy and wickedness.
+
+They called him the herald.  "We are surprised," they said, "that the
+Rabbis and High Priests in Capernaum, Tiberias, and Jerusalem should
+keep silent.  They could put this man to death for his words."  But the
+herald had no fear.  He preached a new doctrine, and he poured water
+over the heads of those who joined him as a sign of the covenant.
+
+"And what is his teaching?" asked others.
+
+"Go and hear for yourselves!"
+
+And so more and more people went out from Judaea and Galilee into the
+wilderness.  The preacher had withdrawn a little way above the point
+where the river Jordan flows into the Dead Sea.  The district, usually
+so deserted, was alive with all sorts of people, among them Rabbis and
+men learned in the law, who represented themselves as penitents, but
+desired to outwit the prophet with cunning.  The preacher stood on a
+stone; he held a corner of his camel's hair garment, pressed against
+his hairy breast with one hand, and the other he stretched heavenwards
+and said: "Rabbis, are ye here too?  Are ye at last afraid of the wrath
+of heaven which ye see approaching, and so take refuge with him who
+calls on ye to repent?  Ye learned hypocrites!  Ye stone him who can
+hurt you with a breath, and praise him who brings with him a human
+sacrifice.  See that your repentance does not become your judge.  But
+if it is sincere, then receive the water on your head as a token that
+you desire to be pure in heart."
+
+Such were the words he spoke.  The scholars laughed, scornfully; others
+grumbled at the severity of his remarks, but kneeled down.  He took an
+earthen vessel, dipped it in the waters of Jordan, and poured it over
+their heads so that little streams ran down their necks and over their
+brows.  A man raised his head and asked: "Will you give us
+commandments?"
+
+The prophet answered: "You have two coats and only one body.  Yonder
+against the oak is a man who has likewise a body but no coat.  I give
+no commandments; but you know what to do."
+
+So the man went and gave his second coat to him who had none.
+
+A lean old man, a tax-gatherer from Jerusalem, asked what he should do,
+since everyone he met in the streets had a coat on his back.
+
+"Do not ask more payment than is legal.  Do not open your hand for
+silver pieces, nor shut your eyes to stolen goods."
+
+"And we?" asked a Roman mercenary.  "We are not the owners of our
+lives; are we, too, to have no commandments?"
+
+"You have the sword.  But the sword is violence, hatred, lust, greed.
+Take care!  The sword is your sin and your judgment."
+
+And then women came to him with a triumphant air, and exclaimed: "You
+wise man, you!  We have no rights, so we have no duties?  Is that not
+so?"
+
+And the prophet said; "You assume rights for yourselves, and duties
+will be given you.  The woman's commandment is: 'Thou shall not commit
+adultery.'"
+
+"And what do you say to men?" asked one of them.
+
+"Men have many commandments besides that one.  You must not tempt them
+with snares of the flesh, for they have more important things to do in
+the world than to make themselves pleasant to women.  You must not
+allure them with the colour of your cheeks, nor with the tangles of
+your hair, nor with your swelling breasts.  You shall not attract the
+eye of man through beautiful garments and sparkling jewels.  You shall
+not glisten like doves when you are false like snakes."
+
+The women were angry, and tried to set snares for him.  So they smiled
+sweetly, and asked: "Your words of wisdom, oh prophet! only concern the
+women of the people.  Royally-born women are excepted."
+
+Then spoke the preacher; "Women born in the purple are of the same
+stuff as the leprous beggar-woman who lies in the street.  No woman is
+excepted.  The wives of kings live in the sight of all, and must obey
+the law twice and thrice as strictly.  Since Herod put away his
+rightful wife, the Arab king's daughter, and lives openly in incest
+with his brother's wife, the angel of hell will strike at her."
+
+"You all hear," said the women, turning to the assembled crowd.  Then
+they pulled up their gowns high over their ankles, stepped into the
+river where it is shallow, and bared their brown necks, in order that
+the wild preacher might pour the water over them.  The men pressed
+closer, but the prophet tore a branch from the cedar and drove the
+hypocritical penitents back.  Some were glad that sin had no power over
+this holy man.
+
+Then they sent an old man to him to ask who he really was.  "Are you
+the Messiah whom we are expecting?"
+
+"I am not the Messiah," answered the preacher.  "But he is coming after
+me.  I prepare the way for him like the morning breeze ere the sun
+rises.  As the heaven is above the earth, so is he greater than I.  It
+is my prayer that I may be worthy to loosen his shoe latchets.  I
+sprinkle your heads with water; he will sprinkle them with fire.  He
+will separate you according as your hearts be good or evil.  He will
+lay up the wheat in the garner with his fan and burn the chaff.
+Prepare yourselves--the kingdom of God is nearer than ye think."
+
+The people were uneasy.  Clouds came up over the mountains of Galilee,
+and their edges shone like silver.  The air lay like a heavy weight
+over the valley of the Jordan, and not a twig stirred in the cedars.
+The strangers from Samaria and Judaea did not know the man who climbed
+down over the stones and went towards the preacher.  He wore a blue
+woollen gown that came down over his knees, so that only his sandalled
+feet were seen.  He might have been taken for a working man had not his
+head, with its high, pale forehead and heavy waving locks, been so
+royal.  A soft beard sprang from his upper lip, and there was such a
+wonderful light in his dark blue eyes that some were almost frightened
+by it.  And they asked each other: "Who is the man with the fiery eyes?"
+
+He reached the prophet.  One hand hung down: he held the other against
+his breast.  He said softly; "John, pour water over my head, too."
+
+The prophet looked at the young man and was terrified.  He went back
+two steps--they knew not why.  Did he himself know?
+
+"You!" he said, almost under his breath.  "You desire to receive the
+token of repentance from me?"
+
+"I will do penance--for them all.  I will begin with water what will be
+ended with blood."  That is what they thought to hear.  In a man who
+speaks like this, there is something incredibly spiritual.
+
+"He is a dreamer!  He is a madman!" the people whisper one to another.
+
+"No, he's not, he's not!" others declare.
+
+"Did he not speak of blood?"
+
+"It seemed so.  Such young blood, and already repenting!"
+
+"And as proud of it as a Roman."
+
+"With eyes glowing like an Arab's."
+
+"Looking at his hair, you might take him for a German."
+
+"He is neither a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a German," someone exclaimed,
+laughing; "he is the carpenter of Nazareth."
+
+"The same who turned water into wine?"
+
+"There are lots of stories about him.  We know plenty of them."
+
+"It is said that Herod's murder of the innocents was on his account."
+
+When the crowd heard that, they were quiet, and looked at the new
+arrival with a sort of awe.  And so old Herod had taken him for the
+Messiah-King!
+
+A feeling of reverence spread among the people.  For Jesus stepped into
+the river.  The prophet dipped his vessel in the water and poured it
+over his lightly-bent head.  The edges of the clouds in the heavens
+shone with the crimson light of evening.  The eyes of the bystanders
+were riveted by a white speck which showed itself in the windows of
+heaven, first like a flower-bloom and then like a fluttering pennon.
+It was a dove that flew down and circled round the head of him who had
+just been baptized.
+
+"My dearly beloved son!"
+
+The people whispered; "Whose voice was it that said: 'My dearly beloved
+son'?"
+
+"Didn't it refer to him over whom the water has just been poured?"
+
+A shudder seized many of them.  It was just as if he was presented to
+men by the invisible God!
+
+"We will ask him himself whose son he is," they said, and pressed
+towards the river.  But he had gone away, and the twilight of the
+desert lay over the stream.
+
+The same night Mary sat in her room at Nazareth, and sewed.  She kept
+looking out of the window, for she would not go to bed till Jesus
+returned.  When he had gone out of the door two days ago, he had turned
+to her again, looked at her, and said:
+
+"Mother, I go to my Father."
+
+She thought he was going to the cemetery to pray at Joseph's tomb, as
+he often did.  For in the city of the dead solitude may be found.  When
+he returned neither on the first day nor on the second, she began to
+feel anxious.  She waited up the whole night.
+
+The next morning the little town rang with the news: "The carpenter has
+been seen with the preacher.  He has been baptized."
+
+"That's just like him.  One enthusiast keeps company with another."
+
+"It would be more correct to say with false prophets.  For what else is
+it when a man declares that he can wash away sin with a dash of water?"
+
+Thereupon a Sidonian donkey-driver, who had come down the street;
+"That's excellent!  You Israelites can do so much with your ablutions.
+That would be a capital thing!"
+
+"Ah! what things one hears!  Everything points to the speedy
+destruction of the world."  And one whispered in his ear, "I tell you,
+frankly, 'twould be no great misfortune."
+
+"Now John has caught it.  Do you know what he's always shouting?"
+
+"The young carpenter, his apprentice?  He's never said anything that
+matters."
+
+"Do you know what he's always exclaiming?  He strides through the
+streets, and his hair flies in the wind.  He spreads out his hands
+before him, and says: 'The word has become flesh!'"
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+But Mary sat at the window and waited and watched.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A very short time after these events there came two soldiers to the
+Jordan, not to have the water poured over their heads, but to arrest
+the desert preacher and take him to Jerusalem to Herod.  Herod received
+him politely, and said: "I have summoned you here because I am told
+that you are the preacher."
+
+"They call me preacher and Baptist."
+
+"I want to hear you.  And, indeed, you must refute what your enemies
+say against you."
+
+"If it was only my enemies, it would be easy to refute them."
+
+"They say that you insult my royal house, that you say the prince lives
+in incest with his brother's wife.  Did you say that?"
+
+"I do not deny it."
+
+"You have come to withdraw it?"
+
+"Sire," said the prophet, "I have come to repeat it.  You are living in
+incest with your brother's wife.  Know that the day of reckoning is at
+hand.  It will come with its mercy, and it will come with its justice.
+Put away this woman."
+
+Herod grew white with rage that a man of the people should dare to
+speak thus to him.  Royal ears cannot endure such a thing, so he put
+the preacher in prison.
+
+But the next night the prince had a bad dream.  From the battlements he
+saw the city fall stone by stone into the abyss; he saw flames break
+out in the palace and temple, and the sound of infinite wailing rang
+through the air.  When he awoke the words came into his mind: You who
+stone the prophets! and he determined to set the preacher free.
+
+It was now the time when Herod should celebrate his birthday.  Although
+Oriental wisdom advised that a birthday should be celebrated with
+mourning, a prince had no reason for so doing.  Herod gave a banquet in
+honour of the day, and invited all the most important people in the
+province in order that while enjoying themselves they might have the
+opportunity of doing homage to him.  He enjoyed himself royally, for
+Herodias, his brother's wife, was present, and her daughter, who was as
+lovely as her mother.  She danced before him a series of dances which
+showed her beautiful figure, set off by the flowing white gown confined
+at the waist with a girdle of gold, to every advantage.  Intoxicated by
+the feast and inflamed by the girl's beauty, the prince approached her,
+put his arm, from which the purple cloak had fallen back so that it was
+bare, round her warm neck, and held a goblet of wine to her lips.  She
+smiled, did not drink, but said: "My lord and king!  If I drank now
+from your goblet, you would drink at my lips.  Those roses belong to my
+bridegroom."
+
+"Who is the man who dares to be more fortunate than a king?" asked
+Herod.
+
+"I do not yet know him," whispered the girl.  "He is the man who shall
+give me the rarest bridal gift."
+
+"And if it was Herod?"
+
+The girl raised her almond eyes to the prince and said nothing.  He
+almost lost his head with the sweetness of the shining eyes.  "You are
+an enchanting witch, you!" he whispered.  "Desire of me what you will."
+
+The beauty had been primed by her mother, who wished to be revenged on
+John, whose prophecies might tear her from her kingly lover.  The
+daughter breathed the words: "A dish for your table, O king!"
+
+"A dish of meat?  Speak more plainly."
+
+"Let your bridal gift be a dish of rare meat on a golden charger."
+
+"I do not understand what you want."
+
+"The head of the Baptist."
+
+The king understood, turned aside, and said: "Horror, thy name is
+woman!"
+
+Then she wept and murmured between her sobs: "I knew it.  A woman is
+nothing to you but a flower of the field.  You cut it down so that it
+turns to hay.  And hay is for asses.  You care more for the man who has
+mortally insulted yourself and my mother than you do for me."
+
+"Indeed, I do not!  If he deserves death, you shall have your desire."
+
+"When does he whom the king loves deserve death?" groaned the girl, and
+sank into a swoon.  He lifted her up, drew her to his breast, and what
+her words could not accomplish the embrace did--it cost the Baptist his
+life.
+
+The banquet was most sumptuous.  The most delicious viands, gathered
+from every quarter, and sparkling wines graced the table.  Harp players
+stood by the marble pillars, and sang praises to the king.  Herod, a
+garland of red roses round his head, sat between the two women.  He
+drank freely of the wine, and so hurriedly that the liquid dripped from
+his long, thin beard.  Was he afraid of the last course?  It appeared
+at midnight.  It was covered with a white cloth, and only the
+beautifully-chased edge of the charger was visible.  Herod shuddered
+and signed that the dish should be placed before the young woman who
+sat on his left.  She hastily pulled off the cloth, and behold! a man's
+head; the black hair and beard, steeped in the blood that ran from the
+neck, lay in the charger.  It stared with open eyes at the woman who,
+filled with voluptuous horror, leaned closely against the prince.  Then
+the mouth of the head opened and spoke the words: "The Kingdom of God
+is near at hand!"
+
+Horror and confusion filled the banqueting hall.  "Who dared to say
+that?" shouted several voices.  "'Twas the head of the prophet who
+prophesies even in death!"
+
+Then a tumult arose in the palace, for this was the most terrible
+horror that the golden halls had ever seen.  Long-restrained fury
+suddenly burst forth--the town was in flames, the men of Jerusalem
+rioted.  The women were torn from Herod's side, and flung into the
+streets to the mercy of the mob.  The prince was forced to fly.  The
+story goes that in his flight he fell into the hands of the Arab king,
+who avenged his despised daughter in a terrible manner.  Thus were
+godless hands stretched forth from Herod's house against him who bore
+witness to the coming One.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+After the act of baptism was accomplished, Jesus wandered for a long,
+long while--indeed, he paid no heed to time--along the banks of Jordan.
+Then he climbed the rocks, and when in the twilight he came to himself
+again and looked about, he saw that he was in the wilderness.  The
+revelation vouchsafed at his baptism had snatched him from the earth.
+In that mysterious vision he had opened to him the new path which he
+had chosen to follow.  What eternal peace surrounded him.  Yet he was
+not alone among the barren rocks; never in his life had he been less
+lonely than here in the dim terrors of the wilderness.  A deep silence
+prevailed.  The stars in the sky sparkled and sparkled, and the longer
+he gazed at them the more ardently they seemed to burn.  Gradually they
+seemed to sink downwards, and to become suns, while fresh legions
+pressed ever forward from the background, flying down unceasingly, the
+large and the small and the smallest, with new ones ever welling up
+from space--an inexhaustible source of heavenly light.
+
+Jesus stood up erect.  And when he lifted up his face it seemed as if
+his eye was the nucleus of all light.
+
+So he forgot the world and remained in the wilderness.  Each day he
+penetrated deeper into it, past abysses and roaring beasts.  The stones
+tore his feet, but he marked it not; snakes stung his heels, but he
+noticed it not.  Whence did he obtain nourishment?  What cleft in the
+rocks afforded him shelter?--that is immaterial to him who lives in
+God.  Once he had regarded the world and its powers as hard
+taskmasters, and now they seemed to him to be as nothing, for in him
+and with him was eternal strength.  The old traditional Jehovah of
+Jewish hearts was no more; his was the all-embracing One, who carried
+the heavens and the earth in his hand, who called to the children of
+men: Return! and who stooped down to every seedling in order to awaken
+it.  He himself became conscious of God--and after that, what could
+befall him?
+
+One day he descended between the rocky stones to the coast of the Dead
+Sea that lay dark and still, little foam-tipped waves breaking on the
+shore.  The expanse of water was lost in darkness in the distance, and
+stretched away heavy and lifeless.  Cleft blocks of stone were
+scattered along the beach, and their tops glowed as red as iron in the
+forge.  It was the hour of sunset.  The towering stones stood like
+giant torches, and the bright colour was reflected on the bare pebbles
+on which the water lapped.  For many thousands of years the fine yellow
+sand had drifted down from the walls of rock, and lay over the wide
+sloping plains of the shore.  It was like dry, light "stone-snow," and
+Jesus, who strode over it, left his footprints in it.  The next gust of
+wind disturbed it, the "stone-snow" was whirled about, and the dark
+stones were laid bare.  Men are engulfed in those sand-fields, which,
+broken by blocks of stone, stretch away into infinity.  Witness the
+bones which may be seen here and there, remains of dead beasts, and
+also legs and skulls of men who perished as hermits, or became the prey
+of lions.  Such skulls with their grinning teeth, warned the traveller
+to turn back as he valued his life.  Here is death!  Jesus laid his
+hands over his breast.  Here is life!  The greater the loneliness, the
+more keenly may the nearness of God be realised.
+
+Jesus preferred the rocky heights to the plain.  He could see the wide
+expanse of the sky, and the clouds which wandered over its face and
+then disappeared like nations of nomads.
+
+One day, in such a spot, he met an Arab chief.  He was of gigantic
+stature, dressed in the dark cloak of the Bedouins, with a wild, grey
+beard, and a snub nose in a bony face.  Beneath bushy eyebrows were a
+pair of unsteady eyes.  His belt was full of weapons, his head was
+adorned with an iron band which kept his wild hair in some sort of
+order.  The man looked at the young hermit not unkindly and called him
+a worm who should pray that he might be mercifully trodden under foot.
+He must either swear allegiance to the desert chief, or be burned up by
+the hot stones.
+
+Jesus scarcely heeded the impertinent speech.  He only saw in the
+stranger a man on whom he would like to bestow all the happiness that
+was triumphant in his soul.  So full of love was he that he could not
+bear it alone.  And he said: "I am no worm to be trodden under foot.  I
+am that Son of Man who brings you the new kingdom."
+
+"Ah! the Messiah!  Jesus of Nazareth, are you not?  I have heard of
+you.  Where are your soldiers?"
+
+"I shall not conquer with the sword, but with the spirit."
+
+The Arab shook his head mockingly.  "Who will conquer with the spirit!
+Well, I won't play the scoffer.  You are an orator, and that's
+something.  Listen, son of man; I like you.  I, too, desire the new
+kingdom; let us go together."
+
+And Jesus replied: "Whoever wishes can go with me.  I go with no one."
+
+"My friend, don't you know me?" asked the stranger.  "I am Barabbas,
+king of the desert.  Three thousand Arabs obey my behests.  Look down
+into the valley.  There is the key to the kingdom of the Messiah."
+
+What the chief called the key to the kingdom of the Messiah was an army
+which, scattered over the plain, resembled a dark spot spreading out in
+the desert, as busy and animated as an ant-hill.  The chief pointed
+down to it and said: "Look, there is my weapon.  But I shall not
+conquer with that weapon, nor will you conquer with your words.  For my
+weapons lack words, and your words lack weapons.  I need the prophet
+and you the army.  Warrior and orator allied, we shall take Jerusalem.
+I have made a mistake.  For many years it has been my illusion that all
+strength lay in the body.  And so I have cared for their bodies, fed
+and nourished them that they might become strong.  But instead of
+becoming strong and daring, they have become indolent and cowardly.
+And now that I wish to use this army to free Judaea from the yoke of
+the Romans, they laugh in my face and answer me with words I once
+taught them.  We have only this life, they cry, and we will not risk it
+any more.  And when I ask, 'Not even for freedom?' they reply, 'Not
+even for freedom, because what is the use of freedom to us if we are
+slain.'  Indolent beasts! they lack enthusiasm.  And now I find you.
+You are a master of oratory.  You say that you will conquer with the
+spirit.  Come with me!  Descend into the valley and inspire them with
+ardour.  The legions are ours, our weapons are of perfect temper,
+nothing is wanting but fire, and that you have.  The king must be
+allied with the zealot, otherwise the kingdom cannot be conquered.
+Come down with me.  Tell them that you are the prophet.  Incite them
+against Jerusalem, and exclaim: 'It is God's will!'  If only fire can
+be made to burn within them, they will march like the very devil,
+overcome the foreigners, and you will instruct them in Solomon's Temple
+about the Messiah.  You can tell them that he is coming, or that you
+yourself are he, just as you please.  Then, according to your desire,
+you can establish your kingdom, and all the glory of the world will lie
+at your feet as at those of a god.  Come, prophet, you give me the
+word, and I'll give you the sword!"
+
+"Begone, you tempter of hell!" exclaimed Jesus and his eye shot forth a
+ray of light that the other could not bear.
+
+And then Jesus was once more alone among the rocks, under the open sky.
+
+It was under the sacred sky of the desert where his Father came down to
+him that his spirit became quite free--his heart more animated, glowing
+with love.  And thus was Jesus perfected.  Leaving the desert, he then
+sought out the fertile land; he sought out men.
+
+His earthly task stood clear and fixed before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Lake of Gennesaret, also called the Sea of Galilee, lies to the
+east of Nazareth, where the land makes a gradual descent, and where,
+among the hills and the fertile plains, pleasant villages are situated.
+The mountains of Naphtali, which in some places rise up steeply from
+its banks, were clothed with herbage in the days of David.  But
+gradually, as stranger peoples cultivated them, fertility descended to
+the hills and valleys.
+
+Near where the Jordan flows into the sea, on the left of the river
+under the sandy cliffs of Bethsaida, a small cedar forest, the seeds of
+which may have been blown thither from Lebanon, grows close down to the
+shore of the lake.  A fisher-boat, rocking in the shade on the dark
+waters, was tied to one of the trees.  The holes in it were stuffed
+with seaweed, the beams fastened with olive twigs.  Two tall poles
+crossed were intended for the sail, which now lay spread out in the
+boat because the boatman was sleeping on it.  The brown stuff, made of
+camel's hair, was the man's most valuable possession.  On the water it
+caught the wind for him, on land it served as a cloak, if he slept it
+formed his bed.
+
+The little elderly man's face was tickled by a cedar twig for so long
+that at length he awoke.  He saw a young woman sitting on a rock.  She
+was just going to hurry off with her round basket when the fisherman
+called loudly to her; "Well, Beka, daughter of Manasseh, whither are
+you taking your ivory white feet?"
+
+"My feet are as brown as yours," replied Beka.  "Stop mocking at me,
+Simon."
+
+"How can I be mocking at you?  You're a fisherman's child, like me.
+But your basket is too heavy for you."
+
+"I am taking my father his dinner."
+
+"Manasseh has had a good catch.  Look, smoke is rising yonder behind
+the palms of Hium.  He is cooking the fish.  But I have eaten nothing
+since yesterday at the sixth hour."
+
+"I can well believe that, Simon.  The fish of the Lake of Gennesaret do
+not swim ready-cooked into the mouth.  He who lies like a child in the
+cradle, and lets the gods provide----!"
+
+Simon, with his legs apart in order to preserve the balance, stood up
+in the boat.  "Beka," he said, "let the gods alone, they won't feed us;
+they eat the best that men have."
+
+"Then hold to the one God who feeds the birds."
+
+"And who delivers the Jews to the Romans.  No; Jehovah won't help me
+either.  So I'm forsaken and stand alone, a tottering reed."
+
+"How can I help it if you stand alone?" asked the daughter of Manasseh.
+"Are there not daughters in Galilee who also stand alone?"
+
+"Beka, I am glad that you speak so," replied the fisherman.  "Why, how
+can Simon come to an understanding with anybody so long as he can't
+come to an understanding with himself?  And fishing delights me not.
+Everything is a burden.  Often when I lie here and look up into the
+blue sky, I think: If only a storm would come and drive me out on the
+open sea--into the wild, dark terror, then, Simon, you would lie there
+and extend your arms and say: Gods or God, do with me what you will."
+
+"Don't talk like that, Simon.  You must not jest with the Lord.  There,
+take it."
+
+And so saying, Beka took a magnificent bunch of grapes out of her
+basket, and handed it to him.
+
+He took it, and by way of thanks said: "Beka, a year hence there'll be
+some one who will find in you that sweet experience which I vainly seek
+in the Prophets."
+
+Whereupon she swiftly went her way towards the blue smoke that rose up
+behind the palms of Hium.
+
+It was no wonder that the fisherman gazed after her for a long time.
+Although he cared little for the society of his fellow-creatures,
+because they were too shallow to sympathise with what occupied his
+thoughts, he felt a cheerless void when he was alone.  He was
+misunderstood on earth, and forsaken by Heaven.  He feared the
+elements, and the Scriptures did not satisfy him.  Then the little man
+threw himself on his face, put his hand into the water of the lake, and
+sprinkled his brow with it.  He seated himself on the bench of the boat
+in order to enjoy Beka's gift.
+
+At the same moment the sand on the bank crackled, and a tall man, in a
+long brown cloak, and carrying a pilgrim's staff, came forward.  His
+black beard fell almost to his waist, where a cord held the cloak
+together.  His high forehead was shaded by a broad-brimmed hat; his eye
+was directed to the fisherman in the boat.
+
+"Boatman, can you take three men across the lake?"
+
+"The lake is wide," answered Simon, pointing to his fragile craft.
+
+"They want to get to Magdala to-day."
+
+"Then they can take the road by Bethsaida and Capernaum."
+
+"They are tired," said the other.  "They have travelled here from the
+desert, and by a wide _detour_ through Nazareth, Cana, and Chorazin."
+
+"Are you one of them?" asked Simon.  "I ought to know you.  Haven't we
+been fishing together at Hamath?"
+
+"It may be that we know each other," was the somewhat roguish reply.
+In fact, they knew each other very well.  Only Simon had become so
+strange.
+
+Now he said: "If it will really be of service to you, I'll go gladly.
+But you see for yourself that my boat is bad.  You are exhausted, my
+friend; you have travelled far while I have rested in the shade the
+whole day.  I haven't deserved any fine food.  May I offer you these
+grapes?"
+
+The black-bearded man bent down, took the grapes, and vanished behind
+the cypresses.
+
+He went to a shady spot where were two other men, both dressed in long,
+dark woollen garments.  One was young and had delicate, almost
+feminine, features, and long hair.  He lay sleeping, stretched out on
+the grass, his staff leaning against a rock near him.  The other sat
+upright.  We recognise Him.  He is Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth.
+He has come hither from the wilderness, through Judaea and Galilee,
+where sympathising companions joined Him, a boatman, called James, and
+His former apprentice, John.  With one hand He supported His brow, the
+other rested protectingly on the sleeping John's head.  The
+long-bearded man came hurrying up, crying:
+
+"Master, I have received some grapes for you."
+
+He who was thus addressed pointed to the sleeping youth, lest He should
+be waked with loud talking.  Then he said softly; "James!  Shall I
+forgive the lie for the sake of the good you wish to do me?  Who knows
+anything of me?  The grapes were given to you."
+
+"And I will eat them," returned James; "only permit me to eat them in
+the way in which they taste best to me."
+
+"Do so."
+
+"They taste best to me if I see you eat them."
+
+Jesus took the gift, and said: "If we both satisfy ourselves, my dear
+James, what will there be for poor John?  We are inured to fatigue; he
+is unaccustomed to it.  I think that, of the three of us, it is John
+who ought to eat the grapes."
+
+Since the long-bearded man offered no objection, John ate the grapes
+when he awoke.  James announced that the fisherman was willing to take
+them, so they proceeded to the bank and got into the boat.
+
+Simon looked at the tired strangers with sympathy, and vigorously plied
+his oars.  The waves rippled and the rocking skiff glided over the
+broad expanse of waters which, on the south side, appeared endless.
+From the way in which the two men spoke to the Master, Simon thought to
+himself: "A rabbi, and they are his pupils."  To the Master's questions
+regarding his life and trade, the fisherman gave respectful answers,
+taking care to remark that he had not to complain of overmuch good
+fortune, for often he fished all day and all night without catching
+anything, a success he could equally well obtain if he lay all day idle
+in his boat and let himself be rocked.
+
+The Master asked him with a smile what he would say to fishing for men.
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"You've already three in your net," said James gaily.
+
+"And God help me!" exclaimed the fisherman, "for we must pray to Him
+for help to-day.  Look over there at the mountains of Hium.  Just now
+it looks so beautifully blue that you would take it for a sunny sky.
+But the white edges!  In an hour there'll be more of them."
+
+"Hoist the sail, fisherman, and bale out," advised James.  "I
+understand something of the business."
+
+"Then you wouldn't say hoist the sail to-day," returned Simon.
+
+"Listen," said James; "you know the river which brings the black sand
+and the little red fishes with the sharp heads down to this lake from
+the mountains of Golan.  My cottage was by that river--you surely know
+it?"
+
+"Isn't it there still?" asked Simon.
+
+"It is there, but it is no longer mine," said James.  "I have left it
+in order to follow the Master.  Do you know Him, Simon?"
+
+He had whispered the last words behind the back of the Master, who sat
+silent on the bench, and looked out over the calm waters.  He seemed to
+be enjoying the rest; the breeze played softly with His hair, As a
+protection from the sun's rays John had fashioned a piece of cloth into
+a sort of turban and wound it round his head.  He looked with amusement
+at the reflection of the head-dress in the water.
+
+"For whom do you take Him?" asked James, pointing to Jesus.
+
+And the fisherman answered, "For whom do you take that?"  He pointed to
+the distance; he saw the storm.  The mountains were enveloped in a grey
+mist which, pierced by the lightning, moved slowly downwards.  Before
+them surged the foaming waters, the waves white-crested.  A gust of
+wind struck the boat; the water began to beat heavily against it, so
+that it was tossed about like a piece of cork.  Since Simon had not put
+up the sail there was now no need to reef it.  Flakes of foam flew over
+the spars, the beams groaned.  The clouds rushed on, driving the
+heaving, thundering waves before them.  Soon the little boat was
+overtaken by darkness, which was only relieved by flashes of lightning.
+Long ago Simon had let go the rudder, and exclaimed, "Jehovah!"
+Thunder claps were the only answer.  Then the fisherman fell on his
+face and groaned; "He gives no help; I thought as much."
+
+James and John sat close to the Master and tried to rouse Him from the
+dream into which He had sunk.
+
+"What do you want of Me?"
+
+"Master!" exclaimed James, "you are so entirely with your Heavenly
+Father that you do not see how terrible is our doom."
+
+"I thought as much," repeated Simon, almost weeping.
+
+Jesus looked at him earnestly, and said: "If you keep on saying: I
+thought as much, well, then, so it must be.  Think rather that God's
+angels are with you!  And you, James!  Have you forgotten the trust you
+had in God on dry land?  Yesterday on the quiet eventide, when, well
+fed and cared for we sat in the inn at Chorazin, you spoke much of
+trust in God.  Trust Him also in distress."
+
+"O Master, I see help nowhere."
+
+"Learn to believe without seeing."
+
+As He spoke a flash of lightning blinded their eyes, and when after a
+time they were able to look up again, a wild terror seized them.  The
+Master was not there.  Now that they no longer saw Him, they shouted
+loudly; shrieked out His name.  Only John remained calm, and looked out
+into the darkness, wrapt in some bewilderment or trance.
+
+The foam flew into their faces and reduced them to utter confusion;
+they could only involuntarily hold tight to the beams of the swaying
+vessel.  "Living or dying we will not leave Him," said James.  But the
+Master had left them.  It seemed as though He had never existed.  They
+seized the rudder again, and, with the courage of men in the presence
+of death, wrestled with the storm which seemed disinclined to let its
+victims go.  "God is with us!" exclaimed Simon quickly, and worked with
+all that remained of his strength.  "God is with us!" exclaimed James,
+and planted the rudder firmly in the water.  Only John did not stir.
+Bending over the side, he stared out into the wild, grey, whirling
+waters.  He espied in the midst a circle of light in which appeared a
+figure that came nearer, and behold!  Jesus was walking on the sea
+slowly towards the ship.  The waves grew smooth under His feet, the sea
+grew light all over, the rock-towers of Hippos could be seen in the
+distance, with the evening sun sinking behind them.  Jesus sat among
+His friends, and with kindly words chid them for their despondency.
+
+"Oh, wonderful!" exclaimed James.  "While you were with us, we were of
+little faith, and when we could not see you, we believed."
+
+"'Twas your faith that helped," said James.  Then, laying his hand on
+the youth's shoulder: "And what is My wrapt John dreaming of?  I was
+not yonder in the mist; I was here with you, I tell you, friends: He is
+blind who sees without believing, and clear-sighted who believes
+without seeing."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+An earthly light penetrates the holy darkness, and animated scenes at
+Magdala, on the lake, are visible to me.  Fishermen and boatmen,
+shepherds, artisans from the town, people from the neighbouring
+villages and from the mountains, are gathered together on the quay
+where the boats land their passengers.  For the rumour has gone forth
+that the new prophet is coming.  And in the chattering crowd it is said
+that he is a magician from the East who possesses miraculous powers,
+and can make the sick whole.  An amusing thing had happened at
+Capernaum.  The prophet had been there, and a man ill with rheumatism,
+a beggar who lived on his lame leg, had been dragged in his bed to him.
+Now the prophet could not endure beggars who nursed their infirmities
+in order to display them, who pretended poverty, troubled themselves
+about nothing, and yet wished to live in comfort.  The prophet liked to
+deprive them of their begging tool, namely, the infirmity, so that they
+were compelled to work.  He healed the man's rheumatic leg, and said;
+"Take up thy bed and walk."  And the sick man was much astounded over
+the turn things had taken; the bed had carried him there, but he must
+carry the bed back.
+
+Others said the prophet was an Egyptian, and could foretell the future.
+Whereupon someone observed that if he could not foretell the future he
+would not be a prophet.
+
+"By Father Abraham!" exclaimed an old ferryman, "if prophets had always
+foretold truly the universe would have fallen into the sea and been
+drowned long ago.  I can prophesy too; if he comes, well, he'll be
+here."
+
+"Then he'll soon be here," said a fisher-boy, laughing, "for there he
+comes."
+
+A boat, tossed up and down on the waves, was approaching, and in it sat
+four men.
+
+"Which is he?"
+
+"The one with the black beard."
+
+"Oh, that's rubbish!  The man with the beard is James, the boatman from
+the Jordan Valley."
+
+"Then it must be the bald man."
+
+"But, Assam, you surely know Simon the fisherman of Bethsaida, who
+comes every month to the market here and spoils other men's business
+with his absurdly low prices."
+
+When they had landed, His companions could scarcely steer a way for Him
+through the crowd, The people looked at Him; some were disappointed.
+That prophet was not sufficiently different from themselves.  Was it
+really He?  The carpenter of Nazareth!  Well, then, we've had a nice
+run for nothing.  We know what He has to say, and what He can do He
+does not do.
+
+"He will do it, though.  He did it in Cana.  Bring up the water
+pitchers--we'll be merry today."
+
+The crowd pressed forward more and more eagerly, for many had come a
+long distance, and desired to see Him close and hear Him speak.
+
+The evening presented a good opportunity.  It was already dark; a torch
+fixed to the pillar on the shore diffused a dull red light over the
+surging crowd.  Jesus wished to pass on quickly, but He could not.  A
+woman fleeing from her pursuers cast herself at His feet.  She was
+young, her hair streamed loose, her limbs were trembling with fear; she
+knelt down and put her arms round His legs.  He bent down to her and
+tried to raise her, but she held fast to His feet and could not compose
+herself.  Then the people began to shout: "The traitress, the Bethany
+serpent, what has she to do with Him?"
+
+Jesus put His hand on her head.  He stood up straight and asked aloud:
+"Who is this woman that you have a right to insult her?"
+
+"Who is she?  Ask the son of Job.  She's an adulteress.  Married but a
+few weeks ago to the brave old son of Job, her parents' friend, she
+deceives him with a young coxcomb, the hussy!"
+
+The abuse they hurled against the helpless creature cannot be repeated.
+It was the women, too, who shouted the loudest; especially one, the
+wife of a man who made fishing-nets, was so filled with moral
+indignation that she tore her dress and scattered the rags over the
+sinner.  Words of the most venomous abuse poured from this accuser's
+mouth in bitter complaint that such a creature should shame the sacred
+name of woman; she passionately declared her desire that the evil-doer
+should be stoned.  Soon the crowd followed with "Stone her!" and a
+young porter who stood near the wife of the fishing-net maker stooped
+to pick up a stone from the road, and prepared to cast it at the
+sinner.  Jesus protected her with His hand, and exclaimed; "Do not
+touch her.  Which of you is without sin?  Let him come and cast the
+first stone."
+
+Unwillingly they let their arms fall, and those who already held stones
+in their hands dropped them quietly on to the ground.  But Jesus turned
+to the persecuted woman and said: "They shall not harm you.  Tell me
+what has happened."
+
+"Lord!" she whimpered, and clasped His feet afresh, "I have sinned!  I
+have sinned!" and she sobbed and wept so that His feet were damp with
+her tears.
+
+"You have sinned!" He said in a voice, the gentle sound of which went
+to many a heart--"sinned.  And now you are sorry.  And you do not try
+to vindicate yourself.  Get up, get up!  Your sins will be forgiven."
+
+"How?  What?" grumbled the people.  "What's this we hear?  He speaks
+kindly to the adulteress.  He pardons her sin.  This prophet will
+indeed find followers."
+
+When Jesus heard their grumbling He said aloud: "I tell you I am like a
+shepherd.  He goes out to search for a lost lamb.  He does not fling it
+to the wolves, but takes it home to the fold that it may be saved.  I
+do not rejoice over the proud, but over the repentant.  The former sink
+down; the latter rise up.  Listen to what I tell you.  A certain man
+had two sons.  One was of good disposition and took care of his
+property.  The other was disobedient, and one day said to his father:
+'Give me my share of the substance; I wish to go to a far country.'
+The father was sorry, but as the young man insisted he gave him his
+share, and he went away.  So while one brother worked and gained and
+saved at home, the other lived in pleasure and luxury, and squandered
+his property out in the world, and became so poor that he had to be a
+swineherd and eat husks with the sows.  He got ill and wretched, and
+was despised by every one.  Then he remembered his father, whose
+meanest servant lived in plenty.  Utterly downcast and destitute, he
+returned home, knelt before his father, and said: 'Father, I have
+sinned deeply!  I am no longer worthy to be your son; let me be your
+meanest servant.'  Then his father lifted him up, pressed him to his
+heart, had him robed in costly garments, ordered a calf to be
+slaughtered and the wineskins to be filled in readiness for a banquet,
+and invited all his family to it that they might rejoice with him.  All
+came except his other son.  He sent a message to say that he had
+faithfully served his father all his life, yet no calf or buck had been
+slaughtered on his account.  He found more honour in eating bread and
+figs alone in his room than in sitting at the banquet table with idle
+fellows and spendthrifts.  Then his father sent to him and said:
+'Wrong, wrong you are!  Your brother was lost and is found.  Look to it
+that your envy turns not to your loss.  Come and be merry with me!'  I
+tell you that the Heavenly Father rejoiceth more over a sinner that
+repenteth than over a righteous man."
+
+Then a Pharisee stepped out from the crowd, wrapped his cloak round him
+with much dignity, and uttered the saying of a Jewish scholar: "Only
+the righteous man shall stand before God!"
+
+To which Jesus replied; "Have you not heard of the publican who kneeled
+backwards in the Temple, and did not venture to approach the altar
+because he was a poor sinner?  The Pharisee stands proudly by the altar
+and prays: 'Lord, I thank thee that I am not wicked like that man in
+the corner!'  But when they went forth from the Temple, the publican's
+heart was full of grace, and the Pharisee's heart was empty.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+Thereupon several of them drew back.  Jesus bent over the penitent and
+said: "Woman, rise and depart in peace!"
+
+The people were outwardly rather calmer.  Inwardly they were still
+restless, but they began now to be a little more satisfied with Him.
+
+Meanwhile James had to settle with the fisherman about payment for the
+voyage.  Simon covered his face with his mantle, and said with gentle
+rebuke: "Do not mock me.  I have been punished enough.  I am ashamed of
+my cowardice.  I see now that I'm neither a fisherman nor a sailor, but
+a mere useless creature.  This man whom you call Master, do you know
+what has come over me, thanks to Him?  He who saw Him in the storm, and
+heard His words about sinners, leaves Him not again.  No, I have never
+seen any like Him,  If only Manasseh, the fisherman and his daughter,
+and my brother Andrew had been there!"
+
+"They will come directly," said James.
+
+"How comes it, James," asked the fisherman, "that you are with this man
+and dare to follow Him?"
+
+"That is quite simple, my friend.  I merely follow Him.  Whoever
+pleases can have my little property.  I follow Him."
+
+"But whither, James, whither are you journeying?" And James answered:
+"To the Kingdom of God: to eternal life."
+
+Then the fisherman, with trembling hand, felt for James's arm, and
+said: "I will go too."
+
+An hour had scarcely passed before a fresh tumult arose.  It came from
+the house of the maker of fishing-nets.  He and a neighbour were
+hauling the former's wife along, the same woman who had been so
+indignant against the adulteress shortly before.  It was suggested that
+she should be brought to the prophet, but her husband said: "He is a
+bad judge in such matters," and wished to take her down to the lake.
+But the people crowded round Jesus, and told Him what had happened.
+The woman had been caught with Joel, the porter.  The accused struck
+out round her, violently denied the charge, and bit her husband, who
+had hold of her, in the hand.  Others came up and confirmed the
+accusation.  The woman blasphemed, and reduced her husband to silence
+by proclaiming his crimes.
+
+Jesus burned with anger.  He exclaimed in a loud voice: "Cursed be the
+hypocrite and the faithless, and the violent!  Justice, judgment for
+such as her!"
+
+Then the woman shrieked: "You speak of justice, you who yourself
+recognise no justice!  Is it just that you should bless one of two
+lovers, and curse the other?"
+
+And Jesus: "I tell you: he who repents is accepted; he who will not
+repent is cast out."
+
+Then He turned round, and, wrapt in thought, walked along the bank in
+the mild night.  Simon, the fisherman, followed Him.  He touched His
+wide sleeve and implored: "Master, take me too."
+
+Jesus asked him: "What do you seek with Me, Simon, the fisherman?  If
+anyone seeks a polished crystal and finds a rough diamond, he is vexed;
+he does not recognise its value.  Look at this obdurate woman; she says
+that I am not just because I am severe.  To-morrow ten of the corrupt
+may shout, the day after a hundred; yet ere long he who is applauded
+to-day may be surrounded by cruel enemies, and with him those who
+support him.  My word ruins the worldly and My mercy annoys the
+powerful.  They will destroy with fire and sword the seeds which I sow.
+Simon, you did not strike Me as one of the strongest on the sea.  I
+demand not a little.  If you will come to Me, you must abandon
+everything that is now yours.  You cannot have Me and the world.  If
+you can make sacrifices, if you can forget, if you can suffer, then
+come with Me.  Yes, and if you can die for Me, then come."
+
+"Master, I will go with you."
+
+"If you can do that, then the burden will be easy; then you will have
+the peace which none finds in the world."
+
+"Master," exclaimed Simon, loudly, "I will go with you."
+
+Others who had followed Him along the bank heard the decision.  They
+marvelled at the words that had passed, and the erring woman whom He
+had protected would not leave Him.
+
+In the distance the clamour could still be heard, but gradually the
+crowd dispersed.  Jesus then sought lodging for Himself and His
+disciples.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A short time after, some of those who had formed the crowd at Magdala
+were gathered together in the house of the Rabbi Jairus.  They were
+watching the dead.  For in the centre of the room, on a table, lay the
+body of the Rabbi's daughter shrouded in white linen.  Her father was
+so cast down with grief that his friends knew not how to console him.
+Then someone suggested calling in Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had just
+seen resting with His followers under the cedars of Hirah.  They
+narrated the miracles that He had lately worked.  On the road leading
+to Capernaum a man was lying side by side with his little son, into
+whom had entered the spirit of epilepsy.  The child had fallen down and
+foamed at the mouth, and his teeth and hands were so locked together
+that his father, in his despair, all but strangled him.  He had already
+taken the child to the disciples of Jesus, but they had not been able
+to help him.  Then he sought the Master and exclaimed angrily: "If you
+can do anything, help him!"  "Take heed that we do not all suffer
+because of him," the prophet said, and then made the child whole.  And
+they told yet more.  On the other side of the lake He had made a
+deaf-mute to speak, and at Bethsaida had made a blind man to see.  But,
+above all, every one knew how at Nain He had brought back a young man
+to life who had already been carried out of the house in his coffin!  A
+wine-presser was there who told something about an old woman who had
+vehemently prayed the prophet to cure her sickness.  Thereupon Jesus
+said: "You are old and yet you wish to live!  What makes this earth so
+pleasing to you?" and she replied: "Nothing is pleasing to me on this
+earth.  But I do not want to die until the Saviour comes, who will open
+the gates of Heaven for me."  And He: "Since your faith is so strong,
+woman, you shall live to see the Saviour."  Thereupon she rose up and
+went her way.  These were the things He did, but He did not like them
+to be talked about.
+
+Such was the talk among the people gathered round the little girl's
+corpse.  Among the company was an old man who was of those who liked to
+display their wisdom on every possible occasion.  He declared that
+faith and love, nothing else, produced such miracles.  No
+miracle-worker could help an unbeliever; but a man whom the people
+loved could easily work miracles.  "They forget all his failures, and
+remember and magnify all his successes.  That's all there is in it."
+
+A man answered him: "It is important that he should be loved, but the
+love is compelled by some mysterious power.  No one can make himself
+beloved of his own accord, it must be given him."
+
+They determined, thanks to all this talk--a mingling of truth and
+error--to invite the prophet to the house.
+
+When Jesus entered it, He saw the mourning assembly, and the Rabbi, who
+pulled at his gown until he tore it.  He saw the child lying on the
+table ready for burial, and asked: "Why have you summoned Me?  Where is
+the dead girl?"
+
+The Rabbi undid the shroud so that the girl lay exposed to view.  Jesus
+looked at her, took hold of her hand, felt it, and laid it gently down
+again.  "The child is not dead," He said, "she only sleepeth."
+
+Some began to laugh.  They knew the difference between death and life!
+
+He stepped up to them, and said: "Why did you summon Me if you do not
+believe in Me?  If you have assembled here to watch the dead, there's
+nothing for you to do."
+
+They crept away in annoyance.  He turned to the father and mother: "Be
+comforted.  Prepare some food for your daughter."  Then He took hold of
+the child's cold hand, and whispered: "Little girl!  Little girl! wake
+up, it is morning."
+
+The mother uttered a cry of joy, for the child opened her eyes.  He
+stood by, and they seemed to hear Him say: "Arise, my child.  You are
+too young to have gained heaven yet.  The Father must be long sought so
+that He may be the more beloved.  Go your way and seek Him."
+
+When the girl, who was twelve years old, stood on her feet, and walked
+across the floor, the parents almost fell on Jesus in order to express
+their thanks.  He put them aside.  "I understand your gratitude.  You
+will do what I do not wish.  You will go to the street corners and
+exclaim: 'He raised our child from the dead'; and the people will come
+and ask Me to heal their bodies, while I am come to heal their souls.
+And they will desire Me to raise the dead, while I am here to lead
+their spirits to eternal life."
+
+"Lord, how are we to understand you?"
+
+"When in good time you shall have learned how little the mortal body
+and earthly life signify, then you will understand.  If, as you say, I
+have raised your child from the dead, what thanks do you owe Me?  Do
+you recognise what he who calls back a creature from happiness to
+misery does?
+
+"You said yourself, Master, that the child was too young to gain heaven
+yet."
+
+"She has not gained it; she possessed it in her innocent heart.  She
+will become a maiden, and a wife, and an old woman.  She will lose
+heaven and seek it in agony.  It will be well for her if then she comes
+to the Saviour and begs: 'My soul is dead within me, Lord; wake it to
+eternal life.'  But if she comes not--then it would be better that she
+had not waked to-day."
+
+The mother said in all humility: "Whatsoever Thou doest, Master, that
+is surely right."
+
+He went to the table where the child was comfortably eating her food,
+laid His hand on her head, and said: "You have come to earth from
+heaven, now give up earth for heaven; what is earned is greater that
+what is given."
+
+So the wife of Rabbi Jairus heard as Jesus went out of the door.
+
+They remained His adherents until near the days of the persecution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+About the same time things began to go ill with Levi, the tax-gatherer,
+who lived on the road to Tiberias.  One morning his fellow-residents
+prepared a discordant serenade for him.  They pointed out to Levi with
+animation, from the roof of his house, in what honour he was held, by
+means of the rattling of trays and clashing of pans, since he had
+accepted service with the heathen as toll-keeper and demanded money
+even on the Sabbath.
+
+The lean tax-gatherer sat in a corner of his room and saw the dust fly
+from the ceiling, which seemed to shake beneath the clatter.  He saw,
+too, how the morning sun shining in at the window threw a band of light
+across the room, in which danced particles of dust like little stars.
+He listened, and saw, and was silent.  When they had had enough of
+dancing on the roof they jumped to the ground, made grimaces at the
+window, and departed.
+
+A little, bustling woman came out of the next room, stole up to the
+man, and said: "Levi, it serves you right!"
+
+"Yes, I know, Judith," he answered, and stood up.  He was so tall that
+he had to bend his head in order not to strike it against the ceiling.
+His beard hung down in thin strands; it was not yet grey, despite his
+pale, tired face.
+
+"They will stone you, Levi, if you continue to serve the Romans,"
+exclaimed the woman.
+
+"They hated me even when I did not serve the Romans," said the man.
+"Since that Feast of Tabernacles at Tiberias when I said that Mammon
+and desire of luxury had estranged the God of Abraham from the chosen
+people, and subjected them to Jupiter, they have hated me."
+
+"But you yourself follow Mammon," she returned.
+
+"Because since they hate me I must create a power for myself which will
+support me, if all are against me.  It is the power with which the
+contemned man conquers his bitterest enemies.  You don't understand me?
+Look there!"  He bent down in a dark corner of the chamber, lifted an
+old cloth, and displayed to view a stone vessel like a mortar.  "Real
+Romans," he said, grinning; "soon a small army of them.  And directly
+it is big enough, the neighbours won't climb on to the roof and sing
+praises to Levi with pots and pans, but with harps and cymbals."
+
+"Levi, shall I tell you what you are?" exclaimed the woman, the muscles
+of her red face working.
+
+"I am a publican, as I well know," he returned calmly, carefully
+covering his money chest with the cloth.  "A despised publican who
+takes money from his own people to give to the stranger, who demands
+toll-money of the Jews although they themselves made the roads.  Such a
+one am I, my Judith!  And why did I become a Roman publican?  Because I
+wished to gain money so as to support myself among those who hate me."
+
+"Levi, you are a miser," she said.  "You bury your money in a hole
+instead of buying me a Greek mantle like what Rebecca and Amala wear."
+
+"Then I shall remain a miser," he replied, "for I shall not buy you a
+Greek mantle.  Foreign garments will plunge the Jews into deeper ruin
+than my Roman office and Roman coins.  It is not the receipt of custom,
+my dear wife, that is idolatry, but desire of dress, pleasure, and
+luxury.  Street turnpikes are not bad at a time when our people begin
+to be fugitives in their own land, and with all their trade and barter
+to export the good and import the evil.  Since the law of Moses
+respecting agriculture there has been no better tax than the Roman
+turnpike toll.  What have the Jews to do on the road?"
+
+"You will soon see," said Judith.  "If I don't have the Greek mantle in
+two days from now, you'll see me on the road, but from behind."
+
+"You don't look bad from behind," mischievously returned Levi.
+
+The knocker sounded without.  The tax-gatherer looked through the
+window, and bade his wife undo the barrier.  She went out and raised a
+piercing cry, but did not unclose the barrier.  Several men had come
+along the road, and were standing there; the woman demanded the toll.
+A little man with a bald head stepped forward.  It was the fisherman
+from Bethsaida.  He confessed that they had no money.  Thereupon the
+woman was very angry, for it was her secret intention thenceforth to
+keep the toll money herself in order to buy the Greek purple stuff like
+that worn by Rebecca and Amala.
+
+When Levi heard her cry, he went out and said: "Let them pass, Judith.
+You see they are not traders.  They won't do the road much damage.  Why
+they've scarcely soles to their feet."
+
+Then Judith was quiet, but she took a stolen glance at one of the men
+who stood tall and straight in his blue mantle, his hair falling over
+his shoulders, his pale face turned towards her with an earnest look.
+"What a man?  Is something the matter with me?  Perhaps he misses the
+Greek mantle that he sees other women wear?"
+
+"How far have you come?" the toll-keeper asked the men.
+
+"We've come from Magdala to-day," replied Simon, the fisherman.
+
+"Then it is time that you rested here a little in the shade.  The sun
+has been hot all day."
+
+When Judith saw that they were really preparing to avail themselves of
+the invitation, she hastened to her room, adorned herself with
+gay-coloured stuffs, a sparkling bracelet, and a pearl necklace that
+she had lately acquired from a Sidonian merchant.  She came out again
+with a tray of figs and dates.  The tall, pale man--it was
+Jesus--silently passed on the tray, and took no refreshment Himself.
+His penetrating glance made her uneasy.  Perhaps He would let Himself
+be persuaded.  She placed herself before Him, more striking and bold in
+her splendour.
+
+"Woman," He said suddenly, "yonder grows a thistle.  It has prickles on
+the stem and the flower, it is covered with the dust of the highway and
+eaten away by insects.  But it is more beautiful than an arrogant child
+of man."
+
+Judith started violently.  She rushed into the house, and slammed the
+door behind her so that the walls echoed.  The tax-gatherer gave the
+speaker an approving glance, and sighed.
+
+Then Jesus asked him: "Are you fond of her?"
+
+"She is his neighbour!" observed a cheerful-looking little man who
+formed one of the band of travellers.  The jesting word referred to the
+Master's speech of the day before on love of one's neighbour.
+
+Levi nodded thoughtfully and said: "Yes, gentlemen, she is my
+nearest--enemy."
+
+"Isn't she your wife?" asked Simon.
+
+Without answering him, the tax-gatherer said: "I am a publican, and
+blessed with mistrust as far as my eye can reach.  Yet all those
+without do not cause me as much annoyance as she who is nearest me in
+my house."
+
+One of the men laid his hand on his shoulder: "Then, friend, see that
+she is no longer your nearest.  Come with us.  We have left our wives
+and all the rest of our belongings to go with Him.  Don't you know Him?
+He is the man from Nazareth."
+
+The publican started.  The man of whom the whole land spoke, the
+prophet, the miracle-worker?  This young, kindly man was He?  He who
+preached so severely against the Jews?  Didn't I say almost the same,
+that time at the Feast of Tabernacles?  And yet the people were angry.
+They listen reverently to this man and follow Him.  Shall I do so too?
+What hinders me?  I, the much-hated man, may be dismissed the service
+at any moment.  I may be driven from my house to-day, as soon as
+to-morrow?  And my wife, she'll probably be seen on the road from
+behind?  There's only one thing I can't part with, but I can take that
+with me.
+
+Then, he turned to the Nazarene, held the tray with the remains of the
+fruit towards Him: "Take some, dear Master!"
+
+The Master said gently, in a low voice: "Do you love Me, publican?"
+
+The tax-gatherer began to tremble so that the tray nearly fell from his
+hands.  Those words! and that look!  He could not reply.
+
+"If you love Me, go with Me, and share our hardships."
+
+"Our joys, Lord, our joys," exclaimed Simon.
+
+At that moment a train of pack-mules came along the road.  The drivers
+whipped the creatures with knotted cords, and cursed that there was
+another turnpike.  The tax-gatherer took the prescribed coins from
+them, and pointed out their ill-treatment of the animals.  For answer
+he received a blow in his face from the whip.  Levi angrily raised his
+arm against the driver.  Then Jesus stepped forward, gently pulled his
+arm down, and asked: "Was his act wrong?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Then do not imitate it."
+
+And the little witty man again interposed: "If you go with us,
+publican, you'll have two cheeks, a right and a left.  But no arm, do
+you understand?"
+
+The remark had reference to a favourite saying of the Master when He
+was defenceless and of good-cheer in the presence of a bitter enemy.
+Several received the allusion with an angry expression of countenance.
+
+"But it is true," laughed the little man.  "The Master said: 'Let
+Thaddeus say what he likes.  He suffered yesterday in patience the
+wrath of an Arab.'"
+
+"Yes, indeed; because they found no money, they beat Thaddeus."
+
+"If we meet another of that sort, we'll defend ourselves," said the
+publican, "or robbery 'll become cheap."
+
+"It's easy to see, tax-gatherer, that you haven't known the Master
+long," said the little man whom they called Thaddeus.  "We and money,
+indeed!"
+
+Then the Master said: "A free soul has nothing to do with Mammon.  It's
+not worth speaking of, let alone quarrelling over.  Violence won't undo
+robbery.  If you attempt violence, you may easily turn a thief into a
+murderer."
+
+While they were talking the publican went into his house.  He had made
+his decision.  He would quietly bid his wife farewell, put the money in
+a bag and tie it round his waist.  He did not do the first, because
+Judith had fled by the back door; he did not do the second, because
+Judith had emptied the stone vessel and taken the money with her.
+
+Levi came sadly from the toll-house, went up to Jesus, and lifted his
+hands to heaven: "I am ready, Lord; take me with you."
+
+The Master said: "Levi Matthew, you are mine."
+
+Thaddeus came with the tray of fruit.  "Brother, eat of your table for
+the last time.  Then trust in Him who feeds the birds and makes the
+flowers to grow."
+
+As they went together along the dusty road, the new disciple related
+his loss.
+
+Simon exclaimed cheerfully: "You're lucky, Levi Matthew!  What other
+men give up with difficulty has run away from you of itself."
+
+That day the toll-house was left deserted, and the passers-by were
+surprised to find that the road between Magdala and Tiberias was free.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In this way there gathered round the carpenter of Nazareth more
+disciples and friends, who wished to accompany Him in His wanderings
+through the land.  For Jesus had decided.  He desired only to wander
+through the land and bring men tidings of the Heavenly Father and of
+the Kingdom of God.  He appointed some of His disciples to prepare for
+Him a reception and lodging everywhere.  Then there were the assemblies
+of the people to regulate; and the disciples, so far as they themselves
+understood the new teaching, must act as interpreters and expositors
+for those who could not understand the Master's peculiar language.
+Among those was John, the carpenter, who had once been an apprentice to
+Jesus, a near relative of the Master.  Other of His disciples were
+called James, he was the boat-builder; then Simon, Andrew, and Thomas,
+the fishermen; Levi Matthew, the publican; Thaddeus, the saddler; and
+further--but my memory is weak--James, the little shepherd; Nathan, the
+potter; and his brother Philip, the innkeeper from Jericho;
+Bartholomew, the smith; and Judas, the money-changer from Carioth.
+Like Simon and Matthew, they had all left their trades or offices to
+follow with boundless devotion Him they called Lord and Master.
+
+How shall I dare to describe the Master!  His personality defies
+description.  It left none cold who came in contact with it.  It was
+attractive not only by humility and gentleness, but more by active
+power, and by such sacred and fiery anger as had never before been seen
+in any one.  People were never tired of looking at the man with the
+tall, handsome figure.  His head was crowned with lightly curling,
+reddish, bright-looking hair, which hung down soft and heavy at the
+side and back, and floated over His shoulders.  His brow was broad and
+white, for no sunbeam could penetrate the shade formed by His hair.  He
+had a strong, straight nose, more like that of a Greek than of a Jew,
+and His red lips were shaded with a thick beard.  And His eyes were
+wonderful, large, dark eyes, with a marvellous fire in them.
+Ordinarily it was a fire that burnt warm and soft, but at times it
+shone with a great glow of happiness, or sparkled with anger, like a
+midsummer storm by night in the mountains of Lebanon.  On that account
+many called Him "fiery eye."  He wore a long, straight gown, without
+hat or staff.  He generally wore sandals on His feet, but sometimes He
+forgot to put them on, for in His spiritual communings He did not
+perceive the roughness of the road.  So He wandered through the stony
+desert, as through the flowery meadows of the fertile valleys.  When
+His companions complained of the storm or heat, and tore their limbs on
+the sharp stones and thorns, He remained calm and uncomplaining.  He
+did not, like the holy men of the East, seek for hardships, but He did
+not fear them.  He was an enemy of all external trappings, because they
+distracted the attention from the inner life, and by their attractions
+might induce a false appearance of reality.  He gladly received
+invitations to the houses of the joyful, and rejoiced with them; at
+table He ate and drank with moderation.  He added to the pleasures of
+the table by narrating parables and legends, by means of which He
+brought deep truths home to the people.  Since He left the little house
+at Nazareth, He possessed no worldly goods.  What He needed in His
+wanderings for Himself and His followers, He asked of those who had
+possessions.  His manner was often rough and spiced with bitter irony,
+even where He proved Himself helpful and sympathetic.  Towards His
+disciples, whom He loved deeply--expecially young John--He always
+showed Himself absorbed in His mission to make strong, courageous,
+God-fearing men out of weak creatures.  He was so definite about what
+He liked and what He disliked, that even the blindest could see it.  He
+suffered no compromise between good and evil.  He specially disliked
+ambiguous speakers, hypocrites, and sneaks; He preferred to have to do
+with avowed sinners.
+
+One of His fundamental traits was to be yielding in disposition, but
+unflinching in His teaching.  He avoided all personal dislikes,
+hatreds, all that might poison the heart.  His soul was trust and
+kindness.  So high did He rank kindness, and so heavily did he condemn
+selfishness, that one of His disciples said, to sin from kindness
+brought a man nearer to God than to do good through selfishness.  The
+hostility and reverses He met with He turned into a source of
+happiness.  Happiness!  Did not that word come into the world with
+Jesus?
+
+"He is always talking of being happy," someone once said to John.
+"What do you understand by being happy?"
+
+John replied; "When you feel quite contented inwardly, so that no
+worldly desire or bitterness disturbs your peace, when all within you
+is love and trust, as though you were at rest in the eternity of God
+and nothing can trouble you any more, that is, as I take it, what He
+means by being happy.  But it cannot be put into words, only he who
+feels it understands."
+
+And Jesus possessed, too, the high sense of communion with God, which
+he transmitted to all who followed Him.  But I should like to add that
+where Jesus was most divine, there He was most human.  In thrusting
+from Him all worldly desire, all worldly property, and worldly care, He
+freed Himself from the burden which renders most men unhappy.  In
+communion with God He was at once a simple child, and a wise man of the
+world.  No anxiety existed about accidents, perils, loss and ruin.
+Everything happened according to His will, because it was the will of
+God, and He enjoyed life with simplicity and a pure heart.  Is not that
+the true human lot?  And does not such a natural, glad life come very
+near to the Divine?
+
+Thus, then, He followed the Divine path across that historic ground
+which will be known as the Holy Land to the end of time.
+
+And now that great day, that great Sabbath morning came.
+
+For a long time damp, grey mists had hung over the valleys of Galilee;
+banks of fog had hovered over the mountains of Lebanon; showers of cold
+rain fell.  But after the gloom dawned a bright spring morning.  From
+the rocky heights a fertile land was visible.  Green meadows watered by
+shining streams adorned the valleys, and groups of pines, fig trees,
+olive trees, and cedars, the slopes and the hill-tops.  Vines and dewy
+roses were in the hedges.  A full-voiced choir of birds and fresh
+breezes from the Lake filled the soft air.  Westwards the blue waters
+of the Mediterranean might be discerned, and in the east, through
+distant clefts in the rocks, the shimmer of the Dead Sea.  Southwards
+lay the plain, and the yellowish mounds which marked the beginning of
+the desert.  And towards the west the snow peaks of Lebanon were
+visible above the dark forest and the lighter green of the slopes.  A
+perfect sunny peacefulness lay over everything.
+
+The flat rocks of the gentler slopes were crowded with people, many of
+whom had never seen this district.  And they still came from every
+village and farm.  Instead of going as usual to the synagogue, they
+hastened to this mountain height.  Instead of seeking soft repose, as
+their desire of comfort bade them, they hurried thither over stocks and
+stones.  Instead of visiting friend or neighbour they all climbed the
+heights together.  For they knew that Jesus was there, and would speak.
+And so they stood or sat on the flat stones--men and women, old and
+young, rich and poor.  Many only came out of curiosity, and passed the
+time in witty sallies; others jested together; others, again, waited in
+silent expectation.  Those who already knew Him whispered excitedly,
+and Simon said to James; "My heart has never beat so violently as
+to-day."
+
+And Jesus stood on the summit of the mountain.  As if all men were
+turned to stone at sight of Him, a silence and stillness now took the
+place of the subdued murmur of the crowd.  He stood in His long,
+light-coloured gown, like a white pillar against the blue sky.  His
+left hand hung motionless by His side, the right was pressed against
+His heart.  He began to speak softly, but clearly.  Not in the even
+tone of a preacher, but quickly and eagerly, often hesitating a moment
+while collecting His thoughts for a pregnant saying.  It was not as if
+He had thought out His speech beforehand, or learned it out of books.
+What His own individual temperament had originated, what time had
+matured in Him, He poured forth in the rush of the Holy Spirit.
+
+"I am sent to make appeal to you.  I come to all, but especially to the
+poor.  I come to the afflicted, to the distressed, to the sick, to the
+imprisoned, to the cast down.  I come with glad tidings from the
+Heavenly Father."
+
+After this introduction He, in His humility, looked out into the great
+world of Nature, as if she would supply Him with words.  But Nature was
+silent; indeed, at that hour, all creatures were silent and listened.
+
+Then Jesus lifted His eyes to the crowd, and began to speak as men had
+never heard any one speak before.
+
+"Brothers!  Rejoice!  Again I say, Rejoice!  A good Father lives in
+heaven.  His presence is everywhere, His power is boundless, and we are
+His children whom He loves.  He makes His sun to shine over all; He
+overlooks no one.  He sees into the dark recesses of all hearts, and no
+one can move a hair's breadth without His consent.  He places freely
+before men happiness and eternal life.  Listen to what I say to you in
+His name:
+
+"All ye children of men who seek salvation, come to Me.  I bless the
+poor, for no earthly burden can keep them from the Kingdom of Heaven.
+I bless the suffering, the afflicted, disappointed--abandoned by the
+world they take refuge in life in God.  I bless the kind-hearted and
+the peace-loving.  Their hearts are not troubled with hate and guilt;
+they live as happy children of God.  I bless those who love justice,
+for they are God's companions, and shall find justice.  I bless the
+pure in heart.  No bewildering desire obscures the face of God from
+them.  I bless the merciful.  Sympathetic love gives strength, brings
+compassion where it is needed.  And blessed, thrice blessed, are you
+who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness.  Yours is the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  Rejoice and be glad, all of you--no eye hath yet
+seen, no ear hath yet heard the joys that are laid up for you in
+heaven.  Now hear My mission.  Many say I wish to change the old laws.
+That is not so.  I come to fulfil the old laws, but according to the
+spirit, not according to the letter.  The learned men who preach in the
+synagogues fulfil it according to the letter, and desire to guide the
+people; but if you do as they, you will not be righteous, nor will you
+find the Kingdom of God.  The wise men say, you shall not kill.  I say,
+you shall not get angry, or be contemptuous.  He who grows angry and
+censorious shall himself be judged.  Your pious gifts are of no avail
+if you live at enmity with your neighbour.  In the law of the sages it
+is written, you shall not commit adultery.  I say, you shall not even
+think of breaking your marriage vows.  Rather should you become blind
+than let your eye desire your neighbour's wife.  Better lose your sight
+than your purity.  Rather cut off your hand than reach it after your
+neighbour's goods.  Better lose your strength than your virtue.  It is
+said in the Law, you shall not swear falsely.  I say, you shall not
+swear at all, either by God, or by your soul, or by your child.  Yes or
+no, that is enough.  Now say whether I change the laws.  Rather do I
+desire the strictest obedience to them.  But there are laws which I do
+change.  Listen; An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  I say you
+shall not treat your adversary in a hostile fashion.  What you can in
+justice do for yourself, that do, but go no farther; it is a thousand
+times better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.  Overcome your enemy
+with kindness.  If any one smites you on the right cheek, keep your
+temper and offer him the left.  Maybe that will disarm his wrath.  If
+any one tears off your coat ask him kindly if he would not like the
+undergarment too?  Perhaps he will be ashamed of his greediness.  If
+any asks you for something that you can grant, do not refuse him, and
+if you have two coats give one to him who has none.  In the law of the
+sages it is said: Love your neighbour; hate your enemy.  That is false.
+For it is easy enough to love them that love you, and hate them that
+hate you.  The godless can manage so much.  I tell you, love your
+neighbour, and also love your enemy.  Listen, my brothers, and declare
+it throughout the whole world what I now say to you: Love your enemies,
+do good to them that hate you."
+
+He stopped, and a stir went through the assembly.  Words had been
+spoken the like of which had not before been heard in the world.  A
+holy inspiration, as it were, entered the universe at that hour such as
+had not been felt since the creation.
+
+Jesus continued speaking: "Do good to those who hate you; that is how
+God acts towards men, even when they mock at him.  Try to imitate the
+Father in heaven in all things.  What good ye do, do it for the sake of
+God, not for the sake of men.  Therefore the second commandment is as
+important as the first.  Love God more than everything, and your
+neighbour as yourself.  But you shall not boast of your good works.
+When you give alms, do it secretly, and speak not of it, so that the
+left hand knows not what the right hand doeth.  If you do not give up
+the goods of this world, you will not attain to the Kingdom of Heaven.
+If you fast, do not wear a sad face.  Be cheerful; what matters it that
+others should know that you fast?  If you do not keep the Sabbath holy,
+you cannot see the Father.  But when you pray, do it secretly in your
+chamber; you are nearest your Father in heaven in quiet humility.  Use
+not many words in your praying as idolaters do.  Not he who constantly
+praises the Lord finds Him, but he who does His will.  Lift up your
+heart in trust, and submit to the will of Him who is in heaven.  Honour
+His name, seek His kingdom.  Ask pardon for your own fault, and be
+careful to pardon him who offends against you.  Ask that you may
+receive what you require for your needs each day, so that you may find
+strength against temptation, and freedom from impatience and evil
+desire.  If you pray thus, your prayer will be heard; for he who asks
+in the right way shall receive, and for him who continually knocks
+shall the gate be opened.  Is there a father among you who would give
+his child a stone when he asks for bread?  And if a poor man grants his
+child's request, how much more the mighty, good Father in heaven.  But
+be not too anxious for your daily needs: such anxiety spoils pure
+pleasure.  If you heap up material goods, then death comes.  Gather not
+the treasures which pass away; gather spiritual treasures to your inner
+profit, treasures which your Heavenly Father stores up into life
+eternal.  Such a store will benefit the souls of those who come after
+you.  Man is so fashioned that his heart always inclines to his
+possessions; if his possessions are with God, then will his heart be
+with God.  He who is for the body cannot be for the soul, because he
+cannot serve two masters.  Earn for the day what ye need for the day,
+but take no care for the morrow.  Be not anxious about what you shall
+eat to-morrow, about how you shall be clothed in the years to come.
+Trust in Him who feeds the birds, and makes the flowers bloom.  Shall
+not the Heavenly Father have greater love for the children of men than
+for the sparrow or the lily?  Do not burden your life with cares, but
+be glad, glad, glad in God, your Father.  Set your minds on the Kingdom
+of Heaven; all else is second to that. . . .  I observe, my brothers,
+that these words come home to you; but first see if the teacher follows
+His own precepts.  Beware of preachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, who
+live otherwise than they teach.  Whoever speaks to you in My name, look
+first at his works, as ye recognise the tree by its fruit.  Judge men
+according to their works, but do not condemn them!  Before you condemn,
+remember that you yourself may be condemned.  As you judge others so
+shall you yourself be judged.  How often, my friend, do you see a Mote
+in your brother's eye, while you do not see a whole beam in your own
+eye.  Get rid of your own faults before you censure the faults of your
+brother.  The path which leads to salvation is narrow, and while you
+escape the abyss on the left hand you may fall into that on the right.
+And that you may proceed in safety along the narrow way, take heed to
+My words: _Everything that you wish to be done unto you, that do unto
+others_.  Now, My brothers and sisters, in the land of our fathers, let
+those of you who must return to your work, return and ponder on the
+message I have brought you.  Every one who has heard it, and does not
+live according to it, is like the man who builds his house on sand; but
+he who lives in accordance with this teaching builds his house on the
+rocks, and no storm can destroy it.  The words that I deliver to you in
+the name of the Heavenly Father will outlast all the wisdom of the
+earth.  He who hears and does not heed is lost to Me; he who follows My
+teaching will attain eternal life."
+
+Thus ended the speech which became one of the greatest events of the
+world.  Many were terrified by the concluding sentences, for they heard
+the word but were too weak to follow it.  Their cowardice did not
+escape Jesus, and because He could not let any depart uncomforted, they
+seemed to hear Him murmur: "The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who
+untiringly reach out after it.  Blessed are the weak whose will is
+good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+That Sabbath of the Sermon on the Mount became a most important day.
+When Jesus made an end of speaking, the people did not disperse, but
+pressed round Him to kiss the hem of His garment.  Many who until then
+had been in despair could not tear themselves from Him.  They wished to
+follow Him wherever He went, and to share His destiny.  Whatever He
+might say to the contrary, that destiny, they felt sure, would be
+brilliant.  Was He not tearing the masses from earthly thoughts that
+formed their curse.  All they heard was His counsel upon absence of
+anxiety.  But what would it be when He revealed the universal power of
+the Messiah?  Many said that the Sermon on the Mount was a trial of
+strength intended to steel the will for the holy struggle for the
+Kingdom of the Messiah that was now to be established on earth.
+
+People came out of Judaea; they hastened from the valley of the Jordan;
+they streamed from the hills.  They came from the seaports of Tyre and
+Sidon, and some even came from lands far beyond the sea in order to
+discover if what the people on all sides were saying was true.  They
+brought asses and camels, laden with gifts, and Jesus accepted what He
+and His friends needed, but declined the rest or divided it among the
+people.  For there were many among His followers who were starving, His
+word being all their sustenance.  And sick persons began to drag
+themselves to Him so that He might heal and comfort them.  But the more
+they heard of miracles wrought on the sick and crippled, the more
+miracles they desired, so that He grew angry, and reminded them that He
+did not come on account of their bodies but of their souls.  Moreover,
+He pointed out to them that He was not the Messiah from whom men
+expected deliverance and the establishment of the kingdom of the Jews.
+But they regarded that as an excuse, as prudent reserve, until the time
+was ripe for the entry of the great general.  The curiosity increased
+at every new speech, and they hoped to hear Him sound the call to arms.
+Others held aloof and thought over the deeper meaning of His words, and
+if it was possible to comprehend them and live according to them.  At
+first they found it easy and pleasant to be free from care, and to be
+conciliatory towards their neighbours.  It suited the poor admirably to
+make a virtue of necessity, so that their indolence and poverty
+appeared as meritorious.  But after a few days they began to realise
+that perhaps they had not understood the Master's words aright.  Even
+the Samaritans from over the border listened to the strange teaching
+about heaven or earth.  If the ancient writings spoke of future
+blessedness, Jesus spoke of present blessedness.
+
+A money-changer from Carioth was among His disciples.  So far he had
+only been with the Prophet on Sabbaths; on week-days he sat in his
+office and counted money and reckoned interest.  But things did not go
+well, for while he was doing his accounts his thoughts were with the
+Master, and he made errors; and when he was with the Master his
+thoughts were with his money, and he missed what was being said.  He
+must leave either one or the other, and he could not decide which.  But
+after listening to the Sermon on the Mount he determined to go no more
+to his place of business, but to remain with Jesus, so strong was his
+belief in Him.  And the exchange brought as much joy into his heart as
+if he had lent money to a man at two hundred per cent.  For he would
+have treasure in the Kingdom of the Messiah.
+
+The only people who more or less still held aloof were the Galileans.
+They had known the Prophet as a carpenter, and were uncertain what
+position to take up towards Him.  On the other hand, there were
+Galileans who came to Jerusalem, or Joppa, and were proud to hear their
+Prophet spoken of there, and they pretended to be His acquaintances and
+friends, only to greet Him on their return with the same old contempt.
+He used to say that no man was a prophet in his own country.  At this
+period Jesus often went to Nazareth, and always accompanied by an
+ever-increasing number of followers.  His mother could never get any
+confidential talk with Him.  And His native place disowned Him.  His
+youthful acquaintances fought shy of Him as an eccentric vagrant who
+opposed the law, stirred up the people, and from whose further career
+no great honour was to be expected.  The Rabbi in the synagogue warned
+men of Him as of a public traitor.  He described with ardent zeal the
+ruin in which all would be involved who were persuaded by this man
+without a conscience to renounce the belief of their ancestors.  "There
+is only one true faith," he exclaimed, "and only one God, and that is
+not the faith and God of this heretic, but the faith of Moses and the
+God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  And that God curses the false
+prophet and all his followers, so that the devil has power over him."
+And he continued sorrowfully: "His relations are greatly to be pitied,
+especially the unhappy mother who has borne such a son to the shame of
+the family and the grief of the whole land."  And then the Rabbi
+alluded to a hope that they might perhaps succeed in bringing to reason
+the erring man who sinned so deeply against the law, if not by love, at
+least by a vigorous effort and display of authority, till He was made
+to resume the honourable handicraft in which He had once lived in a
+manner pleasing to God.
+
+And so it happened that Mary, when she left the synagogue and proceeded
+homewards, was scoffed at by her ill-natured neighbours, who gave her
+to understand that she might take herself off, and the sooner the
+better.  She said nothing, but bade her weeping heart be still.
+
+One day Jesus was invited to dine down by the lake with a friend who
+held the same views as Himself.  There were so many people present that
+there was neither room nor food enough.  They expected some miracle.
+Jesus was in a happy mood, and said that He wondered that people should
+rush after little wonders, and overlook the great ones; for all things
+that lived, all things with which we were daily surrounded, were pure
+and incomprehensible wonders.  As for the wonders men desired Him to
+work, the most important thing was not turning of stones into bread or
+the making of the sick whole, but that such miracles should awaken
+faith.  Faith was the greatest miracle-worker.  While He was talking He
+was called away; some one stood under the cedars who wished to speak to
+Him.  He found two of His relations there, who asked Him curtly, and
+without ceremony, what He purposed doing; did He propose to return to
+Nazareth or not?  If not, then He had better realise that His house and
+workshop would be confiscated.
+
+Jesus answered them: "Go and tell your elders in Nazareth: The house
+belongs to him who needs it, and let him who has a use for the workshop
+have it.  And leave Him in peace who would build a House in which there
+are many mansions."
+
+They remained standing there, and said; "If you turn a deaf ear and are
+heedless of us, there is some one else here."  And then His mother came
+forward.  She had thrown a blue shawl over her head.  She looked ill,
+and could hardly speak for sobbing.  She took hold of His hand: "My
+son! where will all this lead?  Can you undertake such responsibility?
+You reject the belief of your fathers, and you deprive others of it."
+
+To which He replied: "I deprive them of their belief.  On the contrary,
+I give them faith."
+
+"But, my child, I can't understand it.  You are stirring up the whole
+country.  The people leave their houses, their families, their work, to
+follow you.  What enchantment do you practise on them?"
+
+"They follow the tidings," He said.  "They thirst after comfort as the
+hart pants for water."
+
+"And you call it comfort to starve and freeze in the wilderness," broke
+in one of his relations; "you call it comfort to deny oneself
+everything till our rags fall off our bodies, and we are taken by the
+soldiers as criminals?  Take heed.  The governors at Caesarea and
+Jerusalem are displeased at the state of affairs.  They mean to put a
+stop to the demagogue's proceedings, and they are right."
+
+"Who is the demagogue?"
+
+"Why, you, of course."
+
+Jesus was surprised at the reply, and said:--"I?  I, who say to you,
+Peace be with you!  Love one another!  Do good to your enemies!  I, a
+demagogue?"
+
+"They say you claim to be the Messiah who shall conquer the kingdom."
+
+"A kingdom that is not of this world."
+
+Mary fell into His arms.  "My dear son, leave all this alone.  If it is
+to be, God will do it all without you.  See how lonely your mother is
+at Nazareth!  Come with me to our peaceful home, and be once again my
+good, dear Jesus.  And these here, they love you, they are your
+brothers."
+
+Then Jesus stretched out His arm and pointed to His followers, who had
+pushed their way into the house.  "Those are My brothers!  Those who
+acknowledge the Heavenly Father as I do, they are My brothers."
+
+His relations stepped back, and wrung their hands in perplexity.  "He
+is out of His mind.  He is possessed by devils."
+
+The people in the road who were looking over the fence felt sorry for
+the forsaken woman, and wanted to interfere; whereupon a voice
+exclaimed loudly: "Happy the mother who has such a son!  The nations
+will arise and call her blessed!"
+
+Jesus turned to them gravely.  "Blessed are those who follow the word
+of God."
+
+His mother felt, as He spoke those words, as if she had been stabbed to
+the heart with a sword.  The people were silent, and whispered to each
+other: "Why is He so hard towards His mother?"
+
+John the younger answered them: "He sees salvation only in God the
+Father.  He has converted many people to His view, but just those whom
+He loves best will not listen to the tidings of the Kingdom of Heaven."
+
+Jesus lifted up His voice and cried: "He who desires to be My disciple,
+and his parents and brothers and sisters do not believe in Me, he must
+forsake his parents and brothers and sisters in order to follow Me.  He
+who has wife and child, and they despise My tidings, he must forsake
+wife and child and follow _Me_ if he wishes to be My disciple.  Who
+does not love God more than mother and child, than brother and sister,
+yea, more than himself and his life, he is not worthy of God."
+
+Many were troubled by this speech, and murmured: "He asks too much."
+
+Then said John: "Whoever is in earnest about his faith in the Heavenly
+Father cannot speak otherwise.  He feels Himself how hard it is to
+destroy all ties.  Do you not observe how He struggles with Himself,
+and must subdue His own heart, so that it may lose its power over Him?
+He asks all from His disciples because He gives them all.  We already
+know that what He has to give us is worth more than all we have given
+up."
+
+His relations went away.  They talked violently against Jesus.  His
+mother could not endure that, so she remained behind and climbed the
+stony path by herself.  In her sorely tried heart she prayed: "My
+Father which art in Heaven, Thy will be done!"  And she had no idea
+that it was her son's prayer, in which she found the same faith and
+comfort as He did.  She knew not that thus she, too, became a disciple
+of Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Elsewhere Jesus's fame had become so great that all men came to Him.
+The poor crowded to Him in order to eat at His table where the word had
+become flesh.  The rich invited Him to their houses, but He mostly
+declined those invitations, accepting, however, one here and there.
+
+He Himself went to those who humbly remained in the background and yet
+desired to go to Him.  A man lived in the district whose greatest
+desire was to see the Prophet.  When he heard that Jesus was coming his
+way, he began to tremble and to think what he should do.  "I should
+like to meet Him face to face, and yet dare not venture to go to Him.
+For I have a bad reputation as a publican, and am not in any way
+worthy.  Then He is always accompanied by so many people, and I am
+short and cannot see over their heads."  When Jesus approached, the man
+climbed a bare sycamore-tree and peeped between the branches.  Jesus
+saw him, and called out; "Zacchaeus, come down from the tree!  I will
+come and visit you to-day."
+
+The publican jumped down from the tree and went over to Him, and said
+humbly: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should go to my house.  Only
+say one word to me, and I shall be content."
+
+The people wondered that the Prophet should so honour this person of
+somewhat doubtful character.  Zacchaeus was almost beside himself to
+think that the Master should have recognised and spoken to him.  He set
+before his guest everything that his house afforded.  Jesus said:
+"These things are good.  But I want the most precious thing you
+possess."
+
+"What is that, sir?" asked Zacchaeus in terror, for he thought he had
+given of his best.  "Everything I possess is yours."
+
+Then Jesus grasped his hand, looked at him lovingly, and said:
+"Zacchaeus, give me your heart!"
+
+The man became His follower.
+
+One day He was dining with a man who was very learned and a strict
+censor of morals.  Several of His disciples were among the guests, and
+the talk, partly intellectual and partly guided by feeling, turned on
+the Scriptures.  At first Jesus took no part; He was thinking how much
+pleasanter it would be to hear simple talk at His mother's fireside at
+home than to dispute with these arrogant scholars about the empty
+letter.  But He was soon drawn into the conversation.  Someone
+mentioned the commandment which enjoins a man to love his neighbour,
+and, as often happens, the simplest things became confused and
+incomprehensible in the varied opinions of the worldly-wise.  One of
+the guests said: "It is remarkable how we do not reflect on the most
+important things because they are so clear; and yet if we do reflect on
+them by any chance, we don't understand them.  So that I really do not
+know who it is I should love as myself."
+
+"Your neighbour!" the disciple Matthew, who was sitting by him at
+table, informed him.
+
+"That is all right, my friend, if only I knew who was my neighbour!  I
+run up against all sorts of people in the day, and if one of them trips
+me up, he is my neighbour for the time being.  At this moment I have
+two neighbours, you and Zachariah.  Which of the two am I to love as
+myself?  It is only stated that you shall love one.  And if it's you or
+Zachariah, why should I love either of you more than the Master who
+sits at the other end of the table and is not my neighbour!"
+
+"Man! that is an impertinent speech," said the disciple Bartholomew
+reprovingly.
+
+"Well then, put me right!" retorted the other.
+
+The disciple began, and tried to explain who the neighbour was, but he
+did not get very far, his thoughts were confused.  Meanwhile the
+question had reached the Master.  Who is, in the correct sense of the
+term, one's neighbour?
+
+Jesus answered, by telling a story: "There was once a man who went from
+Jerusalem to Jericho.  It was a lonely road, and he was attacked by
+highwaymen, who plundered him, beat him, and left him for dead.  After
+a while a high priest came by that way, saw him lying there, and
+noticing that he was a stranger, passed quickly on.  A little later an
+assistant priest came by, saw him lying there, and thought: He's either
+severely wounded or dead, but I'm not going to put myself out for a
+stranger; and he passed on.  At last there came one of the despised
+Samaritans.  He saw the helpless creature, stopped, and had pity on
+him.  He revived him with wine, put healing salve on his wounds, lifted
+him up, and carried him to the nearest inn.  He gave the host money to
+take care of the sufferer until he recovered.  Now, what do you say?
+The priests regarded him as a stranger, but the Samaritan saw in him
+his neighbour."
+
+Then they explained it to themselves: Your neighbour is one whom you
+can help and who is waiting for your help.
+
+The disciple Thomas now joined in the conversation, and doubted if you
+could expect a great prince to dismount from his horse and lift a poor
+beggar out of the gutter.
+
+Jesus asked: "If you rode by as a great prince and found Me lying
+wretchedly in the gutter, would you leave me lying there?"
+
+"Master!" shouted Thomas in horror.
+
+"Do you see, Thomas?  What you would do to the poorest, you would do to
+Me."
+
+One of the others asked: "Are we only to be kind to the poor, and not
+to the rich and noble?"
+
+And Jesus said: "If you are a beggar in the street, and a prince comes
+riding past, there's nothing you can do for him.  But if his horse
+stumbles and he falls, then catch him so that his head may not strike
+against a stone.  At that moment he becomes your neighbour."
+
+Then some whispered: "It often seems as if He desired us to love all
+men.  But that is too difficult."
+
+"It's very easy, brother," said Bartholomew.  "To love the millions of
+men whom you never see, who do not do you any harm, that costs nothing.
+Hypocrites love in that way.  Yet while they claim to love the whole
+human race, they are hard on their neighbour."
+
+"It is easy to love from afar," said Jesus, "and it is easy to love
+good-tempered and amiable men.  But how is it when your brother has
+wronged you, and is always trying to do you harm?  You must forgive
+him, not seven times, but seventy times seven.  Go to him in kindness,
+show him his error.  If he listens to you, then you have won him.  If
+he does not heed you, repeat your warning.  If still he heeds you not,
+seek a friendly intermediary.  If he will not heed him, then let the
+community decide.  And only when you see your brother saved and
+contented will you be glad again."
+
+While they were talking thus, a young woman pushed her way into the
+room.  She was one of those who followed Him everywhere, and waited
+impatiently at the door while the Master visited a house.  Bending low,
+almost unnoticed, she hurried through the crowd, stooped down before
+Jesus, and began to rub His feet with ointment from a casket.  He
+calmly permitted it; but His host thought to himself: No, He is no
+prophet, or He would know who it is that is anointing His feet.  Isn't
+she the sinner of Magdala?
+
+Jesus guessed his thoughts, and said: "My friend, I will tell you
+something.  Here is a man who has two debtors.  One owes him fifty
+pence, and the other five hundred.  But as they cannot pay he cancels
+both the debts.  Now say, which of them owes him most gratitude?"
+
+"Naturally him to whom the most was remitted," answered the host.
+
+And Jesus: "You are right.  Much has been remitted to this woman.  See,
+you invited Me to your house, your servants have filled the room with
+the scent of roses, although fresh air comes in through the window.  My
+ear has been charmed with the strains of sweet bells, and stringed
+instruments, although the clear song of birds can be heard from
+without.  You have given Me wine in costly crystal goblets, although I
+am accustomed to drink out of earthen vessels.  But that My feet might
+feel sore after the long wandering across the desert only this woman
+remembered.  She has much love, therefore much will be forgiven her."
+
+One day when the Master had gone down to Capernaum he noticed that the
+disciples who were walking in front of Him were engaged in quiet but
+animated talk.  They were discussing which of them was most pleasing to
+God.  Each subtly brought forward his meritorious services to the
+Master, his sacrifices, his renunciations and sufferings, his obedience
+to the teaching.  Jesus quickly stepped nearer to them, and said: "Why
+do you indulge in such foolish talk?  While you are boasting of your
+virtues, you prove that you lack the greatest.  Are you the righteous
+that you dare to talk so loudly?"
+
+Whereupon one of them answered timidly: "No, sir, we are not the
+righteous.  But you yourself said that there was more rejoicing in
+heaven over penitents than over righteous men."
+
+"There is rejoicing over penitents when they are humble.  But do you
+know over whom there is greater rejoicing in heaven?"
+
+By this time a crowd had formed round Him.  Women had come up leading
+little children by the hand and carrying smaller ones in their arms in
+order to show them the marvellous man.  Some of the boys got through
+between the people's legs to the front in order to see Him and kiss the
+hem of His garment.  The people tried to keep them back so that they
+should not trouble the Master, but He stood under the fig-tree and
+exclaimed in a loud voice.  "Suffer the little ones to come unto Me!"
+Then round-faced, curly-headed, bright-eyed children ran forward, their
+skirts flying, and crowded about Him, some merry, others shy and
+embarrassed.  He sat down on the grass, drew the children to His side,
+and took the smallest in His lap.  They looked up in His kind face with
+wide-opened eyes.  He played with them, and they smiled tenderly or
+laughed merrily.  And they played with His curls, and flung their arms
+round His neck.  They were so trustful and happy, these little
+creatures hovering so brightly round the Prophet, that the crowd stood
+in silent joy.  But Jesus was so filled with blessed gladness that He
+exclaimed loudly: "This is the Kingdom of Heaven!"
+
+The words swept over the crowd like the scent of the hawthorn.  But
+some were afraid when the Master added: "See how innocent and glad they
+are.  I tell you that he who is not like a little child he shall not
+enter the Kingdom of Heaven!  And woe to him who deceives one of these
+children! it were better he tied a millstone round his neck and were
+drowned in the sea!  But whosoever accepts a child for My sake accepts
+Me!"
+
+Then the disciples thought they understood over whom there was joy in
+heaven, and they disputed no longer over their own merits.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Galilee was rich in poor men and poor in rich men.  And it might have
+been thought that Jesus, the friend of the poor, was the right man in
+the right place there.  And yet His teaching took no hold in that land.
+A few rich men among a multitude of poor have all the more power
+because they are few, and they used all their influence with the people
+to dethrone the Prophet from His height, and to undermine His career.
+These illustrious men found their best tools in the Rabbis, who
+circulated the sophism that the people who followed the teaching of
+this man must quickly come to ruin.  For the poor, who willingly gave
+up their last possessions, must become poorer, and the rich, who
+pursued their advantages, must become still richer, which implied that
+not the rich but only the poor would accept the Prophet's teaching,
+since we know that Jesus especially called on the rich to alter the
+tenor of their ways, and always for the benefit of the poor.  But, they
+answered: The rich will not alter the tenor of their ways, they will
+consume the gentle disciples of Jesus, as the wolf the sheep.  Many
+were impressed by that view, and lost courage: The Prophet means well,
+they reflected, but nothing is to be gained by adopting His methods.
+
+Then it became known that Jesus had allowed Himself to be anointed.  To
+allow Himself to be anointed meant that He regarded Himself as the
+Heaven-sent Messiah!  And that was hostile to the existing order of
+things, to the king.  So said the preachers in the synagogues, the
+houses, and the streets, but they were silent over the fact that the
+anointing was the work of a poor woman who desired to heal His sore
+feet.  In fact, the preachers cared nothing for the people or the king
+but only for the letter of the law.
+
+When the woman who had anointed His feet saw that He was despised
+because of her, she went silently apart by herself.  No human being
+cared so much for Him, and none left Him so calmly.  She did not go
+back to the old man she had married out of pity, and forgotten--out of
+love, but she went to relations at Bethany.  Since the Prophet had
+raised her up before all the people, her relatives no longer closed
+their doors to her, but received her kindly.
+
+Jesus was aware how His native ground tottered under His feet, how the
+people began to shun Him more and more, how the inns made difficulties
+about receiving Him.  So He went, with those who were true to Him, out
+into the rocky desert of Judaea.  He gained new adherents on the way,
+and people came from the surrounding places with pack and staff to hear
+the wonderful preacher.  Some had had enough of the barren wisdom of
+the Pharisees, others were disgusted with the bad administration of the
+country, and with the fine promises of the Romans, they were ruined by
+the agricultural depression, or in despair over the low level of men's
+minds, over the barbarism of men.  There were some, too, who had fled
+before the robber bands of Barabbas which infested the desert to their
+undoing.  They came into His presence, hungering for the living word on
+which to feed their starving souls.  John said to them: "His teaching
+is nourishment.  His word is flesh.  Who eats of His flesh and drinks
+of His blood will not die."
+
+They wondered at those words.  How were they to understand what was
+meant by eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
+
+Then John; "The word is like flesh, it nourishes the soul.  Manna was
+sent from Heaven for our ancestors, yet they died.  His word is bread
+from heaven which makes us immortal."  They remembered another saying:
+"His flesh is food indeed!"  And they explained that a man's body is
+destined to be consumed by the spirit, like tallow and wick by flame.
+So man, in order to become divine, must attain the divine life through
+the medium of humanity.
+
+They remained with Him day and night in their thousands, and were
+satisfied.  And many entreated Him to pour water over their heads as a
+token that they were His adherents and desired to be pure.
+
+It was a starry night in the desert, one of those nights when the stars
+shine down in sparkling brilliance and envelop the rocks in a bluish
+shimmer and vapour, so that it seems like a resurrection of glorified
+souls.  One of the disciples looked up at the stars shining in the sky
+in holy stillness, and said: "Brother, this infinitude of space makes
+me afraid."
+
+The other disciple: "I rejoice over that infinite space."
+
+"My terror causes me to flee to my Heavenly Father."
+
+"I take my joy to my Heavenly Father."
+
+They were all lying on the ground in a wide circle round Jesus.  They
+wished to rest, but the night was too beautiful for sleep.
+
+And one of them began to say softly: "This is like the Kingdom of God."
+
+Another lifted his head, which had been resting on his arm, and said:
+"Do you know, then, what the Kingdom of God is like?"
+
+The first speaker was silent for a space, and then replied: "No,
+indeed, I don't know, but I like to think about it.  He speaks so often
+of the Kingdom of Heaven, I should like to know something more definite
+about it."
+
+"Shall we ask Him?"
+
+"You ask Him."
+
+"I dare not."
+
+"Let us ask John.  He knows Him best, and possibly can tell us
+something."
+
+John was lying on the sand with his head on a stone.  His soft hair was
+his pillow.  But he was not asleep.  They crept up to him, and boldly
+asked him where the Kingdom of Heaven was, of which the Master so often
+spoke.  Was it under the earth or above the sun?  Would it begin soon
+or in a thousand years?
+
+John said; "How long have you been with Him?"
+
+"Seven weeks."
+
+"And you don't know yet where the Kingdom of Heaven is?  Then you do
+not understand His language."
+
+"He speaks the language of our fathers."
+
+"He speaks the language of the Kingdom of God.  Remember, the Kingdom
+of Heaven is where God is.  God is where Love is, where trustful,
+self-sacrificing, glad Love is."
+
+"And where is that?"
+
+"Where do you think?"
+
+"I think Love must be in the heart."
+
+Whereupon John answered: "Then you do know where the Kingdom of Heaven
+is."
+
+The two looked at each other, but did not quite seem to know.  Then
+John went to Jesus, who was sitting on a rock and looking out into the
+darkness as if it was full of visions.  His countenance was as bright
+as if the stars had lent it their brilliance.
+
+"Master," said John, "we cannot sleep.  Tell us of the Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+Jesus turned round, and pointing to the disciple nearest him, said: "To
+you is it granted to know the Kingdom of Heaven.  To the others it can
+only be explained through parables.  For the Kingdom of God is not
+built of wood or stone like a temple, it cannot be conquered like an
+earthly empire, it cannot be seen by mortal eyes like a garden of
+flowers, neither can we say it is here or there.  The Kingdom of God
+must be conquered with the power of the will, and he who is strong and
+constant will gain it.  His eye and his hand must be continually set to
+the plough which makes furrows in the kingdom of earth for the great
+harvest.  He who sets his hand to the plough, and looks at something
+else, he is not dedicated to the Kingdom of God.  But to him who
+earnestly seeks it, it comes overnight.  The seed thrown on the field
+yesterday has sprung up--man knows not how.  The seed is the Word of
+God which was scattered on all sides.  Part falls on the wayside, and
+the birds devour it.  Part falls among thorns, and is choked.  A part
+falls on a thin covering of earth, it comes up but is parched by the
+hot sun.  Only a very small quantity falls on rich earth and bears much
+fruit.  So it is with the tidings of God.  Evil inclinations devour it,
+earthly cares choke it, burning passions parch it, but the heart that
+desires God receives it, and with him the word becomes the Kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+More and more heads were lifted up.  "He is speaking."  Then all
+bestirred themselves and listened.
+
+Jesus raised His voice and went on; "Some of you who listen to Me have
+the Kingdom of Heaven within you.  But be careful!  The enemy comes in
+the night and sows weeds.  Hear more.  The word is like a grain of
+mustard-seed.  It is the smallest of all seeds, and yet it becomes the
+biggest tree.  Perhaps without your knowledge a word has fallen into
+your heart.  You are scarcely aware of it, you pass it by, but it grows
+secretly, and all at once enlightenment is there, and you have the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  Then, again, it is like yeast, and stirs up and
+changes your whole being.  The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure
+hidden in a field.  A man finds it and buys the field.  And it is like
+a pearl for which a merchant gives all his wealth.  But it is also like
+a lamp which a man must feed with oil lest it be extinguished.  If it
+goes out, you will have no light, and suddenly comes the attack.  And
+hear this also: the Lord of the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who at
+urgent request remits all his slave's debts.  But the slave does not
+remit his debtor's debt, but lets him be cast into prison.  So the king
+summons him before his judgment-seat and says: I have shown you mercy,
+and you have shown your fellow no mercy.  So now I shall have you put
+upon the rack until you have paid me your debts to the last farthing.
+Who does not show mercy to others, to him shall no mercy be shown."
+
+Jesus was silent, and a shudder of terror passed through the crowd.
+John went to the man who had just questioned Him, and said: "Do you
+understand now what He means by the Kingdom of God?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"That is enough for the present.  It is mercy, blessedness, and
+justice. . . .  Consider, it was night He chose in order to unveil the
+Kingdom of Heaven.  For it is not visible to the outward eye, but to
+the inward eye.  Man, if you possess the Kingdom of Heaven, you possess
+it in your soul.  If it is not there, you seek it elsewhere in vain."
+
+"But," someone ventured to say hesitatingly, "it must also be somewhere
+else.  The Master Himself says: 'Father who art in heaven.'"
+
+John answered him: "The Kingdom of Heaven is wherever you are, wherever
+you come with your faith and with your love.  Only do not think that
+you are obliged to understand such mysteries with your reason."
+
+And the man asked no more.
+
+Then an old man tottered up and ventured to ask Jesus what he should
+do.  He was a worldly man, had never lived save for earth, and he was
+told it was now too late to change.  "How shall I reach the Kingdom of
+Heaven?"
+
+Then Jesus spoke as follows:
+
+"There was once a man who employed labourers for his vineyard.  He
+engaged one in the morning, another at noon, and the last towards
+evening when the day's work was almost over.  And when the pay-hour
+came round, he gave each good wages.  Then those who had been hired in
+the morning and at noon complained that they had worked much longer in
+the toil and heat of the day, and ought therefore to receive more wages
+than he who only began towards evening, and had scarcely laboured for
+an hour.  Then said the master of the vineyard; 'I told you beforehand
+the wages I should give you, and you were content.  What is it to you
+how much I give the other?  Let him come to me late, or let him come to
+me as soon as it is morning.  The chief thing is that he comes to me.'"
+
+Then the old man began to weep for joy that although he came so late to
+the vineyard of Jesus, he would still be employed.
+
+Since the Master was so ready to speak, others came to Him at this
+time, and entreated Him to clear up some matters which they did not
+understand.  Once he related a story of a king who, when the guests he
+had invited to his wedding-feast refused to come, invited the people
+out of the highways.  They came, but one had not a wedding garment on,
+and the king ordered him to be cast into the outer darkness.  The
+Master intended it as a parable, but they could not understand it.  The
+king was too severe, they argued; he must have known that people from
+off the highways would not be wearing wedding garments.
+
+Jesus was silent, but James observed: "Why, guests must know that it is
+not seemly to go to a king's wedding in torn and dirty clothes.  All
+are freely invited, but he who comes unwashed and presumptuous will be
+cast out into the darkness.  No one is admitted who is unprepared."
+
+Another of His parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven disturbed
+them.  It was that of the unjust steward whom his master praised
+because he had prudently used the money entrusted to him in order to
+provide for himself.  The steward knew that he would be dismissed, and
+secretly remitted to his master's debtors a part of their debts, so
+that he might stand well with them.  And he did right!  "But, can we
+purchase the Kingdom of Heaven with goods that are not ours?"
+
+A mule-driver interposed: "I understand the story thus: None of us has
+any property on earth.  We are all only the stewards of the property
+and when we give of it to the needy, we are unjust stewards because we
+give what is not ours, and yet we do right."
+
+Some shook their heads over this interpretation; the rich and those
+learned in the Scriptures could not understand it.  But Jesus said in
+prayer: "I praise, O Father, that Thou revealest many things to the
+simple that are hidden from the worldly wise.  Blessed are those who
+are not offended by My teaching!"
+
+Now the disciples always discussed together anything that was not quite
+clear.  Thomas did not exactly understand what the Master meant by the
+word truth, by saying that He was the truth, that we must pray to God
+in truth, and that he who is of truth would understand God's word.
+
+What did John, the youngest of them, say?  "The children of the world
+call it truth if they break a stone with a hammer and find that it is
+chalk; they call it truth to know the difference between the fishes in
+the sea and the worms on the earth, and to be able to measure the
+dimensions of the sky with figures; they call it truth when it is
+established that a seed of corn germinates, and a man's body turns into
+dust after death.  Truly, every one can see those things with his own
+eyes.  But is man's eye the truth?  And did He say: 'You shall _know_
+the truth'?  No; He said: 'You shall _be_ the truth.'"
+
+To _be_ the truth!  To be void of guile and falsehood!  To be true and
+open in mind and heart!
+
+So they sought to increase their knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven;
+hourly and daily did many a one rejoice because he had found what the
+wise men of the ages had sought after.
+
+The poor, the despised, and the unhappy came to Him more and more.
+That strange desert camp was often filled with the sick, the
+over-burdened, and the despairing.  Many came from afar full of great
+troubles, yet borne up by hope, and then when they saw Him, tall and
+earnest, standing there and teaching men in deep sayings, their courage
+deserted them; they could not trust Him.  They were full of fear.  Then
+He spread out His hands and exclaimed:
+
+"Come, come unto Me, all that are over-burdened and oppressed; I will
+relieve you.  I am not come to judge and to punish.  I am come to find
+what is lost, to heal what is sick, and to revive what is dead.  I am
+come to the sad to console them, to the fallen to raise them up.  I
+give Myself for the redemption of many.  My power is not of this world.
+I am Master in the Kingdom of God, where all are blessed in trustful,
+joyful love.  Come to Me, all ye who have erred and gone astray.  I
+have joy and eternal life for you."
+
+The disciples looked at each other in astonishment: He had never before
+spoken with such divine gentleness.  The people, sobbing, crowded round
+Him; His words were as balm to their wounds.  They wondered how it was
+possible for a man to speak so proudly, lovingly and divinely.  They
+gave themselves up to Him, filled with trust and enthusiasm; in His
+presence the hungry were fed, the blind made to see, the lame walked,
+doubters believed, the weak became strong, and dead souls lived.
+
+Simon always rejoiced greatly whenever new wanderers came by and,
+withdrawing from their companions, took a vow to follow the Master's
+teaching.  He was exceedingly angry when they refused, alleging that it
+was not possible to accomplish what He demanded of them.  Jesus related
+a story in connection with Simon's emotions.  "A man had two sons, and
+told each of them to go and work in his field.  One said, 'Yes, father,
+I will go at once.'  But afterwards he reflected that the work was
+hard, and he did not go.  The other son told his father to his face
+that he would not go into the field; it was too much labour.  When he
+was alone he thought, 'I will do my father's will,'  and he went into
+the field and worked.  Which of the two, in your opinion, did right?"
+
+A man learned in the Law replied: "He who promised to go.  For it
+stands written; 'He who declares himself ready to obey the Law.'"
+
+But Jesus was vexed at that reply, and said in sorrow: "It is
+extraordinary how falsely you interpret the Law.  Sinners who sincerely
+repent will find their way to the Kingdom of Heaven before such
+expounders of the Law."
+
+From that time forward Simon rejoiced no more over empty promises, nor
+did he vex himself over the refusals of those who would perhaps come
+later to take up the heavy work.  Patiently as once he had waited at
+the lake for the fish to come to his nets, he now waited until they
+came.  And he understood a mystic saying of his Master: "All are
+called; many come, few remain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+At that time there lived in Jerusalem, the royal city, a man who was
+perfectly happy.  He had everything that makes life pleasant: great
+wealth, powerful friends, and beautiful women who daily crowned his
+head with wreaths of roses.  He was still young, every one of his
+wishes was fulfilled, and it seemed as if things would always be the
+same.  And yet, sometimes, amid all the joy and gladness there would be
+a quiet hour in which he thought over and measured his good fortune,
+and then he felt afraid.  Yes, he was greatly troubled, for every day
+he saw, on all hands, how property vanished, and how the coffins of
+those who the day before had been enjoying life were carried to the
+grave.
+
+Then this man, who, although he was happy, was yet beset with fears,
+heard that there was a prophet out in the wilderness who had eternal
+life.  He knew of everlasting wealth and happiness, and half the world
+were flocking to him in order to share in it.  So Simeon--that was his
+name--determined to seek out this man.  He locked up his precious
+stones in iron chests, delivered his palaces, vineyards, ships and
+servants into the keeping of his steward, gave his women to the
+protection of the gods, and gathered his slaves round him.  He rode out
+of the town on a thoroughbred steed, he wore soft, bright-coloured
+garments adorned with gold and jewels, his scimitar at his side, and
+waving feathers of rare birds in his hat.  A troop of servants
+accompanied him, and by his side rode Moors on African camels, holding
+a canopy over him to protect him from the sun, and fanning him into
+coolness with flowery fans.  They brought with them fruits of the East
+and the South in golden dishes, tasty fishes and game, rare wines and
+incense, and pillows for sleeping on.  During its progress the
+procession met black figures carrying a dead man.  The body lay swathed
+in white linen on a high board, and a raven circled round it in the
+air.  Simeon turned indignantly away; he had a horror of all that was
+dead.  He scattered coins among the mourners, for he would have liked
+to throw a gay covering adorned with precious stones over all sorrow
+and mourning.
+
+When he reached the mountains his horse began to stumble and falter.
+The steed's hoofs were insecure on the ringing flat stones; he reared
+his head and snorted, and would not go on.  Simeon took counsel how he
+was to proceed.  Natives leading mules came by, and offered them to
+him, but he refused.  He could not go to the Prophet who held the key
+to imperishable wealth and eternal life on such contemptible beasts.
+His slaves had to make a litter, and he lay under its glittering canopy
+on soft cushions, while six Moors bore their master thus into the
+desert.  When they rested at an oasis, it was like a royal camp;
+servants handed him water from the spring in a crystal goblet, skilful
+cooks prepared the meal; beautiful women, whose skin was soft as velvet
+and brown as copper, spread out their black hair for him and delighted
+him with harp-playing, while armed men kept watch against the desert
+chief, Barabbas.
+
+The country became more and more uninviting, and it was almost
+impossible to avoid many discomforts.  Simeon remembered the comfort of
+his palace in Jerusalem, and contemplated turning back.  And yet the
+thought of the wise man who could help him to immortality proved too
+attractive.  People came over the bare hills who told of the teacher at
+the other extreme of the desert, how He gathered at times all kinds of
+people round Him and spoke of the everlasting Kingdom of God.  And so
+the swaying litter went on farther, and the next day reached the valley
+through dry rocky ravines, and found there a few olive and fig trees.
+People crowded round one of the fig trees; they were for the most part
+poor, sad-looking creatures, miserable outcasts wandering, homeless and
+loveless, here and there.  Clothed in scanty rags, their forms bent,
+they turned their faces towards the tree, for there He stood and spoke.
+
+"Be ye not sad nor cast down.  You miss nothing of the world's
+attractions.  Yours is the Father and His Kingdom.  Trust in Him; you
+are His.  You shall be made glad through love; things will be easier
+for you if you love than if you hate.  And in every misfortune that
+comes upon you, keep a steadfast soul, and then you have nothing to
+lose."
+
+Simeon clearly heard the strange words, and thought to himself: "Can
+this be He?  No, a wise man does not surround himself with such a
+shabby, poverty-stricken crowd.  And yet they say it is He."  Simeon
+got out of his litter and drew his scimitar.  Then he pressed forward
+amid the disagreeable smell of old clothes and of the perspiring crowd.
+Oh, how repulsive is the odour of the poor!  The multitude shyly gave
+way to the brilliant figure, for never had its like been seen in the
+Master's neighbourhood.  Jesus stood calmly under the fig tree and saw
+the stranger coming.  He stood still three paces off Him, beat his
+head, placed his hand on his brow, like a king who greets another.
+
+"Sir," said the stranger, and his voice was not sharp and shrill as
+when he gave his servants orders, but low and hoarse.  "Sir, I have
+come a long way; I have sought you a long while."
+
+Jesus held out His hand to him in silence.
+
+Simeon was excited.  He wanted to explain his object at once so as to
+return to Jerusalem without delay, but the words would not come.  He
+stammered out; "Sir, I hear that you understand about eternal life.
+Therefore am I come to you.  Tell me where it is to be found.  What
+shall I do in order to possess eternal life?"
+
+Jesus stepped forward a pace, looked earnestly at the man, and said:
+"If you desire to live, keep the commandments of Moses."
+
+"Of Moses?" returned the stranger, surprised.  "But I do.  Although I
+am of pagan descent, in these matters I follow the people among whom I
+live.  But that is not the point.  They die.  I want to live for ever."
+
+Then said Jesus: "If you desire to live for ever, follow Him Who lives
+for ever.  Love God above everything, and your neighbour as yourself."
+
+"Oh, Master," said Simeon, "that is just what I strive to do.  And yet
+I am afraid."
+
+Whereupon Jesus said: "You are afraid because you ought to do it, and
+desire to do it, and yet do it not.  You possess palaces in the town,
+fertile acres in the country, ships on the sea, laden with precious
+things from all quarters of the world.  You possess a thousand slaves.
+Your stewards would fill many volumes if they wrote down all that you
+possess."
+
+"Sir, how do you know everything?"
+
+"My friend, your brilliant train spells wealth; but look at the people
+who follow Me.  They have poor garments but glad souls, they have the
+Kingdom of God within them.  If you are in earnest, you must give up
+all you possess."
+
+"Give up all I possess?"
+
+"You must give it up and become like these.  Then come to Me, and I
+will lead you to everlasting life."
+
+When Jesus had said that and more, the stranger cast down his head, and
+slowly stepped back.  What?  I must become like these lowly, beggarly
+people? must deliberately step out of my accustomed circle into this
+boundless misery?  No, no man could do it.  He returned to his suite in
+very low spirits.
+
+Jesus looked after him thoughtfully with a kindly glance.
+
+"Who is he?" the disciples asked.  "He wears royal garments.  We have
+never seen such silks.  Is he a priest from the East?  If he came in
+order to make us gifts, he has forgotten his intention."
+
+Paying no heed to the jesting words, the Master said thoughtfully: "It
+is difficult to gain a rich man for blessedness.  Men's wills are too
+weak.  Their bodies are lapped in luxury, yet scorn of the soul leaves
+them a prey to fear.  Yes, My friends, it is easier for a camel to go
+through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter our heaven."
+
+The word was spoken more in sorrow than in anger.  And then someone
+ventured to say: "Yes, if the commandments are too hard, there must be
+sin.  Men are bound to transgress them."
+
+Jesus looked at the trembler: "Why, then, am I come?  Why, then, do I
+show you how light the burden is?  Do you not see for yourselves how
+free a man is when he has thrown off great cares and desires?  Nay, you
+will never see that till the grace of God is given you."
+
+They scarcely heard what He said.  The brilliant procession had
+attracted their attention, and as it moved off with its horses, camels,
+riders, Moors, and lovely women, they looked after it with longing
+eyes.  A little old hunchbacked Israelite, who was cowering behind a
+block of stone, murmured with some malice: "Seems to me they'd rather
+go with the heathen than wait here for the grace of the Heavenly
+Father."
+
+Simeon once more lay in the swaying litter and thought.  He tried to
+reconcile his unaccomplished purpose with his conscience.  This
+Prophet--he was a visionary.  What could the Kingdom of God within us
+mean?  Visionary! intended only to make people lazy and incapable.  A
+doctrine for vagabonds and beggars!  And so that was living for ever!
+So long as _he_ lived he should believe himself to be right, and when
+he was dead, he could not know that he had been wrong.  And then the
+social danger.  The possessor not the owner of his own property?  He
+must give it up, share it with the poor.  Such equality of property or
+lack of property would prevent all progress, and plunge everything into
+mediocrity.  No, that is not my salvation!  Ah, well, this journey into
+the desert will be an advantage to me in one way: it will make me feel
+happier than ever in my comfortable house.
+
+He took the opportunity of a last look at the place on which he now
+turned his back.  Several, attracted by the brilliant cavalcade, had
+followed from afar.  Three of the disciples had even come after him in
+order to set right a misunderstanding.  They came up with the stranger
+at a spring which gushed forth from a rock, and grass grew round it.
+The Moors wished to prevent them coming nearer, but Simeon recognised
+that they were not dangerous, and let them approach him.
+
+James, one of the disciples, said: "Great Lord, it is a pity.  You are
+one of the few who have left our Master without accomplishing their
+purpose.  It would not be quite so hard as you think.  He Himself says
+that if a man only has a good will he is never lost.  The will to live
+for ever is the thing."
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed Simeon.  "His demands are quite
+impossible."
+
+"Must everything be taken so literally?" said James.  "The Master
+always puts the ideal high, and expresses it in lofty words, so that it
+may the better stay in the memory."
+
+Simeon waved them aside with his gold-encircled hand.  "To give up all
+I possess!  To become horribly poor----?"
+
+Then another disciple stepped forward, stood before him in a
+sad-coloured garment, crying: "Look at us.  Have we given up
+everything?  We never had much more than we have now, and what we had
+we have still.  Our brother Thomas has only one coat because he is
+full-blooded; I have two coats because I easily feel cold.  If I had
+poor legs the Master would allow me an ass like Thaddeus.  Every one
+has what he needs.  You need more than we do because you are accustomed
+to more.  But you cannot use all that you have for yourself.  And yet
+you need it for the many hundreds of men you employ, who work for the
+good of the country, and live by you.  I say that your property belongs
+to you by right just as my second coat to me, and that you can quite
+well be His disciple."
+
+"You chatter too much, Philip," said James reprovingly.  "If a man
+makes a pilgrimage of repentance towards eternal life, he doesn't
+travel like the Emperor of the Indies, or if he does, he doesn't know
+what he wants.  Believe me, noble sir, wealth is always dangerous, even
+for life.  The best protection against envy, hate, and sudden attacks
+is poverty."
+
+There was a third disciple, Matthew, with them, and he addressed
+himself not to the stranger, but to his comrades, and said: "Brothers,
+it must be clearly understood that he who desires the Kingdom of Heaven
+must give up everything that causes him unrest; otherwise he cannot be
+entirely with the Father.  But you," turning to the great man from
+Jerusalem, "you do not wish to break with the world?  Well, then, do
+one thing, love your neighbour.  Keep your silken raiment, but clothe
+the naked.  Keep your riding-horse, but give crutches to the lame.
+Keep your high position, but free your slaves.  Only if you think what
+is brought you from the fields, the mines, the workshops is yours, then
+woe be to you!"
+
+"I would willingly do one thing," said Simeon.  "Good! then say to your
+slaves, 'You are free.  If you will continue to serve me, I will treat
+you well.  If you prefer to go your own way, take what you require of
+good clothing and mules.'  Will you do that, stranger?"
+
+"You fanatic!" shouted Simeon angrily.  "What notions you have about
+men.  They're not like that.  Life's very different from that!"
+
+"But life will be like that some day," said Matthew.
+
+"He is a Messiah who destroys the Kingdom instead of building it,"
+exclaimed Simeon, jumping into his litter and giving the sign to depart.
+
+The procession moved on slowly, its glitter showing up against the dark
+rocks of the desert track.  The disciples gazed after it in silence.
+
+A little old man lay on the yellow sand.  He was so grey and dwarfish
+that he looked like a mountain sprite.  The old fellow was at home in
+the bare, big rocks.  He loved the desert, for it is the home of great
+thoughts.  He loved the desert where he hoped to find the entrance to
+Nirvana.  Now when the disciples passed near him as they were returning
+to the Master, he pushed the upper part of his body out of the sand,
+and asked: "What did the man want to whom you were speaking?"
+
+"He wanted to be able to live for ever."
+
+"To live for ever!" exclaimed the old fellow in surprise.  "And that is
+why the man drags himself across the desert.  What extraordinary people
+there are!  Now I could go any distance to find my Nirvana.  I only
+desire eternal life for my enemies.  It is many a day since people said
+I was a hundred years old.  If you are men of wisdom, teach me, tell me
+what I must do to reach Nirvana?"
+
+They were astonished.  It was something like out of a fairy tale.  A
+living creature who did not wish to live!  But Matthew knew how to
+answer him.
+
+"My friend, your desire is modest, but it can never be fulfilled.  You
+will never be nothing.  If you die, you lose only your body, not
+yourself.  You will, perhaps, not live, but you will be just as the
+same as now: you are not living now, and yet you exist.  Breathing and
+waiting is not living.  Living is fulfilment, is love--is the Kingdom
+of Heaven."
+
+"My Kingdom of Heaven is Nirvana," said the little old man, and buried
+himself again in the sand.
+
+As they went along Matthew said: "He fears everlasting existence
+because he does not recognise a God.  But he is not so far from us as
+the man who loves the world."
+
+Simeon went on his way, and towards evening reached the oasis of Kaba.
+He ordered his people to encamp there for the night.  The servants,
+porters, and animals formed the outer ring, the tent--in which he took
+his supper, stretched himself on his cushions, and let himself be
+fanned to sleep by the maidens--was in the centre.  But he did not
+sleep well.  He had bad dreams: his house in Jerusalem was burnt down,
+his ships were wrecked, faithless stewards broke open his chests.  And
+amid all, always the cry, "Give it all up!"  About midnight he awoke.
+And it was no longer a dream, but terrible reality.  A muffled noise
+could be heard throughout the camp, dark forms with glittering weapons
+moved softly about, in the camp itself crawling figures moved softly
+here and there.  A tall, dark man, accompanied by Bedouins, carrying
+torches and knives, stood in front of Simeon.
+
+"Do not be alarmed, my princely friend!" he said to Simeon, who jumped
+up; but none could tell whether he spoke from arrogance or authority,
+kindly or in scorn.  "It's true we are disturbing your night's repose,
+but, provided you give no trouble, we have no evil designs.  Hand over
+all that you possess."
+
+In the first confusion the wretched man thought he heard the Prophet
+speaking, but he soon noted the difference.  The Prophet and His
+disciples gave up everything that they possessed.  This man took
+everything that others possessed.
+
+"I know you, proud citizen of Jerusalem.  I am Barabbas, called the
+king of the desert.  It is useless to resist.  Three hundred men are at
+this moment keeping watch round your camp.  We've settled matters with
+your servants and slaves; they are powerless."
+
+It was clear to the poor rich man what the chief meant.  His slaves
+were slain, he was menaced by a like fate.  What had that disciple of
+the Prophet said?  Wealth endangered life, and poverty protected it.
+If he had set his followers free, giving them what they needed, and
+wandered about in simple fashion on his own legs, the robber's knife
+would not now be pointed at his breast.  In unrestrained rage he
+uttered a brutal curse: "Take whatever you can find, and do not mock
+me, you infamous beast of the desert!"
+
+"Calmly, calmly, my dear sir," said the chief, while dusky men rolled
+up carpets, clothes, arms, jewels, and golden goblets, and threw them
+into big sacks.  "See, we are helping you to pack up."
+
+"Take the rubbish away," shouted Simeon, "and leave me in peace."
+
+The chief, Barabbas, grinned.  "I fancy, my friend, that you and I know
+each other too well for me to let you go back to Jerusalem.  You would
+then have too great a desire to have me with you.  You would send out
+the Romans to search for me, and bring me to the beautiful city.  The
+desert is much more to my taste: life is pleasanter there.  Now, tell
+me where the bags of coin such as a man like you always carries about
+with him are hidden.  No?  Then you may go to sleep."
+
+He who went forth to seek eternal life is now in danger of losing
+mortal life.  In terror of death, cold sweat on his brow, he began to
+haggle for his life with the desert king.  He not only offered all that
+he had with him.  The next caravans were bringing him rare spices and
+incense; bars of gold, diamonds, and pearls were coming in the Indian
+ships, and he would send all out to the desert, as well as beautiful
+women slaves, with jewels to deck their throats.  Only he must be
+allowed to keep his bare life.
+
+Grinning and wrinkling up his snub nose, Barabbas let it be understood
+that he was not to be won with women and promises--he was no longer
+young enough.  Neither would he have any executioner dispatched in
+search of him--he was not old enough.  And he had his weaknesses.  He
+could not decide which would suit the noble citizen's slender, white
+neck best, metal or silk.  He took a silken string from the pocket of
+his cloak, while two Bedouins roughly held Simeon.
+
+Meanwhile, outside the camp, the second chief was packing the stolen
+treasure on the camels by torchlight.  Whenever he stumbled over a dead
+body he muttered a curse, and when his work was finished he sought his
+comrade.  Women in chains wept loudly, not so much on account of their
+imprisonment--they took that almost as a matter of course--but because
+their master was being murdered in the tent.  So the second chief
+snatched a torch from a servant, hastened to the tent, and arrived just
+in the nick of time.
+
+"Barabbas!" he exclaimed, taking hold of the murderer, "don't you
+remember what we determined?  We only kill those who fight; we do not
+kill defenceless persons."
+
+Barabbas removed his thin arms from his victim and in a tearful voice
+grumbled: "Dismas, you are dreadful.  I'm old now, and am I to have no
+more pleasure?"
+
+Dismas said meaningly: "If the old man does not keep his agreement, the
+troop will have its pleasure, and, for a change, swing him who likes to
+be called king of the desert."
+
+That had the desired effect.  Barabbas knew the band cared much more
+for Dismas than for himself, and he did not wish matters to come to a
+climax.
+
+When day dawned a mule was led to Simeon.  One of his slaves, with his
+wounded arm in a sling, was allowed him, and he carried some bread and
+his cloak, and led the beast.  And so the citizen of Jerusalem returned
+to the town he had left a week before under such brilliant
+circumstances, a defeated and plundered man.
+
+The affair attracted great attention in the city.  Armed incursions
+were eagerly made into the desert between Jerusalem and the Jordan,
+where one evil deed after another was reported.  Even the Rabbis and
+Pharisees preached a campaign to clear the rocks and sandy flats of the
+dangerous and destructive hordes by which they were infested.  The
+famous band of the chiefs, Barabbas and Dismas--so it was said--were
+not the worst.  Much more ominous were the vagrant crowds that gathered
+about the so-called Messiah from Nazareth, who, feeling himself safe in
+the desert, indulged in disorderly speeches and acts.  So it was
+settled to send out a large company of soldiers, led by the violent
+Pharisee, Saul, a weaver who had left his calling out of zeal for the
+law, in order to free the land from the mob of robbers and heretics.
+
+Now about this time Dismas, the old robber-chief, fell into deep
+contrition.  His heart had never really been in his criminal calling.
+Murder was particularly hateful to him, and, so far as he was free to
+do so, he had always sought to avoid it.  Now even plundering and
+robbing became hateful to him.  In the night he had visions of the
+terrible Jehovah.  He thought of John, the desert preacher, and
+considered it high time to repent.  So one day he said to Barabbas:
+
+"Do you know, comrade, there is just now a prince at the oasis of Silam
+who has with him immensely more wealth than that citizen of Jerusalem?
+I know his position and his people, and I know how to get at him.
+Shall we take this lord?"
+
+"If you continue to be so useless, Dismas, you'll be flung to the
+vultures."  Such were the terms in which Barabbas thanked his ally.  It
+was decided that the attack should be made.  Dismas led the band
+towards the oasis of Silam.  Barabbas went with his steed decorated
+with gay-coloured feathers, an iron coronet on his head.  For it was a
+prince whom he was to visit!  Dismas encamped his men under a rocky
+precipice.  And when at night time all rested in order to be fit for
+the attack on the princely train early in the morning, Dismas climbed
+the rocks and gave the signal.  The Roman soldiery hidden behind the
+rocks cut down all who opposed them, and took the rest prisoners,
+Dismas and Barabbas among them.  When the latter saw that he had been
+betrayed, he began to rage in his chains like a wild animal.
+
+"What would you have brother?" said Dismas to Barabbas, who had often
+scorned him so bitterly.  "Am I not a prisoner, too?  Haven't you
+always preached that right lay with the stronger?  So then the Romans
+are right this time.  Once you betrayed me and forced me to join the
+plundering Bedouins, most excellent Barabbas, and now it's my turn.
+I've betrayed you to the arm of Rome.  And we'll probably be impaled!"
+Then, as if that were a real delight, he brought his hand down
+cheerfully on his companion's shoulder so that his chains rattled.
+"Yes, my dearest brother, they will impale us!"
+
+They were brought in gangs to Jerusalem, where they lay in prison for
+many long months awaiting death.  On account of his self-surrender,
+Dismas had been granted his wish for solitary confinement.  He desired,
+undisturbed, to take stock of his wasted life.  A never-ending line of
+dark, bloody figures passed before him.  But there was one patch of
+light amid the gloom.  It had happened many years ago, but he had a
+very clear remembrance of that distant hour.  A young mother with her
+child rode on an ass.  The infant spread out his little arms and looked
+at him.  But never in his life had human creature looked at him like
+that child had looked, with such a glance of ardent love.
+
+If only once again, before he died, he could but see a beam of light
+like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+When the people who had gathered round Jesus heard that Saul, the
+terrible weaver, was scouring the desert with a troop of police, they
+began to melt away.  They feared unpleasant consequences.  They fully
+recognised the right, but most of them were disinclined to suffer
+persecution for that right.  They must return to their domestic duties,
+to their families, industries, and commerce, and, so far as was
+possible, live according to the Master's teaching.  They left Him
+because it seemed to them that His cause was falling.  In the end there
+were just a few faithful ones who stayed with Him, and even some of
+them were in hopes that He would reveal the power of the Messiah.  But
+they all urged Him to repair to some other neighbourhood.  Jesus was
+not afraid of having to render an account of Himself to His adversaries
+in Jerusalem, but the time had not yet come, the work was not yet
+finished.  He knew that He could never retrace His steps, for the more
+incontestable His justification was, the more dangerous it would seem
+to them.  With His now dwindled troop of followers He left the desert
+to revisit once again His native Galilee.
+
+But here His opponents were no better than before; houses were closed
+as He approached, the people got out of His way when He began to speak.
+Only Mary, with all a mother's simple faith, said; "Ah, you have come
+at last, my son!  Now stay, with me!"
+
+There was, however, no place for Him in the house.  A strange
+apprentice from Jericho was established in the workshop.  He worked at
+the wood with the hatchet and saw that Jesus had once handled; sat by
+the hearth and at the table where Jesus had once sat; slept in the bed
+on which Jesus had once reposed.  But it did not seem that he enjoyed
+the same pleasant dreams for he groaned and tossed about, and when he
+awakened was ill-pleased at having to continue the same work which he
+had ill-humouredly laid aside the evening before.  How often did Mary
+look at him in silence, and think of the difference between him and her
+Jesus.  And she saw how the man carelessly ate his meals, and went to
+his bed each day, while her son was perhaps perishing in a strange
+land, and had no stone whereon to lay His head.
+
+And now Jesus was once again with her.  "Mother," He said to Mary,
+"don't speak impatiently to Aaron.  He is poor, discontented, and
+sullen; he has found little kindness in men and without exactly knowing
+it, thirsts for kindness.  When you would bring Me water in the morning
+to wash with, take it to him.  When you would prepare dinner for Me,
+prepare it for him.  When you would bless Me in the evening, bless him.
+Love may perhaps do what words cannot.  Everything that you think to do
+for Me in My absence, do for him."
+
+"And you--you will have nothing more from me?"
+
+"Mother, I want everything from you.  I am always with you.  You can be
+good to Me in showing kindness to every poor creature.  I must lead men
+by stern measures, be you gentle.  I must burn the ulcers from out the
+dead flesh, you shall heal the wounds.  I must be the salt, be you the
+oil."
+
+How happy she was when He spoke to her like that.  For that was her
+life--to be kind, to help, wherever she could.  And here was her son
+consecrating such deeds of kindness till they became a covenant between
+her and Him, a bond of memory for mother and child when parted from
+each other.  Now that He had appealed to her love, she did not feel so
+lonely; she felt once more at one with Him, and had a sort of
+presentiment that in future times her bleeding mother's heart would be
+satisfied beyond measure.
+
+Once again Jesus went through His native land to see if the seed of His
+teaching had sprung up anywhere.  But the earth was barren.  He was not
+so much troubled by the passionate enmity with which many regarded Him,
+or the angry murmurings against Him and His word, as by indolence of
+mind, by obstinate, stupid adherence to commonplace inanities, by
+entire lack of perception, by indifference towards spiritual life.  At
+first the novelty and strangeness of His appearance had compelled
+attention, but that was over.  Whether the Prophet was old or new, it
+was all one to them.  One was just like another, they declared, and
+they remained indifferent.  "The hot and the cold," Jesus exclaimed one
+day, "I can accept, but those who are lukewarm I cast from Me.  Had I
+preached in heathen lands, or in the ruined seaports of Tyre and Sidon,
+they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.  Had I taught in Sodom
+and Gomorrah, those towns would still be standing.  But these places
+here in Galilee are sunk in a quagmire of shame; they scorn their
+Prophet.  When the day of reckoning comes, it will go worse with this
+land than with those towns.  My poor Bethsaida, and thou, fair Magdala!
+And thou, Capernaum the beautiful!  How I loved you, My people, how
+highly did I honour you; I desired to lift you to Heaven.  And now you
+sink in the abyss.  Pray to him, your Mammon, in the days of your need;
+there will be no other consolation for you.  Carouse, laugh, and be
+cruel to-day; to-morrow you will be hungry and you will groan: Ah, we
+have delayed too long!  Believe me a day will come when you fain would
+justify your lives to Me, crying: 'Lord, we would willingly have given
+you food, drink, and lodging, but you did not come to us.'  But I did
+come to you.  I came in the starving, the thirsty, the homeless, only
+you would not recognise Me.  I will not accuse you to the Heavenly
+Father, but Moses, whose commandments you have broken, will accuse you.
+And when you appeal to the Father, He will say: 'I know you not.'"
+
+The disciples trembled and were terrified in mind and soul when He
+spoke those angry words.  But they were not surprised, for the people
+had sunken very low.
+
+He woke His comrades in one of the next nights and said: "Get up and
+let the others sleep; they will not go with us, our way is too hard.
+Enemies will be on us.  Whoever of you fears, let him lie down again."
+Many did lie down again, and those who went with the Master numbered
+twelve.
+
+They wandered over the heights of Cana, over the mountains of Gischala
+till close on midnight, and then again till sundown.  The disciples
+knew not whither they were going; it was enough that they were with
+Him.  On the way they found many of the same mind, and also some who
+invited the Master to their houses for a jest, in order to be able to
+say: I am acquainted with Him.  Men of good position were among those
+who listened to His words with the greatest attention, and then haggled
+with Him to see if the Kingdom of Heaven could not be had at a cheaper
+price than the world.  He always answered: "What use is the world to
+you if you have no soul!  Herein alone is the secret of salvation; a
+man must find his soul and preserve it, and raise it to the Father."
+Or, as He put it differently: "God is to be found in the spirit!"
+
+And when the stranger audience asked what "in the spirit" meant, the
+apostles explained: "He means spiritual life.  He would not have man
+live his life merely in the flesh; man's real self.  He teaches, is a
+spiritual reality, and the more a man works spiritually and lives in
+ideas which are not of the earth, the nearer he comes to God, who is
+wholly spirit."
+
+"Then," said they, "men learned in the law are nearer to God than the
+workers in the field."  To which John replied: "A man learned in the
+law who depends only on the letter is far from the spirit.  The
+labourer who does not draw a profit from the land but thinks and
+imagines how to improve it, is near the spirit."
+
+On the road between Caedasa and Tyre is a farm.  When its owner heard
+that the Prophet was in the neighbourhood, he sent out people to find
+Him and invite Him to go to the farm where He would be safe from the
+snares of the Pharisees.  But the owner was himself a Pharisee and he
+intended to examine Jesus, perhaps to tempt Him to betray Himself and
+then deliver Him over to the government.  Jesus told the messenger that
+He would gladly accept the hospitality if He might bring his companions
+with Him.  That was not in the Pharisee's plan, first, because of the
+quantity of food and drink so many persons would need; and second,
+because under such protection it would be difficult to lay hands on the
+demagogue.  But in order to get the one, there was nothing for it but
+to include the others.  They were respectfully received and
+entertained.  The host testified to his joy at entertaining under his
+roof the "Saviour of Judaea," and was delighted with the Master's
+principles.  He gave a great banquet in His honour with the choicest
+viands and costliest drinks to which the disciples, who were somewhat
+hungry and thirsty, heartily did justice, while the Master, who never
+spoiled a glad hour, cheerfully did the same.  When tongues were
+loosened, the host wanted straightway to begin with artful allusions
+and questions, but his guest was a match for him.
+
+Jesus had observed that, while they were feeding so luxuriously in the
+hall, needy folk were harshly turned away in the courtyard, to slink
+off hungry and embittered.  So He suddenly said that good stories
+suited good wine, and He would tell one.  "That is delightful!"
+exclaimed the host.  And Jesus related the following:
+
+"There was once a rich man who wore the most costly garments, and
+enjoyed the most luxurious food and drink, and lived in complete
+contentment.  One day there came to his door a sick, half-starved man,
+who begged for a few of the crumbs that fell from the table.  The proud
+man was wrathful that the miserable wretch should dare to disturb his
+pleasure, and let loose his hounds.  But instead of worrying the man,
+the dogs licked his ulcers, and he crawled ashamed into a hole.  On the
+very day on which the wretched creature died, death came also to the
+rich man, casting his well-fed body into the grave and his soul into
+hell.  And there his wretched soul endured most horrible torture,
+gnawing hunger and parching thirst, and the pain was increased when the
+dead man looked into Paradise and saw there the man he had sent away
+despised from his door sitting by Abraham.  He saw how ripe fruits grew
+there, and clear springs gushed forth.  Then he called up, 'Father
+Abraham.  I implore you, tell the man sitting by you to dip his
+finger-tips into the water and cool my tongue, for I suffer unbearable
+torture.'  To which Abraham answered, 'No, my son, that cannot be.  You
+received all that was good on earth and forgot the poor, now he forgets
+you.  There is no longer any connection between him and you.'  Then the
+man in hell whimpered, 'Woe! woe! woe!  Let my five brothers who still
+dwell on earth know that they must be merciful to the poor, so that
+they may not be in my case.  And Abraham said: 'They have the prophets
+on earth who tell them that every day.'  Then the man whined: 'Oh,
+Father Abraham, they do not listen to the prophets.  If only you would
+make one of the dead live again, that he might tell them how the
+unmerciful are punished, then they would believe.  And Abraham: 'If
+they do not believe the living, how should they believe the dead?"
+
+During the Master's recital, the host several times stretched forth his
+hand to his glass, but each time drew it back again.  He had not a word
+to say, and the desire to lay snares for the Prophet had gone.  He
+stole unnoticed from the hall, went down to his steward, and ordered
+him henceforth never to send a needy man from the door unrefreshed.
+
+One of his friends who was at the banquet was immensely pleased that
+this betrayer of the people should have so exposed himself.  "You
+understood?  The story was nothing but an attack on the possessors of
+property."
+
+"Let that be," said the host, and turned away.  Then he went and
+furnished the Prophet and His little band with provisions, gave Him
+directions for His journey, and pointed out how He could best avoid
+pursuers.  He looked after them for a long time.  "They have prophets
+on earth and do not heed them."  He would like to accompany this
+prophet.  His little soul had been caught by Him he had wished to catch.
+
+Things did not go so well with our fugitive in other places.  An evil
+slander about the Baptist was spread abroad--that he was a glutton and
+a wine-bibber!  Jesus heard of it, and said: "John the Baptist fasted.
+They said of him that he was possessed by a demon.  It is neither
+eating nor fasting that they object to in the prophets; it is the truth
+which they speak."
+
+Then they came to villages and farms where they wished to rest, but
+none would give them shelter.  This angered the Master.  The dust on
+the ground was not worthy to remain sticking to the feet of those who
+came to bring the Kingdom of God.  The heartless would be thrust aside!
+But anger was turned into pitiful love.  When a contrite man approached
+Him He raised him up with both arms, encouraged him, taught him to be
+kind, showed him the joy of life, and how to penetrate the sacred
+recesses of his own being--self-examination.
+
+Self-examination!  That is the everlasting guide Jesus gave to all who
+sought God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+At last Jesus and His followers reached the sea.  When it lay before
+them in its immensity, and the white-winged ships flew over the blue
+surface; when they saw in the far distance the line drawn between sky
+and water, and the firmament rising behind so darkly mysterious, their
+courage was renewed, and Simon proposed that they should sail across to
+the cheerful Greeks and the strong Romans.
+
+"Why not to the savage Gauls and the terrible Germans?" exclaimed
+Bartholomew, with some ill-temper at such an adventurous spirit.
+
+"Ever since I was a boy I longed to see Rome," said Simon.
+
+Jesus replied: "Seek your strength in your native land.  Here in the
+land of the prophets grows the tree among the branches of which will
+dwell the birds of heaven.  Then the winds will come and carry the
+seeds out into the whole world."
+
+The disciples who had not hitherto travelled much, found a new world in
+the harbours of Tyre and Sidon, a world of folk and wares from every
+quarter of the earth, strange people and strange customs.  They had
+never before seen men work with such industry in the warehouses, on the
+wharves, on the ships; yet others gave themselves up to continual
+idleness, trotting half-naked along the beach, begging with loud
+pertinacity in the harbour, or shamelessly basking in the sun.  Look!
+the lepers are limping about, complacently exhibiting their sores.  One
+of the disciples looked questioningly at the Master, wondering if He
+would heal them?  Then, perhaps, they would believe in Him.
+
+"You know quite well," He said reprovingly, "they would fain be healed
+and then believe, whereas I say they must believe in order to be
+healed."
+
+There were also to be seen in those towns nobles and kings from all
+lands surrounded by dazzling brilliance and gay trains; as others here
+haggled for spices, silks and furs, so they haggled for dignity and
+honour.  And there were wise and learned men from among all peoples;
+they made speeches, and talked in the public places in praise of their
+native prophets and gods.  The Hindoo praised his Brahma, the Magian
+shouted about sacred fire, the Semite spoke zealously for his Jehovah,
+the Egyptian sang the praises of his Osiris, the Greek extolled his
+Zeus, the Roman called on his Jupiter, and the German spoke in hoarse
+tones of his Wotan.  Magicians and astrologers were among them, and
+they boasted of their art and knowledge.  Naked saints stood on blocks
+of stone, flies and wasps buzzing round them, and still as statues they
+endured torments for the glory of their gods.  The disciples of Jesus
+saw and heard all this in astonishment, and were terrified to find
+there were so many gods.  When they were alone together with the Master
+in a cedar-grove near Sidon, one of them who had been deeply wrapt in
+thought said: "An idea has just occurred to me.  Whether it be Brahma
+the reposeful, or Osiris the shining, or Jehovah the wrathful, or Zeus
+the loving, or Jupiter the struggling, or Wotan the conqueror, or our
+God the Father--it occurs to me that it all comes to the same in the
+end."
+
+They were alarmed at this bold speech, and looked at the Master
+expecting an angry reproof.  Jesus was silent for a while, then said
+calmly: "Do good to those who hate you."
+
+They scarcely understood that with these words He marked the incredible
+difference between His teaching and all other doctrines.
+
+They were still speaking when a young man with a beardless face and
+insolent expression came riding by on a tall steed.  When he saw the
+group of Nazarenes he reined in his horse; it would scarcely stop,
+stamped with its legs on the ground, and threw its head snorting into
+the air.
+
+"Isn't this the man with the Kingdom of Heaven?" asked the rider
+contemptuously.
+
+James came forward quickly.  "Sir, stop your mocking.  How do you know
+that you will never need it?"
+
+"I?" said the arrogant cavalier.  "I need a Kingdom of Heaven that is
+not to be seen, heard, or understood!"
+
+"But felt, sir!"
+
+"Then that is He," exclaimed the horseman, pointing to Jesus.  "No,
+Nazarenes, I do not believe in your Heavenly Kingdom."
+
+To which Jesus replied; "Perhaps you will believe in My empty tomb."
+
+"We will see," said the cavalier, putting spurs to his horse so that it
+reared, and galloped off.  Soon all that the disciples saw was a cloud
+of dust.  Matthew looked searchingly at his comrades.  "Did you
+recognise him?  Wasn't it Saul, the dread weaver?  They were saying in
+the town yesterday that he was coming with a legion of soldiers to
+arrest the Nazarenes."
+
+Then they urged in terror; "Master, let us flee."
+
+He was not accustomed to flee before zealous Pharisees, but there was
+another reason for removing his innocent disciples from the atmosphere
+of these big cities.  Simon was always suggesting that it would be no
+bad thing to spend the coming Passover on the Tiber, for he felt less
+afraid of the heathens in Rome than of the Jews in Jerusalem.  He had
+no idea of what was before them.
+
+"Not in Rome," said Jesus, "but rather in Jerusalem will we eat the
+Paschal lamb."
+
+Soon after they wandered forth and left the noisy seaport behind them.
+As the roads became more and more unsafe, they climbed the rocks and
+took the way across the mountains.
+
+The gods came down from high Olympus, the Law came down from Sinai,
+Light came down from Lebanon.  For it was at Lebanon that the great
+revelation came, which my shrinking soul is now to witness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+The following incident took place during the journey among the
+mountains of Lebanon.  One day they were resting under an old
+weather-beaten cedar.  The rain trickled through the bristling bush of
+needles from one branch to another on to the hats under the broad brims
+of which the men cowered, their legs drawn up under them, their arms
+crossed over their chests.  Tired and somewhat out of humour, they
+looked out into the damp mist against which the near summits and masses
+of rock stood out.  The hair and beards of the older men had turned
+grey, and even the faces of the younger seemed to have aged.  For their
+hardships had been great.  But the glow in their eyes was not quenched.
+They had laid aside their long staffs; the sacks which some carried on
+their backs were wrinkled and empty.  A little way off was a
+tree-trunk, so big that three men could hardly have encompassed it; the
+bark was white and rough, so that it seemed as if spirits had carved
+mysterious signs thereon in pure silver.  Jesus, a little apart from
+His disciples, was resting under this tree.  He was, as usual, without
+a hat, and His abundant nut-brown hair fell over His shoulders.  His
+indescribably beautiful face was paler than formerly.  He leaned
+against the trunk of the tree and closed His eyes.
+
+The disciples thought He slept, and in order not to wake Him they
+looked at one another and spoke in whispers.  Their hearts were full of
+the impressions of their late experiences.  They thought of the
+persecution in their native land, the attractiveness of the big world,
+and their ignorance of the future.  Many of them during this gloomy
+rest-time thought of their former lives.  Who is managing my boat?  Who
+tends my fruit-trees?  Who works in my workshop?  Who sits in the
+profitable toll-house?  Who is providing for my wife, my children?
+There had been a triumphant progress through the land and then a
+flight.  Men had not recognised the Master.  If He would only say
+distinctly and clearly who He was!  Meanwhile the outlook was
+desperate.  As if they had run after a demagogue, a traitor, an
+anti-Jew!  How could an anti-Jew be King of the Jews?  If He would only
+say who He was!
+
+Snow lay on the mountains.  The ice-wastes stretched down from the
+heights of Hermon.  If our travellers looked up to their summits they
+saw the wild ruggedness of their covering; if they looked downwards
+they saw abysses in which the water thundered.  An eagle flew through
+the solitude and vultures screamed in the storm-beaten cedars.  The men
+from the fertile plains of the Galilean Lake had never seen such wild
+nature.  Simon was so enchanted that he wanted to build huts there for
+himself, his comrades, and the Prophet.  The other disciples shuddered,
+and would gladly have persuaded the Master to return.  He pointed to
+the high mountains, and said: "What frightens you, My children?  When
+the races of men are becoming satiated and stupid, such wildness will
+refresh them."
+
+Simon and John nodded in agreement, but the others, as often was the
+case, did not understand what He--who spoke for all time--said.
+
+They wrapped themselves more closely in their cloaks, climbed up to
+where there was no path, and still went on their way.  The Master
+walked in front and they followed Him through briars, and over stones;
+it never came into their heads that He could miss the way.  At length,
+amid the bare rocks standing high above the cedar tops, they had to
+rest again.  Some of them, especially the young John, were almost
+exhausted.  Matthew dipped into his sack and drew forth a small crust
+of bread, showed it to his companions, and said softly, so that the
+Master, who was sitting on a stone higher up, might not hear: "That is
+all; if we do not soon light upon some human dwelling we must perish."
+
+Then Simon said: "I rely on Him Who has so often fed His people in the
+desert."
+
+"Words won't cure our hunger to-day," remarked Andrew, and was
+frightened at his own temerity.  Then Bartholomew put his hand on
+Matthew's arm and said: "Brother, give that bread to the Master."
+
+"Do you think I'm knave enough to eat it myself?" blazed up Matthew.
+He got up, went to the Master, and gave Him the bread.
+
+"Have you already eaten?" He asked.
+
+"Master, we are all satisfied."
+
+Jesus looked at him searchingly, and took the bread.
+
+Just at that moment a cry of delight broke from the men.  The mist had
+suddenly lifted; they could see far out into the sunny world.  And
+beneath them lay the blue, still plains, stretching away until they cut
+the sky.  Far off in the sky were clouds shining like the golden
+pinnacles of temples.  Along the shore lay a chain of villages, and
+then the sea, studded with sails.  The view was so extensive and so
+bright that they could not but rejoice.
+
+"From over there beyond the water came the heathens," said Matthew.
+
+"And over there will the Christians go," added Simon.
+
+"Who are the Christians?" asked Bartholomew.
+
+"The adherents of the Anointed."
+
+"They will go forth and destroy the Romans," said James.
+
+"Ssh!" they whispered, and laid their fingers on their lips.  "He does
+not like such talk."
+
+He did not seem to have heard them.  He had risen and was looking out
+in silence.  Then He turned to one and another to read in their faces
+how their spirits stood, whether they had lost heart or whether their
+courage was strengthened by the sight of the splendours of God by which
+they saw themselves surrounded.  Simon had become very thoughtful.  He
+pondered on the Master's words and on the miracle they had wrought in
+him.  Of all the wisdom that he had ever heard, none was so lofty and
+clear as this divine teaching.  It created a heaven which had not
+existed formerly.  And yet! why was one still so weak?  He had turned
+sidewards and thoughtfully nodded his head.
+
+"What trouble one has with his own people!" he murmured.  James laughed
+and said: "With your own people?  Who are they?  I see only one of your
+own people, and that is you yourself."
+
+"That's just the one who troubles me," said Simon.  "For, you know, the
+rascal is timid.  I can't forget that.  The suddenness overwhelms him.
+'Twas so for weeks down in Capernaum whenever the soldiers came near
+us, and in Sidon when that weaver suddenly appeared.  Oh, my friend and
+brother!  If it is a question of always sharing want and disgrace with
+Him, I am ready, I have courage for that.  But when I've to stand in
+absolute danger, my heart fails me.  Can such a one be fit to go with
+the Master?"
+
+"We are fishermen, not heroes," assented James.  "I do not know which
+needs more courage, a life of hardship or a swift death."
+
+"I must confess one thing to you, brothers," interposed Andrew.  "I am
+not clever--but I'm not satisfied.  Can anyone tell me what will become
+of us?"
+
+Simon's attention was diverted.  Brother Philip came up and plucked him
+by the sleeve.  He gave him a piece of bread.  Simon took it in order
+to give it to Matthew.
+
+"What is this?" he asked.
+
+"Philip gave it me, but I'm not wanting it."
+
+"But," said Matthew, "it is the piece of bread I just gave the Master."
+
+The piece of bread went round the circle, from Matthew to the Master,
+from Him to John, then on from one to the other until it returned to
+Matthew, When they were amazed to find that no one needed the bread,
+the Master smiled and said: "Now, you like to see miracles.  Here is
+one.  Twelve men fed with one piece of bread."
+
+"The bread did not do that, Lord.  The word did that."
+
+"No, friends; love did it."
+
+Single drops fell from the trees, others hung like long needles and
+sparkled.  Just as the sea lay spread out below, so the summits of the
+mountains were now revealed, the snow-peaks, and the pinnacles of rock,
+while the ice-fields were visible until near midnight.  The deep
+stillness and the softness in the air made the men dreamy.  Some were
+inclined to sleep.  Others thought of what the future might have in
+store for them, and thinking thereon suffered themselves to sink,
+untroubling, into the will of God.
+
+All at once Jesus raised His head a little, and said softly so that
+those nearest Him heard it: "You hear people talk about Me although
+they are silent in My presence.  What do they say?"
+
+The disciples were alarmed at the sudden question, and said: "People
+say all kinds of things."
+
+"What do they say about Me?  Whom do they say I am?"
+
+Then one answered: "They all take you for some one different.  They
+prefer to believe in the most unlikely things."
+
+But as he continued to look questioningly at them, they became
+communicative and told: "One says that you are the prophet Jeremiah;
+another that you are Elijah of whom they know that he was taken up to
+heaven in a fiery chariot.  Or they say you are John the Baptist whom
+Herod caused to be murdered."
+
+Then Jesus lifted His head still higher and said: "People say that, do
+they?  But you, now?  Who do you think I am?"
+
+That came like a thunderbolt.  They were all silent.  Surely He could
+see that they had followed Him, and knew why.  Could He not see into
+their thoughts?  Had He suddenly begun to doubt their faith in Him?  Or
+had He lost faith in Himself?  It is all so mysterious and terrifying.
+As they were silent He went on to say:
+
+"You attached yourselves to Me in innocent trustfulness, like men who
+spread their cloaks at My feet, and paid Me the honours of the Messiah.
+When I announced the Kingdom of God you were with Me.  And when some
+left Me because My way became dangerous, and My person contemned, you
+stayed with Me, and when My words were not fulfilled as you expected,
+leading not to worldly power but to humiliation, you still stayed with
+Me, followed Me into exile among the heathen, and into the desert
+hills.  Who am I, then, that you remain faithful to Me?"
+
+They were so moved that no one was able to utter a word.  Jesus
+continued:
+
+"I shall go down again to Galilee, but I shall find there no stone on
+which to rest My head in peace.  All who are with Me will be persecuted
+for My sake.  I shall go along the Jordan to Judaea, and up to
+Jerusalem, where My most powerful enemies are.  I shall confront them
+and pronounce judgment on them.  My words will pierce them, but My
+flesh will be in their power.  I shall suffer shame and disgrace and a
+contemptible death.  That will happen in a short time.  Will you still
+stay with Me?  Whence is your trust derived?  Who do you think I am?"
+
+Simon jumped up from the ground, and exclaimed loudly and clearly:
+"_You are Jesus the Christ!  You are the Son of the living God!_"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Solemnly it sounded forth to all eternity: Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
+
+He stood up straight.  Was there not a light round His head?  Did not
+the sky grow bright?  The men's eyes were dazzled so that they were
+obliged to shade them with their hands in order not to be blinded.  A
+sound came out of the light, a voice was heard: "He is My Son!  He is
+My beloved Son!"  They were beside themselves; their bodies were
+lifeless, for their souls were in the heights.  Then Jesus came down to
+them out of the light.  His countenance had a strange look; something
+extraordinary had passed over Him.  With outstretched arms He came
+slowly towards the disciples: "Simon!  Did you say that of yourself?
+It was surely an inspiration from above.  Such a faith is the
+foundation of the Kingdom of God; henceforth, then, you shall be named
+Peter, the rock.  I will found My community upon you, and what you do
+on earth in My name will hold good in heaven above."
+
+Simon looked round him.  "What?" he thought in the secret recesses of
+his heart, "am I raised above the others?  Are none of the brothers
+equal to me?  That is because I am humble."  Jesus turned to them all,
+and said: "Prepare yourselves, be strong; evil times are approaching.
+They will kill Me."
+
+As He said that, Simon Peter grasped His arm with both his hands, and
+exclaimed passionately: "In the name of God, Master, that shall not
+happen."
+
+Upon which Jesus said quickly and severely: "Get behind me, Satan!"
+
+They looked round them.  What a sudden change!  For whom were the hard
+words meant?  Simon knew; he went down and hid himself behind the young
+cedars.  There he wept and shook with grief.
+
+"John, He hates me!" muttered the disciple, and hid his face in his
+young companion's gown, for John had gone to comfort him.  "John!  It
+was my pride.  He sees our thoughts.  He hates me!"
+
+"No, Simon, He does not hate you; He loves you.  Think of what He said
+to you just before.  That about the rock.  You know what Jesus is.  You
+know how He has to pour cold water so that the fire of love may not
+consume Him.  And you must have touched on something that He Himself
+finds difficult.  I'm sure of it.  I believe that He is suffering
+something that we know nothing about.  It is as though He saw it was
+the Father's will that He should suffer and die.  He is young, He feels
+dismayed, and then you come and make the struggle harder for Him.
+Stand up, brother; we must be strong and cheerful and a support to Him."
+
+And when they gathered together, prepared for further journeying, Jesus
+looked round the circle of His faithful adherents, and said, with
+solemn seriousness: "In a short time you will see Me no more.  I go to
+the Father.  I build my Kingdom upon your faith, firm as rock, and give
+you all the keys of heaven.  With God, heaven and earth are one, and
+everything you do on earth is also done in heaven."
+
+That is what happened on one of the heights of Lebanon when Jesus
+rested there with His disciples.
+
+And then He went again to His native place, not to stay there, but to
+see it once more.  After days of hardships which they scarcely felt,
+and of want which they never perceived, they came down into the fertile
+plains, and the soft air was filled with scent of roses and of almond
+blossoms.  They found themselves once again in their native land, where
+they were treated with such contempt that they had to avoid the high
+roads and take the side paths.  When they were passing through a ravine
+near Nazareth, they stopped under the scanty shade of some olive trees.
+They were tired, and lay down under the trees.  Jesus went on a little
+farther, where He could obtain a view of the place.  He sat down on a
+stone, leaned His head on His hand, and looked thoughtfully out over
+the country.  Something strange and hostile seemed to pervade it.  But
+He had not come in anger.  Something else remained to be done.  It was
+clear to Him that He Himself must be the pledge of the truth of His
+good tidings.
+
+A woman came toiling over the stones.  It was His mother.  She had
+heard how He had come down from the mountains with His disciples, and
+thought she would go through the ravine.  Now she stood before Him.
+Her face, grown thin with grief, was in the shade, since to protect
+herself from the sun she had thrown her long upper garment over her
+head.  A tress of her dark hair fell over one cheek; she pushed it back
+with one finger, but it always fell down again.  She looked shyly at
+her son, who was resting on a stone.  She hesitated to speak to Him.
+She advanced a step nearer, and as if nothing had ever separated them,
+said; "Your house is quite near, my child.  Why rest here in such
+discomfort?"
+
+He looked at her calmly.  Then he answered: "Woman, I would be alone."
+
+She gently answered: "I am quite alone now in the house."
+
+"Where are our relations?"
+
+"They wished to fetch you home, and have been away for weeks in search
+of you."
+
+Jesus pointed with a motion of His hand to His sleeping disciples:
+"They did not seek Me for weeks, they found Me the first day."
+
+As if she wished to prevent Him complaining again that His kinsmen did
+not understand Him, His mother said: "People have long been annoyed
+that work was no longer done in our workshop, and so they go to a new
+one which has been set up in our street."
+
+"Where is Aaron, the apprentice?"
+
+She replied: "It is not surprising that no one will stay if the
+children of the house depart."
+
+He spoke excitedly: "I tell you, woman, spare Me your reproaches and
+domestic cares.  I have something else to do."
+
+Then she turned to the rocky wall to hide her sobs.  After a while she
+said softly: "How can you be so cruel to your mother!  It's not for
+myself I complain; you may well believe.  All is over for me in this
+world.  But you!  You bring misfortune on the whole family, and will
+yourself destroy everything.  By your departed father, by your unhappy
+mother, I implore you to let the faith of your fathers alone.  I know
+you mean well, but others do not understand that, and nothing you do
+will avail.  Let people be happy in their own way.  If formerly they
+went to Abraham, they will continue to find their way to him without
+your help.  Don't interfere with the Rabbis; that never pays.  Think of
+John the Baptist!  Every one is saying that they are lying in wait for
+you.  Oh, my beloved child, they will disgrace you, and kill you!"  She
+clutched the rock convulsively with her fingers, and could say no more
+for bitter weeping.
+
+Jesus turned His head to her, and looked at her.  And when her whole
+body shook with sobs, He rose and went to her.  He took her head in
+both His hands and drew it towards Him.
+
+"Mother! mother!--mother!"  His voice was dull and broken: "You think I
+do not love you.  I am sometimes obliged to be thus harsh, for
+everything is against Me, even My own kith and kin.  But I must fulfil
+the will of the Heavenly Father.  Dry your tears; see, I love you, more
+than any human heart can understand.  Because the mother suffers double
+what the child suffers, so is your pain greater than that of Him who
+must sacrifice Himself for many.  Mother!  Sit down on this stone so
+that I may once again lay My head in your lap.  It is My last rest."
+
+So He laid His head on her knees, and she stroked His long hair
+tenderly.  She was so happy, in the midst of her grief, so absolutely
+happy, that He should lie on her breast as He did when a child.
+
+But He went on, speaking gently and softly; "I have preached to the
+people in vain about faith in Me.  I need not preach to you, for a
+mother believes in her child.  They will all testify against Me.
+Mother, do not believe them.  Believe your child.  And when the hour
+comes for Me to appear with outstretched arms, not on earth and not in
+heaven, believe then in your child.  Be sure then that your carpenter
+has built the Kingdom of God.  No, mother, do not weep; look up with
+bright eyes.  Your day will be everlasting.  The poor, those forsaken
+by every heaven, will pour out their woes to you, the blessed, the rich
+in grace!  All the races of the earth will _praise_ you!"  He kissed
+her hair, He kissed her eyes, and sobbed Himself.  "And now go, mother.
+My friends are waking.  They must not see Me cast down."
+
+He arose from this sweet rest.  The disciples raised their heads one
+after another.
+
+"Did you get some rest, Master?" asked Simon.
+
+He answered: "Better rest than you had."
+
+A messenger who had been sent out returned with a basket, and they paid
+him with a little gold ring, the last to be found on the fingers of the
+wanderers.  They ate, and rejoiced over God's beautiful world and its
+gifts, and then prepared for further wanderings, Whither?  Towards the
+metropolis.
+
+Mary stood behind the rocks and gazed after Him as long as He was
+visible in the haze of the Galilean sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+And so they made their way towards Jerusalem for the celebration of the
+Passover.  Long ago Moses had delivered the Jews from bondage in Egypt,
+and led them back to their native land.  In grateful remembrance many
+thousands assembled every year at Jerusalem at the time of the first
+full moon of spring, made a pilgrimage to the Temple, and, according to
+the ancient custom, ate of the Paschal lamb, with bitter herbs, and
+bread made without yeast, as once they ate manna in the wilderness.  At
+such an assembly there was of course much commerce and show.  The
+execution of criminals took place at that time, so that people were
+sure of one terrible spectacle in accordance with the words of the
+Rabbis in the Temple who said; He who breaks the Law shall be punished
+according to the Law.
+
+"I should like to see such a thing once," said the disciple Thaddeus to
+his comrades as they went along.  "I mean such a punishment."
+
+"You'll easily find an opportunity in Jerusalem," replied Andrew; and
+added with light mockery, "to see criminals impaled is the correct
+merry-making for poor men.  It costs nothing.  And yet I do not know a
+costlier pleasure."
+
+"How is the impaling done?" Thaddeus wanted to know.
+
+"That's easily described," Matthew informed them.  "Think of an upright
+post planted in the earth and a cross-beam near the top.  The poor
+sinner is bound naked to it, his arms stretched out.  When he has hung
+there in the people's eyes for a while, they break his legs with a
+club.  For very serious crimes they sometimes fasten the limbs to the
+post with iron nails."
+
+Thaddeus turned aside in horror.  "May it never be my lot to look on at
+such a thing."
+
+"Do not imagine that such talk is a jest," said another.  "Every one
+implores God that such a doom may never befall any of his relations or
+friends.  We are all poor sinners.  When our Master establishes His
+Kingdom this horrible mode of death will be abolished.  Don't you think
+so?"
+
+"Then all modes of death will be abolished," said Simon Peter.  "Are
+you asleep when He speaks of eternal life?"
+
+"But He says Himself that they will slay Him."
+
+"That they wish to slay Him He means.  Just wait till He once shows
+them His power!"
+
+So they often talked together, half in pleasantry, half in simplicity,
+but always behind the Master's back.
+
+A change had come over Jesus since the events on the high mountain.  It
+was as if He had now become quite clear about His divine call, as if He
+had only now fully realised that He was God's messenger, the Son of the
+Heavenly Father, summoned from eternity to go down to earth to awake
+men and save them for a life of bliss with God.  He felt that the power
+of God had been given Him to judge souls.  The devils fled before Him,
+He was subject to no human power.  He broke with the history of His
+degraded people; He annulled the ancient writings, falsified by priests
+and learned men.  He recognised that in His unity with the Heavenly
+Father and Eternal God, He was Lord of all power in heaven and on earth.
+
+So it was with Him since that hour of light on the mountain.  But the
+knowledge of all this made Him still more humble as a man on whom such
+an immense burden had been laid, and still more loving towards those
+who were sunken in measureless poverty, distress and subjection,
+resigned to their fate of being lost in blindness and defiance, and yet
+full of wistful longing for salvation.
+
+The relations between Him and His disciples had also changed since that
+day.  Formerly, although they had treated Him with respect they had
+always been on familiar terms with Him.  Now they were more submissive,
+more silent, and their respect had become reverence.  With some, love
+had almost become worship.  And yet they always fell back into
+unruliness and timidity.  There was one especially who disagreed with
+much.  When, in order to avoid the high roads, they went through the
+barren district on the other side of Jordan, and endured all sorts of
+hardships and privations, the disciple Judas could not forbear uttering
+his thoughts.  He had nothing to do now as treasurer of the little
+band, so he had plenty of time to spread discouragement behind the
+Master's back.  Why should not the Messiah's train of followers appear
+in fitting brilliance?  He explained what Jesus taught about death as
+implying that when the beggar prophet died, the glorious Messiah would
+appear!  But why first in Jerusalem?  Why should they not assume their
+high position in the interval; why were the honours of the new era not
+already allotted?
+
+Jesus' popularity had increased once more, and in the more thickly
+inhabited districts the people hurried together.  "The Prophet is
+passing through!"  They streamed forth bringing provisions with them,
+and the sick and crippled came imploring Him to heal them.  He accepted
+enough to meet His immediate needs from the store that was offered Him,
+but He did not work the desired miracles.  He forbade His disciples
+even to speak of them.  He was angry with the crowd who would not
+believe without miracles, and would not understand the signs of the
+times.  "Directly they see a cloud rise in the west they say: It's
+going to rain.  If a south wind blows they know that it is going to be
+hot.  But they do not understand the signs of a new world uprising.  If
+they cannot understand the spiritual tokens, they cannot have others.
+They would fain see the sign of Jonah, who lay three days in the
+whale's belly?  Be it so.  They shall see how the Son of Man, after
+being buried for three days, shall live again."
+
+Judas shook his head over such talk.  "That doesn't help much."  But
+the others, especially John, James and Simon, did not think about the
+kingdom of the Messiah, or about earthly power; their hearts were
+filled with love for the Master.  Yet they, too, had their own
+temptations.  They often talked together of that other world where
+Jesus would be Eternal King, and where they--they who firmly adhered to
+Him--would share His glory.  And in all seriousness they dreamed of the
+offices and honours that would be theirs, and actually disputed who
+among them would hold the highest rank.  Each boasted of his own
+achievements.  James had brought Him the most friends in Galilee.
+Simon rested his claim on the fact that he had been the first to
+recognise in Him the Son of God.  John reminded them that he came from
+the same place, and had once worked with Him as carpenter's apprentice.
+John might have said that the Master was especially fond of him, but he
+did not say so.  Simon, on the contrary, put forward most emphatically
+the fact that the Master had called him the rock on which He should
+found His community.
+
+When Jesus noticed how they were disputing He went to them and asked
+what they were discussing so eagerly.
+
+"Master," said James boldly, "you come to us as if we had called you.
+We want to know who among your disciples will be first in the Eternal
+Kingdom.  See, brother John and I would like to be nearest you, one on
+your right hand, the other on your left, so that we may have you
+between us then as we have you now."
+
+Upon which Jesus said: "This is not the first time that you have talked
+thus foolishly.  You don't know what you want.  I tell you, when you
+have done what I do, and have suffered what I shall suffer, then you
+may come and ask."
+
+They replied: "Lord, we will do what you do and suffer what you suffer."
+
+These resolute words pleased Him, and He said nothing of the enormous
+distance between Him and them.  They were too simple to understand
+that.  He only said: "Leave that to Him who will show you your place.
+For every ruler has rulers over him; One alone has no authority above
+Him.  Consider: if a servant has worked hard and faithfully, he will
+not therefore in the evening sit at the upper end of the table and
+begin to eat before his master, but he will first prepare his master's
+food, and place a footstool under his feet.  And so it is with you.
+Whoso would be greatest must serve the others.  I, too, have come not
+to be ministered to but to minister, and to sacrifice Myself for others
+and to give My life a ransom for many."
+
+It alarmed them that He should speak more and more often of giving up
+His life.  What did it mean?  If he perished Himself how could He save
+others?  That might occur in saving people from fire or from drowning,
+but how could a man free a people and lead it to God by sacrificing his
+life?  True, the heathens had their human sacrifices.  Judas had his
+own ideas about the matter.  The Master was depressed by failure, or He
+merely wished to test His adherents, to find out if they had strength
+enough to follow Him through thick and thin.  If only He could be
+entirely sure of that, then He would hasten like the lightnings of
+heaven to annihilate the enemy and glorify His own adherents.  If, as
+He Himself had said, faith was so strong that it could remove
+mountains, it would be quite easy for Him to show His power at the
+propitious moment.
+
+This firm belief of Judas made the disciple Thomas remember the
+Master's actual words about faith: Whosoever says to the mountain,
+Depart, and cast yourself into the sea, and does not doubt but
+_believes_ that it happens, for him it will happen.  Mark, _for him_ it
+will happen.  Whether others who do not believe will see the mountain
+fall into the sea He did not say.
+
+"Then, brother Thomas," said Bartholomew, "you think things that happen
+through faith happen only for him who believes.  They form only an
+inward experience, but real enough for him, because he sees them happen
+with his spiritual eye.  But they are not real for others.  If that's
+the case, my friend, we should be lost.  Jesus may believe that the
+enemy fall, Jesus may see them fall; all the same they still live and
+live to destroy us."
+
+"That is cheap logic," said the resolute Judas.  "Every one has seen
+how He made the lame to walk and the dead to live; even those who did
+not believe.  Take heed!  If only the Master would make some outward
+demonstration of His power you should see what He could do."
+
+Others were of that opinion, so they followed--followed their Messiah.
+
+But during their long wandering over the bad roads of the desert and
+over the fertile plains they suffered continual distress.  Although
+they had now been some time in the plains they were not always in good
+humour.  They saw how the Master renounced the power and pleasure of
+the world and yet walked the earth strong and cheerful.  It was only
+later that they understood how the two things could be reconciled.  He
+enjoyed what was harmless if it did not hurt others, but He attached
+little value to it.  His bodily senses were all He needed to recognise
+the Father's power in nature, and to be happy in that knowledge.  He
+did not deny the world; He spiritualised it and made it divine.  The
+things of earth were to Him the building-stones for the Kingdom of
+Heaven.  So, in spite of increasing doubt, the disciples always found
+that things came right, and they, too, determined to despise the world
+and to love their simple life.
+
+One day they came to a place in which there was great activity.  Men
+were ploughing in the fields, hammering in the workshops, lithe carmen
+and slow camel-drivers were driving hard bargains.  And it was the
+Sabbath!  "Did heathens dwell here?" the disciples asked.  No; it was a
+Jewish village, and the inhabitants were so pious that they seldom let
+a Passover go by without going up to Jerusalem.  Many years ago they
+had heard a young man speak words in the Temple which they had never
+forgotten.  "Men should work on the Sabbath if it was for the good of
+their fellows," the young man had preached with great impressiveness.
+Now, it is generally admitted that all work is for the good of the
+individual and also of the community.  So they began there and then,
+and had never since stopped working for a single day.  The result was
+great local prosperity.
+
+When Jesus saw how His words at Jerusalem on that occasion had been so
+utterly misunderstood or were misapplied through a desire for gain, He
+was filled with indignation, and began to speak in the market-place: "I
+tell you the Kingdom of God will be taken from these lovers of gain and
+given to a people more worthy of it.  For the good of one's fellow-men?
+Does good depend on the property a man possesses?  Property is harmful
+to men; it hardens their hearts, and makes them continually fearful of
+loss and death.  And you call that good!  There was once a rich man who
+after years of toiling and moiling had his barns full, and thought: Now
+I can rest and enjoy life.  But the next night he died, and the
+property to gain which he had destroyed body and soul he had to leave
+to those who quarrelled and disputed over it and mocked at him.  I tell
+you, if you gain the whole world and lose your soul--all is lost."
+
+When He had so spoken a very old man came up to Him and said: "Rabbi,
+you are poor, and it is easy for you to talk.  You do not know how
+difficult it is for a rich man to cease adding to his wealth.  Oh, the
+delightful time I had when I was poor!  Then I began to get money
+unawares, was glad of it, and began to fear I might lose it.  And then
+as the needs of my family increased more quickly than my means, I
+thought my money was not sufficient, and the more one had the more one
+required.  I am now an old man; I possess thirty sacks full of gold,
+and I know that I cannot enjoy my wealth any more.  But I cannot stop
+gaining and amassing.  I could sooner stop breathing."
+
+Jesus told the old man a little story: "Some children by the roadside
+attacked a strange boy for the sake of some broken potsherds which they
+were collecting.  But when they had got a great heap together the
+roadman came along, and with his spade threw the pieces into the
+gutter.  The children raised a great cry.  But the man saw that there
+was blood on some of the fragments, and asked: 'Where did you get these
+from?'  Whereupon the children grew pale with terror, and the man took
+them off to the magistrate."
+
+The old man understood.  He went away and compensated all who had come
+to harm through him, and then on his way home he started once more to
+amass treasure!
+
+The next day Jesus and His followers reached another village.  There
+all was quiet, and the inhabitants lay under the fig-trees although it
+was not the Sabbath.  Then Jesus asked: "Why do they not work?"
+
+And one of the villagers said: "We should like to work, but we have no
+tools.  We want spades, ploughs, sickles, and axes, but our smith is
+always making holiday.  And it is just he who makes the best knives.
+There are no other smiths here."
+
+Our wanderers then went to the smith.  The man was sitting in his room,
+reading the Holy Scriptures and praying.  One of the disciples asked
+him why he was not at work although it was a week-day.
+
+The smith replied: "Since I heard the Prophet it is always Sabbath with
+me.  For a man should not strive after material property, neither
+should he take any care for the morrow, but seek the Kingdom of Heaven."
+
+Then Jesus went to the entrance of the house, and told, so that the
+smith could hear Him, of the man who made a journey.  "Before he
+departed he called his servants together and gave them money with which
+to carry on the work of the house.  He gave the first five heavy pieces
+of gold, the second two, and the third one.  They were to keep house
+according to their own discretion.  When after a long time the master
+returned, he desired his servants to account for the way in which they
+had employed the money.  The first had increased it tenfold.  'I am
+glad,' said the master, 'and because you are faithful in little I will
+trust you much--keep the gold.'  The second servant had increased the
+money twofold; the master praised him also, and gave him both principal
+and interest.  Then he asked the third servant what he had done with
+his money.  'Master,' replied the man, 'it wasn't much to begin with,
+so I wouldn't risk losing it.  I should have liked to gain a second
+gold piece, but I might have lost the first.  So I did not use it for
+the housekeeping, but buried it in a safe place, so that I could
+faithfully return it to you.'  Then the master snatched the gold piece
+from him and gave it to the fellow who had increased his money tenfold.
+'The little that he has shall be taken away from the lazy and
+unprofitable servant and given to him who knows how to value what he
+has.'"
+
+"Do you understand?" Matthew asked the smith.  "The gold pieces are the
+talents which God gives men--to some more, to others less.  Whoso lets
+his talents lie fallow, and does not use them, is like the man who has
+strength and skill to work the iron, but who lays the hammer aside to
+brood idly over writings he cannot understand."
+
+"How is it then," said someone, "fault is found with him who works, and
+likewise with him who doesn't work?"
+
+Matthew tapped the speaker on the shoulder.  "My friend!  Everything at
+the right time! the point is to do that for which you have a talent,
+not to yearn after things for which you have no talent whatsoever."
+
+The smith laid aside his book and his phylacteries and grasped his
+hammer.
+
+Then a man came by who complained that the new teaching was worthless.
+He had followed it, had given away all his possessions because they
+brought him care.  But since he had become poor, he had had still more
+care.  So now he should begin to earn again.
+
+"Do so," said James the younger, "but take care that your heart is not
+so much in it that your possessions possess you!"
+
+And others came: "Sir, I am a ship's carpenter!  Sir, I am a goldsmith!
+Sir, I am a stone-cutter!  Are we not to put our whole heart into our
+work so as to produce something worthy?  If our heart is not in it we
+cannot do good work."
+
+"Of course," said the disciple, "you must exert your whole strength and
+talent in order to produce worthy work.  But not for the sake of the
+work or the praise, but for the sake of God and the men whom you serve.
+And rejoice from your hearts that God creates His works through you."
+
+A rustic once came to James and discussed prayer.  The Master said you
+should pray in few words and not, as the heathens do, in a great many
+words, for the Father knows our needs.  Well, he had once prayed just
+in that way, using few words, but his prayer had not been heard.
+
+Then James said: "Don't you remember what the Master said of the man to
+whose door a friend came in the night and begged for bread?  He had
+gone to bed, took no heed of his friend's knocking, and at length
+called out: 'Go away and let me sleep.'  But the friend continued to
+knock and to complain that he needed bread, and began noisily to shake
+the door.  That lasted until the man in bed could endure it no longer.
+Out of temper, he got up, took some bread and gave it to his friend
+through the window.  He did not give it him out of love, but only to be
+rid of him.  The Master meant that with perseverence much might be
+attained by prayer."
+
+The man was irritated by the disciple's explanation, and said; "What!
+One time He says, Pray shortly, using few words; and at another time,
+You must not leave off praying until you are heard."
+
+But James replied: "Friend, you misunderstand me again.  Did He say,
+You shall pray little?  No; He said, You shall pray in few words; but
+without ceasing, and with your whole heart, and with faith that the
+Father will at length hear you.  And the longer He keeps you waiting
+for His help, the greater must be your faith that He knows why He keeps
+you waiting, and at last He will give you more than you asked for.  If
+that man gave the bread in order to be rid of the annoyance, how much
+more will the Father give the child whom He loves?"
+
+To which the man replied: "Well, I did pray thus, I kept on and I
+believed, and yet I was not heard."
+
+"What did you pray for?"
+
+"For this," said the rustic.  "I have a neighbour who steals the figs
+from my tree, and I can't catch him at it.  So I prayed that he might
+fall from the tree and break his legs.  But I was not heard."
+
+James was obliged to laugh aloud over the foolish fellow who prayed to
+the merciful Father for vengeance.
+
+"Pray for strength to pardon your neighbour and give him the figs which
+he seems to need more than you, and you will certainly be heard."
+
+"And," continued the disciple, "if it is a question of praying without
+ceasing, that does not mean you are always to be folding your hands and
+uttering pious words; it is rather to direct one's thoughts continually
+with longing to the dwelling of God and things eternal, and to measure
+everything in life, small things as well as great, by that standard, in
+reverence and faith."
+
+A noisy fellow asked: "How can I measure the corn I have to sell by
+that standard?"
+
+"If you refrain from taking advantage of the buyer with mixed, damp
+grain, but give him good stuff, then you are doing God's will, and are
+not harming your immortal soul by deceit, then your corn and your
+method of acting are measured by the standard of God and Eternity."
+
+"But see," exclaimed another, "my business friend gave me bad measure
+when he sold me oil, and gave me half water.  And it stands in the
+Scriptures: As it is measured to you, so shall you measure it again."
+
+As they walked on Jesus shook His head.  To think that His simple
+teaching could meet with so much misunderstanding, especially among
+those wanting in will towards it, those who could think of nothing but
+their desires and bodily comforts!  "No," He exclaimed sorrowfully,
+"they do not understand the word.  They must have an illustration that
+they can see and feel, an illustration they will never forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Gradually they were reaching the end of their journey.  They met with
+no persecution during this last stretch.  Indeed, they rather saw how
+some of the seeds, although mingled with weeds, had taken root.  They
+reached the last hills after a night in which they had encamped under
+sycamore and fig trees.  Jesus was walking in front.  Although He was
+exhausted with the long wandering, and His feet almost refused their
+office, He still walked on ahead.  The disciples came behind, and when
+they reached the top of the hill they gave a great cry.  There opposite
+them on the tableland of the other hill lay the metropolis!  In the
+morning sun it looked as if built of burnished gold, Solomon's Temple
+with its innumerable pinnacles overtopping everything.
+
+Several of the disciples had never before been to Jerusalem, and a
+feeling of inspired reverence came over them at the sight of the Holy
+City of the kings and prophets.  Here--so thought Judas and many
+another--here will the glory begin for us.  They sat down under the
+olive-trees to rest and to put their clothes in order, while some even
+anointed their hair.  Then they ate figs and the fruit of the currant
+bushes.  But they were anxious about the Master.  The exertions of the
+last few weeks had told on Him, and His feet were very sore.  But He
+said nothing.  The disciples agreed that they could not let this go on
+any longer.  James went down the slope to where he saw some cottages,
+and asked if anyone had a riding horse or at least a camel on which a
+traveller could ride into the town.  They would like to borrow it.
+
+A little bent old man sidled up to the stranger and assured him with
+much eloquence that neither horse nor camel was to be had, but that
+there was an ass.  Yet that ass was not to be had either.
+
+Could the Messiah make His entry on an ass?  No, we could not begin
+like that.  Such was the disciple's first thought.  Then it occurred to
+him that ancient prophets had foretold: He would make His entry on an
+ass.  Whereupon James declared himself willing to take the ass.
+
+"You may want him and I mayn't give him," said the old man with a
+cunning laugh.  "If anything happened to this animal I should never get
+over it.  It is no ordinary ass, my friend!"
+
+"It is no ordinary rider who needs him," said James.
+
+The little old man took the disciple to the stable.  The animal stood
+by the manger, and was certainly of a good breed.  It was not gray, but
+rather bright brown and smooth, with slender legs, pretty,
+sharp-pointed ears, and long whiskers round its big intelligent eyes.
+
+"Isn't it the colour of a thoroughbred Arab?" said the old man.
+
+"It's a beautiful creature," assented James.  "Will you lend it for a
+silver piece and much honour?  It can easily be back by noon."
+
+To which the little old man replied: "It stands to reason that we can
+make something out of it during this time of visitors.  Let us make it
+two silver pieces."
+
+"One silver piece and honour!"
+
+"Let us make it two silver pieces without honour," haggled the little
+old man.  "A steed for princes, I tell you.  In the whole of Judaea you
+won't find such another beauty!  It is of noble descent, you must know."
+
+"We can dispense with that honour," said James, "if only it does not
+stumble."
+
+Then the old man related how in the year of Herod's massacre of the
+innocents--"a little over thirty years ago, I think--you must know that
+the Infant Messiah lay in a stable at Bethlehem with the ox and the
+ass.  The child rode away into foreign lands, as far as Egypt, they
+say, on that very ass.  And this ass is descended from that one."
+
+"If that's so," said James brightly, "it's a marvellous coincidence!"
+And he whispered softly in the old man's ear: "The man who will enter
+Jerusalem to-day on that ass is the Messiah who was born in the stable."
+
+"Is it Jesus of Nazareth?" asked the old man.  "I will hire the animal
+to Him for half a silver piece.  In return I shall implore Him to heal
+my wife, who has been rheumatic for years."
+
+So they made their compact, and James led the ass up the mountain where
+they were all sitting together, unable to gaze long enough at
+Jerusalem.  Only Jesus was wrapt in thought and looked gloomily at the
+shining town.
+
+"Oh, Jerusalem!" He said softly to Himself.  "If only thou wouldst heed
+this hour.  If thou wouldst recognise wherein lies thy salvation.  But
+thou dost not recognise it, and I foresee the day when cruel enemies
+will pull down thy walls so that not one stone remains upon another."
+
+John placed his cloak on the animal, and Jesus mounted it.  He rode
+down to the valley followed by His disciples.
+
+And then an extraordinary thing happened.  When they reached the valley
+of Kedron where the roads cross, people hurried up shouting: "The King
+is coming!  The Son of David is coming!"  Soon others ran out of the
+farms and the gardens, and kept alongside them at the edge of the road,
+shouting: "It is the Messiah!  God be praised.  He has come!"
+
+No one knew who had spread the news of His arrival, or who first
+shouted the word Messiah.  Perhaps it was Judas.  It caught on like
+wildfire, awaking cries of acclamation everywhere.  When Jesus rode up
+to the town, the crowd was so great that the ass could only pace slowly
+along, and after He had passed the town gate the streets and squares
+could scarcely contain the people.  The whole of Jerusalem had suddenly
+become aware that the Prophet of Nazareth had come!  Strangers from the
+provinces, who had already seen and heard Him in other places, pressed
+forward.  Now that He entered the metropolis with head erect and the
+cry of the Messiah filling the air, people who had scorned the poor
+fugitive were proud of Him and boasted of meetings with Him, of His
+acquaintance.  Hands were stretched out to Him.  Many cast their
+garments on the ground for the ass to step on.  They greeted Him with
+olive and palm branches, and from hundreds of throats sounded: "All
+hail to Thee!  All hail to Thee!  Welcome, Thou long-expected, eagerly
+desired Saviour!"  The police, with their long staves, made a way
+through the streets that led to the golden house, to the king's palace.
+From all doors and windows they shouted: "Come into my house!  Take
+shelter under my roof, Thou Saviour of the people!"  The crowd poured
+forward to the palace.  The disciples, who walked close behind Him and
+could scarcely control their agitation, were surrounded, overwhelmed,
+fanned with palm-leaves, pelted with rose-buds.  Simon Peter had been
+recognised as soon as the Master, and could not prevent the people
+carrying him on their shoulders; but he bent down and implored them to
+set him on the ground, for he did not wish to be lifted higher than the
+Master, and he feared if they held him up like that over the heads of
+the others many would take him for the Messiah.  John had managed
+better; bending down and breathing heavily, he led the animal, so that
+the people only took him for a donkey-driver.  All the rest of the
+disciples enjoyed the Master's honours as their own.  Had they not
+faithfully shared misery with Him!
+
+"Jerusalem, thou art still Jerusalem!" they said, intoxicated and
+filled with the storm of exultation around Him.  "However well it went
+with us, it has never gone so well as here in Jerusalem."
+
+Judas could not congratulate himself enough that, despite the poor
+procession, the Master was recognised.  "I always said He would work
+His miracle when the time came."
+
+"Well, I am full of fears," said Thomas.  "They shout far too loudly.
+The sounds come from the throat, not from the heart."
+
+"Oh, take yourself off.  You're always full of foreboding."
+
+"I understand people a little.  Idle townsfolk are easily pleased; they
+like to enjoy themselves, and any cause serves their turn."
+
+"Thomas," said Matthew reprovingly, "It is not your humility that makes
+you heedless of the honour.  It is doubt.  See that fat shopkeeper
+there who brings more faith out of his throat.  Listen!  'Hail to Thee,
+Son of David!' he shouts, and is already hoarse through his loud
+shrieks of joy."
+
+Thomas did not answer.  Stooping down in irritation, he hastened
+through the crowd.  Cries of welcome filled the whole town, and the
+streets along which the procession took its way were like animated palm
+groves.  All traffic was at a standstill, windows and roofs were filled
+with people, all stretching their necks to see the Messiah.
+
+Jesus sat on the animal, both feet on the one side, holding the reins
+with His right hand.  He looked calmly and earnestly in front of Him,
+just as if He was riding through the dust clouds of the wilderness.
+When the pinnacles of the royal castle towering above the roofs of the
+houses were in front of Him, He turned the animal into a side street,
+to the Temple square.  Two guards at the entrance to the Temple signed
+violently with their arms to the crowd to go away, but the people
+remained standing there.  The procession stopped, and Jesus got off the
+ass.
+
+"He is not going to the palace, but to the Temple?" many asked in
+surprise.  "To the Temple?"
+
+"To the Rabbis and Pharisees?  Then we'll see what we shall see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Jesus, with serious determination, quickly ascended the steps of the
+Temple, without even glancing at the shouting people.  A part of the
+crowd pressed after Him, the rest gradually dispersed.  But the shout:
+"Praised be He who has come to-day!" never ceased the whole day.
+
+When he entered the forecourt of the Temple and looked in.  He stood
+still in dismay.  It was full of life and movement.  Hundreds of people
+of all kinds were tumbling over each other's heels, in gay-coloured
+coats, in hairy gowns, with tall caps and flat turbans.  They were all
+offering goods for sale with cries and shrieks; there were spread out
+carpets, candlesticks, hanging lamps, pictures of the Temple and of the
+ark of the covenant, fruit, pottery, phylacteries, incense, silken
+garments, and jewels.  Money-changers vaunted their high rate of
+exchange, the advantage of Roman money, broke open their rolls of gold
+and let the pieces fall slowly into the scales in order to delight the
+eyes of the pilgrims.  Buyers made their way through, looked scornfully
+at the goods, haggled, laughed, and bought.  Rabbis glided round in
+long caftans and soft shoes so that they were not heard.  They wore
+velvet caps on their heads below which hung their curly black or grey
+hair.  They carried large parchment scrolls under their arms--for the
+Sabbath was about to begin--slipped around with a dignified yet cunning
+manner, bargained here and there with shopkeepers or their wives,
+vanished behind the curtains and then reappeared.
+
+When Jesus had for some time observed all this confusion from the
+threshold, anger overcame Him.  Pushing the traders aside with His
+arms, He cut Himself a way through.  At the nearest booth He snatched
+up a bundle of phylacteries, swung them over the heads of the crowd,
+and exclaimed so loudly that His voice was heard above everything: "Ye
+learned teachers and ye Temple guards, see how admirably you understand
+the letter of the Word!  It is written in the Scriptures: My house is
+for prayer!  And you have turned Solomon's Temple into a bazaar!"
+Hardly had He so spoken when He overturned a table with His hand, and
+upset several benches with His foot so that the goods fell in confusion
+to the ground under the feet of the crowd which began to give way.
+They stared at one another speechless, and He continued to thunder
+forth: "My house shall be a holy refuge for the downcast and the
+suffering, said the Lord.  And you make it a den of assassins, and,
+with your passion for lucre, leave no place for men's souls.  Out with
+you, ye cheats and thieves, whether you higgle over your goods or with
+the Scriptures!"  He swung the phylacteries high over the Rabbis and
+teachers so that they bent their heads and fled through the curtained
+entrances.  But the Rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Temple guards
+assembled in the side courts, and quickly took counsel how they were to
+seize this madman and render Him harmless.  For see, ever more people
+streamed through the gates into the forecourt, surrounded the angry
+Prophet, and shouted: "Praised be Thou, O Nazarene, who art come to
+cleanse the Temple!  Praise and all hail to Thee, long-looked-for
+Saviour!"
+
+When the Rabbis saw how things were going, they too raised their voices
+and shouted: "Praised be the Prophet!  Hail to thee, O Nazarene!"
+
+"All is won!" whispered the disciples, crowding up together.  "Even the
+Rabbis shout!"
+
+The Rabbis, however, had quickly sent for the police; they came up to
+Jesus and, as soon as the crowd became quieter, entered into
+conversation with Him.
+
+"Master," said one of them, "truly you appear at the right time.  The
+condition of our poor people is such that we know not which way to
+turn.  You are the man who turns aside neither to right nor left, but
+who keeps in the straight path of justice.  Tell us what you think:
+Shall we Jews pay taxes to the Roman Emperor or shall we refuse?"
+
+Jesus saw what they were driving at, and asked to be shown a coin.
+They were surprised that He had no money in His pockets, and handed Him
+one of the Roman coins current in the country.
+
+"From whom do these coins come?" He asked.
+
+"As you see, from the Roman Emperor."
+
+"And whose picture is on the coin?"
+
+"The Emperor's."
+
+"And whose is the inscription on the coin?"
+
+"The Emperor's."
+
+"Whose is the coin?"
+
+They were silent.
+
+Jesus said: "Render unto God what comes from Him, and unto Caesar what
+comes from Caesar."
+
+Those who saw through the case broke out into applause and shouting
+over the decision, and carried the crowd with them.  The Rabbis were
+secretly furious that He had escaped their cunning snare.  They had
+reckoned: If He says, Pay taxes to the Roman Emperor, the people will
+know that He is not the Messiah but rather a servant of the foreigner.
+And if He says, Do not pay taxes to the Emperor, He is a demagogue, and
+will be taken prisoner.  But now He has both Emperor and people on His
+side, and we must let Him alone.
+
+"Everything is going splendidly," the disciples whispered.  "They ask
+His advice, they will do nothing without Him."
+
+The interpreters of the Law had got Him in their midst, and could not
+rest till they outwitted Him.  So one of them asked Him: "Oh, man of
+great wisdom, do you believe that there will be a resurrection of the
+dead?"
+
+"There will be," He answered.
+
+"That marriage between man and woman is indissoluble, and that a woman
+may only have one husband at a time?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+"And that after the death of one the other may marry again?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"You are right, sir," interposed a third speaker.  "But suppose a woman
+had seven husbands one after another because they died one after
+another.  If they all rise from the dead the woman would have seven
+husbands at once, each is her lawful husband, and yet she may only have
+one."
+
+There was immense eagerness to hear what He would say, for the problem
+seemed insoluble.  And Jesus said: "He who asks that question knows
+neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.  The Scriptures promise us
+resurrection, and the power of God the eternal life of the soul.  There
+is no marriage between souls, so the question falls to the ground."
+
+There was fresh shouting and applause, and kerchiefs were waved from
+all sides.  The teachers of the Law drew back in ill-humour, and
+dismissed the police who were waiting in the back court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+After the excellent reception in Jerusalem, and the victory in the
+Temple on the first day, the disciples ventured to walk about the city
+fearlessly and openly.  Jesus remained grave and silent.  They put up
+in a quiet inn by the gate.  The disciples did not see why He should
+not have lodged them in a palace.  They would have liked occasionally
+to accept the invitation of rich people, and enjoy the homage that
+would be paid them, but Jesus would not permit it.  The festival of the
+Passover was at hand; there was something else to do than to be feted
+and have their heads turned, they would soon need to have their heads
+very cool.  If He accepted any of the invitations it would be the one
+from Bethany, where He knew He had truer friends than in Jerusalem.
+But meanwhile He had something more to say in the Temple.
+
+When He went there the next day the hall was filled to overflowing with
+people, Rabbis, and expounders of the Law.  Some had come in order to
+witness His glorification, others to try and ruin Him.
+
+One of the Pharisees came up to Him and asked Him without any
+preliminaries which was the greatest commandment.
+
+Jesus ascended the pulpit and said; "I have just been asked which is
+the greatest commandment.  Now, I am not come to give new commandments,
+but to fulfil the old ones.  The greatest commandment is: Love God
+above all, and thy neighbour as thyself.  Those who asked Me, your
+teachers and interpreters of the Law, say the same, but their actions
+do not square with their words.  You may believe their words, but you
+must not imitate their deeds.  They exact the uttermost from you, but
+do not themselves stir a finger.  And what good they do, is done in the
+eyes of the people, so that they may win praise.  They like to take the
+first place at festivals, and to be greeted on all sides as the
+expounders of Holy Writ.  That honour they do not offer to God, but to
+themselves.  I tell you he who exalts himself will be cast down."
+
+Some of the Pharisees interrupted Him and contradicted Him.  He turned
+to them face to face, and in a louder voice said: "Yes, you expounders
+of Holy Writ, you seek to shine outwardly.  You keep your vessels clean
+on the outside, and your wool soft, but inside you are full of
+wickedness and lust of plunder.  Ye who sit in the seats of learning
+and preach morals are like tombs adorned with flowers outside, but full
+of corruption inside.  You despise the fathers because they persecuted
+the prophets; while you yourselves kill the prophets whom the Lord
+sends to-day, or else suffer them to be contemned.  And when they are
+dead you build them fine tombs.  Cursed be ye, ye hypocrites!  You
+forbid others to be the heralds of salvation; you even stone them.  You
+will not go yourselves into the Kingdom of Heaven, and you keep out
+those who wish to go in.  Cursed be ye, ye, with your semblance of
+holiness, who take to yourselves the houses of widows and the property
+of orphans under the pretence of love!  Ye fools and blind guides who
+lead the people to petty, unimportant things, to outward observances
+and customs, instead of to the important things--to justice, to mercy,
+and to love!  That is as wise as to strain out the gnat and swallow the
+camel.  Ye snakes and vipers!  Be ye cursed eternally!  Even if God
+sent His Son you would crucify Him, and would pretend you did it for
+the sake of the people because He was a traitor.  But know that you
+will have to pay for the blood of the heaven-sent Messenger!  The time
+is not far off when the blood of your children will flow in streams
+through the streets of Jerusalem!"
+
+While Jesus was speaking His disciples trembled.  They had never seen
+Him so consumed with anger.  But it was too soon!  He had no army to
+protect Him if they should attack Him.  The crowd was immensely
+excited, and the applause grew to a storm.  Many screamed with delight
+that such words were at last spoken; others looked threateningly at the
+Pharisees.  They--the Rabbis and Pharisees--had all kinds of excuses
+ready against the terrible accusations, but it seemed to them wiser not
+to honour the outbreak of this "seeker of the people's favour" with any
+answer, and to leave the Temple at once, unnoticed, by the back
+entrances.
+
+The broad square in front of the Temple was a sea of heads.  As many
+persons as possible had pushed their way in, but the greater number
+surrounded the enormous building, and shouted incessantly: "We, too,
+want to hear Him!  Let Him come out and preach in the open air so that
+we may see Him.  Hail to the Messiah King!  He shall reign in the
+golden palace and in Solomon's glorious Temple!"
+
+When Jesus stepped out of the Temple into the confusion.  He heard the
+shouts, and mounted the plinth of one of the immense pillars that
+surrounded the building.  Here again He spoke.  Looking at the city He
+hurled these words at the crowd:
+
+"You boast of your glorious Temple!  I tell you that not one stone of
+this building shall remain on the other.  For you have heaped up crime
+upon crime.  I find none of you thirsty, but you are all the worse for
+drinking.  The cup is full, and the present generation shall know it.
+When desolation comes over the land, then let him who is in the valley
+flee to the mountain, and let him who is in the field not return into
+the city, and let him who is on the roof not come down, in order to
+fetch his coat from the house.  Fire and sword will meet him.  Woe to
+the women and children in those days: they will cry.  Mountains fall on
+us and crush us.  It will be a wailing and lamentation such as has
+never before been under the sun, and never will be again.  Unappeasable
+anger will overtake the people, Jerusalem will be destroyed, and its
+inhabitants be led into captivity by strange nations.  And men will be
+judged according to their good or evil deed.  Of two who are in the
+field one will be accepted, the other cast out.  Of two who lie in the
+same bed one will be heard, the other ignored.  The grain shall be
+gathered in the barns, the weeds shall be burnt in the fire."
+
+These words caused some murmuring in the crowd, and one of the
+disciples wrung his hands in despair: "There will be trouble over this!"
+
+Then His tone became gentler; "But do not despair; the days of that
+misery shall be shortened.  I will pray for it.  Where there is carrion
+there are eagles, and from the nation of sinners shall arise martyrs of
+the truth of God.  As the trees blossom and sprout after the hard
+winter, so shall the Kingdom of Heaven blossom forth from the purified
+people.  For the glad tidings will penetrate through the whole
+universe, and happy will be the nations which accept it."
+
+"Heaven upon earth?" asked someone from the swaying crowd.  Jesus
+answered: "Not your heaven upon earth!  Not that!  For the earth is too
+weak to bear heaven.  The earth is doomed, and of that doom the
+downfall of Jerusalem is but a parable.  In that day much distress will
+come.  False prophets will come and say, We are the saviours of the
+world!  Their spirit and their truth will blind the people, but it will
+not be the Holy Spirit or the eternal truth.  A great weariness and
+despair will come over men's souls, and they will long for death.  And
+as men gradually lose their light, their reason, so will the stars in
+the sky be extinguished; the sea will cover the land, and the mountains
+be sunk in the sea.  But the fiery token of the Son of God will appear
+in the dark sky."
+
+"What is the token?" asked one of the grey-bearded Rabbis.
+
+"He who has eyes will soon see the token of the Lord's judgment high on
+Golgotha.  His angels will announce Him in the air, but not in His
+lowliness as at Bethlehem.  He will come in all the strength and glory
+in which He sits at the right hand of the Father.  And He will restore
+every soul to its body, and reward the faithful with eternal joy, and
+the unbelieving with everlasting punishment."
+
+With terrified countenances and whispered words the people asked: "When
+will this happen?"
+
+"Watch, my children!  God alone knows the day and hour.  This world is
+passing, as you see, hour by hour.  Everything changes; only the word
+of the Father shall endure for ever."
+
+This speech of the Prophet made a deep impression on the people.  They
+no longer shouted or rejoiced; they no longer looked on His countenance
+as gladly as the day before, the glowing eyes burnt with such terrible
+anger.  They became silent, or only whispered to each other.  Did you
+understand? one asked his neighbour quietly.  Yes, they had all
+understood, but each something different.  They were all impressed with
+the words; every one was moved; and groups of people, as they made
+their way out, talked over the Prophet's speech, and many began to
+dispute about it.
+
+"I don't expect much from this Messiah," said an innkeeper to his
+guests.  "As far as I can see, He promises more ill than good.  If He
+can offer nothing better than the destruction of Jerusalem and the Last
+Judgment, He might just as well have stayed at home at Nazareth."
+
+"No, I've never taken much account of the Last Judgment," said a dealer
+in skins from Jericho.
+
+"It's quite true," shouted a tailor, "nothing good comes from Galilee!"
+
+"Nor from Judaea," laughed an unpatriotic tailor from Joppa.  "I can
+tell you I expect nothing until we have expelled all our Jewish princes
+and Rabbis and become Romans out and out.  The Emperor of Rome is the
+true Messiah.  All the rest should be impaled."
+
+So they gave vent to their various opinions.  The Temple authorities
+rubbed their hands in satisfaction.  "He is not clever enough to be
+dangerous.  He will hardly come within the arm of the law after what He
+has said."
+
+"But the people will judge Him," said one of the oldest among them,
+"the people themselves.  Mark that!  I promise you they will."
+
+"No, indeed.  He is not a man of fair words," said one of the
+overseers.  "He does not flatter the mob, and my contempt for the
+Nazarene is less than it was yesterday.  If He falls in the eyes of the
+people, He rises in mine."
+
+"The man makes me think that He will soon give Himself up.  Did you
+hear His allusion to Golgotha?"
+
+"Bless my soul, a famous prophet has got to be right in something,"
+mocked one of the high priests.  "I think we ought to confer with the
+authorities so as to prevent any disturbance to-morrow at the festival.
+You understand me?"
+
+"That's worth consideration with all this concourse of people."
+
+"I think he has poured enough water on the fire," said the high priest.
+"No one would stir a finger if we took Him."
+
+"Let's wait till the festival is over.  You can never be sure of the
+mob."
+
+"What!  After laying traps for Him all over the country, are we to let
+Him insult us here in the Temple itself?  No, I don't fear the mob any
+more.  The law is more hazardous."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+The little town of Bethany was situated in a narrow valley at the foot
+of the Mount of Olives.  There was a large house there belonging to a
+man who had been ill for many years; formerly he had been filled with
+despair, but since he had become an adherent of the Nazarene, he was
+resigned and cheerful.  His incurable disease became almost a blessing,
+for it destroyed all disquieting worldly desires and hopes, and also
+all fears.  In peaceful seclusion he gave up his heart to the Kingdom
+of God.  When he sat in his garden and looked out over the quiet
+working of Nature, he hardly remembered that he was ill.  He was so
+entirely imbued with the happiness of life in the Kingdom of Heaven,
+and his prayers were full of gratitude that death could not destroy
+such a life, since it was immortal, and would be carried into eternity
+with the immortal soul.
+
+Two of the inmates of his house were at one with him in this.
+Magdalen, his wife's sister, the fallen woman of Magdala, lived with
+them since she had been obliged to part from the Master.  Now she heard
+with a fearful joy that Jesus was in Jerusalem.  Her brother, Lazarus,
+was in still greater excitement about it.  The youth declared that the
+Master had accomplished the greatest thing of all in regard to him.  He
+could not talk about it enough, and was irritated if they did not
+receive his tale as the very newest thing, although it had happened
+months before, when Jesus had been in the wilderness of Judaea.  They
+had marvelled at the event beyond all measure, but when the great
+miracle came to be related every day, it got commonplace.  "Just let
+one of you experience what dying is like," Lazarus would often exclaim,
+interrupting a lively conversation.  "When you lie there and turn cold,
+they put on a shroud, tie a kerchief round your head, stretch you out
+on a board, and lament that you are dead.  You are dead, but it isn't
+quite what you thought.  You know about it; you are there when they put
+you into the sack, carry you to the grave, and rend their garments for
+grief.  You are there when your body is buried in the damp, everlasting
+darkness, and begins to mingle with the earth.  Your poor soul gathers
+itself together to utter a cry for help, but your breast is dead, your
+throat is dead.  And in this agony of death, which never ceases, a man
+comes by, lays his hand on your head, and says, 'Lazarus, get up!' and
+your pulse begins to beat, and your limbs grow warm again, and you get
+up and live!  And live!  Do you know what it means--live?"
+
+Then Magdalen would go to her brother and calm him, telling him that it
+was a great thing to awake a dead body to life, but a still greater
+thing to bring a dead soul to life!
+
+Now this family of Bethany had sent to Jerusalem and invited the Master
+to go to their house with two of His travelling companions in order
+that He might repose Himself after His long wanderings in homelike
+security.  Jesus thought it was time to leave the city for a little,
+and accepted the invitation.  His disciples were sorry.  They each
+desired some hospitable house in order that after so long a time of
+hardship they might once again be glad with the Master; they thought
+that was only reasonable, considering His victory.  When the disciples
+found that only two of them could go with Him, they were distressed,
+for all had been obliged to share the hard times with Him.
+
+"Have you ever lacked anything with Me?" He asked.  "Have you suffered
+want?"
+
+"No, Lord, never!"  For by His side they had never felt want.  The
+Master rejoiced over their disinterestedness, and the ten decided that
+the youngest and the oldest should go with Him, as was only fair.  So
+John and Simon Peter were chosen.  The rest found lodging with citizens
+of the town.  Joseph of Arimathea, who had property round Jerusalem,
+received some of the disciples.  There was the rich Simeon, who had
+once ridden out into the wilderness to gain eternal life, and had
+nearly lost his mortal life.  Since then he had changed his opinion
+about the value of great possessions; at least, he let the needy share
+them, and he received some of the disciples.  James had business in
+Bethpage, on the farther slope of the Mount of Olives, where he had
+hired the ass.  He took Andrew with him.  The animal had been sent
+back, but had not yet been paid for.  The little old man came to meet
+them in most friendly fashion.  He was proud beyond everything that his
+noble brown ass had had so great an honour.  He had himself been in the
+city, and had heard how the Prophet reproved the Pharisees in the
+Temple.  That was the finest day of his life.  If the Master would only
+come and heal his wife of her rheumatism, he would be converted.
+
+That was a good thing, said James, because they hadn't any money with
+which to pay him.  The little old man whistled in surprise.  He saw now
+that people were right when they set no store by men of Galilee.
+
+In order to save their countrymen's honour, they offered to work in the
+garden until they had fully paid the debt.  So both the disciples set
+to digging, and thought, perhaps, of the parable of the labourers in
+the vineyard.  Then they discussed the events in Jerusalem, and how
+they would rather be ministers of the Messiah in the golden palace than
+doing such hard work here.
+
+When Jesus with John and Peter reached Bethany, their host Amon had
+himself pushed in his wheeled chair to meet them, and called to his
+wife, Martha, to make haste and come and pay her respects to the
+guests.  She had, she said, no time for that; she had things to look
+after, in the parlour, the dining-room, everywhere, to see that all was
+in order, if need be to lend a helping hand herself.  The children of
+the servants were playing about in the courtyard, and a contented,
+homelike feeling pervaded everything.  Suddenly the slender form of
+Lazarus hurried up, and lay down at the Master's feet.  He recognised
+him, and said: "Lazarus, you have your life in order to stand upright."
+The youth got up.  And then, hesitating and half afraid, Magdalen
+approached.  He greeted her in silence.
+
+She, too, said nothing.  But when they were at table she knelt before
+Him, and anointed His feet.  She dried them with her hair and wept.
+The pleasant odour of the oil filled the room, and Peter whispered to
+his neighbour: "Such ointment must cost a mint of money!  If she had
+given it to the poor, He would have been better pleased."
+
+Jesus heard what he said.  "What is wrong, Peter?  She is kind to Me so
+long as I am here.  When I'm no longer with you, you'll still have the
+poor.  She has shown Me a mark of love that will never be forgotten."
+
+Peter was ashamed, and said softly to his neighbours: "He is right.  It
+often happens that people leave a good deed undone, and say, 'We'll
+give something, therefore, to the poor.'  That's what they say, but
+they do neither one nor the other.  He is right."
+
+They ate and drank amid the pleasant, homely surroundings, and were
+very cheerful.  Magdalen wanted to sit quite at the lower end of the
+table, but the Master desired her to sit on His right hand.  Her
+enthusiastic glance hung on His face, and it seemed as if she drank
+from His mouth every word which He spoke.  Jesus was indefatigable in
+narrating legends and parables, every one of which contained some great
+thought.  If He dealt harshly with human foolishness before the people,
+He treated it as earnestly now, but with a warm sympathy that went to
+the hearts of all His hearers.  The invalid host was delighted, and
+signed to his wife to listen to the Master's words.  But Martha was
+continually occupied in looking after the various courses and dishes,
+in seeing that everything was as perfect as possible, and in serving
+her guests.  She was vexed with her sister Magdalen who sat there by
+His side, and troubled herself about nothing.  When she again brought
+in a dish, Jesus put His hand gently on her arm, and said; "Martha, how
+busy you are.  Do leave off for a little, and come and sit down.  We've
+had more than enough with all these dainties, and you bring us still
+more.  Copy your sister; she has chosen the better part--spiritual food
+instead of bodily."
+
+So Martha sat down, and she too watched His mouth, but less for the
+sake of what He said than to see how He liked the food.  He observed
+this, and said with a smile, "Everyone is kind in his own way."  And He
+continued to reveal in attractive fashion the secrets of the Kingdom of
+Heaven.  But Martha always interrupted Him with remarks on the dishes,
+or with orders to the servants, until Jesus became almost annoyed, and
+said sharply: "Know you not that I will give you food?  The soul is the
+one thing needful."
+
+Then they also spoke of the day's proceedings, and Amon congratulated
+Him prettily on the great victory at Jerusalem.
+
+"Do you call that a victory?" asked Jesus.  "Amon, do you know men so
+little?  They see in Me the Messiah King who will conquer the Empire
+to-morrow.  They, blind creatures, they have no idea of _My_ Kingdom.
+They are pleased with words that destroy, they do not want to hear
+words that build up.  It's an empty-headed people that can only be
+roused by need and oppression.  But they will be aroused."
+
+After dinner He lay down on cushions, the softest that Martha could
+find in the house.  Young John's curly head lay on His breast, Magdalen
+sat at His feet.  Peter lay near by on a carpet; a little farther off
+sat Amon in his wheeled chair, with Martha stroking his white hair.
+John was particularly happy to-day.  He had never seen the Master so
+calm and gentle.  Yet something depressed the disciple.  At the above
+remark about the people he observed: "Master, if they knew how deeply
+you loved them."
+
+"They ought to know it."
+
+"But they cannot know it from the way in which you speak to them."
+
+"The way in which I speak to them?" said Jesus, and stroked the
+disciple's soft hair.  "That is just My John all over.  He cannot
+understand that you do not stroke buffaloes with peacocks' feathers.
+I'm too hard on these hypocrites, these obdurate, indifferent men, am
+I?  When I disappoint those who would extract daily profit from Me in
+the form of miracles, when I lay bare the carefully-concealed thoughts
+of their hearts, then I am hard.  And when I shatter their childish
+love of the world, their craving for vanities, then I am hard.  And
+when they strut about with their condemnations and their
+hard-heartedness, trampling the weak underfoot out of greed and malice,
+haughty as the heathens who bring human sacrifices to their gods, I
+would fain chastise them with a lash of scorpions.  But when the
+forsaken come to Me, and penitent sinners trustfully seek refuge with
+Me, then, John, I am not hard."
+
+The voices of children playing in the courtyard sounded through the
+open windows.  Jesus turned to His hostess and said: "Martha!  You have
+excellently entertained Me in your house.  Will you give Me yet another
+treat?"
+
+"What is it, Master?  I would leave no wish of yours ungratified."
+
+"The little ones--let them come in."
+
+"Ah! my poor boy will cry his eyes out that he wasn't here to-day.
+Dear lad, he's in Jerusalem."
+
+"God be his guard!  Let those who are playing in the courtyard come up."
+
+They came shyly in at the door, two dark little girls, and a fair boy,
+who carried a carved wood camel in his hand.  When Jesus spread out His
+arms, they went to Him, and were soon at home, holding up their little
+red mouths, in which He put fruit from the table.  Peter, who would
+have liked to sleep a little, was not particularly pleased with the
+little guests, but was glad that the Master petted them and joked with
+them.
+
+Then Jesus said to the boy: "Benjamin, mount your camel, ride to that
+man over there, and ask him why he is so silent."
+
+Peter accepted the invitation to join in the conversation, but he was
+not very happy in what he said.  "Master," he said hesitatingly, "what
+I have to say is scarcely suited to this pleasant day."
+
+Such remarks, said Martha humorously, were of the right sort to add to
+the cheerfulness of the company.  Peter was not the man to keep a
+secret long.  Turning to the Master, he said: "Early to-day, in the
+city, I heard some people talking.  They're always doing you some
+injustice."
+
+"What were they saying, Peter?"
+
+"They said that the Prophet was a man of fair words, but that He did
+nothing.  He never once healed the sick who came to Him from great
+distances."
+
+"They say that?"
+
+"Yes, sir, that's the kind of thing they say."
+
+Jesus raised His head, and looked cheerfully round the circle.  While
+He rocked one of the little girls on His knee, He said calmly: "So they
+say I only talk and do nothing.  In their sense they are right.  I
+don't pray, they mean, because they don't see Me do it.  I don't fast,
+because we can't eat less than a little, except when we sit at a
+luxurious table like Martha's.  I don't give alms because My purse is
+empty.  What good do I do, then?  I don't work, because in their eyes
+My work doesn't count.  I don't work miracles on their bodies, because
+I am come to heal their souls.  Amon, say, would you exchange the peace
+of your heart for sound legs?"
+
+"Lord!" exclaimed Amon vivaciously, "if they say you do nothing good,
+just let them come to the house of old Amon at Bethany.  You came under
+my roof, and my soul was healed."
+
+"And you brought me resurrection and life," shouted Lazarus
+passionately from the other end of the room.
+
+"And me, more than that," said Magdalen, looking up at Him with moist
+eyes.  And then she bent down and kissed His feet.
+
+And Peter exclaimed: "I was a mere worm, and He made me a man.  He does
+more than all the Rabbis and physicians and generals put together."
+
+Then John turned to him and asked: "Brother, why didn't you talk like
+that to the people in Jerusalem?  Were you afraid of them?"
+
+"Is yon man a coward?" asked the boy, pointing with his hand to Peter.
+"Then he'll help us to play lion and sheep in the courtyard!"
+
+Jesus shook His head over such talk, and said: "No, My Peter is not a
+coward, but he is still somewhat unstable for a rock.  No one who, at
+his age, can train himself for the Kingdom of God could be a weakling."
+
+Martha, who had gone out to look after the supper, called into the room
+that the children's mother wanted them to go to her to read the
+Haggadah.
+
+The little ones pulled long faces.  "To read the Haggadah!" murmured
+the boy in a tone far too contemptuous of the holy Passover book.
+
+"Don't you like to read about God, my child?" asked Jesus.
+
+"No," replied the boy crossly.
+
+John pinched his red cheek.  "Naughty boy!  Good boys always like to
+hear about God."
+
+"But not always to read about Him!" said the little one.  "The Haggadah
+tires me to death."
+
+Then said Jesus: "He is of the unhappy ones for whom God is spoiled by
+the mere letter of the Word.  Would you rather stay with Me, children,
+than go and read the Haggadah?"
+
+"Yes, yes, we'll stay with you."  And all three hung round His neck.
+
+And Martha sought the mother and told her: "They are reading the
+Haggadah with six arms."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Two days were spent in this quiet, cheerful fashion.  Then Jesus said
+to the disciples: "It is over; we must return to Jerusalem."
+
+They were to spend the festival in the city, and James had hired a room
+in which the Master and His twelve faithful friends could solemnly
+celebrate the Passover.  His disciples again gathered round Him; but
+they looked anxious.  For they had had unpleasant experiences in their
+walks through the town.  The mood of the people had entirely changed;
+they spoke little of the Messiah but rather of the demagogue and
+betrayer of the people, just in the same tone as had been used in
+Galilee.  Only here the expressions were more forcible, and accompanied
+with threatening gestures.  In front of the town gates, where there was
+a rocky hill, Thomas had watched two carpenters nailing crossbeams to
+long stakes.  He asked what they were doing, and was told that
+criminals were impaled on the festival.  Questioning them more closely,
+he learned that they were desert robbers.
+
+"Desert robbers?" said a passer-by.  "What are desert robbers?  There
+are desert robbers every year.  This time quite different people are to
+be hoisted up."
+
+"Yes, if they're caught," said another.  "His followers are burrowing
+somewhere in the city, but He Himself has flown.  It's too absurd how
+the police seek everywhere, and can't find out where He is."
+
+Thomas did not want to hear any more, and took himself off.
+
+Judas heard similar things, only more plainly; it was quite clear that
+it was the Master who was meant.  Things had gone as far as that!  And
+all the enthusiasm had been false.  The olive-branches and palm-leaves
+were not yet all trodden down, and they bore witness to the Messianic
+ecstasy of four days ago.  And to-day?  To-day the police were
+searching for Him!  But wasn't it His own fault?  To run into the jaws
+of your enemies, and to irritate and abuse them--to do no more than
+that!  If He had only stirred a fold of His cloak to show who He was.
+Who believed that He had walked on the water: that He had brought the
+dead to life?  They only laughed when such things were related.  Why
+did He not do something now?  Just one miracle, and we should be saved.
+Perhaps He is intentionally letting things come to the worst, so that
+His power may appear the more impressive.  They will take Him and put
+Him in chains, lead Him out amid the joyful cries of the mob, and
+suddenly a troop of angels with fiery swords will come down from
+heaven, destroy the enemy, and the Messiah revealed will ascend the
+throne.  That will happen, must happen.  The sooner the better for all
+of us.  How can it be hurried on?  His indecision must be changed into
+determination.  I wish they had Him already, so that we could celebrate
+a glorious Passover.  Such were the thoughts of the disciple, Judas
+Iscariot.  Sunk in deep reflection he walked through the streets that
+evening.  The pinnacles and towers glowed in the dull red of the
+setting sun.  He met several companies of soldiers: a captain stopped
+him and asked if he did not come from Galilee?
+
+"I suppose you're asking about the Prophet," replied Judas; "no, I'm
+not He."
+
+"But I'm certain you know about Him."
+
+Judas drew a deep breath, as if he were on the point of saying
+something.  But he said nothing, pursued his way, and came to the house
+where they were all gathered round the Master.
+
+The room was large and gloomy.  A single lamp was suspended over the
+large table, covered with a white cloth, that stood in the centre,
+around which they were already seated.  The Master was so placed that
+the whole table could see Him.  A large dish with the roasted Paschal
+lamb stood before Him.  By its side were the Passover herbs in shallow
+bowls.  On the table were other bowls, and the unleavened bread baked
+for the festival in remembrance of the manna eaten in the wilderness.
+Near the centre of the table was a beaker of red wine.  They were
+silent or speaking in whispers, so that the steps of Judas, as he
+entered, echoed.  He was almost terrified by the echo.  Then he greeted
+them in silence with a low bow and sat down, just opposite John, who
+was at the Master's right hand, while Peter sat at His left.
+
+There was solemn silence.  Their first Passover in Jerusalem!  Jesus
+took one of the unleavened cakes, broke it, and laid the pieces down.
+James divided the lamb into thirteen portions.
+
+"We are thirteen at table," whispered Thaddeus to his neighbour
+Bartholomew.  He was silent.  They did not eat, but sat there in
+silence.  The lamp flickered, and the reddish reflection hovered about
+the table.  Then Jesus began to speak.
+
+"Eat and drink.  The hour approaches."
+
+John placed his hand tenderly on His, and asked: "What do you mean,
+Lord, when you say, The hour approaches?"
+
+"My friends," said Jesus, "you will not understand how what will happen
+this night can come to pass.  They will come and condemn Me to death.
+I shall not flee, for it must be so.  I have to bear testimony to the
+Father in heaven and of His tidings, and therefore I am ready to die.
+If I were not willing to die for My words, they would be like sand in
+the desert.  If I were not willing to die, My friends would not be
+justified, and would doubt Me.  A good shepherd must lay down his life
+for his flock."
+
+"Master," said Thomas, and his voice trembled, "not when you live; only
+when you die, could we doubt you."
+
+Then Jesus looked sadly round the circle, and said: "One among you
+doubts Me, though I live."
+
+"What do you mean by that, Lord?" asked Judas.
+
+Jesus said: "The Son of Man goes His appointed way.  Yet it would be
+better for that man never to have been born.  One of My own people will
+betray Me this night."
+
+As if struck down by a heavy weight, they were silent for a moment.
+Then they exclaimed: "Who is it?  Who is it?"
+
+"One of the twelve who sits at this table."
+
+"Master!" exclaimed Peter, "what causes that gloomy thought?  No one is
+unfaithful."
+
+Jesus said to him; "Yes, Simon Peter!  And another at this table will
+deny Me before morning cockcrow."
+
+They were silent, for they were all greatly afraid.  After a while He
+continued speaking.  "It must happen as the Father in His wisdom has
+determined.  But the time of work begins for you.  You will be My
+apostles, My ambassadors, who will travel over the world to tell all
+the nations what I have told you.  You shall be the salt of humanity,
+and season it with wisdom.  You shall be the yeast which causes it to
+ferment.  To others I have said, Do the good work secretly; to you I
+say, Let your light shine forth as an example.  Be wily as the serpent,
+and let not hypocrites deceive you; be like clever money-changers, who
+accept only good coins and refuse the false.  Be without guile, like
+doves, and go forth, innocent as the sheep who go among wolves.  If
+they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.  Where you sow
+peace for others, there will be the sword for you.  It will also come
+to pass that your message of peace will awake discord; one brother will
+dispute with the others, children will be against their parents,
+because some will be for Me and others against Me.  But the time will
+come when they will be united, one flock under the care of one
+shepherd.  Then there will be a great fire on earth, that of enthusiasm
+for the Spirit and for Love.  Would it were already burning!  Do not
+despair because, with your simplicity and want of eloquence, your
+ignorance of foreign tongues, you must travel in strange lands.  The
+moment you have to speak, My Spirit will speak through you in burning
+eloquence.  If you are silent, then the stones must speak, so vital is
+the word that must be spoken.  You must speak to the lowly of the glad
+tidings; you must speak to the mighty who possess the power to kill
+your body, but not your soul.  Days of temptation and persecution will
+come, I will not cease to implore the Father to stand by you.  Be not
+cast down.  If I did not now depart, the Spirit could not come to you.
+The visible is an enemy of the invisible.  I have spoken to you much in
+parables, so that it may the better remain in your memory.  I had still
+much to say to you; but My Spirit will speak to you, and He will make
+you understand more easily than when I spoke in parables.  Upon you I
+build My Church; do you open the Kingdom of God to all who seek it.
+What you do on earth in My name will also hold good in heaven with the
+Father.  And now I give you My peace as the world can never give it.  I
+remain with you in My Spirit and My Love."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The great words were spoken.  A solemn peace fell on their hearts.
+Judas went out.  The rest sat on in silence and looked at the Master
+with unbounded affection.  They could not understand what He had said,
+but they felt these were words before which the earth would tremble and
+the heavens bow down.
+
+And now something extraordinary happened.  It was not a miracle, it was
+more than a miracle.  Jesus stood up, took a towel and a washing-bowl,
+knelt before each, and washed his feet.  In their astonishment they
+offered no resistance.  When He came to Peter, Peter said, "No, Master,
+you shall not wash my feet."
+
+To which Jesus replied: "If I do not, then you are not Mine."
+
+Said Peter: "If that is so, then wash my face and hands, too, O Lord!
+so that it may be evident how utterly I am yours."
+
+Then Jesus said: "You call Me Lord, and yet I wash your feet.  I do
+this so that you may know that among men there is no lord, that all are
+brethren who shall serve one another.  See how I love you.  No one can
+give a greater proof of his love than to die so that his friends may
+live.  So I leave you this legacy: Brothers, love one another.  As I
+love you, love one another."
+
+John, overcome by those words, sank on his knees, and, sobbing, laid
+his head upon His bosom.  And Jesus said once more: "Children, love one
+another."
+
+Then He again sat down with them at the table.  They were all silent.
+Jesus took bread in His hand, lifted it a little towards heaven that it
+might be blessed, and broke it in two.  He handed the pieces to the
+right and left of Him, and said: "Take it and eat.  It is My body that
+will be broken for you."
+
+They took it.  Then He took the beaker of wine, lifted it to heaven
+that it might be blessed, passed it round, and said: "Take it and
+drink.  It is My blood that will be shed for you."
+
+And when they had all drunk.  He added: "Do this in remembrance of Me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+When the disciples separated after the meal, notwithstanding their
+fears, they did not realise that it was a farewell.  They sought their
+lodgings.  Only John, Peter, and James accompanied the Master when He
+left the town in the dark night and descended the valley to the foot of
+the Mount of Olives.  There was a garden there.  White stones lay
+between the savin trees and the weeping cypresses, fresh spring grass
+covered the ground.  Jesus said to His companions: "Stay here a
+little."  He Himself went farther into the garden.  The sky was covered
+by a thin veil of cloud, so that the moon shed a pale light over the
+earth.  The town on the mountain rose up dark and still; no sound was
+to be heard except the rippling of the brook Kedron in the valley.
+Jesus stood and looked up through the trees towards heaven.  He
+breathed heavily, and drops of perspiration stood on His brow.  He felt
+a great agony, an agony He had never before known.  Had He not often
+thought of death, and in His mind felt quite reconciled to it?  Did He
+not know that the Heavenly Father would receive Him?  Only He still
+belonged to this sweet life below, and still the way was open to Him to
+escape death.  Is His soul so weak now that it is troubled by the
+prospect of the enemy at hand, ready to seize Him?  Can He not go over
+the mountain to Jericho, into the wilderness, to the sea?  No, not
+flight.  Of His own free will He is to appear before the judges in
+order to stand by what He said.  Ah! but this surrender to the powers
+He had offended means death.  He sank down on the ground so that His
+head touched the grass, as if He would draw the earth to Him with eager
+arms.  "Must it be, O Father?  Fain would I stay with men in order to
+bring them nearer to Me.  Who will guide My disciples, still so weak?
+Guard them from evil, but do not take them from the world.  Let them
+live and spread Thy name.  If it is possible, let Me stay with them.
+But if it must be, take this agony of soul from Me and stand by Me.
+But I must not demand aught, My God, only humbly entreat.  If it is Thy
+will that I shall suffer all human sorrow and pain, then Thy will be
+done.  Accept this sacrifice for all who have provoked Thee.  If Thou
+desirest it, I will take the sins of the world upon Me, and atone for
+them that Thou mayest pardon.  But if it may be avoided, Father, My
+Father who art in heaven, have mercy on Thy Son, who has proclaimed Thy
+mercy."  So He prayed, and in His infinite distress He longed for His
+disciples.  He went to them and found them asleep.  They were sleeping
+like innocent children, and knew nothing of His terrible struggle.  He
+woke Peter, and said: "I am wellnigh perishing with sorrow.  Surely you
+might watch with Me in this hour."
+
+The disciple pulled himself together with some difficulty and shook the
+others.  But when Jesus looked at the poor fellows.  He thought: "What
+can they do for Me?"  He left them and went away, in order to fight
+through it alone.  And again He prayed: "Help Me, Lord; Oh, My God,
+forsake Me not."  But Heaven was silent, the loneliness was
+intolerable, and lie once more went back to His disciples.  They were
+again fast asleep.  They rested so peacefully, tired out by the cruel
+world, that Jesus thought, Well, let them sleep.  Drops, like blood,
+ran down His forehead and fell on the ground.  A third time He turned
+to the Father: "Forsaken of all, on Thee alone I call.  There is none
+to hear Me in My agony.  They are all asleep, and the clash of spears
+is on the road.  Lord God, send Thine angels to protect Me!"
+
+Not a leaf stirred; there was not a breath of air.  Heaven remained
+deaf and dumb.
+
+"It is the silent word of God.  To His will I submit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+When Judas sat in the room among the twelve, he felt so bewildered and
+confused that he did not hear all that Jesus said.  So he got up, left
+the room, and rushed through the empty streets of the city.  "One of
+those who sit at this table will betray Me!"  He knows men's thoughts.
+That gives Him power over all.  But He does not know how to use that
+power; He must be driven to that.  Judas could think of nothing else.
+The thought with which hitherto he had only played now took violent
+possession of his head and heart.  He went through the city gate, which
+was not closed at this Passover time.  He would spend the night among
+the bushes; but see--there goes the Master along the road with three of
+His disciples.  Judas stretched out his head between the branches in
+order to look after them.  They went towards the valley.  Were they
+going to Bethany?  Now he knew what to do.  He quickly pulled himself
+together, and went straight off to the Roman captain.
+
+"I know where He is."
+
+"You want money for this Jew?"
+
+"That's not my reason for telling you."
+
+"Yet you tell me."
+
+"Because I can't wait any longer.  You will find out who He is, ere
+long."
+
+"Well, where is He?"'
+
+"I'll go with the soldiers.  There are several persons with Him; I will
+go up to one and kiss his cheek.  That will be He."
+
+"How much do you want for this service of love, you brute?" asked the
+captain.
+
+"Insult away!  Seek Him without me.  I know what I'm after."
+
+"Well, how much do you want?  Are thirty silver pieces enough?"
+
+"The Man is worth more."
+
+"I do not haggle over prices."
+
+"Well, give what you please.  I fancy He will cost you very dear."
+
+The bargain was struck.  Judas, the treasurer, put the coins in the
+common purse, and thought: If we had only had this sooner.  And now
+it's hardly any use to us.  Then a troop of soldiers placed him in
+their midst, and, carrying torches, the procession marched out of the
+town and down into the Valley of Kedron.  They crossed the brook, and
+at the entrance to the garden gate intended to proceed to Bethany.  But
+a swift, curious glance of Judas observed, by the glimmer of the moon,
+figures lying on the ground under a bush.  He stopped, looked, and
+recognised the brothers.  He signed to the soldiers to enter the garden
+quietly.  To walk quietly is the way of traitors, not of warriors.  The
+sound of marching and the clash of swords woke the disciples.  A very
+different awakening from the gentle bidding of the Master!  They jumped
+up and hastened to where He was kneeling.
+
+Judas came forward and said: "Did I frighten you?"  Then he went up to
+Jesus: "You are still awake, Master?"  He bent down in greeting, kissed
+Him lightly on the cheek, and thought in tremulous expectation: Messiah
+King, now reveal Thyself!
+
+Then the soldiers rushed up.  They had been joined by a mob armed with
+sticks and cudgels, just as when notorious criminals are taken.  Jesus
+went forward a few steps to meet them and offered His hands to them to
+be bound.  John threw himself between, but he was dashed to the ground.
+James struggled with two of the soldiers; Peter snatched the sword of a
+third, and hacked at one of the Temple guards so that his ear flew from
+his body.
+
+"What are you doing?" Jesus called to the disciple.  "If you interfere
+they will kill you.  You will conquer not with the sword, but with the
+word.  But you, O people of Jerusalem; you treat Me as shamefully as if
+I were a murderer.  And only five days ago you led Me into the city
+with palms and psalms.  What have I done since then?  I sat in the
+Temple among you.  Why did you not take Me then?"
+
+They mocked at Him.  "Isn't to-day soon enough for you?  Can't you wait
+any longer for your ladder to heaven?  Patience, it is set up already."
+
+When the disciples heard such allusions, and saw the Master calmly
+surrendering Himself, they drew back.  The sticks and spears clashed
+together, the crowd jogged along, the torches flickered, and so the
+procession went up to the city.
+
+Judas stood behind the trunk of a tree, looking through the branches at
+the dread procession, and his eyes started from his head in terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The judges were awakened at midnight; the Jewish High Priests that they
+might accuse Him, the heathen judges that they might condemn Him.  The
+High Priest Caiaphas left his couch right gladly; he was delighted that
+they had caught Him at last, but he thought that the High Priest Annas
+should frame the accusation; he was younger, better acquainted with the
+Roman laws, and would carry through the ticklish business most
+effectively.  He, Caiaphas, would hold himself ready for bearing
+testimony or sealing documents at any minute.  Annas, too, was
+delighted that the Galilean, who had insulted the Pharisees in the
+Temple in so unheard-of a fashion, was caught at last.  He would settle
+the matter this very night, before the people, on whom no reliance was
+to be placed, could interfere.  With respect to the accusation, the
+whole high priesthood of Jerusalem must meet in order to take counsel
+over this knotty case.  As a matter of fact there was nothing they
+could legally bring against the fellow.  His speeches to the people.
+His proceedings in the Temple were, unfortunately, not sufficient.
+Some crime--a political one if possible--must be proved against Him, if
+that heathen, the Roman governor, was to condemn Him.
+
+So they met at the house of Caiaphas to take counsel.  They carried
+innumerable scrolls under their arms, in which were written all manner
+of things that had occurred since the first appearance of the Nazarene.
+The Galilean Rabbis especially had sent volumes in order to discredit
+and expose Him.  Yet all this would not be sufficient for the governor.
+Some definite point must be clearly worked up.
+
+Then Jesus was brought in.  His hands were bound, His dress was soiled
+and torn.  His countenance very sad.  The crowd had already had proof
+of His courage.  He stood there quietly.  Terror He no longer felt,
+sadness alone lay in His eyes.  They turned over the scrolls and spoke
+together in whispers.  It was made known that they would be glad to
+hear anyone who could bring any evidence against Him.  But no one
+offered.  The priests looked at each other in bewilderment.  Those who
+struck Him and insulted Him must surely know why they did it!
+
+At length a deformed man came forward.  He was certainly only a poor
+camel-dealer, but he knew something.  The story of the whale!  The
+Galilean said that, just as the whale cast up Jonah after three days,
+so would He come forth from His grave three days after His death.  The
+man had also said that He would destroy Solomon's Temple, which had
+taken forty-seven years to build, and rebuild it in three days.  Other
+witnesses could be found to testify to these things.
+
+Some considered, however, that these stories were empty exaggerations,
+and nothing more.
+
+"They are blasphemy," exclaimed Caiaphas.  "Everything He says has a
+hidden meaning.  What He meant was that three days after His death He
+would rise again, in order to destroy the Kingdom of the Jews and
+establish a new Kingdom."  Then he turned to Jesus: "Did you say that?"
+
+Jesus was silent.
+
+"He does not deny it; He did say it.  The wrath of Jehovah which
+presses heavily on Israel has been evoked by this blasphemer and false
+prophet.  And the guilty creature does not deny it."  Then Caiaphas
+turned to the people who were gathering in increasing numbers in the
+fore-court: "Let him who knows anything further against Him come
+forward and speak."
+
+Then several voices exclaimed: "He is a blasphemer, He is a false
+prophet.  He has brought on us the curse of Jehovah!"
+
+"Do you hear?" said the High Priest.  "That is the voice of the people!
+Yet in order to satisfy the nicest of consciences we will permit Him to
+speak once again that He may defend Himself.  Jesus of Nazareth! many
+know that you have said that you are the Christ, sent by Heaven.
+Answer clearly and without ambiguity.  I ask you, Are you Christ, the
+Son of God?"
+
+"You say so," replied Jesus.
+
+Again, and in a louder voice, Caiaphas asked: "By all you deem sacred,
+speak now on oath.  Are you the Son of God?"
+
+Then said Jesus to the High Priest: "If you do not believe it now that
+I stand before you as a malefactor, you will believe it when I come
+down from heaven in the clouds at the right hand of Almighty God."
+
+When Jesus had spoken these words, Caiaphas turned to the assembly:
+"What do you want more?  If that's not rank blasphemy, I'll resign my
+office.  If that's not blasphemy, then we have punished others, who
+said less, far too severely.  What shall we do with Him?"
+
+Several priests rent their garments in anger, and shouted: "Let Him
+die!"
+
+The cry was taken up by many voices out in the streets.  The priests
+immediately put things in shape for the sentence to be pronounced that
+night, and, if possible, carried into effect before the festival,
+without making a stir.
+
+If the matter had rested with Herod, King of the Jews, he would have
+rid himself of his rival from Nazareth with a snap of his lingers; but
+it was the Roman governor with whom they had to deal.  So Pontius
+Pilate also was awakened in the night.  He was a Roman, and had been
+appointed by the Emperor to hold Judaea in spite of Herod, whose Jewish
+kingdom had become as nothing.  Pilate often declared that this office
+of ruling the Jewish people for the Emperor had been his evil star.  He
+would rather have remained in cultured Rome, whose gods were much more
+amiable than the perverse Jehovah, about whom all kinds of sects
+disputed.  And then came this Nazarene.  When Pilate learnt the reason
+why he was disturbed from his sleep he cursed.  "This stupid business
+again about the Nazarene who, accompanied by a few beggars, rode into
+Jerusalem on an ass, and said He was the Messiah.  The people laughed
+at Him.  And that's to be made a political case!  They should expel Him
+from the Temple and let people sleep."
+
+But the crowd shouted in front of his windows: "He is a blasphemer!  A
+deceiver and a traitor!  An anarchist!  He must be tried!"  Pilate did
+not know what to do.  Then his wife came, and entreated him not to do
+anything to Jesus of Nazareth.  She had had a horrible dream about Him.
+She had seen Him standing in a white garment that shone like the moon.
+Then he had descended into a deep abyss where the souls of the
+condemned were wailing, had raised them up and led them on high.  Then
+dreadful angels with big black wings had seized the judges, and thrown
+them into the abyss.  Pilate had been among them, and his cry of pain
+still rang in her ears.
+
+"Don't make my head more confused than it is already with your
+talking," he commanded.  The noise in the street became more
+threatening every moment.
+
+Jesus was exhausted, and, surrounded by guards, sat down on a stone in
+the courtyard of Pilate's house.  The crowd came up, mocked Him and
+insulted Him.  They draped Him in the torn red cloak of a Bedouin for
+royal purple, they plucked thorns from a hedge in the neighbouring
+garden, wove them into a crown, and set it on His head.  They broke off
+a dry reed and put it into His hand as a sceptre.  They anointed His
+cheek with spittle.  And then they bowed down to the ground before Him,
+and sang in a shrill voice: "Hail to Thee, O anointed Messiah-King!"
+and put out their tongues at Him.
+
+Jesus sat there, calm and unmoved.  He looked at His tormentors with
+sad eyes, not in anger, but in pity.
+
+His disciples, terrified to death, had now come up, but remained
+outside the walls.  Peter was furious over the infamous betrayal that
+had taken place, and could not understand what had possessed Judas.  In
+sore distress he stood in the farthest courtyard where it was dark.
+Then a girl tripped up to him on her way to the well for water.
+
+"Here's another!" she shouted.  "Why are you standing here?  Go and do
+homage to your King."
+
+Peter turned in the direction of the gate.
+
+"You're one of those Galileans, too," she continued.
+
+"What have I to do with Galilee?" he said.
+
+A gatekeeper interposed: "Of course he is a Galilean.  You can see that
+by his dress.  He belongs to the Nazarene."
+
+"I do not know Him," said Peter, and tried to hurry off.  The
+gatekeeper stopped him with the shaft of his spear.  "Halt there, you
+Jew!  Your King is seated yonder on His throne.  Do homage to Him
+before He flies into the clouds."
+
+"Let me alone; I do not know the man," exclaimed Peter, and hastened
+away.  As he went out of the gate, a cock crowed just over his head.
+Peter started.  Did He not speak of a cock at supper?  "And another
+will deny me this night just before cock-crow."  In a flash the old
+disciple saw what he had done.  From terror that he, too, would be
+seized, he had lied about his Master, about Him who had been everything
+to him--everything--everything.  Now in His need they had left Him
+alone, had not even had the courage to acknowledge themselves His
+supporters.  "Oh, Simon!" he said to himself, "you should have stayed
+by your lake instead of playing at being the chosen of God.  He gave me
+His Kingdom of Heaven and this is how I requite Him!"  His life was now
+so broken that he crept out into the desert.  There he threw himself on
+a stone, wrung his hands, and abandoned himself to weeping.
+
+Jesus was at last brought into the hall before the Governor.  When
+Pilate saw Him in that unheard-of disguise, his temper began to rise.
+He was not to be waked from His sleep for a joke.  Well, the Jews had
+mocked at their Messiah-King, and He would mock at them through Him.
+
+He heard the accusation but found nothing in it.  "What?" he said to
+the High Priests and their supporters, "I'm to condemn your King?  Why,
+what are you thinking of?"  Instead of terrifying the accused with his
+judicial dignity, he desired to enter into conversation with Him.
+Although the Nazarene stood there in such wretched plight, He must have
+something in Him to have roused the masses as He did.  He wanted to
+make His acquaintance.  In a friendly manner he put mocking questions
+to Him.  Did he really know anything special of God?  Would He not tell
+him too, for even heathens were sometimes curious about the Kingdom of
+Heaven?  How should a man set about loving a God whom no one had ever
+seen?  Or which among the gods was the true one?  And for the life of
+him he would like to know what truth really was.
+
+Jesus said not a word.
+
+"You do not seem to lack the virtue of pride," continued Pilate, "and
+that's in your favour.  You know, of course, in whose presence you
+stand, in the presence of one who has the power, to put you to death,
+or to set you free."
+
+Jesus was still silent.
+
+The crowd which already filled the large courtyard became more and more
+noisy and unmanageable.  Rabbis slipped through it in order to fan the
+fire, and on all sides sentence of death was eagerly demanded.  Pilate
+shrugged his shoulders.  He did not understand the people.  But he
+could not condemn an innocent man to death.  He would let the Nazarene
+just as He was step out on to the balcony.  He himself took a torch
+from a slave's hand to light up the pitiful figure.  "Look," he called
+down to the crowd, "look at the poor fellow!"
+
+"To the gallows with him!  To the cross with him!" shouted the crowd.
+
+"If," said Pilate, preserving his ironical tone, "if you do not want to
+miss your Passover spectacle, go out there; no fear of criminals not
+being crucified to-day.  What do you say to Barabbas, the desert king?
+O ye men of Jerusalem, be satisfied with one king."
+
+"We want to see this Jesus crucified," raged the people.
+
+"But why, by Jupiter?  I cannot see that He is guilty of anything."
+
+One of the High Priests came up to him.
+
+"If you set free this blasphemer, this demagogue, who, so He says,
+intends to redeem the Jewish nation from bondage, who has the devil's
+eloquence with which to influence the masses, if you let this man go
+about among the people again, then you are your Emperor's bitterest
+enemy.  Then we shall ask for a governor who is as true to the Emperor
+as we are!"
+
+"You would be more imperial than Pontius Pilate!"  He threw out that
+sentence to them, measuring their figures with contempt.  Whenever Rome
+touched any of their chartered rights they seethed with anger; but
+whenever they needed power to accomplish some purpose hostile to the
+people, they cringed to Rome.  They recognised no people and no
+Emperor; their Temple-law was all in all to them.  And they dared to
+advise the Governor to be imperial!  But the crowd murmured angrily.
+The storm of passion was increasing in the courtyard.  A thousand
+voices threatening, shouting shrilly, demanded the Nazarene's death.
+At that moment his wife sent to Pilate and reminded him of her dream.
+He was inclined to set the accused free at once.  Then in the dim light
+of the torches and the dawning day a dark mass appeared above the heads
+of the people.  It was one of those criminals' stakes with the
+cross-beam like those erected out at Golgotha, only more massive and
+imposing.  They had dragged the cross here, and when it became visible
+to the crowd they broke out in heightened fury: "Crucify Him!  Crucify
+Him!  Jesus or Pilate!"
+
+"Jesus--or Pilate?"  Was that what they shouted?
+
+"Jesus or Pilate?" was re-echoed from courtyard to courtyard, from
+street to street.
+
+"Do you hear, Governor?" one of the High Priests asked him.  "There is
+nothing else to be done!  You see, the people haven't been asleep
+to-night.  They are mad!"  So saying, he seized the staff of justice,
+and offered it to Pilate.  He had turned pale at the sight of the
+raging mob.  He signed with his hand that he wished to speak.  The
+tumult subsided sufficiently for his words to be heard, and he shouted
+hoarsely:
+
+"I cannot find that this man has committed any crime.  But you wish to
+crucify Him.  So be it, but His death is on your consciences!"
+Purposely following the Jewish custom, he washed his hands in a bowl,
+so that those who could not hear him might see; then holding them up,
+all dripping wet, before the people, he exclaimed: "My hands are clean
+from His blood.  I accept no responsibility."  He seized the staff,
+broke it in two with his hands, and threw the pieces at Jesus's feet.
+
+Then there arose a storm of jubilation; "Hail to thee, Pilate!  Hail to
+the Governor of the great Emperor!  Hail to the great Governor of the
+Emperor!"
+
+The High Priests humbly bowed before him, and the guards seized the
+condemned man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+The big cross, carried by insolent youths, swung to and fro above the
+heads of the people.  Every one tried to get out of the way of the
+sinister thing; if a man, joking, thrust his neighbour towards it, he
+pushed quickly back into the crowd with a shriek.  And the unceasing
+cry went on: "Hail to Pontius Pilate!  To the cross with the Nazarene!"
+
+Jesus was led from the hall into the courtyard, where His guards had to
+protect Him from the fury of the mob.  They led Him up to the cross.
+
+A sentry appeared, and, violently swinging his arm, shouted; "No
+execution can take place here!  Away with Him!  No execution can be
+permitted here!"
+
+"To Golgotha!"
+
+When the youths found that they would have to take the cross back to
+where they had fetched it, they let it fall to the ground, so that the
+wood made a groaning noise, and then ran off.
+
+"Let Him carry His own cross!" shouted several voices.  The plan
+commended itself to the guards; they unbound His hands, and placed the
+cross on His shoulder.  He staggered under the load.  They beat Him
+with cords like a beast of burden; He tottered along with trembling
+steps, carrying the stake on His right shoulder, so that one arm of the
+cross fell against His breast, held fast there by His hands.  The long
+stake was dragged along the ground.  They had tied a cord round His
+waist by which they led Him.  They pulled Him along so violently that
+He stumbled, and often fell.  The crowd which followed tried to do
+everything they could to hurt Him.  So Jesus tottered along, bowed
+under the heavy weight of the wood.  His gown covered with street mud,
+His head pierced by the thorns so that drops of blood trickled down His
+unkempt hair and over His agonised face.  Never before was so wretched
+a figure dragged to the place of execution, never before was a poor
+malefactor so terribly ill-treated on his way to death.  And never
+before had such dignity and gentleness been seen in the countenance of
+a condemned man as in that of this man.  Some women who had got up
+early out of curiosity to see the procession stood crowded together at
+the street corner.  But when they saw it their mood changed, and they
+broke out into loud lamentation, over the unheard-of horror.  Jesus
+raised His trembling hand towards them, as if He wished to warn them:
+"While your husbands murder Me, you are melted to tears.  Do not lament
+for Me, lament for yourselves and for your children, who will have to
+suffer for the sins of their fathers!"  One of the women, heedless of
+the raging mob, tore the white kerchief from her head, and bent down to
+Him who was carrying the cross in order to wipe the blood and
+perspiration from His face.  When she got back to her house and was
+about to wash the cloth, she saw on it--the face of the Prophet.  And
+it seemed as if kindness and gratitude for her service of love looked
+out from its features at her.  The women all came running up to see the
+miracle, and to haggle to get the cloth that bore such a picture for
+themselves.  But its possessor locked it up in her room.
+
+When Jesus fell beneath the cross for the third time, He was unable to
+get up again.  The guards tugged and pulled Him; the Roman soldiers who
+accompanied them were too proud to carry the cross for this wretched
+Jew.  So the crowd was invited to chose someone to lift up Jesus and
+drag the cross along.  The only answer was scornful laughter.  A
+hard-featured cobbler rushed out of a neighbouring house, and, almost
+foaming at the mouth with rage, demanded that the creature should be
+removed from before his door.  "Customers will be frightened away," he
+cried.
+
+"Let Him rest here for a moment," said one of the soldiers, pointing to
+the fallen man, whose breast heaved in short, violent spasms.
+
+Then the cobbler swung a leathern strap and struck the exhausted man.
+He pulled Himself together in order to totter a few steps farther.  An
+old man, full of years and very lonely, stood by.  He had come from the
+desert where great thoughts dwell.  He had come to see if Jerusalem was
+ascending upwards or sinking downwards.  He desired its descent, for he
+longed for rest.  The old man stood in front of the cobbler and said to
+him softly: "Grandson of Uriah!  You refuse a brief rest to this
+poorest of poor creatures?  You yourself will be everlastingly
+restless.  You will experience human misery to the uttermost and never
+be able to rest.  The curse of your people will be fulfilled in
+you--you heartless Jew!"
+
+At that selfsame hour Simeon, the citizen, was sitting alone in his
+house thinking over his fate, and he was sad.  Since the ride into the
+wilderness, from which he had returned beaten and robbed, he had,
+following the word of the Prophet from whom he had sought happiness,
+made many changes in his way of life.  Impossible as it had then
+seemed, much had become possible.  He had emancipated his slaves,
+broken up his harem, given the overflow of his possessions to the
+needy, and dispensed with all show.  And yet he was not happy--his
+heart was bare and empty.  He was pondering the matter when the
+shouting of the crowd reached him from the street.  What was happening
+so early?  He looked down, saw the spears of the soldiers glitter above
+the people's heads, and noted how one of the malefactors who was to be
+executed that day was being led out.  Simeon was turning away from the
+disagreeable sight when he saw that the man was carrying the cross
+Himself, and how, ill-treated by the guards, He became weaker every
+moment, so that the cross struck noisily against the stones.  In a
+flash he understood.  Without stopping to think, he hurried into the
+street, and pushed his way to the tortured creature in order to help
+Him.  And when he looked into the poor man's worn face, down which a
+tear ran, he was so overcome with pity that he placed himself under the
+cross, took it on his shoulder, and carried it along.  The crowd
+howled; insults and mud were thrown at Simeon.  He paid no heed, he
+scarcely observed it.  He was absorbed in what he was doing; he only
+thought of his desire to help the unhappy creature who staggered along
+beside him to bear His load.  A wondrous feeling stirred in him, an
+eager gladness that he had never known before.  All the joy of his life
+was not to be compared with this bliss; he would have liked to go on
+for ever and ever by the side of this Man, helping Him to bear His load
+and loving Him.
+
+Is that it?  Is that what men call life?  To be where Love is and to do
+what Love enjoins?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Anxiety increased in the quiet house at Nazareth.  Mary determined to
+go to Jerusalem for the holy festival to offer her sorrow as a
+sacrifice to God, to implore Him to enlighten her erring son, and to
+restore to Him the faith of His ancestors.  As she journeyed through
+Samaria and Judaea she thought of the days long past, when she had
+travelled that way to Bethlehem with her faithful Joseph, and of the
+inconceivable things that had happened since then.
+
+She reached a valley where the earth was grey and dry.  It was the
+place in which Adam and Eve had settled when they were driven out of
+Paradise.  She thought of the wayward children of our first parents,
+and with her mind's eye saw a dear little descendant of Adam, who was
+perfectly innocent, and yet had to share earth's sorrow with the
+guilty.  The boy stood sadly by a hedge, and peeped over into the Lost
+Paradise.  A white-robed angel standing by the Tree of Knowledge saw
+the child and was sorry for him.  He broke off a branch from the tree,
+handed it over to the boy, and said: "Here is something for you out of
+Paradise.  Plant the bough in the ground.  It will take root and grow,
+and produce fresh seeds until the throne of the Messiah is built out of
+its trunk."  "O, God! where is the trunk, and where is the Messiah's
+throne?" sighed Mary, and she moved away.
+
+When after her tiring journey she reached the town one morning, she
+found the people streaming along the roads and streets in one
+direction.  She asked the innkeeper what was happening.  He replied by
+asking her if she did not also wish to go and see the execution.
+
+"God forbid!" answered Mary; "happy are all who are not obliged to go."
+
+"Look, there they come!" exclaimed the inn-keeper in glad surprise.
+"They'll come past here.  I really believe it's the Messiah-King!  Oh,
+I could have let out my windows for a silver groat apiece!"
+
+The woman from Galilee wanted to go back into the house, but she was
+pushed aside and carried with the crowd into the narrow street, where
+suddenly she stood before Him!  Before Jesus, her son!  When He saw His
+mother His little remaining strength nearly forsook Him, but He managed
+to keep His feet.  He turned to her with a look of unspeakable sadness
+and love, a brief look in which lay all that a son could have to say to
+his mother at such a meeting.  Then they pushed Him on with blows and
+curses.
+
+Mary stood as if turned to stone.  Her eyes were tearless, her head in
+a whirl, her heart scarcely beat.  "That is what God has prepared for
+me!"  That was all she could think, as, unwilling, bewildered, she was
+carried along by the crowd.  Everything seemed sunk in a blue darkness,
+yet stars danced before her eyes.
+
+At length the procession emerged through the vaulted double gateway
+into the open.  A dim, pale light lay over the barren land.  The rocky
+hill stood out clear on the right.  A great stir was there.  Busy
+workmen were digging deep holes on the top, others were preparing the
+stakes for the desert robbers.  Those wild creatures were already half
+naked, and the executioners were slinging cords round them to bind them
+to the wooden frame.  They were the lean, brown Barabbas and the pale,
+sunken-eyed Dismas.  The former gazed around him with his hawk's eyes,
+clenched his hands, and tried to burst his fetters.  The other was
+quite broken down, and his unkempt hair hung about him.  The disciples
+had come as far as the tower of the town walls, but had withdrawn in
+terror, all but John, James, and Peter.  For Peter had decided to
+acknowledge himself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, should it cost him
+his life.  But no one troubled any further about the strangers.  The
+disciples had seen Judas slinking behind the rocky mounds; he looked
+abject and forlorn, the very image of despair, and although their rage
+against the traitor had known no bounds, they were softened by the
+sight of the miserable creature, regarding him only as an object of
+horror.
+
+Simeon carried the cross to the top of the hill.  And when he laid it
+down and looked once again into the face of the malefactor who had
+staggered up beside him, he recognised the Prophet.  He recognised the
+man with whom he had spoken in the desert concerning eternal life.  He
+had then paid scant attention to His words, but he had forgotten none
+of them.  Now he began to understand that whoever lived according to
+the teaching of this man must attain inward happiness.  And was it on
+account of that teaching that the man was to be executed?
+
+The captain ordered Simeon to move away.  Two executioners laid hands
+on Jesus in order to strip away His garments.  He threw one swift
+glance to Heaven, then closed His eyes, and calmly let them proceed.
+The guards seized His gown, fought for it, and because they could not
+agree who had won it they diced for it.  Then they accused each other
+of cheating, and fought afresh.  Up came Schobal, the dealer in old
+clothes, and pointed out with a grin that it was not worth while to
+crack their skulls over a poor wretch's old coat.  The gown was torn
+and bloody; it was not worth a penny; but in order to end a dispute
+between his brave countrymen he would offer fourpence, which they could
+divide in peace among them.  The coat was delivered over to Schobal.
+He went up and down in the crowd with the garment.  It was the coat of
+the Prophet who was being executed!  Who wanted a souvenir of that day?
+He would sell the coat for the half of its value; it might be bought
+for twelve pence!
+
+A man brought long iron nails in a basket.  The Nazarene was not to be
+tied, but nailed, because He had once said that He should descend from
+the cross.  When they noticed that Jesus was nearly swooning, they
+offered Him a refreshing drink of vinegar and myrrh.  He refused it
+with thanks, and when He began to sink down the executioners caught Him
+and laid Him on the cross.
+
+Suddenly the crowd drew back.  Many did not want to see what was going
+on.  They were dumb.  They had never dreamed of this.  The gentleness
+with which He bore all the torture, the scorn, the death before His
+eyes, this heroic calm weighed like a mountain on their hard hearts.
+Those who had formerly despised Him now wanted to hate Him, but they
+could not.  They were powerless before this overwhelming gentleness.
+What a sound!  That of a hammer beating on iron!  "How the blood
+spurts!" whispered someone.  Two hammers hit the nails, and at each
+blow heaven and earth trembled.  The crowd held its breath, and not a
+sound was heard from the town.  Nothing but the ringing of the hammer.
+Then suddenly a heartrending cry was heard in the crowd.  It came from
+a strange woman who had pushed through it and sank to the ground.  The
+mass of people drew away more and more, no one would stand in front,
+yet each stretched his neck so as to see over the others' heads.  They
+saw the stake lifted up and then sink again.  The captain's orders
+could be heard plainly and clearly.  Then the cross stood up straight.
+At first the long stake was seen above their heads, bearing a white
+placard.  Then the cross-beams appeared on which trembling human arms
+were seen, then the head moving in agonising pain.  Thus did the cross
+with the naked human body rise in the air.  Slowly it rose, supported
+by poles, and as soon as it stood straight the foot of the cross was
+set so roughly in its hole that the body shook with a dull groan.  The
+wounds made by the nails in the hands and feet were torn open, the
+blood ran in dark streams over the white body, down the stake, and
+dropped on the ground.  And from the lips of Him on the cross this loud
+cry was heard, "O, Father, forgive them, forgive them!  For they know
+not what they do."
+
+A strange murmur arose in the crowd, and those who had not understood
+the cry asked their neighbours to repeat it.  "He asks pardon for His
+enemies?  For His enemies?  He is praying for His enemies?"
+
+"Then--then He cannot be human!"
+
+"He forgives those who despised, slandered, scorned, beat, crucified
+Him?  When dying He thinks of His enemies and pardons them?  Then it is
+as He said, He is indeed the Christ!  I always thought He was the
+Christ.  I said so only last Sabbath!"  The voices grew louder.
+Schobal, the old clothes dealer, pushed about in the crowd and offered
+the Messiah's coat for twenty pence.
+
+"If He is the Messiah," shouted a Rabbi hoarsely, "let Him free
+Himself.  He who wants to help others and cannot help Himself is a poor
+sort of Messiah."
+
+"Now, Master," exclaimed a Pharisee, "if you would rebuild the
+shattered Temple, now's the time.  Come down from the cross, and we'll
+believe in you."  The man on the cross looked at the two mockers in
+deep sadness, and they became silent.  Suddenly a passage in the
+Scriptures flashed into their minds: "He was wounded for our
+transgressions!"
+
+When they had all drawn back from the cross, and the executioners were
+preparing to raise up the two desert robbers, the woman who had
+swooned, supported by the disciple John, tottered up to the tall cross
+and put her arms round its trunk so that the blood ran down upon her.
+So infinite was her pain that it seemed as if seven swords had pierced
+her heart.  Jesus looked down, and how muffled was the voice in which
+He said: "John, take care of My mother!  Mother, here is John, your
+son!"
+
+A murmur arose in the crowd: "His mother?  Is that His mother?  Oh,
+poor things!  And the handsome young man His brother?  The poor
+creatures!  Look how He turns to them as if He would comfort them."
+
+Many a man passed his hand over his eyes, the women sobbed aloud.  And
+a dull lamentation began to go through the people--the same people who
+had so angrily demanded His death.  And they talked together.
+
+"He can't suffer much longer."
+
+"No, I've had some experience.  I've been here every Passover.  But
+this time----"
+
+"If I only knew what is written on the tablet."
+
+"Over His head?  My sight seems to have gone."
+
+"Inri!" exclaimed somebody,
+
+"Inri!  Somebody calls out 'Inri.'"
+
+"Those are the letters on the tablet."
+
+"But the man's name's not Inri."
+
+"Something quite different, my friend.  That is Pilate's joke.  _Jesus
+Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum_."
+
+"Don't talk to me in that accursed Latin tongue."
+
+"In good Hebrew: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."
+
+"Now, they've got Him in the middle," said another, for the two robbers
+had been hoisted up to the right and left of Him.  The one on the left
+stretched out his neck, and mocked at Jesus with a distorted face: "I
+suppose, neighbour, that you too are one of those who get executed just
+because they are weaklings.  Jump from the cross, rush among them, and
+the wretches will idolise you!"
+
+Jesus did not answer him.  He turned His head towards the man who hung
+on His right who saw the moment approaching when his legs would be
+broken.  In the agony of death, and in penitence for his ill-spent
+life, he turned to Him whom they called Messiah and Christ.  And when
+he saw the expression with which Jesus looked at him, a curious shudder
+passed through the criminal's heart.  How the man on the cross gazed at
+him, with His fading eyes--My God!--it was the never-to-be-forgotten
+holy look which a little child had given him in the days of his youth.
+Dismas began to weep, and said: "Lord, you are from heaven!  When you
+return home, remember me."
+
+And Jesus said to him: "There is mercy for all who repent!  To-day,
+Dismas, you and I will be together at the Heavenly Father's home."
+
+"He is from heaven!" was heard in the crowd.  "He is from heaven!"  One
+of the Roman soldiers threw his spear away, and exclaimed in immense
+excitement: "Verily, He is the Son of God!"
+
+"The Son of God!  The Son of God!  Set Him free!  It is the Son of God
+who hangs on the cross!"  The cry rolled through the crowd like the
+dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward
+consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made
+since the world began.  He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of
+God.  Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner.  He struggles
+up to his feet, holding on with his lean hands, he looks up to the
+cross with rolling eyes.  A prayer for mercy wells up from his heart
+like a bloody spring.  And beside him a woman kneels and folds her
+hands against the cross.  And she who thus stands under the cross
+wrings her hands, and implores mercy for her child.
+
+The letters I.N.R.I, over the cross begin to gleam.  And a voice is
+heard in the air: "Jesus Near Redeems Ill-doers."
+
+"The Son of God!  The Son of God!"  The cry went on without ceasing.
+"The Son of God on the cross!"
+
+"The Son of God's coat!  A hundred gold pieces for the coat!" shrieked
+old Schobal, lifting the garment up on a stick like a flag.  The dealer
+swore by that flag, for its value had risen a thousandfold in an hour.
+"A hundred gold pieces for the Son of God's coat!"  But it was high
+time that the dealer made himself scarce, for the people of Jerusalem
+were enraged at a man who wanted to do business in presence of the
+dying Saviour.  The good, pious citizens of Jerusalem!
+
+Not a High Priest was to be seen.  They had all gone away.  The
+hoarse-voiced Rabbi was still there, reciting Psalms aloud to the dying
+man.
+
+"Stop that!" someone shouted at him.  "You killed Him."
+
+"We've killed Him?  Who do you mean?" asked the Rabbi with well-feigned
+innocence.
+
+"Why you, you expounders of the Scriptures, you brought Him to His
+death; it was you, and you alone!"
+
+The Rabbi replied very seriously: "Think, my friend, what you are
+saying.  Can you prove this charge before the dread Jehovah?  We
+expounders of the Law brought Him to His death!  Every one knows who
+condemned Him.  It was the foreigners.  They have ever been the ruin of
+our nation!  Every one knows who crucified Him at the desire of the
+people."
+
+It was high time that he should defend himself.  The voices grew ever
+louder: It was the High Priests who had goaded on the people and
+judges!  They are guilty----
+
+"Silence!  He still lives!"
+
+All looks were centred on the cross.
+
+Jesus turned His head to the crowd and muttered in His weakness: "I am
+thirsty!  I am thirsty!"
+
+The captain ordered a sponge to be dipped in vinegar, and reached up to
+Him on a stick so that the dying man might sip the moisture.
+
+A young woman with her hair flowing loose lay among the rocks.  She
+kneeled, and, supporting her elbows on the ground, wailed softly: "O
+Saviour, Saviour!  My sins!"
+
+He looked once again at His dear ones.  Then He lifted His head quickly
+and uttered a cry to Heaven: "Father, receive My soul!  My Father!  Do
+not forsake Me!"  He looked upwards, gazed at the heavens with
+wide-opened eyes, then His head dropped and fell on His breast.
+
+John sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands.  All was
+over!
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The crowd was almost motionless.  They stood and stared, and their
+faces were white.  The town walls were dun-coloured, the shrubs were
+grey, the young buds were pale and closed.
+
+A lustreless sun stood in the sky like a moon, and its shadows were
+ghostly.  Terrified rooks and bats flew around, and hovered about the
+cross in this horrible twilight.  Rocks on the hills broke away, and
+skulls rolled down the slope.  As for the people, they seemed to have
+lost the power of speech, they stood dumb and looked at one another.
+
+"Something has happened," said an old man to himself.
+
+The crowd began to move, uncertainly at first, then with more animation
+and noise.
+
+"What has happened?" asked a bystander.
+
+"My friend, what has happened now has thrown the world off its balance.
+I do not know what it is, but it has thrown the world off its balance.
+If it is not the end of the world, then it must be its beginning."
+
+"Inri!  Inri!" shouted the voice of a shuddering lunatic.
+
+Then there was a general shout.  "What is it?  It is dark!  I've never
+been so terrified in all my days."
+
+"Look at the cross!  It's growing longer!  Higher, ever higher, higher!
+I can't see the top of it!  It's a giant cross!"
+
+Then came news.  "A pillar has fallen in the Temple.  The curtain of
+the Holy of Holies has been rent in twain.  Outside, in the cemetery,
+the tombs have opened and the dead wrapped in their white shrouds have
+risen from them."
+
+"The end of the world!"
+
+"The beginning of the world!"
+
+"Jesus Christ!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"JESUS CHRIST!" rustles through the crowd like the spring breezes over
+the desert.  The words sound through the whole of Jerusalem, they sound
+throughout the broad land of Judaea, these words of all power.  They
+kindle a fire which has lighted up the universe until the present day.
+
+His dear and faithful ones assembled at the cross where the dead Master
+hung.  There are more of them than there were yesterday, among them
+even some who had shouted in the night: "Crucify Him!"  The disciples
+stood there silent, making no lamentation.  Mary, the mother, stood by
+John's side, and Magdalen by him.  A marvellous quiet had come over
+their hearts, so that they asked themselves:
+
+"How can this be?  Is not our Jesus dead?"
+
+"My brothers," said Peter, "for me it is as if He still lives."
+
+"He in us, and we in Him," said John.
+
+Only Bartholomew was restless.  Hesitatingly he asked James if he had
+not also understood Him to say: "Father, do not forsake Me."  But James
+was thinking of another word and of another of the brothers.  He went
+away from the cross to seek out Judas.  He would tell him that in dying
+the Master had forgiven His enemies, he would tell Judas of the
+Saviour's legacy: Mercy for sinners!
+
+Since the early hours of the morning when the Master had been condemned
+to death in the Governor's house, Judas had wandered aimlessly about.
+He tried to surrender himself to the captain as a false witness and a
+spy, as one who sold men for gold.  He was laughed at and left alone.
+Then he went to one of the High Priests to swear that his statements
+had not been so meant; that his Master was no evil-doer, but rather the
+Messenger of God, who would destroy His enemies.  He had not intended
+to betray Him, and he would return the traitor's pay to the Pharisee.
+The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying that it was no concern of
+his; he had given no money and would receive none.  Then Judas threw
+the silver pieces at his feet and hurried away.  His long hair waved in
+the wind.  He slunk along behind the town walls in order to get in
+advance of the procession and let himself be impaled at Golgotha
+instead of the Master.  But he was too late; he heard the strokes of
+the hammer.  He went down into the valley of Kedron.  Not a soul was to
+be seen there, every one had gone to the place of execution.  Judas was
+thrown aside, even by the gaping crowd, abandoned as a traitor.
+Frightful, inconceivable, was the thing he had done!  Alas! why had He
+not revealed Himself?  He stood patiently, gentle as a lamb before the
+judges, and bore the cross as no one had ever done before.  Could that
+be it after all?  Not to strive against one's enemies, to suffer one's
+fate as the will of God, to lay down one's life for the tidings of the
+Father--was that glory the mission of the Messiah?  "And I?  I expected
+something else of Him.  And I made a mistake, greater than all the
+mistakes of all the fools put together.  And now I am thrust out of the
+fellowship of righteous men, and thrust out of the fellowship of
+sinners.  There is pardon for the murderer, but not for the traitor.
+He Himself said: Better that such a man had never been born.  Others
+dare to atone for their sins in caves of the desert, dare to expiate
+their crimes with their blood--but I am cast out of all Love and all
+expiation for ever and ever."  Such were the endless laments of Judas.
+He wandered to and fro behind walls and among bushes; he hid himself in
+caves all the day long.  Then suddenly it flashed on him: "It is
+unjust.  I believed in Him.  I believed in Him so implicitly.  Is such
+trust thrown away?  Can the Divine Man cast aside such a trust?  No, it
+is not so, it is not so!"
+
+His fate was decided by this shattering of his last hope.  When it was
+dark he slunk past a farm.  Ropes hung over the walls; he pulled one
+off and hurried to the mountain.  The sun was setting behind Jerusalem,
+over the heights, like a huge, red, lustreless pane of glass.  Once
+more for the last time his eye sought the light, the departing light.
+And a cross stood out large and dark against the red circle; the tall
+cross at Golgotha right in the centre of the gloomy sun.  Gigantic and
+dark it towered against the crimson background--horrible!  The
+despairing heart of Judas could not endure it.  With a savage curse he
+went up to a fig-tree.  James was behind him.  He had seen Judas climb
+the slope, had waved his cloak and cried to him: "It is I, James.
+Brother, I come from the Master.  Listen, brother, mercy for sinners.
+Mercy for all who repent.  Listen."  Almost breathless he reached the
+fig-tree.  Arms and legs hung down lifeless, the mouth drawn in, the
+tongue protruding from the lips.  The body swung to and fro in the
+evening breeze.  The wretched man had not waited for the Saviour's
+pardon.
+
+Towards the end of that same day the old man of the East, who came from
+the desert where great thoughts dwell, the weary old man who called
+down twice the curse of everlasting unrest on the grandson of Uriah,
+went to a stonecutter in Jerusalem.  He thought it time to order his
+tombstone.  And on it were to be cut the letters "I.N.R.I."
+
+"Did you also belong to the Nazarene?" asked the stonecutter.
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because it is the inscription on His cross."
+
+"It is the inscription on my grave," said the old man, "and it means:
+'IN NIRVANA REST I.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+When all was over, Joseph of Arimathea, a blunt, outspoken disciple of
+Jesus, went to Pilate, the Governor, to ask him that the Prophet's body
+might be buried that same evening.
+
+"Have His legs been broken?" Pilate inquired of him.
+
+"Sir, that is not necessary.  He is dead."
+
+"I do not believe you."
+
+"It is quite true, sir.  The captain pierced his side."
+
+"I have been warned about you," said Pilate roughly.  "I shall send a
+guard to watch the grave."
+
+"As your lordship pleases."
+
+"The man said that He would rise from the dead on the third day.  It is
+likely that His friends will help Him!"
+
+Joseph drew himself up in front of the Governor and said: "Sir, what
+ground have you for such a suspicion?  Have we Jews proved ourselves so
+absolutely lawless in our fatherland?  Surely not so much so that this
+best of all men, this Divine Man, should have been condemned to death
+without a shadow of reason, and His followers, too, treated with
+contempt as if they were cheats and body-snatchers."
+
+"You have to thank your priests for that," said Pilate, with cold
+indifference.
+
+"We know the breed," replied Joseph, "and so do you.  But you are
+afraid of it.  Our Master would have made an end of it.  But you are a
+broken reed.  Many of our great men have been ruined by Roman
+arrogance, but it was Roman _cowardice_ that cost our Master His life."
+
+The Governor started, but remained impassive.
+
+He signed with his hand: "Let me hear no more of this affair.  Do what
+you like with Him.  Sentries can be placed at the grave.  I've had more
+than enough of you and your Jews to-day."
+
+Thus the Arimathean was dismissed, ungraciously, it is true, but with
+permission to bury the beloved corpse.
+
+Meanwhile the torment of the two desert robbers had ended.  And Dismas
+was at last set free from Barabbas, to whom a demoniacal fate had
+chained him his whole life long.  Jesus had come between them, and had
+divided the penitent man from the impenitent.  It is true that their
+bodies were thrown into the same grave, but the soul of Dismas had
+found the appointed trysting-place.
+
+As soon as the Arimathean returned from his interview with the
+Governor, late as the hour was, Jesus was unfastened from the cross and
+lowered to the ground with cloths.  Then the body was anointed with
+precious oil, wrapped in white linen, and carried to Joseph's garden.
+They laid it in the grave in the stillness of the night.
+
+A holy peace breathed o'er the earth, and the stars shone in the
+heavens like lamps at the repose of the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+In the night which followed this saddest of all sad days, Mary, His
+mother, could not sleep.  And yet she saw a vision such as could not have
+been seen by anyone awake.
+
+Crouching down, leaning against the stone, her eyes resting on the cross
+that rose tall and straight into the sky, she seemed to see a tree
+covered with red and white blossoms.  It was as if that branch of the
+Tree of Paradise which the angel had once handed over the hedge had
+bloomed.  It stood in the midst of a beautiful rose-garden filled with
+pleasant odours, running water, and songs of birds, with a wonderful
+light over all.  Innumerable companies of men and women passed into that
+Eden from out a deep abyss.  They ascended slowly and solemnly out of the
+gloomy depths to the shining heights.  In front of all came a couple, our
+first father, Adam, walking with Eve.  Just behind them Abel, arm-in-arm
+with Cain.  Then crowded up the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the
+prophets, and the psalmists, among them Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, and
+Joseph, Solomon and David, Zachariah and Josiah, Eleazar and Jehoiakim,
+and quite at the back--an old man, walking alone, supporting himself on a
+stick from which lilies sprouted--Joseph, her husband.  He was in no
+hurry; he stopped and looked round at Mary.
+
+So all passed into Paradise.
+
+That was what Mary saw, and then day dawned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+In accordance with the orders, the Nazarene's grave was strictly
+guarded.  A heavy stone had been placed in the opening of the niche in
+the rocks within which the body was laid, and, at the Governor's
+bidding, the captain had sealed it at every end and corner.  Two
+fully-armed soldiers were stationed at the entrance with instructions
+to keep off every suspicious person from the grave.  And then, on the
+third day after the entombment, an incredible rumour ran through
+Jerusalem.  _The Nazarene had risen_!
+
+On the morning of that day, so it was said, two women went to the
+grave, the mother of the dead man, and Magdalen, His devoted follower.
+They were surprised to find that the guards were not there, and then
+they saw that the stone had been rolled away.  The niche in the rock
+was empty, save for the white linen in which He had been wrapped.
+These linen bandages were lying at the edge of the grave, their ends
+hanging down.  The women began to weep, thinking someone had taken the
+corpse away; but presently they saw a white-robed boy standing by, and
+heard him say: "He whom you seek is not here.  He lives, and goes with
+you to Galilee."
+
+As if in some wild dream, the women staggered back from the grave.
+There was a man in the garden whom at first they took to be the
+gardener.  They wanted to question him; He came towards them.  With
+youthful, beautiful, shining countenance, immaculate, without wounds
+except the nail-marks on the hands.  He stood before them.  They were
+terror-stricken.  They heard Him say: "Peace be with you!  It is I."
+As the sun was so bright the women held their hands a moment before
+their eyes, and when they looked up again He was no longer to be seen.
+
+The Nazarene's grave was empty!  Everybody made a pilgrimage from the
+town to see.  The people's mood had entirely changed since the
+crucifixion.  Not another contemptuous word was heard, some even
+secretly beat their breasts.  The High Priests met together, and
+inquired of the guards what had occurred.  They could tell nothing.
+
+"At least confess that you fell asleep and that His disciples stole
+Him."
+
+"Honoured sirs," answered one of the guards, "for two reasons we cannot
+admit we fell asleep; first, because it isn't true, and secondly,
+because we should be punished."
+
+Upon which one of the Temple authorities observed: "But in spite of
+that, you can very well say so.  For you have certainly fallen asleep
+more than once in your lives.  And as for the punishment, we'll make it
+right with the Governor.  Nothing shall happen to you."
+
+The brave Romans thought it best to avoid a dispute with the
+authorities, and to say what the latter preferred to hear.  So the tale
+went that the guards had fallen asleep, and meanwhile the body had been
+removed by the disciples in order to be able to say, "He is risen."
+This was circulated on all hands, and no one thought any more of the
+resurrection of the Nazarene.
+
+The disciples themselves could not believe it.  Some of them declared
+that Pilate and his spies best knew what had become of the corpse.
+Others, on the contrary, were stirred by an unparalleled exaltation of
+spirit, by some divine energy which filled their minds with appallingly
+clear visions of the latter days.
+
+It happened about this time that two of the disciples walked out
+towards Emmaus.  They were sad, and spoke of the incomprehensible
+misfortune that had befallen them.  A stranger joined them, and asked
+why they were so melancholy.
+
+"We belong to His followers," they replied.
+
+When He said nothing, as if He had not understood, they asked whether
+He was quite a stranger in Jerusalem, and did not know what had
+happened these last days?
+
+"What has occurred?" He asked.
+
+Surely He must have heard of Jesus, the Prophet who had done such great
+deeds, and preached a new and wonderful Word of God: Of the Heavenly
+Father full of love, of the Kingdom of Heaven in one's own heart, and
+of eternal life.  It was as if God Himself had assumed human shape in
+the person of this Prophet in order to set them an example of perfect
+life.  And that Divine Man had just been executed in Jerusalem.  Since
+that event they had felt utterly forsaken.  That was why they were sad.
+He had, indeed, promised that He would rise after death as a pledge for
+His tidings of the resurrection of man and eternal life.  But the three
+days were now up.  A story was going about that two women had seen Him
+that morning with the wounds made by the nails.  But until they could
+themselves lay their hands on those wounds, they would not believe it;
+no.  He must needs be like the rest of the dead.
+
+Then the stranger said: "If the Risen Man does not appear to you as He
+appeared to the women, it is because your faith is too weak.  If you do
+not believe in Him, you surely know from the prophecies how God's
+messenger must suffer and die, because only through that gate can
+eternal glory be reached."
+
+With such conversation they reached Emmaus, where the two disciples
+were to visit a friend.  The stranger, they imagined, was going
+farther, but they liked Him, and so invited Him to go to the house with
+them: "Sir, stay with us; the day draws in, it will soon be evening."
+
+So He went with them.  When they sat at supper, and the stranger took
+some bread, one whispered to the other: "Look how He breaks the bread!
+It is not our Jesus?"
+
+But when in joy unspeakable they went to embrace Him, they saw that
+they were alone.
+
+This is what the two disciples related, and no one was more glad to
+believe it than Schobal, the dealer; he now asked three hundred gold
+pieces for the coat of the man who had risen from the dead.
+
+Thomas was less sure of the Resurrection.  "Why should He rise?" asked
+the disciple.  "Did He come to earth for the sake of this bodily life?
+Did He not rest everything on the spiritual life?  The true Jesus
+Christ was to be with us in the spirit."
+
+The disciples who had accompanied the Master from Galilee went back to
+their own land filled with that belief.  Things had somewhat changed
+there.  The condemnation of the Nazarene without any proof of guilt had
+vastly angered the Galileans.  His glorious death had terrified them.
+No, this countryman of theirs was no ordinary man!  They would now make
+up to His disciples for their ill-conduct towards Him.  So His
+adherents were well received in Galilee, and resumed the occupations
+that they had abandoned two years before.  John had brought His mother
+home, and gone with her to the quiet house at Nazareth.  The others
+tried to accustom themselves to the work-a-day world, but they could do
+nothing but think of the Master, and wherever two or three of them were
+gathered together He was with them in spirit.  One day they were
+together in a cottage by the lake.  They spoke of His being the Son of
+God, and some who had looked into the Scriptures brought forward
+proofs: the prophecies which had come to pass in Him, the psalms He had
+fulfilled, the miracles He had worked, and the fact that many had seen
+Him after His death.
+
+Suddenly Thomas said: "I don't much hold with all that.  Other things
+have been prophesied; the Prophets, too, worked miracles, and rose
+after death.  What good is it to me if He is not with us in the flesh?"
+
+They were much alarmed.  They shook with terror.  Not on account of the
+Master, but of their brother.  But Thomas continued: "Why don't you
+name the greatest sign, the true sign of His divinity?  Why don't you
+speak of His Word about divine sonship, about loving your enemy, about
+redemption?  Listen to what I am saying: it is what we have all
+experienced, and still experience every hour.  He freed us from worldly
+desires.  He taught us love and joy.  He assured us of eternal life
+with the Heavenly Father.  He did that through His _Word_.  He died for
+that Word and will live in that Word.  To me, my brothers, that Divine
+Word is proof of His being the Son of God.  I need no other."
+
+"Children!" said John.  He was indeed the youngest of them, but he
+said, "Children!  Do not talk in such a way.  Faith is the knowledge of
+the heart.  Are we not happy in our hearts that we found the Father so
+near us, so true to us, so eternally on our side, that nothing evil can
+befall us in the future?  These bodies of ours will perish, but He is
+the resurrection, and he who believes in Him never dies.  He loved the
+children of men so dearly that He gave them His own Son, so that every
+one who believes in Him may live for ever.  Therefore we are happy,
+because we are in God, and God is in us."
+
+Thus His favourite disciple spoke in wondrous enthusiasm.  They then
+began to understand, and to apprehend the immeasurable significance of
+Him who had lived in human form among them.
+
+Wherever they went, whatever they did. His word sounded in their ears.
+The promise that He would follow them to Galilee was fulfilled.  His
+spirit was with them, they were quite sure of that.  But that spirit
+would not let them rest content with work-a-day life; it was like yeast
+fermenting in their being, it was like a spark kindled into a bright
+flame, and the fiery tongues announced the glad tidings.  They must go
+forth.  None dared be the first to say so, but all at once they all
+declared: "We must go forth into the wide world."  With no great
+preparation, with cloak and staff as they had travelled with Him, they
+went forth.  First to Jerusalem, to stand once more by His grave, and
+then forth in every direction to preach Jesus, the Son of God. . . .
+
+This brings me to the close of my vision.  I will only tell further of
+one meeting which was so remarkable and fraught with such vast results.
+One day when the disciples during their journey to Jerusalem were
+resting under the almond trees, they saw a troop of horsemen in the
+valley.  They were native soldiers with a captain.  He seemed to have
+noticed the disciples, for he put spurs to his horse.  The disciples
+were a little terrified, and Thaddeus, who had good eyes, said: "God be
+merciful to us, that's the cruel weaver!"
+
+"We will calmly wait for him," said the brethren, and they remained
+standing.  When the rider was quite close to them, he dismounted
+quickly and asked: "Do you belong to Jesus of Nazareth?"
+
+"We are His disciples," they answered frankly.
+
+Then he kneeled before Peter, the eldest, spread his arms, and
+exclaimed: "Receive me, receive me; I would become worthy to be His
+disciple."
+
+"But if I do not mistake, you are Saul who laid snares for Him?" said
+Peter.
+
+"Laid snares, persecuted Him and His," said the horseman, and his words
+broke swiftly from his lips: "Two days ago I rode out against those who
+said He had risen.  Yet I was always thinking of this man who saw so
+strangely into men's minds.  I thought of Him day and night, and of
+much that He had said.  And as I was riding across the plain in the
+twilight, a light enveloped me, my horse stumbled, a white figure stood
+in front of me, and in the hand lifted towards Heaven was the mark of a
+wound.  'Who are you, to bar my way?' I exclaimed.  And He answered, 'I
+am He whom you persecute!'  It was your Master risen from the dead.
+'Why persecute me, Saul?  What have I done to you?'  Your Jesus, the
+Christ, stood living before me!  Yes, men of Galilee, now I believe
+that He is risen.  And as, hitherto, I assailed His word, I will now
+help to spread it abroad.  Brothers, receive me!"
+
+That is my picture of how Saul was converted into an apostle.  He sent
+his horse back to the valley, and went himself gladly and humbly along
+with the Galileans to Jerusalem.
+
+When, after some days, they reached the Mount of Olives, whence they
+had first looked on the metropolis, there, standing on the rocks, was
+Jesus.  There He stood, just as He had always been, and the disciples
+felt exactly as they had in the times past when He was always with
+them.  They stood round Him in a circle, and He looked at them
+lovingly.  And suddenly they heard Him ask in a low voice: "Do you love
+Me?"
+
+"Lord," they answered, "we love You."
+
+He asked again: "Do you love Me?"
+
+They said: "Lord, You know that we love You."
+
+Then He asked for a third time; "Do you love Me?"
+
+And they exclaimed all together: "We cannot tell in words, O Lord, how
+we love You!"
+
+"Then go forth.  Go to the poor, and comfort them; to the sinners, and
+raise them up.  Go to all nations, and teach them all that I have told
+you.  Those who believe in Me will be blessed.  I am the way, the
+truth, and the life.  I go now to My Father.  My spirit and My strength
+I leave to you: light to the eyes, the word to the tongue, love to the
+heart.  And mercy to sinners----"
+
+Thus they heard Him speak, and lo!--there was no one there except the
+disciples.  Two footmarks were impressed on the stone.  The heavens
+above were still; they bowed their heads, then watched how He ascended
+to the clouds, how He hovered in the light, how He went to the Father,
+to whom also we shall go through our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+My Father and my God!  I thank Thee that Thou hast permitted me to
+behold the Life, the Passion, and the Resurrection of Thy Son, and to
+steep myself in His words and promises during this terrible time.  In
+the torture of suspense, which is more dreadful than death, I have won
+courage from the great events of His life, and received consolation
+from the appearance of my Redeemer upon earth.  My hope has been
+strengthened by the saints of old who repented.  For the sake of the
+crucified Saviour, O Lord, put mercy into my King's heart.  If it is
+God's will that I die, then let me die like Dismas.  Only pardon me.
+In the name of Jesus, I implore Thee, O Father, for mercy!  Have mercy
+on me, a sinner.  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+Such is the story.  It was written by a common workman awaiting
+sentence of death in a prison cell.  The last prayer was written
+exactly six weeks after his condemnation.
+
+Conrad began to feel a little frightened.  He had been so absorbed in
+his Saviour's story that he felt himself to be almost part of it.  He
+had written it all day, and dreamed of it all night.  He had been in
+the stable at Bethlehem, he had wandered by the Lake of Gennesaret, and
+spent nights in the wilderness of Judaea.  He had journeyed to Sidon,
+and across the mountains to Jerusalem.  He, a prisoner in jail and
+sentenced to death, had stood on the Mount of Olives, he had been in
+Bethany and supped at Jesus' side.  But now he felt almost indifferent
+to the thought.  Had he not lived through that glorious death at
+Golgotha?  All else sank into insignificance beside that.  It almost
+seemed to him as if he had passed beyond the veil.  The Risen One
+possessed all his soul.  He could not get away from all these holy
+memories.  Then suddenly came the thought: when death comes I must be
+brave.  He remembered a story his mother had once told him of a Roman
+executioner who, on receiving orders to behead a young Christian, had
+been so overcome with pity that he had fainted.  The youth had revived
+him, and comforted him as bravely as if it had been his duty to die, as
+it was the executioner's to kill.  But then Conrad told himself: you
+are a guilty creature, and cannot compare yourself with a saint.  Would
+you be brave enough to act like that?  Would you?  It is sweet to die
+with Jesus, but it is still sweeter to live with Him.
+
+The jailer asked him if he would care to go out once more into the open
+air.
+
+Out into the air?  Out into the prison yard, where all the refuse was
+thrown?  No.  He thanked him; he would prefer to remain in his cell.
+It could not be for long now.
+
+"No; it will not be for long now," said the old man.  But he did not
+tell him that in the meantime the Chancellor had died of his wounds,
+although from the "old grumbler's" increased tenderness Conrad might
+have suspected that his case did not stand in a favourable light.
+
+"If you are truly brave," the old man told him, "the next time you go
+out you shall walk under green trees."
+
+"But now?  Not now?"  Conrad thought of a reprieve, and grew excited.
+A red flush stained his cheeks.
+
+"No; I did not mean that.  You know the King is far away.  But it may
+come any time.  I am waiting for it anxiously.  You know, Ferleitner,
+after this I shall resign my post."
+
+At that moment the priest came in.  He always entered the dark cell
+with a cheerful face and a glad "God be with you!"  It was his office
+to bring comfort, if only he had known how.  As a rule the monk came
+in, wiping the perspiration from his brow with a coarse blue
+handkerchief, and loudly assuring the prisoner how pleasantly cool it
+was in his cell.  But this time he was nervous and ill at ease.  How
+did the prisoner look?  Emaciated to a skeleton, his teeth prominent
+between fleshless lips, his eyes wide open, a wondrous fire burning in
+their depths.
+
+"As you will never send for me, my dear Ferleitner, I have come again
+unasked to see how you fare.  You are not ill?"
+
+"Has the sentence come?" asked the prisoner.
+
+"Not that I know of," answered the monk; "but I see I am disturbing you
+at your work."
+
+Conrad had neglected to put away the sheets he had written, and so had
+to confess that he had been writing.
+
+"Isn't it too dark to see to write here?"
+
+"You get accustomed to it.  At first it was dark, but now it seems to
+get lighter and lighter."
+
+"So you've made your will at last?" asked the father, raising his
+eyebrows.  He meant to be humorous.
+
+"A sort of one!"
+
+"Let's see, then.  You have something to leave?"
+
+"I have not.  Another has."
+
+The father turned over the sheets, read a line here and there, shook
+his shaven head a little, and said "It seems to resemble the New
+Testament.  Have you been copying it from the Gospel?"
+
+"No, I haven't got a New Testament.  That's why I had to write this for
+myself."
+
+"This Gospel!  You've written one for yourself out of your own head?"
+
+"Not exactly.  Well, perhaps now and then I have.  I've written what I
+could remember.  I will be responsible for the errors."
+
+"My curiosity grows," cried the father.  "May I read it?"
+
+"It's not worth your trouble, but I knew of nothing else to help me."
+
+"The work has exhausted you, Ferleitner."
+
+"No; on the contrary, I may almost say it has revived me.  I'm sorry it
+is finished.  I thought of nothing else; I forgot everything."
+
+His enthusiasm has consumed him, thought the monk.
+
+"Ferleitner, will you let me take it away with me for a few days?"
+
+Conrad shyly gave permission.  The monk gathered the sheets together,
+and thrust them carelessly into his pouch, so that the roll stuck out
+at the top.  When he had gone, Conrad gazed sadly into emptiness and
+longed for his manuscript.  How happy he had been with it all those
+weeks!  What would the priest think of it?  Everything would be wrong.
+Such people see their God with other eyes than ours.  And if he
+criticised it, all the pleasure would go out of it.
+
+But Conrad did not have to do without it long.  The father brought it
+back the next morning.  He had begun to read it the evening before, and
+had sat up all night to finish it.  But he would not give his opinion,
+and Conrad did not ask for it.  Almost helplessly, they sat at the
+rough table, while the monk tried to think how he could express his
+thoughts.  After a while, he took up the manuscript, laid it down
+again, and said that of course, from the ecclesiastical point of view,
+there would naturally be some objections.
+
+"The details of the history are not altogether correct.  I know,
+Ferleitner, that you asked me for a copy of the New Testament.  If I
+had known that you had gone so far, I would willingly have given you
+one.  But perhaps it is better so.  Though I must tell you, Conrad
+Ferleitner, that nothing has given me so much pleasure for a long while
+as these meditations and--I may also say--fancies of yours.  As for the
+faults, let those who take a pleasure in finding them, look for them.
+The living faith is the one important thing, the living faith and the
+living Jesus, and that is here!  My son," he added, laying his hand on
+the prisoner's head, "I feel your piety of soul is so profound, that I
+will administer the sacrament to you.  Yes, Conrad, you are saved.
+Only, pray fervently."
+
+Conrad covered his face with his hands, and wept quietly.  The priest's
+words made him so happy.
+
+"I even think," continued the father, after a pause, "that others who
+are seeking for the simple word of God, and cannot find it, might read
+your book.  There must be many such people in hospitals, poor-houses,
+and prisons, and especially those who are in your situation.  Would you
+have any objection?"
+
+"My God, why should I?" replied Conrad.  "If this work of mine could be
+the help to other poor wretches that it has been to me!  But I do not
+know--it was not meant for that.  I wrote it only for myself."
+
+"Naturally, one or two things must be altered," said the father.  "We
+would go through it again together."
+
+"But, holy father," asked the prisoner wistfully, "that is--if you
+think there will be time?"
+
+"Above all, we must try and find a suitable title.  Have you not
+thought that your child must have a name?"
+
+"I wrote the letters I.N.R.I. at the top."
+
+"It is rather out of the common.  People won't know what to make of it.
+We must at least have a sub-title."
+
+"The title's a matter of absolute indifference to me," said Conrad:
+"perhaps you can find one."
+
+"I will think it over.  May I take the manuscript away again?  I must
+try and become literary in my old age.  If a carpenter lad can write a
+whole book, surely a Franciscan monk can find a title!  Have you
+anything on your mind, my son?  No?  Then God be with you.  I will come
+again soon."  At the door he turned: "Tell me, my son, does the jailer
+give you food enough?"
+
+"Yes, more than I need."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Outside it was hot summer-time.  Conrad knew nothing of it, he had not
+thought of it.  The jailer came with the permission that, as an
+exception, he would be allowed to walk for half an hour in the garden.
+Conrad felt quite indifferent.  As the warder led him along the vaulted
+passage, he staggered slightly; he had almost forgotten how to walk.
+He steadied himself on his companion's arm and said:
+
+"I feel so strange."
+
+"Hold on to me; nothing will happen to you."
+
+"Are we going right out into the open?"
+
+"From now, you will go for a short walk in the garden every day."
+
+"I do not know if I care to," said Conrad, hesitating.  "I am
+afraid--of the sun."
+
+They were out under the open sky, in the wide, dazzling green light.
+Conrad stood still for a moment and covered his eyes with his hand,
+then he looked up, and covered them again, and began to tremble.  The
+warder remained silent, and supported him as he tottered along under
+the shade of the horse-chestnuts.  On either side stretched green banks
+glowing with flowers and roses, their bright colours quivering like
+flame blown by the wind.  Above was the blue sky with the great burning
+sun.  And all around he heard the songs of the birds.  Oh, life! life!
+He had almost forgotten what it meant--to live!  He groaned aloud, it
+might have been either from sorrow or joy.  Then he sat down on a bench
+and paused, exhausted.  He gazed out into the illimitable light.  Tears
+trickled slowly down his hollow cheeks.
+
+After a time the warder started to go on.  Conrad raised himself
+unsteadily, and they moved slowly forward.  They came to a white marble
+bust standing on a stone pillar surrounded with flowers.
+
+Conrad stood still, shaded his eyes with his hand, looked at the
+statue, and asked: "Who is that?"
+
+"That is the king," answered the warder.  Conrad gazed at it
+thoughtfully.  And then he said softly and much moved: "How kindly he
+looks at me!"
+
+"Yes, he is a kind master."
+
+Then joy slowly entered the heart of the poor sinner.  The world is
+beautiful.  People are good.  Life is everlasting.  And the Heavenly
+Father reigns over all. . . .
+
+The warder looked at his watch.  "It is time to return."
+
+Conrad was taken back to his cell.  He stumbled over the threshold and
+knocked up against the table, it was so dark.  But his heart rejoiced.
+The world Was beautiful.  People were good. . . .
+
+Then, gradually, fear stole back upon him.  He was tired and lay down
+for a little on the straw.  The key grated in the lock.  Conrad started
+to his feet in terror.  What was coming?  What was coming?
+
+The father entered quickly and cheerfully.  Swinging the manuscript in
+his hand, he cried: "Glad tidings!  Glad tidings!"
+
+Conrad's hands fluttered to his breast.  "Glad tidings?  It had come?
+Life--to live again?"  So he cried aloud.  He stood for a moment
+motionless, then he sat down on the wooden bench.
+
+"Yes, my son," the monk continued.  "We will call the book, 'Glad
+Tidings,' I.N.R.I.  Glad tidings of a poor sinner.  That will suit the
+Gospel; that sounds well, does it not?"  He stopped and started:
+"Ferleitner, what is the matter?"
+
+Conrad had fallen against the wall, his head sunk on his breast.  The
+breath rattled in his throat.  The father reached quickly for the
+water-pitcher to revive him.  He reproached him good-naturedly for
+losing heart so quickly, and bathed his forehead tenderly.  Then he
+noticed the stillness of the breast and the eyes--how glazed they were!
+He shouted for help.  The jailer appeared.  He looked, paused a moment,
+and then said, softly: "It is well."
+
+There was silence.  Suddenly the old man cried out:  "It is well.
+Thou art merciful, Holy God!"
+
+Later, the Franciscan passed through the long passages thanking God
+sadly for the blessed miracle of the misunderstanding.  At the gate he
+met the governor.  Heavily, supporting each step by his stick, he came
+along.  When he saw the monk he went up to him: "My dear father," he
+said hoarsely.  "I am sorry; you will have a heavy night of it.
+Ferleitner, the criminal, will need a priest.  To-morrow morning at six
+o'clock all will be over."
+
+
+A short silence.  Then the father answered: "Your Excellency, the
+criminal, Ferleitner, needs neither priest nor judge.  He has been
+pardoned."
+
+
+
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