hus that he attracted
Nathanael,[1] Peter,[2] and the Samaritan woman.[3] Concealing the
true source of his strength--his superiority over all that surrounded
him--he permitted people to believe (in order to satisfy the ideas of
the time--ideas which, moreover, fully coincided with his own) that a
revelation from on high revealed to him all secrets and laid bare all
hearts. Every one thought that Jesus lived in a sphere superior to
that of humanity. They said that he conversed on the mountains with
Moses and Elias;[4] they believed that in his moments of solitude the
angels came to render him homage, and established a supernatural
intercourse between him and heaven.[5]

[Footnote 1: John i. 48, and following.]

[Footnote 2: John i. 42.]

[Footnote 3: John iv. 17, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 3; Mark ix. 3; Luke ix. 30-31.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. iv. 11; Mark i. 13.]

CHAPTER X.

THE PREACHINGS ON THE LAKE.

Such was the group which, on the borders of the lake of Tiberias,
gathered around Jesus. The aristocracy was represented there by a
customs-officer and by the wife of one of Herod's stewards. The rest
were fishermen and common people. Their ignorance was extreme; their
intelligence was feeble; they believed in apparitions and spirits.[1]
Not one element of Greek culture had penetrated this first assembly of
the saints. They had very little Jewish instruction; but heart and
good-will overflowed. The beautiful climate of Galilee made the life
of these honest fishermen a perpetual delight. They truly preluded the
kingdom of God--simple, good, and happy--rocked gently on their
delightful little sea, or at night sleeping on its shores. We do not
realize to ourselves the intoxication of a life which thus glides away
in the face of heaven--the sweet yet strong love which this perpetual
contact with Nature gives, and the dreams of these nights passed in
the brightness of the stars, under an azure dome of infinite expanse.
It was during such a night that Jacob, with his head resting upon a
stone, saw in the stars the promise of an innumerable posterity, and
the mysterious ladder by which the angels of God came and went from
heaven to earth. At the time of Jesus the heavens were not closed, nor
the earth grown cold. The cloud still opened above the Son of man;
the angels ascended and descended upon his head;[2] the visions of
the kingdom of God were everywhere, for man carried them in his heart.
Th