life. They dwell spotless and
apart from the world. They own one common purse, and spend their lives
working with their hands and pondering and dreaming on purity, goodness,
and the commands of the great law."

He sprang up in his excitement from her encircling arm and stood erect
and wide-eyed before her.

"Ah, mother, they are so good that they would do nothing on the Sabbath,
even to saving their own lives or the lives of their animals, or their
brothers. They bathe very often in sacred water. They have no wives, and
mortify the flesh, and--"

"What is their aim in this?" the mother interrupted gently.

The boy was aflame with his subject.

"Ah, that is it--the great goal toward which they all run," he cried.
"They are doing my Father's work, and I must help! Hear, hear what is
before me: When a young novice comes to them they give him the symbols
of purity: a spade, an apron, and a white robe to wear at the holy
meals. In a year he receives a closer fellowship and the baths of
purification. After that he enters the state of bodily purity. Then
little by little he enters into purity of the spirit, meekness,
holiness. He becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit, and prophesies. Ah,
think, mother, how sweet it would be to lie entranced there for days and
weeks in an earthly paradise, with no rough world to break the spell,
while the angels sing softly in one's ears! I, even I, have already
tasted of that bliss."

"Say on," she breathed. "What does the holy man do then?"

"Then," the inspired, boyish tones continued--"then he performs
miracles, and finally--" he clasped her hand convulsively--"he becomes
Elias, the forerunner of the Messiah!"

From far out in the wilderness came a melancholy cry.

"It is John, my cousin," said the boy, radiant, half turning himself at
the sound. "I must go to him."

She drew in her breath sharply, and rose to her feet.

"Bear a message to John," she said. "Not pourings of water, nor white
robes; not times and seasons, nor feasts in darkness and silence, shall
hasten the kingdom of heaven; neither formulas, nor phylacteries, nor
madness on the Sabbath. Above all, no selfish, proud isolation shall
usher in the glorious reign of the Messiah. These holy men,--these
Essenes,--are but stricter, sterner, nobler Pharisees. Tell thy cousin
to take all the noble and fine, to reject all the selfish and unmeaning,
in their lives. Doctrine is not in heaven. Not by fasts and scourgings,
not