n, he began to tell
that Jesus was standing in the middle of the room when he entered,
seemingly unaware that his disciples were assembled about the house. His
eyes fixed, as it were, on his thoughts or ideas, he did not hear the
door open, and to get his attention Nicodemus had to lay his hand upon
his arm. At his touch Jesus awoke from his dream, but it seemed quite a
little while before he could shake himself free from his dream, and was
again of this world. Joseph asked Nicodemus to repeat his first words.
Was he violent or affectionate? Affectionate, gentle, and winning,
Nicodemus answered. A few moments of sweetness, and then he seemed
suddenly to become old and wild and savage.

The two men stopped on the road, and Nicodemus looking into Joseph's
eyes, said: I asked him if he were going up to Jerusalem for the Feast
of the Passover, and after speaking a few words on the subject he broke
out, coiling himself like a diseased panther meditating on its spring,
and as if uncertain if he could accomplish it, he fell back into a chair
and into his dream, out of which he spoke a few words clear and
reasonable; and then with a concentrated hate he spoke of the Temple as
a resort of thieves and of the priests as the despoilers of widows and
orphans, saying that the law must be abrogated and the Temple destroyed.
Until then there would be no true religion in Judea. It is like that he
speaks now; the one-time reformer sees clearly that the Temple must go.
And would he, Joseph asked, build another in its place? I'm not sure
that he would. I put the question to him and he was uncertain if the old
foundations could be used. The old spirits of lust, and blood, and money
would haunt the walls, and as fast as we raised up a new Temple the
spirits would pull it down and rebuild it as it was before. We are
forbidden by the law of Moses to create any graven image of man, of bird
or beast. Would that Moses had added: build no walls, for as soon as
there are walls priests will enter in and set themselves upon thrones.
The priests have taken the place of God, and I have come, he said, to
cast them out of their thrones, and to cut the knot of the bondage of
the people of Israel. I come, he said, with a sword to cut that knot,
which hands have failed to loosen, and in my other hand there is a
torch, and with it I shall set fire to the thrones. All the world as ye
know it must be burnt up like stubble, for a new world to rise up in its
pla