ce. In the beginning I spoke sweet words of peace, and they were of
no avail to stay the sins that were committed in every house; so now I
speak no more sweet words to anybody, but words that shall divide father
from son, and mother from daughter, and wife from husband. There is no
other way to cure the evil. What say I, he cried, cure! There is none.
The evil must be cut down and thrown upon the fire, and whosoever would
be saved from the fire must follow me. The priests hate me and call me
arrogant, but if I seem arrogant to them it is because I speak the word
of God.

And then, seizing me by the shoulder, he said: look into my eyes and
see. They shall tell thee that those who would be saved from the fire
must follow me. I am the word, the truth, and the life. Follow me,
follow me, or else be for ever accursed and destroyed and burnt up like
weeds that the gardener throws into heaps and fires on an autumn
evening. Yes, he cried, we are nearing the springtime when life shall
begin again in the world. But I say to thee that this springtime shall
never come to pass. Never again shall the fig ripen on the wall and the
wheat be cut down in the fields. Before these things come to pass in
their natural course the Son of Man shall return in a chariot of fire to
make an end of things; or if thou wilt thou can say that he'll come not
to make an end but a new beginning, a world in which justice and peace
shall reign. And it is for this end I offer myself, a victim to appease
our Father in heaven. I'm the sacrifice and the communion, for it is no
longer the fat of rams that my Father desires, but my blood, only that;
only my blood will appease his wrath. As I have said, I am the
communion, and thou shalt eat my flesh and drink my blood, else perish
utterly, and go into eternal damnation. But I love thee and---- And
after a pause he said: those that love God are loved by me, and
willingly and gladly will I yield myself up as the last sacrifice.

Nicodemus stopped, for his memory died suddenly, and, unable to discover
anything in the blank, he turned to Joseph and said: he speaks with a
strange, bitter energy, like one that has lost control of his words; he
is hardly aware of them, nor does he retain any memory of them. They are
as the wind, rising we know not why, and going its way unbidden. I have
seen him like that in Galilee, Joseph answered. Ah! Nicodemus answered
suddenly, I remember, but cannot put words upon it. He said tha