God, he said; my God
neither forgives nor punishes, and if we repent it should be for our own
sakes and not to please God. Moreover, it must be well not to waste too
much time in repentance, for it is surely better to understand than to
repent. We learn through our sins. If it had not been for mine, I
should not have learnt that quires and scrolls lead men from God, and
that to see and hear God we have only to open our eyes and ears. God is
always about us. We hear him in the breeze, and we find him in the
flower. He is in these things as much as he is in man, and all things
are equal in his sight; Solomon is no greater than Joshbekashar.

He had not remembered the old shepherd, who had taught him all he knew
about sheep, for many a day. It is nigh on five and forty years, he said
to himself, since he called me to hold the ewes while he made them clean
for the winter. It was in yon cave the flock was folded when I laid
hands on the ewes for the first time and dragged them forward for him to
clip the wool from the rumps. He could see in his memory each different
ewe trotting away, looking as if she were thankful for the shepherd's
kind office towards her. There was something extraordinarily restful in
his memory of old Joshbekashar, and to prolong it Jesus fell to
recalling the old man's words; and every little disjointed sentence
raised up the old man before him. It was but three times that I held the
ewes for him, so it cannot be much more than forty years since that
first clipping. Now I come to think on it, the clipping befell on a day
like to-day. We'll clip our ewes to-day, and it was with a sense of
memorial service in his mind that he called to young Jacob to come to
his aid, saying: Joshbekashar's flock was always folded in yon cave for
this clipping, the only change is that I am the clipper and thou'rt
holding them for me. There are forty-five to be clipped, and just the
same as before each ewe will trot away into the field looking as if she
were thankful at having been made clean for the winter. On these words
both fell to their work, and the cunning hand spent no more than a
minute over each. Stooping over ewes makes one's back ache, he said,
rising from the last one, using the very same words he heard forty years
before from Joshbekashar: time brings back the past! he said. We repeat
the words of those that have gone before while doing their work; and it
is likely we are doing God's work as well by making the