rt from Nazareth and suffered under Pilate. More than that
they do not seem to know; but from what they tell me thy story resembles
that of our Lord Jesus Christ who was betrayed in a garden and was
raised from the dead. At the words, who was betrayed in a garden, a
light seemed to break in Jesus' face and he said: some two years of my
life are unknown to anybody here, even Hazael does not know them, and
last night I was about to tell them to him on the balcony.

You all remember how he was carried out of the lecture-room on to this
balcony by Saddoc and Manahem, who left him with me. I had just returned
from the mountain, having left my flock with Jacob, our new shepherd,
and Hazael, who recovered his senses quickly in the evening air, begged
me to tell him of Jacob's knowledge of the flock, and I spoke to him
highly of Jacob.... Hazael, have I thy permission to tell the brethren
here assembled the story I began to tell thee last night, but which was
interrupted? The old man raised his head and said: Jesus, I hearken, go
on with thy story.

Brethren, yester evening I returned from the hills after having left our
flock in charge of Jacob. You know, brethren, why I confided the flock
to him. After fifty (I am fifty-five) our steps are no longer as alert
as they were: an old man cannot sleep in a cavern like a young man nor
defend himself against robbers like a young man, and yesternight was the
first night I spent under a roof for many a year, and under that roof I
am to live henceforth with you here, tending on our president, who needs
attention now in his great age. These things were in his mind and in
mine while we sat on the balcony last night taking the air. Hazael had
spoken his fear that the change from the hills to this dwelling would
prove irksome to me at first, and our talk turned upon the life I have
led since boyhood. Our president seemed to think that the better life is
to live under the sky and the sure way to happiness is in solitude: he
had fallen to admiration of my life spent among the hills, and had
spoken to me of the long journeys he used to undertake in his youth over
Palestine, seeking for young men in whom he foresaw the making of good
Essenes; many of you here are his discoveries, myself certainly. We
indulged in recollection, and listening to him my thoughts were back in
Nazareth, and I waited for him to tell me how one night he met my
father, Joseph the carpenter, returning home after his day'