perhaps fresh from a bit of quiet morning talk with His Father, were
shocked? Here, where everything should have called to devotion, everything
_jarred_.

Quietly and quickly putting some bits of knotted string together, He
started the stock out, doubtless against the protests of the keepers. With
flashing light out of those keen eyes, He tipped over the tables, spilling
out their precious greedy coins, and ordered the crates of pigeons
removed. But all with no suggestion of any violence used toward anybody.
Reluctantly, perhaps angrily, wholly against their plans and wishes, the
crowd, impelled by _something_ in this unknown Man, with no outer evidence
of authority, goes. It is a remarkable tribute, both to the power of His
personal presence and to His executive faculty.

Of course the thing made trouble. It was the talk of the town, and of all
the foreigners for days after. The leaders were aroused and angered,
deeply angered. This stranger had kicked up a pretty muss with His
inconvenient earnestness and inconsiderate quoting of Scripture. It was a
practical assumption of superior authority over them. It was an assumption
of the truth of John's ignored claim that He was the promised King.

Was not this arrangement in the temple area a great convenience for the
many strangers, who were their brothers and guests; a real kindly act of
hospitality? Yes--and was it not, too, a finely organized bit of business
for profiting by these strangers, a using of their proper authority over
the temple territory to transfer their brothers' foreign coins safely over
to their own purses? Aye, it was a transmuting of their holy offices into
gold by the alchemy of their coarse, greedy touch.

Jesus' conduct was the keenest sort of criticism of these rulers, before