though they could descend from their starry heights and rest for a
moment almost affectionately on the face of a mortal. That was two years
ago. And the Jesus whom he met in rags by the lake-side one evening and
journeyed with as far as Cæsarea Philippi, to Tyre and Sidon, was no
doubt very different from the severe young man he had seen in the
monastery. He had grown older, more careworn, but the first Jesus still
lingered in the second, whereas the Jesus he was looking at now was a
new Jesus, one whom he had seen never before; the cheeks were fallen in
and the eyes that he remembered soft and luminous were now concentrated;
a sort of malignant hate glowered in them: he seemed to hate all he
looked upon; and his features seemed to have enlarged, the nose and chin
were more prominent, and the body was shrunken. A sword that is wearing
out its scabbard was the thought that passed through Joseph's frightened
mind; and frightened at the change in Jesus' appearance, and still more
by the words that were hurled out at him, when intimidated and
trembling, he babbled out: my father lay between life and death for
eight days and came out of his swoon slowly. He could say no more, the
rest of his story was swallowed up in a violent interruption, Jesus
telling him that there was no place among his followers for those who
could not free themselves from such ghosts as father, mother and
children and wife.

Jesus had flung his father's wealth and his own in his face, and his own
pitiful understanding that had not been able to see that this world and
the world to come were not one thing but twain. And whosoever chooses
this world must remain satisfied with its fleshly indulgences and its
cares and its laws and responsibilities, and whoso ever chooses the
Kingdom of Heaven must cast this world far from him, must pluck it, as
it were, out of his heart and throw it away, bidding it depart; for it
is but a ghost. All these, he said, pointing to his apostles, have cast