coasts of the lake, Mathias let his thoughts run after his favourite
abstractions: the relation of God to time and place. As he dreamed his
metaphysics, he answered Joseph's questions from time to time,
manifesting, however, so little interest in them that at last Joseph
felt he could bear it no longer, and resolved to leave him. But just as
he was about to bid him good-bye, Mathias said that the Essenes were
pious Jews who were content with mere piety, but mere piety was not
enough: God had given to man a mind, and therefore desired man to
meditate, not on his own nature--which was trivial and passing--but on
God's nature, which was important and eternal.

This remark revealed a new scope for inquiry to Joseph, who was
interested in the Essenes; but his search was for miracles and prophets
rather than ideas, and if he tarried among the Essenes it was because he
had come upon two great men. He fell to considering the question afresh,
and--forgetful of Mathias's admonitions that the business of man is to
meditate on the nature of God--he said: the Essenes perform no miracles
and do not prophesy;--an interruption to Mathias's loquacity which the
other took with a better grace than Joseph had expected--for no one ever
dared before to interrupt Mathias. Joseph had done so accidentally and
expected a very fine reproof, but Mathias checked his indignation and
told Joseph that Manahem, an Essene, had foreknowledge of future events
given to him by God: for when he was a child and going to school,
Manahem saw Herod and saluted him as king of the Jews; and Herod,
thinking the boy was in jest or did not know him, told him he was but a
private citizen; whereat Manahem smiled to himself, and clapping Herod
on the backside with his hand said: thou wilt be king and wilt begin thy
reign happily, for God finds thee worthy. And then, as if enough was
said on this subject, Mathias began to diverge from it, mixing up the
story with many admonitions and philosophical reflections, very wise and