"5. The priests then search into the records of the time, and find
that it returned precisely at the end of five hundred years."

Business is business, and there is nothing like punctuality, especially
in a phoenix.

The few chapters relating to the infancy of the Saviour contain many
things which seem frivolous and not worth preserving. A large part of
the remaining portions of the book read like good Scripture, however.
There is one verse that ought not to have been rejected, because it so
evidently prophetically refers to the general run of Congresses of the
United States:

"199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though
they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers."

I have set these extracts down, as I found them. Everywhere among the
cathedrals of France and Italy, one finds traditions of personages that
do not figure in the Bible, and of miracles that are not mentioned in its
pages. But they are all in this Apocryphal New Testament, and though
they have been ruled out of our modern Bible, it is claimed that they
were accepted gospel twelve or fifteen centuries ago, and ranked as high
in credit as any. One needs to read this book before he visits those
venerable cathedrals, with their treasures of tabooed and forgotten
tradition.

They imposed another pirate upon us at Nazareth--another invincible Arab
guard. We took our last look at the city, clinging like a whitewashed
wasp's nest to the hill-side, and at eight o'clock in the morning