book into the belief that they were the precursors of the Messiah?  We know of Theudas and the Egyptian, and there were many others whose names have not reached us.  But I alone believed myself to be the Messiah.  He was astonished he could remember so great a sin and not fear God.  But I cannot fear God, for I love God, he said; my God neither forgives nor punishes, and if we repent it should be for our own sakes and not to please God.  Moreover, it must be well not to waste too much time in repentance, for it is surely better to understand than to repent.  We learn through our sins.  If it had not been for mine, I should not have learnt that quires and scrolls lead men from God, and that to see and hear God we have only to open our eyes and ears.  God is always about us.  We hear him in the breeze, and we find him in the flower.  He is in these things as much as he is in man, and all things are equal in his sight; Solomon is no greater than Joshbekashar.

He had not remembered the old shepherd, who had taught him all he knew about sheep, for many a day.  It is nigh on five and forty years, he said to himself, since he called me to hold the ewes while he made them clean for the winter.  It was in yon cave the flock was folded when I laid hands on the ewes for the first time and dragged them forward for him to clip the wool from the rumps.  He could see in his memory each different ewe trotting away, looking as if she were thankful for the shepherd’s kind office towards her.  There was something extraordinarily restful in his memory of old Joshbekashar, and to prolong it Jesus fell to recalling the old man’s words; and every little disjointed sentence raised up the old man before him.  It was but three times that I held the ewes for him, so it cannot be much more than forty years since that first clipping.  Now I come to think on it, the clipping befell on a day like to-day.  We’ll clip our ewes to-day, and it was with a sense of memorial service in his mind that he called to young Jacob to come to his aid, saying:  Joshbekashar’s flock was always folded in yon cave for this clipping, the only change is that I am the clipper and thou’rt holding them for me.  There are forty-five to be clipped, and just the same as before each ewe will trot away into the field looking as if she were thankful at having been made clean for the winter.  On these words both fell to their work, and the cunning hand spent no more than a minute over each.  Stooping over ewes makes one’s back ache, he said, rising from the last one, using the very same words he heard forty years before from Joshbekashar:  time brings back the past! he said.  We repeat the words of those that have gone before while doing their work; and it is likely we are doing God’s work as well by making the ewes clean for the winter as by cutting their throats in the Temple.  All the same stooping over ewes makes one’s back ache, he repeated, for the words evoked the old shepherd, and he waited for Jacob to answer in the words spoken by him forty years ago to Joshbekashar.  Himself had forgotten his words, but he thought he would recognise them if Jacob were inspired to speak them.  But Jacob kept silence for shame’s sake, for his hope was that the flock would be given to his charge as soon as old age obliged Jesus to join his brethren in the cenoby.