the world and its illusions.  It was pleaded, and I doubt not in good faith, that it were better the Essenes should exist under a modified and more worldly rule than not to exist at all; and while unable to accept this view we have never ceased to admire the great sacrifice that our erstwhile brethren have made for the sake of our order.  That the large majority was moved by such an exalted motive cannot be doubted; but temptations are always about; everyone is the Adam of his own soul, and there may have been a few that desired the change for less worthy motives.  There was a brother——­

At that moment an accidental tread sent one of the puppies howling down the dwelling, and Hazael, fearing that he might fall into the well and drown there, sent Jesus to call him back.  The puppy, however, managed to escape the well in time, and the pain in his tail ceasing suddenly he ran, followed by his brother, out of the cenoby on to the rocks.  I must go after them, for they will roll down the rocks if left to themselves, Jesus cried.  A matter of little moment, Hazael replied, compared with the greater calamity of drowning himself in the well, for it is of extraordinary depth and represents the labour of years.  Wonderful are the works of man, he added.  But greater are the works of God, Joseph replied.  You did well to correct me, Hazael answered, for one never should forget that God is over all things, and the only real significance man has, is his knowledge of God.  But we were speaking of the exodus of a few monks from the great cenoby on the eastern side of Jordan.

We came hither for the reason that I have told.  We left protesting that even if it were as our brethren said, and that the children of Essenes would be more likely than the children of Pharisees and Sadducees to choose to worship God according to the spirit rather than to wear their lives away in pursuit of vain conformity to the law—­even if this were so, we said, man can only love God on condition that he put women aside, for woman represents the five senses:  pleasure of the eyes, of the ears, of the mouth, of the finger-tips, of the nostrils:  we did not fail to point out that though our brethren might go in and unto them for worthy motives, yet in so doing they would experience pleasure, and sexual pleasure leads to the pleasure of wine and food.  One of the brethren said this might not be so if elderly women were chosen, and at first it seemed as if a compromise were possible.  But a moment after, a brother reminded us that elderly women were not fruitful.  To which I added myself another argument, that a different diet from ours is necessary to those who take wives unto themselves.  Thou understandest me, Joseph?  Women have never been a temptation to me, Joseph answered, nor to Jesus, and in meditative mood he related the story of the wild man in the woods, at the entrance of whose cave Jesus had laid a knife so that he might cut himself free of temptation.