that though he were to bring the parts of the sheep the wolf had left behind to his master he would have to seek another master.  Such severity frightens the shepherd, and the wolf smells out the frightened shepherd, Jesus said, and he told his mates that he had not found Jacob lacking in truthfulness nor in natural discernment, and he asked them to give all their protection to Jacob, who will, he said, go forth in charge of our flock to-morrow.

The shepherds said again that they were sorry to lose Jesus, and that the hills would not seem like the hills without him, and Jesus answered that he, too, would be lonely among the brethren reading the Scriptures.  When one is used to sheep one misses them sorely, Eliab said, there’s always something to learn from them; and he began to tell a story; but before he had come to the end of it Jesus’ thoughts took leave of the story he was listening to, and he turned away, leaving the shepherd with his half-finished story, and walked absorbed in his thoughts, immersed in his own mind, till he had reached the crest of the next hill and was within some hundred yards of the brook.  It was then that he remembered he had left them abruptly in the middle of a half-finished relation, and he stopped to consider if he should return to them and ask for the end of the story.  But fearing they would think he was making a mocking-stock of them, he sighed, and was vexed that they had parted on a seeming lack of courtesy:  on no seeming lack, on a very clear lack, he said to himself; but it would be useless to return to them; they would not understand, and a man had always better return to his own thoughts.  Repent, repent, he said, picking up the thread of his thoughts, but acknowledgment comes before repentance, and of what help will repentance be, for repentance changes nothing, it brings nothing unless grief peradventure.  I was in the hands of God then just as I am now, and everything within and without us is in his hands.  The things that we look upon as evil and the things that we look upon as good.  Our sight is not his sight, our hearing is not his hearing, we must despise nothing, for all things come from him, and return to him.  I used, he said, to despise the air I breathed, and long for the airs of paradise, but what did these longings bring me?—­grief.  God bade us live on earth and we bring unhappiness upon ourselves by desiring heaven.  Jesus stopped, and looking through the blue air of evening, he could see the shepherds eating their bread and garlic on the hillside.  Folding-time is near, he said to himself, but I shall never fold a flock again....

His thoughts began again, flowing like a wind, as mysteriously, arising he knew not whence, nor how, his mind holding him as fast as if he were in chains, and he heard from within that he had passed through two stages—­the first was in Jerusalem, when he preached against the priests and their sacrifices.  God does not desire the blood of sheep, but our love, and all ritual comes between us and God ...  God is in the heart, he had said, and he had spoken as truly as a man may speak of the journey that lies before him on the morning of the first day.