of God and bringing them back hither into the fold of the Essenes.  In those days there was little else in me but love of God, and I could walk from dusk to dusk without wearying; twelve and fifteen hours were not too many for my feet:  my feet bounded along the road while my eyes followed white clouds moving over the sky; I dreamed of them as God’s palaces, and I saw God not only in the clouds but in the grass, and in the fields, and the flower that covers the fields.  I read God in the air and in the waters:  and in every town in Palestine I sought out those that loved God and those that could learn to love God.  I could walk well in those days, fifteen hours were less than as many minutes are now.  I have walked from Jerusalem to Joppa in one day, and the night that I met thy father outside Nazareth I had walked twelve hours, though I had been delayed in the morning:  eight hours before midday, and after a rest in the wood I went on again for several hours more, how many I do not know, I’ve forgotten.  I did not know the distance that I had walked till I met thy father coming home from his work, his tools in the bag upon his shoulder.  His voice is still in my ear.  But if it be to Nazareth thou’rt going, come along with me, he said.  And I can still hear ourselves talking, myself asking him to direct me to a lodging, and his answering:  there’s a house in the village where thou’lt get one, and I’ll lead thee to it.  But all the beds in that house were full; we knocked at other inns, but the men and women and children in them were asleep and not to be roused; and if by chance our knocking awakened somebody we were bidden away with threats that the dogs would be loosed upon us.  Nazareth looks not kindly on the wayfarer to-night, I said.  Yet it shall not be said that a stranger had to sleep in the streets of Nazareth, were thy father’s very words to me, Jesus.  Come to my house, he said, though it be small and we have to put somebody out of his bed, it will be better than that our town should gain evil repute.  Thou canst not have forgotten me coming, for thy father shook thee out of thy sleep and told thee that he wanted thy bed for a stranger.  I can see thee still standing before me in thy shift, and though the hours I’d travelled had gone down into my very marrow, and sleep was heavy upon my eyes, yet a freshness came upon me as of the dawn when I looked on thee, and my heart told me that I had found one that would do honour to the Essenes, and love God more than any I had ever met with yet.  But I think I hear thee weeping, Jesus.  Now, for what art thou weeping?  There is nothing sad in the story, only that it is a long time ago.  Our speech next day still rings in my ear—­my telling thee of the Pharisees that merely minded the letter of the law, and of the Sadducees that said there was no life outside this world except for angels.  It is well indeed that I remember our two selves sitting by the door on two stools set under a vine, and it throwing pretty patterns of shadow on the pavement whilst we talked—­whilst I talked to thee of the brethren, who lived down by the Bitter Lake, no one owning anything more than his fellow, so that none might be distracted from God by the pleasures of this world.  I can see clearly through the years thy face expectant, and Nazareth—­the deeply rutted streets and the hills above.