thoughts?  Lighter than the bloom of dandelion floating on the hills.  It is not to our own thoughts we must look for guidance but God’s thoughts, which are deep in us and clear in us, but we do not listen and are led away by our reason.  My sin was to have preached John as well as myself.  I strayed beyond myself and lost myself in the love of God, a thing a man may do if he love not his fellows.  My sin was not to have loved men enough.  But we are as God made us, and must do the best we can with ourselves.

Jesus waited for Hazael to answer him, but Hazael made no answer, but sat like a stone, his head hanging upon his chest.  Why dost thou not answer, Hazael? he said, and Hazael answered:  Jesus, my thoughts were away.  I was thinking of last night, of our talk together in that balcony—­I was thinking, Jesus, how sweet life is in the beginning, and how it grows bitter in the mouth; and the end seems bitter indeed when we think of the gladness that day when we walked through the garlanded streets of our first day together in Nazareth.  It was in the springtime of our lives and of the year.  How delightful it was for me to find one like thee so eager to understand the life of the Essenes:  so eager to join us.  Such delight I shall not find again.  We spoke last night of our journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem and across the Jordan.  Thou wouldst not follow thy father’s trade, but would lead flocks from the hills, and becamest in time the best shepherd, it is said, ever known in the hills.  No one ever had an eye for a ram or ewe like thee, and of thy cure for scab all the shepherds are envious.  We were proud of our shepherd, but he met John and came to me saying that God had called him to go forth and convert the world.  Since God has placed thee here, I said, how is it that he should come and call thee away now?  And thou wast eager with explanation up and down the terraces till we reached the bridge.  We crossed it and followed the path and under the cliffs till we came to the road that leads to Jerusalem.  It was there we said farewell.  Two years or more passed away, and then Joseph brought thee back.  A tired, suffering man whose wits were half gone and who recovered them slowly, but who did not recover them while leading his flock.  How often have we talked of its increase, and now we shall never talk again of rams and ewes nor of thy meditations in the desert and on the hill-tops and in the cave at night.  So much to me were these sweet returnings of thee from the hills that my hope was that the dawn was drawing nigh when thou wouldst return no more to the hills, and yesternight was a happy night when we sat together on the balcony indulging in recollection, thinking that henceforth we should live within sight of each other’s faces always.  My hope last night was that it would be thou that wouldst close my eyes and lay me in a rock sepulchre out of reach of the hyenas.  But my hopes have all vanished now.  Thou art about to leave me.  The brethren?  No, they will not leave me, but even should all remain, if thou be not here I shall be as alone.