One day as Jesus was passing on his rounds a man ran out of his house and besought him to help him to stop some boys who were playing drums and fifes and psalteries, saying to him:  I know not who thou art, but my wife’s mother is dying of fever, and the boys jeer at me and show no mercy.  Let us take stones and cast them at them.  But Jesus answered:  no stone is required; and turning to the boys he said:  boys, all this woman asks of you is to be allowed to die in quiet, and you may ask the same thing some day, and that day may not be long delayed.  Whereupon the boys were ashamed, and Jesus followed Peter into his house and took his wife’s mother’s hand and lifted her up a little and placed her head upon the pillow and bade her sleep, which she did, and seeing that he had such power Peter asked him to remain in the house till his mother-in-law opened her eyes, which he did, and he has been there ever since.  Now here we are at the pathway through which Jesus comes and goes every day on his mission of healing and preaching the love of God.  Your father, Sir, is much opposed to Jesus, who he says has persuaded Peter away from his fishing and James and John and many others, but no doubt your father told you these things last night.

CHAP.  XIII.

Yonder is Capernaum—­or it would have been more in our speech had I said, why, brother, yonder is Capernaum.  But habit’s like a fly, brother, it won’t leave us alone, it comes back however often and angrily we may drive it away.

Joseph made no reply, hoping by silence to quiet Philip’s tongue which returned to the attack, he was fain to admit, not altogether unlike a fly.  He tried not to hear him, for the sight of the town at the head of the lake awakened recollections of himself and his nurse walking valiantly, their strength holding out till they reached Capernaum, but after eating at the inn they were too weary to return to Magdala on foot and Peter had had to take them back in his boat.  Peter’s boat was his adventure in those days, and strangely distinct the day rose up in his mind that he and Peter had gone forth firm in the resolution that they would ascend the Jordan as far as the waters of Merom.  They succeeded in dragging the boat over the shallows, but there was much wind on the distant lake.  Peter thought it would not be well to venture out upon it, and Andrew thought so too.  He was now going to see those two brothers again after a long absence and was not certain whether he was glad or sorry.  It seemed to him that the lake, its towns and villages, were too inseparably part of himself for him to wish to see them with the physical eyes, and that it would be wiser to keep this part of Galilee, the upper reaches of the lake at least, for his meditations; yet he did not think he would like to return to Magdala without seeing Capernaum.  Perhaps because Jesus was there.  That Jesus should have pitched upon Capernaum as a