so, Master?  Thy question is no better than Salome’s, Jesus answered, who sees Paradise ranged with chairs.  Then everyone wondered if there were no chairs nor apricots in Paradise of what good would Paradise be to them; and were dissatisfied with the answer that Jesus gave to them, that the soul is satisfied in the love of God as the flower in the sun.  But with this answer they had to content themselves, for so dark was his face that none dared to ask another question till Matthew said:  Master, we would understand thee fairly.  If there be no chairs nor apricots in Paradise there cannot be a temple wherein to worship God.  To which Jesus answered:  God hath no need of temples in Paradise, nor has he need of any temple except the human heart wherein he dwells.  It is not with incense nor the blood of sheep and rams that God is worshipped, but in the heart and with silent prayers unknown to all but God himself, who knows all things.  And the day is coming, I say unto you, when the Son of Man shall return with his Father to remake this world afresh, but before that time comes you would do well to learn to love God in your hearts, else all my teaching is vainer than any of the things in this world that ye are accustomed to look upon as vain.  Upon this he took them to a mountain-side where the rock was crumbling, and he said:  you see this crumbling rock?  Once it held together, now it is falling into sand, but it shall be built up into rock again, and again it shall crumble into sand.  At which they drew together silent with wonder, each fearing to ask the other if the Master were mad, for though they could see that the rock might drift into sand, they could not see how sand might be built up again into rock.

Master, how shall we know thee when thou returnest to us?  Wilt thou be changed as the rock changes?  Wilt thou be sand or rock?  It was Andrew that had spoken; and Philip answered him that the Master will return in a chariot of fire, for he was angry that a fellow of Andrew’s stupidity should put questions to Jesus whether they were wise or foolish; but could they be aught else than foolish coming from him?  Andrew, persisting, replied:  but we may not be within sight of the Master when he steps out of his chariot of fire, and we are only asking for a token whereby we may know him from his Father.  My Father and thy Father, Andrew, Jesus answered, the Father of all that has lived, that lives, and that shall live in the world; and the law over the rock that crumbles into sand and the sand that is built up into rock again, was in that rock before Abraham was, and will abide in it and in the flower that grows under the rock till time everlasting.  But, Master, wilt thou tell us if the rock we are looking upon was sand or rock in the time of Abraham?  Philip asked, and Jesus answered him:  my words are not then plain, that before that rock was and before the sand out of which the rock was built, was God’s love—­that which binds and unbinds enduring always though the rock pass into sand and the sand into rock a thousand times.