that the Kingdom of God would come down here in Galilee rather than in Jerusalem; pray that it may descend here, for thou’lt be safer here, Master; we have swords and staves to defend thee—­so let us kneel in prayer and ask the Lord that he choose Galilee rather than Judea for the setting up of his kingdom.  To which Jesus answered nothing, and his face was as if he had not heard Peter; and then Peter’s fears for Jesus’ life, should he go to Jerusalem, seemed to pass on from one to the other, till all were possessed by the same fear, and Peter said:  let us lift up our hearts to our Father in Heaven and pray that Jesus be not taken from us.  Let us kneel, he said, and they all knelt and prayed, but to their supplication Jesus seemed indifferent.  And seeing they were unable to dissuade him from Jerusalem, Peter turned to Joseph.  Here is one, he said, who knows the perils of Jerusalem and will bear witness, that if thou preach that God have no need of a Temple or a sacrifice, thou’lt surely be done to death by the priests.

Peter’s sudden appeal to his knowledge of the priests of Jerusalem awoke Joseph, who was wholly absorbed in his love of Jesus, and thought only of rushing forward and worshipping; but he was held back and strained forward at the same time, and seeing he was overcome, Peter did not press him for an answer, and Joseph fell back among the crowd, ashamed, thinking that if Peter came to him again he would speak forthright.  He had words that would bring him into the sympathy of Jesus, but instead of speaking them he stood, held at gaze by the beauty of the bright forehead, large and arched; and so exalted were the eyes that Joseph could not think else than that Jesus was looking upon things that his disciples did not see.  It seemed to Joseph that Jesus was meditating whether he should confide all he saw and heard to his disciples.  He waited, tremulous with expectation, watching the thin scrannel throat out of which rose a voice to which the ear became attuned quickly and was gratified as by a welcome dissonance.  It rose up among the silence of the pines, and the delight of listening to it, Joseph thought, was so near to intoxication that he would have pressed forward if he had not remembered suddenly that he was a new-comer into the community; one who might at any moment be driven out of it because he possessed riches which he could not unburden himself of.  So he kept his seat in the background among the casual followers, by two men whose accents told him they were Samaritans, and these now seemed within the last few minutes to have become opposed to Jesus, and Joseph wondered at the change that had come over them and lent an ear to their discourse so that he might discover a reason for it.  And it was not long before he discovered that their objection related to the Book of Daniel, for they were of the sort that receive no Scriptures after the five Books of the Law.