was at pains to relate it at such length.  Was it to amuse his disciples? he asked himself, but no sooner had he put the question to himself than the purpose of the relation passed into his mind.  Jesus had told the marvellous stories of Daniel’s escapes from death so that his disciples might have no fear that the priests of Jerusalem would have power to destroy him:  whomsoever God sends into the world to do his work, Jesus would have us understand, are under God’s protection for ever and ever; and Joseph rejoiced greatly at having discovered Jesus’ intent, and for a long time the glen, the silent forest and the men sitting listening to the Master were all forgotten by him.  He even forgot the Master’s presence, so filled was he by the abundant hope that his divination of the Master’s intent marked him out as one to be associated with the Master’s work—­more than any one of those now listening to him, more than Peter himself.

And so sweet was his reverie to him that he regretted the passing of it as a misfortune, but finding he was in spirit as well as in body among realities, he lent his ear to the story of the four winds that had striven upon the great sea and driven up four great beasts.  These beasts Joseph readily understood to be but another figuration of the four great empires; the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Grecian had been blown away like dust, and as soon as the fourth, the Roman Empire, was broken into pieces the kingdom of the whole world would be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.  It was Philip the nearly hunchback that asked Jesus for an explanation of this vision—­saying, and obtaining the approval of several for the question, would he, Jesus, acquiesce in this sharing of the earth among the angels who had not seen him, nor heard him, nor served him upon earth.  If the earth is to be shared among the angels we follow thee in vain, he muttered; and Joseph felt that he could never speak freely again with Philip for having dared to interrupt the Master and weary him with questions that a child could answer.  To whom Philip said:  but you, young Master, that have received good instruction in Hebrew and Greek from the scribe Azariah, and have travelled far, do you answer my question.  If the earth is to be shared among angels——­ He was not allowed to repeat more of his question, for a clamour of explanation began among the disciples that the earth would not be shared among the angels of God—­God would find his people repentant when he arrived with his son.  At last the assembly settled themselves to listen to the story of the vision in which a ram pushed westward and northward and southward, till a he-goat came from the west—­one with a notable horn between the eyes, and butted the ram till he had broken his two horns.  Joseph had forgotten these visions, and he learnt for the first time, so it seemed to him, that the goat meant the Syrian king, Antiochus, who had conquered Jerusalem, polluted the sanctuary and set up heathen gods.  But how are