Jesus looked after him thoughtfully with a kindly glance.

“Who is he?” the disciples asked.  “He wears royal garments.  We have never seen such silks.  Is he a priest from the East?  If he came in order to make us gifts, he has forgotten his intention.”

Paying no heed to the jesting words, the Master said thoughtfully:  “It is difficult to gain a rich man for blessedness.  Men’s wills are too weak.  Their bodies are lapped in luxury, yet scorn of the soul leaves them a prey to fear.  Yes, My friends, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter our heaven.”

The word was spoken more in sorrow than in anger.  And then someone ventured to say:  “Yes, if the commandments are too hard, there must be sin.  Men are bound to transgress them.”

Jesus looked at the trembler:  “Why, then, am I come?  Why, then, do I show you how light the burden is?  Do you not see for yourselves how free a man is when he has thrown off great cares and desires?  Nay, you will never see that till the grace of God is given you.”

They scarcely heard what He said.  The brilliant procession had attracted their attention, and as it moved off with its horses, camels, riders, Moors, and lovely women, they looked after it with longing eyes.  A little old hunchbacked Israelite, who was cowering behind a block of stone, murmured with some malice:  “Seems to me they’d rather go with the heathen than wait here for the grace of the Heavenly Father.”

Simeon once more lay in the swaying litter and thought.  He tried to reconcile his unaccomplished purpose with his conscience.  This Prophet—­he was a visionary.  What could the Kingdom of God within us mean?  Visionary! intended only to make people lazy and incapable.  A doctrine for vagabonds and beggars!  And so that was living for ever!  So long as he lived he should believe himself to be right, and when he was dead, he could not know that he had been wrong.  And then the social danger.  The possessor not the owner of his own property?  He must give it up, share it with the poor.  Such equality of property or lack of property would prevent all progress, and plunge everything into mediocrity.  No, that is not my salvation!  Ah, well, this journey into the desert will be an advantage to me in one way:  it will make me feel happier than ever in my comfortable house.

He took the opportunity of a last look at the place on which he now turned his back.  Several, attracted by the brilliant cavalcade, had followed from afar.  Three of the disciples had even come after him in order to set right a misunderstanding.  They came up with the stranger at a spring which gushed forth from a rock, and grass grew round it.  The Moors wished to prevent them coming nearer, but Simeon recognised that they were not dangerous, and let them approach him.

James, one of the disciples, said:  “Great Lord, it is a pity.  You are one of the few who have left our Master without accomplishing their purpose.  It would not be quite so hard as you think.  He Himself says that if a man only has a good will he is never lost.  The will to live for ever is the thing.”