In answer to the question of Elisama, whence the name of Essene was derived, he informed them that it was Persian, and denoted the resemblance of their life to that of bees. “We learn from them to be unwearied in our diligence, to live in brotherly union, to be without distinction of sex in respect to desire, and to gather stores for the supply of others.” Their contempt for the female sex and aversion from matrimony displeased Elisama, who called the latter an ordinance of God, and pronounced it a vain and presumptuous thought of man, to wish to annihilate the distinction of sex, when the Creator had made the human race male and female. Selumiel endeavoured to silence Elisama, by reminding him that nearly all the members of this community were old men. But the Essene himself would not accept this explanation; he maintained that this opinion was intimately and necessarily connected with the rest of their system. “The body as ye see,” said he, “is perishable and its elements for ever changing; the soul is immortal and unchangeable. Sprung from the purest ether, it is drawn down to the body by a certain natural impulse, and kept as it were imprisoned there while the body continues to exist. When freed from the fetters of the flesh, it rejoices like those delivered from a long and galling bondage, and wings its flight upwards. The souls of the just are conducted to an abode, beyond the ocean, of indescribable delight, where neither rain nor snow deforms the sky, and mild sea-breezes temper the rays of the sun. The wicked, on the contrary, are condemned to eternal thraldom and torment in a dwelling of frost and darkness. Should not then every soul abhor and shun intemperance and pleasure, as its worst enemies, and renounce every gratification which would give the body an ascendency over it, while it cultivates sobriety and chastity as the means of making its present captivity more tolerable, and of being ultimately delivered from it?” The Essene spoke thus, animated in the defence of his doctrines, and almost forgetting the ordinary conciseness of his discourse. When he had ended, he turned abruptly round, after a brief salutation to the travellers. A hill higher than any in the desert, and equally bare, though on its verge, stood before them. They looked back, and saw the Essene vanishing among the intricacies of the path which they had just quitted, carefully holding his garments together, and hastening back to his brethren, without looking to the right hand or to the left. Helon seemed to breathe more freely as they emerged from this region of desolation. Selumiel, looking back towards the Oasis, and leaning on his staff, asked his companions, “Now, then, how like ye my Essenes?” “Call them not _thy_ Essenes,” said Elisama, “for, Jehovah be praised, there is a wide difference between them and thee.” “Allow me this,” said Selumiel, “and I will in return allow thee to speak of _thy_ Pharisees.”