Rejected of Men A Story of To-day By Howard Pyle [Illustration] New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers 1903 Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ Published June, 1903. CONTENTS PAGE PROEM v CHAPTER I. THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 1 II. HEROD THE TETRARCH 8 III. THE PRIESTS AND THE LEVITES 13 IV. WHAT WENT YE DOWN FOR TO SEE? 30 AN INTERLUDE 42 V. THE BEGINNING OF THE WORKS 52 VI. THE YOUNG MAN WITH GREAT POSSESSIONS 63 VII. AMONG THE ROMANS 75 VIII. ONE OF THEM NAMED CAIAPHAS BEING HIGH-PRIEST THAT SAME YEAR 88 IX. THE MAN BLIND FROM BIRTH 96 X. A VOICE FROM THE DEAD 123 XI. NOTHING BUT LEAVES 154 XII. THE ONE THING WE LACK 171 XIII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH 183 AN INTERLUDE 199 XIV. VERITAS DIVINIS, VERITAS MUNDI 209 XV. JUDAS 226 XVI. A GLIMPSE OF AGONY 236 XVII. THE END OF THE WORLD 249 XVIII. THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH 253 PROEM THIS is the story of the scribes, pharisees, priests, and Levites, and of certain Romans. It is intended as a phase of that divine history already told to the world, but now told from another stand-point and translated from the ancient Hebrew habits of life into modern American, so that the reader may more readily understand the circumstances that directed our actions. If it has been told aright, he may see why it was that we crucified the Truth. We--scribes and pharisees--have been vilified and abused for nineteen hundred years because we acted as the circumstances of our lives compelled us. The fact seems to be overlooked that we were not born publicans and sinners, but upright and virtuous citizens, and that it was out of the question for us to desert our own class and to ally ourselves with those whose only recommendation appeared to lie in the fact that they were poor and lowly, or else that they were social outcasts and sinners. We could hardly be held to have been more worthy of respect if we had violated our traditions of order and of virtue to accept an entirely new code of ethics supported by such advocates; which code, if carried out, meant the overthrow of all that we held most sacred and worthy of preservation.