your backs that I did not first weigh upon my own shoulders; for have I not denied myself brothers and sisters, and did I not say to my mother, who came to dissuade me: God chose thee as a vehicle to give to man a redeemer to lead him out of this kingdom of clay. Thou hast done it and so there is no further need of thee. Out of this corruptible body I shall rise in Jerusalem, my mission accomplished, into the incorruptible spirit. His passion rising again and into flood, he seemed like one bereft of reason, for he said that all men must drink of his blood if they would live for ever. He who licked up one drop would have everlasting life. Joseph recalled the murmurings that followed these words, but Jesus would not desist. These murmurings seemed to sting him to declare his doctrine to the full, and he added that his flesh, too, was like bread, and that any crumb would give to him who ate it a place before the throne of the Almighty. Whereupon many withdrew, murmuring more loudly than before, saying among themselves: who is this man that asks us to assuage our thirst with his blood and our hunger with his flesh? Moses and Elijah did not ask such things. Who is he that says he will scatter the Temple to build up another? Many other animadversions Joseph remembered among the multitude, and he recalled them one by one, pondering over each till one of the monkeys sprang into his arms and snatched some flowers out of his hand and hobbled away shrieking, awaking Dan, who had been dozing, and who, seeing whence the shrieking came, closed his eyes again. While his father slept Joseph remembered that Peter, John and James stood by the Master throughout the dissidence. But what answer will they give, Joseph asked himself, when they are questioned as to what the Master meant when he said that they must drink his blood and eat his flesh? What answer will they make when the people question them in the different countries?--for they are to go to every part of the world, carrying the joyful tidings. It seemed to Joseph that the apostles would be able to make plain these hard sayings even less well than he, and he could not make plain to anybody what the Master had meant, and still less would he be able to convince others that the Master had said well that a man must leave his father though he were dying. He said that he should leave his father unburied, the dead not needing our care, for they are the living ones, and the hyenas and crows would find to eat only that which had always been dead. Of course if the old world were going out and the new coming in, it mattered very little what happened within the next twenty-four hours. But was the new world as near as that? He wondered! It might be nearer still without his being able to leave his father to die among strangers, and a feeling rose up within him that he knew he would never be able to subdue though he were to gain an eternity of happiness by subduing it; and, pursuing this thread of thought, he came