This, in a general way, is known; and it is likewise known that Tiberius Cæsar was so deeply impressed by the dispatch of the Jerusalem governor, arriving in his hands about the same moment, as we shall find in the next chapter, when a strange incident (_narrated by Plutarch_) took place, that he suddenly convened the senate in a formal indiction, _and proposed to them to raise a temple to Christ, and to rank him solemnly among the gods of the empire_! But not such nor of such acknowledgments was to be the kingdom of the "jealous" and the only God. Aglais, Paulus, and Esther had assisted at a memorable pantomime. They had beheld the mounted soldier who rode with a memorable letter to the sea-coast; they had seen the vain effort of him who had offered the people a choice between Barabbas and "the desired of nations," to call the great of the earth into his perplexities, to quiet his awakened conscience, to turn aside from the dread warnings whispered to his soul, to lull--by futile means--an all too late remorse. CHAPTER XXVII. In our last chapter, Paulus and his Athenian mother had obtained, through Esther's recital of her waking dream or vision, one little glimpse at that prison, that place of detention, which she had termed (as she herself had heard it termed) "the dim, vast house," "the vast, dim city," and the "dim, vast kingdom." The vague notion she could give of that scene of immurement cannot be expected to prove interesting to so large a number, as Mr. Pickwick has cause to feel an interest in his glimpses of the "Fleet Prison," once famous in London. But such interest as the former house of detention commands is of a different kind, and those who may experience it are a different class. Plato (as a great critic observes) has been translated from age to age into some dozen great modern languages, in order that he might be read by about a score of persons in each generation. But that score are the little fountains of the large rivers that bear to the sea the business of the world. Few are directly taught by Kant, Sir William Hamilton, John Stuart Mill, Cousin, or Balmez; but the millions are taught and think through those whom _they_ have taught to think. Between the good and evil originators or conservators of ideas, and the huge masses who do all their mental processes at third hand, stand the interpreters; and these listen with bent heads, while they hold trumpets which are heard at the extremities of the earth. Paulus lingered in Jerusalem. Weeks flew by. Spring passed into summer; summer was passing into autumn; and still, from time to time, as, in the evenings, mother and son sat among the flowers on the flat roof, Esther would join them.