'If our worthy friend of Nazareth does not come to-night, I shall have lost my time for nothing, for I had engaged to escort a traveller who feared going alone from Jerusalem to Bethlehem lest he should meet with unpleasant encounters.'

'Just look at that bandit, with his hang-dog face and his grand cutlass! Does he not look like a very safe escort?' quietly said to his companion one of the two emissaries, seated not very far from Genevieve.

'What a daring villain!'

'He would have murdered and robbed the too confident traveller in the first bye way!' said the other emissary.

'If Jesus cannot come,' said another drinker, 'he will send one of his disciples to inform us, and to preach to us good news in the name of his master.'

'For want of a cake of fine wheaten flour kneaded with honey, we eat barley bread,' said an old mendicant bent with age.

'The words of the disciples are good: that of the master is better.'

'Oh, yes!' observed another old mendicant; 'to us who have despaired since our birth, he gives eternal hope.'

'Jesus teaches us that we are not below our masters,' said a slave of gloomy appearance.

'Now, since we are as good as our masters, by what right do they keep us in slavery?'

'Patience, patience! a day will come when we shall reckon our masters, and reckon ourselves afterwards; after which will be accomplished the words of Jesus, 'The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.' He has said to us artizans, who, by the burden of taxes and the avarice of sellers, are often in want of bread and garments, as also our wives and children, 'Be not disquieted; God, our father, provides apparel for the lilies of the valley, and food for the young sparrows: a day will come in which you shall want nothing.' Yes, for Jesus has also said this, 'Put neither gold, nor silver, nor money in your purse, nor sack for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, for he who works deserves to be maintained.'

'Here's the master! here's the master!' said several persons, placed near the door of the tavern; 'there's our friend!'

At these words there was a great movement in the tavern. Aurelia, not less curious than her slave Genevieve, mounted on a stool, the better to see the young man. Their expectation was disappointed; it was not yet him; it was Peter, one of his disciples.

'And Jesus!' they all demanded of him in one voice: 'where is he?'

'Will not the Nazarene come then?'

'Shall we not see our friend, the friend of the afflicted!'

The words of the disciple calmed the impatience of the crowd, and Banaias, the man with the long cutlass, said to Peter, 'Whilst talking of the master, talk to us of him: tell us the good news. Does the time approach when the gluttons, whose bellies grow fat in proportion as ours grow lean, will have nothing but the coals and brimstone of hell to fatten upon?'

'Yes, the time approaches!' said Peter mounting on a bench, 'yes, the time is coming, as comes the night of storm charged with the thunder and the lightning! Has not the Lord said, by the voice of his prophets, 'I will send my angel, who shall prepare the way before me?'

'Yes, yes,' cried several voices: 'yes, the prophets have announced it!'

'Who is this angel?' said Peter: 'who is this angel, unless Jesus our master, the Messiah, the only true Messiah.'

'Yes, ‘tis he!'

'He is the promised angel! he is the true Messiah!'

'If this race has knives for teeth,' said Banaias, placing his hand on his cutlass, 'we will bite with ours!'

'Oh, may the day come when those shall be judged who oppress the workman in his wages, and I will denounce to the vengeance of the Lord the banker Jonas!' said a workman.

'He made me work secretly on the panels of the Chamber of Festivals on the Sabbath days, and he withheld my wages on those days. I determined to complain. He threatened to denounce me to the high priest as a profaner of the holy days, and to have me thrown into prison!'

'And why did the banker Jonas unjustly withhold your salary?' continued Peter; 'because, as the prophet again says, 'Avarice is like the horse-leech; it hath two daughters, crying, 'give! give!'

'And these great bloodsuckers,' exclaimed Banaias, 'shall they not one day disgorge all the blood they have sucked from the poor workmen, widows and orphans?'

This charming picture of universal peace and happiness appeared to make a deep impression on Peter's auditory. Many voices exclaimed:

'Oh! may these times come! for where is the use of people murdering people?'

'What bloodshed!'

'And who profits by it? The conquering Pharaohs! Men of blood, of battle, and of rapine.'

'Oh! may the time of happiness, justice and gentleness come; and, as the prophets say, 'a little child shall lead us all.'

'Yes, a little child will suffice; for we shall be gentle because we shall be happy,' said Banaias; 'whereas now we are so unhappy, so enraged, that a hundred giants would not be sufficient to restrain us.'

"I hated all my labor which I have taken under the sun, because I should leave it to the man that should come after me.

"For there is a man who labors with wisdom, with science, and with industry, and he shall leave all he has acquired to a man who has given to it no labor: and who knows not if he will be prudent or foolish?

"Now, this is vanity and great affliction."

'You know,' added the apostle, 'the voice of the son of David is as sacred as justice. No, he who has not labored ought not to profit by the labor of another!'

'But suppose I have a child,' said a voice; 'suppose, by depriving myself of sleep, and a portion of my daily bread, I continue to spare something for him, that he might not know the miseries I have suffered, is it unjust, then?'

'Whereas now,' said the artizan, who had complained of the injustice of the banker Jonas, 'all labor for a few, these few labor for no one, and benefit from the labor of all.'

'But for those,' replied Peter, 'our master of Nazareth hath said: 'The son of man shall send his angels, who shall gather together and carry out of his kingdom all who are scandalous, and who commit iniquity; these shall be thrown into a fiery furnace, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

'And it will be justice,' said Oliba the courtezan; 'is it not they who force us to sell our bodies to escape the gnashing of teeth caused by hunger?'

'Is it not they who force mothers to make a traffic of their daughters rather than see them die of misery?' said another courtezan.

'Oh! when will the day of justice come?'

'No, no!' exclaimed several voices; 'no, this cannot endure!'

'Our master is grieved,' continued the disciple; 'oh! grieved to the death in thinking of the horrible miseries, the vengeances, and fearful reprisals which so many ages of oppression and iniquity will let loose upon the earth. The day before yesterday, at Bethlehem, our master said to us:

"When you hear of sedition and wars, be not alarmed; these things must arrive first, but their end will not come so soon."

'Listen,' said several voices, 'listen.'

"We shall see," added Jesus, "people rise against people, kingdom against kingdom; so shall men pine away with fear in the expectation of all that is to happen in the universe, for the virtues of heaven shall be shaken."

A sullen murmur of fear circulated through the crowd at these prophecies of Jesus of Nazareth recounted by Peter, and several voices exclaimed:—

'So much the better; these clouds of iniquity must burst, that the heavens may be cleared and the eternal sun be resplendent.'

'And if they gnash their teeth on earth before grinding them in eternal fire, these rich, these high priests, these crowned king Pharaoh's, they have brought it on themselves,' exclaimed Banaias; 'they have brought it on themselves.'

'Yes, yes, it's true.'

'Oh!' continued Banaias, 'this is not the first time the prophets have shouted in their ears!

'Amend your lives! be good! be just! be merciful! Look down at your feet instead of admiring yourselves in your pride! What! reptiles that you are, you reject from your plates the most delicate meats!

'You fall down gorged with wine; next your cups filled to the very brims; you ask yourselves, shall I put on to-day my furred robe with the gold embroidery, or my robe of plush, embroidered with silver? And your neighbor, shivering with cold beneath his rags, cannot simply taste from your cup, or lick up the crumbs of your feasts? By the entrails of Jeremiah, can it endure for any length of time?'

'Yes, yes,' cried several voices, 'this has lasted long enough—the most patient weary toward the end!'

'The quietest bullock finishes by turning against the spur!'

'And what spur is there like hunger?'

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor—he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day when he shall avenge himself on his enemies."

These words of the Nazarene, quoted by Peter, excited a fresh enthusiasm, and Genevieve heard one of the two secret emissaries of the law and the high-priests say to his companion:

'This time the Nazarene shall not escape us, such words are really too seditious and outrageous!'

But a new and loud rumor was soon heard outside the tavern of the 'Wild Ass,' and there was but one cry repeated by all:

'‘Tis he, ‘tis he!'

'‘Tis our friend!'

The crowd that filled the tavern, now learning the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth, urged and pressed each other to go and meet the young master; mothers, who held their little infants in their arms, endeavored to arrive the first near Jesus, the infirm, resuming their crutches, begged their neighbors to open a passage for them. Such was already the penetrating and charitable influence of the words of the son of Mary, that the strong moved aside to allow the mothers and the suffering to approach him.

Jane, Aurelia and her slave shared the general emotion; Genevieve especially, daughter, wife, and, perhaps, one day a mother of slaves, experienced an unusual beating of the heart at the sight of him who came, he said, to announce to the captives their deliverance, and set at liberty those who were crushed beneath their chains. At length Genevieve perceived him.

The son of Mary, the friend of little children, of poor mothers, of the suffering and of slaves, was habited like the other Israelites, his countrymen; he wore a robe of white cloth, secured round his waist by a leathern belt from which hung his purse or money-bag; a square mantle of blue depended from his shoulders.

He frequently stooped down to kiss some ragged little children who held the lappets of his robe, and, smiling ineffably, he said to those who surrounded him:

'Let the little children approach me.'

Judas, a man with a sinister and deceptive countenance, and Simon, other disciples of Jesus, accompanied him and carried each of them a box, in which the son of Mary, after questioning each patient and attentively listening to his reply, took several medicaments which he gave to the infirm and to the women who came to consult his science, either for themselves or for their children.

Frequently, to the balsams and advice he distributed, Jesus added a gift of money, which he drew from the bag at his girdle; he so often dipped into this purse, that having a last time plunged in his hand, he smiled mournfully on finding the little pocket empty. So, after turning all manner of ways, he made a sign of touching regret, as if to show that he had nothing to give. Then, those whom he had assisted with his counsels, his balms, and his money, thanked him warmly; he said to them in his gentle voice:

'‘Tis Almighty God, the Father of us all, who is in Heaven, that you must thank, and not me—peace be with you.'

'Yes,' replied another; 'tell us, Jesus, of things which we poor and humble can comprehend, the language of our holy and divine prophet, but often obscure to us poor people.'

'Oh, yes; our good Jesus,' added a pretty child, who had glided into the front rank, and held one flap of the robe of the young man of Nazareth, 'recount to us one of those parables that delight us so much, and which we repeat to our mothers and brothers.'

'No, no,' said other voices; 'before the parable, make one of your noble discourses against the wicked rich, the powerful and the proud.'

At these words of the parable the child which Mary's son held upon his knees uttered a deep sigh, joining his little hands in a pitying manner. Jesus continued:

'At length returning to himself, the prodigal son said, "How many servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish of hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him: father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." And he arose and went to his father; but when he was yet a great way off, his father perceived him, and moved with compassion, he ran to him and fell on his neck and kissed him.

'And his son said to him: "My father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, I am no more worthy to be called thy son."

'But the father said to his servants:

'Oh! the kind father!' said the child on the knees of Jesus. 'Oh! the good and tender father, who pardons and embraces instead of scolding!'

Jesus smiled, kissed the child's forehead, and continued:

'And they began to be merry. But the elder brother, who was in the field returned, and when he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. He therefore called one of the servants, and asked what all this meant. The servant replied to him:

"Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath found him safe and sound;" which made the elder brother angry, and he would not go in; therefore his father came out and entreated him. But his son replied to him: "These many years have I served thee, neither have I at any time transgressed thy command; and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this, thy son, who has squandered his living with harlots, is returned, thou hast had the fatted calf killed for him."'

'Oh! how wicked is the eldest son!' said the child; 'he is jealous of his poor brother, who returns, however, very unhappy to the house. God will not love this jealous son; will he, my good Jesus?'

Mary's son shook his head, as if to reply to the child that the Lord did not indeed love the jealous: he then continued,—

All who were present seemed moved to tears at this recital. Mary's son having stopped to drink a glass of wine, which Judas, his disciple, poured out for him, Banaias, who had listened to him with profound attention, exclaimed: 'Friend, do you know that this is very much my own history, and that of many others. For if, after my own first folly of youth, my father had imitated the father in your parable, and had tendered me his hand as a sign of pardon, instead of driving me from the house with his stick, I should be at this hour, perhaps, seated at my honest fireside, in the midst of my family; whereas, now my home is in the highway, misery my wife, and my children evil projects, sons of misery, that mother with the ferocious eye. Ah! why had I not for a father the man in the parable?'

'This indulgent father pardoned,' replied Oliba the courtezan, 'because he knew that God, having given youth to his creatures, sometimes abuse it; but those who, reviled, miserable and repentant, return humbly to demand the smallest place in the paternal mansion, these, far from being repulsed, ought they not to be received with pity?'

'I,' said another, 'would not give a grapestone for this elder brother, this man of wealth, so harsh, so coarse, and so jealous, to whom virtue costs nothing.'

'Yes; and all the honest and prudent will pass for men of hard heart and jealous.'

And the man resumed aloud, thinking that no one would know who it was that thus spoke: 'Glory to thee, Jesus of Nazareth, glory to thee, the protector, the defender of us dissipaters and prostitutes! It is folly to be wise and virtuous, since the fatted calf is to be killed for the most debauched.'

Loud murmurs acknowledged these words of the emissary of the Pharisees; all turned round whence they had been pronounced; threats were heard:

'Hence! away with these men of inexorable heart!'

'Oh! these men are without pity, without mercy, repentance does not touch them,' said the courtezan Oliba; 'these frozen bodies who cannot comprehend that with others the blood boils!'

This pleasantry of Banaias made the auditory laugh excessively; and the one of the two emissaries who had thus attacked the words of Jesus, seemed in no hurry to gratify the desire of the redoubtable friend of the Nazarene; he feigned, on the contrary, as well as his companion, to search, like the rest of the audience, from whence the words had proceeded. The tumult was increasing, when the young Nazarene made a sign that he wished to speak; the tempest was appeased as if by enchantment; and replying to the reproach of being too indulgent to sinners, Jesus said with an accent of severe mildness: 'Who amongst you possessing a hundred sheep, and losing one, would not leave in the plain the ninety-and-nine others, to go and seek that which is lost, until he had found it? When he has found it he brings it back with joy on his shoulders; and having returned to his house, he assembles his friends and neighbors, and says to them, "Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost."'

'If you are not of the same opinion as my friend, approach and maintain your words.'

'A grand merit, as Jesus says,' observed another; 'a grand merit for him who has neither hunger nor thirst, to be neither a glutton nor a drunkard!'

'Virtue is easy to her who has every thing,' said the courtezan Oliba, 'hunger and privation ruin more women than dissipation.'

Suddenly there was a tumult amongst the crowd that filled the tavern, and the name of Magdalen was heard pronounced.

'She is one of the creatures who make a traffic of their bodies,' said Jane to Aurelia; 'it is not misery that has thrown her, like so many others, into this degradation; but a first fault, followed by the desertion of him who seduced her, and whom she adored. Since then, despite the disorders of her life and the venality of her amours, Magdalen has proved that her heart is not entirely corrupted. The poor never beseech her in vain, and she has passionately loved some men with a love as devoted as it was disinterested, sacrificing to them high priests, doctors of the law and rich seigneurs, who rivalled each other in their gifts; my husband, with others, was amongst the number of these magnificent lovers.'

'We, too, have in Italy and Roman Gaul, some of these creatures, whose insolent luxury insults the moderate fortune of many honest women,' replied Aurelia. 'But what can this Magdalen want with the young Nazarene?'

'No doubt she comes, like many of the same sort whom you see here, less rich than her, but not less degraded, to hear the words of Jesus; those gentle and tender words that penetrate the heart by the mercy they breathe, softens it, and makes it bring forth repentance.'

'Here!' said several voices: 'room for Magdalen, the handsomest amongst the handsomest!'

'The queen of us all!' said Oliba's companion to her with a lofty air: 'for indeed Magdalen is the queen of us all!'

'A sad royalty!' replied Oliba, sighing: 'her shame is seen from the highest to the most distant!'

'But she is so rich! so rich!'

'To sell oneself for a penny, or a mountain of gold,' replied the poor courtezan, 'where is the difference? the ignominy is the same!'

'Oliba, you are getting completely mad!'

The young woman made no reply, but sighed. Genevieve, mounted, like her mistress, on a stool, raised herself on the points of her toes, and soon saw the celebrated courtezan enter the tavern.

A long robe of Tyrian silk of shaded blue, edged with gold and embroidered with pearls, fell in a long train behind her, and round her waist she had a flowing scarf of cloth of gold covered with stones of many colors, like those of the double necklaces, ear-rings and bracelets, with which her bare and well-shaped arms were covered; and thus attired, holding in her hands an urn of pink alabaster from Chaldea, more precious than gold, she advanced quite slowly towards the young man of Nazareth.

'What a change in Magdalen's traits,' said Jane to Aurelia. 'I have seen her pass a hundred times in her litter, carried by her attendants, dressed in rich liveries; the triumph of beauty, and the intoxication and joy of youth could be read in her countenance. And she is timidly approaching Jesus, humble, oppressed, weeping, and more sorrowful than the saddest of the poor women who hold in their arms their ill-clad infants.'

'Oh! look! look! her tears redouble,' said Jane; 'her face is drowned in them.'

'She kneels at the feet of Jesus,' continued Aurelia, 'and covers them with tears and kisses.'

'What heart-rending sobs!'

'And the tears she sheds on the feet of Mary's son she wipes away with her long hair.'

'And now, still melting in tears, she takes her alabaster urn and empties over the feet of Jesus a delicious perfume, the scent of which reaches here.'

'The young master endeavors to raise her; she resists; she cannot speak; her sobs break her voice; she bends down her lovely head to the very ground.'

Then Jesus, who could scarcely restrain his emotion, turned towards Simon, one of his disciples, and addressing him: 'Simon, I have something to say to you.'

'Speak, master.'

'A creditor had two debtors; the one owned him five hundred pence, the other fifty. As they had not wherewith to pay him, he remitted to both their debt; tell me, then, which of these two should love him most?' Simon replied: 'Master, I think it should be he to whom he forgave the most.'

'Abomination of desolation!' said the emissary of the pharisees half aloud to his companion: 'can audacity and demoralization go further? Why, the Nazarene pardons all that is blameable, relieves all that is vile; after reinstating dissipation and prodigality, behold him now reinstating the most notorious courtezans.'

'And why?' said the other emissary, 'that he may still flatter the vices and detestable passions of the wretches he draws round him, whom he will one day make his instruments.'

'But patience,' observed the first, 'patience, Nazarene, thy hour approaches; thy still increasing audacity will soon draw down upon thee a terrible punishment!'

At these words Oliba, joining her hands in a burst of gratitude, threw herself at the feet of Magdalen, took her hands, kissed them whilst sobbing and said to her—

'Blessed be thou, Magdalen! oh, blessed be thou! Thy bounty hath saved me, me and so many of my poor companions of shame; but we repented at the voice of the son of Mary; that voice penetrated our hearts; we hoped for pardon. But, alas! the necessity of living retained us in wickedness and contempt. Blessed be thou, Magdalen, thou who renderest possible our return to good.'

'Sister, it is not I you must bless,' replied Magdalen; '‘tis Jesus of Nazareth; his words inspired me.'

And Magdalen mingled amongst the crowd to listen to the words of the young master.

Some of his disciples having said in speaking to him of Magdalen, that she had been seduced and then abandoned by a young doctor of the law, the figure of Jesus became grave, severe, and almost menacing, and he exclaimed——

'Woe to you, doctors of the law! Woe to you, hypocrites! You are like unto whitened sepulchres; the outside appears gay, but within all is bones and putridity. Thus, outwardly you appear just in the eyes of men, but inwardly you are full of iniquity and hypocrisy. Woe to you blind leaders who take great care as to what you drink, lest you should swallow a camel.'

This familiar satire made several of the auditory smile, and Banaias exclaimed——

Fresh bursts of applause replied to the pleasantry of Banaias, and Jesus resumed:

'Woe to you, Pharisees! woe to you who cleanse the outside of the cup while within it is all rapine and impurity.'

'It is true,' replied several voices; 'these hypocrites clean the outside because the outside alone is seen.'

The son of Mary continued:

'Woe to you, Pharisees! who preach what you ought to do, but do it not! Woe to you who make heavy and insupportable burthens, place them on the shoulders of men, but will not touch them with your finger.'

This new comparison struck the mind of the auditors of the young master, and several voices again exclaimed:

'Yes, yes, these idle hypocrites say to the humble, "Work is holy; work, work, but we will not work. Yes, bear alone the burthen of the labor, but we rich will not touch it with the end of our finger."'

Jesus continued:—

'Woe to you who do all your actions that you might be seen of men. It is for this that you carry long bands of parchment, on which are written the words of the law, which you do not practice. Woe to you who say, "If a man swears by the temple it is nothing, but if he swears by the gold of the Temple, he is bound by his oath."'

'Because for these rich wicked ones,' said a voice, 'nothing is sound but gold. They swear by their gold as others swear by their soul or by their honor.'

'By the two thumbs of Methusalem!' exclaimed Banaias, laughing, 'you appear at ease, friend. As these hypocrites have in their coffers enough to pay the tithe without inconveniencing themselves, and they pay it; but where would you have them find this money of justice, of good faith, and of mercy, which you demand from these whitened sepulchres, from these swallowers of camels of iniquity, as you will so call them?'

'Alas! the young master says true,' observed another; 'for him who has no money justice is deaf. The doctors of the law do not say to you at their court, "What good grounds have you? but, how much money will you promise me?"'

'I had confided a few savings to Jonas, a high priest,' said a poor old woman; 'he told me he had expended the money in offerings for my salvation. What could I do, a poor woman against so powerful a seigneur? resign myself and beg for bread, which I do not find every day.'

At this complaint, Jesus exclaimed with increased indignation, 'Oh! woe to you hypocrites: because, under pretence of your long prayers you rob the widow of her mite. Woe to you, serpents, race of vipers! how will you escape being condemned to the fire of hell? It is for this I will send to you prophets and sages to save you.'

'Oh! fear nothing, friend! if these swallowers of camels wish to shed your blood,' exclaimed Banaias, striking the hilt of his large rusty cutlass, 'they must first shed ours, and we await them.'

'Yes, yes,' replied the crowd, in one voice, 'fear nothing, Jesus of Nazareth, we will defend thee!'

'We will die for thee if necessary!'

'You shall be our chief!'

'Our king!'

But the son of Mary, as if he mistrusted these transports, shook his head with a sadness more and more profound; tears streamed down his cheek, and he exclaimed, in a disconsolate voice:

'Oh! Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou who killed the prophets! thou who stone the wise men that are sent to thee! how often have I striven to assemble thy children, as a hen gathers together her little ones beneath her wings, and thou would'st not; no, thou would'st not!'

'Oh, you speak of the crucified, Jesus of Nazareth,' said the other; 'we will take care that you shall not be far wrong, prophet of woe!'

Simon, seeing him still leaning on the table, weeping in silence, stooped towards him and said: 'Master, the sun will soon rise; the people of the fields, who bring their fruits to the market of Jerusalem, pass by the valley of Cedron; like us, they are eager to hear your words: they await you on the road: shall we not go and meet them?'

Jesus rose; his sad and pensive features cleared up on kissing the children, who seeing him preparing to leave, extended their little hands to him.—He then fraternally shook hands with all who offered them, and leaving the tavern of the 'Wild Ass' situated near one of the gates of the town leading into the country, he directed his steps towards the valley of Cedron, which the countrymen and women traversed to repair to Jerusalem, where they brought their provisions. Such was the attraction of the words of the young man of Nazareth, that most of the persons who came to pass the night in listening to him, still followed him. Magdalen, Oliba and Banaias were amongst these individuals.

'Jane, will you also go out of the town?' said Aurelia to Chusa's wife: 'it is now daylight; let us return home; it will be imprudent to prolong our absence.'

'The young man has emptied his purse to-night,' said Jane to Simon, 'here is something to re-fill it.'

'You, lady, again!' replied Simon with thankfulness, at the sight of Jane: 'your charity does not flag.'

'‘Tis the tenderness of your master that does not flag in succoring people, consoling the poor, the repentant, and the oppressed,' replied the wife of Chusa.

Genevieve, who had anxiously listened to every word that had fallen from the emissaries of the pharisees, heard one of the two men say to the other:

'Follow and watch the Nazarene; I will run to the Seigneurs Caiphus and Baruch to render them an account of the abominable blasphemies and impieties he has uttered to-night in company with these vagabonds. The Nazarene must not this time escape the fate that awaits him;' and the two men separated. Aurelia, who seemed to have been reflecting, said to her companion: 'Jane, I cannot express to you what I experience from the words of this young man. At one time so simple, tender and elevated, at another satirical and threatening, they penetrate my heart. They are, to my mind, like a new world that is opening; for to us, poor heathens, the word charity is new. Far from being appeased, my curiosity, my interest, increase, and whatever may happen, I will follow you; what matter, after all, if we do return to our dwellings after daybreak?'

'What! you, Jane, the wife of the Seigneur Chusa?' said the courtezan, reddening with confusion, thinking, no doubt, of the rich presents she had received from Chusa: 'you, Jane, you have no fear in tendering me a helping hand; I, a poor creature justly despised by all honest women?'

'Magdalen,' replied Jane with charming kindness: 'did not our young master tell you to go in peace, and that all your sins would be remitted you, because you have loved much? By what right should I be more severe than Jesus of Nazareth? Your hand, Magdalen, your hand; ‘tis a sister who asks it of you as a sign of pardon and oblivion of the past!'

Magdalen took the hand that Jane offered her, but it was to kiss it with respect, and cover it with tears of repentance.

Jane, Aurelia and Magdalen, following the crowd, were soon outside of the gates of Jerusalem.

The sun, now rising in its splendor, illumined to a great distance the country of the valley of Cedron, whose oriental aspect, so new to Genevieve, always struck her with surprise and admiration. It being the season of spring, early this year, the plains which extended to the gates of Jerusalem were as verdant and as florid as those of Saron, which Genevieve had traversed when coming from Jaffa (the place where she had landed) to reach Jerusalem with her mistress. The white and red roses, the narcissus, the anemony, the yellow gilly-flowers, and the odiferous immortelles (or everlasting flowers) embalmed the air and enamelled the fields with their beautiful colors, still moist with the dew.

On the road-side, a cluster of palm trees shaded the dome of a fountain, where already came to drink the large fat buffaloes, coupled to their yoke, and conducted by laborers habited in a robe of camel skin.

All along the road, followed by Genevieve, blue pigeons, larks and wagtails, nesting in the groves of nopal and fir, made a chorus of sweet songs, whilst a white stork, with red legs, rose in the air holding a snake in his beak.

Several herdsmen and laborers, learning from the persons who followed the Nazarene, that he was repairing to the little hill of Cedron to preach good news, changed their route, and driving their flocks on one side, augmented the crowd attached to the steps of Jesus of Nazareth. Jane, Aurelia and Genevieve thus approached the village, half hidden in the wood of olive trees through which they had to pass to arrive at the hill. On a sudden from this wood, they saw issue in a tumult a great number of men and women, uttering cries and horrid imprecations.

At the head of this troop marched the doctors of the law and the high priests; two of the latter were leading a handsome young girl, with naked arms and feet, barely attired in a tunic. Shame and terror were painted on her countenance bathed in tears; her scattered hair covered her naked shoulders.

At sight of this tumult the son of Mary, surprised, stopped; those who accompanied him also stopped, and ranged themselves in a circle behind him.

The priests and the doctors of the law, no doubt recognizing the young man of Nazareth, made a sign to the people of the village, from whom the cries and fury redoubled every moment, to stop a few paces distant. Then those wrathful people, men and women, picked up large stones, with which they remained armed, from time to time insulting and threatening the weeping prisoner.

The priests and doctors of the law, to whom the emissaries of the pharisees had gone to speak in secret, dragged the unfortunate creature to the feet of Jesus, whom she also began to implore in her terror, raising towards him her face bathed in tears, and her maimed hands covered with blood and dust. One of the priests then said to Jesus, to prove him, and in the hope of destroying him if he did not pronounce with them.

'This woman has just been taken in the act of adultery. Now, Moses has ordered us in the law to stone the adulteress. What is your opinion thereon?'

Jesus, instead of replying, stooped down and began to write on the sand with the end of his finger. And as the pharisees, astonished, continued to question him, he rose up and said to them as also to those of the crowd, who had armed themselves with stones,

'Let him amongst you who is without sin, throw the first stone at this woman.'

At the words of Mary's son, immense applause burst from the crowd that followed him, and Banaias exclaimed with loud laughter:

'Well spoken, friend. I am no prophet; but if pure hands are alone to stone this poor sinner, I swear by the head of Gideon that we shall see all these paragons of virtue, all these pearls of chastity, all these angels of modesty, beginning with the seigneurs priests, and the seigneurs doctors in law, throw away their sandals and tuck up their robes that they may run the quicker. Oh! what was I saying?' added Banaias, laughing still more loudly, like many others, 'there they are, dispersing like a herd of swine pursued by a wolf.'

'And swine they are!' said another.

'As to the wolf following them, ‘tis their own conscience.'

'Woman, where, then, are thy accusers? Has no one accused thee?'

'No, lord,' she replied, weeping bitterly.

'Neither will I condemn thee,' said Jesus. 'Go, and sin no more.'

And leaving the adulterous woman on her knees, and still under the shock of having been thus saved from death and pardoned, the son of Mary soon arrived, followed by his disciples and the crowd, to the foot of a mount, where already were assembled a good number of country people impatiently awaiting his coming, some having their provisions on donkeys or zebras, others in carts drawn by bullocks, others in wicker baskets, which they carried on their heads.

The shepherds who, at the passage of the Nazarene, watered their flocks at the fountain, also arrived; and when all this crowd, silent and attentive, was thus assembled at the foot of the mount, Jesus of Nazareth ascended the little hill, that he might be better heard by all.

The rising sun, shedding its lustrous beams on the figure of the son of Mary, attired in his white tunic and his blue mantle, made his celestial visage to appear resplendent, and casting its rays on his long chestnut hair, seemed to encircle it in a golden aureole. Then addressing these simple in heart, whom he loved equally with the little children, Jesus said to them, in his tender and sonorous voice:

'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs!

'Blessed are those who weep, for they are consoled!

'Blessed are those who show mercy, for they will obtain mercy for themselves!

'Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God!

'Blessed are the peaceful, for they shall be called peaceful!

'Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice's sake, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs!

'But woe to you, rich, for you would take away your consolation!

'Woe to you who are satisfied, for you shall be hungry!

'Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall weep hereafter!

'Woe to you when men shall speak well of you, for their fathers spoke well of the false prophets!

'Love your neighbor as yourself!

'Beware how you make your gifts before men, to attract their notice!

'When, therefore, thou dost give thy charity, sound not the trumpet before you, as do the hypocrites in the temples and in the streets, to be honored by men; for I tell you the truth, they have already had their reward.

'Two men went into the temple to pray, the one was a publican, the other a pharisee. The pharisee, standing up, thus prayed to himself: "My God, I thank thee for that I am not as other men, who are thieves, unjust, adulterers, who indeed are like the publican I see there. I fast twice a week, and I give the tenth of all I possess."

'The publican, on the contrary, keeping himself afar off, dared not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, saying:

"My God, have pity on me, who am a sinner!"

'Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you.

'If any one takes from you your mantle, let him also take your coat.

'Give to all who ask of you.

'Claim not your goods of him who takes them away.