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.'

'But, alas!' added the son of Mary with an accent of much sorrow, 'you
will kill the former; you would crucify the latter; you would persecute
them from town to town, that all the innocent blood that has been shed
upon the earth may return upon you--from the blood of Abel the just to
the blood of Zachariah, whom you killed between the Temple and the
altar!'

'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!'

And the accent of Jesus, at first cutting, severe, or indignant, in
speaking of the hypocritical pharisees, was impressed with a regret so
bitter, in pronouncing these last words, that nearly all shed tears like
the young man of Nazareth; presently there was a complete silence, for
he was seen to lean upon the table and bury his face in his hands.
Genevieve could no longer restrain her tears; she heard one of the two
emissaries say to his companion, in a tone of cruel triumph: 'The
Nazarene called the doctors of law and the high-priest serpents and a
race of vipers! During th