about his ways. Few there were who had seen the signs and heard the
promises--the Mother and Joseph, the shepherds, and the Three--yet
they all believed alike; that is to say, in this period of the plan
of salvation, God was all and the Child nothing. But look forward,
O reader! A time will come when the signs will all proceed from
the Son. Happy they who then believe in him!

Let us wait that period.

BOOK SECOND

"There is a fire
And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest."

Childe Harold.

CHAPTER I

It is necessary now to carry the reader forward twenty-one years,
to the beginning of the administration of Valerius Gratus, the fourth
imperial governor of Judea--a period which will be remembered as
rent by political agitations in Jerusalem, if, indeed, it be not
the precise time of the opening of the final quarrel between the
Jew and the Roman.

In the interval Judea had been subjected to changes affecting her
in many ways, but in nothing so much as her political status. Herod
the Great died within one year after the birth of the Child--died
so miserably that the Christian world had reason to believe him
overtaken by the Divine wrath. Like all great rulers who spend
their lives in perfecting the power they create, he dreamed of
transmitting his throne and crown--of being the founder of a
dynasty. With that intent, he left a will dividing his territories
between his three sons, Antipas, Philip, and Archelaus, of whom
the last was appointed to succeed to the title. The testament was
necessarily referred to Augustus, the emperor, who ratified all its
provisions with one exception: he withheld from Archelaus the title
of king until he proved his capacity and loyalty; in lieu thereof,
he created him ethnarch, and as such permitted him to govern nine
years, when, for misconduct and inability to stay the turbulent
elements that grew and strengthened around him, he was sent into
Gaul as an exile.

Caesar was not content with deposing Archelaus; he struck the people
of Jerusalem in a manner that touched their pride, and keenly wounded
the sensibilities of the haughty habitues of the Temple. He reduced
Judea to a Roman province, and annexed it to the prefecture of Syria.
So, instead of a king ruling royally