the thing more strange was that he loved no one else, except,
mayhap, himself. In this way and in that the lad soon came to learn his
own history, which was sad enough, with the result that if he hated the
Romans who had invaded the country and trampled it beneath their heel,
still more did he hate those of the Jews who looked upon his father
as their enemy and had stolen all the lands and goods that were his by
right. As for the Essenes who reared and protected him, so soon as
he came to an age when he could weigh such matters, he held them in
contempt, and because of their continual habit of bathing themselves and
purifying their garments, called them the company of washer-women. On
him their doctrines left but a shallow mark. He thought, as he explained
to Miriam, that people who were in the world should take the world as
they found it, without dreaming ceaselessly of another world to which,
as yet, they did not belong; a sentiment that to some extent Nehushta
shared.

Wishing, with the zeal of the young, to make a convert, Miriam preached
to him the doctrine of Christianity, but without success. By blood Caleb
was a Jew of the Jews, and could not understand or admire a God who
would consent to be trodden under foot and crucified. The Messiah he
desired to follow must be a great conqueror, one who would overthrow
the Caesars and take the throne of Caesar, not a humble creature with
his mouth full of maxims. Like the majority of his own, and, indeed,
of every generation, to the last day of his life, Caleb was unable to
divine that mind is greater than matter, while spirit is greater
than mind; and that in the end, by many slow advances and after many
disasters seemingly irremediable, spirituality will conquer all. He
looked to a sword flashing from thrones, not to the word of truth spoken
by lowly lips in humble streets or upon the flanks of deserts, trusting
to the winds of Grace to bear it into the hearts of men and thus
regenerate their souls.

Such was Caleb, and these things are said of him here because the child
is father to the man.

Swiftly the years went by. There were tumults in Judaea and massacres in
Jerusalem. False prophets such as Theudas, who pretended that he could
divide Jordan, attracted thousands to their tinsel standards, to be hewn
down, poor folk! by the Roman legions. Caesars rose and fell; the great
Temple was at length almost completed in its glory, and many events
happened which are reme