is eyes went to the
simple folk who never asked themselves whether they were Sadducees or
Pharisees, but were content to pray around the Temple that the Lord
would not take them away till they witnessed the triumph of Israel,
never asking if the promised resurrection would be obtained in this
world--if not in each individual case, by the race itself--or whether
they would all be lifted by angels out of their graves and carried away
by them into a happy immortality.

The simple folk on whom Joseph's eyes rested favourably, prayed,
untroubled by difficult questions: they were content to love God; and,
captured by their simple unquestioning faith, which he felt to be the
only spiritual value in this world, he was glad to turn away from both
Sadducees and Pharisees and mix with them. Sometimes, and to his great
regret, he brought about involuntarily the very religious disputations
that it was his object to quit for ever when he withdrew himself from
the society of the Pharisees. A chance word was enough to set some of
them by the ears, asking each other whether the soul may or can descend
again into the corruptible body; and it was one day when this question
was being disputed that a disputant, pressing forward, announced his
belief that the soul, being alone immortal, does not attempt to regain
the temple of the body. A doctrine which astonished Joseph, so simple
did it seem and so reasonable; and as he stood wondering why he had not
thought of it himself, his eyes telling his perplexity, he was awakened
from his dream, and his awakening was caused by the word "Essene." He
asked for a meaning to be put upon it, to the great astonishment of the
people, who were not aware that the fame of this third sect of the Jews
was not yet spread into Galilee. There were many willing to instruct
him, and almost the first thing he learnt about them was that they were
not viewed with favour in Jerusalem, for they did not send animals to
the Temple for sacrifice, deeming blood-letting a crime. A still more
fundamental tenet of this sect was its denial of private property: all
they had, belonged to one brother as much as to another, and they lived
in various places, avoiding cities, and setting up villages of their own
accord; notably one on the eastern bank of the Jordan, from whence
recruiting missionaries sometimes came forth, for the Essenes disdained
marriage, and relied on proselytism for the maintenance of the order.
The rule of the