his father's
death.

As no such dilemma as Joseph's had arisen before, all waited to hear
Jesus, but his thoughts having seemingly wandered far, they all fell to
argument and advised Joseph in so many different ways that he did not
know to whom to accede so contradictory were all their notions of
fairness; and, the babble becoming louder, it waked Jesus out of his
mood, and catching Joseph's eyes, he asked him if he whom our Father
sent to establish his Kingdom on earth would not have to give his life
to men for doing it. A question that Joseph could not answer; and while
he sought for the Master's meaning the disciples began again aloud to
babble and to put questions to the Master, hurriedly asking him why he
thought he must die before going up to heaven. Did not Elijah, they
asked, ascend into heaven alive in his corporeal body?--and the cloak he
left with Elisha, Aristion said, might be held to be a symbol of the
fleshly body. This view was scorned, for the truth of the Scriptures
could not be that the disciples inherited not the spiritual power of the
prophet, but his fleshly show. Then the fate of Judas the Gaulonite
rising up in Peter's mind, he said: but, Master, we shall not allow thee
to be slain on a cross and given as food to the birds. The disciples
raised their staves, crying, we're with thee, Master, and the forest
gave back their oaths in echoes that seemed to reach the ends of the
earth; and when the echoes ceased a silence came up from the forest that
shut their lips, and, panic-stricken, all would have run away if Peter
had not drawn the sword which he had brought with him in case of an
attack by wolves, and swore he would strike the man down that raised his
hand against the Master. To which Jesus replied that every man is born
to pursue a destiny, and that he had long known that his led to
Jerusalem, whereupon Peter cried out: we'll defend thee from thyself;
for which words Jesus reproved him, saying that to try to save a man
from himself were like trying to save him from the decree that he brings
into the world with his blood. And what is mine, Master? It may be,
Jesus answered, to return to thy fishing. Whereupon Peter wept, saying:
Master, if we lose thee we're as sheep that have lost their shepherd, a
huddled, senseless flock on the hillside, for we have laid down our nets
to follow thee, believing that the Kingdom of God would come down here
in Galilee rather than in Jerusalem; pray that it may d