he Gentiles, whom he sometimes met, bearing images in
procession, going towards some shrine--the very same who had listened to
his teaching in the evening. Joseph once dared throw himself in front of
one of these processions, and he begged the processionists to Pan to
throw aside the garlands and wreaths they had woven. This they would not
do, but out of respect to the distinguished strangers that had come to
their town they listened for some minutes to his relation that on the
last day the dead would be roused by the trumpets of angels to attend
the judgment and that the man Jesus before them--the Messiah announced
hundreds of years ago in many a prophetic book--would return to earth in
a chariot of fire by his Father's side, the Judgment Book in his hands.
May we now proceed on our way? they asked, but Joseph besought them to
listen to him for another few minutes, and thinking he had perhaps
explained the resurrection badly, and forthwith calling to mind the
philosophy of Egypt and Mathias, he asked them to apprehend that it
would not be the corruptible body that would rise from the dead but the
spiritual body, whereby he only succeeded in perplexing still further
the minds of the worthy pagans of Caesarea Philippi, and provoking stirs
and quarrels among his own people.

The processionists took advantage of this diversion of opinion among the
Jews to pass on and dispose of their wreaths and votive offerings as it
pleased them to do. But on their way back they begged Jesus to perform
some more miracles, which he refused to do, and to their great amazement
he left them for the Tyrians and Sidonians. But the same difficulties
occurred in Tyre and Sidon, the Gentiles accepting the miracles with
delight but paying little heed to the doctrine. They begged him to
remain with them and offered gifts for his services as healer, but he
refused these and returned to Galilee, having performed miracles of all
sorts, without, however, having bidden a dead man rise from the grave,
to the great disappointment of Joseph, who would have liked to witness
this miracle (the greatest of all); seemingly it was not his lot. Peter
bade him hope!--the great miracle might happen in Galilee, and as such a
miracle would evince the truth of Jesus' Messiah-ship even to his
father, Joseph remained in Capernaum, going out in the boats with Jesus
and his disciples, sailing along the shores till the people gathered in
numbers sufficient for an exhortatio