Joel: A Boy of Galilee

"Only through the power of Satan!" interrupted Laban. "When He says He can forgive sins, He blasphemes."

The other Pharisee leaned forward to say, in an impressive whisper: "Then you know the Law on that point. He should be stoned to death, His body hung on a tree, and then buried with shame!"

It was not long after that Joel, just back from a trip to Tiberias in a little sailing-boat, came into the garden. He had been away since early morning, so had heard nothing of what had just occurred; he had had good luck in disposing of his wares, and was feeling unusually cheerful. Hearing voices in the corner of the garden, he was about to pass out again, when his uncle called him sternly to come to him at once.

Surprised at the command, he obeyed, and was questioned and cross-questioned by all three. It was very little he could tell them about his friend's plans; but he acknowledged proudly that Phineas had always known this famous man from Nazareth, even in childhood, and was one of his most devoted followers.

"This man Phineas is a traitor to the faith!" roared Laban. "He is a dangerous man, and in league with these fellows to do great evil to our nation."

The scribe and the rabbi nodded approvingly.

"Hear me, now!" he cried, sternly. "Never again are you to set foot over his threshold, or have any communication whatsoever with him or his associates. I make no idle threat; if you disobey me in this, you will have cause to wish you had never been born. You may leave us now!"

Too surprised and frightened to say a word, the child slipped away. To give up his daily visit to the carpenter's house, was to give up all that made his life tolerable; while to be denied even speaking to his associates, meant to abandon all hope of cure.

But he dared not rebel; obedience to those in authority was too thoroughly taught in those days to be lightly disregarded. But his uncle seemed to fear that his harsh command would be eluded in some way, and kept such a strict watch over him, that he rarely got beyond the borders of the garden by himself.

One day he was all alone in the grape-arbor, looking out into the streets that he longed to be in, since their freedom had been denied him.

A little girl passed, carrying one child in her arms, and talking to another who clung to her skirts. It was Jerusha.

Joel threw a green grape at her to attract her attention, and then beckoned her mysteriously to come nearer. She set the baby on the ground, and gave him her bracelet to play with, while she listened to a whispered account of his wrongs through the latticed arbor.

"It's a shame!" she declared indignantly. "I'll go right down to the carpenter's house and tell them why you cannot go there any more. And I'll keep watch on all that happens, and let you know. I go past here every day, and if I have any news, I'll toss a pebble over the wall and cluck like a hen. Then if nobody is watching, you can come to this hole in the arbor again."

The next day, as Joel was going in great haste to the baker's, whither his aunt had sent him, he heard some one behind him calling him to wait. In another moment Jerusha was in speaking distance, nearly bent double with the weight of her little brother, whom she was carrying as usual.

"There!" she said, with a puff of relief, as she put him on his own feet. "Wait till I get my breath! It's no easy thing to carry such a load and run at the same time! How did you get out?"

"There was an errand to be done, and no one else to do it," answered Joel, "so Aunt sent me."

"Oh, I've got such news for you!" she exclaimed. "Guess what has happened! Your Rabbi Jesus has asked Levi-Matthew to be one of His followers, and go around with Him wherever He goes. Think of it! One of those horrid tax-gatherers! He settled his accounts and gave up his position in the custom-house yesterday. And he is getting ready for a great feast. I heard the butcher and the wine-dealer both telling about the big orders he had given them.

"All the publicans and low common people that are his friends are invited. Yes, and so is your friend the carpenter. Think of that, now! He is going to sit down and eat with such people! Of course respectable folks will never have anything more to do with him after that! I guess your uncle was right about him, after all!"

Both the little girl's face and manner expressed intense disgust.

Joel was shocked. "Oh, are you sure?" he cried. "You certainly must be mistaken! It cannot be so!"

"I guess I know what I see with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears!" she retorted, angrily. "My father says they are a bad lot. People that go with publicans are just as unclean themselves. If you know so much more than everybody else, I'll not trouble myself to run after you with any more news. Mistaken, indeed!"

With her head held high, and her nose scornfully turned up, she jerked her little brother past him, and went quickly around the corner of the street.

The indignation of some of the rabbis knew no bounds. "It has turned out just as I predicted," said the scribe to Laban, at supper. "They are nothing but a set of gluttons and wine-bibbers!"

There was nothing else talked of during the entire meal. How Joel's blood boiled as he listened to their conversation! The food seemed to choke him. As they applied one coarse epithet after another to his friend Phineas, all the kindness and care this man had ever given him seemed to rise up before him. But when they turned on the Nazarene, all the stories Joel had heard in the carpenter's house of His gentle sinless childhood, all the tokens he had seen himself of His pure unselfish manhood, seemed to cry out against such gross injustice.

It was no light thing for a child to contradict the doctors of the Law, and, in a case of this kind, little less than a crime to take the stand Joel did.

But the memory of two faces gave him courage: that of Phineas as it had looked on him through all those busy happy hours in the carpenter's home; the other face he had seen but once, that day of healing in the synagogue, – who, having once looked into the purity of those eyes, the infinite tenderness of that face, could sit calmly by and raise no voice against the calumny of his enemies?

The little cripple was white to the lips, and he trembled from head to foot as he stood up to speak.

The scribe lifted up both hands, and turned to Laban with a meaning shrug of the shoulders. "To think of finding such heresy in your own household!" he exclaimed. "Among your own children!"

"He is no child of mine!" retorted Laban. "Nor shall he stay among them!" Then he turned to Joel.

"Boy, take back every word you have just uttered! Swear you will renounce this man, – this son of perdition, – and never have aught to say well of Him again!"

Joel looked around the table, at each face that shone out pale and excited in the yellow lamplight. His eyes were dilated with fear; his heart thumped so in the awful pause that followed, that he thought everybody else must hear it.

"I cannot!" he said hoarsely. "Oh, I cannot!"

"Then take yourself out of my sight forever. The doors of this house shall never open for you again!"

There was a storm of abuse from the angry man at this open defiance of his authority. With these two cold, stern men to nod approval at his zealousness, he went to greater lengths than he might otherwise have done.

With one more frightened glance around the table, the child hurried out of the room. The door into the street creaked after him, and Joel limped out into the night, with his uncle's curse ringing in his ears.

CHAPTER VII

PHINEAS, going along the beach that night, in the early moonlight, towards his home, saw a little figure crouched in the shadow of a low building beside the wharf. It was shaking with violent sobs. He went up to the child, and took its hands down from its wet face, with a comforting expression of pity. Then he started back in surprise. It was Joel!

"Why, my child! My poor child!" he exclaimed, putting his arm around the trembling, misshapen form. "What is the meaning of all this?"

"Uncle Laban has driven me away from home!" sobbed the boy. "He was angry because you and Rabbi Jesus were invited to Levi-Matthew's feast. He says I have denied the faith, and am worse than an infidel. He says I am fit only to be cast out with the dogs and publicans! – and – and – " he ended with a wail. "Oh, he sent me away with his curse!"

Phineas drew him closer, and stroked the head on his shoulder in pitying silence.

"Fatherless and motherless and lame!" the boy sobbed bitterly. "And now, a homeless outcast, blighted by a curse, I have been sitting here with my feet in the dark water, thinking how easy it would be to slip down into it and forget; but, Rabbi Phineas, that face will not let me, – that face of your friend, – I keep seeing it all the time!"

Phineas gathered the boy so close in his arms that Joel could feel his strong, even heart-beats.

"My child," he said solemnly, "call me no more, Rabbi! Henceforth, it is to be father Phineas. You shall be to me as my own son!"

"But the curse!" sobbed Joel. "The curse that is set upon me! It will blight you too!"

"Nay," was the quiet answer; "for it is written, 'As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse, causeless, shall not come.'"

But the boy still shook as with a chill. His face and hands were burning hot.

"Come!" said Phineas. He picked him up in his strong arms, and carried him down the beach to Abigail's motherly care and comforting.

"He will be a long time getting over the shock of this," she said to her husband, when he was at last soothed to sleep.

"Ah, loyal little heart!" he answered, "he has suffered much for the sake of his friendship with us!"

Poor little storm-tossed bark! In the days that followed he had reason to bless the boisterous winds, that blew him to such a safe and happy harbor!

Over on the horns of Mount Hattin, the spring morning began to shine. The light crept slowly down the side of the old mountain, till it fell on a little group of men talking earnestly together. It was the Preacher of Galilee, who had just chosen twelve men from among those who followed Him to help Him in His ministry.

They gathered around Him in the fresh mountain dawn, as He pictured the life in store for them. Strange they did not quail before it, and turn back disheartened. Nay, not strange! For in the weeks they had been with Him, they had learned to love Him so, that His "follow me," that drew them from the toll-gate and fishing-boat, was stronger than ties of home and kindred.

Just about this time, Phineas and Joel were starting out from Capernaum to the mountain. Hundreds of people were already on the way; people who had come from all parts of Judea, and beyond the Jordan. Clouds of dust rose above the highway as the travellers trudged along.

Joel was obliged to walk slowly, so that by the time they reached the plain below, a great multitude had gathered.

"Let's get close," he whispered. He had heard that those who barely touched the garments of the strange Rabbi were made whole, and it was with the hope that he might steal up and touch Him unobserved that he had begged Phineas to take him on such a long, painful walk.

"There is too great a crowd, now," answered Phineas. "Let us rest here awhile, and listen. Let me lift you up on this big rock, so that you can see. 'Sh! He is speaking!"

Joel looked up, and, for the second time in his life, listened to words that thrilled him like a trumpet call, – words that through eighteen hundred years have not ceased to vibrate; with what mighty power they must have fallen when, for the first time, they broke the morning stillness of those mountain wilds!

Joel forgot the press of people about him, forgot even where he was, as sentence after sentence seemed to lift him out of himself, till he could catch glimpses of lofty living such as he had never even dreamed of before.

Round by round, he seemed to be carried up some high ladder of thought by that voice, away from all that was common and low and earthly, to a summit of infinite love and light.

Still the voice led on, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"

Joel started so violently at hearing his own familiar motto, that he nearly lost his balance on the rock.

"But I say unto you that you resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also… Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

Poor little Joel, it was a hard doctrine for him to accept! How could he give up his hope of revenge, when it had grown with his growth till it had come to be as dear as life itself?

He heard little of the rest of the sermon, for through it all the words kept echoing, "Bless them that curse you! Do good to them that hate you! Pray for them which despitefully use you!"

"Oh, I can't! I can't!" he groaned inwardly.

"I have found a chance for you to ride home," said Phineas, when the sermon was over, and the people began to file down the narrow mountain paths. "But there will be time for you to go to Him first, for healing. You have only to ask, you know."

Joel took an eager step forward, and then shrank back guiltily. "Not now," he murmured, "some other time." He could not look into those clear eyes and ask a blessing, when he knew his heart was black with hate.

After all his weeks of waiting the opportunity had come; but he dared not let the Sinless One look into his soul.

Phineas began an exclamation of surprise, but was interrupted by some one asking him a question. Joel took advantage of this to climb up behind the man who had offered him a ride. All the way home he weighed the two desires in his mind, – the hope of healing, and the hope of revenge.

By the time the two guardian fig-trees were in sight, he had decided. He would rather go helpless and halting through life than give up his cherished purpose.

But there was no sleep for him that night, after he had gone up to his little chamber on the roof. He seemed to see that pleading face on the mountain-side; it came to him again and again, with the words, "Bless them that curse you! Pray for them that despitefully use you!"

All night he fought against yielding to it. Time and again he turned over on his bed, and closed his eyes; but it would not let him alone.

He thought of Jacob wrestling with the angel till day-break, and knew in his heart that the sweet spirit of forgiveness striving with his selfish nature was some heavenly impulse from another world.

At last when the cock-crowing commenced at dawn, and the stars were beginning to fade, he drew up his crooked little body, and knelt with his face to the kindling east.

"Father in heaven," he prayed softly, "bless mine enemy Rehum, and forgive all my sins, – fully and freely as I now forgive the wrong he has done to me."

A feeling of light-heartedness and peace, such as he had never known before, stole over him. He could not settle himself to sleep, though worn out with his night's long vigil.

Hastily slipping on his clothes, he tiptoed down the stairs, and limped, bare-headed, down to the beach. The lake shimmered and glowed under the faint rose and gray of the sky like a deep opal. The early breeze blew the hair back from his pale face with a refreshing coolness.

It seemed to him the world had never looked one half so beautiful before, as he stood there.

A firm tread on the gravel made him turn partly around. A man was coming up the beach; it was the friend of Phineas. As if drawn by some uncontrollable impulse, Joel started to meet Him, an unspoken prayer in his pleading little face.

Not a word was said. For one little instant Joel stood there by the shining sea, his hand held close in the loving hand of the world's Redeemer. For one little instant he looked up into His face; then the man passed on.

Joel covered his face with his hands, seeming to hear the still small voice that spoke to the prophet out of the whirlwind.

"He is the Christ!" he whispered reverently, – "He is the Christ!"

In his exalted feeling all thought of a cure had left him; but as he walked on down the beach, he noticed that he no longer limped. He was moving along with strong, quick strides. He shook himself and threw back his shoulders; there was no pain in the movement. He passed his hands over his back and down his limbs.

Oh, he was straight and strong and sinewy! He seemed a stranger to himself, as running and leaping, then stopping to look down and feel his limbs again, he ran madly on.

Suddenly he cast his garments aside and dived into the lake. Before his injury, he had been able to swim like a fish, now he reached out with long powerful strokes that sent him darting through the cold water with a wonderful sense of exhilaration.

Then he dressed again, and went on running and leaping and climbing till he was exhausted, and his first wild delirious joy began to subside into a deep quiet thankfulness. Then he went home, radiant in the happiness of his new-found cure.

But more than the mystery of the miracle, more than the joy of the healing, was the remembrance of that moment, that one little moment, when he felt the clasp of the Master's hand, and seemed wrapped about with the boundless love of God.

From that moment, he lived but to serve and to follow Him.

CHAPTER VIII

HIGH up among the black lava crags of Perea stood the dismal fortress of Macherus. Behind its close prison bars a restless captive groped his way back and forth in a dungeon cell. Sometimes, at long intervals, he was given such liberty as a chained eagle might have, when he was led up into one of the towers of the gloomy keep, and allowed to look down, down into the bottomless gorges surrounding it. For months he had chafed in the darkness of his underground dungeon; escape was impossible.

It was John Baptist, brought from the wild, free life of the desert to the tortures of the "Black Castle." Here he lay at the mercy of Herod Antipas, and death might strike at any moment. More than once, the whimsical monarch had sent for him, as he sat at his banquets, to be the sport of the passing hour.

The lights, the color, the flash of gems may have dazzled his eyes for a brief space, accustomed as they were to the midnight darkness of his cell; but his keen vision saw, under the paint and purple of royal apparel, the corrupt life of king and court.

Pointing his stern, accusing finger at the uneasy king, he cried, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife!" With words that stung like hurtling arrows, he laid bare the blackened, beastly life that sought to hide its foulness under royal ermine.

Antipas cowered before him; and while he would gladly have been freed from a man who had such power over him, he dared not lift a finger against the fearless, unflinching Baptist.

But the guilty Herodias bided her time, with blood-thirsty impatience; his life should pay the penalty of his bold speech.

Meanwhile he waited in his cell, with nothing but memories to relieve the tediousness of the long hours. Over and over again he lived those scenes of his strange life in the desert, – those days of his preparation, – the preaching to the multitudes, the baptizing at the ford of the Jordan.

He wondered if his words still lived; if any of his followers still believed on him. But more than all, he wondered what had become of that One on whom he had seen the spirit of God descending out of heaven in the form of a dove.

"Where art Thou now?" he cried. "If Thou art the Messiah, why dost Thou not set up Thy kingdom, and speedily give Thy servant his liberty?" The empty room rang often with that cry; but the hollow echo of his own words was the only answer.

One day the door of his cell creaked back far enough to admit two men, and then shut again, leaving them in total darkness. In that momentary flash of light, he recognized two old followers of his, Timeus bar Joram and Benjamin the potter.

With a cry of joy he groped his way toward them, and clung to their friendly hands.

"How did you manage to penetrate these Roman-guarded walls?" he asked, in astonishment.

"I knew the warden," answered Benjamin. "A piece of silver conveniently closes his eyes to many things. But we must hasten! Our time is limited."

They had much to tell of the outside world. Pilate had just given special offence, by appropriating part of the treasure of the Temple, derived from the Temple tax, to defray the cost of great conduits he had begun, with which to supply Jerusalem with water.

Stirred up by the priests and rabbis, the people besieged the government house, crying loudly that the works be given up. Armed with clubs, numbers of soldiers in plain clothes surrounded the great mob, and killed so many of the people that the wildest excitement prevailed throughout all Judea and Galilee.

There was a cry for a national uprising to avenge the murder.

"They only need a leader!" exclaimed John. "Where is He for whom I was but a voice crying in the wilderness? Why does He not show Himself?"

"We have just come from the village of Nain," said Timeus bar Joram. "We saw Him stop a funeral procession and raise a widow's son to life. He was followed by a motley throng whom He had healed of all sorts of diseases; and there were twelve men whom He had chosen as life-long companions.

"We questioned some of them closely, and they gave us marvellous reports of the things He had done."

"Is it not strange," asked Benjamin the potter, "that having such power He still delays to establish His kingdom?"

The captive prophet made no answer for awhile. Then he groped in the thick darkness till his hand rested heavily on Benjamin's arm.

"Go back, and say that John Baptist asks, 'Art Thou the Coming One, or must we look for another?'"

Days passed before the devoted friends found themselves once more inside the prison walls. They had had a weary journey over rough hills and rocky by-paths.

"What did He say?" demanded the prisoner, eagerly.

"Go and tell John what ye saw and heard: that the blind receive sight; the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised; and the poor have the gospel preached unto them."

The man stood up, his long hair hanging to his shoulder, his hand uplifted, and his eyes dilated like a startled deer that has caught the sound of a coming step.

"The fulfilment of the words of Isaiah!" he cried. "For he hath said, 'Your God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing!' Yea, he hath bound up the broken-hearted; and he shall yet 'proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord!'"

Then with both hands clasped high above his head, he made the prison ring with the cry, "The kingdom is at hand! The kingdom is at hand! I shall soon be free!"

Not long after that, the castle blazed with the lights of another banquet. The faint aroma of wines, mingled with the heavy odor of countless flowers, could not penetrate the grim prison walls. Nor could the gay snatches of song and the revelry of the feast. No sound of applause reached the prisoner's ear, when the daughter of Herodias danced before the king.

Sitting in darkness while the birthday banqueters held high carnival, he heard the heavy tramp of soldiers' feet coming down the stairs to his dungeon. The great bolts shot back, the rusty hinges turned, and a lantern flickered its light in his face, as he stood up to receive his executioners.

A little while later his severed head was taken on a charger to the smiling dancing girl. She stifled a shriek when she saw it; but the wicked Herodias looked at it with a gleam of triumph in her treacherous black eyes.

When the lights were out, and the feasters gone, two men came in at the warden's bidding, – two men with heavy hearts, and voices that shook a little when they spoke to each other. They were Timeus and Benjamin. Silently they lifted the body of their beloved master, and carried it away for burial; and if a tear or two found an unaccustomed path down their bearded cheeks, no one knew it, under cover of the darkness.