Joel: A Boy of Galilee Page 12

  CHAPTER IX.

  AFTER that night of the voyage to the Gadarenes, Joel ceased to besurprised at the miracles he daily witnessed. Even when the littledaughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, was called back to life,it did not seem so wonderful to him as the stilling of the tempest.

  Many a night after Phineas had gone away again with the Master to othercities, Joel used to go down to the beach, and stand looking across thewater as he recalled that scene.

  The lake had always been an interesting place to him at night. He likedto watch the fishermen as they flashed their blazing torches this wayand that. A sympathetic thrill ran through him as they sighted theirprey, and raised their bare sinewy arms to fling the net or fly thespear.

  But after that morning of healing, and that night of tempest, it seemedto be a sacred place, to be visited only on still nights, when the townslept, and heaven bent nearer in the starlight to the quiet earth.

  The time of the Passover was drawing near,--the time that Joel had beenlooking forward to since Phineas had promised him a year ago that heshould go to Jerusalem.

  The twelve disciples who had been sent out to all the little townsthrough Galilee, to teach the things they had themselves been taught,and work miracles in the name of Him who had sent them, began to comeslowly back. They had an encouraging report to bring of their work; butit was shadowed by the news they had heard of the murder of JohnBaptist.

  Joel joined them as soon as they came into Capernaum, and walked besidePhineas as the footsore travellers pressed on a little farther towardsSimon's house.

  "When are we going to start for Jerusalem?" was his first eagerquestion.

  Phineas looked searchingly into his face as he replied, "Would you begreatly disappointed, my son, not to go this year?"

  Joel looked perplexed; it was such an unheard of thing for Phineas tomiss going up to the Feast of the Passover.

  "These are evil times, my Joel," he explained. "John Baptist has justbeen beheaded. The Master has many enemies among those in high places.It would be like walking into a lion's den for Him to go up toJerusalem.

  "Even here He is not safe from the hatred of Antipas, and after a littlerest will pass over into the borders of the tetrarch Philip. We have nowish to leave Him!"

  "Oh, why should He be persecuted so?" asked Joel, looking withtear-dimmed eyes at the man walking in advance of them, and talking inlow earnest tones to John, who walked beside Him.

  "You have been with Him so much, father Phineas. Have _you_ ever knownHim to do anything to make these men His enemies?"

  "Yes," said Phineas. "He has drawn the people after Him until they arejealous of His popularity. He upsets their old traditions, and teaches areligion that ignores some of the Laws of Moses. I can easily see whythey hate Him so. They see Him at such a long distance from themselves,they can not understand Him. Healing on the Sabbath, eating withpublicans and sinners, disregarding the little customs and ceremoniesthat in all ages have set apart our people as a chosen race, are crimesin their eyes.

  "If they only could get close enough to understand Him; to see that Hispure life needs no ceremonies of multiplied hand-washings; that it isHis broad love for His fellow-men that makes Him stoop to the lowestclasses,--I am sure they could not do otherwise than love Him.

  "Blind fanatics! They would put to death the best man that ever lived,because He is so much broader and higher than they that the littlemeasuring line of their narrow creed cannot compass Him!"

  "Is He never going to set up His kingdom?" asked Joel. "Does He nevertalk about it?"

  "Yes," said Phineas; "though we are often puzzled by what He says, andask ourselves His meaning."

  They had reached the house by this time, and as Simon led the way to itshospitable door, Phineas said, "Enter with them, my lad, if you wish. Imust go on to my little family, but will join you soon."

  To Joel's great pleasure, he found they were to cross the lake at once,to the little fishing port of Bethsaida. It was only six miles across.

  "We have hardly had time to eat," said Andrew to Joel, as they walkedalong towards the boat "I will be glad to get away to some desertplace, where we may have rest from the people that are always pushingand clamoring about us."

  "How long before you start?" asked Joel.

  "In a very few minutes," answered Andrew; "for the boat is inreadiness."

  Joel glanced from the street above the beach to the water's edge, as ifcalculating the distance.

  "Don't go without me," he said as, breaking into a run, he dashed up thebeach at his utmost speed. He was back again in a surprisingly quicktime, with a cheap little basket in his hand; he was out of breath withhis rapid run.

  "Didn't I go fast?" he panted. "I could not have done that a few weeksago. Oh, it feels so good to be able to run when I please! It is likeflying."

  He lifted the cover of the basket. "See!" he said. "I thought the Mastermight be hungry; but I had no time to get anything better. I had to stopat the first stall I came to."

  At the same time the boat went gliding out into the water with itsrestful motion, thousands of people were pouring out of the villages onfoot, and hurrying on around the lake, ahead of them.

  The boat passed up a narrow winding creek, away from the sail-dottedlake; its green banks seemed to promise the longed-for quiet and rest.But there in front of them waited the crowds they had come so far toavoid.

  They had brought their sick for healing. They needed to be helped andtaught; they were "as sheep without a shepherd!" He could not refusethem.

  Joel found no chance to offer the food he had bought so hastily withanother of his hoarded coins,--the coins that were to have purchased hisrevenge.

  As the day wore on, he heard the disciples ask that the multitudes mightbe sent away.

  "It would take two hundred pennyworth of bread to feed them," saidPhilip, "and even that would not be enough."

  Andrew glanced over the great crowds and stroked his beard thoughtfully."There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes,but what are they among so many?"

  Joel hurried forward and held out his basket with its littlestore,--five flat round loaves of bread, not much more than one hungryman could eat, and two dried fishes.

  He hardly knew what to expect as the people were made to sit down on thegrass in orderly ranks of fifties.

  His eyes grew round with astonishment as the Master took the bread, gavethanks, and then passed it to the disciples, who, in turn, distributedit among the people. Then the two little fishes were handed around inthe same way.

  Joel turned to Phineas, who had joined them some time ago. "Do you seethat?" he asked excitedly. "They have been multiplied a thousand fold!"

  Phineas smiled. "We drop one tiny grain of wheat into the earth," hesaid, "and when it grows and spreads and bears dozens of other grains onits single stalk, we are not astonished. When the Master but does in aninstant, what Nature takes months to do, we cry, 'a miracle!' 'Men aremore wont to be astonished at the sun's eclipse, than at its dailyrising,'" he quoted, remembering his conversation with the oldtraveller, on his way to Nathan ben Obed's.

  A feeling of exaltation seized the people as they ate the mysteriousbread; it seemed that the days of miraculous manna had come again. Bythe time they had all satisfied their hunger, and twelve basketfuls ofthe fragments had been gathered up, they were ready to make Him theirking. The restlessness of the times had taken possession of them; theburning excitement must find vent in some way, and with one accord theydemanded Him as their leader.

  Joel wondered why He should refuse. Surely no other man he had everknown could have resisted such an appeal.

  The perplexed fisherman, at Jesus's command, turned their boat homewardwithout Him. To their simple minds it seemed that He had made a mistakein resisting the homage forced upon Him by the people; they longed forthe time to come when they should be recognized as the honored officialsin the new kingdom. Many a dream of future power and magnificence musthave com
e to them in the still watches of the night, as they driftedhome in the white light of the Passover moon.

  Many a time in the weeks that followed, Joel slipped away to hisfavorite spot on the beech, a flat rock half hidden by a clump ofoleander bushes. Here, with his feet idly dangling in the ripples, helooked out over the water, and recalled the scenes he had witnessedthere.

  It seemed so marvellous to him that the Master could have ever walkedon those shining waves; and yet he had seen Him that night after thefeeding of the multitudes. He had seen, with his own frightened eyes,the Master walk calmly towards the boat across the unsteady water, andcatch up the sinking Peter, who had jumped overboard to meet Him. Itgrieved and fretted the boy that this man, of God-given power and suchsweet unselfish spirit, could be so persistently misunderstood by thepeople. He could think of nothing else.

  He had not been with the crowds that pressed into the synagogue theSabbath after the thousands had been fed; but Phineas came home withgrim lips and knitted brows, and told him about it.

  "The Master knew they followed Him because of the loaves and fishes," hesaid. "He told them so.

  "When we came out of the door, I could not help looking up at the lintelon which is carved the pot of manna; for when they asked Him for a signthat they might believe Him, saying, 'Our fathers ate manna in thewilderness!' He answered: 'I am the bread of life! Ye have seen me, andyet believe not!'

  "While He talked there was a murmuring all over the house against Him,because He said that He had come down from heaven. Your uncle Laban wasthere. I heard him say scornfully: 'Is not this the son of Joseph, whosefather and mother we know? How doth He now say, "I am come down out ofheaven"?' Then he laughed a mocking little laugh, and nudged the man whostood next to him. There are many like him; I could feel a spirit ofprejudice and persecution in the very air. Many who have professed to beHis friends have turned against Him."

  While Phineas was pouring out his anxious forebodings to his wife andJoel, the Master was going homeward with His chosen twelve.

  "Would ye also go away?" He asked wistfully of His companions, as Henoted the cold, disapproving looks of many who had only the day beforebeen fed by Him, and who now openly turned their backs on Him.

  Simon Peter gave a questioning glance into the faces of his companions;then he pressed a step nearer. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" he answeredimpulsively. "Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed,and know that Thou art the Holy One of God."

  The others nodded their assent, all but one. Judas Iscariot clutched themoney bags he held, and looked off across the lake, to avoid thesearching eyes that were fixed upon him.

  These honest Galileans were too simple to suspect others of darkdesigns, yet they had never felt altogether free with this stranger fromJudea. He had never seemed entirely one of them. They did not see in hiscrafty quiet manners, the sheep's clothing that hid his wolfish nature;but they could feel his lack of sympathetic enthusiasm.

  He had been one of those who followed only for the loaves and fishes ofa temporal kingdom, and now, in his secret soul, he was sorry he hadjoined a cause in whose final success he was beginning to lose faith.

  The sun went down suddenly that night behind a heavy cloud, as agathering storm began to lash the Galilee and rock the little boatsanchored at the landings.

  The year of popularity was at an end.