Now comes the secret of the way he was lost--a way so simple that
the wonder is that no one has ever dreamed of it before.
The three important days of the Passover were ended, and the time
had come when those pilgrims who wished to return to their homes
might leave Jerusalem without offense, though it was more commendable
to remain through the full seven days. The people from Nazareth
were anxious to be gone--they had a long road to travel--their
harvests were waiting. While the Boy, tired out, was sleeping under
the tree, the question of going home was talked out and decided.
They would break camp at sunrise, and, joining with others of their
countrymen who were tented around them, they would take the road
for Galilee.
But the Boy awoke earlier than any one else the next morning. Before
the dawn a linnet in the tree overhead called him with twittering
songs. He was rested by his long sleep. His breath came lightly.
The spirit of youth was beating in his limbs, His heart was eager
for adventure. He longed for the top of a high hill--for the wide,
blue sky--for the world at his feet--such a sight as he had often
found in his rambles among the heights near Nazareth. Why not? He
would return in time for the next visit to the Temple.
Quietly he stepped among the sleeping-tents in the dark. A footpath
led through the shadowy olive-grove, up the hillside, into the
open. There the light was clearer, and the breeze that runs before
the daybreak was dancing through the grass. The Boy turned to
the left, following along one of the sheep-trails that crossed the
high, sloping pastures. Then he bore to the right, breasting the
long ridge, and passed the summit, running lightly to the eastward
until he came to a rounded, rocky knoll. There he sat down among
the little bushes to wait for sunrise.
Far beyond the wrinkled wilderness of Tekoa, and the Dead Sea, and
the mountain-wall of Moab, the rim of the sky was already tinged
with silvery gray. The fading of the stars travelled slowly upward,
and the brightening of the rose of dawn followed it, until all the
east was softly glowing and the deep blue of the central heaven
was transfused with turquoise light. Dark in the gulfs and chasms
of the furrowed land the night lingered. Bright along the eastern
peaks and ridges the coming day, still hidden, revealed itself in
a fringe of dazzling gold, like the crest of a long mounting wave.
Shoots and flashes of radiance sprang upward from the glittering
edge. Streamers of rose-foam and gold-spray floated in the sky.
Then over the barrier of the hills the sun surged royally-crescent,
half-disk, full-orb--and overlooked the world. The luminous tide
flooded the gray villages of Bethany and Bethphage, and all the
emerald hills around Bethlehem were bathed in light.
The Boy sat entranced, watching the miracle by which God makes His
sun to shine upon the good and the evil. How strange it was that
God should do that--bestow an equal light upon those who obeyed Him
and those who broke His law! Yet it was splendid, it was King-like
to give in that way, with both hands. No, it was Father-like--and
that was what the Boy had learned from his mother--that God who made
and ruled all things was his Father. It was the name she had taught
him to use in his prayers. Not in the great prayers he learned
from the book--the name there was Adonai, the Lord, the Almighty.
But in the little prayers that he said by himself it was “my Father!”
It made the Boy feel strangely happy and strong to say that. The
whole world seemed to breathe and glow around him with an invisible
presence. For such a Father, for the sake of His love and favor,
the Boy felt he could do anything.
More than that, his mother had told him of something special that
the Father had for him to do in the world. In the evenings during
the journey and when they were going home together from the Temple,
she had repeated to him some of the words that the angel-voices
had spoken to her heart, and some of the sayings of wise men from
the East who came to visit him when he was a baby. She could not
understand all the mystery of it; she did not see how it was going
to be brought to pass. He was a child of poverty and lowliness;
not rich, nor learned, nor powerful. But with God all things were
possible. The choosing and calling of the eternal Father were more
than everything else. It was fixed in her heart that somehow her
Boy was sent to do a great work for Israel. He was the son of God
set apart to save his people and bring back the glory of Zion.
He was to fulfil the promises made in olden time and bring in the
wonderful reign of the Messiah in the world--perhaps as a forerunner
and messenger of the great King, or perhaps himself--ah, she did
not know! But she believed in her Boy with her whole soul; and she
was sure that his Father would show him what to do.
These sayings, coming amid the excitements of his first journey,
his visit to the Temple, his earliest sight of the splendor and
confusion and misery of the great city, had sunken all the more
deeply into the Boy's mind. Excitement does not blur the impressions
of youth; it sharpens them, makes them more vivid. Half-covered
and hardly noticed at the time, they spring up into life when the
quiet hour comes.
So the Boy remembered his mother's words while he lay watching the
sunrise. It would be great to make them come true. To help everybody
to feel what he felt there on the hilltop--that big, free feeling
of peace and confidence and not being afraid! To make those robbers
in the Jordan valley see how they were breaking the rule of the
world and burning out their own hearts! To cleanse the Temple from
the things that filled it with confusion and pain, and drive away
the brawling buyers and sellers who were spoiling his Father's great
house! To go among those poor and wretched and sorrowful folks who
swarmed in Jerusalem and teach them that God was their Father too,
and that they must not sin and quarrel any more! To find a better
way than the priests' and the Pharisees' of making people good! To
do great things for Israel--like Moses, like Joshua, like David--or
like Daniel, perhaps, who prayed and was not afraid of the
lions--or like Elijah and Elisha, who went about speaking to the people
and healing them--
The soft tread of bare feet among the bushes behind him roused the
Boy. He sprang up and saw a man with a stern face and long hair and
beard looking at him mysteriously. The man was dressed in white,
with a leathern girdle round his waist, into which a towel was
thrust. A leathern wallet hung from his neck, and he leaned upon
a long staff.
“Peace be with you, Rabbi,” said the Boy, reverently bowing at the
stranger's feet. But the man looked at him steadily and did not
speak.
The Boy was confused by the silence. The man's eyes troubled him
with their secret look, but he was not afraid.
“Who are you, sir,” he asked, “and what is your will with me? Perhaps
you are a master of the Pharisees or a scribe? But no--there are
no broad blue fringes on your garments. Are you a priest, then?”
The man shook his head, frowning. “I despise the priests,” he
answered, “and I abhor their bloody and unclean sacrifices. I am
Enoch the Essene, a holy one, a perfect keeper of the law. I live
with those who have never defiled themselves with the eating of
meat, nor with marriage, nor with wine; but we have all things in
common, and we are baptized in pure water every day for the purifying
of our wretched bodies, and after that we eat the daily feast of
love in the kingdom of the Messiah which is at hand. Thou art called
into that kingdom, son; come with me, for thou art called.”
The Boy listened with astonishment. Some of the things that the man
said--for instance, about the sacrifices and about the nearness of
the kingdom--were already in his heart. But other things puzzled
and bewildered him.
“My mother says that I am called,” he answered, “but it is to serve
Israel and to help the people. Where do you live, sir, and what
is it that you do for the people?”
“We live among the hills of that wilderness,” he answered, pointing
to the south, “in the oasis of Engedi. There are palm-trees and
springs of water, and we keep ourselves pure, bathing before we eat
and offering our food of bread and dates as a sacrifice to God. We
all work together, and none of us has anything that he calls his
own. We do not go up to the Temple nor enter the synagogues. We
have forsaken the uncleanness of the world and all the impure ways
of men. Our only care is to keep ourselves from defilement. If we
touch anything that is forbidden we wash our hands and wipe them
with this towel that hangs from our girdle. We alone are serving
the kingdom. Come, live with us, for I think thou art chosen.”
The Boy thought for a while before he answered. “Some of it is
good, my master,” he said, “but the rest of it is far away from
my thoughts. Is there nothing for a man to do in the world but to
think of himself--either in feasting and uncleanness as the heathen
do, or in fasting and purifying yourself as you do? How can you
serve the kingdom if you turn away from the people? They do not see
you or hear you. You are separate from them--just as if you were
dead without dying. You can do nothing for them. No, I do not want
to come with you and live at Engedi. I think my Father will show
me something better to do.”
“Your Father!” said Enoch the Essene. “Who is He?”
“Surely,” answered the Boy, “He is the same as yours. He that made
us and made all that we see--the great world for us to live in.”
“Dust,” said the man, with a darker frown--“dust and ashes! It will
all perish, and thou with it. Thou art not chosen--not pure!”
With that he went away down the hill; and the Boy, surprised and
grieved at his rude parting, wondered a little over the meaning
of his words, and then went back as quickly as he could toward the
tents.
When he came to the olive-grove they were gone! The sun was
already high, and his people had departed hours ago. In the hurry
and bustle of breaking camp each of the parents had supposed that the
Boy was with the other, or with some of the friends and neighbors,
or perhaps running along the hillside above them as he used to do.
So they went their way cheerfully, not knowing that they had left
their son behind. This is how it came to pass that he was lost.