Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended by what thou saidst to them?'

"Let them alone," he replied, " they be blind guides.' Then Peter for the twelve asked an explanation of what he had said. It was given along with the sharp reproof:

"Are ye also even yet without understanding? Perceive ye not that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, it cannot defile him? But the things which proceed out of the man come forth from the heart; as, blasphemies, also murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, covetings, and the like. These are the things which defile the man; but to eat bread with unwashed hands, defileth not the man."

Thus closed his long Galilean Ministry.

PART FIFTH

His Exile

T

XVII

IN PHOENICIA AND DECAPOLIS

WO years have now passed since Jesus began

in Jerusalem his public ministry with the pur

gation of the Temple at his first Passover. The third Passover is now at hand, April 16, A. D., 29. He decided not to attend this Passover; for he knew that the hostility of the Jews of Judea, and especially of the Sanhedrists at Jerusalem whom he had defied, was so intense that they were resolved to kill him. On previous occasions, his popularity with the vast number of Galilean pilgrims had protected him from violence, the Sanhedrists dreading to incite a riot. But now that this popularity was lost, he would in Jerusalem be an easy victim to the malevolence of his deadly enemies. But his hour was not yet. Hence he would not now go to Jerusalem.6

The Galileans assembled at Capernaum on their way to the feast were leaving the city in great numbers, going southward through Peræa. In a day or two the city would be almost deserted. What then? Should he await their return, and resume his work? It was evident that his profitable ministry of a year and a third in Galilee had come to an end. During his long absences from Capernaum, the Sanhedric emissaries had sown tares broadcast in the field, they had poisoned the air with calumnies that infected the whole region. The mass of the people, with whom he was so popular at the outset, had come to distrust his divine commission, and