His words seemed to be true words, and I pondered on them, and along the Jordan everybody was asking whether he was the promised Christ. I walked miles to hear him, leaving my flock in another’s charge, or waited for him to return to his cave, and often spent the night watching over him lest a wild beast should break in upon him while he slept. I had known none but my brethren, nor any city, and John had travelled through all Judea, and it was from him I learnt that the world was nearing its end, and that if man did not repent at once God would raise another race out of the stones by the wayside, so needful was the love of man to God; and though it had always seemed to me God was gentler than he seemed to be in John’s prophesying, yet his teaching suddenly seemed to be right to me. I got b
