"Where is Thy Father?" cried others derisively.
And, in meek solemnity, with eyes that turned to Heaven in mute appeal for forgiveness for those around Him, the voice, that had so often kept the Jewish crowd in check, replied: "Ye neither know Me nor My Father; if ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also."
Goaded on by the Pharisees, the crowd had yelled and roared and taunted, till, at last, grown furious at the continued meekness of the Preacher, they had even taken up stones and cast them at Him. A terrible cry arose when the Nazarene's fair flesh was struck again and again by the stones hurled at Him. It was the voice of a woman who stood in the crowd:
"My son, my Lord, they have hurt Him. Oh, are they mad that they know Him not? Oh, foolish generation, who hath bewitched you?"
But, even while she had cried, the tender eyes of the Nazarene had fallen upon the mother whom He loved. Perhaps to spare her pain or to prevent further sin, or because His hour was not yet come, He had ceased speaking, and walked without shrinking towards the crowd. Terrified by His temerity, perhaps, or cowed by some invisible power that held them spell-bound, the crowd had stopped molesting Him and had fallen back to let Him pass; and, turning to each other, had murmured, in strange contrast to their late behaviour, "This is the Christ," while others had said, "Or, of a truth, the Prophet."
And so Jesus had passed out of the Temple in safety. But now evening had come, and with it the faint chilliness that in Southern climates takes the place of frost at the approach of the cold season.
