his "Philo, Strauss, and Renan," writes with biting sarcasm: "Renan, who is at once author of the play, the stage-manager, and the director of the theatre, gives the signal to begin, and at a sign from him the electric lights are put on full power, the Bengal fires flare up, the footlights are turned higher, and while the flutes and shawms of the orchestra strike up the overture, the people enter and take their places among the bushes and by the shore of the Lake." And how confiding they were, this gentle and peaceful company of Galilaean fisher folk! And He, the young carpenter, conjured the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth for a year, bv the spell of the infinite tenderness which radiated from Him. A company of men and women, all of the same youthful integrity and simple innocence, became His followers and constantly repeated "Thou art the Messiah." By the women He was more beloved than He Himself liked, but from His passion for the glory of His Father He was content to attract these "fair creatures" (belles creatures) and suffered them to serve Him, and God through Him. Three or four devoted Galilaean women constantly accompanied Him and strove with one another for the pleasure (le plaisir) of listening to His teaching and attending to His comfort. Some of them were wealthy and used their means to enable the "amiable" (charmant) prophet to live without needing to practise His handicraft. The most devoted of all was Mary Magdalene, whose disordered mind had been healed by the influence of the pure and gracious beauty (par la beaute pure et douce) of the young Rabbi.
Thus He rode, on His long-eyelashed gentle mule, from village to village, from town to town. The sweet theology of love (la delicieuse theologie de l'amour) won Him all hearts. His preaching was gentle and mild (suave et douce}, full of nature and the fragrance of the country. Wherever He went the people kept festival. At marriages He was a welcome guest; to the feasts which He gave He invited women who were sinners, and publicans like the good Zacchaeus.
"The Frenchman," remarks Noack, "takes the mummied figure of the Galilaean Rabbi, which criticism has exhumed, endows it with life and energy, and brings Him upon the stage, first amid the lustre of the earthly happiness which it was His pleasure to bestow, and then in the moving aspect of one doomed to suffer."
When Jesus goes up to the Passover at the end of this first year, He comes into conflict with the Rabbis of the capital. The "winsome teacher, Who offered forgiveness to all on the sole condition of loving Him," found in the capital people upon whom His charm had no effect. When He returned to Galilee He had entirely abandoned His Jewish beliefs, and a revolutionary ardour glowed in His heart. The second act begins. "The action becomes more serious and gloomy, and the pupil of Strauss turns
