Page:As others saw Him.djvu/47

 Rh were in the gallery outside the synagogue, and separated from it by a grating. Then after the priest came a Levite, who also read some verses, and after him an ordinary Israelite. Then the messenger of the synagogue called out, "Let Rabbi Joshua ben Joseph arise." Then Jesus the Nazarene went up to the bema and read his appointed verses, and these were translated as before by the dragoman. And after the reading of the Law was concluded, the Parnass, or president of the congregation, requested Jesus to read the Haphtara, the lesson from the prophets; and this he did, using the cantillation with which we chant words of Holy Scripture. Yet never heard I one whose voice so thrilled me, and brought home to one the import of the great words; and this was strange, for his accent was, as I had before noticed, that of the Galilæan peasantry, at which we of Jerusalem were wont to scoff. Then, after the Law had been returned to the ark with song and psalm, Jesus turned round to the people on the bema and began his discourse. It is near five-and-twenty years since I heard him, and much have I