Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/87

Rh itself, there were penned flocks of sheep and oxen, with drovers and salesmen. Pilgrims and proselytes from all parts pressed and thronged; buyer reviled seller, and seller buyer; from the stalls of the money-changers one might hear the clink of money mixed with the sounds of contention. The stench also of so many cattle, being increased by reason of the great heat, made the ill-savor of the place almost past bearing. Also I could not but marvel at the greediness of the sellers. For the Chief Priests had let out the right of selling offerings at a great price, to make profit thereof for themselves, insomuch that a single dove was sold for a gold piece.

Then, again, when it came to the offering of the sacrifice, I must needs wait for the space of an hour whilst others were offering up their sacrifices; and the Levites and priests seemed all in haste, and did their work rather as an handicraft than as worship; and many others were sacrificing at the same time, and the cries and struggles of the victims, and the smoke and reek of the fat, and the blood flowing on all sides, caused the place to seem rather like a butcher's shambles than like the House of the Lord. Now all this I had known and seen aforetime, yet had I never taken it to heart. But now there came to my mind certain words of Philo touching the sect called the Essenes, how they worship the Lord with an exceeding carefulness of purity: wherefore they think it not meet to sacrifice the blood of beasts unto the Lord, but they offer up their own hearts, purified so as to be a fit offering for Him. Also at this time (perchance because I was but freshly come from the lecture-rooms of the philosophers of Alexandria, or belike because the Lord would have it so to be, willing by easy degrees to open mine eyes, and to reveal unto me His Messiah) so it was that I could think of naught but the words of Isaiah the Prophet wherein the Lord saith, "I