Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/95

Rh proclaiming the hour of prayer; and lo, the fields were empty, neither was any one anywhere to be seen. Presently they appeared again in white robes thronging to the house of prayer. Then a sound, as of psalms sung by many voices, rose up to my ears, and filled my heart with a deep peace. I waited for the space of nearly an hour, till the assembly had broken up, returning in their white robes to their several cottages. When I had beheld all this, my heart rejoiced, and I said, "If only all Israel could thus return to the Lord, then would the dough be no longer corrupt with leaven, according to the saying; and the wrath of the Lord would be turned from His people." But then came into my mind the saying of Philo, that the virtue towards man must come before the virtue towards God. I remembered also that which I had often before heard of the Essenes, how they neither marry nor give in marriage, but replenish their community by adopting the children of others and by admitting of strangers into their number. Then I bethought myself that if all the children of Israel should become Essenes, Israel would speedily perish; neither could there be any Redemption. For even now, though there had been Essenes these thirty or forty years, or even more, yet did they number no more than three thousand or four thousand men in all Israel; and of these almost all lived in the country, avoiding towns for fear of defilement, and exceeding even the Pharisees in the strictness wherewith they observe Sabbaths and obey the precepts of the Law (save only in the matter of sacrifice). So, as I looked down upon the village, and round upon the hills which shut it in and hid it from the sight of men, the proverb came to my mind which sayeth that "a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid:" but said I, "the city of the Essenes lieth in a valley." Then I turned my back upon the place and