For several days before the Passover celebration every highway leading to Jerusalem had been ground to fine dust by the hoofs of flocks and herds, and of slow asses laden with coops of doves and by the wheels of carts heavy with lambs—all moving toward the sacrificial knives of the Temple. By the morning of the day preceding that of the Great Feast, at an early hour all was life and excitement in the Outer Court of the Temple. Here booths and stalls had been erected for traffic in everything from oil and wine to graven earrings, and although such was forbidden, yet for more than half a century had the House of Annas grown rich from the tax on Temple traffic and no man had dared speak openly against it.

Not only was this income great, but there were yet greater returns from the tables of the money-changers. From all portions of the world came devout Jews to the Passover each contributing his compulsory half shekel tribute money. As this tax money must by law be paid in Hebrew coin, the money-changing business was established and the favored ones who were allowed to operate in the Temple took the best places which they filled with chests and sacks of Hebrew money, mostly mites and farthings, and with unfilled boxes and bags in which to store the foreign coin taken in at an exorbitant exchange profit. While the tradesmen and stock drivers had begun early to prepare for a season of unusual profit making, the money-changers had not forgotten their interests. Indeed, this aristocracy of profit makers had held council but the night before and agreed on the price of exchange and the extra soldiery necessary for handling such troublesome strangers as might raise objections should a spurious coin lodge in an honest palm. Among the money-lenders none was more keenly alive to his own interests than Zador Ben Amon who by gift-giving and cunning had secured a place for his long table near the steps leading from the Outer Court up to the Beautiful Gate. In addition to this choice place of business, Ben Amon had a gold and silver shop on the other side of the Outer Court and half a dozen more scattered through the city. In each of these places he had trusted salesmen and trusted watchers all of whom he himself watched.

It was early on the morning following the day he had been publicly proclaimed King with such a mighty demonstration, that Jesus made his way over Olivet from Bethany to Jerusalem. As was his pleasure oftentimes, he walked alone. The greater number who had followed him the day before were Galileans and those who camped with them beyond the city walls. These would not have business in the Temple until a later hour nor did he expect recognition that would give him any publicity from strangers or the busy tradesmen. Before the Golden Gate he paused and lifted his eyes. On each side were handsome pillars said to have been brought to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba. But he was not thinking of these. Perhaps he heard the glad hosannahs ringing as they had sounded but a day before. Perhaps it was the bleating of young lambs he heard; perhaps the voice of a woman as she bade him not be late at the day's dinner where he was to be an honored guest.

Standing but a moment he passed under the gate and through the city streets to the Temple. As he entered the portals of Solomon's Porch the babel of many tongues, the ring of hammers and the hoarse shouting of cattle drivers reached his ear and prepared his eye for the picture of activity it would behold in the Outer Court. With every step he took, the noise and confusion grew. Wishing to study the crowd without himself being seen, he climbed on to the marble balustrade of the Outer Court where it ran between two pillars and in the niche thus made concealed himself.

Directly across from where he stood was the table of Zador Ben Amon with two servants already in charge and a watcher to keep his eye on the chests and bags under the table. At this stand business had already begun. A Roman Jew had just left with his good Hebrew coin, and an Egyptian had come up, when a woman with two men stopped in front of the Galilean so that he could no longer see the money-changing going on. The woman wore the garb of a widow. One of the men was a scribe. The other man was a Pharisee. The face of the woman was much troubled and she plead with the scribe and the Pharisee. And when they would have left her she clung to them and passed on thus into the crowd. Very shortly after the three had passed the Galilean, he saw this same scribe at the money table across the way. He seemed to be buying a bag of coins, most likely mites for alms giving.

For half an hour the Galilean Rabbi watched the moving people from where he stood. Then he left the place and went into the Woman's Court. As there could be no traffic carried on here, there were few people and less noise, and he had not gone far when he heard some one weeping. He soon found it to be the widow he had seen a short time before. Without hesitation he approached her. "Why weepest thou?" he asked.

"The inheritance of my father hath been taken from me. The mother of six small men children I am and my husband hath died. And now no place of shelter have I."

"Who hath taken thy home?"

"The scribe took it not—so sayeth he. The Pharisee took it not—so sayeth he. But the two of them have taken my shelter to satisfy the Law—so say they."

"A scribe and a Pharisee. They are wolves in sheep's clothing!"

"Yea—but doth this get back for me my inheritance? Canst thou help me? My husband hath died and I am defrauded of all I possess."

"Silver and gold have I none—yet shall there be a reckoning!"

"My shelter is taken! My husband is dead and there is none to defend me!" and the woman turned her face again to the wall and wept bitterly.

The Galilean stood for a moment. Then he turned back and crossed the Outer Court coming into the porch. Here the sound of a trumpet attracted his attention. It was a Pharisee announcing his time of prayer. And when a crowd had gathered the Pharisee threw back his head and beat his breast until his frontlet dangled, and he thanked God he was not as other men. And lo, it was the one who had robbed the widow. The Galilean felt the flush of anger heat his cheek and he clenched his fist as in childhood days he had done when some injustice demanded relief at his hands. With rising indignation he watched the Pharisee until a part of his long and carefully worded prayer had been told into the ear of the public.

As Jesus passed down the steps at no great distance he heard shouting and scuffling. Here he saw the scribe who had purchased coins from the table of Zador Ben Amon. A crowd of beggars had gathered and when the lawyer threw out the coins there was a great scramble and shoving and cursing. Those who picked up a coin shouted. Those who found none, fought. As a coin rolled toward the young Rabbi he picked it up and a look of surprise showed on his face as he examined it. Then again rose his anger and indignation, for the coin was spurious, as he soon found others to be.

Again he clenched his fist and the impulse came to strike, but he put it away and leaving the Temple turned his feet toward a narrow back street where the poverty-stricken swarmed. Here the pallid faces of the hungry, and the maimed bodies of many men told something of the suffering inflicted on these poor by the late wars. As he made his way through this district, the heart of Jesus was bowed under a great weight which was growing heavier and heavier as he acquainted himself with the mass suffering. Following a narrow street to a side gate he went beyond the city walls into a place of stony valleys and gloomy ravines that made the quarries and pools of Jerusalem. In this place, fed by waters running through a subterranean passage from a fountain, was the Pool of Siloam. Gathered here on the broad stone steps that ran to the water's edge, was the outcast poor and the crippled. For a time the Galilean looked upon the scene of helplessness and pain with eyes of infinite compassion and pity, then turning his back on the basin of Siloam's misery, he lifted his eyes to Zion on the Mount and with a long deep sigh exclaimed: "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

Retracing his steps, Kedron came into view and again he paused. As he looked into the valley the stream ran brown. To-morrow it would carry clots of rosy foam under which the current would be dark and ruddy. Even as he looked upon it, the lambs were bleating in the stalls. The picture of the bloody sacrifice came before him—the awe-inspiring congregation of two hundred thousand of 'God's chosen ones.' At the ninth hour three blasts of the silver trumpet would start the surging chant of five thousand Levites and signal the beginning of the slaughter. And in the next six hours two hundred thousand lambs must be slain and carried away from the gate.

"What availeth all this?" he said to himself.

When Jesus reentered the Temple, several hours had passed. The noise in the Outer Court had now grown to a deafening roar. Cattle were lowing and lambs bleating. Men shouted and cursed when an affrighted animal broke its tether. The voices of other men were heard calling their wares at shop entrances and booths, and the air was heavy with the stench of goats and cattle dung. Making his way through the crowd he found the niche between the pillars and again stepped into it to look for a few moments upon the scene of uproar and confusion. There was nothing to indicate a place of worship. Rather was it a great bazaar of shops with competition so keen at times as to give promise of the use of fists. In addition to the stalls of lambs and pigeons and the booths of oil and wine and wheat required for the sacrifices, there were stands for vase sellers, brass and copper dealers, dealers in ovens, dishes and bottles, silk merchants and jewelers and traffickers in imported goods.

The crowd was made up mostly of tradespeople and strangers with a sprinkling of Temple Guards and here and there scribes and Pharisees. The gleam of spear points of the Legion told that an extra guard had been sent in from the Tower of Antonio, and Jesus noticed that this guard was well established around the tables of the money-changers. His eye turned again to the table directly in front of him and now for the first time he saw its owner. He smiled at the memory of a startled face looking at him in the dark from over a water-jar. But Zador Ben Amon did not look his way now. He was busy passing on the value of coins and in seeing that any who complained were well pushed out of the way by soldiers, to be swallowed up by the crowd. For a time Jesus watched the game. The last victim of the unscrupulous money-changer was a Galilean peasant, whose travel-stained and shabby body covering, bent shoulders and knotted hands bespoke poverty. When the change was pressed into his hand he refused to accept it. There were words. The peasant was ordered by Zador Ben Amon to move on. This he refused to do. Guards were summoned and when the man, who had been robbed of his one coin, still clamored for his money, he was cruelly beaten and dragged away to the stocks.

The Galilean watching from the balustrade felt again the fierce anger sweeping over him and he left his place of watching with his face turned in the direction of the money-changers. As he crossed the court he stopped at a goat pen. A dozen goats were just being brought in on the shoulders of as many men. As the animals were pushed into the pen the thongs that bound their legs were cast aside. Selecting a handful of these Jesus pressed on. When he reached the table of Zador Ben Amon, this mighty Sadducee was not in sight. But business was going on and, quite near at hand, the Galilean watched the money-changing while his quick fingers plaited a scourge, and the muscles of his arm called him to action. He spoke no word and no man noticed the flush on his face nor the fire in his eye until the hiss of the thong sang over the heads of those about the table of Ben Amon and its stinging force fell across those who bent over the money bags. There was a yell, and another hissing of the thongs. Then the words rang out in a shout of mighty condemnation, "Ye have made my Father's house a den of thieves!" And the thong writhed and hissed and struck and stung and the coin-laden tables were overturned with the ease and fury of an enraged man brushing straw aside. Seeing the uproar about his table, Zador Ben Amon pushed his way through the confusion just in time to see two well filled money bags kicked open by a fellow money-changer trying to escape the scourge. With a shout and a curse he sprang forward. As he did so the hiss of the burning thongs sounded in his ears and the next instant he was blinded by the stinging pain of the scourge as blood ran across his cheeks and into his well oiled beard.

With incredible swiftness the money-changers had been driven out and the cleanser of the Temple had mounted the steps of the Beautiful Gate, and thong in hand was looking out on a scene unparalleled. Servants of money-changers were creeping about the floor; thieves were quickly at work stealing from those who had stolen, and the money-changers themselves, Zador Ben Amon with bloody face among them, were struggling desperately to get possession of their bags before their contents should be wholly appropriated by itching fingers. Running in and out among the affrighted people were animals yet more affrighted whose bleating and bellowing mingled with the outcries of men, while over the heads of them all flocks of frightened doves with swift wing sought escape to the open.

There was a call for guards, but the man pausing on the steps for a passing moment only smiled as he saw them search for one who so boldly stood before them. But if the guards knew not where to look for him, there were those who saw, and in the commotion, when the question was asked, "Who did this thing?" the answer was, "Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee who hath been acclaimed King of the Jews. He hath taken charge of the Temple! Let us see what cometh."

The first development from the confusion was the appearance of a number of scribes, Pharisees and Chief Priests who made their way in a body to the foot of the steps where he who had wrought the confusion stood. Fear, surprise and anger in varying degree marked the faces of these Temple officials. But their wrath was as nothing beside the righteous indignation of him who stood, thong in hand, awaiting their coming. They stopped at the foot of the steps—beyond reach of the weapon in his hand. And from this safe distance they challenged his right and his authority.

A moment he regarded them in silent scorn, then he twisted the whip into a loose roll and flung it at their feet saying, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men! Woe unto you, hypocrites! Ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation! Woe unto ye, blind guides! Ye pay the tithe of mint and anise and cummin and omit the weightier matters of the Law,—judgment, mercy and faith. Ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess! Woe, woe unto you! Ye are like whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward but within are full of dead men's bones! Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye build tombs for the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous while ye yourselves be children of them which killed the prophets! Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! Ye serpents! How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Ye generation of vipers!"

A murmur was heard from the crowd which threatened to grow into a mighty demonstration, when, beginning on the outer edge, it died suddenly. In its place was heard the measured tramp of feet and the clanking of arms. As if a magic wand had been extended over the people, the mass separated in the middle, forming an aisle through which came the High Priest's guard of Roman spearmen. Tongues stopped wagging. Something was going to happen. The tinkle of golden bells told that the High Priest himself approached, and every eye was turned to look upon him. Imperious in the splendor of his exalted office he made his way. His robe of blue and purple and scarlet, his gorgeous colored coat, his purple mitre and above all the sacred breast-plate sparkling with its twelve emblematic jewels as it hung in place on blue cords through gold rings, were in strong contrast to the plain and worn garment of the man who waited under the high arch of the Beautiful Gate with arms folded across his breast. An intense stillness fell over the gathering—such a hush as marked the circus arena in Rome when gladiatorial combatants came together in the death-struggle. As Annas, the All-Powerful head of God's elect priesthood, neared the end of the open path cut through the throng, the Galilean lifted his eyes from the surrounding scene and entered into some high place of communion. The flush of anger left his face. The calm of the Eternal took its place, and the High Priest with his Roman spearmen lined behind him stood without recognition for a moment. When the Galilean turned his eyes on Annas he looked down as if from some vast height.

The lips of the High Priest moved, but something in the majestic mien and unfathomable eye of the one before him stopped the words half-formed. A second and third time his tongue raised itself to shape words, but the silent one before him gave unuttered command for silence. The conflict was on. Not a conflict of gleaming blades; not a conflict of cunning, neither of Senatorial oratory, nor contention of the wise gone mad. In the arena of the occult was the conflict on between such forces as move constellations and give birth to worlds. And the one force was white and the one was black. The one was the will of God leading by way of man's reason to Liberty and Life. The other was perversion leading by way of servile obedience to Bondage and Death. The one was Reality; the other but the Passing Show. So intense was the conflict of these unseen forces that it drew the multitude into its silent circle and held it spellbound. On the face of Annas alone was the progress of the fierce and deadly conflict written in terms of such hatred as made him appear almost inhuman. Yet the destructive force of the terrible vibration he sent out touched not the poise and calm of the Galilean, but after the law of like force it followed the arc of its own circle back into the breast that wore the twelve-jeweled breast-plate.

The nerve strain that seemed tearing the soul of the High Priest was communicating itself to the congregation when the tense and awful stillness was broken by a shout. "Thou art the King!" a mighty voice called above the heads of the people. "Jesus of Nazareth, thou art the King!"

With an involuntary sigh of relief the people turned from the silent actors in the drama taking place under the Beautiful Gate, to learn who had spoken. A third time the shout rang out: "Thou art the King!" Now the people saw. It was a fisherman supported above the crowd on the shoulders of two Galileans. He shook a dingy red head-cloth as he shouted. The suppressed feeling of the crowd now gave way to a great murmur like that of a sea with a tide turning in, but before there was a demonstration a wild cry sounded through the court.

A soldier standing beneath the shouting fisherman had bent his body backward, as he gave command for silence, that he might the better face him who did the unlawful act. Casting his eye down as the soldier prodded him on the leg, the fisherman saw something that changed the shout on his lips to a curse. The next instant, as if it had been hurled from the heavens, the keen, two-edged blade of a fishing knife had lodged its point in the heart of the Roman. While the dying cries of the spearman yet moved the multitude to frenzied curiosity, Jael the fisherman, the High Priest and Jesus of Nazareth, each according to his own way, left the Temple.