40 PIONEERS Of EVOLUTION PART 



hearts of his hearers. Women, often of the outcast 

 class, were drawn to him by the sympathy which 

 attracted even more than his teaching. Among a 

 people to whom the unvarying order of nature was 

 an idea wholly foreign, for Greek speculations had 

 not penetrated into Palestine, stories of miracle- 

 working found easy credit, falling-in, as they did, 

 with popular belief in the constant intervention of 

 deity. Thus to the reports of what Jesus taught 

 were added those of the wonders which he had 

 wrought, from feeding thousands of folk with a few 

 loaves of bread to raising the dead to life, His 

 itinerant mission secured him a few devoted followers 

 from various towns and villages ; while the effect of 

 success upon himself was to heighten his own con- 

 ception of the importance of his work. The skill of 

 the Romans in fusing together subject-races had 

 failed them in the case of the Jews, whose belief in 

 their special place in the world as the 'chosen people' 

 never forsook them. Nor had their misfortunes 

 weakened their belief that the Messiah predicted by 

 their prophets would appear to deliver them, and 

 plant their feet on the neck of the hated con- 

 queror. This hope, as became a pious Jew, Jesus 

 shared, but it set him brooding on some nobler, 

 because more spiritual, conception of it than his 

 fellow-countrymen nurtured. Finally, it led him to 

 the belief, fostered by the ambition of his nearer 

 disciples, which was, however, material in its hopes, 

 that he was the spiritual Messiah. In that faith 

 he repaired to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover 

 feast when the city was crowded with devotees, that 

 he might, before the chief priests and elders, make 



