them to cease, declaring that not a boat should leave the strand till the Sabbath should be ended.
The air was calm and still so that the merchant's words came up even to my ears, as he pointed again and again to the coast over against us: "Surely your God will permit you to do this service of kindness. Yonder is my son, mine only son, dying as if within sight of his father. Strangers will receive his last breath and close his eyes. I beseech you, as ye are fathers, have compassion on a father who must soon be childless." So saying the Greek beat his breast and tore his hair; but in vain. The ruler of the synagogue, who had gathered the multitude together, would not listen to his entreaties; and he departed, weeping and wailing and calling upon his gods in vain.
Then the ruler of the synagogue, seeing the crowd running together, exhorted them to a more strict observance of the Sabbath, declaring that the breaking of the Sabbath was the principal cause of the wrath of God with His people, and of the delay of the Redemption of Sion. He went on to speak of the blessing of the Redemption, and he besought the people to do what lay in them to hasten it forward, by raising up the fences of the Law, and by constant and scrupulous obedience. "Let all repent," he said, "of former slackness and misdoings; for the Lord your God is merciful, long suffering, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. To Him belong mercies and forgiveness, though ye have rebelled against Him."
By this time a great multitude was come together, and in the uttermost parts of the throng stood certain tax-gatherers (among whom was the principal, receiver of customs in Capernaum, by name Matthew the son of Alpheus), with certain of the looser sort, men and women,
