He was a stranger in our midst, and His life was hidden with dark veils.
He walked not the path of our God, but followed the course of the foul and the infamous.
His childhood revolted, and rejected the sweet milk of our nature.
His youth was inflamed like dry grass that burns in the night.
And when He became a man, He took arms against us all.
Such men are conceived in the ebb tide of human kindness, and born in unholy tempests. And in tempests they live a day and then perish forever.
Do you not remember Him, a boy overweening, who would argue with our learnèd elders, and laugh at their dignity?
And remember you not His youth, when He lived by the saw and the chisel? He would not accompany our sons and daughters on their holidays. He would walk alone.
And He would not return the salutation of those who hailed Him, as though He were above us.
I myself met Him once in the field and greeted Him, and He only smiled, and in His smile I beheld arrogance and insult.
Not long afterward my daughter went with her companions to the vineyards to gather the grapes, and she spoke to Him and He did not answer her.
He spoke only to the whole company of grape-gatherers, as if my daughter had not been among them.