Joel turned to Phineas, who had joined them some time ago. "Do you see that?" he asked excitedly. "They have been multiplied a thousand fold!"
Phineas smiled. "We drop one tiny grain of wheat into the earth," he said, "and when it grows and spreads and bears dozens of other grains on its single stalk, we are not astonished. When the Master but does in an instant, what Nature takes months to do, we cry, 'a miracle!' 'Men are more wont to be astonished at the sun's eclipse, than at its daily rising,'" he quoted, remembering his conversation with the old traveller, on his way to Nathan ben Obed's.
A feeling of exaltation seized the people as they ate the mysterious bread; it seemed that the days of miraculous manna had come again. By the time they had all satisfied their hunger, and twelve basketfuls of the fragments had been gathered up, they were ready to make Him their king. The restlessness of the times had taken possession of them; the burning excitement must find vent in some way, and with one accord they demanded Him as their leader.
Joel wondered why He should refuse. Surely no other man he had ever known could have resisted such an appeal.
The perplexed fisherman, at Jesus's command, turned their boat homeward without Him. To their simple minds it seemed that He had made a mistake in resisting the homage forced upon Him by the people; they longed for the time to come when they should be recognized as the honored officials in the new kingdom. Many a dream of future power and magnificence must have come to them in the still watches of the night, as they drifted home in the white light of the Passover moon.
Many a time in the weeks that followed, Joel slipped away to his favorite spot on the beech, a flat rock half hidden by a clump of oleander bushes. Here, with his feet idly dangling in the ripples, he looked out over the water, and recalled the scenes he had witnessed there.
It seemed so marvellous to him that the Master could have ever walked on those shining waves; and yet he had seen Him that night after the feeding of the multitudes. He had seen, with his own frightened eyes, the Master walk calmly towards the boat across the unsteady water, and catch up the sinking Peter, who had jumped overboard to meet Him. It grieved and fretted the boy that this man, of God-given power and such sweet unselfish spirit, could be so persistently misunderstood by the people. He could think of nothing else.
He had not been with the crowds that pressed into the synagogue the Sabbath after the thousands had been fed; but Phineas came home with grim lips and knitted brows, and told him about it.
"The Master knew they followed Him because of the loaves and fishes," he said. "He told them so.
"When we came out of the door, I could not help looking up at the lintel on which is carved the pot of manna; for when they asked Him for a sign that they might believe Him, saying, 'Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness!' He answered: 'I am the bread of life! Ye have seen me, and yet believe not!'