“You ask wisely, son,” answered Hillel, “and I think the prophets tell us that we must hope for only one Messiah. This book of Daniel is full of heavenly words, but it is not counted among the prophets whose writings are gathered in the Scripture. Which of them have you read, and which do you love most, my son?”
“Isaiah,” said the Boy, “because he says God will have mercy with everlasting-kindness. But I love Daniel, too, because he says they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. But I do not understand what he says about the times and a half-time and the days and the seasons before the coming of Messiah.”
With this there rose a dispute among the doctors about the meaning of those sayings, and some explained them one way and some another, but Hillel sat silent. At last he said:
“It is better to hope and to wait patiently for Him than to reckon the day of His coming. For if the reckoning is wrong, and He does not come, then men despair, and no longer make ready for Him.”
“How does a man make ready for Him, Rabbi?” asked the Boy.
“By prayer, son, and by study of the law, and by good works, and by sacrifices.”
“But when He comes He will rule over the whole world, and how can all the world come to the Temple to sacrifice?”
“A way will be provided,” answered the old man, “though I do not know how it will be. And there are offerings of the heart as well as of the altar. It is written, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.'”
“Will His kingdom be for the poor as well as for the rich, and for the ignorant as well as for the wise?”
{Illustration: From a painting by Holman Junt. The Finding of Christ in The Temple}