"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And again he stooped and wrote on the ground. When he arose he saw none save the woman, to whom he said, "Where are those, thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?"
"No man, Lord."
"Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."
The effect of the scene so elated the disciples that for a time they forgot their fear and anxiety; but Magdalene, Mary and Nicodemus took a different view. Mary, his mother, saying, "Rebuff does not always mean defeat."
So the day passed until evening, when Mary came over to invite the Galileans to an evening repast. When supper was over they turned to the garden for devotion, after which Peter and John escorted the Galilean women to the house of Joseph, while Jesus and his disciples slept in the house of Simon.
The following day a strange group approached Zion; Jesus, with his tall stooping form, so emaciated that one could almost read through his hand, advancing with a far away look, as though beyond the doomed city he beheld the anxious father awaiting his son's return. He was followed by Mary and Martha, two large, dark sisters of the Hebrew type with swinging gait and sincere expression, who contrasted strangely with the pretty Magdalene, whose startled gaze gave her the appearance of a bird or fawn awaiting alarm.
At the brook Cedron they found the others awaiting them, when they all climbed the hill, turning to the left to avoid the crowd, and passed around the corner, entering Solomon's temple area by the south gate, where they were almost submerged by the throng; for the news had spread that Jesus had yesterday confuted the learned, who had sent to entangle him, without even laying himself open to criticism.
On entering the treasury, where all expounders were accustomed to teach, they found the front space again occupied by scribes and Pharisees, still keenly anxious to gain notoriety by wringing from Jesus a sentence which might be taken up by the throng as blasphemy, for which they might stone him to death without danger of punishment at the Roman Bar.
As Jesus approached the rostrum an aged scribe, of the Arabian type, cried out, "Who art thou?"
Jesus adroitly evaded a direct reply by asking, "What think ye of Christ; whose son is he?"