There were tumults in Judaea and massacres in Jerusalem.

False prophets such as Theudas, who pretended that he could divide Jordan, attracted thousands to their tinsel standards, to be hewn down, poor folk! by the Roman legions.

Caesars rose and fell; the great Temple was at length almost completed in its glory, and many events happened which are remembered even to this day.
But in the little village of the Essenes by the grey shores of the Dead Sea, nothing seemed to change, except that now and again an aged brother died, and now and again a new brother was admitted.

They rose before daylight and offered their invocation to the sun; they went out to toil in the fields and sowed their crops, to reap them in due season, thankful if they were good, still thankful if they were bad.

They washed, they prayed, they mourned over the wickedness of the world, and wove themselves white garments emblematic of a better.