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JESUS THE CHRIST

THE

STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
an interpretation

BY

ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS -W.-o.-u
author of " a singular life," " the gates ajar," " the supply
at saint agatha's," etc.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
(3R>e tfttoerJi&e $«?£, dam&ribge
1897

COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

" A man whose soul is absorbed in a great life's work is apt
to disclose his own mental history only in glimpses. Christ
was no exception to this." Austin Phelps.

To the friends and critics whose sympathy and
scholarship have made it possible for me to overcome
the difficulties under which this work has been done,
I owe a gratitude beyond words.
E. S. P. W.

NOTE
This book is not theology or criticism, nor is it
biography. It is neither history, controversy, nor a
sermon. It makes none of the claims, it assumes
none of the pretensions, of any one of these. It is
not a study of Jewish life or Oriental customs. It
is not a handbook of Palestinian travel, nor a map
of Galilean and Judean geography. It is not a
creed; it speaks for no sect, it pleads for no doc
trine. It is a narrative, and will be received as such by
those who understand the laws of narrative expres
sion. Beautiful romances have been written upon
the subject which these pages venture to approach ;
but this is not fiction. The great historical facts
that revealed the Founder of Christianity to us
have been carefully considered. No important de
parture from the outlines of his only authorized
biography has beguiled the pen which has here
sought to portray the Great Story with loving
docility. The few, unfamiliar strokes by which
these outlines have been sometimes filled have been
reverently and studiously adjusted to the compo
sition of the picture, — it is hoped without offense
to probabilities. It is believed that these proba
bilities are so reasonable that they may serve to

viii NOTE
deepen, not to dissipate, our respect for such know
ledge as we possess concerning the life of Jesus
Christ. A student of this subject, who comes to it from
outside dogmatic prepossessions, is amazed — one
almost says appalled — at the conditions of thought
through which he must approach it. The Christie
literature is one vast controversy. Critic contends
with critic, and theologian with theologian. Bio
graphers and commentators differ with an intensity
which, though it startles, not always pleasantly, is a
tribute to the powerful interest of the topic, and a
stimulus to its study.
The memorial of the Gospels was written by plain
men who knew little of literature, nothing of science,
but much of the central Figure of their times. As a
fragmentary biographical record of ancient origin,
this memorial is necessarily subject to more or less
personal interpretation. Among what we may call
its secondary features, there are few in the treat
ment of which scholars are agreed.
The writer of this narrative is not unaware of the
differences among New Testament critics when she
chooses between them such aspects of many events
or conditions as seem to her best for the purposes
of this book.
The life of Christ was lived to inspire, not to
confuse. Little things are restless ; the great re
pose. Scholars are tenacious of detail, for they hold
the values of accuracy in their keeping. But Chris
tian scholars are generous in feeling, for they hold
the treasures of their faith in trust. They may con-

NOTE ix
tend about the unimportant. On the essential they
will agree.
What does it signify whether the star of Beth
lehem was a meteor or a miracle ? What does it
matter whether Jesus was born in one year or the
next, in this month or that? It is of no conse
quence whether he was baptized in Jordan River or
Jordan region. It is quite immaterial whether the
misfortunes of Mary Magdalene were mental or
moral, or, indeed, which of the Marys she was. The
precise chronology of the unknown feast is a little
question. Whether Jesus revisited Nazareth once
or twice is a point not worth two pages of contro
versy. The important things — all that any of us need,
all that most of us care for — are few, clear, and
unquestionable. Jesus Christ lived and died, and
lived again after death. He lived a life explicable
upon no other view of it than his. He founded a
faith comprehensible upon no other interpretation of
it than his own. He himself is Christianity. He
is the greatest force in civilization : the highest
motive power in philosophy, in art, in poetry, in
science, in faith. He is the creator of human
brotherhood. To apprehend him is to open the
only way that has yet been found out of the trap
of human misery. His personality is the best expla
nation yet given of the mystery of human life. It
offers the only assurance we have of a life to come.
The butterflies of immortal hope are delicate
organisms, easily impaled by skeptical naturalists,
and eagerly catalogued with other lost ideals.

x NOTE
Modern interrogation has raised many queries
with which no student of this theme can be unfa
miliar, but on which it is not the mind of this book
to dwell.
It is the fashion of our times to trouble one's self
about the supernatural ; as if (for aught we know
to the contrary) the supernatural might not be the
most natural of all things ! It is the intellectual
mode, and Christian scholarship has not altogether
escaped it, apologetically to investigate what are
called miracles.
There is not, there never was, there never may be,
a miracle as strange as the life of Jesus the Christ.
He was the Miracle. Explain him. There will be
no difficulty with any lesser wonder.
Biographies of Christ are many. They are all
learned, and most of them are long. They are
crowded with the erudition which scholars have
demanded of each other, and possess, in spite of it,
much of the interest which the ordinary human
being seeks and needs, but which he needs without
being obliged to seek too hard for it. To this mass
of instructed work I am a thankful debtor. It is
with confidence in the kind tolerance and welcome
of students obviously far wiser than myself, that I
venture to add this unpretending book to a stately
company. But men are many and scholars are few. It is
with more confidence in the warm, human world
outside of books, that this one hopes to find its
friends. There has come to me, during the time given to

NOTE xi
the growth of this work, an experience always full
of wonder and of charm. Often, on waking in the
morning, after days of the most absorbing and
affectionate study of the Great Life, the first con
scious thought has been : " Who was with me
yesterday ? What noble being entered this door ?
In what delightful, in what high society, have I
been ! " I felt as if I had made a new, a supreme
acquaintance. I pass over this feeling to those who can under
stand it, or who may share it ; and wish it, from my
heart, for those who do not.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Presage  .1
I. The Boy  41
II. A Beautiful Scene  62
HI. The Wilderness  77
IV. The Flrst Wonders  94
V. In His Own Country  115
VI. The Healer  137
VII. The Preacher ; and the Dead .... 161
VIH. The Rabbi, and the Woman . ... 182
IX. Across the Lake  205
X. Five Thousand Guests  221
XI. A Decisive Crisis  240
XII. The Mountain : and the Tomb . . 259
XHI. Into Jerusalem . . . 287
XTV In the Temple .... ... 312
XV. Gethsemane .... . 336
XVI. On Trial  358
XVH. Golgotha . .  380
XVIH. The Resurrection and the Life .... 396

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Jesus the Christ (from Christ
and the Rich Young Man) . H. Hofmann . . Frontispiece
Bethlehem  From a photograph ... 20
Arrival of the Shepherds . . H. LeRolle  24
Tbe Holy Family  M. Feuerstein  32
The Madonna  P. A. J. Dagnan-Bouveret 36
The Repose in Egypt . . . . L. O. Merson  38
His First View of Jerusalem . O. Mengelberg  48
Christ in the Temple . . . . H. Hofmann  54
The Baptism of Christ . . . Frank V- DuMond ... 72
The Jordan  From a photograph ... 80
Nazareth  From a photograph . . 126
Christ the Healer . . . E. Zimmermann . . 142
Christ by the Sea  Alexander Bida . . . .164
Christ and the Fishermen . . E. Zimmermann .... 202
Jalrus' Daughter  H. Hofmann . ... 226
Jerusalem from Mount of
Olives  From a photograph . . . 302
The Cosnaculum (said to be the
House of the Last Supper) . . From a photograph . . . 336
Christ at the Last Supper . . Leonardo da Vinci ^_ . . 344
Christ in Gethsemane . . . . E. K. Liska . ... 352
The Betrayal  C. Aug. Geiger .... 358
Christ and Pilate — " Ecce
Homo "  A. Ciseri  384
Golgotha  J. L. Gerome  394
The Supper at Emmaus (from
a Copley print, copyright by
Curtis and Cameron) . . . L. L'Hermitte  408
The Ascension  G. Biermann  412

THE STOEY OF JESUS CHRIST

PRESAGE

Call it the year of Rome 749, or the year 5 be
fore our era. The land was Palestine.
Fifteen hilltops watched the village. This high
country, eighty miles away from the capital, shut in
the inhabitants of little towns with much the same
general effects that we find to-day, in mountain re
gions where the people cannot easily get away from
their silent homes and close horizons ; they depend
more for such knowledge of life as they have upon
the world's coming to them, than upon their going
to it.
There was a valley, cutting these hills from east
to west. It threw up a small plateau, on which a
settlement condensed rather than straggling, hung
with a certain half-melancholy, half-cheerful pictur-
esqueness ; an effect peculiar to a limestone country,
where the low tints of gray and the cold tones of
white weigh the landscape ; but where " green things
growing " find generous hospitality in the cultivated
soil.

2 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
There was a fountain; the only one in the vil
lage. The women went with their urns on their
shoulders to get water for the family supply ; they
stood, graceful, slow of motion, lazy and lovely,
taking each her turn. It was approaching the cool
of the day. The women chattered like birds ; they
raised their eyes to the mountains indifferently.
The sky was taking on a great preparation of color ;
but the women preferred to hear what was to be
said. A girl put down her urn, and looked at the sky.
She did not talk. She moved away a little from
the other women, and leaned against a high, white
rock. Her chin was lifted, her eyes upraised ; her
mouth had a sweet expression ; her thoughts were
high. She had the manner of one who preferred to
be alone without knowing why.
The other women rustled, gossiping, away. The
girl followed slowly, with obvious reluctance ; she
walked alone. , The urn stood steadily upon her
head ; her carriage was straight and noble. She
was of middle height, or possibly a little above it.
She had a fair complexion, blonde hair, and bright,
hazel eyes. Her eyebrows were arched and dark ;
her lips ruddy, and full of .kindness when she spoke.
Her face was long rather than round ; her hands
and fingers were finely shaped. " She had no weak
ness of manner, but was far from forwardness.
She had no pride, but was simple, and free from
deceit. She showed respect and honor to all. She
was very gentle, in all things serious and earnest ;
she spoke little, and only to the purpose." 1
1 Tradition.

PRESAGE 3
The women of her race are easily beautiful at any
time; and the region in which she lived was re
marked for the attractiveness of its feminine inhabi
tants. Their very dress was more ornamental and
effective than in some other portions of the province.
To this day the same is true. In the hill and valley
country to which the village clung, there was a spe
cial richness of growth ; foliage, fruit, flower, and
woman developed gracefully and with luxuriance.
Now the maiden was a poor girl, born of work
ing people, reared by them, and living among them.
Yet she came of the lineage of a powerful and popu
lar king. This country maid, this laborer's child,
was born, not to the purple, but of it. She might
be called a royal peasant. Her veins ran with the
richest blood ofgjhe nation; her hands knew its
commonest toil. TA jratrician ancestry and a plebe
ian training make, fOTCfl^ain ends, the most desir
able inheritance that can beftll «e. She had it.
To call her devout, is to say tkarSne* was •some
thing more than a good churchwoman. In a girlish
way she was a sweet student of the Law and the
Prophets, but she was more than that. She was
one of the rare natures in which faith is like breath.
We see its gentle pulsations, and respect them un
consciously as we would a law of physiology Many
phrases have been invented to describe the soul that
seeks the divine because it is the perfectly natural
and inevitable thing for it to do ; but none of them
are satisfactory to us ; perhaps because most of us
are too far from that type of being ourselves to un
derstand it. We can honestly revere dedication

4 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
when we believe in it, however, and hers it is im
possible to question.
She was one of those exquisite spirits that are
able to rely on truth which they cannot comprehend,
without any waste of the nature in doubt or evasion.
She believed so utterly in the God of her people
that He was more real to her than any other fact
of life.
The month was April ; and this is to say the
bloom of the year in Palestine. The early spring
and quick, luxuriant growth of the warm climate
gave to that month something of the characteristics
of our own June. It was the time of sun and splen
dor. It was the time of leaf and blossom. It was
the time when hope and fulfillment met in the face
of the fields, and when the countenance of the sky
and the breath of the atmosphere hold that some

thing separate from this^eartn which appertains to
all perfect beauty.^ The dullest of us are conscious
of it, when'tHe^firelburns in the young grass-blade
and the color in the opening flower, the dazzle in
the air, and the depth in the heavens.
The Galilean girl felt the holiness of beauty, for
she was capable of feeling everything pure and ex
quisite ; and she kept herself alone, to dwell upon the
gentle thoughts developed in her by the divinity of
the day elected for the marvel which glorifies the
name of one little mountain town forever.
The hour of evening prayer among her people fell
at the setting of the sun and the coming of the stars.
But hers was no ordinary, mechanical nature, such
as prays because it is ecclesiastical and civil law to

PRESAGE 5
do so at an ordered time. Prayer with her was the
luxury of the soul.
She trod the village street abstractedly. Her
feet, from modest habit, led her home. Without
speaking, she emptied her urn into the water-jar
that stood near the door, and quietly freshened the
herbs that floated on the top of the water. She
wished to be alone. The commoner minds about
her were still dissipated in their distractions ; hers
had already entered into that revery which is
neither wholly thought nor wholly prayer, but par
takes of the reality of both.
In the space between the sunset and the twilight
the girl stole up, unnoticed, to the roof of the house,
— the flat roof, in all hot countries the place of
family meeting, of relief from the scorching weather,
of indulgence in private grief or of prayer ; in fact,
among the poor, it was the only possible place of
retirement at home. Her poverty was not of the
squalid, but only of the strenuous kind ; and the
usual conveniences or the usual comforts of a re
spectable home were hers. But these, in the East,
were always few enough.
The hour of the evening sacrifice arrived. The
cool breeze from the west died down. Peace fell
with the calm.
The sun had set over the valley. The view from
the house-top was not a broad one ; it was restricted
by the hills. A little farther up the great slopes, a
wide panorama (often called one of the fairest in the
world) opens splendidly. But the scenery apparent
from the young girl's home, was not of the kind

6 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
that carries the mind far into vague dreams of
beauty; rather of the sort which defines familiar
outlines, — the architecture of the closing hills,
the cleft of the narrowing valley, the sights of the
village street ; the kind of outlook which makes
humility and duty seem more natural than restless
ness, acceptance, than interrogation.
But the luxuriant vegetation of Nazareth was
fair to see, even if one saw little more. The green
that is half gold melted over the hillsides, and ran
riot in the valley. Flowers were at a high tone.
The red lamps of the pomegranates were burning
freely. Fruit gardens touched in rich, metallic
colors to the landscape ; gold of apricot, with pale,
silver leaves, purple of grape, and yellow -green
of fig, passed each in its time. Hollyhocks, rose
and red and yellow, unfurled their banners. All
in their season, too, lilies of differing hues and
petals would be abloom ; the fairest of them, tall,
white, slender, maidenly, like girls in sweet proces
sion, or like angels in a vision.
In the village, roof-gardens sometimes added flow
ers to the gentle joys of home. One of these sky-
gardens belonged to the poor home of which we
think, — a little, cubic dwelling looking like a block
— and tall, white flowers stood above the vines, lean
ing against the evening sky.
The girl crept among them. Her eyes were on
the heavens. There was an aureola in her heart.
Her prayer had passed the phase of words. She
had ceased to ' address God, she had come so near
Him.

PRESAGE 7
The flood-tide of the sunset ebbed away from the
houses of the villagers, her neighbors. These houses
were white, of limestone ; vines and the shadows of
vines crept freely over the houses, softening their
dazzle. Flocks of doves swayed over and settled
upon the roofs ; when these were of delicate shades,
softly darker than the roof, the effect was charming ;
as the twilight fell, the doves scattered to their cotes
or slept in those which they had found, within the
house itself.
One of these lovely birds, — in all ages and in
most countries the symbol of purity, — dipping
across the dusk, and hanging over the roof, called
the maiden's attention to the appearance which had
awaited the slow turn of her head, and the con
centration of her gentle eyes from their devout ab
straction, upon itself.
There is always something which makes one hold
the breath when a bird of the air brushes one, or
even swings near enough to have been caught if one
had wished. It is not to be wondered at that imagi
nation has connected the spirits of the unseen, or the
departed, with the visits of birds. In Palestine
the dove was especially loved and cared for ; it was
sacred to the uses of the Temple, and religious asso
ciation was always busy with it. A gentle mind like
that of this girl would turn tenderly to the move
ments of the soft wings which arrested her notice.
Then, did she see the Angel? Did he break a
stalk of one of the white flowers, as he stirred, and
so hold it in his hand, smiling to reassure her by the
ease and cordiality of the act ?

8 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Whence came he ? Had he swept from the
heights of distant Lebanon, whose white head, turn
ing gray in the twilight, was darkening as if the
mountain drew a mantle over it ? Had he floated
on the departing cloud that rode like a chariot of
fire past the sun whose own face was hidden from
the marvel? Or had he formed from the ether,
where he stood, against the faint sky, quietly and
naturally, as inspiration forms in the soul, and faith
in the heart that is fit for it? Whatever of the
strange was in the manner of his coming, the angel
came. ii
There have been in all ages three kinds of per
sons : those who never see mystical appearances,
those who think they do, and those who do ; and
the three types may be confounded. It is also to
be suggested that visitors from an invisible life, if
such there are, and whoever such there are, may be
responsive to the absence or the presence of wel
come, like any other superior or sensitive being.
Angels, like people, might come where they are
wanted, trusted, or expected.
In fact, there are laws of spiritual hospitality,
breach of which may, for aught we know to the con
trary, deprive a human creature of the mystical
privileges. The soul of this Hebrew girl was host
ess to all that was pure and perfect, delicate, ethe
real, devout. As the flower receives the sun at
dawn, as the earth the rain at drought, she instinc
tively received the divine.

PRESAGE 9
The angel stood quietly. He seemed to wish not
to alarm the girl. She thought him a spirit of high
rank. He spoke with the tenderness natural to
str§ngth and to superiority alone. Was he used to
stand in the presence of God ? Yet he said, " Fear
not, Mary."
How astonishing the conversation which followed !
The scene moved on steadily to its solemn climax.
Question and answer succeeded with increasing
courage on the part of the Galilean girl, and with
growing definiteness on that of her celestial guest.
Clearly but gently she was given to understand that
she had not been made the subject of an inconse
quent apparition, such as were frequent enough in
Oriental experience or imagination ; but that she
was the medium of the most tremendous revelation
which this planet has ever known.
Chosen out of all the world, the Hebrew maiden
whose qualifications for her solemn mission were the
simple, womanly ones of a pure heart and a devout
life received the angel's message as she who could
be chosen by it would be sure to do. The fiat of
Deity was in the magnificent attitude of the angel ;
he stood tall, erect, majestic. Awed, the woman
fell upon her knees before the messenger of God,
and veiled her face from sight of him. "Be it
unto me," she said, " according to thy word."
Now, when he perceived that Mary understood
the import of his embassy, the angel left her. Ga
briel, a great spirit, mighty in rank, went his way
to that mysterious condition of life from which in
visible beings may wander — why not ? — not for

10 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
petty purposes, but when sufficient cause exists to
summon a superior to an inferior creature from a
higher to a lower system of things.
The woman was left, in a world like ours, to her
unique experience.
She had received from the vision a prediction
whose nature so utterly transcends all moi'tal laws
and all mortal experience that he would profane the
very courts of mystery who should descend to offer
for it any human explanation.
There is no quibbling possible with the marvel.
It must be rejected or accepted on its own great
grounds. No compromise between fact and fancy
has dignity in the isolation of the case.
Shall we be less high-minded than the instinct of
the race and the faith of the ages ?
Take the wonder as it is told.
The incarnation of Deity is an idea older than
the time when the Galilean girl in Nazareth re
ceived a spirit's message. This mystical possibil
ity has been a favorite with certain crude and
ancient religions. Instances might be given of it,
but not here ; they jar upon the lofty and beautiful
character of the Christian story, which so far sur
passes them in purity, in pathos, and in philosophy,
that one has not the rudeness of heart to introduce
them in its matchless, opening chapter.
Was all the fable but a perplexed, prophetic
yearning for the fact ? At last, in this simple, hal
lowed way, has history met it ?
Gabriel seems to have been something of a phi-

PRESAGE 11
losopher (as well as altogether an angel) when he
reminded the astonished woman, at the close of his
announcement of the incredible facts, that with God
nothing is impossible. These were astute words
under the circumstances, and worthy of a superior
intelligence. The argument admitted of no reply.
Mary listened to it gently. Her soul was a lily.
All motherhood has been dignified forever by the
spotless mystery. All humanity is nobler for the
delicacy of the womanly nature from which the Son
of the Highest should be born into a low world.

in
The story of the Gospels was written by men.
Men have studied and expounded it for two thousand
years. Men have been its commentators, its trans
lators, its preachers. All the feminine element in
it has come to us passed through the medium of
masculine minds. Of the exquisite movements in
the thought and feeling of Mary at this crisis of
her history, what man could speak? Only the
hearts of women can approach her, when, quite
without angelic endorsement or even human protec
tion, she is left to meet the consequences of the will
of God upon her life.
The angel had disappeared in his own ether.
• The music of a celestial voice was replaced by the
chat of the villagers, the plain, usual people to
whom marvels did not happen ; who would under
stand nothing. She who had heard the accents of
heaven shrank from the tones of earth. Fragments

12 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
of family conversation — the* note, though most fa
miliar, often least sympathetic to the listener — had
a foreign sound.
Had Mary a mother living ? or loving ? It is
touching to know that the first act of the wondering
girl, after the angel had explained the nature of her
future to her, was to seek the sympathy of another
woman, and that woman not of her own household.
There was a village, Juda by name, in the south
of Palestine in the hill country of Judaea ; it was
a hard journey of about five days from Nazareth.
There Mary had a friend. She took the journey.
An elderly woman, reticent, dignified, devout, her
self the subject of a strange experience, received
the girl. Mary crept into her arms ; she found it
hard to speak, even to Elizabeth. Then she found
it harder to be silent. Her sensitive nature vibrated
between exaltation and anxiety. There is a song
famous and sacred in musical history — an inimita
ble outburst of religious and poetic feeling. In the
home of Elizabeth Mary uttered the Magnificat.
The two women confided in each other. Mary
thought of the hard journey back to Nazareth ; of
the caravan of curious neighbors or kinsfolk which
she must join ; her heart . sank. Oh, to stay on
and on, protected and respected, quiet, and safe!
Dreading to return to her own home, she lingered
in the house of her relative. Shielded, trusted,
understood, how should she face the cruel storm
that awaited her? She clung to this brief, slight
anchorage. The suffering element in the life of the son began

PRESAGE 13
early in the soul of the mother. A desolate mater
nity forecast the melancholy of the child.
And now, the inexorable action of the greatest
drama in the world began to move. The claims of
her father's * roof summoned the absent girl. Her
kinswoman might shelter her no longer. With
dignity, with sweetness, and in silence, Mary gath
ered her coutage, and came back with her secret to
her home and her neighbors.
• The angel of the mystery had borne a significant
name, — Gabriel, the Might of God, or a Mighty
One is God. But Gabriel had vanished. No angel
was visibly courier to Mary, when, in the weakness
of woman, she took the weary journey back again
to face her unknown fate.

IV
In his shop in Nazareth, Joseph the carpenter
worked drearily. Hammer and saw fell from his
dispirited, hand ; his basket of wooden nails lay
unused. His dejected eyes wandered through the
opening which served as door and window to his
simple place of business. His heart was far from
his work, and heavy as doom.
This grave, honest man,2 a middle-aged person,
with experience of life behind him, loved the girl to
whom he was betrothed. His restrained and unself
ish tenderness had chosen her with that decision
l Joachim, born in Nazareth ; her mother, Anna, native of Beth
lehem. Tradition.
2 A widower. Tradition.

14 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
which belongs to mature affection, whose depth is to
a youthful fancy as the Mediterranean Sea beyond
the mountains was to the spring at Nazareth. The
whole nature of the man was involved. His mind
moved heavily about the central fact. The cruelest
of disasters seemed to have struck his promised
wife — this sweet, this saintly girl. The marvel
that had befallen her was scoffingly received.
This elect and tender being was bearing in patient
loneliness an unspeakably pathetic lot.
Thus again, the awful law of sacrifice which was
to become the ruling passion in the life of the son,
began in the courageous and noble maternity fore
shadowing his character.
Joseph, the betrothed of Mary, meditating on her
virtues and her beauty and her danger until he was
sick at heart, fell asleep at last, from weariness, in
his shop among his tools. It is easy to see the car
penter, almost as he was. Ages move and customs
vanish, but certain facts remain, — the shape of a
shaving cut by a sharp edge from wood is the same,
and so is the fashion of a manly heart.
The betrothed of Mary woke from his sleep,
resolved. The Jews were a people accustomed to
place great significance upon dreams, especially
upon those of a sacred character, and Joseph had
dreamed the dream which was to decide, from a
practical point of view, the fate of the world.
Had he carried his terrible perplexity in prayer
to the very gates of sleep ? And had God met it
there, because it was ready to be met ? The car
penter rose, refreshed and relieved. He had in this

PRESAGE 15
manner, occult to us and to our time, but perfectly
natural to him and to his, received the command
most welcome to his loyal heart. He had been
directed to trust and to wed his promised wife.
Betrothal was an important rite among his peo
ple, not less so than actual marriage. Betrothal
was beautifully called "the making sacred." It
was a formal, festive occasion, lasting several days.
A great social affair was made of the whole scene.
Joseph and Mary, being poor, had been quietly
betrothed. No invitations to a costly feast were
sent out ; they passed their vows in the simplest
and severest manner. Nevertheless, the vows were
passed. The sanctity of the relation was unim
peachable. Mary awaited, in the seclusion of her
troubled home, the will of God and of men upon
her future. Her eyes widened and darkened with
patient sadness. How piteous her position no man
has ever told us ; few have guessed, and none could
understand. At this crisis in the story one straightforward,
chivalrous act set everything right. Joseph the
carpenter, being of royal blood, strode like a man
through the gossip of the village, and took his pro
mised bride to be his wife. In the Oriental phrase
and custom, this " redeemed " her. In the shelter
of her husband's home misapprehension could not
touch her, and gossip might forget her. Has his
tory, or has reverence, ever done justice to Joseph?
It seems hardly. In our admiration for the ever-
womanly which Mary's ideal has left in a world
that needed it, we have a little overlooked the ever-

16 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
manly, the simple, noble, loyal deed, the gentleman
mechanic who knew how to love a woman and to
protect her, thinking more of her and less of himself,
as a man should do. And of this ideal, too, the
world has need.

The political situation among the race to which
Joseph and Mary belonged was, at this time, ex
tremely interesting. The Hebrews were above all
things a hero-loving nation ; and their heroes were
dead. They were a people of a marked literary
quality, and their literature was a thing of the past.
Their poets, like all other men of importance among
them, were of a religious temperament and bore the
name of prophets. The Jews revered their pro
phets. Now, at the time of which we write, there
were no prophets. Most nations undergo crises in
which the higher qualities among their leaders sink
underground for a time like subterranean rivers.
Such a crisis was now drawing down the Hebrews.
The hero - worshipers were without heroes. The
idealists were perishing for ideals. The thinkers
were suffering for stimulation. The common citi
zen was dully and thoroughly disheartened.
The Jews were notable in this respect, that they
had experimented at a theocracy and had failed in
it. Their dejection was proportional to their de
feated aspiration. It was, after all, a fine idea, that
of selecting the Almighty for a chartered Ruler, and
accepting nothing less than his personal control.
This superb national conception was apparently a

PRESAGE 17
doomed one, for the Hebrews were a conquered na
tion, and had been for nearly forty years.
In certain respects, more humiliating than en
slavement to Babylonia, Greece, or Egypt, was
enslavement to Rome. By the irony of fortune
these proud people were now subjects in their own
land, were but the disdained provincials of a vast
empire. This is to say, that Caesar Augustus occu
pied the Roman throne, and Herod, his vassal king,
the palace at Jerusalem.
From a time near the beginning of the national
history the religious poets of the Jews had foretold
a strange event. Even Moses, the law-giver, had in
timated it. The great poet Isaiah had sung of it
like a sibyl. The strenuous Daniel had insisted on
it like a homesick captive. The national records
preserved it as dreary mines preserve the secret of a
strange and cheerful jewel.
The theocracy, in a word (that was the idea) had
not been neglected by its invisible King. Jehovah
had never forgotten the people who had elected to be
his subjects. A substitute appointed by Him would
appear before the ruin of the nation was complete ;
would unite the scattered tribes, would mend the
broken machinery of government ; would grasp the
shattered power, restore the lost glory, and make
the future splendid.
The appearance of this deputy of God was ex
pected by this wretched and poetic people with a
confidence which is the more striking when we come
to the denouement of the story. Whoever, whatever,
he should be, — wherever, however he should mani-

18 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
fest himself — the Wonder was to come. To this
unknown, unseen, unborn, was given the name of the
Messiah, or the Anointed ; a recognition of a fact
which the mass of the people were exceedingly dull
at understanding : that he was to have a sacred as
well as a political character. The rich imagination
of the nation had always been smouldering about
this being. But a touch was needed to set it afire.
He was the Hero of heroes. To his mysterious
image all their disappointed hero-worship clung.
In the year of which we speak, " all the world "
(such was the imperial audacity of the phrase) was
complaining under especial grievance. A census
preparatory to extra taxation was ordered ; and the
consequence was a tumult. The people were ex
tremely angry ; but escape from the great hand of
Rome was impossible. Csesar Augustus was ruler
of the world. Herod, his creature, controlled more
territory than any dead Jewish King had ever done.
The once splendid and sacred throne of David now
existed, a pitiable farce, only to extend the forces
of execrated and alien heathenism. Raging and
impotent, the subjects prepared to obey.
To Nazareth, as to other villages in Palestine, the
Roman fiat came. *-.
Long and severe were the journeys required of the
country people who must answer to this enrollment
edict. Every citizen was obliged to register himself
at the town whence his family had sprung. This
involved a national commotion. The Jews were not
only in the stir of revolt, but in the irritation of

PRESAGE 19
travel, — poor of pocket, uncomfortable in body, and
sore at heart.

VI
Two plain people of Nazareth started at dawn one
winter day to take one of these annoying journeys.
Joseph and Mary, husband and wife, traveled as
poor people must ; on foot, or with one beast of
burden between them.
There was a little town, about six miles south of
Jerusalem, between seventy and eighty from Naza
reth. Bethlehem was the birthplace of David the
King ; and Joseph the builder, descendant of David,
must register there.
Mary, his wife, went with him. Why ? She, too,
was a daughter of kings. Did she own some bit of
property in Bethlehem ? — real estate, perhaps, un
marketable, but taxable, such as only made her'
" land poor ; " giving her no income, but yielding
some to Rome? Did she, too, register? But this
was not necessary. Women were not obliged to
present themselves personally; a written report of
their property sufficed for them. Why, then, did
Mary — who had the gravest of reasons at that
time for wishing rest and shelter — take that cruel
journey over one of the roughest of Palestinian
pathways ?
Precisely because she had reasons for doing the
thing that her heart craved. And her heart craved
that she should at that time of all others be near
her husband, who understood her. Joseph must
go to Bethlehem, and go just then. Mary would

20 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
not allow him to leave her behind alone. The cir
cumstances were too unusual. Her need of him
was absolute. Indeed, it might not have been safe
for her to stay at home unprotected.
There was another reason ; but how far this influ
enced her only the heart of Mary ever wholly knew.
Did she share this visionary idea with the quiet man
who loved and guarded her, as they came down from
the hill-country into the caravan route ? Or did she
keep it shyly to herself ?
Her child would have been born in Nazareth, but
for this acoident of the census. But was it only an
accident that the census must come into the question
just then? — that the family must register, and in
Bethlehem? Was it one of those divine incidents
in which the great Will rides over little human wills,
and brings everything out as no one could possibly
have expected, as no one could have planned ? For
Mary was a reader of the poets of her people ; and
learned in all their Scriptures. A thousand years
ago those ancient dreamers had associated strange
things with the town of Bethlehem. Did she re
member them ? If she did, could she discuss them ?
There, it had been written, the Governor of her peo
ple should be sought. There the Wonderful should
enter the world. Could she dwell on this, and hold
her courage ? Could she forget it, and be Mary ?
Strictly speaking, there were no roads between
Nazareth and Bethlehem. Rome built roads, but
not at this time for her enslaved Hebrews. The
caravan routes that traversed Palestine were hard
traveling. Rough past rudeness were the foot-ways

PRESAGE 21
and the hoof-ways that led from Nazareth down
through the valley, over mountain side, and rolling
rock, and jagged limestone, and through sliding
dust ; a severe journey of five days or more, as you
might make it, according to one's means of locomo
tion or the strength of the travelers.
The wife's store of strength was small, and the
journey dragged. She was such a young creature !
— a mere girl — and delicate of organization, as we
know. Think of it as December, too, and that means the
chilly season in Palestine, with roads across the
plains in bad condition. The rains were over ; sun
shine smote the hills, and the silver leaves of the
olives glanced like little steel swords in the wet
light. Even frost was possible at that time of the
year. Snow was not unheard of.
The two travelers arrived in Bethlehem at night,
foot-worn and chilled and faint. The wife, perish
ing of fatigue, had passed the stage of physical suf
fering when one takes any care or thought for what
is to happen next. Because of her weakness, they
had lagged behind the other travelers, and the town
was already brimming over with strangers like them
selves. Every house was crowded. Her anxious
husband took her from threshold to threshold in
vain. The climb to the village up a steep hill had
added a last hardship. A faint light, swinging on
a rope across a doorway, signified the village inn.
They toiled up ; the woman half dead of this last
effort. But the khan could not admit them.
Alarmed by the condition of his wife, Joseph

22 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
persisted manfully in his determination to find her
shelter. Mary asked no question, expressed no
concern. Her head fell upon her breast. The
poor, homesick, young creature was dumb with suf
fering. Oh, the mistake of coming on this miser
able journey ! She thought of her home at Naza
reth, of her bed, perhaps of her mother's face ; or
of that other, Elizabeth, who had understood and
cherished her.
Dully, at length, she heard her husband say that
there was a stable behind the inn, and that for
the common humanity of the deed, the people of
the khan would let her in. He carried her to the
stable : she crept among the straw, like the animals
around her ; and there — hastened probably by her
cruel journey — the anguish of motherhood over
took the exhausted wife.

VII

Mary, presently, looked about the stable. Wo
men are merciful to each other in this one respect
at least, and. we are not forbidden to think that
some matrons of the inn had ministered to the
unfortunate young traveler. The child was not
dressed, but wrapped tightly in a long band, — the
baby -clothes of the East. The women had left
the young mother, now, with her husband and the
cattle. She faintly regarded the stable.
The khan to which Joseph and Mary had applied
was not a comfortable place ; and the stable in
which the baby was born was a rude affair. Mary

PRESAGE 23
saw that it was a cave in the heart of a rock ; a
species of grotto. A little flat lamp of clay whose
wick floated in oil, or a rude kind of lantern
made by straining waxed cloth over a frame of
rings, was allowed her. It struggled feebly with
the damp darkness. By the weak light she saw the
cattle, prevented from sleeping by the presence of
their unusual neighbors, and perplexedly rumina
ting. Straw was about, and hay and provender.
Mud was beneath. The walls of the grotto dripped.
She and Joseph were alone — no, not alone : there
lay the child, breathing beside her.
It must have been far on in the night, proba
bly towards morning, that she stirred uneasily, and,
out of fitful slumber, broken by conscious suffer
ing, turned again, broad awake, and looked about
her. No, it was no dream. She was not at home in
happy Nazareth. Strange to the eye, strange to the
ear, strange to the heart, were her rude surround
ings. She was used to decent poverty, not to out
cast, squalid scenes like this. Joseph sat silently
regarding her. Had Joseph not slept? A tired
man, himself in need of rest — how loyal was he
to his precious charge ! But Joseph had arisen,
and stood straight and strong between her eyes and
the entrance to the grotto. Voices were audible.
Joseph was speaking. Question and answer fol
lowed. Visitors were in the stable.
Day was breaking. The gray light crept in with
a kind of reverence, as if the morning were on its
knees. In the cold color Mary saw the visitors.

24 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Their calling was stamped on their dark, weather-
tinted faces, and on their rough, warm clothing.
They wore mantles of woolen stuff, and heavy,
sheepskin cloaks. They carried powerful sticks,
strong enough to kill a wild beast. They were
shepherds. Some fierce dogs accompanied them.
Mary did not speak. She lay on the straw, and
listened perplexedly. The court of the khan was
quite open to the public. The poor young mother
had not been even allowed the privacy sacred to her *
emergency. That had been hard enough ; but visi
tors ! And now ! She winced when the intruders,
all speaking fast in their excitement, pushed their
way towards her. Their eyes were fastened eagerly
upon one object. She heard exclamations and an
swers, and the low, controlled replies of Joseph.
She saw the great, tanned fingers of the men point
ing at the baby. She heard one say to another : —
" That was the sign ! "
And another answer : —
" In a manger ! There he is ! "
Then the shepherds spoke all together, their sen
tences falling over each other. But Mary — for her
ear was delicate and quick — made out as much as
this : in their pastures, a mile or more out of Beth
lehem, these strong, not untender men, iron of fist
to wolves and robbers, silken of touch to sheep and
lambs, — men wakeful of eye and ear by profession,
apt to see or hear what others slept through, sud
denly, in the deep of the night, had seen the sky
blossom with celestial forms and faces, and heard
the ether ring with celestial tongues and songs.

ARRIVAL OF THE SHEPHERDS

PRESAGE 25
Half in terror, half in delight, they had hurried
up to the town to tell and to test their wonderful
experience. Had the baby been in a respectable
bed, had he been born like a comfortable child, they
could not have found him. Only one newborn in
fant in Bethlehem lay in the manger of a public
stable. Now these were not ordinary, coarse herdsmen,
but men selected for a superior position — that of
guarding the flocks dedicated to the uses of the
Temple ; therefore they and their ewes, and the
lambs destined for sacrifice, were encamped within
easy distance of Jerusalem all the year round.
Winter, like the summer, found these men at
their posts of duty. They were important servants
of the Temple, not without respect among the peo
ple, certain to command a hearing. They went
straight out from the stable, and told their ex
perience to anybody and everybody in the crowded
town. The village, overflowing with guests from
all parts of Palestine, listened to this strange tale ;
and travelers, returning to their homes, carried the
rumor of it widely.
The shepherds went back to their sheep. They
had seen their only angels. The next night, the
next year, brought no more. They talked all their
lives about this one great experience. Did they
search the skies midnight upon midnight for that
flower of life ? Did they tell their children's chil
dren how the splendid Oriental zenith burst that
only time into celestial bloom? How the soft,
winter wind broke into articulate speech ? How he

26 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
looked — the mighty one, who was General of the
Heavenly Host ? And how they found that spirits
spoke the truth. For there was the child ; and the
manger. But the young mother did not speak when she
heard about the angels, and the sign. She was
glad when the shepherds were gone out of the stable.
She looked at the baby mutely. Her heart was like
a white flower, closing over a drop of dew. She
kept these things, and pondered them.
Joseph, too, was quiet. He was one of the plain
men who make no fuss about duty ; but he had been
in a hard position. He thought about the shepherds,
the angels, their startling message, and the dream
of his in Nazareth. It was impossible to think how
it would have been, if he had not trusted it, and
her. The eyes of the girl wife questioned her hus
band gently. The mysterious child slept beside
them. The hand of Joseph silently clasped that of
Mary.

VIII
Kepler, the astronomer, in the year 1604 had a
pupil superior to the common run of students, — a
thoughtful' man, with his eyes open, and not afraid
to say what he saw with them. In December of
the preceding year, a conjunction of two of the
superior planets (Saturn and Jupiter) had inter
ested all scholars of the sky. In a few months, Mars
had marched into the society of these celestial com-

PRESAGE 27
rades, making one of the important stellar events
of the time. Following this conjunction, in the
autumn of 1604, there flashed into the sky a new
and short-lived star. This the pupil of Kepler
pointed out to his master, and this the master stud
ied. It was a very brilliant star, more like a dia
mond than a comet, and sparkling with changing
colors. This star burned for a year, waned and wasted
out of sight. But its life was long enough for the
great astronomer to conceive a great idea.
Kepler was familiar with astrology, as all masters
of an accurate science ought to be with its kindred
imaginative studies ; and he knew quite well how
the dreamers of the East in the times of which we
are thinking were governed by the speculations of
that art. Kepler, from the astronomer's point of
view, fell to studying certain events which are inter-
wound with the opening scenes in the history of
Christianity. The result was one of the dramatic
theories of science, liable to be held only by men of
imagination. According to the calculations of the great astron
omer, in the Roman year 747, or at a time closely
preceding the birth of the strange child in the Beth
lehem stable, a similar conjunction of Saturn and
Jupiter had appeared in the Oriental heavens, and
Mars had joined the two in the spring of 748, mak
ing a brilliant exhibition. Kepler boldly hazarded
the belief that the course of this conjunction was
followed, like that of 1604, by a temporary star.
His position has not been altogether approved by

28 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
modern astronomers, but it is far too interesting to
omit from any record of a curious historical fact on
which astronomy has a peculiar judicial claim.
Persia at that time, as more or less at all times,
was a camp of dreamers and astrologers. The study
of the skies was a passionate pastime. The sagest
of men gave their lives to it. All men were inter
ested in it. Accurate knowledge of the skies they
had not, but its place was filled by what they
thought they knew, or wished to believe. They were
constantly on the watch by night.
The Eastern sages knew little enough about as
tronomy as Kepler knew it ; but they saw the great
conjunction, and it produced a strong effect upon
them. They took note that the conjunction oc
curred in the Constellation of Pisces, which was sup
posed by Chaldean astrologers to be immediately
connected with the future of Judea. Thus the
thoughts of the sages were naturally turned in that
direction. Whether they had been studying the
subject for a year, or more or less, is not important,
and cannot be averred. The point of interest is,
that a few of the star-gazers of the East were so
profoundly impressed by this planetary movement
that they left their homes and occupations, and
formed a little traveling company to investigate its
meaning. But this extraordinary journey was not
entirely a scientific expedition. It had a political
or historical character. Mystical or devout motives
influenced these men. A rather remarkable reason
for this existed.

PRESAGE 29

IX

Astrologers from the earliest times had always
associated heavenly disturbances with the birth of
great men. The expectation of the advent of an
extraordinary being among the Jewish people was
not, at that time, entirely confined to the Jews.
Rome, Persia, the far East, the civilized world to a
certain extent shared it. Perhaps the Hebrew cap
tives, scattered past collection among alien peoples,
had tried to console themselves by whispering the
proudest hope of their proud nation in their captors'
ears. Perhaps the social conditions of the times —
too miserable for the heart to dwell on, and too cor
rupt for the modern pen to describe — had given
force to the rumor. Decent men who thought, and
studied, and aspired had reached the stage of despe
ration which precedes despair. They were ready
for any social or political experiment; they were
attentive to any sign of the times.
Each man took out his private fears or hopes for
the condition of his age, in his own way. The sen
sualist sank, the tyrant tortured, the slave despaired,
the politician schemed, the rebel fought, the captive
conspired, the dreamer slept, the devout prayed, the
mystic mused.
The students of the sky followed the march of the
stars. The Eastern travelers, coming by an unknown
route, reached Jerusalem. Here, these idealists
asked strange questions, and they received signifi
cant replies. Arrived at the capital of the Jewish

30 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
nation, and at the very altar of the Jewish faith,
they found themselves still perplexed. These " pe
culiar people," these educated slaves, did, indeed,
confidently expect to be freed by a heaven-born de
liverer, to be ruled by a divinely appointed King.
But nothing had been seen or heard of him. The
Magi, with the persistence of men who have sacri
ficed too much for an idea to abandon it easily,
betook themselves to the palace. Here they had
an interview with one of the most abhorrent and
abhorred of monarchs.
Rome, like the rest of the world, was acquainted
with the rumors about the yet unidentified Jewish
King. The haughty Roman eagle hung upon the
Jewish Temple, but the powerful Messianic expecta
tion had reached the Roman intellect. Herod was a
coward as well as a tyrant, and he feared nothing
more than the renationalization of the enslaved
people. He appealed to the priests and teachers of his
remarkable and dreaded captives. Their governing
body, the Sanhedrin, was called together. The
question was officially put to them : Where was this
King of theirs to be expected, or to be sought?
With ecclesiastical precision the anxious monarch
was referred to the records or Scriptures of the Jew
ish people, which indicated Bethlehem as the birth
place of their national hero.
The capital was now on fire with the matter. The
visit of the Eastern strangers had become the event
of the day. With a stroke of imperial and diaboli
cal diplomacy, Herod feigned a warm interest in the

PRESAGE 31
errand of his guests, and suavely directed them to
Bethlehem; the condition of the royal politeness
being that they should report the result of their in
vestigations to himself.
The group of mystics, a little awed by the splen
dor and affability of the palace and the monarch,
but less than commoner men, started at once, for
Bethlehem. Men who have cast down all the affairs of life to
travel for seven months, or a year, or more, over
deserts and mountains, and through fords and forests,
and in peril of beasts and of robbers, in pursuance
of an idea, are not the men to be too much impressed
with political power or splendor ; still, they accepted
Herod at his word, — being foreigners and not fully
aware how little that was worth. A brilliant ap
pearance in the skies, evidently temporary, and which
had for some time puzzled them, now seemed to them
to point towards Bethlehem ; to confirm their own
astrological beliefs and the Jewish traditions and
directions. Were the hardships of that long itinerary draw
ing to an end ? Does the star know and love the
student of the sky, that it will not mislead him?
The Magi trod the streets of Bethlehem with ar
rested breath.
The mysterious child was now some weeks of age ;
the family were no longer boarders in the stable of
the khan. They may have been house-guests or
lodgers at the inn ; but this they could not afford
for any length of time. If the mother of Mary
had been born in Bethlehem, had she not relatives

32 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
there ? — people whose home had been too full, or
whose welcome had been too chilly at the time of
the registration, to admit the travelers ?
Then, remember, had come the sacred shepherds
of the Temple, talking everywhere, telling a wonder
ful tale. Then, the strange birth of the strange
child became the topic of the town. Then, the out
cast family became respectable, interesting. Then,
the love of the dramatic, which is strong in the Jew
ish nature, took hold of this vivid situation. Did
some of Mary's relations, moved by the sudden
publicity given to family affairs, perhaps stirred, by
some higher feeling of regret, or shame for neglected
hospitality, persuade her to accept a tardy welcome
under their roof ?
At all events, the Eastern travelers found the
family readily. All Bethlehem was talking of them,
and their affairs. The temporary star looked down
on the village gossip coldly. Its light and its life
were beginning to waste.
Were the travelers Persians ? Arabians ? Princes
Or astrologers, or both ? How many were there ?
What tongue did they speak ? Greek, perhaps, —
then the Court language of the East. Or did inter
preters connect them with the Aramaic as spoken in
Bethlehem ?
We only know that they found the object of their
wearisome and romantic journey. The star and the
child had met at last.
Mary, his mother, was with him. She was used,
by this time, to a certain amount of public curiosity
in her child. Many visitors had come to see her ;
but none like these.

THE HOLY FAMILY

PRESAGE 33
The grave group in their foreign garments, these
serious men, travel-worn, and travel-wise, regarded
the girl mother for an instant critically. Then
their glance fell and rested upon the baby. Their
eyes questioned and answered each other as they
consulted together in their own tongue, probably
never heard before by the Galilean girl. The study
of a scroll, the march of a star, the dreaming of
dreams, the daring to come out and be different
from other men, the energy of ideas that could not
be proved until one had trusted them — all this, all
these, were justified at last.
Here was the Star Child.
Moved by a mute and common impulse, the Magi
fell upon their foreheads. Startled, the young mo
ther turned her sweet face and mildly looked at them.
Thus and then, we have the first worshipers
(many centuries have given us many millions)
bowed before the Madonna and the Child. But the
Eastern sages did not kneel to the woman. It was
the nature of the men and of the times to forget the
woman. They had not traveled all that distance,
all that time, to see a Jewish mother.
The Magi bent their mitred heads, and knelt
before the child. Deeper than the impulsive curi
osity or even the deference of the Temple Shepherds
was the profound, intelligent reverence of these
learned foreigners.
Mary, looking on, perplexed and gentle, saw sud
denly that the visitors, still upon their rug before
the baby, were opening and offering to the child
strange things — products of the far East.

34 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Joseph, coming in, and being wiser than Mary
about such matters, perceived at once the meaning
of what he saw.
For the gifts in the hands, on the laps, of the
Magi were the typical offerings of subjects to a
King, and in no other wise to be interpreted.
There could be no doubt about it. Here was the
child — to whom Joseph and Mary were becoming
quite accustomed, already wondering if the baby
were so very different from others after all ; a little,
helpless, human, nestling being, to be warmed and
cherished on a mother's heart.
And there were the sages worshiping a monarch.
The glitter of gold shone out of dusky bags ; it did
not attract the baby's eyes. Spicy, Oriental odors
filled the air. Frankincense sent up its pungent
perfume, strong as the heart of love. And there,
— ah, there was myrrh, bitter as life, and as old to
the fancy of the East as the ceremonials of death.
Only the wise recognize power in the weak. The
Eastern scholars knelt humbly and happily before
the babe of Bethlehem. It would have been diffi
cult for the learned to follow their thoughts. Mary
could not. But she clasped the child, and won
dered. The visitors went away quietly.
Their faces wore a rapt and reverent look. They
were found to be men not inclined to talk, and
local curiosity made but little out of them.
They quickly vanished from the village, and lost
themselves in the first convenient caravan to Arabia.
For one of those mystical reasons which often have

PRESAGE 35
the most practical effects on human affairs, they
struck Jerusalem from their homeward route, and
omitted the courtesies of the palace on their return.
A royal murderer, scowling from his windows,
watched in vain for his Eastern guests. He had
miscalculated their shrewd simplicity.

Dreadful rumors of more dreadful facts ran whis
pering at this time about Judea. In the palace at
Jerusalem, Rome was represented by a monster.
Cruelty was his pastime, and murder his passion.
One of his worst manias was a senseless jealousy
of any possible or imaginary claimant, present or
future, to the throne which he disgraced. He slew
whomever came in his way, or whomever crossed
his fancy, with no more compunction than any gen
tleman of that age felt in the whipping of a slave.
Priests, nobles, the Sanhedrin, political suspects, the
people, his own family, those he feared, those he
loved, and those he hated, fell indiscriminately be
fore his deadly will. He smote, he strangled, he
starved, he burned, he tortured. His morals were
past speaking of. He had the vices of his times
" carried up " by the Satanic ingenuity of his own
abnormal abominations. In consequence of them,
he was dying slowly in a manner of which modern
delicacy does not speak. But life was in him yet;
and all there was left of it was expended in the in
fliction of torment. His name rang like an alarm-
bell through a wretched land.

36 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
In the homes of the oppressed people, ghastly
stories circulated.
It was said that something had befallen the High-
priest, a young, noble, and attractive man, brother-
in-law to Herod. " Drowned ! " in pretended jest
— " drowned before the king's own eyes, and by
his order." The tale of worse than this stole from
caravan to home : " His own soils, three of them,
murdered." And still a worst ! " His wife, Mari-
amne, beautiful, a Princess, passionately adored ;
the only being whom the butcher ever loved, —
Mariamne strangled ! " With paling lips men told
each other about the great golden eagle which hung
above the Temple gate, and how the people, insulted
to frenzy, tore the haughty Roman emblem down
one desperate night. Hideous things were said:
for the rioters were students, and their leaders
learned and eloquent; and forty of them roasted
alive for their escapade.
Now, in Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary shuddered
as they caressed the child ; for there had come to
them startling news in a strange way. The fearful
gossip had not reached the village. None of the
neighbors had heard it. No other mother fainted
before it. No father barred his doors in mortal
terror of the hired assassins of the king.
But Mary had married a dreamer ; and one night
Jpseph, standing tall and solemn, awaked her sud
denly. His voice fell below his breath. He looked
over his shoulder.
" Arise," he said. " Take the child ! Fly ! "
Without question or argument, for that was her

THE MADONNA

PRESAGE 37
sweet nature, Mary obeyed the vision and the au
thority of her lord. The child, of whom Joseph
was now the legal protector, was clasped to her
heart. The three stole out into the night — the
fugitives of a mystical order. For this builder was
a visionary beyond his calling or his kind. Like
his lovely wife, he was more than usually accessible
to delicate agencies. The condition may not have
lasted his life out, but it served its uses in its time
with significant effect. It led this thoughtful
family as the break of a wave on a cliff may lead
a poet, or a touch of the sun on a leaf may move
an artist, or the hymn of the winds may stir a de
votee. Scarcely had the three vanished from the village
when Bethlehem became the scene of one of the
most piteous of tragedies, but of the least propor
tions in the life of the monarch who ordained it.
What was the butchery of a few babies in the
catalogue of the crimes of Herod ? — he who, know
ing himself to be about to die, could command the
slaughter of all the priests and nobles whom he
could entrap in the Hippodrome, in order that his
death should be received with public mourning
instead of the frenzy of delight which was otherwise
inevitable. There were but a score of little corpses in Bethle
hem. Who could have supposed amid the shrieks
of that bleeding night, that the insignificant mas
sacre should become one of the most memorable and
familiar in human history ?
Egypt, at all times the natural shelter of Pales-

38 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
tinian refugees, could be reached by steady traveling
in a few days' journey from Bethlehem. The bound
ary line, a little river with a long name, secured
the protection of the fugitives. The infant Egyp;
tian traveler, clasped to his mother's heart, across
the Rhinokolura River, slept safely while the first
martyrs to his name, coevals of his own brief age,
went to their fate. Did the child dream ? Who
knows ?
The expense of this unexpected journey was some
thing which the family of a poor mechanic were
ill prepared to meet. Now, behold the supply of
gold which the Eastern star-gazers had poured at
the baby's feet, hoarded by the young mother with
the awe of a poor girl who had never handled so
much wealth in all her humble life before ! Pro
tection against the poverty and discomfort of this
sudden uprooting was at least secured. At the out
set of his struggling life a breath too much of ex
posure, of suffering, would have killed the child.
He seems to have been sheltered at this time of his
utter helplessness, like a tiny, trembling flame, by
the inclosing motion of an unseen Hand. The pure,
white light went straight upward to its appointed
end, unquenched by wind or weather, like the flames
of the camp-fire in the desert, familiar to us in that
most impressive of the pictures that have portrayed
the Egyptian journey, wherein Joseph, flat with
fatigue, keeps watch upon the sands by the fire,
while Mary sleeps with the sacred child on her
breast in the arms of the great Sphinx : — the.
mysteries of womanhood and of infancy, of divinity

THE REPOSE IN EGYPT

PRESAGE 39
and of humanity, of the past and the future, of soli
tude and of family, of sacrifice and of love, clasped
together in silence and in night.
Joseph, for a dreamer, was a practical and able
man, and fully capable of managing the affairs of
the extraordinary family of which, in so singular a
manner, he found himself the head and protector.
The slow-traveling news of the day reached the
carpenter in due, though dilatory, season. Herod,
calling wildly on the spectre of his beloved and
murdered Mariamne, had gone to his miserable tomb.
The little Bethlehem babies were sleeping in their
graves, forgotten by all but their parents. Joseph
brought his family back to their own land, where
the first information that he picked up told him that
the new monarch was no improvement on the old
one. Therefore he abandoned altogether the idea of
revisiting Judea, and turned his face by way of the
coast towards Galilee.
Neither he nor Mary had a whole heart for living
in Nazareth, where their associations were not en
tirely pleasant ; but with the limited choice which is
left to the freest of us in the decisions of life, — a
choice which was narrow enough for two plain work
ing-people who knew little of the world, and had less
wherewith to conquer it, they struck root in the old
familiar, self-satisfied, and suspicious village, where
they had lived and loved ; where they had been be
trothed and wedded, had suffered, and wondered,
and prayed, and accepted their strange and sacred
lot. Thus Nazareth, an unpopular mountain town,

40 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
became the home of the family ; and the Child —
known from that day to this, for the space of two
thousand years, by a Jewish epithet of contumely,
as the Nazarene — bears in history the great name
of Jesus the Christ.

CHAPTER I
THE BOY
The boy of Nazareth lived with his parents in a
little, plain house, such as one must see everywhere
to-day in Palestine. It was white, with a flat earthen
roof, protected by a low parapet prescribed by law ;
it had one door, and it might be, no windows ; there
were vines blending the rectangular outlines of the
dwelling ; there were birds and flowers dipping and
springing on the roof and about the place.
Inside the building, one room accommodated the
family. A bench ran around the side of the room ;
in the daytime the boy neatly rolled upon it the rug,
or bright quilt or mat, upon which he slept at night.
Meals were spread upon a round and movable table,
which was pushed in and out of its place as needed.
A decorated chest stood against the wall ; in it were
stored the valuables of the family, their best clothes,
and copies of the sacred writings of their people. Tall
water-jars flanked the door, and a few herbs floated
in them to keep the water cool. There was in this
simple household, practically, no more furniture.
Housework was reduced to its elements. Everything
was scrupulously neat. The Jews were always
washing, for the incessant use of water was pre
scribed by Levitical law. The lad bathed before he

42 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ate, before he prayed, before he slept, after touching
anything which was ecclesiastically unclean. Moses
had a genius for cleanliness, and in this respect was
the most peremptory of law-makers.
Palestine was not a quiet place except in the heat
of the day. In the morning the village began early
to echo with chatter, pious or otherwise. The Jews,
like all religious polemicists, were great talkers.
The first conversation which the little Jesus had
heard concerned the affairs of church and state,
these being always one. One of the earliest words
which the ear of the child had caught was Yaveh, —
Jehovah. He had listened, ever since he could
remember, to the neighbors and the customers dron
ing perpetual talk about burnt-offerings and sin-
offerings ; Moses, the prophets, David, the exile,
Babylon, Rabbinism, unleavened bread ; the priests,
the Synagogue, and the Law ; the Sabbath lamp,
feast-days, fast-days ; phylacteries, paschal lambs,
Passovers, — an endless and pompous iteration. He
was scarcely more than a baby before he knew what
the parchment meant attached to the door-post, and
he watched the visitors who, on coming in or going
out, reverently touched the Name of the Most High,
and then kissed the fingers that had approached
the holy inscription.
When he was five, the little boy was put to the
study of the Law; for all well-brought-up Jewish
boys were mimic theological students. We have
our occasional tiny prig who learns the Greek alpha
bet at three, and is a Hebrew scholar at seven, but
to a Jewish man-child a certain amount of pious

THE BOY 43
precocity was a matter of course. He began to be
learned at five. At thirteen he was a man, and able
to enter upon full ecclesiastical privileges. Marriage
was expected at eighteen, and was not unknown even
earlier. Schools were abundant everywhere on Jewish
soil, and between the ages of five and thirteen Jesus
had been compelled by law to study with his mates.
The little fellows applied themselves to the cheer
ful topic of Leviticus, then to other portions of the
Pentateuch and to the Prophets. The lad had learned
the schedule of holy times, — all about the feasts of
Purim, of the New Year, of the Tabernacle, and the
Fast of Atonement. Then came the Commandments
and the Law, an interminable and devious proces
sion of "Thou shalts" and "Shalt nots." But it
was at least sure that he had committed to memory
much of the fine literature of his people.
Now it is impossible to overestimate the impor
tance of this fact in the environment of the child, —
that he was a Galilean. The Jews had the vices of
their virtues, like other races, and their ecclesiastical
aristocracy was one of the most obstinate.
Judea was the seat of the capital, of the Temple,
of scholarship, of bigotry; of social, political, and
religious position and importance ; of asceticism, of
experts in the Law ; of Rabbinism, or the rigid and
conservative school of theology, of every learned,
hard, haughty assumption and assertion. Galilee
was rustic, liberal, worldly, more or less heretical,
crowded with traveling and even hospitable to set
tling Gentiles, — unconscious and happy, full of

44 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
lovely scenery and lovely women and children, not
troubled about too many things in theological dis
pute, agricultural and cheerful, fond of planting
fruits and flowers. There was a proverb which told
how it was easier to raise ten olive orchards in
Galilee than one child in Judea. It was the fashion
in the metropolis and suburbs to speak slightingly of
Galilee ; " Galilean — fool ! " was a common fling.
The Galilean village of Nazareth was the special
object of general contempt; it was difficult to say
precisely why. Probably the village was too liberal
in theology to be tolerated by the more ecclesiastical
Judea. Possibly it was too hospitable to the heathen
guests whose diverse routes met in or around the
town. The Nazarenes were quick-tempered, being ardent,
generous, and impulsive. They were sometimes
taunted as uncultivated, a common and untrust
worthy adjective in all ages tossed from the city at
the country. It was the fact that the Nazarenes,
indeed that most Galileans, admitted foreign words
into their vocabulary, and spoke with a distinct
brogue of their own. A learned lady once contemp
tuously addressed a distinguished Galilean scholar
because he had used two unnecessary words in ask
ing her the way to a distant town. The Nazarenes
were considered as uncouth, out of the mode, out of
society. Jerusalem regarded Nazareth much as New
York regards the winter population of a Catskill
hamlet, or as Boston views the affairs of a remote
parish on the northern Vermont line.
But metropolitan scorn is sometimes only the syn-

THE BOY 45
onym for metropolitan ignorance. Like some other
country villages, Nazareth was really less provincial
in certain respects than the urban mind could under
stand. This was largely owing to the single circum
stance that she had access to the caravan routes. One
ran through Nazareth to Samaria, Jerusalem, and the
south. Damascus travelers, by one of two routes,
came behind or below Nazareth at no great distance ;
and, in fact, the village was a crossing-place of many
nationalities. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Syrians, and
Phoenicians poured through the region ; brought the
culture, such as it was, of the heathen world, and
perhaps its morals also.
At all events, they brought the current of the
stream of life. They brought movement, change,
knowledge, breadth of thought, sparkle of feeling.
Nazareth was not a stupid place. This little moun
tain village, shut in like a flower in a walled gar
den, was alert and vivacious. It had a variety of
languages. Her people had intellect ; they had ima
gination, and they had some knowledge of the world.
The Jews were devoted to their religious festivals,
— those pleasing occasions in which it is easy for
people of any faith to unite the sense of being as
devout as possible with that of having a very good
time. Of these festivals the Passover was the most
brilliant, exciting, or solemn of the year, according
to the temperament of the worshipers.
Egypt and Israel both remembered yet the story
of that black night when the first-born child in
every unsanctified household in the land was smitten
by death, and when the trembling slaves marked

46 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
their door-sills with sacrificial blood, that the de
stroyer might pass them by, as we are told he did.
This thrilling, national event was the centre of
commemoration. Around it many penitential vows
and prayers and mysteries clung. Passover was the
annual sacrament of the people. No devout Jew
would fail to visit Jerusalem at Passover time if he
could help it.
The boy Jesus was now twelve years old, that is,
coming into his thirteenth year ; after this time he
would ecclesiastically be of age ; would be permitted
to sit with his male relatives and friends at the
Passover supper, and allowed to take his part in
the public services of the synagogue.
His mother and Joseph were about going up to
Jerusalem for the national feast. The child had
been promised that he should go with them. It was
his first visit to the capital.
No, not his first. Mary his mother remembered
that other when, going over from Bethlehem, she
carried the baby before the ecclesiastical authorities
in the Temple as the Jewish law required, and an
old priest and a prophetess created some excitement
by openly worshiping the wonderful child. What
startling thoughts had stirred the heart of the young
mother at this first public recognition that hers was
not like other women's children, — who shall say ?
She had never expressed them, but silently offered the
two doves, the smallest sacrifice made by the poorest
of women ; she, a dove herself, as mild, as patient, as
the helpless winged things with whose lives the red
altars of that age and that faith smoked steadily.

THE BOY 47
As silently the child lay against her heart. They
passed in and out of the Temple like two mute spir
its hovering apart from the ecclesiastical ceremonies
to which they were gently subject.
Now, the country lad, growing tall and sturdy, a
strong walker, like other Eastern boys, came down
the rough highway through the mountain passes that
led from Nazareth to the plain of Jezreel. There
is something delightful about the intense, quiet
excitement of a thoughtful boy for the first time
admitted to any knowledge of the world. Nothing
else even in the charm of youth is quite like it.
It needs no history to tell us that this was a lovely
boy. The omitted chapters in his young years speak
for themselves. No man develops as he did from a
rude or from a thoughtless boyhood. It must be a
delicate root that throws out so fair a flower. The
lad was a well-ordered child, giving no anxiety to
parents; obedient to family rule, amenable, docile,
sweet. But he was a manly boy, and he was a little
student. He obeyed his mother, but he studied the
Law. Now the Law taught him that a man has
more privileges than a woman, such as even mothers
do not share. When he went up to the capital on
that first journey he remembered this.
April was Passover month, and Palestine was at
her blossom. The boy's first sight of the world was
a dream of delight. He descended the rugged path,
past the rich Nazareth gardens, down the mountain
sides, through the great plain, in an ecstasy of
color, perfume, sound, and scene. Pomegranate and
orange, olive, fig, and grape and grain cast tints

48 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
and scents upon the soft, hot air ; the gay and abun
dant birds of Palestine darted like messengers of an
unknown life about the pilgrims ; the pious chatter
of the travelers had a joyous tone ; a subdued and
happy excitement pervaded the company ; the fa
miliar outlines of home scenery disappeared ; the
caravan route became crowded with people ; at night
the tent was struck in a strange place ; every man's
face turned towards the city when he prayed, — the
sacred city which the young Jesus had never seen,
of which he had dreamed as an imaginative child
dreams of the most wonderful thing known to the
experience of the world in which he has been reared.
The boy looked up at the blazing Oriental stars with
thoughts that he shared with no one — thoughts
which he could but half understand himself.
On the fourth day the pilgrimage drew towards
its end. The massive city walls came in sight ; the
topmost outlines of the Temple rose solemnly, —
gleaming gold and flashing white marble. The
crowd thickened. Shouts rent the air : Jerusalem !
Jerusalem ! As the throng climbed the sacred hills,
they sang the famous Songs of Ascent written by
David their king. A trained flute-player led the
exultant music.
The lad bowed his young head. This was his first
entry into Jerusalem. The voices of his mother and
father seemed to him a good way off. The talk of his
relatives and friends sounded indistinct. He did not
shout. He could not explain how he felt. He might
not sing. He could not speak.
All through the days and nights of the great fes-

HIS FIRST VIEW OF JERUSALEM

THE BOY 49
tival his subdued excitement increased, unnoticed,
or, if noticed, not understood by his family. He
observed everything acutely ; he received a sunburst
of impressions ; he took on, like a sensitive plate,
the finest lines and shades and lights of the stirring
and solemn scenes to which he was for the first time
admitted ; his mind and heart were full to throbbing.
The panorama of this great and sacred pageant
aroused in him a deep and naive enthusiasm. In
all ages and all faiths, the coldest scoffer finds it hard
not to respect a sincere and devout boy.
Passover lasted a week, but attendance was obliga
tory only for the first two days. During that time
every household had baked and eaten its unleavened
bread, had killed and offered its sacrificial lamb.
Two hundred and fifty-six thousand of these poor
creatures were slaughtered in the holy week, — a
piteous sacrament ! The court of the Temple reeked
in blood. The hands of the priests dripped. The
great altar ran. But upon this dark view of their
consecrated anniversary, no Hebrew mind of that
day dwelt. Animal life had no value in a time when
human life had little enough. What was a lamb ?
Innocence born to suffer for guilt, the symbol of
purity, of pain, and of forgiveness. The boy of
Nazareth, sensitive above his neighbors, thought
about the lambs. It was like him to pity them ; to
remember the signs of their suffering, to wonder at
it, to count its cost.
During these two days the Passover supper had
been eaten ; whether or not the precise age of Jesus
had admitted him to a share in this impressive cere-

50 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
mony, in either case its effect upon him was intense.
His solemn emotion waxed with every hour. The
grandeur of Jerusalem, then a little city, but im
mense to the imagination of every Jew ; the splen
dors of the truly magnificent Temple ; the swelling
of the vast numbers of pilgrims through the streets
and up the terraces ; the magnetism of his first ex
perience with crowds ; the religious nature of every
sight, sound, thought, feeling which appealed to
him, — these accumulated like a mighty wave in
which he was swept. He strolled from his mother's
side, his father's protection. Lost in wonder and in
admiration, stirred with a deepening unrest, and
overcome with a kind of awe for which he had no
name, he wandered about the city and through the
Temple. Nazareth, the carpenter's shop, the coun
try synagogue, the dull, daily lesson, the dry, daily
task, home, mother, father, were forgotten. Nothing
familiar kept him company. The boy walked about
in a grave, bright dream.
On the third day of the great feast it was quite
lawful to return home, and many families availed
themselves of this permission.
Two millions of people sometimes came up to
these festivals ; the city brimmed over ; the press,
the discomfort, were considerable. It was not law
ful to let lodgings within the city gates, and even
Oriental hospitality was heavily taxed among the
residents. The immense throng began to break here
and there.
Joseph and Mary, gathering themselves to their
little group of friends and neighbors, started for
home.

THE BOY 51
The boy was not by their side at the time ; but
when they inquired about him, some one of the
people, who answer any question anyhow, replied
that he was with So-and-so, — a relative or a neigh
bor, — and no further concern at the time was felt
about him. The company filed out of the city and
into the caravan route, reaching Beroth, where they
spent the first night.
With darkness the mother began to worry. The
child had not appeared. She and Joseph now in
stituted a thorough hunt for him. The whole com
pany was searched. Neighbors, friends, strangers,
Jews, Gentiles, all the accessible travelers, were
questioned. The boy was not to be found.
Broken with anxiety, Mary and Joseph turned
about the next day, and made all possible haste to
get back into Jerusalem.
With all the appliances of our civilization to help
us, a straying child is always one of the uttermost
catastrophes. Steam, telegraph, telephone, police,
detective, the press, shorten or lessen an agony
which is still, at its shortest or least, unbearable ;
and Mary had none of these assuagements. She
was spent with terror and fatigue, when, at the end
of the interminable hours by which she had plod
ded back to the capital, she and Joseph piteously
tramped the city over, seeking for the boy. For
three days not a trace of him could be found. The
anguish of Mary in those three days and nights!
How many millions of mothers since that Passover,
reading this chapter in her story, have in their very
hearts blamed her more or less ! How bitterly did

52 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
she blame herself ! A little more anxiety a little
sooner, a little less sensitiveness to being called a
worrier by husband or friends, a little less " easi
ness " or trusting to chance that the boy was safe,
and this terrible thing had never happened. She
thought of the mystery under which the child was
born, of his unknown future, of her own tremen
dous responsibility for it and for him.
It was no common child whom she had lost. If it
had been Jonas, or John, or Enoch, yonder there in
Nazareth, or even James or Andrew — but Jesus !
White with anguish, Mary tottered by her hus
band's side. They searched the Temple for who
knows how many times. How enormous the build
ing ! How endless the courts ! How confusing the
gates ! Oh, the wearisome glitter of gold, of gems,
of marble, of steps, of platforms, — the tiresome
crowds of dazzling costumes, the dreary chatter, the
sickening scent of the butchered lambs, the red-
handed priests !
The Temple rose, terrace by terrace, haughty and
splendid. The hot sky was clear. Some of the
rabbis were holding, as was their wont at these festi
vals, one of their interminable discussions, arguing
fine points of the Law. In one of the open porticos
of the Temple a crowd had thickened significantly.
Something of unusual interest was plainly happen
ing there. Joseph and Mary hurried to the court,
pushed their way through the crowd. The people
were unusually still. A young, sweet, treble voice
was speaking : it was the boy's !
There in the covered cloister, in his little white

THE BOY 53
talith, with his head bare, the child stood, quite
absorbed. The gorgeous Temple towered behind
him. Gray doctors of the Law sat about him. Half
amused, half respectful, surprise rested upon their
venerable faces. The rabbis of Jerusalem were en
gaged in open discussion with the country lad ; the
scholars of the Temple were talking theology with a
Nazarene child. An audience of considerable size
hung upon this remarkable debate.
When had it been known in Jewry that a child
could argue with the rabbis ? And what an argu
ment ! His questions were as astonishing as his an
swers. He talked like a man and a scholar. The
expert controversialists by whom he was surrounded
were hard put to it to keep pace with him. Such
intellectual force and moral subtlety would have
made the reputation of any gray scribe or rabbi in
the land. These practiced polemicists regarded the
twelve-year-old boy with perplexity and respect.
The crowd became denser around the group. It
grew silent. Only the young voice was heard ; —
it rang on uninterrupted ; it took on unchildlike,
priestly tones.
A low cry broke in upon the little preacher's ex
hortation ; but the child, absorbed in his theme, did
not seem to hear it. Then the moving of heads and
changes of expression in his audience distracted
him, and turning, he saw his mother's face.
At this point Mary restrained herself, and,
shrinking back in the crowd, awaited the boy's will.
He finished his little discourse with dignity, and
stepped down from the platform on which he stood.

54 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The doctors of the Law looked after the lad so
berly; the crowd murmured about him without
laughter ; he passed away from and through them
all, and sought his parents' side.
Then the mother's distress broke out in natural,
motherly passion of reproach :
"My son! Why hast thou left us so? Why
hast thou dealt with us in this manner ? Thy father
and I have sought thee for these three days ! We
have sorrowed for thee ! What didst thou mean ?
What hast thou done ? "
She caught him to her, sobbing as she did so.
Joseph did not join in her reproofs ; he stood
silently by. Both parents were as much puzzled as
they were troubled. Ought they to blame the lad ?
Ought they not to blame him ?
Mary was not a scolding mother, and her gentle
reproaches died away before the boy's quiet and
abstracted mien. He looked at her with perfect
self-possession. Nay, truly, the right of reproach
seemed, strangely, to rest with him. He did not
speak untilhe chose, then:
"How is it," he said slowly, "that ye sought
me?" Mary hastened to explain, to expostulate ; but he
regarded her steadily. Before his unboylike eyes
her own dimmed with the pang that mothers know
when they see the first signs of manly will and in
dividualism in a growing son.
" Knew ye not," asked the boy, " that I must be
in my Father's house ? I must be," he said peremp
torily, " about my Father's things."

CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE

THE BOY 55
His manner was as solemn, as mysterious, as his
words. Mary and Joseph did not answer him.
They did not know how. His look was high and
unfamiliar. He glanced back at the rabbis, upward
at the splendid background of the Temple, then
downward on the tiles. Whatever his thoughts, he
did not try to share them with any person. With
the sigh of one awaking from a thrilling dream to
a dull reality, he passed down the terraces and out
from the Temple courts. His mother's hand held
his anxiously. He suffered this, without childish
fret or petulance. There seemed to be the decision
of a man in the heart of a boy. It was as if he
said to himself :
" I will trouble her no more. My time is not
come. After all, I am but a lad ! I will defer to
my parents and be subject to them."
And this without protest or rebellion he did and
was. He went back with them to Nazareth like any
other child ; and there, like any other child, he
lived and grew, and did the things that he was
told, and talked no more with the rabbis, and was
not restless or fretful to go back to Jerusalem and
have an audience in the Temple portico.
We have been told that he waxed strong in body
and in spirit, and found favor with God and men.
Beyond these quaint and beautiful words we know
nothing more about the young life of Jesus Christ,
until he was a man, and a man of thirty years.
Yet this period is, of all the unknown spaces on
the map of his life, the easiest for the loving im
agination to follow.

56 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
A boy who could deliberately abandon, after such
a glimpse as he had received of it, the enticement
of ecclesiastical eminence and active, public religious
service, and take up again, unrebellious and uncom
plaining, the duties of childhood, was not, from any
point of view, an ordinary youth.
The little, exotic Christians of our own day,
forced by steam-heated processes into the front of
prayer-meetings and exhortations and conventions,
would not have found the subjection and seclusion
of Nazareth welcome. We may doubt if the young
Jesus liked it any better. But he began life in
a rare way, — by doing the unwelcome cordially.
Think as we may about his resemblance to other
children at this time, his lack of resemblance to
them was early in evidence. A certain spiritual
precocity showed itself beyond all question ; it had
a finely dual nature. He could do, but he could
refrain; he could preach, but he could practice.
He could lead his elders, but he could obey them.
The interest of centuries has centred around the
Temple scene. But there was more individuality,
more poetry, more beauty, more religion in his
journey home with Mary's now too anxious hand on
his, or her nervous fingers touching always at his
talith; in his patience with a mother's mournful,
watchful eyes atoning for a temporary neglect by a
permanent oversight ; in his deference to a father's
orders, never before so frequent or so minute ; in
his reserve when chattering neighbors pried him
with questions about his truancy from the caravan ;
in his silence at the Nazareth synagogue where the

THE BOY 57
country rabbis droned. He listened meekly. He
did not debate or defy or deny. A lad, he took his
place among the lads, and awaited that majority of
character which lagged so far behind the majority of
law. How fair the vision of that one glowing hour
in the Temple ! Memory ran a gentle license in it.
Thrilling and mysterious experience ! What had
he done ? What should he do ? Obey, renounce,
retreat, observe, conform, delay, — so far clearly.
But what more ? What did it mean, — that flash
of power, that jet of light upon the mistiness of a
young and growing soul ? What should he think ?
How act ? How aspire, or how defer ? What vjas he ?
A boy ; the son of Joseph and Mary ; a country
lad, shut into a mountain village ; put to a trade ;
about to become a carpenter.
A great writer has said that he who has seen the
suffering of men and of women has seen nothing ;
he must see the suffering of children. It may be said
that the solitude of men and women is society be
side the solitude of children, — immature, unreason
ing, perplexed little beings, terrified at the opening
mystery of life. The solitude of a child -genius
stands quite by itself, "a garden walled." Who,
never having trodden its silent and desolate short
pathways, among its timid buds and premature
thorns, can presume to comprehend that limited
but passionate mental topography ?
All children of genius suffer, and most of them
acutely. The childhood of Christ was no exception
to this law. The subjection of crude power, scarcely
conscious of its own existence, to inferior but mature

58 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
minds; the dullness, coldness, criticism, discourage
ment, or positive rebuke of parents who are cast in a
coarser or a different mould from their own offspring ;
the push and jar of the wills of other children equal
in rank to the more gifted little one for whose pecu
liarities they have no respect (and they are seldom
taught it), such are the inevitable trials which mark
the lot of an unusual child.
The child Jesus was a religious genius, — of all
types of superiority the most refined, most sensitive,
most conscientious, and therefore least easily satis
fied with itself, and least likely to recognize the real
mistakes of its elders. These, in his case, were less
than they might have been. Whatever her ideas of
the nature or the future of her mystical son, Mary
had a certain amount of faith in both. She was
thoughtful, observant, docile to " the signs " by
which it was natural for a Jewish mind to be gov
erned in perplexing matters ; herself a devotee, and
always an essentially womanly woman, — hence a
lovable mother. She was sympathetic, perceptive,
alert, not urgent with her own will against the de
veloping will of her boy ; yet not without opinions,
or dignity in expressing them.
Joseph, on the other hand, was a man of great
good sense. While the inevitable discipline of the
family fell upon his shoulders, it was not executed
with severity. He recognized to a certain extent
that he had the rearing of a remarkable boy. In
so far as he was prepared for the surprising in the
history of the lad, Joseph perceived that the educa
tion of the child could not be a thoughtless affair.

THE BOY 59
His own mind worked with slow but honorable con
scientiousness about this problem. Too much free
dom or too little, more restraint or less, and the boy
(he reasoned) might be spoiled either way. The
father accepted the responsibility thus singularly laid
upon him in no inferior manner. Too many a Jew
ish home, in which the childhood of Christ might
have been passed, would have cruelly intensified the
difficulties of his youth.
Even as it was, and taken at their best, these
were neither few nor light. The boy bent himself
to his parents' wishes without protest ; but he had
his own thoughts and views of things. These he
neither obtruded nor avoided. His wide eyes, with
distance in them, watched the rabbis in the country
synagogue, and the neighbors at their theological
gossip. Early he learned that it was unnecessary
to say what one was thinking.
He went into the shop with Joseph as a matter of
course. Every respectable Jew was taught a trade.
This was the honorable thing. Jesus stood at the
bench and watched the shavings curl from the planes,
— strong oak, or shining pine, yellow like the sun
in the heavens ; or cedar, red as flesh and blood ; or
olive, rich as the fibre of life, — his delicate imagina
tion fastening itself on fancies or on visions as he
worked. Who shall say what these were? whither they
tended ? what they portended ? The youth himself
knew not whence they came. Strange glimpses of
that which he might not reach and did not under
stand broke through the fog of his daily task, —

60 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
brightness, burning down. What was life ? To be
a builder like his father ; to do exact work honora
bly ; to receive a coin for drilling a hole straight or
setting a joist true ; to go to the synagogue ; to fast
and bathe and pray, and feast and fast again ; to
commit an interminable Law to a wincing memory
and a troubled belief ; to be a good son, a good car^
penter, and a good Jew. Yet what was life ?
Struggling with itself, with his surroundings, with
his lot, the soul of the child of genius and the child
of God felt about for its own significance.
Solitude was natural to such youth as his. There
was deep opportunity for it in the beautiful groves
of oak which gathered about Nazareth. His strong,
young feet sought them often and oftener; to be
alone was his luxury, as it is that of all thoughtful
and superior beings.
Years of boyish obedience to parents who were
wise enough not to insist that they understood him,
years of precise mechanical labor at a decent trade,
years of good scholarship in the ecclesiastical
schools, passed dreamily over his mind and heart.
His character was formed by two controlling and
conflicting forces, — law and independence.
He was expected to be like other young men ;
conscientiously he tried to be so. Inwardly, like all
gifted and growing beings, he felt that he was not.
Yet how urge a difference which no one else seemed
to recognize? His personal modesty shrank from
this insistence. At times, to accept the estimate
formed of him by his neighbors seemed the only
reasonable thing to do.

THE BOY 61
He trembled away from over-valuing himself.
He tried to think he was like Aaron, or like Solo
mon, yonder across the village street. He blamed
himself for a kind of undue self - appreciation.
Gusts and gales against which no storm-signal gave
warning swept over him. They came from unex
pected directions. The points of compass in his
soul seemed all awry. Yet the magnetic needle
pointed true. To turn to that was safe. He may
have found it natural, through the passionate wea
ther of immaturity, to be an irreproachable youth ;
but he did not find it easy. His nature was too fine,
too complex, for mere commonplace correctness.
Duty? What was duty? He sought it in his
own young heart, but conflict answered him. He
asked it — for he was a wakeful lad — of the blaz
ing stars of the Eastern night ; he looked down into
the red heart of the wild lily for it, and up through
the green arches of the mountain woods he peered in
search of it. But neither nature nor his own being
replied distinctly. There were long spaces when
even his mother's fine perception could not help him.
She admitted to herself that she did not always
know how to treat him. He felt that he was misun
derstood. But he accepted the fact with a patience
not to be expected of his years or of his tempera
ment. For he had now come to recognize that he
did not understand himself.

CHAPTER n
A BEAUTIFUL SCENE
How docile, how silent the years ! Eighteen, of
them lay between the visit of the lad to the Temple
and the entrance of the young man upon public
life. It would be impossible to overestimate the self-
repression required of any strong and gifted nature
put through an apprenticeship of solitude and of
patience like that to which Jesus was subjected be
fore the opening of his career. In his case we have
the added element of his mystical superiority. That
which would have been a blossoming or a blighting
experience for an ordinary being, — what did it mean
to him ?
Evidently, the subjection of a strong will to that
of parental judgment; the power to live a village
life without being narrowed by it ; formation of the
habits of a keen and quiet observer of men ; the
silent study of the religion and history of his people
and times ; intense love of Nature, and the learning
of her more valuable lessons, — these Nazareth taught
him, slowly and thoroughly ; for nothing was forced
in his training, nothing hurried, nothing skimmed.
God took time enough to educate Jesus Christ. No
half-taught, undeveloped character, no " self-made"

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 63
mind, was thrust into the greatest career of history.
And still beyond the obvious effects of Nazareth
upon the young man, there was the something that
we cannot weigh and may not measure, — the ele
ment of the incalculable, the touch of that which he
who claims to understand and reduce to language
shows thereby that he understands the least of any.
It would not be difficult to gauge the mental
conditions of a young and ardent contemporary of
Christ, whose preparation for public life lay also
in retirement and renunciation ; for such a nature
speaks our language. That of Christ forever calls
for interpretation. His first important interpreter
was the young man of whom we speak. The two
were related, their lives connected by strange pre
natal history ; yet their homes were far apart, one
being in Galilee and one in Southern Judea ; and
they had nothing which could properly be called
personal acquaintance with each other up to the
time of the beautiful and dramatic hour which
ushered in the public career of Christ.
It was a mild day1 in the late autumn, or the
early winter, of what we number as the year of
Rome 780. The Jordan, a picturesque, and for its
entire course a lonely river, — scarcely sixty miles
from Gennesaret to the Dead Sea in a straight line,
but two hundred by its windings, — had been for
some months the scene of unusual activity. Every
body was talking of a recluse who had suddenly
left his retirement, and was teaching upon the banks
of the stream. 1 The 6th or 10th of January. Tradition.

64 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The forerunners of revolutions are among the
most interesting men in history, but they are among
the least understood ; nor do they easily understand
themselves. Life, fate, the souls of men, their own
natures, even the nature of the great movements
which they represent, are liable to undergo a pecu
liar confusion of outline in their minds. They are
not good judges of affairs ; almost always preju
diced ; apt to be dreamy and not practical, or obsti
nate and short-sighted.
He who was called the Baptist was a person of
extraordinary beauty of spirit. Few men who have
been important to human affairs have sunk them
selves so utterly in the depths of the cause to which
they have offered dedication.
He did not so much as stop to think what men
would think of him, or whether they would think of
him at all. He was the servant of a great idea, and
he did not offer it the discourtesy of any visible in
terest in himself.
The wilderness of Judea was the favorite resort
at that time of recluses, — more or less miserable
men, disgusted with the abominations and follies of
their times, and taking to what they called philoso
phy as a substitute for faith, replacing happiness by
solitude and superstition. . These poor souls existed,
and shivered, and starved, and quarreled in the
ghastly clefts and caves of the great Judean deserts.
John began life like the rest of them, unno
ticed, a solitary, a person of no consequence, a fre
quenter of the hills, the cliffs, the caves, and the
gorges ; a man who could not live like other people,

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 65
but must needs concern himself with impossible
theories of more impossible practice; a person to
be pitied, or ridiculed, or tolerated, or respected,
according to one's temperament.
How or when he had become other or more, who
knew? Where had he crossed the invisible line
between obscurity and eminence ? Long before the
day of which we think, John had become a person
of influence.
The region of the Jordan had been for some time,
in fact, the scene of an extensive religious excite
ment ; and the young solitary was the centre of it.
Judea, Perea, Galilee, the people, the government,
Jews, Gentiles, travelers, the hills, the hamlets, and
the desert whispered to each other. For five hun
dred years the Hebrews had numbered no prophet
among their great men. The rumor that one had
come up out of the desert excited the keenest in
terest. Quickly and quietly the crowd began to
thicken. John had now a regular audience.
This young man, spare with long fasting, with
vigils, with prayers, weather-beaten and weather-
colored, with the long, uncut hair and beard of a
special vow, was a stern and sombre figure. He
fortified himself for a day of hard public speaking
by eating a few dried locusts (the food of beggars
and of the squalid poor) -and added the honey with
¦ which the multitudinous wild bees stored the wil
derness of Judea. This religious enthusiast wore a
single garment of the roughest weave of camel's-hair
cloth ; and his head-dress was the simplest possible
arrangement of stuff, sufficient to protect from the

66 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
sun. He was tall and grave. He discoursed of
serious things. The dark-skinned faces lifted to his
grew sober. Fear sat upon many ; hope on others ;
attention on all.
John was not a flattering speaker ; he had no
adroitness, and little mind to trouble himself whether
he knocked a man's vanity flat with the bludgeon of
a condemnatory peroration ; but there was a secret
in his popularity. He was believed to handle a
political idea, the favorite of the Jews* and the im
pulse of the times.
The Messianic expectation was in the air of Pal
estine. The Temple and the market-place buzzed
with it, the caravans whispered of it, Roman rulers
feared it, and Jewish scribes consulted of it. Her-
mon, and Carmel, and Zion watched for it ; the
waves of the Galilean Sea repeated it, and Jordan
reflected it. John, like all forerunners of great
masters and great movements, was as much the
product of his times as the honey was the work of
the wild bee, or the gray-lined leaf the growth of the
olive bough, or the corn the consequence of the seed.
He preached what men wanted, expected, and were
ready for.
The horizon of Nazareth was past its warmth and
color, for winter was at hand. The mountains lifted
dark profiles against a thoughtful sky. The best
and burst of the blossom had dropped from the
landscape. The traveler thought of this as he
turned his face towards a ford in the Jordan, which
lay perhaps twenty miles away. Jesus had grown

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 67
to manhood in a world of flowers, the barren hills
yielding more scarlet ranunculus and red anemone
than pasturage ; the rock-roses, white and pink, ran
everywhere. His eyes were early trained to the tints
of narcissus, iris, and the red tulip. He knew the
pink convolvulus and daisy ; he loved the cyclamen
and asphodel.
But when he went out to the first act of his pub
lic life, he walked in the dying of the year. Re
sponsive to signs and omens, like all his race, did he
think of this, as he made his solitary way towards
Jordan, gleaming below terraces of sycamore and
tamarisk trees and lined by fringes of reeds ? For
he went alone, moved by the voices which speak
only to separateness.
Behind him lay the assured past, — his youth,
sheltered, peaceful ; all the calm and cheerful years
that precede responsibility ; monotonous daily labor,
respected and respectable, but safe ; his gentle home ;
his mother, with the aureola in her eyes, — his mother,
a widow now, for Joseph of the strong arm and great
fatherly heart was dead ; his mother, needing him.
Before him lay the future of a marked life ; a
future towards which he felt impelled, as one feels
impelled to make a leap into the fog, for the sake
of a motive blinder yet than the abyss into which
one plunges.
Whither did his steps tend as he trod the path
to the banks of Jordan ? Whither did his purpose
move ? Beyond the investigation of a local reli
gious revival, of which Nazareth talked like the rest
of the world, what "did that journey mean ?

68 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Had he been asked, he would have made no an
swer ; it may be said that he did not distinctly know
himself. Led by the first impulse of maturing char
acter, he sought the thick of the spiritual battle
nearest him. Yet he did not go sombrely, as a
soldier enlisted for his death ; rather happily, as a
dreamer following his vision ; or humbly, as a thinker
asking a great question : let the answer, be it what
it would, — for joy or for anguish, for success or for
failure, — let the answer come !
Through the thick growth of the river banks he
came out suddenly upon the glancing stream. The
tall reeds, swaying to the light winds, parted and
closed above his head. At some little distance above
him, a crowd of Jews were drawing about a young
ascetic. He of Nazareth, being unobserved, gath
ered himself against the shadow of the reeds, and,
standing silently, looked and listened.
John had no velvet tongue, but his audience
seemed to like him none the less for that. The adu
lations, nay, even the courtesies of oratory, were
absent from his speech. He arraigned his times
and his hearers. The banks of the river rang with
tremendous exhortations.
" Repent ! repent ! Look to your sins ! The
time is short. The Kingdom is at hand. The King
dom of Heaven cometh. Repent ! confess ! "
Gentler tones succeeded. There were persuasions
to a better life. There were hints and more than
hints of better public conditions and of brighter
personal hopes. The great political yearnings and
beliefs of the Jews were gathered into a form vague

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 69
at first, then clearer, then definite, then positive.
The speaker threatened, but he promised ; he con
demned, but he reassured. He scathed his hearers
for their vices, but he flung before them the banner
of their great National Hope, their long-cherished,
proud, and splendid expectation : " Your Deliverer
is within reach ! Your Hero is here ! He whom ye
have trusted and awaited is close at hand. Behold,
he cometh ! Prepare the way for him ! "
Now the people, hearing these stirring words, and
wrought upon with the eloquence of the young
speaker, took upon themselves a natural conclusion.
Who should this man be who had troubled the waters
of Jordan for so many a day ? See Jerusalem, and
Bethlehem, and Jericho, and the hill country, and the
desert, thronging to follow this extraordinary recluse,
who sought nothing, claimed nothing for himself !
— this eloquent, self -forgetting being, burning in
the flame of truth, and thinking no more of his own
interest than the angels who talked with Abraham
or wrestled with Jacob !
So his listeners pressed upon him. " Thou," they
cried, " art He ! Thou art no prophet, but He Him
self ! Thou art He whom we have sought so long ! "
Then swiftly over the face of John there came
the unconscious and the noble look of one who does
not even recognize the high nature of the deed he
does. In his hands at that moment he held the
chance of such an attractive though delusive per
sonal history as few men have had. The emotional
Jews were ready to take him for his own Christ.
He could have passed for their Messiah much more

70 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
easily than he could persuade them just then that
he was not the man.
The watcher by the river bank took a few steps
forward and upward of the stream; so, drawing
nearer, but still unnoticed, he could hear more
plainly what took place between the speaker and the
people. " Why should we look for another ? Art
thou not He ? Thou art He ! "
"Nay — nay, I am not He. I am not worthy to
unloose the fastening of his sandal. He cometh
after, but He is preferred before. He is before me
and above me. I baptize you with this water."
As John spoke he gently drew one of the throng
towards him into the ford, and moving to the shal
low of the river baptized the penitent. This was
done with the solemnity of one who believed in the
sacredness of the act, and his own reverence there
for was seen to extend quickly to the people.
" There cometh One," he murmured, " He shall
bathe you with fire, and with the Spirit which is
Holy. Repent ! for He is mightier than I ! " As
he spoke these last three words he perceived sud
denly that he was observed by a stranger standing
apart on the banks of the stream. The color fled
quickly from the dark face of the young prophet.
He ceased abruptly, and strode towards the figure.
The two young men stood for a moment face to
face without speaking to each other. John was still
pale, and the ragged fringe on the edge of his coarse
garment trembled below his leathern girdle.
He of Nazareth, in a light talith, against the
dark background of the reeds and river trees, took

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 71
on a strong relief. Their eyes — in both the solemn,
searching eyes of the devotee, undistracted by diver
sion, deepened by thought, undaunted by self-denial,
darkened by the unconscious shadow of coming
martyrdom — questioned each other. Those of the
one asked :
" Who art thou ? "
And those of the other made strange answer, not
saying :
" I am He," but rather repeating, " Who am I ?
Read me to myself." Words added little to that
instantaneous recognition of the spirit.
Neither could have put into language what that
moment meant to each. The face of John grew
rapt. But on that of • the Nazarene a gentle trouble
lay. Possessed by who knew what thoughts, he had
sought the haunts of the popular teacher. Driven
by who could say what longing for recognition, of
which he sorely felt the need, he had come to his
unknown kinsman, this young man whose public
career had already so much the start of his own.
With the touching humility characteristic of his
whole life, he depended on his cousin for that en
couragement without which he would not, perhaps
could not, have trusted the stirring of his own na
ture. On John fell the double responsibility of
recognition and of interpretation ; he must identify
Christ to himself, as well as to the people. One
gesture did it, — one swift Oriental gesture of rev
erence,, of worship. John's suffused eyes, bowed
head, outstretched hands, sinking body, prostrate
being, cried : " Thou art He ! "

72 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Still the face of the other, too gentle, too humble,
to mistake the moment, regarded him perplexedly.
" Who ami?" it said.
The people had now begun to press down the-
river bank. towards the prophet, but John, by a mo
tion which would have been impatient in a pettier
man and at a lesser crisis of feeling, ordered them
to keep their distance. The two were therefore still
apart and undisturbed. The waters of the ford,:
deepening where they now stood, ran calmer and
darker. The slender leaves of a willow on. the.
banks dropped into the stream and floated down.
Tree-tops were reflected brokenly in the river, — a
palm, a red tamarisk, a clump of oleanders, and a
few white-stemmed sycamores, beyond the fringe of
reeds. Doves shimmered overhead. The sky was
warm and deep. The Nazarene stepped down into
the water.
Startled, incredulous, shocked, John perceived
that Jesus was seeking the submission of baptism.
The young man's whole nature rose in noble revolt
against the situation in which he so unexpectedly
found himself. He was destitute of the motives of
ordinary forerunners of heroes : at the first intima
tion that his day was over, he was ready to drop the
symbol and the substance of power ; preeminence
was nothing to him, the sweets of leadership, the fas
cination of oratory, — nothing and less! He longed
only to be true to his one errand in the world,. only
to be the prologue to the drama, the herald . before
the king ; only to be blotted, forgotten, obliterated
in the glory and the story of the Wonderful !

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 73
"Nay, nay. Comest thou to me? Rather I to
thee ! "
But Jesus, smiling, had his will ; and gently and
enigmatically urging, " Suffer it to be, for now," he
waded into the water and received from the awed
and trembling hands of his kinsman the rite of ded
ication to a religious life. But when he came up
out of the shining river the people had run down
the banks of the stream, and many of them stood
collected to see the newcomer, about whose baptism
there seemed to be something of special interest
which they had missed. They had scrambled along
chattering, but a quietness fell on them when they
reached the spot. For the look on the faces of the
two young men was not a thing to gossip in the
presence of, however much or long one might talk
of it in after times.
And, while the whole group stood, thoughtful, a
cream-white dove that had been flying to and fro
across Jordan rose high in the heavens and swept
out of sight. The stranger had fixed his gaze upon
the flight of the dove ; and, thus, dripping with
gleaming water, with upraised face, he seemed en
tirely preoccupied with the movements of the bird.
John, wondering at his absorption in this trifle, drew
near to observe the other, and, seeing that he was at
prayer, reverently drew back. The bird swept into
sight again ; graceful, snowy, palpitating like a thing
half bird, half lily, pure as the film of the cloud,
through which it descended slowly. The dove
dipped toward the water, and with a few encircling
movements settled gently upon the head of Jesus,

74 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
whose uplifted countenance it seemed to study with
that strange distance which the observation of a
bird puts between itself and a human face, as if it
came from a sphere too high to touch humanity.
Almost before one could say that it had "rested upon
the man, it had ascended from him and melted into
the sky.
A little murmur ran through the crowd at the
beautiful sight; the people, who must always talk
of whatever happens, turned to say something each
to his neighbor. But Jesus and John, who did not
speak, listened with held breath. Again their eyes
met solemnly, each with a question in them.
" Didst thou hear aught ? "
"Didst thou?" . . .
Afterwards a strange thing was said about the
dove. It was reported that John, whose severe and
honorable word was not to be doubted, had heard
intelligible sounds from the heavens when the bird
swept from the sky upon the head of the newly-bap
tized man ; it was added that the other had himself
heard them, and more than these, and that the
words had a meaning which no man else could un
derstand. Some said that this was the Bath-qol, or Daughter
Voice, common to the over-excited imagination of the
Jews, by which those who were quite ready to be
lieve in it found their affairs regulated, — business,
marriage, travel, and the like.
But there were those who shook their heads and
observed with significance that John was not a
man to trouble himself about the Daughter Voice.

A BEAUTIFUL SCENE 75
It was said that the stranger, standing in the Jordan
with the light of a fresh religious vow upon his
lifted face, with prayer in his eyes and the dove
circling to his brow, had been identified of Heaven
(John being witness to the fact) in mystical lan
guage :
" My beloved son ! " What manner of words
were these ? "lam well pleased with thee ! " What
should be made of it ?
There were not wanting philosophers and dreamers
as well as common folk, who claimed that John and
his kinsman had indeed heard that to which other
ears were deaf : for it was well known to Oriental
students that there are senses beyond the familiar
five whose culture is within a man's own control, and
whose grasp may reach strange facts, both of the
mind and of the body; and whose witness of the
marvelous no man less devout, less pure, less edu
cated in higher truth than he who testifies thereof
has the right to dispute. At all events, it could
not be denied that the beautiful baptismal scene
on Jordan bade fair to become a public event of
marked importance.
The newly-baptized man was quickly made aware
that he had become the centre of observation. The
followers of the young prophet, half irresolute be
tween the two, looked from one to the other with
their piercing Jewish eyes. Certain of the bolder
in the throng pressed curiously forward towards the
stranger : a Pharisee in full phylactery and a He
brew merchant, both bent, it was clearly to be seen,
on a good bout of polemics ; a Roman citizen and a

76 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Greek traveler followed with the more nonchalant
interest of men of the world in a passing episode.
But the Nazarene, stunned with the awful creden
tials which John had given over to him, and thrill
ing with the mystical experience of the past hour,
turned abruptly away.
With bowed head he passed through the shivering
river reeds in the direction of the desert.

CHAPTER III
THE WILDERNESS
From an early Jewish writer have come down to
us these fine words : " The Holy One, blessed be
His Name, does not elevate a man to dignity till He
has first tried and searched him ; and if he stands
in temptation, then He raises him to dignity."
Overwhelmed with the events of the day, Jesus
sought the solitude which it was his first and his
second nature to love. There was nothing better
to be done for the crowd at that moment than to
gratify its curiosity, which he had no disposition
to do ; he escaped it, and, pushing through the reeds
which grew above his tall height, left the river
rapidly behind him.
The Judean desert was, of all the wildernesses to
to be found in the vicinity of civilization, one of the
most^dreary and uncanny. The Jews, with grim
succinctness, called it The Horror, The Appalling
Desolation. Jesus walked strongly and quickly. After a few
hours he found himself at the foot of the western
hills, in a more desolate region and quite alone.
Day was declining ; and the heads and shoulders of
the bare chalk hills were at their kindest colors in
the mellow before the sunset ; but these were cold

78 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
enough. Flint-bound ridges looked icily at each
other, as if they intimated dark thoughts which they
were forbidden to communicate. No sign of life
was visible except the birds of the desert, and now
and then one of its sly, wild animals. A few stray
thrushes uttered melancholy notes. A black grackle
with yellow wings flew over the traveler's head and
rose, vanishing. Vultures circled low in grim spots
about the landscape. An unseen fox, or desert par
tridge, waiting for the dark, slipped stealthily among
the rocks.
Westward, valleys of tremendous depth already
held the night. Passage through them was not to
be thought of, they were so steep and deep, except
in their troughs below. Southward this grim coun
try was impassable. Far away lay the only inhab
ited spot in the desert, — a towa, JSngedi by name.
A few reservoirs, in hard limestone, "Eeltt* the-ymly
water of the thirsty landscape. There were tale's of
terrible torrents in winter and spring, and gorges of
incredible depth told the story of the rush of fresh
ets from the heights. On the hills g"PEw only the
plants that ask no water ; dry, sinister, with a skin
prickly to the touch. In the valleys a white broom
thickened courageously, but this bloomed in March.
In the summer the desert was a land of drought. In
the winter it held the chill and the repulsiveness of
the grave. In the night it had the outlines and the
shadows of sorcery, of the supernatural, of the ter
rors that come after the grave.
Night was coming on. Jesus climbed to the front
of a high cliff, and looked about him. He saw the

THE WILDERNESS 79
chalk of the midland hills sloping from three thou
sand feet yonder, near Hebron, to half that height
at the valley of the Dead Sea. He saw a country
of caves and gorges, of secrecy, of shadow, of un
clean and venomous creatures, of skulking things
and hiding men. For he remembered that there
were men who chose the desert for their only home ;
hermits and philosophers, robbers and refugees from
justice, and those weary of life ; dwellers in caves
and brooders upon mystery. One of these came out
from a cavern that gaped black below the cliff on
whose edge the Nazarene was standing, stared up at
him sulkily for a moment with gaunt eyes, and flit
ted away like a bat. This momentary sign of human
life served only to emphasize the sense of desolation
hanging over the place.
The swift Oriental night swept on in large masses.
The long lines of the gorges took on frightful pro
portions in the gloom. One came upon them unex
pectedly. A false step might hurl a man to a tomb
in which he would never be found. The solitary,
feeling his way slowly through the twilight, op
pressed by thought too tense to be aware of danger,
suddenly drew back. His foot had struck the edge
of a chasm, yawning thirty or forty feet across his
way ; he peered over ; the bottom lay at the least a
thousand feet down.
The sun was now quite set, and the chill of night
was descending. Jesus, perceiving that it would
be impracticable to continue his wanderings, sought
such shelter for the night as the inhospitable place
afforded, — a cleft in the rock, an uninhabited cave,

80 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
a cushion of the dry plants that had no thirst, and
that seemed when he touched them like an unnatural
form of organism which shrank from him. The
stars sprang out and the dew fell. Ravens croaked
in some dismal distance. A rare viper, whose lair
he had disturbed, hissed at his feet. The hills, in
the darkness, took on portentous forms. The val
leys sank away from the solid earth like bottomless
pits. He had eaten nothing for some hours, and
it did not occur to him to provide himself with food.
His mind and heart. were in a tumult which he found
it difficult to understand or to calm.
The scenes and events of the day returned like
doors folding upon themselves ; through their aper
tures he passed and repassed. The long, dusty walk ;
vanished Nazareth ; the watchful trees that guarded
Jordan ; the tall reeds ; the gleaming river ; the
crowds lining the stream ; the face and figure of the
young, prophet, his impassioned words, his burning
eyes, his sudden recognition, his beautiful obeisance ;
the touch of the cool water; the emotions with
which the sacred rite had been accepted, — followed
fast in turn again. In the dead dark of the desert
the shining of the white dove glimmered from the
sky. From the silence of the wilderness throbbed
up the echo of The Voice : " Thou — thou art My
beloved Son. "
The dull ear had not heard it, nor the deaf with
pettiness and worldliness and vice. The senses of
the pure spirit understood it, for to them it spoke.
The perplexed and solitary man, pondering over all
things, — life, death, truth, his own past, his own

J. k. 1

-. -- r.,»-0..

^

THE JORDAN

THE WILDERNESS 81
future, his duty, and his fate, — could not doubt that
he had heard from the Invisible these to most men
inaudible words. The thrill of them was on him
yet. Whence did they come ? Who uttered them ?
What did they mean ? What did they involve in
him who had been chosen by their solemn articula
tion ? It were a deadly thing to mistake a syllable
of them. What depended upon their correct com
prehension? The course of a whole life's history
must be decided in a few days and nights of thought
and solitude ; but that, to the watcher in the desert,
was the least of his problem. The fate of an ancient
people, the fulfillment of a great hope and of stately
prophecy, the outcry of humanity, the pitiable pas
sion of the earth, crowded upon his consciousness.
" Thou shalt carry the sins of the world."
These words pursued him. The scream of a night-
bird in the desert cried across them ; the howling of
a wolf, the barking of a jackal in the distance min
gled with them ; the winds in the caves would have
drowned them, but they rang on. Where and when
had he heard them ? Were they the refrain of some
poem in the literature of his people ? The echo
of an ancient past ? Or were they the forecast of
an impending future ? Six weeks later these were
destined to be almost the first words which should
meet his ears when he returned to the habitations of
men. The voice of his young kinsman, he half com
manding as a prophet should, would quiver with this
salutation. Jesus might have been astonished to
discover in himself, as he paced the wilderness, the
first, faint intimation of those extra senses which

82 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
men call preaudience or prevision ; but he was too
far buried in greater and deeper thought and feeling
to dwell as yet upon the simpler signs of a new and
startling endowment. He who had but an hour
since heard the voice of God did not tarry with the
mystery of his own nature.
'¦'¦Thou shalt carry the sins ofthe world, . . . thou
Lamb of God."
Suddenly, bleating and piteous, flashed back the
face of a lamb that he had seen on that first time
when, a lad, he went to the Temple, — a white, ten
der thing, clinging to its butchers, bleeding! He
saw the entreaty in its dumb eyes, their last an
guish ; the red hands of the priest ; smoke and fire
on the dripping altar. . . .
Day dawned without cheer. The outlines of the
. great hill Quarantana, prominent because the last
peak of a western ridge, and ending in a sheer preci
pice, rose frowning. The watcher directed his steps
towards it, and, climbing to its front, looked off over
the dismal landscape which he had chosen as the
setting to the crisis of his life. The east broke
grayly with a sickly, purplish mock of sunrise. The
scorpions crawled into their hiding places sullenly,
and rooks croaked somewhere close at ear. A few
moving blots among the caves in the precipice in
dicated the presence of the miserable human beings
who knew no other homes than this jagged country ;
they were seeking their morning meal. Even that
starving fare was not for the Nazarene; he found
himself already faint with the first distress of a hun-

THE WILDERNESS 83
ger that was not to be of short duration, and from
which he shrank, as all men do from the opening
stage of any form of long-continued suffering.
For that he had come to the crisis of his life his
clear perception could not doubt. A threefold pres
sure crowded upon him and within him, — the views
of other men, the movements of his own soul, and
the voice of God.
The thought of his young kinsman was plain
enough to read. John saw in Jesus the material for
a great reformer, — of spotless personal character,
to be sure, of positive religious fervor, of irreproach
able motives ; mysteriously (for who knew, when
one came to this, just what John meant ? ) — mys
teriously favored of Heaven, but a great leader of
men ; ordained to hold masses in his power, and
fated to be an immense personal success, such a suc
cess as the devout mind of the young ascetic on the
banks of Jordan would consider inseparable from
the career of the chosen of God, the Messiah of a
proud people.
Yet the views of John as to the nature and duties
of the Jewish Messiah were as far in advance of
those held by the majority of his hearers as his life
was purer than a Roman gentleman's, or nobler
than a Hebrew Pharisee's.
Jesus was too well-educated a man, too thoroughly
learned in Hebrew literature, to be at all misled as
to the kind of hero whom the Hebrews expected,
awaited, and would honor.
In himself he did not find the material for any
such ideal as his people passionately cherished. All

84 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
the traditions of his race pointed one way. The
instincts of his own nature drew him in another.
Between them, gently as the dove had floated from
the sky in the afternoon light on Jordan, descended
the whisper of God. But saying what ? . . .
His strong eye ran from the low-lying foreground
to the heights of Moab and Gilead steadily. Who
was he — a young man, unknown, unbefriended, in
experienced, a rustic from Nazareth — that he should
take upon himself the most solemn claims possible
to his people or his faith ? What was he that he
should parley with Jehovah ? How should he pre
sume to translate The Voice from Heaven?
"I will remain in this wilderness until I do."
This resolve formed itself in his consciousness with
out explicit words, as one familiar with a foreign
language translates it without transposition to his
own tongue. Resolutely putting in the background
of his mind his personal discomfort ; his sharpening
hunger, the gusts of sickening faintness that swept
upon him, his suffering from the need of sleep, and
the sense of loneliness so much more acute in a
delicate than in a dull organization, — he held him
self down among the creatures of the desert, like
one of them. There he called on the genius of soli
tude and the angel of self-deprivation, as all men
must who would approach God, to help him in the
first great definite battle of a spiritual contest des
tined to last till his final breath should be drawn in
agony, and his final prayer ascend in peace.
Day succeeded night and week followed upon

THE WILDERNESS 85
week. With the natural respect of an Oriental and
of a Hebrew for long-sustained fasts and seclusion,
it did not occur to Jesus that he was subjecting
himself to unreasonable rigors ; in fact, his personal
comfort was the last of all topics in his thoughts.
His emotion far transcended all common interrup
tions to its current, whose depth and strength, did
but increase under bodily suffering.
A lesser man, acting under a meaner motive,
might in the presence of admiring spectators have
subjected himself to surprising feats in starvation,
or burial, or physical contortion, or to the vagaries
of voluntary and unnecessary martyrdom, seeking
thereby personal glory enough to pay for the pro
cess. But this noble enthusiast, simply, without
calculation, without witnesses, swept on the stream
of a great impulse, suffered in solitude and in night,
and in perplexity, — to what end ? That his soul
might know itself and its God ; that he might learn
his duty and do it. Yet was he no angel, but a
man ; and his human suffering encroached upon his
strength. He weakened and sickened. Visions of
food swam before his eyes. Pictures of home, of
friends, of long-needed sleep, of his own rug in his
mother's house, of her tender face, her gentle min
istration, the evening meal prepared, by her quiet
hands, blurred against the dark background of the
desert. He remembered that no one had sought
him out in his solitude ; half forgetting, as his physi
cal distress extended upon him, that he himself had
chosen to be alone. . . . Then the visions again!
Cool fruit heaped up, dusky and rich of color in its

86 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
own leaves, sprang out everywhere to his strained
eye ; the cliffs hung heavy with purpling grapes ;
and the mouth of the cave rioted with fig and olive,
blazed with luscious melon, crimsoned with alluring
pomegranate. He put out his hand, and the teeth of the lime
stone bruised him. Fresh, unleavened bread hot
from the oven, for the meal of a sacred day's use,
stood smoking on the ground ; . . . see ! piled in
loaves against the feet of the rock. He staggered
up and stooped over to pick it up. . . . Stone ! —
stone as cold as the sepulchre, and as sharp as fam
ine. Night was coming on ; the shadows of the desert
took monstrous shapes ; on the brain disordered by
a fast already prolonged past the limits of torment,
strange impressions were stamped. Uncanny tales
came back to memory. Sorcery and witchcraft and
demonology were allies to assault the intelligence
and the self-possession of a starving man. Half-
delirious dreams chased each other through a burn
ing brain. The pains of hunger, which are outlived
in the earlier stages of starvation, had scarcely re
ceived attention in their time ; for the greatness of
his emotion had not suffered them. Now the fatal
and inexorable symptoms of the final failure of
human strength within a famished body drew on.
Delirium and syncope were close at hand. Food I
food ! He crept down the mountain to a cleft in the
rock where water had collected and dashed it in his
haggard face.

THE WILDERNESS 87
Suddenly within him, like the groping, griping
hands of a strong man fighting in the dark, uprose
the movement of a something never felt before, —
new forces in his soul ; strange senses of the spirit,
superinduced upon those of his fainting body; the
shadows of coming gifts, of advancing possibilities,
of unknown facilities of action and unguessed powers
of will. What were these ? Whence did they come ?
Whither would they lead him? What should he
do with them ?
He sat with his famished eyes fastened upon an
oval, flat stone at his feet ; it had the shape of
shew-bread, such as the priests baked for their own
food. He picked the stone up and handled it curi
ously. A thrill like the joy of feasting ran from
his fingers through his whole sinking body. At that
moment he perceived that he had but to open his
lips and speak two words : " Become bread ! " for
the rocks of the wilderness were his. The hard
heart of the limestone would melt like dough ber
neath his touch. The resources of the desert would
obey him. Starvation was his servant. The laws
of human life were his slaves. He had but to
speak. . . .
He did not speak. He laid the stone down — and
it was but a stone. The famished man put his hands
before his face and trembled, but not with physical
anguish; and bowed himself to the earth in the
dark, but not with bodily weakness. His whole
being shook with the shock of a great moral escape.
It seemed to his delicate sense of spiritual honor
that the exertion of a great and sacred gift to selfish

88 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ends were a heinous desecration. All the principali
ties and powers of the desert air might summon their
cohorts against his starving weakness, but he who
had heard The Voice from the sky above the river had
other uses for his sense of power, — this new, thrill
ing, mystical power to do, to be, to dream, to act the
Will of God Almighty ; not his own. No, never
his own ; from this first moment in the knowledge
that he was not like other men, to the last hour of
his dedicated life, never his own will, for his own
sake, for his own ends, for his own comfort.
There was another way. There was a nobler ex
ercise for latent and mysterious strength.
The fasting solitary lifted his hands, his face, to
the heavens. Food ? Yes, a man must have food.
But of what kind ? It was easier for the starving
body to be nourished by the mind and heart of God
than for the starving soul to live on bread alone.
In his great exaltation, this profound thought seemed
to rest at his drawn and fevered lips like a chalice.
Perishing, he drank life from it.
He had now reached that stage of physical ex
haustion when the mind, nearly or quite freed from
its usual dependence upon the senses, rules in a
world of its own. Vision upon vision swam before
him ; these had jhe proportions of reality ; sight,
touch, hearing recognized them, and other faculties,
unknown, unnamed, took hold of them. Yet his
judgment curiously kept step with these. Bewil
dering, alluring panorama unfolded before him. It
was as if they rolled and unrolled over the expanse
of the whole desert. They extended so far that his

THE WILDERNESS 89
eye could not compass them where he was, and,
weakly crawling up, he managed to reach the nearest
height above him, where bleak Quarantana looked
down coldly on the darkening valleys. Here, soli
tary, observant, silent, he sank upon the rock.
Swarming below, he saw the people of his race,
mad with hero-worship, but pugnacious to create
their own hero, prostrating themselves at his feet.
Their hot huzzas ascended to his ears. They were
such a throng that their dark, bright, Oriental eyes
rolled like the little waves of a great lake. Their
spokesman held up a flashing thing, — a crown !
Purple robes and sceptre, signets, jewels, flights of
flashing marble steps, fountains, gardens, palisades,
the ante-rooms of a palace, slaves, flowers, banquets,
perfumes from behind the silken curtains of un
entered, unseen apartments, swept trembling by.
Stately emissaries of Gentile dignitaries awaited
audience of him. Gentile nations, for his sake,
honored his race. Persia, Egypt, Babylonia, bowed
before the once scorned and captive Jews. Rome —
ah, Rome ! haughty, dreaded, and hated ; Rome,
afraid of her freed slaves, made terms with her
equals ; and he — he, Jesus of Nazareth, dictated
and enforced those terms. To what end ? His own
glory, and the gratified prejudices and traditions of
his people. At what price ? At the cost of a polit
ical life ; at the cost of feverish intrigue, petty rest
lessness, and deliberate emphasis of self; at the
price of the lower motive, the personal greed, and
indifference to best things which the politician may
elect to pay, clothing personal aims in the diapha
nous delusion of. serving the public weal.

90 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Was that what The Voice on Jordan meant to say ?
Did the white wing of The Dove brush his bowed
and humble head for that ?
Nay, nay. " Him only shalt thou serve ! " The
besieged man flung himself upon the visions of the
night, of the desert, of his own powerful imagina
tion and keen intellect, as if they had been spirits
of the nether world, and as if it depended upon
himself alone in all the universe to force the rebel
lion of moral guilt into subjection to imperial Good.
Ah, the Temple ! Splendid, glittering, marble and
gold ; priests and altars ; worshipers crowding up
and down ; the bleeding, burning lambs ; the great
and gorgeous sacred veil, stiff with embroidery of
blue, of purple, of crimson, of white, with golden
cherubim wrought thereon ; the hidden ark ; the
Holy of Holies !
He passed through the Gate Beautiful, and wan
dered in and out. He reached the exquisite colon
nade of Solomon's Porch, climbed the highest pin
nacle, and there stood looking down and off. The
gorge of Kedron yawned below him, — three hun
dred and fifty feet sheer down. The brook lay like
a bubble below. What a leap ! . . .
Yonder in the courts the people thronged. Some
were looking up : they had caught sight of him
above ; they were speaking to one another about him.
Jerusalem lay blazing in the sun ; the heat of the
day was breaking ; people were coming from their
houses ; the markets were opening, the streets were
filling, the whole world was there to see. What a

THE WILDERNESS 91
fall ! What a feat ! What a wonder ! It were only
to leave this hideous den of death and night ; to
break this mortal fast ; to gather strength to make
the journey by the fire of his soul, to be in the
Sacred City. When ? How ? Perhaps by the will
ing of a wish, by the motion of a foot, by the out
stretching of an arm. Who knew how the strange
powers within him, newly discovered, freshly lighted,
dulled only by famine and desolation, waiting for
their nourishment, crying for their exercise, would
bestir themselves ?
He felt it in his thrilling consciousness that he
could have floated over that parapet, and descended
among the gaping crowd without a bruise. So great
was his exaltation, so mighty his sense of untried,
undeveloped faculties, at this moment, that the mar
vel seemed even small to him. It meant but the
ordering of a purpose ; it meant but a turn of the
will. It meant that the allegiance, the adoration of
his race, were his, and his forever. It meant that
precious thing, — of all the ambitions of earth or
heaven most bewitching to a Jewish mind, — abso
lute recognition as their Messiah. It meant none
the less a devout life than this starvation in the
desert, nay, rather, meant it all the more. It meant
the most godlike, the holiest career of which the
Hebrew imagination could conceive. It meant the
use of a marvelous power. How? Not as God
directed ; that was all. Simply not as the Author
of all Powers did ordain. It meant putting a great
gift to a doubtful exercise ; superseding known laws
by the unknown, to gratify paltry curiosity and the

92 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
lowest form of superstition. It meant doing as he
chose, not as God had chosen. Searching in him
self passionately for light and law, he found but
this : that, if a man wished to do the will of God, to
him it should be made known. Was it The Will
that he should capture Jerusalem by a great, dra
matic exhibition of arts such as an Indian occultist
might claim to practise ? To become the King of
the Jews, should he suffer himself to be thought the
king of sorcerers ? God was mystery, but He was
not magic. The dignity in Christ's own nature re
volted from this view of his position. In his reac
tion from his momentary moral confusion, so near
did he come to the Invisible that it seemed to him
as if Jehovah himself had been assaulted in his own
being ; and, rising to his full height, and crushing
the sharp stones beneath his bruised feet, he apos
trophized the whole source and force of evil as if it
were one malicious intelligence :
" Thou shalt not try the Lord thy God ! "
Every temptation needs its desert, and every
desert has its temptation. The true nature of his.
moral trial now began to suggest itself to the Naza
rene. What his race and his times would demand
of him — that he could not give. What he had the
power to achieve — that he might not do. It came
slowly to his awed and gentle thought to wonder if
he had been mistaken in daring to suppose that he
could be the Anointed, the Chosen of his people
and of his people's God.
The very opening indications of his mission took
on the character of an error into which he had

THE WILDERNESS 93
nearly fallen, an abyss into which he had all but
slipped ; as he might slip into that fissure yonder
below the mountains, fifteen hundred feet yawning
down. With his unapproachable humility, his royal care
lessness of self, he put his splendid visions by. If
he might not be the Messiah of the Jews, he could
be not the less the Son of God. If not for him
the sceptre and gems and the purple of life, he
could still be a plain, good man, doing his duty in
an obscure fashion as God bade him, and trust
ing Heaven to teach him what and where it was.
With this simple and this grand resolve, he turned
to leave the desert, and to seek the homely and
natural presence of men.
But on the brow of the hill he fell fainting. He
had come to the end of his strength, and uncon
sciousness compassionately found him out at last.
When he came to himself, he heard in the dark
the movement of dim, strange forms, stately and
merciful as his most cherished dreams of the strong
est angel in the heavenly world. He heard inar
ticulate, brooding sounds of tenderness beyond the
tenderness of earth. The grasp of unseen fingers
touched his wasted hands. Vitality that had never
known a pang or weakness flowed through the clasp.
So the spent and famished man was comforted.
And day dawned upon the wilderness.

CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST WONDERS
With the humility which is the marked feature
of true greatness, Jesus came back from the wilder
ness into the world of self-seeking men. His heart
was high, but his hope was low or lowered. His
unique and solemn experience had not subdued his
ideals, but had saddened his expectations. Solitude,
vigil, hunger, and prayer spoke another tongue from
the language of the people of affairs or the men
of pleasure who looked at him with indifference or
with curiosity and went their ways.
An impressive scene took place between himself
and his kinsman, the prophet, who sought the earli
est opportunity to reaffirm the first recognition of
his favorite convert ; but Jesus passed through this
without apparent emotion. His mood was one of
divine self-obliteration : like all exalted moods, it
carried its own comfort with it ; but this was of the
kind about which a man does not talk.
He became strangely incommunicative. With re
moteness he approached the throbbing life of men.
Gently he assumed the task which he had set him
self, — to do the nearest duty in the noblest way,
and trust God for the results.
To this simple purpose, this view of responsibility

THE FIRST WONDERS 95
so elemental that the weakest soul might overlook
it, while the strongest needed all his strength to
perceive in it the materials for a great theory of life,
he began to adjust himself.
With extraordinary patience he sought and fol
lowed the leadings of his own heart, and of the
heart of God as expressed to it in a manner incom
prehensible to men less pure and docile than him
self. These took him from experiment to experiment
in the interpretation of the Divine purpose under
which he had intelligently ranged the energies of
his personal will.
He pursued at first, in great uncertainty, an ap
parently indecisive course. Those bleak weeks in
the Judean desert had left him in what we may call
a glorified perplexity. He had come out of it sure
of little except of his own motives. These had es
caped from trial as white as the wings of a flower
set free by the wind from a whorl of thorns. He
longed to justify in himself his own favorite ap
pellation of the Son of God. This had become
his one passionate purpose. He could bear it not
to be the Messiah ; apparently he was not the Mes
siah. Nothing in his own apprehension of himself yet
answered to the popular ideal of the Jewish hero.
If it were the greatest of his moral struggles not
to be deluded with this idea, he had achieved it. If
it were the subtlest of his moral perils to mistake a
call from Heaven for a delusion and a fantasy, he
had not yet evaded it.
He found in himself no easier way to detect truth

96 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
than the old, plain way which common men with
uncommon consciences have always known and fol
lowed. He did the thing that he was sure was right,
and let the doubtful go. He could bear it not to be
the Messiah of his people. He could not bear it not
to be the Son of his God.
Pathetic at this time were the exaltations and de
pressions of his mood, and the Bickerings of his
illumination, — brighter to-day, darker to-morrow ;
never quite steady enough to sustain in him a joyous
assurance that he was not mistaken. He entered
upon his career under the full human disability
which makes it the hardest thing in the early lives
of great men that they do not know whether they
are great or not.
Silent, pallid, wasted from famine, glorified by
prayer, he stood in his desert - stained garments
among the little group that, headed by his cousin,
met him when he strode back through the river-
reeds to the bank of Jordan. Dreamily he heard
the solemn apostrophe of John. Was his enthusi
astic kinsman right ? Was he wrong? How could
John — or Jesus — know ? More perplexed than
elated, Jesus watched the movements of the young
prophet's favorite penitents, two or three of whom
left their old master and impulsively offered to him
self their definite allegiance, after the manner of
Eastern pupils, or followers of a popular teacher.
But this humble man, thinking so little of himself
and so much of God, was more troubled than flat
tered when he saw those eager Hebrew faces lifted
to his own in the first light of personal idealization.

THE FIRST WONDERS 97
His surprise flushed delicately all over his noble
countenance. " Why ? " he said with beautiful naivete. " What
seek ye ? "
This was not the regal assumption which was ex
pected of him, and significant looks of doubt and
disapproval passed among the people. But the fol
lowers of John, who had been trained not to take
the low or even the middling view of things, were
not rebuffed by the honesty of a reply that might
easily have cost Jesus his first friends, and hence
perhaps the rest of his coterie. This touched and
pleased him.
Encouraged and stimulated by the little sign of
public favor, or of heavenly preference (he found
nothing yet to make it clear to him whether these
two things were twain or one), he rose from his
depression into a happy, hopeful mood. In its first
energy he took heart to invite a few other men to
add themselves to the small number of his friends.
Out of these modest beginnings his following grew.
In the fashion of the times, his personal adherents
went by the name of disciples. They were plain
men, many of them fishermen, men of the carpen
ter's own social rank, or somewhat below it. The
upper classes did not concern themselves at this
time with the young devotee.
A small Galilean town, quite unimportant in its
day, scarcely more than a hamlet, has acquired im
mortal renown for one single entertainment in its
local society. To one Jewish bride, — a mere girl,

98 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
almost a child let us think, a pretty, innocent crea
ture, shrinking in her long betrothal veil, her little
head filled with the fit of her wreath of gilded
myrtle leaves, or the style of her wedding girdle,
— to that limited, childish mind, occupied with the
sole importance of getting married, did any power
whisper that hers should be the most famous wed
ding in history ?
It was a Wednesday, the day of the week when
Jewish maidens might marry. It was a house of
some degree. The family were people of position.
Guests and gifts were many. The large reception-
room was full. The servants ran to and fro. All
the relatives were there, poor and well-to-do alike.
Great water-jars holding five and a half gallons
apiece, stood ranged by the door in the court, the
usual fresh leaves floating on the top. The guest,
taking off his sandals and bathing his feet, entered
the house barefooted, and stepping without sound
upon the large rugs which carpeted the dining-hall.
The couches and cushions were comfortable; the
feast was generous. Everything was, everything
must be provided with lavish Oriental hospitality.
The bride's heart throbbed with pride and fear and
joy. A group of belated guests, coming up the dusty
pathway to the house, attracted her giddy and waver
ing attention. They were six in number, quite ordi
nary-looking persons, unless one excepted their leader,
a young man with a fine mien, who approached the
courtyard with the manner of an invited guest, and
seemed to expect admission for his five companions.

THE FIRST WONDERS 99
The maiden recognized him for one of the kinsfolk
with whom she did not feel acquainted, and won
dered why he had not arrived with his mother, who
was already among the company, or why, indeed,
he must needs appear in this extraordinary way,
with a following- of unfashionable strangers. Dimly
through her thick veil she saw his face and figure ;
he seemed to swim a little before her gaze, like some
strange sight seen afar off, on clouds or in light, on
water or in mist. She watched him till he disap
peared . in the court among the wedding company,
and thought of him no more just then.
From the desert to the wedding party what a revo
lution of the horoscope ! But that is life, and Jesus
lived. He had accepted the invitation to the mar
riage of his young kinswoman: his mother was to
be there, and his brothers ; it was the natural, social
duty of the week ; he was no hermit, and he per
formed it as a matter of course. His new friends
followed him, — fishermen from Bethsaida, and a
neighbor or acquaintance of theirs : he could not
turn them off ; they clung to him with the beauti
ful tenderness of a dawning affection. Already he
found himself in the attitude of a traveling rabbi :
the new dignities of the position must be respected ;
the new movements of his own nature made them
selves not turbulently but timidly felt. A few
strange things had happened to him. Stranger
were whispered of him under the breath of a few
reflective and receptive persons. One man had ad
dressed him impulsively in startling terms : " Thou
art the King of Israel ! " The soul of Jesus

100 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
vibrated like a too responsive harp beneath these
touches. What did they mean? He could not tell
himself, much less another. He could but seek the
duties of a conscientious man and do them. To
attend this wedding was plainly one of them. He
entered the boisterous Eastern marriage party qui
etly. Something in his appearance attracted atten
tion. The rude jests,' not uncommon at such merry
makings, slunk away like vermin in his presence.
One fellow, who had spoken too freely, tried to meet
the eye of the Nazarene and brave it out, but could
not, and hung his head.
Jesus moved among the guests with a gentle cheer
fulness. His mother was watching for him; she
took him apart for a moment with yearning eyes.
For seven weeks she had not seen him. Her heart
hungered for him, and his — did his for her ? He
met her lovingly, but his mien was changed. How
haggard he was ! She questioned him anxiously.
He looked like a man half -starved and wholly preoc
cupied. He did not talk about the desert, or of what
had happened there. He answered her troubled
look with one of reassuring peace. She sighed and
turned away. Mary was not the woman to nag a
grown son even with her tenderness. Yet was she
a mother, and one accustomed to be obeyed.
On a later day of the prolonged festivities she
sought him with some imperiousness of manner.
One of the servants followed her, for she had the
authority of a relative in charge of the occasion, and
respectfully awaited her orders. Mary called her
son aside, and revealed to him in troubled feminine

THE FIRST WONDERS 101
whispers the great disaster which had befallen the
household. What could be worse than for the wine
to give out before the entertainment was over ? It
was no less than a family scandal ! She tried to
impress it on his mind as such. Jesus looked at her
with distant eyes. It seemed a small matter to him.
But it was large to her, to the host, to the bride,
to all those relatives whom a man must treat consid
erately, though they seem less kin to him than the
red fox that had crept to his feet in the desert one
stormy night, or the thrush that had sung to him one
sleepless morning when he lay jprone and famished
on the rock. He listened to his mother deferentially.
With the candor of a mother she felt obliged to
remind him of a circumstance which in his abstrac
tion he was likely to overlook. The wine had given
out, partly because five unexpected guests had ar
rived on the scene, — dusty, hearty, thirsty men, who
had traveled for several days on foot; plain men
who were not any too much accustomed to society
like this, and who had taken their share of entertain
ment to do honor to it. In fact, was it a little ques
tionable to have brought these fishermen at all into
the presence of such a company ? At all events, was
Jesus personally wholly without responsibility for
the family misfortune ?
With his quick delicacy he perceived the force of
the situation ; he was no uncouth dreamer, obtuse to
the courtesies of life : he readily acquiesced in his
mother's view of the case up to a certain point.
Beyond that, he drew suddenly and strangely apart
from her and from it.

102 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
What did Mary expect or exact of him ? What
blind though adoring dreams drifted through her
imagination? Did she dictate to unnamed gifts
whose nature it was impossible for her to under
stand? Did she require of him obedience as a son in a
province where he owed obedience to no created
being? Was he to enter upon a life of unknown
possibilities fettered to the loving surveillance of a
woman whose very love would thwart and perplex
him at every step ? The vague, rising sense of some
thing in himself not like other men was vague in one
respect at no time, either then or after. One Being,
and one only, was or could be Law to him. Who
was Mary, though the loveliest of mortal mothers,
that she should obtrude upon him her own views of
a mystery which rested between his Creator and
himself ?
Gently putting his mother aside, he said in Ara
maic that here was a matter which was not a proper
topic of discussion between them.
" I waive the subject. It is not for thee and me
to dwell on. Let us not talk about the thing."
Then, troubled a little lest he might grieve the
tenderest of women, — troubled more within himself
as to the nature of his power or of his privilege, —
half repenting, he offered her his confidence, as much
of it as he could, with quick, beautiful filial trust.
"Mine hour," he whispered, "is not yet come.
Leave me to myself till mine hour cometh."
He stepped apart, and brooded over the thing.
What a little thing ! What a petty use to which to

THE FIRST WONDERS 103
put a great power ! — if that were power which he
felt within himself, stirring and struggling for em
bodiment in deeds. His eyes fastened themselves
upon the water-jars, six of them, ranged by the door
way, tall and cool. The water in them was low, and
the herbs hung limp at the bottom, like weeds, or
the beginning of growth in damp places.
He thought of the long processes of nature, slow
and still, secluded from the comprehension of human
ity like other higher processes which were unrecog
nized by it ; of the seed in the mould, the root in the
earth, the sprout in the air, the dawn on the leaf, the
pollen on the blossom, the sun on the fruit ; and
always the wet on all : mist, moisture, dew, gentle
dropping, drenching storm, sudden shower, long,
spring rain, — always water as the means of growth,
and at the end, and as the end, the vine, the grape,
the wine. There glittered before him the sparkle of
the wine of life, the social joys of men, their love of
wife and child and home, and their innocent happi
ness, common, warm, and good ; all the purer, better
side of human rapture, — not for him, never for
him. To other men should come the joy of having hap
piness, to him the joy of giving it. Doomed, as he
already felt himself, to be their critic, their teacher
(to say no more), his loving heart rose easily to the
opportunity of bestowing pleasure. Fated, as he
early knew himself, to a solitary life, his delicate
instincts floated like winged servitors at the thresh
old of wedded joy.
Then he remembered that there was a public view
of this private, social deed.

104 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
His new friends stood looking anxiously at him.
The lake fishermen whispered among themselves
significantly. His mother, standing in the background of the
scene where he had placed her, watched him with
luminous, trustful eyes. The servants buzzed about,
officiously awaiting his orders. The chatter of the
guests drove by in gusts. The bridesmaids were
singing a Jewish bridal song :
" Her eyelids are not stained with blue,
Her red cheeks are her own,
Her hair hangs waving as it grew,
Her grace were wealth alone.''
Was this the time, the place, the sufficient reason,
for that ? -^ for that strange indwelling, that mys
tical gift whose scope or depth as yet he could not
guess ? Would The Source of all Power be troubled
with such a matter? Was it The Will? ... Try!
Put forth the hand, the heart, the mind, the prayer,
the being!
" Fill the water-pots with fresh water. Carry it,
and offer it to drink."
These words they heard who stood near the young
Rabbi, and they saw that he trembled as he spoke
them, as a man might who stood partly in doubt, or
partly in fear of his own audacity in an untried
direction. There were unspoken words that no man
heard. " Thou water, that art the source of life, the
secret of growth, the food of the blossom and the
fruit, the essence of earth and sea and sky, the ma
trix of creation, thou purer and mightier than the

THE FIRST WONDERS 105
blood of the vine, return upon the steps of law !
Omit, be haste, be force, be season, be blossom, be
vine, be sap, be grape, be wine ! Such is The Will.
Obey." Everybody was talking of the marvel. But he,
being overstrained with it, tried to take himself
away. He seemed, indeed, more exhausted than it
was easy to explain.
The literal imaginations of his friends followed
him with dull admiration. The fishermen clung to
him, and refused him a moment's solitude. It was
impossible to understand that a man who could do
the deed could need recuperation after it ! His
mother reverently kissed the edge of his talith. She
had never touched him so in all her life before.
The servants pointed at him, gossiping volubly.
The host and the chief officer of the feast jested
about the wine. The guests drank deeply of it.
The bride, among her maidens, tasted it, wonder
ing as she heard the story. Strangers crowded up
to ask, to doubt, or to believe. Important func
tionaries of the church scowled over the thing. A
hubbub set in upon the wedding party. For an
hour it seemed quite doubtful whether the young
Rabbi were likely to be most popular or most un
popular because of it.
He did not wait to see, but resolutely turned
away. His own soul was as much perturbed as
elated. So it was true, — it was real ; he could
never say to himself again that those were the hallu
cinations of a starving brain which mocked him in
the desert. Some one had brought him a cup and
he tremulously put his lips to it.

1§6 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
" It was water. It is wine." The fact gave him
almost as much trouble as pleasure for that first
hour. What should he do with it ? Where would
it end? He longed exceedingly to be alone. But the fish
ermen followed him closely, chatting as their large
feet dragged the sand clumsily over his slenderer
footprints. Broken, experimental, anxious, patient, the months
of that year succeeded each other humbly. For
nearly half of it, no record tells us how this invalu
able time in the opening of a great career was
passed. It has well been called The Year of Ob
scurity. Jesus had the rare power of happily ac
cepting obscurity when he felt himself capable of
eminence. Whether to be distinguished or to be
unknown, — that was not important to his view of
life. His mind lay like a burning-glass scorching
beneath one thought : " I will find out what and who
I am ; I will learn what I am to do, and how I am
to do it."
In rays illumination visited him. At moments
his soul smoked and took fire with its sense of blind
ing light. The power in him would not always
down. All his touching gentleness, his modest estimate
of himself, could not extinguish it. It flashed up
in jets of brief, passionate scenes, now and then
burning through the dull lens of that year of prepa
ration for a broader and more positive life.

THE FIRST WONDERS 07
It was Jerusalem and the Temple ; and he stood,
in the first thoughtfulness of his young manhood,
among the phantasmagoria of Passover week, for
he seemed to himself, in such a panorama, but a
phantom among the shades of a mad world. Half
of what he saw distressed him, and the rest inspired.
He shrank, as he had always done, from the sacred
butchery of worship. He pitied the lambs so, that
he could not bear to look upon the priests.
The fishermen and the strangers who clung to
him were clamoring for what they called miracles
(for the thing that he had done at Cana had fol
lowed him like his disciples ever since), but he dis
tanced them by an appeal of his hand, and moved
away alone. He approached the sacred veil with
the emotion of a devout worshiper. Tears sprang
to his eyes when he bowed before the Ark ; for the
Holy of Holies lay within his own heart, and all his
nature was a prayer.
Crowding about him, his people slew dumb things
to pay Heaven a price for their sins. He sought
for guilt in himself. What was it ? What did it
mean? How should a man sin? How could a
child of God distress his Father? It was impos
sible to grasp the consciousness of it ! He slaugh
tered no lamb to burn upon any altar, — he could
not do it. But at that solemn Passover, the first of
his sad, grand manhood, he offered and consumed
himself. " I shall be the Sacrifice," he thought.
Filled with incommunicable emotion, he passed
out of the inner Temple, and came suddenly upon a

108 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
raving scene. The brokers ! — they had possession
of the outer courts, and the air resounded with their
greedy roars. People from all parts of the world
crowded up, gesticulating, haranguing, bargaining,
changing the coin of all nations for the currency
that might be accepted in the Jewish Temple, hag
gling for the sheep, the oxen, and the doves to slay.
The sacred spot rang with the rage of a wild ex
change. The vulgarity, the desecration, the hideous-
ness, were more than the Nazarene could bear. The
whole sight flared like blasphemy before his blazing
eyes, yet moist as they were with the dew of prayer
and consecration. Instantly the meek worshiper
towered into an outraged God. A little, unnoticed
cord (it had been used to bind some butchered
thing) was lying near by ; it twisted for a moment
in his nervous fingers, then it uncoiled from his
hand, like a snake, and leaped. He rose to a majes
tic height. His mien was something for that mo
ment awful to look upon. Lashing and pursuing,
he strode down. The swish of the cord hissed in
the air, but sharper the accents of his scorn.
" God's house — your den ! Ye thieves ! "
Thus rang from the lips of Jesus his first protest
against the ecclesiastical abuses of his day. And
then was born against him the demon of a grudge, one
of those silent, venomous hatreds which bring down
a day of inevitable reckoning upon any man who
arouses them. From the Temple booths the High
Priest's family is said to have received enormous
revenues, and from that hour the sullen eye of
Annas singled out the Nazarene.

THE FIRST WONDERS 109
But, for the moment, the brokers slunk away like
beaten curs. Not a hand was raised against him ;
they so many, he but one. The scattered coins lay
trampled under fleeing feet. No man stayed to pick
up the money.
He stood alone, quivering. There ran from him
a medley of scattering animals and cringing men.
The look of his eyes sprang after them, like flames
of holy fire.
He stood untroubled, undefiled, as God might
stand behind the judgment bar, — as fearless and
as solitary. At that moment his sense of power
flooded his being.
The great Temple rose behind him, gorgeous, in
tricate, a marvel of architecture, forty and six years
in building.
" Destroy it ! " he cried, carried on a wave of glo
rified assurance stronger than he had ever known ;
" I will build it in three days ! "
It was in Samaria, and he was traveling. He
spent the dull intervals between the few brilliant
moments of that year in the commonplace duties of
an itinerant teacher. A preacher he had not yet
presumed to be.
With characteristic modesty he had refrained
from any appearance of rivalry with the career of
the prophet from whom he had accepted religious in
itiation. He had gone on quietly, for the most part
practicing the methods of John as he had studied
them. To his few followers he delegated certain im
portant religious functions ; among others, that of
performing the rite of baptism.

110 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
He taught and prayed and exhorted. Now and
then into the routine of his obscure service some
thing wonderful crept. There were tales and rumors
of bountiful movements of his heart resulting in
strange consequences. But chiefly he had been
leading the ordinary life of a humble evangelist.
His methods were intensely practical. He denounced
sin and urged repentance ; he gave himself up for
this year to the most unwelcome of human tasks,
— that of starting in a community or a people the
consciousness of their moral degradation without tak
ing advantage of it to place himself in a position of
very great prominence or spiritual ascendency over
them. His own soul at this time was a sleeping
mine. He had the great forces of reserve, of self-
abeyance, of that which can bide its time. His
future, the fate of his nation, the hope of the world,
lay staked upon his silence, his submission, his wil
lingness to be unknown and unsuccessful, his power
to exchange a warm and splendid dream for a chill
and gray reality.
The cool of the day was coming on. He was very
tired. His friends had left him for a while ; they
were seeking food for him and for themselves in
the town chosen for their night's lodging, — Sychar
by name. Grateful to be alone, as he always
seemed, or was, he sank wearily by the deep rock-
cut well, and lifted his face to the west. It was
a historic well, famous from ancient times as the
property of a distinguished family ; no less a one
than that of the founders of the race.

THE FIRST WONDERS 111
The sunset was falling from glory to tenderness,
and all its colors were mild. Something soothing in
their tone crept from the sky to his heart.
The interrogation of his own nature which went
on in him steadily through depression and elation,
receiving uneven replies, but never abandoned be
cause these might be faint or discouraging, spoke to
him then with the movement of a rising cry.
His head was turned in the attitude of one who
listens to that which no man else can hear. His
large eyes were fastened upon the dying day, whose
luminousness seemed to have entered into and re
mained in them after it had left the clouds.
He was so absorbed that the movement of a wo
man's robe near him did not arouse his attention, or
did not seem to do so.
She glanced up lightly, then quite gravely looked
at him. The tinkling of a bangle on her brow
seemed to embarrass her, as if it were an obtrusion
on a silence meant for better things, and impul
sively she drew her hand over the clanking coins of
gold and silver and hushed the flippant sound. She
had set down her water-jar to do this, and stood at
the edge of the well with both beautiful arms free.
They were bared and she was unveiled.
The traveler did not look at her, and she bent to
draw the water with which to fill her jar. The
silence was not oppressive to her, forit was natural
and expected. The stranger was plainly a Jew, and
with her people the Jews were not on social terms.
To women of her kind (as she perceived with the
keenness and swiftness of her class), this man per-

112 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
sonally was not in any event liable to lower himself
by passing the commonest salutation of the day.
That he should ignore her was a matter of course.
Her astonishment began when he spoke.
" Give me to drink," he said gently. His voice
sounded far removed from her, though he was so
near. He did not turn his head, nor detain his eyes
from the darkening sky, but the words flowed out
like the current of an unseen river bathing the
shores of an unknown world.
She stood staring. Then he turned and looked
her full in the eye. She was a voluble creature, and
exclamations, amazement, questions, tumbled over
each other. He continued to look at her silently..
Then her own eyes dropped. When he saw this,
he began to talk with her.
As they conversed affably and earnestly — he a
young Rabbi with a position to maintain, she a wo
man to have speech with whom was enough to cost
him his reputation — the emotion in his own heart
rose high. Carried upon it, he floated above her
low history. He confronted her with its episodes,
necessarily unknown to him, a stranger. He re
buked her for them bpldly. Yet did he take the
pains to reason with her, and allure her to a better
view of life. With the respect for womanhood
which was marked in him, he ingeniously aroused
her own lost sense of modesty. It was a delicate
task — not a great one, as the world looks at moral
achievements — to restore self-respect to a woman
who had thought herself below it ; but the soul of
Jesus climbed on this rude pathway to a far, fine

THE FIRST WONDERS 113
height. His breath came fast, like that of a moun
tain traveler in an altitude too high for ordinary
respiration. Vision and prayer blended and sepa
rated and met again. His eye glowed gravely.
His pale, dark cheek lost its faint tinge of color.
His troubled consciousness, for months past surging
to and fro within him like a tide whose moon did
not reveal herself by fixed expression, took to it
self one of the movements which surpassed all com
mon laws.
" I know, sir, that when the Messiah comes " —
The word, over which his mind and heart had grown
so sore and anxious for so long, fell low from the
lips of the woman, spoken softly between her sobs.
But Jesus, when he heard it, rose to his feet. His
full height stood against the west. His soul's height
rose with it. The truth which so often eluded him
radiated from his eye, his smile, his brow, his out
stretched hands.
"I," he said, "am He."
His exaltation had not departed from him when
his friends returned. It so shone upon him that
no man of them dared trouble him. They stared
at the woman with dismay, but no one obtruded a
question on his breach of etiquette. He seemed
grand enough to be the master of all customs, the
maker of all laws. Every petty thought or foolish
query went down before his look. Affectionately
they begged him to take food, for a man may not
live on ecstasy.
But he motioned them away with these to them
mysterious, and to all men matchless, words : " I

114 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
have meat to eat. Ye know not of it. . . . My meat
is to do His WiU."
Then, for his heart and his lips were freed, he
broke into a strain of commanding address, assum
ing for that hour his oratorical and his spiritual
rank. It captured the village. Hospitality was
pressed upon him. Gratified, he accepted it for a
few days. He was startled when it was reported
to him that the citizens, gathering about the poor
woman and treating her with the respect due to a
despised person who had been suddenly subject to
the notice of a revered one, had called him by the
most solemn appellation that the lip of man could
utter, or the mind of man conceive :
"The Christ; the Saviour of the World."

CHAPTER V
IN HIS OWN COUNTRY
Knowledge of disaster then, as ever, found
wings. In spite of the leisurely movement of news
which our electric civilization lacks the imagination
to appreciate, the fact of a great public and personal
trouble quickly reached the ears of Jesus.
John, the prophet and preacher, had met his
natural fate. This young zealot had followed his
grand sense of duty one step too far. He had
meddled with the vices of the throne, and the
throne had replied. For the sake of denouncing a
royal amour, dignified by the illegal name of mar
riage, John had sacrificed his liberty and was to
sacrifice his life. It may seem doubtful to us if
this fearless deed were quite worth while, but it did
not seem doubtful to him who did it. The brave
man, the freest of all his class, an out-of-door philo
sopher, accustomed to the weather and the sky, to
sleeping on the ground, to eating with the wild bees
at their own carved tables ; a strong and steady
walker, dependent on exercise and air, and on the
liberty of his own mental and muscular moods, lan
guished in the dungeons of Herod — to any man
an unspeakable fate ; to him, of all men, one of the
worst.

116 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
How far did the prophetic gift accompany him in
that dark and noisome suspense ? One may hope
that it mercifully failed him a little then and there.
Did the windows of the approaching future open
and show him the dizzy scene of a splendid enter
tainment in the palace one hot, bright night ? the
whispering of women royal only in name? the re
venge of an adulteress upon a man of God? the
hesitation of a girl young, beautiful, vain, good-
natured, but used to obeying an imperious mother ?
Did he hear the cymbal in her long brown fingers,
the tinkling of the bracelets on her arms ? Did he
see the other burden, displacing the cymbal, which
her beautiful hands bore, dripping, through the hor
ror of the dancers beneath the wavering of the
palace lamps, — the scintillation of silver, the color
of wet red, the look of eyes surprised by assassi
nation in the fitful, early slumber of a dungeon
night ?
Or did the curtain fall upon the casement of his
mind, and were his last days muffled in hopes of
life, in visions of the desert where bird and beast
and man arose and slept and moved at will? in
dreams of Jordan shining among her reeds, of the
faces of his converts, of the water glittering on
them ; of one on which the dove had rested ; of the
life for which his own was spent, like baptismal
water fallen, forgotten, a drop in the stream ? He
was content to be spent, and more than content !
For that was John; the greatest of forerunners, a
self -obliterated, a man glad to be defeated, so that
a greater might succeed.

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 117
Shocked beyond expression at the news of his
cousin's incarceration, Jesus hastened to the refuge
into which he carried all his difficulties. His fa
miliar friend the desert received him, and in the
strong society of solitude he sought comfort for his
sorrow. As is always true of a man who knows
how to value and when to cultivate solitude, he
found more than he sought. He found the immedi
ate direction of his own life. His trouble became
his guide. From the foreground of his grief the
mists of his habitual perplexity began to clear
away. Excepting the death of Joseph, — a gentle
sorrow dating years back, — he had known no per
sonal bereavement up to this time. The loss of
John took on something of such a character.
To his delicate mind the fate which had over
taken the man who had sacrificed everything for him
seemed peculiarly distressing. John's future thus
blackly quenched, appealed to a certain chivalry
always easily uppermost in the nature of Christ.
John's work lay at his feet, a splendid wreck. No
sense of courtesy to his early religious leader now
withheld Jesus from the full exercise of his own
vocation. Rather, every voice of loyalty and grati
tude summoned him to expression. He began at
once to preachi
Glowing with sacred indignation, and consumed
with dread for the fate of his friend, he cast him
self now into the furnace of a life distinctly to be
henceforth classed as that of a religious orator.
Deeply absorbed, he came back from Judea and
Samaria into Galilee. There he uttered himself.

118 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The wayside, the country, the town, received and
listened to him. His fame as a worker of wonders,
dating back to his last visit to Jerusalem, preceded
him, but a greater followed him. Assuming the
full authority of a rabbi, he exhorted freely ; and,
without any of the diffidence which had heretofore
restrained him. At first his discourses were brief
and modest in the extreme. He felt his way, as all
young preachers must, to the interest of audiences,
if not to the measurement of his own powers. The
nature and extent of these he learned by experience,
like other men. He developed at the very outset of
his career an intensely human, well-balanced mind ;
it was always attentive to practical affairs ; he did
not waste himself in speculation, or lose himself in
aimless Oriental reverie. He sat on no stone pillar
with crossed and idle feet, a figure given over to
dreams and desolation, a spectacle for curiosity, a
scarecrow for common men. He withdrew into no
useless trance, no remote psychical experimentation.
He entered into no Nirvana. A plain man among
men, he took his few friends and trod the country
over in search of the most useful thing that he
could do or say whereby to startle vice or comfort
misery. These two thoughts, these two purposes, from the
beginning strode out into the foreground of his
mind ; and there they remained, like strong figures
wrestling with all lesser preoccupation. The ideal
man of God has always united in one personality
the functions of priest and philanthropist. Jesus
carried on the two preeminently.

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 119
On this tour through Galilee, when the novelty of
his newly-assumed position as a preacher sat upon
him with such a young and sparkling enthusiasm
that he might easily have been pardoned if he had
overlooked the simpler calls upon him, he showed
the evenness and breadth of an old and experi
enced missionary. At this early point in his story
he developed almost immediately one of the most
prominent traits in his character, — instinctive,
abounding sympathy with the sick.
It was in Cana, where the wedding was. Follow
ing some natural impulse to retrace his steps to the
spot where he had first learned that his personal
gifts had a practical scope, he revisited the village ;
now with the stronger step and the manlier brow of
one who feels that he is acquiring a position, and
has some right to its recognition.
He was met by an officer of Herod Antipas, a
distracted father whose heart was breaking and
whose boy was dying. The courtier begged the young
Rabbi to hurry to a stricken home in Capernaum,
some twenty miles away ; he raised the old, piteous
cry which grief has sent up to the healers of the
world from the beginning of time till now : " Come
down ! come down, ere he die ! "
" He liveth," replied the Nazarene without hesita
tion, " go thy way to him."
The prompt and bold reply astounded the town ;
it may have surprised the speaker himself. The
words leaped from his lips. There was no recalling
them, if he had wished. He had staked his repu
tation on one great inward movement of trust in

120 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
himself. Would the facts verify or refute his ven
ture? The young, inexperienced healer and the agitated
father looked at each other silently. The Rabbi's
eye did not quail ; that of the father grew calmer ;
the trust which precedes hope softened its feverish
depth; the look which one man gives to another
when he recognizes superiority and hangs his heart's
desire upon its pledges, passed over his face. It
was the seventh hour of the day, and growing dark.
The two men parted without further words ; the one
to seek a living or a dying child, the other to test
a living or a dying power on whose genuineness his
whole future, his faith in himself, his faith in God,
might depend. Jesus passed the next few days in a
condition which hovered between unrest and assur
ance. Most of his little group of disciples had
scattered to their homes in neighboring villages, and
his acquaintances did not suspect the nature of his
thoughts, for his mien was quiet, and his eye con
tent. The people of the village talked enough to make
up for this reticence. Doubt, derision, respect, and
belief battled from lip to lip. The story of the
water-jars at the wedding was repeated and re
echoed. When the news came slowly up from the villa by
the lakeshore, it was received with less talk and
more thoughtfulness. The credulous father, wea
rily coming towards home, — afraid to delay, afraid
to hasten, not daring to enter the door of his stricken
house, and not daring to stay away from the sick-

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 121
room with such encouragement as he bore, — sud
denly lifting his eyes, saw that the servants were
running to meet him, tumbling over each other, ges
ticulating with Oriental excessiveness, voluble, smil
ing. . . .
Capernaum and Cana nodded and whispered:
" The fever turned at the seventh hour, and it was
to the child as the Nazarene had said." When they
hurried with the tale to Jesus he smiled quietly,
wondering and blaming himself if there had been
any hour in which he had expected otherwise. But
if there had or had not been, he told no man.
A little, petted boy in a luxurious lakeside man
sion, with the laughter of convalescence in his
eyes, cuddled against the throbbing heart of a father
whose dark cheeks blazed with joy. But on the
face of the young healer, pondering in the inland
town, there shone another happiness. He had tested
himself. He had tried his own mystery. Its great
and sacred source had answered to his summons.
How hesitate? why doubt? He had asked. God
had replied. That hour sprang up to meet him like
a herald; a smiling future trod beyond it. Jesus
knew just then a respite of hope. There now began
to grow in him a sense of something rooted below
hope, beneath moods and dreams and longings : the
consciousness of Power.
Every public teacher has two especial problems
before him : that of himself and that of his times.
In the life of Christ, both of these had unusual
features. In proportion as a man is above his fel
lows, he finds it difficult to understand his own

122 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
nature and to adjust it to common conditions. In
proportion as his times are extraordinary, his work
is more interesting, but his responsibility for it less
clear. There is something in the sweep and force
of great current events which, while it tends to cre
ate heroes, tends also to create humility. A man
may hesitate to take the helm of his times precisely
because they are so urgent that they seem to be the
lord rather than the subject of destiny. A modest
soul may well question its own impulse to assume
control of forces so masterful that the very essence
of fate itself appears to be in them.
Jesus Christ lived in an age which was desperate
enough and dark enough to confound any human
intelligence, and to confuse any human conscience.
Haughty, vicious, and decaying Rome was -mis
tress of the world. Her destinies were in the hands
of one man, the commander of a standing army of
three hundred and forty thousand. Her conquests
had reached their mathematical limit, and could go
no farther. Her morals were unutterable, and her
religion was undecipherable. The apotheosis of the
emperor was the climax of worship. Prayer was
chiefly the expression of corruption or of greed.
A man prayed for the death of a rich relative, or
for the gratification, of wishes such as civilization
declines to name. When such petitions were unan
swered, he dropped into blasphemy as a creditable
sequence. Marriage had almost ceased to be re
spected, and, if still respectable, it was only by
courtesy to a dying tradition. Family life abounded
in abominations at which modern thought does not

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 123
glance, and public indecency was too black to recall.
Philosophers themselves were known to practise the
vices which they professed to scorn. The popula
tion of the empire was estimated at one hundred
and twenty millions ; of these one half were slaves.
To be a sick slave or an old one was to be cast off
to perish. The cruelties inflicted on slaves were
monstrous, merciless, and a matter of course. New
born children were murdered whenever it was con
venient, and the law made no account of so small a
matter. The fashionable theory of charity took the ground
that it was hardly worth while to give alms ; better
to let the beggars die, and out of the way with
them! Such a thing as a hospital was unknown.
Life was a deification of corruption, and death but
an exasperating interruption of vice. Among the
epitaphs of such an age we long remember an out
cry like this over the grave of a child : " To the
unjust gods who robbed me of life." Or this,
carved in memory of a girl of twenty years : " I lift
my hands against the god who took me away, inno
cent as I am." Such arraignment of Heaven rang
from the world as has never been exceeded in its
history. Latin authors longed for some assuagement of the
wide and deep despair. Men whose great names are
familiar to us in ancient literature revolted from hope,
and dreamed of virtue as a lost ideal, and looked on
at human life as a pitiable play, scarcely up to the
, proportions of a farce.
The Hebrews, the captives of this ripe but decay-

124 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ing empire, were not unaffected by the taint of their
masters. One of their greatest teachers and writers
thought so lightly of marriage that he sanctioned
divorce if a wife burned her husband's dinner. The
easy sin of a religious people abounded, and the
hypocrite was everywhere. Long prayers, long
faces, and short virtues went arm in arm.
Theology had ousted religion, and ecclesiasticism
had strangled devotion in temples and in synagogues.
The people were helpless, fierce, and rebellious ; but
they had the vices of despair, and the errors of a re
ligiosity which has so long taken the place of faith
that men have ceased to know the difference.
Jesus was profoundly moved by the condition of
his people and the vices of his times. No philoso
pher could have studied them more carefully. He
had known some opportunities to do so in Nazareth,
where men from all parts of the world poured by
upon the caravan routes. He had seen the culture
of the Greek, the luxury of the Roman, the man
ners and characteristics of the Phoenicians, Per
sians, Arabians, Chaldeans, and the corruption of
all. His pure and secluded youth had strongly and
silently observed, reflected, and stored up material
for a mature view of the condition of his age. He
had also stored up sensitiveness all his own.
Quivering with recoil from the moral horrors by
which he was surrounded, he flung his whole nature
deliberately and determinedly upon them. He was
no Roman gentleman turning with a dilettante in
difference from the degradation of his times ; he
was a Hebrew mechanic, an itinerant missionary,

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 125
pouring the pure energies of a devotee into the pol
luted current by which he refused to be stirred.
In the first fire of his enthusiasm as a preacher,
he made one apparent mistake. He went to Naza
reth. What minister of any times and of any
people recalls without wincing his first sermon in
his native place, or in the village of his childhood ?
The tenderness for old associations, the innocent
pleasure in appearing before old friends, the inex
perienced belief that they would be more glad to
hear him preach than other people, — how reluc
tantly these have given place to the surprised pain,
the slow suspicion, the smarting realization of the
truth! In his oldest acquaintances the young ex-
horter finds his severest critics, his coldest hearers,
unwilling appreciation. It is the way of the world,
— not one of its noble ways, — and Jesus, like other
leaders of men, must needs take the world as he
found it.
He arrived in Nazareth, let us think, on a Fri
day afternoon. The sun was about to set. The
Seventh Day was at hand. Already the signs of
preparation for the Jewish Sabbath stirred across
the village. Domestic and field work, trade and
travel, hurried to cessation. The women indoors
and the men without ran to and fro with busy
interest. The little town, occupied along the length
of its rough highway, turned indifferent eyes to
the mountains which were blazing in the dying
day, and paid scant attention to the appearance of
the young citizen who had left a while ago, un
known, and was returning famous. Jesus looked

126 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
at the familiar hills, — grand, silent, these in solemn
shadow, those transfigured with color, all carrying
the thoughts up ; but the villagers scarcely looked
at Jesus. Their eyes were on the level earth, his
on the heights. What wonder that they could not
meet? He had scarcely arrived when there broke upon,
the evening air the clear, strong call of a trum
pet uttering itself authoritatively, — a double blast.
The synagogue minister stood on the roof of his
house with his face towards Jerusalem. He an
nounced the arrival of the Sabbath. He summoned
every Hebrew soul within reach of his official cry
to cease labor and to begin worship. The trumpet
called three times. When it ceased, the trumpeter
laid it reverently down by his side, that he might
not profane the sacred day by carrying the instru
ment. Now, all over the darkening village, from
every house, there sprang out a gentle spark. The
Sabbath lamp had been lighted. A sense of fes
tivity glittered with it. The Sabbath was the
pledge of affection between God and Israel, and
every home was arrayed to meet it, like a bride or a
queen. Every one wore his best clothes. Every
table held its best meal. Benedictions were spoken
over the wine and water. The suspension of labor,
the coming on of rest, the glory of worship, made
holiday of holyday. The traveler shared the gen
eral happiness.
Sleeping with the peacefulness which comes with
return from more stirring scenes and noisier loca
tions to a country home, he awoke refreshed and

NAZARETH

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 127
vigorous. The day rose bright and warm. The
early hour of worship approached. Jesus antici
pated it gladly. He walked rapidly (for such was
Jewish law) to the sombre place where he had wor
shiped since he could remember, — the old, stiff
building, dreaded and loved, wherein to laugh or
joke, or eat or sleep, was sinful, and wherein no
man but a rabbi might seek shelter from a storm.
The rustic synagogue was crowded. Jesus mod
estly took his accustomed seat among his old neigh
bors. His heart was full of thoughts and feelings
which he wished he could share with them. He
was so loving, so gentle a man ! He felt tenderly
towards all these people, among whom he had lived
so many humble years. He watched for their well-
known forms and faces as they came in and took
their seats, — the men by themselves, lordly, as
Jewish men were wont, putting the women apart in
a gallery of their own. The elders of the meeting
pompously took their places on the raised platform ;
behind, stood the movable chest, representative of
the great Ark of the Temple, and itself containing
the rolls of the sacred writings. A curtain hung
across it, and the holy lamp burned before it.
While he sat there, lost in reverie, modest, gen
tle, thinking not of himself, the chief ruler of the
synagogue came up and spoke to Jesus, formally
asking him to act for that day as the conductor of
the services. This request was not unexpected to
him, as it might have been an act of courtesy or of
curiosity on the part of his neighbors to extend the
invitation : due certainly to any rabbi with much

128 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
less than the fame already gathered about the name
and personality of their townsman. At all events,
the politeness was paid him. Trusting in the sin
cerity of his old friends, believing with his secret
instincts in their better motives, he confidingly
accepted their invitation, and rising, stepped to his
place at the lectern.
He began the service of the morning in the for
mulated manner by repeating the Jewish liturgy.
This was one of the prayers with which he opened
that Sabbath meeting in the Nazareth Syna
gogue :
" Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King of the world,
who formest the lights and createst the darkness,
who makest peace and createst everything ; who in
mercy givest light to the earth, and to those who
dwell upon it, and in Thy goodness day by day and
every day renewest the works of creation. Blessed
be the Lord our God for the glory of his handi
works and for the light-giving lights which He has
made for our praise. Selah. Blessed be the Lord
our God who has formed the lights."
The invocation sounds a little cold or dull to our
ears. The young preacher of that summer morn
ing was accustomed to do it reverence ; it was the
liturgy of his church, and of his childhood; yet,
certain public prayers of his own, uttered later in
the course of his ministry, and immortal to human
needs and worship, indicate something of the dis
tance of his nature from the formality to which he
deferred. He deferred, however, and he conformed to the

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 129
customs of his church, like a man of acquaintance
with life, up to a certain point. When he reached
that point he departed promptly and thoroughly.
He followed the usual order of exercise; another
prayer and a better one succeeding the first ; then
came the repetition of the creed, another prayer and
six eulogies or benedictions ; at their close a distin
guished rabbi was at liberty to add certain prayers
of his own which might be fixed or free. At last
the time for his discourse arrived. The sacred roll
was taken from the ark and handed to him by the
chazzan or minister.
On this occasion the lesson for the day was from
one of the greatest of Jewish prophets. Jesus se
lected as his text from Isaiah these impressive
words :
" The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He
hath anointed me to preach the good tidings to the
poor ; ... to preach release to the captives, and re
covering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of
the Lord."
Having read the text in Hebrew, translating as
he went into the common tongue, he gave the roll
back to the minister, and according to the custom
of his church sat down to preach.
He looked for a moment silently over his audi
ence. Familiar faces answered his gaze with curi
osity or with that doubt of his ability to give them
a remarkable sermon, natural to a man's fellow-
townsmen who have known him since he was a little
boy among them. " He is just like us. What can

130 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
he have to say ? There must be some mistake about
this ado people are making over him in other places.
They do not know him as well as we do." Polite
attention could not hide this inevitable mental atti
tude from so keen a perception as his who now ad
dressed them.
His face was quite steady and strong ; his eyes
large and luminous ; not a line about his mouth
wavered. His high brow, soft, curling, unshaven
beard and hair, and clear brown pallor were relieved
like a medallion from the background of the curtain
and the ark and the plain limestone finish of the
country synagogue. He had the* beautiful, oval con
tour of the face, like his mother's. His robe was
that of the Jewish rabbi ; he wore a blue talith on
that Sabbath; with a white and hyacinth fringe.
Nothing about his dress was outre" ; there was no
effort to be eccentric. Nothing was remarkable
about his appearance before the congregation of his
own village — nothing but his beauty, his dignity
and that air to which we apply the word high-mind-
edness. There were crises in his history when this
look reached a quality requiring a much larger
word. But at this moment it was a simple, natural,
noble expression, not too far above the comprehen
sion of his hearers, and not so far apart from their
standards in the estimation of character as to be
lost upon them.
His first words startled them disagreeably.
" This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears,"
he boldly said. Then, his lips being unloosed, he
poured out his heart.

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 131
He maintained the astonishing intimation of his
opening sentence with a firmness not to be ignored
for whatever it meant in so unobtrusive a man. He
gave his audience to understand that the most pre
cious tradition and hope of their people was about
to be verified. The great messianic expectation in
which they all believed, was to become a fact. In a
word, he himself was the fact.
This daring assumption, firmly suggested, was re
ceived with mixed emotion by his townsfolk. Some
thought : How gracious his mien ! How melodious
his voice ! How agreeable his thought ! For the
Jews were experts in the criticism of religious ora
tory. Their ideas of a popular preacher were peremp
tory. He must be suave, persuasive, attractive in
appearance, manner, and style, polished, and alto
gether pleasant. He must be a good story-teller,
witty at some times, eloquent at all. He must
keep unwelcome truths to himself, or clothe them
in the fine raiment of metaphor, so that they met
a man politely. An audience was not to be hit
between the eyes. The popular preacher must
abound in tact ; he must be a religious diplomat ;
it must be amusing or moving to listen to him ; a
hearer could not be bored, or made uncomfortable
with truths that he did not like or accept.
These things might do for wandering evangelists,
wild as the reeds among which they exhorted. They
were not for the rabbi, accepted in the synagogue.
The orthodox preacher, working in the orthodox
channels, would not mistake his business.

132 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
But the congregation in the synagogue at Naza
reth that Sabbath morning was not wholly satisfied
from the outset, and, as the young preacher pro
gressed in his discourse, their dissatisfaction grew.
With the customary freedom by which Jewish audi
ences were allowed to question their teachers, they
interrupted him, cynically requiring proof of his
tremendous claim. Having heard the rumors of
unusual gifts vaguely associated with his name, with
the vulgar love of a show, and the common Jewish
fancy of a "sign," they raised the usual popular
demand for miracles. Here, to their annoyance,
they were met by a flat refusal. This came in the
form of a reply which has become one of the most
famous epigrams of literature, and a favorite maxim
of all nations. A prophet, he caustically said, has
no honor in his own country. The dexterity of this
rejoinder was reinforced by a fearless defense of his
own ground. They might naturally ask him, he
admitted, to repeat in Nazareth what he had done in
Capernaum. But of the advisability of that, they
must allow him to be the only and the proper judge.
Ingeniously turning to their sacred writings for sup
port, he illustrated his position. Thus and so had
taken place. Israel, in the days of ancient famine,
had not lacked for widows ; but to only one starv
ing woman, and she in a foreign town, had Elijah
been sent with relief. Israel, in the time of Elisha,
had abounded with lepers ; but a Syrian was the
only wretched creature cleansed.
Jesus was about to continue the discourse of
which we have only a fragment reported. Plainly,

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 133
he had more to say. His introduction had but par
ried with the discontent of his hearers ; he was seek
ing, perhaps, to swerve it from the deeper purpose
of his address ; or conscious, possibly, that he could
achieve little or nothing against it. Still, the things
he would have said, the truths that Nazareth needed,
surged to his lips. His brain throbbed with them.
His heart was inundated with them. His out
stretched hands pleaded eloquently and silently for
opportunity to explain and to apply the unwelcome
candor of his opening words.
But hubbub had already set in. Displeasure
grew to anger; anger mounted into rage. The pro
nounced Jewish features of the congregation were
contorted with spite. Whispers rose into audible
comments : " Who is this fellow, after all, that we
should sit here and take insolence from him ? Why,
nobody but Jesus — little Jesus, the carpenter's
boy — we have seen him around, ever since he could
walk. He used to play with my boy. He came
to our house on errands. He has been to school
with our children. I gave him an order once to
make me a table. His father sent him to mend
our chest. He has sat all these years in this very
synagogue, and known his place, and kept it. . . .
How came he out of it ? Teach it to him ! Show
it to him !
" Nazareth is not good enough for him. Jerusalem
was, and Capernaum; even little Cana. We are
not grand enough for him to show off his signs and
wonders, and other eccentricities. Get rid of him,
and his airs ! We are used to preachers, not char-

134 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
latans, in this synagogue. Turn him out of it ! . . .
ShaU this carpenter sit there and talk to us as if we
were lepers and Gentiles ? "
The young preacher tried once or twice to hush
the clamor ; but it had swollen to a stream in which,
before one might know what had happened, he was
borne along like a broken bough. Convulsed with
quick Oriental passion, his townsfolk tore him from
the lectern — they were many and determined —
and dragged him along down the aisle, and out of
the synagogue. The outer air of the hot summer
Sabbath morning smote scorching on his grieved
face. Whether from sheer surprise, helplessness, or
prudence, he tried to make no useless resistance.
Immediately he found himself near the edge of a
considerable crowd of pushing, scowling, howling
men. They urged him along virulently. In a very
short time, looking straight ahead with wide aston
ished eyes, he perceived that he was rapidly ap
proaching the mountainous boundary of the town.
He remembered the nearest precipice — no mean
gulf. Was it probable ? was it possible ?
Turning to guage the intention of the viUage mob,
he felt himself pushed along the faster for this
momentary negligence. The truth now began to
be evident. It was the purpose of his neighbors —
not to commit open murder, not to hurl him over,
distinctly, but imperceptibly, as it might appear un
knowingly, to crowd him over the edge of the gorge.
It would be easy to say, afterwards, that his foot
slipped, that he struggled in the wrong spot against
the deep religious displeasure of an outraged con-

IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 135
gregation ; and so fell. Half a dozen explanations
of this ghastly accident would be possible.
When the real purpose of the rioters became man
ifest, the unpopular preacher suddenly turned and
withstood them ; not by blow, or buffet ; he did not
wrestle or strike out upon them as an angry and im
prudent man might have done. He defied them by
the finer resistance of a look. He stood back to
the hiUs, whose rounded heads and shoulders rose
high above the shameful scene, and whose bare
faces, unveUed in the hot light, seemed to try to
turn away from the sight they saw. The terraces of
Nazareth overflowed with summer colors ; every
little street marked by lines of vegetation rich and
ripe. The woods where he had walked and dreamed
and prayed aU his quiet, unoffensive youth stood
stiU in the windless heat, like a phalanx on duty,
awaiting orders in a martial crisis. All the familiar
scenery had a friendly look.
Only the familiar people wore this other — what
a glare of hate ! He glanced from face to face —
his old neighbors ! AU his life his friends ! Here
and here and everywhere a dogged murderous rage !
With this man he used to walk home from the
synagogue, pleasantly talking. To that one he
had offered many neighborly favors. These — they
were lads with him, they had studied .the law with
him in school hours, and roamed the fields and
forests with him at play together. Had he ever
done them a wrong — any one of them all ? Had
he ever failed to do them a kindness, and that, how
gladly, when he could ? He thought of the things

136 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
that he had meant to say to them in the syna
gogue that morning ; how his heart had yearned
over them; how lovingly he would have led them
to a nobler view of life ! How tenderly he had
longed to teach them broader truth. How his soul
had poured itself out to serve them !
Before that- gesture his old neighbors began to
move back from him ; not a man of them could
have said why. He stood still, defenseless among
them all, there on the edge of the rock. The chasm
gaped below ; a step would carry a man over. He
glanced down, then back at the people, then began
slowly to advance upon them.
What was that startling change upon his gentle
countenance ? Only a few times in his life was it
witnessed and noted : but no man who ever saw it
ever withstood it or forgot it to his last hour. As
if they had been smitten of God the Nazarenes fled
before that look. The crowd wavered, broke, and
melted. Jesus continued to advance steadily upon
it ; passed through it ; and went his way, down the
hot viUage street. No man ventured to molest him
— nay, nor to address him. He passed on silent,
and protected in the unutterable scorn which the
highest may put between itself and the lowest soul.
He passed on, and out from Nazareth ; wherein
from that day he never made his home again. The
wound had gone too deep.

CHAPTER VI
THE HEALER
The rest of the summer passed in quiet excite
ment. He spent much of it alone. His career devel
oped by gradual and beautiful stages. His first
step was to make for himself a new home, removed
from the village which had insulted him; for this
purpose he chose Capernaum, a busy, central town,
in- which he had already spent more or less time,
and in that place he remained a legal citizen during
the remnant of his life. His mother and brothers
also took up their residence there, but his sisters,
having married, stayed on in Nazareth, not anxious
to mix themselves further with the affairs of a fam
ily which had acquired so unpleasant a notoriety.
His brothers, on the other hand, for that very rea
son,' preferred not to return to the village ; they
showed no especial sympathy with him in any of
his successes or failures. It need not be said that
they were, necessarily, among the number of his
friends who publicly expressed doubts of his sanity.
But, for whatever reason, they did not make him any
too welcome under his mother's roof.
It is impossible to say how much of the suffer
ing of his sad life came from the condition of his
family affairs, — a tragedy in itself to a sensitive

138 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
heart longing to be loved, and itself the essence of
love. Popular comment always reserves a sharp
hit for the genius who is not appreciated at home,
and a special fling for the religious leader whose
relatives do not seem to believe in him. Jesus had
the full smart of this to bear. His mother's home
was not made so happy to him that he cared to stay
there with any regularity. He turned father to his
fishermen friends for shelter and companionship.
He spoke pathetically once, in his short and troubled
career, upon this point, contrasting the wild things
of the desert and of the night with his own un-
cherished life. Between himself and his mother,
however, no family differences were suffered to in
sert themselves. Their mutual sympathy remained
sweet and strong, and later she often followed
him upon his, preaching tours, with a few other
thoughtful and gentle women not of the ordinary
type. But he lacked the power to make a home
of his own for Mary; he was too poor a man to
maintain one, and too busy to provide the means to
do so. He was reared to a trade ; he had entered
a profession. Like many another man who has
taken a step of such a kind, he had abandoned a
comfortable income for an uncertain support. He
and his small group of immediate friends lived upon
such money as they earned among them, or upon the
contributions of the public, — a scanty source of
maintenance of which he made the best, with cheer
ful patience ; though it meant fewer comforts and
more hardships than he had been accustomed to in
his parents' home in his earlier life.

THE HEALER 139
No sudden access to ease padded his opening pro
spects. To luxury he was always an indifferent
stranger. He never made money. He did not
handle money. The treasurer of the little society of
twelve, which he soon found it necessary formaUy to
organize, looked after his wants. They were not
many, and simple enough. He must have a few in
expensive, decent robes, such as a rabbi ought to
wear, — the red and gray striped tunic, or what we
might caU jersey undergarment, covered from sight
by the talith, which was usually of hyacinth blue,
and always fringed, with the tasseled corners of
blue and white, indicating his ecclesiastical position ;
the girdle, the head-dress, or white sudar, perform
ing the office of a turban, but a little differently
constructed; the sandals and staff. He must have
a plain meal when he was too faint to live without
it any longer ; a shelter at night ; a spot to bathe
his dusty, aching feet after a hot day's march ; a
rug on a friend's floor ; a door to shut between him
and the clamoring people when he was too far spent
to do anything more for them ; the merest protec
tion from crowds which a public man requires at the
hands of some affectionate friend, if his own family
do not give it to him. These comprised his modest
daily needs. He lived the life of a poor man, with
the consistency and simplicity of a gentleman. Vul
gar poverty, aping affluence and quarreling with its
limitations, found it as hard to understand him as
position and wealth.
This educated mechanic, this heretic preacher,
this humble leader of men presented from the very

140 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
outset an annoying social puzzle to his countrymen
and to his times.
In spite of his bitter experience at Nazareth, and
of his more than usuaUy lonely summer, he was
happier at this time than often — perhaps than ever
— in his life. Of his public life, this was distinctly
the most cheerful year. Now, he began to know the
pleasantness of growing popularity. Now, he began
to feel that his great sense of moral truth was really
communicable to a certain1 proportion of minds.
Now, his spiritual force gathered itself to encour
aging action. Now, he knew what it was to hope
for more than the space of a mood. Now, his con
sciousness of power grew upon something more solid
than dreams, and more tangible than prayer.
Having, for many practical reasons, selected Ca
pernaum, he made that thriving port his head
quarters. Here he recalled to his side the four fish
ermen friends who were pursuing their calling on the
Galilean lake. Up to this time their service and
society had been irregular, but he now summoned
them to new and definite obligations in his behalf.
This downright act of authority — a new assump
tion on his part — he enfolded in such a warm out
burst of sympathy with their practical affairs that
he became in a half hour the most popular of men
among the Galilean fishermen.
The men had been out since the day before, and
the capricious lake whose abundant shoals of fish
sometimes choked and sometimes evaded the most
skillful net, had yielded nothing to an all night's
hard work. Sleepless, hungry, uncomfortable, wet,

THE HEALER - 141
and discouraged, the fishermen had rowed ashore,
sullenly washed their nets, and put out again at the
request of Jesus, who expressed a wish to use one
of their boats as a temporary pulpit wherefrom to
finish one of his brief discourses. At the surpris
ing order of the preacher that they set their nets
in such and such a spot, the cross and disheartened
men smiled with respectful doubt. A superior
rabbi does not make a good fisherman. The lec
tern, not the deck, was the place for the landsman.
When, however, they hopelessly followed his sugges
tion, and the richest haul of fish taken on Gennesa-
ret that night broke the nets and aU but sank the
boat, the moral effect was such as only poor men
can appreciate. Here was no common rabbi who
would stick to his synagogue and let a man starve.
Here was a wonder and a wonderworker, caring
for a poor fellow and the catch ; concerning him
self about your affairs, not above your troubles.
The most warm-hearted man in the crew dropped to
his knees among the leaping fish, and impulsively
offered to Jesus the service of his life.
From the fishing town the Nazarene made cir
cuits, taking preaching tours here and there about
GaHlee and back again, whenever and wherever the
occasion seemed to demand. His gift in religious
oratory quickly developed itself, and grew with
marked effect to the point of public influence. But
he gave less attention to preaching at this time
than to the practice of the truths which he
preached. His methods were intensely practical,
and showed extraordinary wisdom.

142 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
On the Sabbath and on the special synagogue
days of the week, Monday and Thursday, he took his
proper position as a rabbi of eminence in whatever
synagogue was inclined to receive him, and grad
uaUy opened the gates of his belief to outsiders.
But on every day he gave himself to the daily needs
of every class of society ; - whether of his own or
other races, whether of his audiences or not, never
made the slightest difference. He had no parish ;
he confined himself to no ecclesiastical ties; he
swung wide of every parochial as much as of every
theological tradition. He gave his growing fame
to those who needed him most. That was his
simple rule ; from it he never deviated, though by
it he was often embarrassed.
First, last, always, from the beginning to the end,
Jesus Christ sought and received into his great
heart one class of people, — the most miserable.
Foremost among these he rated the sick. No per
son who has himself known the deeps below the
lowest which underlie the desolations of an invalid
life, can ever, in the dreariest dungeon of his incar
cerated powers and joys, forget the preferred atten
tion given by the greatest Master of human sympa
thy to the prisoners of pain. It is not possible for
the weU and active, the superficially gay, the physi
cally comfortable, to rate this instinct in the nature
of the Nazarene at its value.
It was the more remarkable because he himself
was a weU man. The healthy mind in the healthy
body dowered him. He had the poise of true nerve
in. wholesome tissue. He inherited no taint, no

CHRIST THE HEALER

THE HEALER 143
disorders. A pure life, simple and free, passed
in manual labor, out-of-door exercise, and close
thought had wrought its ends. The carpenter had
been a man of mental application ; the student had
been a mechanic. Mind and body were so in equi
poise that the overwrought soul whose sensibilities,
as . life went on, quivered under the most terrible of
strains, did not make havoc of his physical system.
His organization was a harmony, strong because spot
less, sweet because strong, wonderful in any aspect.
Rare is the healthy person who is patient with —
rarer if he understands — the sick. Jesus showed
an almost incredible comprehension of the conditions
of disease ; he distinguished with amazing skiU be
tween the true and the f alie claims on sympathy ;
he never confounded controllable hypochondria with
anything more serious, nor mistook the more seri
ous for the manageable delusion. He had no medi
cal education, and relied upon his own divination
in diagnosis, and his own personality in treatment.
Almost immediately he entered upon the difficult
and dangerous life of a people's healer. Often his
cures were made in private, or even in secret ; but
one of his first was a whoUy public affair.
One summer morning, soon after he had come to
Capernaum, a maniac happened in the synagogue,
pushing in with the crowd to hear the new Rabbi.
The poor wretch, moved by who knew what psychical
irritation at the sight of the pure face and calm
demeanor of the young preacher, created a disturb
ance in the congregation, and made himself so
annoying that it became necessary to put him out

144 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
unless he could be controlled. A thriU ran through
the audience when the madman, raving at Jesus,
hurled at him this unexpected and awful recognition :
" I know thee, Thou Holy One of God ! " The
excitement was not lessened when the Rabbi by a
few remarkable words quieted the maniac, and
restored him suddenly to sanity.
Belief in demonic possession was as much a fea
ture of the times as the wearing of sandals or travel
by caravan. The spectators and the lunatic shared
this theory of his condition as a matter of course.
The healer did not combat the popular idea ; whether
he shared it or not, he did not choose to explain.
The event itself aroused a wide curiosity. That
same day occurred another incident of no less public
interest. The healer's gift was put to the test in the
family of a favorite disciple ; an elderly woman be
ing dangerously ill with one of the poisonous fevers
peculiar to the Jordan valley.
When the woman got. up from her bed, and, with
true Jewish feminine meekness, immediately pre
pared the supper and served the "masculine members
of the household, the effect on the minds of those who
witnessed the cure was not as complex as it would
be in our time, but it was sufficiently startling. In
a few hours the lakeport town buzzed with it. The
well told the sick, the sick told each other ; the news
was discussed in society and markets, on deck and
on shore, and received on solitary pallets by sufferers
who had been cheated of hope too often to be easily
roused to exertion or trust. The tide of patients,
which had already set in, advanced rapidly. He

THE HEALER 145
did not obtrude his healing power, but rather would
have preferred to shelter it for a time, like an altar
fire which must not be rudely fanned too soon.
But the demands upon his skill and sympathy
grew like a conflagration. In twenty-four hours he
had relieved too much misery for his own comfort.
That Sabbath evening he was besieged. Half the
coast and country flung themselves upon his sympa
thy and vitality. Either or both might have given
way; neither did. There now began one of the
greatest conflicts of history, and one that has never
received its due of attention, — the wrestle between
the woe of humanity and the organization of one
merciful man.
At this early stage in the struggle, while his vigor
was unimpaired and his enthusiasm fresh and strong,
a sparkling success gave joy to his achievements.
His patients were of all classes, aU disorders, all
varieties of gratitude or ingratitude, all shades of
faith in the healer on whose skill they massed them
selves without pity. Of the immense number it
was simply recorded that "he laid his hands on
every one of them and healed them."
The fishing town was in a tumult of excitement.
With the natural selfishness of the sick, the petu
lant demand arose that Capernaum should claim
and control the full benefit of his skill. He was
troubled by this appeal. Forcibly to tear asunder
the ties formed between relieving health and depend
ent disease is one of the hardest of tasks for any
sympathetic nature. Such ties may spring up in
an hour, but their roots strike down as deep as time.

146 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
When Jesus retired to rest on the evening of that
crowded day whose cries of misery and whose mur
mured blessings reechoed in his ears, his brain
throbbed and his heart ached. He had now at once
to meet on a great scale the perplexity which all
agents of mercy must meet on a smaU one-; he must
choose between the suffering ; he must seem to neg
lect for the sake of remembering ; he must omit so
much misery for the sake of so much more.
Worn as he was with excessive drains upon his
strength, which only the demanding sick can make,
he slept but little. Before the gray of the dawn,
while yet it was quite dark, he stole out and away by
the shore. The water lay before him a duU and oval
map ; the outlines of the surrounding hills through
whose black gorges swept down the gusts that made
the lake so dangerous, rose frowning. No sign of
human life presented itself. Nature wore the re
moteness and bore the chill of the grim hour between
the night and the dawning, when the strong weaken
and the weak sink, and the sick die, and the soul
faints. Nature did not offer to help him. He turned
to God.
When his friends, missing him, long after day
break, searched and found him, — in the shelter of
groves, with his face to the lake and his eyes on
the rose-lit skies, and his delicate lips moving, the
young healer was at prayer.
" They demand thee," said Simon, when his sense
of decorum would allow the fisherman to speak.
" There is a great crowd coming on behind us. All

THE HEALER 147
men seek thee." But the Nazarene sadly shook his
head. The fishermen were perplexed, and not alto
gether pleased by his reply :
" I go," he said, " into the other towns. I go to
preach." The healer and the preacher seemed to
arise together in him at that moment, — like gen
erals of different phalanxes in the same army, each
concerned for his own department of responsibility ;
both for the same cause ; both under Higher Orders
than their own wills.
He went. Leaving the piteous clamor of ailing
Capernaum behind him, he went immediately, with
the firmness of a man who perceives that his ellip
sis of labor is broader than his friends suppose,
upon one of many missionary tours in which, as
master of two professions, his intellect, nerve, and
heart were taxed to the f uU. He flung himself now
headlong into this exacting dual work, dividing
himself passionately between the sick of soul and
the sick of body.
His cures were more or less surprising, but none
had yet reached the character which silences the
chronically skeptical. One beautiful and extraor
dinary case soon mounted to this degree of the
wonderful, and the report of it took possession of
Galilee like a great storm.
There came to him one day, in the course of his
travels, a skulking, abhorrent object. Palestine had
her full share of malignant diseases ; but, of them
all, leprosy headed the repugnant list.
A victim of this foul plague had watched for days
for his chance to get near enough to the healer to

148 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
have speech with him. Succeeding at last, he inter
cepted Jesus as he was about leaving one of the
cities of Galilee.
Jesus was walking with his eyes on the sky,
absorbed in thought. Whether he did not notice,
or did not seem to notice the ruin of humanity who
had been dogging his steps for some time, pitiably
afraid to show himself, and more afraid not to, in
either case the Nazarene did not speak.
Popular healers from the earliest to the latest
day have been in the habit of making the most of
their gifts ; have exercised them fluently, and with
out any marked reluctance to the excitement created
by such evidence of unusual faculties. Christ, on
the contrary, was always struggling with an excess
of power, — to keep it back, to hold it down, to
keep it in the place that he thought fit for it.
He did not seek to put the marvelous on exhibi
tion. He held it in reserve. It was like a mighty
force in leash. So far he would let it out, and then
recall it. So much he would do with it, and then
stop doing. How much more might he have done ?
How far was he conscious of power unused ? What
magnificent effort did it require to harness a tremen
dous energy, a surplus of life unshared, uncompre-
hended by other men ! As these young experiences
of extraordinary gift grew in him, and along with
them a clearing knowledge of that side of his own
nature, he developed, to a degree which excites the
profoundest admiration, one of the final signs of
superiority, — restraint in its evidence.
Many crowds had driven away many lepers who

THE HEALER 149
had sought to bring their piteous lot to his atten
tion. What a brilliant deed to have recalled one
of these outcast wretches by a look, and cured him
in the presence of a couple of thousand witnesses !
Jesus had seen fit to do nothing of the kind.
Now, in the silence, the remoteness, the solitude,
unseen of any other eye, he chose for the first time
to test his power upon the malignant contagion.
Had he any secret doubts about his ability to con
trol it ? He had now acquired an unavoidable con
fidence in himself ; it acted on his power, and his
power reacted on his confidence. Acute sickness
had proved itself his servant, and hereditary disease
his slave. Still — a leper !
The repulsive being, tortured out of aU semblance
to fair human form and flesh, suddenly shuffled like
an image of some demonic dream ahead of the
Rabbi, and desperately barred the path. He lifted
his mutilated arms and hands. A hoarse wail came
from his hideous lips :
" Cure me, — even me / "
Jesus stopped, and gently regarded the leper.
His fathomless pity arose and flooded his face.
" Thou canst if thou wilt," observed the miserable
creature half reproachfully.
By all the laws of church and state, the two were
forbidden to approach each other, and the leper did
not further defy the law.
The healer, on the contrary, did not recognize it.
He advanced directly, and put out his hand. He
seemed deeply touched by this cry of mingled re
proach and entreaty, as if he could not bear to be
misunderstood by so wretched a man.

150 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Such desolation of suffering acted upon him like
a law of mechanics. Whatever the cost, he had
to relieve ; whatever the consequence, he could
not refuse. Such was the government of his
nature. Without a gesture of repugnance, he laid his
cool, clean touch upon the other's crumbling flesh.
The outcast of contagion looked in vain for the ex
pression of disgust that he was used to seeing on
the faces of well and blessed men. Not a shadow
crossed the eyes of the Nazarene : they were like
stars become human; ineffable compassion rayed
from them, — only that.
"I will," he said heartily, as one man speaks to
another when he means kindly by him ; " I will ! "
Then rang out the vibrant tone of command pecu
liar to himself, and familiar now to half the sick of
Galilee :
" Be clean ! "
Was it moments ? Was it hours ? Was it weeks?
The leper could not have told. He had fallen pros
trate in the dust. He arose slowly. Where was
the horror of all those years, — half a lifetime of
loathsomeness to himself and to all humankind, —
whither had it betaken itself ? What had become
of the shame, the anguish, the defilement? The
infected man looked for one revolting sign and
another of his acquaintance with disgrace. Was he
gone blind, or maniac, that he could not find them ?
Gently through his body, that had been the den of
torments, the sense of freedom from pain and from

THE HEALER 151
impurity, strange as the laws of a foreign organism,
began to stir.
The Nazarene stood smiling. He seemed to be
charged with joy. The happiness of the other looked
a faint thing beside his own. It was as if he him
self had suffered everything that went before, — as
if all that history of woe had been his own. So ex
quisite his sympathy that the very thriU of being
healed seemed to run through him. The delight of
healing was but a portion of his beautiful pleasure.
He felt every pang that he had removed, and all the
bliss that he had given. Gladness like the gladness
of a God shone all over him. It was one of the
happiest moments of his life.
" Go," he said with a low and joyous laugh.
" Find the priest and be purified."
Now he who had defied in this act of mercy every
ecclesiastical law relating to contagious diseases
which as a Jew and a rabbi he was bound to respect,
loyally enough deferred to the statutes of his church
and of his land.
A stranger thing he did, for he added the peremp
tory and totaUy unexpected order that the manner
of the cure should be kept a secret between the
patient and the healer.
With every intention to obey the Rabbi, the
cleansed man went his ways. But joy and the curi
osity of his friends was too much for him. His head
was turned with delight. The novelty of health
bounded through his nerves like delirium. Leap
ing, laughing, praying, singing as he ran, he bab-

152 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
bled of his good fortune. He had no more power
to keep the name of the Nazarene out of the affair
than a child to keep a secret from his mother, and
the whole town knew it before nightfall.
The consequence was precisely what Jesus had
foreseen, and what he had especially tried to avoid.
Before he could evade the popular excitement, it
had rolled up against him, — a wave of suffering,
vast and dark. He was immediately overwhelmed
with the entreaties of the incurable and disfigured
sick, who, if they could not reach him in any other
way, crawled upon the sands to his feet, and lay
there, piteous and hideous, until he considered their
plight. The state of medical education in the East at that
time was such as to emboss the methods of Christ
in strong relief upon a background of almost in
credible foUy and charlatanry.
The heads of mice, the brains of an owl, the eyes
of a crab, the fat of a viper, a bat, a grasshopper,
might be among the popular remedies. If a man
had a cold in the head, his physician ordered him to
kiss the nose of a mule. For certain disorders one
carried about a peculiar species of small snake re
ported to possess the accomplishment of traveling
backwards. The cuttings of vines not four years
old, burned in seven ditches, were believed to con
tain peculiar therapeutic virtues, provided one sat
in the smoke of the seven ditches, each in turn.
Such a materia medica was the offering of the
regular schools to suffering humanity. At such a
stage and into such a phase of medical science, the

THE HEALER 153
healing gift of the Nazarene entered quietly. Its
simplicity, its good sense, its delicacy, its efficacy,
its amazing results threatened to overturn the thera
peutics of his time. The physicians were derisive,
then disgruntled, then alarmed. Their consultations
were neglected; their clienteles thinned out; their
patients deserted them for the new healer. The
danger was that the sick public would go over en
masse to the courageous and singular man whose
prescriptions required of his patients only clean
lives and faith in himself. The most learned and
fashionable physicians in Palestine were set at
naught. A growing uneasiness ran through their
ranks. Before he had aroused the serious opposi
tion of the clergy to which the heretic preacher was
inevitably fated, the humane and gentle man who
began his life's work by such a love of the sick and
such a sorrow for their sufferings as has never been
equaled in the records of human sympathy, brought
down upon himself the enmity of one of the most
jealous classes in society. He had to meet the an
tagonism of the whole medical profession.
The absence of superstition in the nature of
Jesus was something that never ceases to astonish.
Simply reared in a mountain viUage, in a secluded
youth, in a devout family, how easy for him to have
conformed, to have believed, like other men ! But
freedom of thought was the condition of existence to
him. Far above his contemporaries, looking off and
away at an altitude in which they could not breathe,
he quickly took the broadest view of any practical
question. He never did an ignorant thing.

154 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Against the me.dical superstitions of his times he
directed himself with a progressive independence
which commands the keenest admiration. Perceiv
ing that the people who appealed to him suffered
more from the abuses of the profession than from
the effects of disease, he took high ground. He
antedated by two thousand years the efforts of mod
ern science to reduce the abominations of a be
nighted past in the practice of medicine. He threw
away all drugs, all nostrums, all nauseous traditions,
aU the disgusting superstitions of the age, and
brought his patients up to pure living and high
thinking as his simple code of therapeutics.
It is never to be forgotten that he added to these
principles in the control of. disease the forces of a
personality that stands apart, beyond reduplica
tion. The wisest and most courageous of the mod
ern schools does not hope for a similar professional
success; only the purest dwells upon it. But he
who studies that supreme achievement learns his
subtle formula, if he will, from the " irregular "
Hebrew physician whose manly faith in God was
the first and last condition of curing, and whose
patients found that something not unlike it was the
inexorable condition of cure.
An opportunity presented itself for an interest
ing thrust at a favorite popular superstition involv
ing both medicine and theology, and requiring a
double amount of courage on the part of him who
dared to attack it.
The successes of many healers are largely con
fined to disorders of the nervous system. The

THE HEALER 155
cures of Jesus were not limited at all to these, but
he had performed his share of such. An impres
sive and dramatic scene had taken place in Galilee,
at the home of his friend Peter, a man in comfort
able circumstances, whose house was of some size,
and accommodated both audiences and patients in
considerable numbers. The Rabbi had preached in
the house, under the gallery, and the crowd over
flowed into the street. Suddenly, in the middle of
his sermon, there descended at his feet, mysteri
ously let down from overhead, a paralyzed person,
whose muscular and ingenious friends had carried
him up the outside stairs of the house, or had taken
" the road of the roofs " from a neighbor's ; so they
stole a march upon tbe healer's attention, perhaps
by tearing up the earth and the brush from the
gaUery roof, and forcing a space large enough for
their purpose. As this image of woe fell flat at his
feet, the preacher's voice hushed. Only the eyes of
the patient could move, and these clasped the per
son of the most merciful man whom Galilee had ever
known or heard of. The entreaty was so piteous
that the lip of Jesus trembled. He could not go on
with his discourse till he had cured the patient.
The memory of this scene occurred to him poign
antly one Sabbath, when, being in Jerusalem at
an ecclesiastical feast, he walked out alone to one
of the " wells of healing " in which the East
abounded. This spot was not far from the market,
and easily accessible. It was eminent for its legen
dary cures, and sure to be frequented by people
suffering from those forms of nervous disease which

156 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
forbid a patient to get too far from home, but
are sure to take him somewhere in a whimsical
search for health. The place went by the name of
Bethesda, and was a pretty pool, picturesquely
guarded by porches. It was one of the intermit
tent springs whose rise and fall was attributed by
the ignorance of the times to supernatural agency.
The waters were disturbed at irregular intervals,
and only the poor wretch who pushed his way in at
the expense of his weaker companions, and at the
precise moment when the spring began to swell, had
any chance.
Jesus stood beside Bethesda, and it was the Sab
bath, — the awful Sabbath, in which a man was
forbidden to carry fuel, a rug, a bundle, or to lift
the sick upon their beds. Only the dying could
be carried by good Jews. A medical cure was for
bidden. Jesus stood watching the mass of misery
that had accumulated at the pool. His now prac
ticed eye perceived among those wretched people a
large proportion of nervous patients, and among
them he readily recognized the worst and most
genuine case. A helpless man, disabled for thirty-
eight years, and deserted by his friends who had
grown tired of taking care of him, lay sadly in one
of the porches by himself. The ruder and more
restless sick complained and quarreled around him.
He alone lay quite still and acquiescent. The pa
tience born from long-accepted despair had settled
upon him. His drawn face demanded nothing ; his
wasted hands made no appeal. His eyes were dull
with endurance that had passed the stage of fever-

THE HEALER 157
ishness, hope, or fear. He lay waiting for the
chance which had never come, — which would never
come. This was the sickest man at the spring, and
the only one sure to receive no attention.
Jesus went directly to him. The two were apart.
No one noticed the Rabbi who came to see Bethesda,
a common resort for country folk visiting Jerusalem
and anxious to see the sights. Jesus entered at
once into conversation with the disabled man, who
had attracted his interest. He did not insult the
nervous patient by expressing doubts as to the real
ity of his disorder. He did not prejudge hysterical
symptoms, or underestimate the nature of a suffer
ing only too evident to his refined perception. An
ordinary physician might easily have turned this
case off as one of the Bethesda hypochondriacs.
The Galilean healer was too sensitive for that.
His mind was too keen to make this blunder, be
cause it was too fine. Gently drawing from the
poor man his story, which was not altogether that
of an innocent sufferer, he sorrowed for the patient
more than he blamed. His heart ached at the plain
tive and uncomplaining, —
" Sir, aU the others can get into the water, but
there is nobody to help me. Before I can get
down " —
But there the stranger interrupted him. The
morbid, motionless man clinging to his superstition
because he had nothing better, looked, startled, up.
What words were these? What face was that?
What fire, half of indignation, half of pity, played
across those gentle features ? Why did the Rabbi
shake his head ?

158 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
What ? Not believe in the waters — not in the
Bethesda waters, — after aU ? Believe only in this
face, this voice, this sweetest sympathy ever found
in aU a lonely, miserable life ? With a rush of emo
tion, it suddenly seemed to the neglected invalid
that if he had been dead he could have lived had
this man spoken to him, had he looked at him so.
" Take it up ! " cried the stranger, pointing to the
bed. "Carry it. Walk!"
With this authoritative order he dismissed the
case, and took himself hurriedly away.
Later in the day Jesus met his cured patient
accidentally, and exchanged with him a few words.
But these were not many, for the story was now
public property, and a curious crowd crushed upon
the two.
A sullen excitement had set in over the case.
Both had defied the law ; the healer had wrought
a cure, and the invalid had carried a bed upon the
Sabbath day.
Ecclesiastical feeling ran high. A timid man
would have retreated from it. Jesus, on the con
trary, went straight to the Temple, where he was
sure to meet the full brunt of it. His object in
coming to Jerusalem at that time had been no light
one. He was no mere traveler, no comfortable
worshiper. Strange and strong as the story of his
career had been for the last few months, the move
ment of his own nature had been stranger and
stronger. He felt the imperious need of a broader
scope. Braver deeds beckoned him. Deeper dan
gers called him. Beautiful Galilee with her listen-

THE HEALER 159
ing synagogues and her happy convalescents was
not the world. Problems of church and state trou
bled him.
The character of his own peculiar mission asked
him awful questions. These gave him no rest. He
came, and he came alone, definitely to test the
attitude of the capital towards himself. His method
of doing this was entirely his own.
In the cause of humanity he had boldly broken
the Sabbath laws, ancient as Moses, precious as
Israel, rigid as death. In the cause of common
sense he had treated a superstition dear to Jerusa
lem with unpardonable contempt. Could he not
have cured his man on any other of six days out of
seven? Could he not have done it at some time
when the spring did rise ? All ecclesiastical laws
and pathological precedents he had simply ignored.
The clergy, the people, and the government were
equally offended. Not fully prepared for the conse
quences, Jesus calmly awaited them. If he felt
any agitation, he did not show it. In the Temple
he serenely defended himself. A mob was the
result. The very madness of joy looked at him from the
eyes of one adoring man, — the escaped prisoner of
thirty-eight years of misery. He could see his Be
thesda patient excitedly arguing the case with scribe
and priest and Pharisee. But the church frowned
on the heretic. The people imitated the church.
His own discourse in the Temple, a powerful and
fearless address, had made everything worse. The
country Rabbi became in an hour dangerously un-

160 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
popular. With hurt surprise, with pathetic wonder
that left no room for fear, Jesus perceived that he
stood in the Temple of his race, in the holy city of
his heart, in actual peril of his life.
He had come up from the country filled with no
man knew what secret hopes, with what growing
exaltations and exultations too pure for comprehen
sion by his nearest friends. He had come up trust
fully, looking for some cheerful signs of the popular
feeling under which he might map out the plan of
his work. But Jerusalem met him with a malicious
rebuff, and dismissed him with a murderous threat.
His independence of conviction soon brought more
trouble upon him. Having heartily allowed his
hungry disciples to pick corn on the Seventh Day,
he found that he had committed an unpardonable
offense. Jesus defended his innovation warmly and
authoritatively. "I am Lord of the Sabbath," he
said.

CHAPTER VII
THE PREACHER ; AND THE DEAD
Whatever had been his disappointment in the
results of his experiment at Jerusalem, Jesus did
not express or cultivate it. He came back thought
fully to Galilee, — impulsive, fickle, lovable Galilee,
where he was affectionately trusted and perplexedly
admired, — and drowned himself again in his work.
With that noticeable good sense which characterized
all his public movements, and with his habit of
foUowing the clear duty instead of urging the doubt
ful, he resumed his opportunity among the warm
hearted lake-people and their inland neighbors.
Their welcome was genuine enough, and encouraged
him, but it never flattered him. He was now
approaching the height of his fame. He had not
fully realized its proportions before he left home.
His return from the capital to the country revealed
to him some new and pleasant aspects of his growing
hold upon the people. He accepted his popularity
with unapproachable simplicity, serenity, and mod
esty. He gave no evidence of one dizzy hour. The
moral vertigo which confuses many great men at
the whirl of their success did not perceptibly affect
him. If he ever felt it, he gave no sign of doing
so. The giddiness was conquered before it reached
the poise.

162 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
This was the more to be noticed because he had a
kind of temptation to lose his balance, which is only
to be measured by some appreciation of the eminence
that he refused himself. Beside it, that which he
allowed himself was a lowly success. This fact,
which time enunciated with a terrible distinctness,
began now to murmur to his consciousness.
Galilee was at his feet. Just then he could have
done anything with Galilee. The neighboring pro
vinces overflowed on the lake side for his sake ;
Judea sought him and studied him ; and even Je
rusalem had her delegates at his mass meetings.
The clergy and officers of his church had begun
to observe him. His audiences were numbered by
thousands. His patients were never numbered.
Sickness, misery, sin, and shame swept against his
heart as the winds swept Gennesaret, whose shape
was like a harp. Both audiences and patients were
increasing with appalling force. He could get little
sleep. , Rest was impossible. He had scarcely time
to eat, and his nervous vigor was so taxed that food
was taken with difficulty. It had become necessary
for him to own or to control a boat for his frequent
trips across the lake, and that he might push out into
the water and so use the deck as a pulpit, putting a
space between himself and the masses which would
otherwise have disabled him from addressing them.
Wherever he went, he took and left crowds. He
was trampled by humanity. He was almost crushed
by its near proximity. The pressure of its woe
closed upon him till he could have cried out for
agony from his delicate perception of what that

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 163
meant. The sense of its taint bruised against his
exquisite purity till he could have shrunk away for
ever, from sheer moral recoil, out of repulsive con
tact. He never did. He had not an atom of false
sensitiveness. His delicacy had not a morbid nerve
in it. He took the world as he found it. But he
did not, he would not, he could not leave it so.
Where he was, vice hung its head. Where he trod,
virtue was the only comfortable thing. Misery crept
like a child to his arms. Assuagement was in his
touch, because pity and power held the balance of
his impulses. His life was as foreign to every con
ception of life held by the people of his times
as the unknown continents of the western hemi
sphere. He passed through Palestine like a new
law of moral science, which men obeyed without
understanding. He had been but a short time at home again
when he found his work so grown upon his hands
that it was impossible to continue it without respon
sible assistants and more of them.
The selection of these cost him much thought and
care. More depended upon it than was perceived
by any spectator. He had already given offense by
numbering among his especial friends a collector of
the Roman government. With his fearless inde
pendence he had never paid the least attention to
the feeling caused by this expression of indiffer
ence to Jewish prejudices, and the collector proved
to be one of his most valuable men. He chose the
subordinates he preferred for qualities best appreci
ated by himself. Out of them all there was but one

164 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
failure. An unhappy choice could hardly be called
a mistake, which was plainly as necessary to the
action of the mighty drama*in which he moved as
treason, death, or heart-break to the motion of a
Greek tragedy.
The night before he completed the organization
which was the nucleus of the great faith that bears
his name, he spent in that solitary, solemn manner
which marked all the critical decisions or events
of his life. Northward of. Capernaum, in the hilly
region, he knew and loved many lonely haunts.
Thither he went, and there he wandered. In thought
and prayer he wore the whole night out. The lake
that he loved was at his feet ; the stars, acquaintances
to other men, but comrades to him, were marshaled
above his head ; the stillness that he craved, and
could never command by day, stole to his nerves;
Darkness without hid those hours of darkness
within, of which he told no man. What doubts,
that he knew not whether to acknowledge or to
ignore, beset him! What fearful questions catechized
him ! What forebodings tortured him ! How often
did he ask himself if he had mistaken himself, — if
he were deluded about it all, — if his own conscious
ness rang true ! Had he misread the signs of mere
popularity for the will of heaven ? Did he hear in
the clamor of men the voice of God? The first
trouble; in the wilderness by Jordan, the first moral
emergency, — was it his next and next, and always
his until the last? Was it the cruelest difficulty of
his solitary mission that he was never quite sure,
without interruption in his own conviction, of his

CHRIST BY THE SEA

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 165
commission from God ? Then was it the grandest
achievement of his life that he went straight on
doing the one thing of which he was sure, and leav
ing the nature of his mission to take care of itself.
There was no doubt that the sick were wretched,
and that he could heal them. There was no doubt
that men were evil, and that he could make them
better. There was no doubt that he could comfort
the unhappy. There was no more doubt that he
could preach and teach and heal than there was that
he suffered and was misunderstood. Was he the
Chosen, the Wonderful, the Anointed, the Messiah
of his people ? Was he the Son of his God ? The
answer to this awful question, lay in the lips of
Jehovah. There were black hours when those lips
seemed sealed for him who hung upon their motion
for the breath of his being. There were bright
hours when whispers inarticulate to common ears
inexpressibly comforted the lonely man.
When he came down from the heights at dawn,
his friends, accustomed to read the changes of his
dear and noble face, — and that with some affection
ate skill, as they read the weather on the Galilean
lake, — were moved by his appearance. Plainly
this had been one of the nights when he had prayed
almost to exhaustion. Lines of sleeplessness and
intense feeHng were cut upon his face. Yet he
did not look unhappy. Wan as he was, he smiled
warmly. Joy came down the hillsides with him.
The plain men, who loved him better than they
understood him, connected in their own minds this
night of vigil and of prayer with the solemn cere-

166 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
mony through which he immediately called them to
lifelong allegiance to himself. It was a tremendous
occasion to them. It was a serious one to him.
But they soon perceived that he had needed extra
strength for another purpose. That night of solemn
preparation was the prelude to a great public ad
dress. He and his twelve friends had scarcely turned
their grave faces from one another, each awed with
his own share in the important compact through
which they had just passed, when the people, crowd
ing up and on, crushed to the Rabbi's feet. He
was so encompassed by them that he could not have
been heard or seen ; and, after protesting gently but
in vain, he withdrew from them and climbed to an
elevation that commanded the crowd..
It now contained a vast number of persons, —
how many no one cared to count. For an undi
verted interest centred upon the preacher. He did
not always foUow the custom of the Jewish rabbi,
who sat while he instructed. On certain occasions
his impulse drew him to his feet. But this was not
one of them. At the height on which he was, it was
quite possible to assume the usual ministerial pos
ture, and still control his audience. This was now so
large that he needed to make some effort to be heard
in the open air. Yet he seemed to make none. His
enunciation was remarkably distinct, and was under
stood by the uttermost straggler on the edge of the
crowd. His voice was carried to a surprising distance. It
had a clear, vibrant quality, and rang; its vowel

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 167
sounds were exquisite ; it was music articulate. It
was a voice to love, to long for, to follow, to obey,
to recall long after it had ceased, as one recalls
indescribable pleasure ; it was the organ only to be
commanded by a pure, high soul united to a power
ful inteUect.
Yet, though it could hold an audience of thou
sands of restless people, the voice of Jesus was not
loud. Its timbre was one of marvelous delicacy.
Its lowest tone — and he preferred the low tones —
could be heard where a coarser man would have
been obliged to strain all the functions of the throat
and lungs. He spoke with perfect ease; as if he
were not obliged to think how he spoke. .
He began that morning in a low, penetrating
voice. It was music, pity, and power in one. The
lightest listener in the audience sobered before the
sound, and the lowest shriveled ; but the most mis
erable wept for very comfort. Before their slow
minds had begun to grasp the significance of what
he said, his hearers were fascinated by the way in
which he said it. It was one of the voices that
predestine the career of an orator. It took but a
few moments for a cultivated observer of the throng,
reflecting dispassionately as he studied the scene, to
decide that a man with that voice, and that presence,
was created to be the most famous religious orator
of his times. How could the imagination of any
Hebrew or Roman, Greek or Persian, of that day,
compass the knowledge that he was listening to the
greatest preacher of history ? Such the Rabbi from
Nazareth has proved himself to be. His discourse

168 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
that morning on the rocks outside of Capernaum
has gone far to give him the claim to this title.
It was and remains, seen across the span of civ
ilization, and judged by the standards of the severest
modern criticism, the great masterpiece of religious
address. Contrasted with his first youthful and interrupted
sermon in the Nazareth synagogue, this discourse in
dicated a natural but obvious growth in the preacher.
AU hesitation, experimentation, were behind him.
He preached like a man sure of himself and of his
subject. His facility of expression had become
more marked. His increased intellectual force had
an iron grip. His logic closed like lock and key.
His style had become polished and brilliant. His
persuasive power was irresistible. Who, reading
the Sermon on the Mount with anything like atten
tion, wonders at the exhausting night of study that
preceded it?
Jesus was what we caU an extemporaneous
speaker ; but, strictly speaking, this was no extem
pore effort. The evidences of careful construction
and finish abound in the discourse itself. He was
destitute of tricks of speech. His methods were
never sensational. He used the best of grammar.
His rhetoric was a model. He did not cater to the
ignorant by an appearance of ignorance. He
avoided vulgarisms. He spoke like a gentleman.
This educated mechanic was a polished orator. He
was and is the great instance of the eternal truth
that a superior mind never need abase itself to reach
an inferior. His simplicity, directness, force, per-

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 169
suasiveness, were a compliment to the most ignorant
person among his hearers, who responded to them
without knowing why ; and the most cultivated, who
knew why, could no more help responding than the
ignorant. The sermons of Jesus indicate that he
was an habitual student, and this of no easy type.
Days and nights of severe application marked his
career as a preacher. He was no half -taught, half-
ready, popular talker trusting to his emotions to
take him through the hour. He was thoroughly
equipped. On the occasion of which we speak, he addressed
himself particularly to twelve men. Twelve hun
dred, or twice or thrice that number, were in the
audience; but his disciples, with their fresh vows
scarcely parted from their Ups, were in the fore
ground. He placed and retained them in close
proximity to himself, while he made of the private
ceremony through which he had but just initiated
them a solemn public event. He had now reached
a stage in his life when organization was necessary
to the advancement of his principles, and when he
began to feel their advancement an urgent thing.
This conviction he wished, if possible, to share with
the witnesses of the scene. Formality, as a rule, he
avoided. No other great leader of men has scorned
it as he did. His methods were simple and modest ;
he was incapable of display ; he always acted like
a man who did not know the use of it, or who for
got that it had any, in human affairs. This was one
of the very few occasions of his life when he took
advantage of a ceremony to achieve an end.

170 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The beautiful and impressive formalities of the
morning were not lost upon the crowd ; the dullest
minds in it understood that Jesus regarded the or
ganization of his disciples as a matter of profound
importance to himself, to them, to the Jewish race,
and to the world.
The Jews, being a people born and trained to
severity, took it as a matter of course. Of mercy
they knew little. Commandments carved in stone
by the greatest of legislators grimly cut their ancient
laws into the Hebrew instinct. Jehovah had not
wasted words with the people. It was : Thou shalt
not, and Thou shalt. With explanation, or appeal,
or promise He had never concerned himself. Moses
was not a tender man. The fiat' and its conse
quences were as unornamented as Sinai, and as hard.
Jesus, too, came down from a mountain on the
day when the principles of the Christian faith were
first publicly laid down. Introducing a reverent
reference to the- ancient laws of his race, — which in
a less sincere man would have been a marvel of dex
terity, — he succeeded, by a wonderful mingling of
oratorical tact and genuineness of feeling, in unfold
ing his theories of life and of religion. These were
so startling and original that they took the breath
away from his audience.
Instead of commandments, Jesus offered beati
tudes. Instead of thunder, there was music. Threats
were replaced by promises. Punishments interested
him less than rewards. After a thousand years of
law, who could understand love ? Amazement which
amounted almost to stupefaction listened to him.

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 171
He spoke of incredible things. He treated them in
an astounding way. Something in his manner was
more than priestly ; it was more than royal. He
tore down old, solid, respectable errors of church
and society with the assurance of a God tossing
aside human affairs. In his audience were a certain
number of ecclesiastical delegates and pompous pie
tists of the established belief. He paid no court to
their position. He did not on their account soften
by an adjective anything which he had to say. He
singled them out, in fact, as he did on more than
one other occasion, by one of the severest rebukes
ever known to fall from his gentle lips. He added
to his enemies on that morning. Conservatives did
not understand him, and hypocrites feared him.
Silent and secret jealousies and aversions grew in
his audience alongside of the admiration, affection,
and trust which it was impossible for him not to
inspire. For he spoke of strange thoughts in a strange
way. He offered great things to small people. He
selected the overlooked, the despised, those who
were of no consequence. He made extraordinary
promises for ultimate preeminence to men without
what is called " spirit ; " to those not quick to take
provocation, — patient people, the gentle, the hum
ble ; to those weakened by too much grief ; to the
tender; to those whose longing for what he caUed
righteousness, or Tightness of heart, was a spiritual
starvation. The unhappy, the slandered ; those who
loved peace and tried to preserve it ; those who suf
fered hardship for a good cause ; all the obscure and

172 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
unfortunate whom it was not the fashion to notice, —
these he preferred.
To one class of men he reserved the most solemn
and most tender of aU his affectionate pledges:
" The pure in heart," he said, " are blessed. They
shaU see God." His voice sank with these words ;
it was audible only because it was so clear and
sweet ; thousands held the breath to catch the faU-
ing tone ; hundreds hung their heads like children,
when they understood what the Rabbi said. No
person looked at his neighbor. Every one was busy
with his own soul. On the face of the preacher
crept such a look as an unclean man, beholding,
might have died of, for very shame. Then dazzling
brightness smote his countenance. Many in his
audience covered their eyes before its radiance, —
these as if they had seen, those as if they should
never see something too precious to speak of ; some
thing dearer than life, more inexorable than death.
The preacher paused at this point, but only to
gather strength to proceed with his remarkable dis
course. The sermon was not a brief one, and its
beautiful opening was followed by a train of thought
whose power and originality were no less great than
his introduction. What he said was as fearless as
the lightning, yet as practical as any statute of the
ancient law.
He spoke as the maker of a new system, the legis
lator of a higher law. He treated of many moral
offenses. The list ranged from murder to rash judg
ment, from immorality to excessive anxiety. He

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 173
dealt with many virtues ; their names were new to
his audience. Each watched to see how his neigh
bor took these confusing things ; rich travelers and
poor rustics, philosophers and women, listened with
a common bewilderment. The few plain men who
had given their lives to his service lifted trustful
and affectionate faces to Jesus while he spoke, but
they experienced their share of the general perplex
ity. The preacher stood among his doctrines as if
he were the creator of a new world.
In an age when human life was held as cheap as
the fish in the nets at Galilee, or the ants crushed
by the hoofs of camels in the caravan, he taught that
one venomous wish makes a man before God guUty
of murder. In an age when common decency was
so defied that the pen refuses to write of the im
morality of the times, he taught that one coarse
look or low thought broke the seventh command
ment. In an age when private revenge was sweet and
fashionable, " Forgive thine enemy ! " rang from his
firm lips like a military command spoken in a lan
guage unknown to the rank and file. To a people
whose habits of thought were stiff with the selfish
ness of a race to which self-protection has been for
generations foremost in mind, he flung down the
incredible demand that they should love their neigh
bors as they loved themselves.
In an age when a slave had not as many rights
as a pauper dog in our streets to-day, and when a
prince or a priest treated a poor man as he chose
and no help for it, when rank and wealth were never

174 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
asked for their credentials if they trampled obscurity
and poverty into bruises and blood, he taught the
equality of man, the rights of the wronged, the
value of the slighted. In a society of sham he
scorned worldliness by an epigram which has re
mained superb and final from his day to ours.
To a church dying of ceremony, rotten with
hypocrisy, and dark with distrust of himself, he
gently offered an ideal of worship which defied
every ecclesiastical conception of his race and times.
An immortal prayer distinguished and hallowed the
great discourse. It was the most exquisite episode
in the morning's service. The Lord's Prayer has
never been approached as a model for public wor
ship. All times and all people have appropriated
that matchless petition. The perplexity of the au
dience which listened to Jesus that summer morning
did not decrease as the sermon proceeded.
Were they Gentiles, that foreign ideas like these
should be offered them without apology? Were
they angels, that virtues never heard of in human
character should be expected of them ? Who and
what was this Rabbi ? His air of authority was
unimpeachable. Whence did he get it ? What did
he mean by it? The most willful skeptic in the
throng felt it. There was no such thing as escaping
it ; and when were authority and persuasion ever so
mingled in one address? How could so regal a
man be so winning ? how could so gentle a man be
so imperial, commanding ?
And now, indeed, a few thoughtful persons re-
caUed those recent rumors about the Wonderful.

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 175
Was this he who once or twice, in his religious
enthusiasm, was said to have claimed the awfid per
sonality of the Messiah ? But the preacher that day
had said nothing on the subject.
We like to think that he passed the night suc
ceeding this great sermon in sleep, for he was worn
with his recent vigil, and the strain of the day had
been very heavy. The mere intellectual exercise of
such an address was no light matter. Add the
spiritual energy, which was of such a sort as no
mind not in sympathy with it can appreciate. And
he was destined soon to undergo a still greater
ordeal, one of the supreme experiences of his life.
He needed all his strength.
He found it, — only God and he knew how. His
strange consciousness that he stood in some excep
tional relation to the Deity came to him at times
in mighty form and force. There were crises when
he leaned upon it as on an infinite Heart beating
behind his own, as nothing but the heart of father
hood ever beats, whether in divine or human being.
Fortified by prayer, encouraged by achievement,
and calmed by sleep, he left Capernaum and pro
ceeded on one of his preaching circuits. His foUow
ers were with him, much impressed by recent events,
and fired with new enthusiasm in his service. They
cast at him frequent glances of admiration touched
with reverence. He was unusuaUy silent. They
wondered why. But they were used to wondering
where their Master was concerned. It was their
habitual state of mind. He was not like other men ;

176 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
he did not act as other persons did. His person
ality, his conduct, his motives were all so much
above those of common people that at times the
affection which his twelve friends had for him
mounted into awe. Yet they loved him too much
to feel altogether afraid of him.
They were traveling towards a little Galilean
town (its name was Nain ; " The Delightful "), —
he still silent, and the whole company quieter than
usual, — when they saw before them, as evening
came on, the sombre movement of a funeral pro
cession, preceded by women, a custom peculiar to
Galilee. Hired mourners were chanting :
" Alas, the hero !
Alas, alas, the lion / "
The air was so still that the sound of the dirge
came mournfully to a distant ear.
By the impressive Oriental custom, courtesy re
quired each traveler to stop his journey and join
the mourners. The dead and the bereaved might
be strangers, but grief was the awful acquaintance
of all humanity. Jesus and his followers, obeying
the etiquette of the occasion, moved up to attach
themselves to the cortege which was slowly wind
ing its way to the burial. One of the beautiful
but hopeless names given by the Hebrews to the
grave was, The House of Eternity. Some of them
had but little if any hope of life beyond, and
the dreariness of their funerals had not much to
relieve it.
But what was the Rabbi doing ? Etiquette did

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 177
not call upon him to give orders to the burial pro
cession. Custom did not allow him to stop the
bearers. Yet they had stopped. Jesus himself
pushed forward to the wicker bier, and stood reso
lutely beside it. The spectators were somewhat
shocked when they saw the Rabbi, who was neither
a natural nor a hired mourner, so concerning him
self with this funeral.
The face of the dead was uncovered. It was
that of a man and young. He had endured a wast
ing disease, and his features were much emaciated.
He had been a comely lad ; there was something
more appealing than revolting about his appear
ance even now : he had the look of the dead who
have died in their patience ; who have bravely borne
the worst, and given little trouble, and left more
grief than relief in the hearts of those who loved
them least ; and have left in the lives of those who
loved them most a loss and woe unutterable. Jesus
seemed to be somehow drawn to the youth, as if he
might have cared for him living, — as if he could
have found it easy to mourn this stranger, dead.
There are lost friendships in every life; never,
perhaps, met by the roadside until too late. Was
this one of his ? Or was there nothing more in the
scene than the natural movement of his great heart
towards the anguish of a great sorrow ? He stood
looking down, close beside the bier.
An elderly woman was the chief mourner. She
was weeping piteously. Years upon years — it
seemed to her lifetime upon lifetime — ago, she had

178 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
foUowed the boy's father, like this, to the swift
Eastern burial that snatches the precious dead
out of sight within a few hours. They had been
married lovers, and this child was their only one.
The widow had reared the lad with the blind ado
ration which lonely womanhood offers to the only
thing it has to love and live for. She had nothing
left. She had not thought it possible that Jehovah
could crush her so a second time. She had saved
that unreasoning faith in fate which the least hope
ful of us do sometimes. She had thought to keep
the boy. She was beginning to grow old. . . .
" Be not weeping ! "
A low voice quite near her surprised her misery
with these words, spoken with what ineffable sym
pathy ! In all her life she had never heard any
one speak like that. She looked up dully. The
sky, soft as it was with the approaching night,
smote and dazzled her. The mourners looked
smaU, and seemed to reel. Pinched, gray, cold, lay
the precious face. That little, dreadful thing
seemed to blot out the whole world. She stirred
towards it and swayed. She heard some one say :
"She faints!"
But she had not fainted. Misery was not so
merciful. She was quite conscious of everything.
She saw the stranger standing tall and erect. Ah,
what a look ! What a face ! What pity ! What
fathoms of compassion in his eyes !
She had heard of this look of his. She per
ceived, indeed, that it was the Nazarene. She
knew the deeds he did, for their fame was in every

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 179
tongue. If her son had been born deaf, or born
blind, or had been bedridden this dozen years, or
had never walked at all, or if he had been a leper,
— and alive ! Or if she had met this man a few
weeks, a few days ago ! — But the boy was dead.
This might be a great healer. But the boy was
dead. She turned away indifferently from the Rabbi,
and mechanicaUy began to cover the face of the
dead with her shaking hands. But Jesus gently
deterred her.
Two crowds had met, — that which followed the
funeral procession, and the other, larger one which
followed the Nazarene. The witnesses of this scene
were now of a very great number. The mass
pressed up and closed around the mourners. But
at a look from him it fell back.
With a gesture clearing a little space for himself,
so that he might be free from contact with human
ity, Jesus lifted his face towards the sky. Yet he
did not seem to see the sky. His gaze pierced
beyond it, untroubled, undazzled, but deep with
interrogation. He remained in this attitude some
moments. Then his color slightly changed.
. . . Stooping over the bier, he regarded the face
of the dead with majestic intentness. His hands —
delicate, veined, nervous, but instinct with life —
hovered over but did not touch the brow of the
corpse. So he stood quite still, thrilHng with vigor,
shining with purity of soul and body, a man ideal
with the halo of heaven on him and the pity of earth

180 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
within him, glorious to look upon, defiant life con
fronting monarch death.
The awe of the scene had now extended itself to
the lightest spectator in the crowd. The mourners
had stopped chanting. Honest silence shamed the
hired waUings. Only the mother's sobs broke the
stillness. The countenance of Jesus had become quite pale.
What awful concentration of wiU, of prayer, of
faith, of energy grasped through his being? He
seemed for an instant to gasp under it, as if its grip
were more than mortal frame could bear. . . . Then,
stooping so that his warm breath touched the dead
man's cheek, he commanded the body, as one com
mands a living thing that can obey :
" Young man, arise ! I say, arise ! " Now, swell
ing from all the people, accidental and awed wit
nesses of this tremendous scene, there surged cries
and murmurs, fright and worship battling :
" Nay, nay ! Spare us ! Flee ! Pray ! Jehovah
have mercy upon us! Lord God of Israel, what
kind of man is this ? "
For the frozen arms of the dead had clasped the
Nazarene around the neck ; and the icy lips, which
an hour hence would have been shut down forever
beneath the earth, had melted into broken words.
A woman's cry rang to the very footstool of God.
When the weak or the aged die of joy they cry like
that. But the Nazarene solemnly put the young man
into his mother's arms and turned away. His own
agitation was now plainly visible.

THE PREACHER; AND THE DEAD 181
Many of the people had fled in terror from this
sight ; but some remained, and those who did fell
flat upon the ground in homage.
When the throng could find their senses, Jesus
was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER VIII
THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN
The East was always palpitating with mysticism,
and the Jews, we cannot too often remind ourselves,
were a wonder-loving nation. The strange things
that had been recorded of their ancient prophets
were naturally recalled; many remarkable deeds
which Jesus did were subject to explanation such as
it was easy for the growing party of his opponents
to proffer. A few slighting words cast at a noble
act, a few illustrations of other wonders done by
other persons prominent in Jewish history, might,
for the moment, make an impression. But the
steady progress of the facts made a stronger and a
longer. The people always find out, in the long
run, who is their friend. The mass of the people
were not to be deterred from their belief in a man
who made their interests so utterly his own ; who^
threw himself into the pit of their miseries and
struggled there with them ; to whom their bereave
ments and their famines, their debts, their terrible
poverty, their revolting diseases, were as important
as if they had been his own.
They gave to the marvels attendant upon his
career the natural trust of witnesses who had been
the benefited party. But those who were inclined

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 183
to believe in him, and those who were not, had now
come up against a momentous event. Doubt and
cavil could not do much with it. Sneer and innu
endo and the thrust of medical jealousy, ecclesiasti
cal dogmatism, or political taunt, slid away silent,
like snakes in the grass. There was a young man
in Nain, — known of his neighbors, visible to his
friends, — a breathing, stirring, smiling man. A
radiant mother clasped him to her heart. Thought
ful, he trod among the anemones in the resurrec
tion of the year. The witnesses of the fact num
bered thousands of sane and sensible people. It
created a stir as tremendous as was to be expected.
In a short time Palestine thrilled with the story. It
ran from the shore to the capital; the mountains
and the plains discussed it with respect amounting
to awe.
It penetrated to the dungeon of Herod ; and from
that fastness of night and woe there issued to the
ears of the Nazarene one piercing appeal. It came
from his poor kinsman ; the only cry uttered by
John in all his courageous martyrdom. Trustworthy
agents dexterously brought the question from the
prisoner to the Rabbi :
" Art thou the man, — the coming one ? Must
we look beyond thee ? Or art thou He ? " — a mag
nificent message, quite like John ; there was not a
word of complaint of his own pitiable condition ; no
reaching out in the fear of his now closely approach
ing death, after sympathy, after some expression of
the love of the man whom he loved above all the
world besides ; not a word about himself. StiU, to

184 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
the end, quenched in the fire of his one noble duty
in life, John could think, could speak of nothing
but the great personality in which he had absorbed
his own. The prophet was worthy of his lord.
Jesus was inexpressibly touched by this message.
Its supreme unselfishness appealed powerfully to
him ; and its pathos stirred freshly in his heart the
grief and affection always burning there and ready
to blaze at every thought of his kinsman John.
He was surrounded at the moment by a large
crowd. It comprised the usual proportion of pa
tients, waiting their turns at his attention. These
were of aU varieties, from the mild disorders to the
incurable and loathsome cases. They were clamor
ing for him.
Jesus stood a little apart, listening to the messen
gers of John : he could not conceal his emotion ;
why, then, did he not reply ? Why this discourtesy
to the disciples of his friend ? Yet he stood quite
silent. Troubled, they repeated their question ; its
solemnity was enough to have challenged attention
in the lightest nature. What then ? Was this irre-
sponsiveness political caution? The dungeons of
Herod had many lips, and the palaces a thousand
ears. Was the Nazarene afraid to answer the dy
ing cry of his kinsman ?
The messengers of John looked on to see them
selves apparently slighted by a silence so enigmatical
that they knew not what to make of it. For Jesus
turned abruptly away from them and went on with
his morniug's business.
Precisely as if nothing had happened, and no vis-

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 185
itors were there, he proceeded as usual to attend to
his patients. They crawled and crowded to his feet.
He gave to each case his habitual attention, patiently
individualizing, as he always did (for this was one
of the minor secrets of his success in healing), and
following one cure by another with an enthusiasm
which no form of disease and no accumulation of its
drain upon his strength seemed ever to check. When
the healer had finished his work for the day, the
preacher began his. The morning's cures were fol
lowed by one of his impassioned reHgious addresses.
The friends of the prisoner, who had been using
their eyes to the utmost, now began to use their ears.
Their momentary resentment at his apparent refusal
to answer them had long since died away ; they were
swept into the common stream of feeling; they
could have knelt at his feet with the rest.
When he had completed his discourse the preacher
turned with a swift, commanding motion to the mes
sengers of John. Upon his face the tense changes
in his mood had cut deep marks. Now he gave his
emotion rein. Ah, how for a moment had they
thought he did not care !
It needed no words now to tell the dullest of men
how the Rabbi's heart melted for his kinsman's sake.
Then, and not till then, he spoke. And then he
delivered one of the most remarkable replies ever
made by one public man to another concerning the
movement of large affairs.
" Go," he said, " teU John what ye behold. There
were the blind, — they see ; the deaf, — they hear.
You saw those lame men ; they walk. Lepers are

186 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
cleansed. There was a dead man. The dead are
raised." To this list of marvels he added, with a signifi
cance as easy to understand in his times as it is
difficult in ours, this impressive climax :
" To the poor the Gospel is preached."
These were his credentials. Without comment,
he sent them to the dungeon. John would under
stand. Was this the Messiah ? Was he not ? Here was
the profoundest question possible to the age in which
these two men lived! Let incarceration and mar
tyrdom answer ; solitude and the shadow of hurrying
death might reply, when the free and the comfort
able and the light of heart could not.
It was in one of the pauses of this missionary
journey, — it was autumn, — and he had been
invited to the house of a prominent citizen. This
man was a Pharisee.
The real aristocrats among the Jews at this time
were the Sadducees, a cold and polished intellectual
sect, remembered in the history of philosophy as
cultivating a pugnacious disbelief in immortality ;
and the Herodians, who were the courtiers and free
thinkers. From some of those subtle causes which
fashion creates but does not explain, the priests, the
scribes, and the Pharisees never sociaUy outranked,
perhaps did not quite rank, the exclusive skeptics ;
but they remained the leading classes of the people,
a powerful and pretentious body of men.
They corresponded in position somewhat to our

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 187
clergy and important laymen, and were of goodly
numerical size, about six thousand. The Pharisees
were the fussy formalists of Palestine.
As a class, they did not love the Nazarene, who
did not hesitate publicly to rebuke them when they
deserved it.
They were the inconsistent church officers and
church members who in all times do so much mis
chief. Men of the world without religious convic
tions had in that age no more patience with the reli
gious pretension which was not backed by character
than they have in this.
There was a certain coldness of heart combined
with pettiness of ceremonial in these ecclesiastical
autocrats, which has made the name of their sect
a synonym for pious sham from their day to ours.
Jesus had no patience with shams. He never failed
to denounce one when it came in his way, if he
thought it of any use to do so. The spiritual rotten
ness of these religious pretenders was pecuUarly
abhorrent to him.
His host, on the occasion of which we speak, was
one of the better specimens of the sect ; a man not
without some sincerity, or even that tendency to
earnestness which, faUing a little short of the qual
ity itself, makes a man uncomfortable in a wrong
position, without forcing him into a right one. This
man had been observing the career of Jesus with
some candor, and, on the entrance of the itinerant
Rabbi to his town, took advantage of the opportu
nity to obtain some acquaintance with him. Simon
the Pharisee was a man of position both in church

188 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
and in society ; and social attention on his part to
the heretic Nazarene indicated some independence
of thought ; for a Pharisee was, in his own way,
as exclusive as a Brahman in his social life. Pos
sibly Simon was a little fond of lionizing stran
gers; at all events, it was not without a certain
sense of patronage, curiously mingled with defer
ence, that he extended the invitation.
Jesus accepted it. He was never anything of a
recluse. While he had no interest in what could
be called society, and no time for it, yet he never
obviously shunned it. He believed thoroughly in
the culture of the human relations. As a means to
his high ends, he would use the smallest avenue of
approach to hearts. One striking thing about his
history as a preacher is that, while he gave so much
time and study to his discourses, he did not shut
himself in to what we should call the pulpit. He
never fell back on his public position, on his im
mense and exhausting public responsibilities, to
excuse him from any reasonable form of private use
fulness. He relied much upon personal influence,
— very much upon the personal interview. Nine
teen such private interviews are said to be recorded
of him, and these were but the fraction of the facts.
It was quite according to his method to accept a
social invitation in a circle where he was not alto
gether sure of a sympathetic atmosphere. He went
to dine with the Pharisee.
It was a house of some degree, and the interior
indicated ease, if not large wealth. The Rabbi was
received politely, but not with intimacy. Some

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 189
little ceremonies, such as the offer of the host him
self to kiss the cheek or anoint the hair of a cher
ished friend or very distinguished guest, on entering,
were absent from the occasion. StUl there was no
default of a certain sort of cordiality; and appar
ently the guest was satisfied with his reception. A
rustic Rabbi, not too famihar with the best society,
— why should he be conscious of any deficit in
etiquette? It seemed he was not. The banquet
opened amiably.
Jesus, as the guest of honor, bore his part in the
entertainment with that briUiant self-possession
which always surprised men of the world in this
itinerant missionary. His air of conscious superior
ity restrained by modesty was very attractive. It
was the essence of good-breeding. People of polite
life wondered where he acquired it. Was he not a
carpenter, and, if one were correctly informed, a
Nazarene ? The gay world had now begun to give
some attention to this extraordinary zealot. The
church was watching him keenly, and that with
growing disfavor. Society would have liked to take
him up, but his dignity was too marked for this ; it
was unapproachable. He responded only to a cer
tain element of sincerity. Without seeming to do
so, he really exacted a given amount of deference.
As the Pharisee's dinner progressed, this defer
ence became more obvious. The conversation of
Jesus was so remarkable, his mien so high, that
mere social ease wilted before him. Position sud
denly seemed a paltry thing. Birth and . ease,
money and fashion and ecclesiastical eminence lost

190 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
their usual proportions. The host and his friends
grew thoughtful before this courtly democrat. Pro
found respect replaced the polite curiosity with
which the guest had been at first received.
The company were reclining on their comfortable
couches in the fashion which had crept into Pales
tine from the far East, — each leaning on his left
elbow, leaving the right hand free for use at the
table, — when a little disturbance occurred.
It was a very easy thing to obtain access to an
Eastern house, and a slight noise without the
dining-hall, as of servants parleying with some un
welcome person, aroused the quick ear of the host.
He looked up anxiously. The sight which he saw
sent the color flushing to his forehead. He glanced
at his eminent guest with evident trepidation. He
might have entertained many a visitor whom the
incident would not have especially repelled ; or at
most it could have been passed off with a light
apology and a laugh, and the servants would have
taken care of the intruder. But this man ! — what
would he think of it ? The man of the world tried
to frame an apology suitable to the character of his
guest, but the words failed on his lips. He would
have given rough orders to clear the room of the
objectionable person, but a look from the Nazarene
deterred him. i
The intruder was a woman. She stood just within
the entrance to the dining-hall, half determined,
half disheartened, and wholly uncomfortable. The
long, silk curtain of red purple which she had
pushed aside hung about her; her arm was still

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 191
lifted to hold it ; the gold and silk fringe vibrated
on her shoulders, for there was a light draught and
the curtain answered to it. The woman was young
and beautiful. She was daintily dressed. One
hand had closed over a small, carved alabastron
which she wore suspended from her neck by a gold
chain. Her black hair was loose and very long : it
wrapped her modestly, and fell forward over her
burning cheeks. She did not try to push it back.
She was painfully embarrassed, and seemed to cling
to this natural veU. Wrapped in it, she took a few
steps forward, and stood uncertain. The room had
grown quite stiU. Suddenly a sad, little sound
broke the quiet. It was a sob. The woman was
weeping. The gaze of every guest at the table was now
upon her, but the Nazarene had not turned his
head. She seemed disturbed at this, for, from the
moment of her entrance, the poor girl had fastened
her large, mournful eyes upon the guest of honor ;
she had no power of vision in her for any other
person in the room. He ignored her so completely
that she seemed to be half crushed by his indiffer
ence, and for a moment, though she was now so
near him that she could have touched him, she
seemed inclined to turn and fly from the house.
But, although he neither spoke nor glanced at
her, something in the attitude and expression of
the Rabbi restrained her. Half retreating as she
was, she turned again, and, overcome with emotion,
bent above his feet. Her hair, in this position, fell
forward, and completely covered them and her own

192 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
face from sight. Within that dark and gentle pro
tection she could cry as she would. Indeed, the
woman was weeping sorely. She was not a hard
ened creature who did not feel the true nature of
her position. She felt it acutely, — the discomfi
ture of her reception in the dining-hall, the cold
anger of the host, the manner of the other guests,
the sneers, the scorn, the indignation, the smile that
was worst of all. These trifles had started the
tears, but their springs were far below all trifles ;
and they flowed on; as a woman's tears will flow,
called up by any very little thing, but answering
to the deepest miseries of her life.
The life of this woman had been a fathomless
misery until but now, a short while ago ; until the
day when, lightly joining the great crowd that had
crushed to hear the wonderful Rabbi preach, she
had come away astonished with the moral- astonish
ment which he so often sent shaking through the
soul. She could never forget that evening, — how
tired he looked, but how grand, as the people came
clamoring about him, after he had done preaching ;
nor how she felt, — like a grub to which a God had
in one moment given wings. She went with the
crowd lightly, as the flippant do, but she came away
never able to think lightly again ; turned grave for
ever ; a woman persuaded out of her past by the
sight of such purity as she had never dreamed of.
One word, one look of his was enough. She could
not be in the same world with him and do wrong.
His spotlessness seemed to her something relentless,
like a law that must include herself, like some-

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 193
thing in the presence of which, or even in the mem
ory of which, guilt could not draw a breath. And
then his pity ! Oh, his pity ! If she had only had
the chance to try what that would do for her !
It was trusting to that unknown quantity that
she had come to this house. She had tried other
times, when he was preaching, to speak to the
Rabbi, as she saw the others do, but there were so
many others ! And people had pushed her back,
saying : " You are not fit to talk to such as he ! "
And one said : " He would not like it. He would
not want to see you." She was used to such re
pulses. So she had accepted them meekly and
gone away, and had never exchanged one word
with him, though she would have died for it. And
now he would not speak it ! Perhaps he was of
fended with her for forcing her way into the dining-
hall. Perhaps he could not bring himself to over
look her history, or was afraid of the effect on his
own reputation if he defied the customs of virtuous
society and noticed the presence of a woman like
herself. Her tears flowed faster at the thought;
but, with the gentleness of true sorrow for error
repented, she meekly refused to be discouraged by
the wound to her timid and dawning self-respect.
Her feeling towards the Rabbi was too deep ; her
heart melted with the touching idealization which
can be given only by the tainted to the pure. She
was so grateful to him for living in the world, she
loved him so for being what he was, that she could
have thrown her life down in an ecstasy of torture
for his sake.

194 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The poor woman would not accept his rebuff, if
rebuff it were. If she might not see his face, she
could worship at his feet ; those patient, tired,
but never-resting feet which trod the dust of Pales
tine over in search of unhappy people whom he
could comfort.
The storm of her tears became a deluge, and
drenched the bare feet of the Rabbi where they
lay upon the low cushions of his couch. She was
half frightened at this, and, seeing what she had
done, she hurriedly wiped away the wetness with
her thick long hair. She tried to stop crying, but
could not. Suddenly he felt a strange thing.
The lips of the woman had touched his feet ; timid
and reverent and delicate kisses fell one upon
another, — an outburst of humiliation and adora
tion such as the lowest soul on earth might offer
to the highest. God in heaven. The woman had
reached one of those moments of spiritual exalta
tion when one neither knows nor cares what may
happen next. Until she saw and heard the pro
phet, she had not understood what disgrace meant.
Now, at the very crisis when she first had know
ledge of the nature of shame, she had her first ex
perience of a communication between God and the
soul, — we give it different names : repentance, or
forgiveness, or some word which is all too definite
to hold it ; but the most that we know is, that
there is a beautiful mystery which extinguishes
shame and never tells us how.
She forgot the angry host, the sneering company ;
even the sUence of the Rabbi himself ceased to

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 195
trouble her. She had forgotten herself, her misery,
and her error. She remembered nothing in the
world but him.
The little, white alabastron had fallen from her
trembling hand and hung forward by its chain. She
took it up and unsealed it. One of the powerful
perfumes of the East flowed out pungently and filled
the air of the dining-haU. The alabaster vial con
tained a precious, scented unguent, much favored by
aU classes of society that could afford it. The wo
man poured it out lavishly, covering her hands and
the feet of the Nazarene with it, while she humbly
anointed them. She asked for nothing; not even
a sign that would give her a breath of confidence
in the new feeling which she had begun tb dare to
call respect for herself. She only offered all she
had or could. She was sorry, and happy, and dif
ferent. She wanted the Rabbi to understand. She
longed that he should know how she felt about him.
Up to this time the Nazarene had not spoken ; but
his delicate features had shown many varying and
fine emotions during the progress of this touching
scene. Now, unexpectedly, he spoke. But he spoke
to his host, who, restrained by politeness from inter
fering with the conduct of his guest during this
unprecedented episode, had taken no pains to con
ceal either his displeasure or his personal skepticism
in the matter.
" Simon," observed Jesus suddenly, " if this man
were a prophet, he would have known what kind of
a woman she is who touched him."
The face of the Pharisee crimsoned with embar-

196 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
rassment, for in these precise words his thought had
been at that moment cast. The Nazarene read him
as if he had been a Hebrew scroll. Simon flung
out his hands in Oriental deprecation, but his eyes
dropped. With a quiet sarcasm, all the more cut
ting because perfectly courteous, Jesus proceeded to
suggest the number and variety of social attentions
omitted in his own case by his host. No one had
anointed the visitor's head when he came in. He
had observed the absence of the Oriental kiss of
greeting. Nay, even the usual courtesy, the com
monest one of all, had been overlooked by careless
servants whom a none too careful master had not
rebuked for their neglect. This country Rabbi had
not been so ignorant of the world, after aU ! He
had noted the slight of every little lapse of etiquette.
And, worst of all, he had detected his host in the
very breach of it most gaUing to a Pharisee. For
Simon belonged to the sect whose god was an inces
sant lavation. A Pharisee might cheat, or lie, or
oppress, or evict his tenants, or slander, or do as he
pleased about the moral law; but he knew which
way every drop of water ought to run, and fully ex
pected to bathe his soul into the kingdom of Heaven.
An eminent Sadducee once said of a distinguished
Pharisee that he would wash the sun itself, if he could
get at it.
The woman was stiU weeping. She could not
altogether f oUow the conversation which now took
place at the table, partly because she was crying so,
partly because it was so foreign to her habit of mind
that it was not easy for her to understand it. But

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 197
she soon perceived that it concerned herself, and
began to concentrate her attention upon it. Was
the Rabbi saying a kind thing of her — her ? In
credible !
" Thou, Simon, didst not kiss me, nor anoint, nor
give me any water for my feet. But she has washed
my feet with her tears, . . . wiped them with her
hair, . . . anointed them; . . . she has not yet
ceased to kiss my feet."
The words were said in a low tone, but the humil
iated woman heard them with broken distinctness.
For very joy and awe she stopped weeping ; sud
denly, like a comforted child. Impossible! Did
she hear correctly ? Was she deaf, or dazed ?
" She has loved much. . . . Much is forgiven
her." Did the Rabbi, could the Rabbi, say that ?
She raised her tear-stained face, pushed her hair
back from it, and courageously lifted her head.
Oh, wonderful ! He had turned to her at last.
His glorious eyes, like altar fires, were lighted for
her. His grave lip, fine with feeling, moved for her.
His pity, — now she knew what his pity was ! His
own heart seemed to ache or break with it. It gave
her a bewildering feeling, — she a creature scorned
and stained, — as if, for his sake, because he pitied
her she must have value, she must be worth what it
cost him to think of her as he did.
His exquisite compassion, tenderer than woman's,
stronger than man's, a quality undreamed of before
in the world, seemed to lift her from the dust to
the stars. Jesus regarded the woman for some

198 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
minutes in one of the profound silences for which
his manner was distinguished. He seemed to be
gauging her nature, taking careful account of her
genuineness, whether it would hold or not. His
next words were the result of careful reflection, and,
when they came, no one in the room wondered that
they were uttered with the solemnity of a man who
weighs the f uU force and consequence of what he
says. " Thy sins," he slowly said, " are forgiven thee."
" Are forgiven me ! " she repeated with pathetic
incredulity, — "forgiven me?" She had faUen
upon the floor before his blinding face. Now she
raised herself awkwardly to her feet. He did not
extend his hand to help her. She felt that it de
pended on herself from this hour how she stood
before the world. She walked tottering but erect.
His look was as if it would dismiss her ; perhaps as
if he would spare her the inevitable consequences
of this scene, and shelter her from rude comment,
in solitude, and in white thoughts.
" Go," he added gently, " and in peace." With
lifted head and shining eyes she went. Not a sneer
from the coldest lip in the company followed her out.
No one smiled. The servants made way for her
without a glance of disrespect. She did not even
look back at the Rabbi, for she felt that he would
not wish it. The silken curtain parted and fell;
and in the thriUing echo of his last great words she
was gone.
The woman had gone, but the fact remained. The
Rabbi had done a wholly reprehensible and danger-

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 199
ous thing. He had put on record before influential
ecclesiastical witnesses the boldest heresy of his life.
He had dared, — and the heavens had not opened to
smite the blasphemer, — he had presumed to take
upon himself the remission of sins. This was a doc
trine dear to the Jewish theocracy, and protected by
ages of formalism and of awe.
Jesus, a rustic from Nazareth, a carpenter-rabbi,
had dared to forgive a sinner, and she the lowest of
her kind.
The banquet broke up in displeasure and disor
der. Who was this person who arrogated to himself
the power of Jehovah ? Who could forgive sin but
God Almighty?
That scene in the dining-hall at the house of
Simon proved an epoch in the story of the Naza
rene. One of the kindest and manliest deeds of
his life became one of the strongest links in the
unseen chains which were already dragging him to
his doom. Palestine soon resounded with the im
piety of the great heretic ; and behind dark, ecclesi
astical curtains and in grim, political corners his
name was marked.
One of his offenses in this act of lofty chivalry
was the attitude which he took towards womanhood.
This was, and remained throughout his life, so far
in advance of his age, that it was nothing less than
stupefying to his contemporaries. It was one of the
most original, as it was one of the most noble ele
ments in his philosophy and in his practice. The
position of women among the Jews was far beyond

200 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
that which other Oriental nations gave them. StiU,
men who refused to sit beside the ladies of their
families in the synagogue were exasperated by the
social code of the Nazarene. Races which thought
it degrading for a man to allude to the existence of
his own wife outside of his home, races whose favor
ite proverb taught that " the threshold weeps for
forty days when a girl is born," were perplexed by
his estimate of the nature and position of woman.
He paid no attention to the bitterness which he
aroused in this respect. He advocated a startling
reform as calmly as if it were as old as Sarah, Prin
cess of Abraham. He seemed almost unconscious
of the social revolution of which he was laying the
foundations. He went straight on with serene and
beautiful indifference, always treating women with
respect, always recognizing their fettered individ
ualism, their force of character if they had it,
their undeveloped powers, their terrible capacity for
suffering, their superiority in spiritual vigor. He
boldly took, from the beginning to the end of his
history, the stand that he had taken in the Phari
see's dining-room : that the restoration to a respected
future of a woman who had repented her past was
to be made a matter of course ; that men and women
stood before God upon the same moral plane, and
that they ought so to stand before human society.
This was a thing hard to understand, and harder to
forgive. Men with holy faces and unholy lives
rebelled at it. Men with haughty hearts, bad tem
pers and self-indulgent habits, — aU the domestic
tyrants whose yoke women were meekly and hope-

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 201
lessly enduring, — resented it. Even the kind men,
the loyal, the loving, of whom in all ages, thank
God, the world has had her happy share, were more
perplexed than enlightened by this social heresy.
But there is not a single instance in the life of
Jesus in which for a moment he seemed inclined to
weaken on this point. Every incident in which a
woman figures finds him as fearless and as chival
rous in his treatment of her as if he had held the
ruling of society in his own hands. With men he
was sometimes severe ; with women never. Men he
could scathe with scorn ; women never. For men
he could reserve a rebuke amounting to denuncia
tion ; for women his impulse of forgiveness came
uppermost. A little later in his story, a beautiful incident
is related of him, in which he compassionately saved
from sentence of death a woman who perhaps de
served it. But the moral lesson, which has lasted
from that day to this, was worth the pardon.
The exquisite modesty and delicacy of the man who
1 could not bear even so much contact with so much
shame, and who, from obvious embarrassment, wrote
upon the ground with his finger, and with downcast
eyes, while he gave the case the consideration that
he must, have dropped upon our lives like petals
from the very flower of chivalry, the blossom of
purity, manliness, and godlikeness.
While his success in Galilee was at its height,
Jesus was forming the deepest friendships of his life.
At the time when life was at its summit, he, like
other men of eminence, found these easy to select.
1 Ecce Homo.

202 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
He had, among the twelve chosen, one preferred.
This man, John, has acquired for all time the
enviable reputation of being the dearest disciple of
Jesus Christ. John was a Galilean fisherman, like
several of the others; but he far 'surpassed his birth
and training in a refinement which won him a precious
place in the heart of his Rabbi. Jesus was deeply
drawn to John, and it is one of the noble things
about the others in the little band that none of them
showed any jealousy of this preference, but treated
the friendship with rugged generosity, memorable
when we think how they. aU loved and honored their
Master ; all but one dark soul. That man, the trea
surer of the association, Hke other men born traitors
bufc posing friends, hidden in protestations, awaited
the time when the movement of the drama should
betray him to the world ; perhaps - — who knows ? — '¦
first reveal him to himself.
There were other friendships peculiarly dear to
Jesus, but chiefly cultivated a little later in the story.
Their central figure was a young man living in the
suburbs of Jerusalem ; but there were grouped about
him the women of his family, sisters, who had their
share in a tenderness which always centred loyaUy
about their hospitable home. Jesus was such a
lonely man that an attractive home, where he could
feel himself one of the household, had a pathetic
charm for him.
At the time of which we speak, and in Galilee,
the devotion of several high-minded women had
already been offered to his cause and personality;
and he had accepted it with the fine discernment in

CHRIST AND THE FISHERMEN

THE RABBI, AND THE WOMAN 203
such matters which never failed him. No sentimen
talists, no gushing, giddy heads were admitted to his
circle. Extraordinary as it might be for irreproach
able women to march Galilee over among the con
verts to this Rabbi, in whom the meanest mind in
Palestine could find no blame, the thing was done
and done with dignity. One of these ladies was the
wife of the steward of Herod Antipas. Another
was in high social position. The group was soon
joined by a joyous woman known as Mary of Mag-
dala whom the healer had cured of a violent mania,
and freed from a terrible past, and whose gratitude,
too real for words, forced itself into deeds.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, the most eminent
matron of the company, received the position which
belonged to her. This was the happiest time in
Mary's later life. Perplexity and trouble lay be
hind her. Anguish ineffable lay before her. But
for the moment she knew a little comfort. Family
friction no longer annoyed her in her relations to
her son. In this respect she had asserted herself.
She no longer brought to him or suffered to be
brought to him any criticisms upon his judgment or
his conduct. She was convinced that he was not to
be interfered with. She bowed to his superiority
with more than usual maternal adoration. The
thought of his mystical birth, the belief in his mys
tical mission, for so many years submerged in her
mind, had now come uppermost. Feeling a little
as if she had wronged him by having ever listened
to what the other children thought or said about
him ; filled with a noble sadness for any hour in

204 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
which she had ever wondered or questioned whether
he were fated to grow into a grand destiny, she
plunged herself into the beautiful devotion which
only a woman may know and show, and only for a
great son.
The presence of his mother was an inexpressible
comfort to Jesus in his homeless and wandering life.
With starting tears we thank God that he had it,
and had it just when he did. For he stood trem
bling on the height of his success ; fiUed with the
perplexing weariness, with the vague portents slowly
assuming distincter outlines, that besieged him in
the last days before the decline of his fortunes set
in. He moved apart from his dearest friendships
in the inexorable loneliness which nothing but utter
love could approach ; and the love of a mother who
does not ask to understand, only to give, was at
times the only one which his hurt and patient heart
could bear.

CHAPTER IX
ACROSS THE LAKE
The happiest year of his life was almost over.
Galilee had known her one great opportunity, had
interested herself in it for a dramatic twelvemonth,
and was ready to drop it idly through her fickle
fingers. Jesus observed the fluctuations in the popular
mood with an eye now keen with experience in pub
lic life, and with an inward iUumination fed from
sources unknown to other men, and not always con
sciously available to himself. He was in the posi
tion of a man whom success has seemed to decoy
to an unperceived doom, but whose own foresight
was not in reahty deceived, and who, considering
only greatness of character and purity of conduct,
had gone straight on, ignoring the advance of fate.
Whatever knowledge of the outcome of it aU he
possessed never deterred him for an hour from do
ing the plain, right thing. The simplicity of his
moral purpose in face of his complex and tragic
story is the very essence of grandeur. He did not
vacUlate. He did not trim or veer. What he
feared, he endured in silence. If he trembled, no
one knew it. He pursued his course with the indif
ference of a star in which, aU the while, the heart

206 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
and pulses of a too sensitive organism are beating
painfully. That year pressed hard upon his physical
strength. The demands upon the healer, the duties
of the preacher, encroached upon his endurance to
the point of an exhaustion which never overcame
him, though it seemed sometimes to threaten to do
so. There were nights of vigil and prayer, in for
ests or on the lakeshore, when the trees, the hills,
or the waves were the only companions whom he
could bear, for he was so spent. There were morn
ings when those who loved him, seeing him sitting
in his pulpit-boat, with the people moving after him
on the beach and cliffs, felt the pang at the heart
which we have at sight of the suffering of one dear
to us whom we know we do not understand ; for he
looked so wasted. Yet he never sank. Exactions
that would have crushed an ordinary man he met,
not without signs that he suffered from them, but
serenely. Strains which would have killed a lesser
being he endured, — who knew how ?
The simple people who foUowed and watched
him did not understand, as well as we who read his
story now, the laws of the highly-strung organiza
tion ; those terrible laws which make the very
physique qualified tof do a certain deed the more
liable to surrender to the effects of it. One of the
simplest and sincerest healers of modern times — a
man who received his thousands of patients a day
for a few weeks — found himself unable to continue
the strain on body or brain, and suddenly retreated
from the clamor which he had created ; disappear-

ACROSS THE LAKE 207
ing to isolation or to death. Jesus did not retreat.
He did not disappear. He did not yield. He en
dured with the delicate sturdiness peculiar to him
self. What was the secret? He stood and withstood,
giving out always of his fathomless pity, urging
his trained and powerful will. Any man in the
professions which depend upon the concentration
of will-power on human conditions or character can
form some pale idea of the mental and emotional
energy required of Jesus Christ. The expenditure
of life in him at its least daily estimate was tremen
dous. His splendid vigor refunded it aU. How?
His glowing vitality never ran in debt. Why?
Yet was there something significant in his continued
inability to bear too great or too close human prox
imity. Just the little span of water, put between
himself and the throng upon the shore, saved him
for his day's work. Something in his nature could
not, even after all this experience of crowds, endure
the thoughtless pressure of them without that odic
space. What became of his boat, so dear to the fishermen
for his sake ? Did they keep it safely moored on
Gennesaret, putting out in it now and then, with
tears which they did not try to hide from each other,
and talking in low voices of him ? Though they had
starved, not a man of them would have sold it. Was
it ever used for a fishing-trip again ? Did any of
the thousands of people whom he had comforted
care enough to treat it as a sacred thing ? Did it
find its way into mourning homes, carved into relics-

208 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
and treasured for generations? Or did the little
craft meet, in age and honor, the end that a boat
loves ? Was it wrecked or sunken on the sea that
had known and carried it and him ?
One of the favorite homiletic methods of Jesus he
used very much at this time. He preached by the
parable ; and some of these most famous addresses
were delivered from the thwarts of his boat.
The parable was a peculiarly Oriental form of
teaching, and one of which he made a valuable use.
It was, in fact, a species of self-protection to him.
, Beset, as he was, by masses of people who cared lit
tle for the truth, but much for the excitement of a
novelty, he had to deal with them somehow ; and he
would not waste his highest thought upon his lowest
hearers. If they gave any evidence of capacity or
wish to understand it, no one ever lived so free as
he from intellectual aristocracy. He would offer all
he could. He would share his best with the worst.
But, with sheer shallowness and with mental vulgar
ity, which could not or would not grasp a sacred
idea, Jesus was ingenious. He did not refuse to
speak, but he adapted himself to his audience. Peo
ple who came begging for stories, and incapable of
listening to anything else, got them.
The use of the Ulustration came to a brilliant fin
ish in his discourses. But he was never deceived in
an audience if it could not go beyond that.
His reserve in the expression of truth, always so
marked in him, became at times massive. He had
so much in thought which he might not dare to say,
— he believed so much which he could not induce

ACROSS THE LAKE 209
others to believe, — that he put great skill into the
construction of his sermons.
Once, being puzzled by one of these intensely pop
ular discourses, one of his friends asked him in
private what it meant, and why he preached as he
did. The reply of Jesus was a significant one, and
not much easier to understand than the sermon.
He intimated that, as a certain sort of audience
could not comprehend the Whole truth if he gave it
to them, he purposely gave thera what he thought
fit, and did not, indeed, always think it necessary to
make what he chose to say perfectly clear to them.
Truth was always something royal to him ; some
thing to be treated with deference. He once spoke
of it as a pearl, and warned his followers against
wasting it on creatures of the trough and the mire.
In this superb democrat, who counted no treasure
of brain or heart too costly to share with the humblest
being that valued it, such inteUectual reticence is
very striking.
The parables of Jesus were a succession of homely
stories, the homeliest that he could select. A search
for a lost sheep, a laborer working in a vineyard,
an episode in the relations of servant and master,
the bursting of a leathern wine-bottle, the blossom
ing of a wild lily, a commercial anecdote, any such
trifling incident in common life, was enough. It
gave him his illustration, and one that was sure to
attract the attention of his audience. The notice
able thing was that he packed it so tightly with
the truth which he desired to convey. The lightest
story was heavy with thought. The illustration

210 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
never slipped. Any mind capable of thinking be
yond the silken cover of fiction could find more than
enough to keep it busy in the parables of the Rabbi.
He was preaching in this picturesque way, on the
western side of the lake, on a day eventful even in
the rush of incident with which his life was at this
time crowded.
The people had over-wearied him that day, and
pressed upon him tiU he could bear no more. With
one of the peremptory decisions which he knew so
weU when to make, he determined to escape from
this human torrent, from which, at its full, an
angel's vitality might have fled ; the current was so
insistent, so thoughtless, so tainted. Longing for
that which only the wave and the shore can give to
the heart that loves them, he turned to his dear
lake. It was towards evening. Beautiful Gennesaret,
throbbing among her smiling hills, where even the
rocks were turned to leaf and blossom by terraces ;
the mobile lake, where the colors painted by flaws
and sudden foam — the metallic green, the blazing
blue, the stately purple, the silver white — chased
gayly over the water; Gennesaret, sinking to exquisite
calms when every mountain-top was let into the depths
from the heights, each in its own hue and fine out
line, and when the silken sails of the belated pleasure
boats crossed the bows of the fishermen rowing
home, — Gennesaret was at her loveliest. The sun
was sinking. The moon was rising. The wind was
light and steady upon the little sea. Clouds hung
upon the opposite hills, but they looked innocent
enough. Jesus took to his boat with his friends and

ACROSS THE LAKE 211
gave the order to cross the lake. He sat for a few
moments thoughtfully watching the disappointed
throng which he had left ashore, as it slowly dispersed
in the growing shadow. He drew a sigh of relief
touched with regret. The strain had been severe
that day. It was one of the prominent lineaments of
his character that he knew how far he could go in
endurance, and that he never hesitated to stop at the
right point. He had none of the short-sighted senti-
mentalism in philanthropy which pushes the moment
to the ruin of the year, or sacrifices the ultimate
scope of a great work to a temporary call upon the
sympathies. His that day had been sorely taxed.
He withdrew from the draft upon them.
He was very tired, so tired that he did not try to
talk, but went aft and lay down, thinking to rest if
he could. His most thoughtful disciple had put a
piUow there for him upon the stern seat. His friends,
respecting his mood as they always meant to do, even
if they did not always succeed (for the Master had
strange hours, hard for fishermen to understand),
left him undisturbed. The management of the boat
soon occupied their attention, for there was more
wind than one would have thought. Jesus fell
asleep ; he was so completely worn out that nature
insisted, and he slept long and deeply.
What were his dreams ? A man so sad, so lonely,
so spotless in motive, so wrapped in purposes which
no one understood, so shrouded in fate which no one
could defy, — what would his dreams be like ? Did
they drag him under the dome of martyrdom, that
dark vault whose great circumference was already

212 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
descending upon his life ? Did they intimate failure,
shame, torture, to his shrinking nerve? Even in
sleep, did trouble pursue him? Those who have
suffered much know how difficult it is for misery to
let the victim go, in dreams. Was the anguish of
his lot more merciful to him? Did the machinery
of endurance go spinning on ? Or did he know a
little respite? Did visions of the great joy which
kept him up gently visit him ? Did he dream of the
most precious possession of his consciousness, in life
or death always foremost to his mind, — his faith
in his God ? Did his Father Invisible comfort the
wornout man ?
We like to think so, for he slept weU. The
moonlight, painting his quiet face, softened its lines
of care and deepened its expression of peace. The
nobility of his brow, the beauty of his delicate lips,
the pathos that speaks in the closed eyelids of a man
acquainted with grief and bearing it patiently, — to
these unconsciousness lent the grave charm which
would have moved an indifferent spectator, and which
was touching to those who loved him.
But they who loved him were not watching him
now. Suddenly, startled from a deep slumber,
rested and refreshed, he was aware that there was
an unusual commotion on the boat. The little craft
was laboring painfully in the trough of a heavy sea.
One of the sudden squalls for which capricious
Gennesaret was famous had struck the lake. The
wind drew down from the gorges of the hills in
dangerous flaws and gusts. The water was smitten
to madness. The full moon had gone under a thick

ACROSS THE LAKE 213
cloud. The light was gray and wan. Foam flew.
The bow plunged too deep. Water was rushing
over the rails. The experienced crew were thor
oughly frightened, and that with good reason. The
boat was in' danger of swamping.
The fishermen had lost their heads. The lateen
sail was already down ; they were in too great depth
to anchor ; they had not been able to keep head to
the wind ; their rudder refused to do its duty ; and
the boat was at the mercy of the sea. They clam
bered aft in terror. One of them had roughly
awakened the Rabbi, and they were aU crying out
together :
" Master ! Master ! We are perishing ! " He
rose to his feet quietly. The fishermen, aU their
lives used to the tricks of Gennesaret, were alto
gether demoralized. Their rude voices rang above
the roar of the storm : " Save us ! save us ! save
us ! " In fact, the boat was practicaUy sinking.
And they were far from either shore, too far for
swimming. The situatiftn was serious enough.
A strange expression crossed the countenance of
Jesus. He seemed more surprised at the fears of
his friends than disturbed at the common danger.
But he turned his attention at once to the storm.
He seemed to study it as a subject which he must
grasp, — intensely, because it must be grasped in a
moment. Indeed, there were no moments to lose ;
for the water was dashing over bow and stern, and
was filling the boat rapidly.
He seemed to make a curiously fine distinction
between the wind, which was the offender in the

214 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
trouble, and the passive sea, which was only the
helpless agent. Suddenly there shot from his lips
a severe rebuke; as if the wind were a conscious
and a guilty thing, and as if he were lord of it ; as
if he and nature understood each other better than
he and man. As if it acknowledged the order, the
wind went down meekly. There fell upon the air
one of the sudden calms, quite possible on the lake,
but which there was no evident reason to expect just
then. The moon swept out from the cloud. In the
reviving light, the crew saw one another's terror-
stricken faces, and his who showed no fear. He
stood serene, smiling, with one upraised hand and
arm, a statue of strength and assurance. In a very
low tone they heard him speaking to the water ; not
as he had addressed the wind, authoritatively and
like a master caUing to account, but in a sweet,
persuasive voice, such as one might use to a nervous
woman or a frenzied child : " Hush ! peace ! peace,
and be still!"
The noisy sea trembled ; 'the choppy waves sank ;
the lake began to ripple ; the ripple wasted away ;
then such a calm took the water as lay like a sheen
of silk from shore to shore. On it there fell a
strange silence. The keel was even. The fishermen
began to bail out the water from the boat. They
did not speak. But the Rabbi watched them with
a kind of astonished sadness.
" How is it ? " he said slowly, — " how is it that
ye have not any faith ? Why are ye so afraid ? "
His voice had a wistful accent to it, as if his
heart ached more than any one of them could know ;

ACROSS THE LAKE 215
as if he had expected to be trusted, and they had
disappointed him. He did not blame them. He
went back to the stern and lay down again quietly
upon his pillow.
But the fishermen did not answer him. They did
not dare. Each man of them looked at the other,
quailing. They hung their heads, half in shame
and half in fright. They were more afraid of the
Rabbi at that moment than they had been of the
storm. " What manner of man is this ? " they muttered ;
" why, the wind and the sea obey him ! " It was
the sailors' supreme tribute. They could not go
beyond it.
The boat came to land in the night on the shore
of Gergesa, — a populous coast. Throughout the
whole region the cliffs adjacent to the towns were
burrowed with caves and tombs, the shelter of the
dead, and of certain of the living who were less for
tunate than the dead. Flocks and herds lay in dim
blots over the pasturage of this hUly locality. Oc
casionally some wretched human figure flitted across
the landscape, emerging from blackness and becom
ing quickly submerged therein. As the Rabbi and
his friends landed, two of these human wraiths fol
lowed them with ghostly silence and pertinacity.
Peter and the others pointed them out to Jesus,
whispering. The bravest man in the twelve looked
over his shoulder at the uncanny sight; the weird
figures, the feeling that only midnight gives, were
startling to every nerve. One of the disciples in-

216 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
stinctively took up a stone in self-protection, but it
feU harmlessly. One look from the Rabbi seemed
to thrust it out of his hand.
Jesus did not join in the repugnance of his friends
to the dreary spectacle. Indeed, he expressed
neither distaste nor surprise when the bolder and
madder of the two maniacs flung himself in the way
of the party and addressed the Rabbi with aU the
ingenuity of an insane vocabulary, appealing for
protection against the delusions of his disease.
These were acute. We are not yet wise enough
in the finer psychology to pronounce dogmatically
upon much easier questions in alienism than that
involved in the particular hallucination so common
to the East, to that age, and those people. The
lunatics wholly believed themselves to be possessed
of devils. Jesus, like expert physicians much less
successful than himself, did not in the least antago
nize a deranged patient by fighting his whim. What
ever view he personally held of the subject is, to the
reader of the story, entirely secondary in importance.
Insanity is a dark sea on whose shore we have not
even yet ventured far; and science is a frail boat
which may or may not hold the points of compass.
Whether demonic possession was the delusion of a
blatant superstition, or should ever become mate
rial of an exact science, Jesus, if he knew, did not
think it necessary to explain. He delivered no hom
ily on evil spirits. He delayed to elucidate no views
on the nicer problems of mental disorder. He sim
ply went to work and healed the case.
It was a bad case ; one of the worst of the in-

ACROSS THE LAKE 217
curable, against which the rude medical art of the
times was hopelessly helpless, and about which the
humanity of the times did not feel any responsibil
ity. Few pitied and most forgot the homicidal, sui
cidal wretches who had been driven from home and
from all human society. It needed Jesus to invent
tenderness to the insane. It swept through his
heart that night in a surging movement of pity and
power. We have here one of those sombre pictures in
which a great moral emotion has taken the brush
and painted in the only high lights. The gloom of
the land of caves filled a dismal background. A
large herd of two thousand swine, disturbed by the
cries of the maniacs and disinclined to sleep, were
stirring uneasily on their pasture at the top of the
steep grade which ended in the water. The fisher
men, uncomfortable and puzzled, were gathered
closely about their Rabbi, — to protect or to be pro
tected, they hardly knew which. The maniacs were
gibbering and shrieking ; he, the worst case, bleed
ing with self-inflicted wounds where he had cut him
self with sharp stones. In the centre of the group,
tall and quiet, Jesus stood thoughtfuUy. The moon
brought out aU the nobility of his face and form.
He seemed to absorb light from the sky, and to
radiate it upon the little spot of earth on which he
trod. The maniac, or the demoniac, — caU him as you
please, — had something of the shrewd wit not un
common to the deranged. By whatever law illumi
nated, he recognized the supreme superiority of the

218 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Nazarene more quickly than most sane men. The
friends of Jesus were confounded to see the lunatic
on the ground at the Rabbi's feet in the attitude of
worship, and to hear him crying shrilly :
"Thou son of the Most High God ! "
" Thou spirit unclean ! " replied Jesus authorita
tively, " come out of the man ! "
A few moments of great confusion foUowed this
command. The shrieks of the lunatic, his protests,
the disturbed comments of the fishermen, the re
newed entreaties of the maniac, were hardly quieted
by the calm replies of Jesus.
Suddenly sharp cries came from another direc
tion. The keepers of the flocks above were calling
for help. The great herd of swine, alarmed by
the unusual scene and by the shouts of the mani
acs, thoroughly demoralized, had taken fright, and
were running down the declivity. In the moonlight
they could be plainly seen rushing from shadow to
shadow, from the pasture behind to the lake below.
The keepers ran to and fro helplessly. It was a
perfect stampede ; one of the curious animal im
pulses which no man can ever understand, and few
control. Before it could be stayed, the whole herd,
unable to stop on the steep grade, the foremost
crowded by those in the rear, had pushed to the
edge of the water and were drowned.
Strange things were said about this scene. Jesus
was accused of having ordered a legion — that was
to say, a large and indefinite number — demons
from the man into the animals. His disciples, sure
only of this one thing, that their master was the

ACROSS THE LAKE 219
kindest, the tenderest of all men living, or who had
ever lived, remembered that he had conversed in
dulgently with the maniac, suffering but not com
manding in the man's disordered mind this view of
the stampede. Peter, John, and James, and the
rest, were simple men. The demonology of their
times was much less mysterious to them than their
Rabbi. Whether the swine went over, or were sent
over, was a matter of little consequence to them.
Whatever Jesus commanded or permitted needed no
explanation. The animals were gone. But the man
was here, sane — a happy, reasonable person, asking
for clothes and food and home; acting like other
people, and pouring passionate gratitude at the feet
of the healer, who stood quietly amid the confusion,
his peaceful face brushed by a wing of sadness.
Was he thinking about the swine in the lake ? The
mystery of animal life sacrificed to that of man had
not begun to arouse a question in the ordinary mind
in those times. His extraordinary mind, or extraor
dinary heart, always moved first in the direction of
pity. It was not one of his easiest tasks in life
that, in the capacity of a dispenser of mercy, he had
sometimes to choose between the lesser pity and the
larger. At all events the man was saved, the brutes were
lost. The owners of the property were exasperated.
The residents of the region were terrified. They
intimated to the healer that his presence among
them was not desirable. Had he been an ordinary
juggler, they would have ordered him off. But this
was not jugglery. Jesus was no common sorcerer.

220 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The most ignorant man on either side of the lake
knew better than that. In truth they were all very
much afraid of him. The cured maniac, longing
to keep close to the healer who had given him back
his reason, but gently forbidden to do so, traveled
here and there, joyously relating the story with the
authority of a hero in the scene. The whole coast
was astir. Every other popular emotion seemed to
have melted in terror. Jesus was made so uncom
fortable that he took to his boat again, and returned
across the lake.

CHAPTER X
FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS
He was at home once more, but he was not per
mitted to rest. Crowds larger than he had left re
ceived him. He was surrounded and overwhelmed.
It seemed as if all invalid Galilee were moaning
after him. In the heart of his busiest and weariest
hour an urgent demand came up. He was wanted
for a life and death case. An officer of the Jewish
church, an important person, Jairus by name, had a
little daughter, dearly cherished. She was scarcely
twelve years old, just at the lovely age, — not yet
past her play-days, but already with the dainty airs
of a little woman, — a winsome maid, her father's
darling. She lay at the point of death, and in hot
haste messengers had been sent for the Nazarene.
But the distress of the father outran the swiftest
feet. He touched the unconscious child with the
despair of one whose last kiss cannot be returned by
the dearest lips in the world, and went desolately
out to try in person to find the healer ; at whom the
regular physicians had scoffed. But the physicians
had given up the case.
At the feet of Jesus, Jairus flung himself down
like a slave, and such an agony went up in his face
and attitude as a cold man could not easily have

222 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
resisted. Jesus, melting with sympathy, tenderly
reassured the father, and started at once in the di
rection of the ruler's house.
But what a throng ! When he tried to pass
through the people, they closed like a round waU
about him. It was, indeed, a wall of human misery,
blank and vast. Jesus felt almost stifled by it, as if
it were crushing him. The unhappy, the evil, the
sick — oh, the uncounted, neglected sick ! — uprose
upon him. It was like an insurrection of the woe
of the world, catching sight, for the first time, of the
only alleviation it had ever seen. The healer's face
changed perceptively. He seemed to stagger for the
moment in that riot of misery.
Such a mass of humanity pressed upon him that
it was impossible to move.
At that moment, stealing past the push and rush
of the thoughtless throng, a timid hand touched the
fringe of his talith ; and, terrified, withdrew instantly.
But as instantly he felt it, — who knew how ?
" Who touched me ? " he asked quickly. No per
son in the crowd replied.
" Strength goes out of me," insisted the healer.
" Who was it ? "
Jesus and Jairus walked together to the ruler's
house. The father did not speak any longer. He
was afraid of offending the Rabbi. After those first
hot words, the first wild moment, what could he do ?
When the servant came, weeping, and told him that
it was too late, — not to trouble the Master, for the
little maid was gone, — his heart had broken in one

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 223
mad outcry. This great healer, this mysterious man,
so famous for his tenderness, so marvelous for his
pity, must needs fail him, — him, Jairus, out of aU
Palestine, and that in the hour of his terrible need !
The fact could not be denied that Jesus had stopped
on the way to a dying patient to cure an old, chronic
case. The woman could have been healed just as weU to
night, to-morrow, next week. But he had lingered.
And the child was dead.
What had he, the desperate father, said in his
anguish ? Had he blamed, had he reproached the
Nazarene? But, if he had, Jesus exhibited no of
fense at the outbreak. His sympathy with the poor
father was far too high a thing. He could not stoop
to notice how the madness of grief had treated him.
A lower nature may do that.
" Do not be afraid," he said tenderly ; " only be
lieve ! " But his face was very grave. And, by a
single motion of his expressive hand, he ordered all
his disciples back but three, — Peter, James, and
John, his dearest. The group entered the ruler's
house. The house was not silent ; Oriental mourners had
already taken possession of it. Obtrusive wails and
groans, mingled with genuine sobs and tears, filled
the place. Jesus seemed surprised at the condition
in which he found the family.
" The child is not dead," he said decidedly. Some
of the neighbors, who did not altogether believe in
the famous healer, began to laugh. It was a deri
sive laugh, — a cold sound in that house of woe, —

224 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
and it did not please him. A keen rebuke shot from
his mild eyes at the unseemly scorn.
" Nay," he repeated, " she is not dead. She is
asleep." He spoke in the tone of a man who was not to be
gainsaid. He did not try to make the most of the
case. He did not say, " Yes, this is death. But I
am lord of death." It would have been far easier
to do than to cling to his view of the'truth as he did,
against the convictions of the family. He went into
the sick-room and looked at the child.
" This is sleep," he persisted. . . . The father's
sobs had ceased. The mother lifted her face, dis
colored with tears, worn with watching, and piteously
raised her hands. The three friends of the Rabbi
stood reverently wondering.
Jesus silently regarded the little maid.
She lay unconscious, and was quite rigid. The
rare trances known to medical science show less evi
dence of death than the child did. She lay on her
pallet, cold, with the pathetic, wondering look which
death casts upon childhood, as if she said :
" Why, this is what happens to old people ! "
Jesus looked at her with a strange expression.
His eyes seemed to say :
"It is between me and thee, little maid. We
understand." He was known to be very fond of children, and
they of him; he was sometimes seen with them
climbing over his lap and laughing, as they put their
arms about his neck with the unerring identification
of those whom they can trust, which only children

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 225
and dogs possess. Mothers brought their babies to
him for his blessing, and it is recorded how lovingly
he gave it.
Now he looked at the little girl with the tender
ness that is only to be expected of those in whom
the love of children is profound and genuine.
She seemed to quiver beneath his look, but her
color and her attitude did not change. Then he took
her by the hand.
Her little, wasted fingers lay for a few moments
in his nervous and vital grasp ; then he felt them
tremble. . . . Who sees the instant when the lily
blossoms? Who could have detected the moment
of time in which the child began to stir ? Was it
his hand that moved, or hers that directed his slowly
upward tiU it reached her pillow, and so came upon
a level with her face ?
It did not seem sudden or startling, but only the
most natural thing in the world, when the little girl
laid her cheek upon his palm. . . .
" Give her something to eat," said the healer,
quite in his ordinary tones. This sensible and com
monplace order restored their senses to the excited
household. But Jairus remembered how he had
thought of Jesus, — perhaps how he had spoken to
him, when the Nazarene stopped to cure the chronic
case ; and the father felt ashamed ; but he did not
know how to say so. And the little arms about
his neck were warm ! How could he think of any
thing else in the world ? Jesus seemed to take this
as a matter of course. That was the wonderful, the

226 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
beautiful thing. Jairus felt as if he could worship
the Rabbi.
The whole countryside rang with the story.
" Death ! A second time ! Why, he cheats the
grave, as another may cheat in war or a bargain !
Who is this man who does the deeds of the living
God?" But Jesus had denied that the child was
dead. He never retracted the denial.
It would have been easy for him to rise just then
on a great flight of popularity, had he ' chosen to
make the most of this reanimation. Instead, he
made the least of it. Content with the doing of the
thing, not concerned for the name of it, he went
serenely on, as if his own reputation as a worker of
wonders were the last thing in the world about
which he .had a care. In point of fact it was. He
had so much loftier aims that he could weU afford to
let the lesser go.
He had at this time, if no more leisure, at least
more solitude than usual, in which to reflect upon
his position and his future; for he had dismissed his
chosen friends on an evangelistic tour about the
country, dividing them two by two, selecting these
couples with great care, that they might supplement
one another's temperament. We wonder to whom he
united John the 'preferred, — gentlest and loveliest
of companions ! Whose calmer nature moderated
the hot temper of Peter, the spokesman of the
group ? Who had the warm faith to melt the doubts
of the skeptical Thomas ? Whose penetration kept
watch upon the moods of Judas the treacherous ? -

JAIRUS' DAUGHTER

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 227
To these men Jesus now solemnly made over a
measure of his own gift ; as if his power to relieve
human misery were a thing communicable at his will
to one who loved and trusted him. These men re
ceived a certain amount of quality as healers, and
of success as missionaries. In his enthusiasm for
humanity Jesus did not draw the line at anything,
but tried to make his disciples wonder-workers as
efficient as himself.
" Raise the dead," he said. It is not recorded of
them that they did this. Had he too much faith in
them, or they too Uttle in him ?
When the twelve came back to their Rabbi, there
had reached him news so black that the experiences
of their missionary trip — although they told him
all about them volubly enough — were put well into
the background. During their absence had occurred
the terrible supper at the palace of Herod, when a
girl danced away the life of the greatest of prophets
and one of the grandest of men.
The execution of John, after all, had been sudden
and was unexpected. Jesus was overwhelmed by iL
He received the inteUigence in silence, and went
away alone as soon as he could. He spent that night
by the sea in the solitary prayer which, while it made
such havoc of his vitality, seemed strangely to renew
the very treasure that it wasted. No man was wit
ness to those hours of grief and of resolve.
In his personal bereavement a consciousness of
personal peril now began distinctly to mingle. Jesus
was not the man to be deceived by this thrust from
the government. If he had ever doubted before,

228 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
he could doubt no longer that, as a political suspect,
he himself was liable to mortal dangers.
A strange story reached his ears about this time,
which did not tend to allay his discomfort or the
fears of his friends. For, when the rumors about his
career went up to the palace, the murderer shook.
Herod Antipas, turning pale with the superstition of
guilt, uttered a cry whose weakness has gone into
history with his unenviable name.
" This," he said, " is John, the man I beheaded.
He has risen from the dead to torment me ! "
Jesus, worried by dark facts and darker rumors,
was thrown more and more into an inner solitude
which no one could approach. His growing convic
tion that it was impossible to make the people under
stand the purpose of his life made him, at this time,
a very sad man.
An event soon occurred which revealed, past aU
mistaking, the significant and to him fatal truth.
Up to this time he had secretly hoped something
from human gratitude and from human intelligence.
He was soon to learn that he had nothing to expect
from either.
It was at Bethsaida, upon the lake, — a pleasant
fishing-town (" House of Fish," as the word goes),
full of the cheerful bustle and the charming scenery
which lend such vivacity to maritime life. There
were two Bethsaidas, not of the same province. The
peril of Jesus was now so obvious that he had found
it necessary, for the time being, to take himself out
of the political jurisdiction of Antipas. From the
fortress of Machserus John's meek spirit had bravely
gone to God who made and loved it.

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 229
John's troubles were over ; but Herod's were not ;
and those of Jesus had just begun. Haunted by re
morse for the cowardly slaughter of an innocent
prisoner, Herod Antipas was very uncomfortable.
But his superstitious uneasiness quickly developed
into a more solid and reasonable alarm.
The whole country was ringing with the name and
with the achievements of the Nazarene. The mis
sionary trip of the twelve had immediate results
which were almost disastrous. They had circulated
the doctrines of their Rabbi so widely that it was
impossible any longer to restrain these within local
limits. Everybody was talking of Jesus, — of his
mysterious personality, his incredible deeds, his
partly understood claims. That these could be any
thing but political, it was impossible for the Roman
or the Hebrew mind to conceive. The palace now
began distinctly to fear an insurrection.
Jesus was no hot-headed enthusiast, narrow of
sight, and blundering into avoidable dangers. For
a man sacrificing himself utterly and with passion
ate gladness to a principle, he was remarkably care
ful in his public movements. He never anticipated
his perils unnecessarily. He was perfectly sane, self-
possessed, even adroit in his relation to affairs. He
never forgot the true mathematics of a great work,
which may put the terms of the equation a long
way apart. He did not aUow, as smaUer souls
may do, a false ideal of courage to blind him to the
true. The time had not come to hurl his life away;
a premature sacrifice was not in his plan. Herod

230 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Antipas could make no immediate trouble for a sus
pect beyond his own boundaries, and out of sight
might be out of mind. Even for a day or so it
might be worth while to be absent from Herod's
range of vision. Jesus prudently went into Iturea,
the dominion of Philip the Tetrarch.
Upper Bethsaida (known as Bethsaida Julias),
at the northeastern corner of the lake, was only six
miles from Capernaum by water, though much fur
ther by land, and by either route the town was easily
accessible. Jesus took his boat and sailed across the lake.
The wind was light, and the voyage was a slow one.
Seeking seclusion above all things at that time, he
had chosen to land south of Bethsaida, off the plain
of Batihah, in an uninhabited locality.
It was a brilliant day. The sun and the sea were
vivid. The sky was strong. The spring air was not
too hot, but soft and pleasant. It was Nisan, the
Month of Flowers. Vegetation was at its richest
and brightest. Scarlet anemones ran everywhere.
Touches of color, like candles of white and pink, told
where the rock roses burned. The highly cultivated
grass was likcplush to the eye and to the hand.
The boat rocked gently upon the water. The
fishermen moored it, and followed their Rabbi,
wondering. For, see ! It looked as if all the world
had come to meet him. Plainly, he was to be
overwhelmed again.
This was far larger and other than a local crowd.
It was swelled by pilgrims en route to the Passover,
and already it was perceived that the very persons

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 231
whom he had left behind, a throng accumulating as
it moved, had overtaken Jesus. The people, won
dering only why the Nazarene had sailed away, had
come around by land from Capernaum ; and were
rapidly massing to meet him when he landed, intend
ing to head off his departure if, in fact, he meant
to leave them. The consequence was a reception
several thousand strong.
The keen eye of Jesus swiftly took in the size of
the crowd. He perceived that he was to have no
ordinary audience, and that it would require no
common handling. He walked thoughtfuUy on to
meet it.
It was a lonely plain where he landed, and, after
glancing at the topography of the place and the
position of the crowd, he climbed a knoll and began
to give himself to their wants. The usual propor
tion of the diseased were in the throng. Even to-day,
the traveler in the East is impressed with the hope
less, superstitious sick, who fill the roadsides waUing
for relief which cannot be given to such ignorance.
The sight of invaHds drinking milk in which a line
of the Koran has been washed, or of the disabled,
suffering wounds to be stuffed with cayenne pepper,
or the acutely ill swallowing prescriptions com
pounded of scorpions, silkworms, Spanish flies, and
centipedes, gives us an idea of the kind of thing with
which Jesus was always surrounded.
The demands upon him that day at Batihah were
enormous. He healed and preached, and healed
again. He denied himself to nobody, and refused
no act of mercy. He spoke with unusual fervor and

232 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
healed with memorable power. The people seemed
hardly to know which they wanted more, — health
for the soul or health for the body ; and hung upon
him heavily, taking either or both, or anything that
he might give. Meanwhile their number was grow
ing steadily, and became and remained utterly ab
sorbed in him.
The day began to decline. The hot look passed
from the cheek of the lake. The colors of the sky
softened. The wind died down. The thick, short
grass took on the golden radiance which strikes
slantwise from a dipping sun.
The throng numbered now as much as five thou
sand men, and many women and children who were
not counted. These were of various nationalities, —
Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, Persians,
Phoenicians, — and were more or less gorgeously
dressed in the gay Oriental taste which the Eastern
countries shared in common. It was a motley audi
ence, but it was a very picturesque one.
Jesus had made himself heard quite plainly,
though in the open air and by so many ; but as he
approached the end of his afternoon discourse, his
voice deepened and lowered with feeling, as if he
felt that more depended upon the events of this day
than he could explain or others understand. The
hush in his own heart extended itself to his audience,
which was so still and breathless when he ceased
to speak that his last words roused an echo, gently
answering him.
Then a little bustle set in, and across it he heard
the footsteps of two or three of his friends, who had

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 233
faUen back to common life again, and had resumed
its cares. One of his disciples was speaking :
" Send the people away, Lord. They have no
thing to eat. Look at them ! "
Then the preacher, himself pale and- weary, rous
ing from the abstraction of oratory, saw how faint
they were, — these people who had come so far, and
had been so entranced by his address that they had
forgotten even to notice that they had not eaten, and
that they had no food with them. It was an invol
untary tribute to him, which he could but notice.
It gratified him, and gave him some hope that his
hard day's work had not been wasted.
He shook his head when his anxious friends re
peated their desire to disperse the crowd, and order
them away. It was some distance to Bethsaida vU-
lage, and the way was wearisome. The hospitality
of Jesus was warmly aroused. With a hearty im
pulse to treat his audience as his guests, he made a
few practical inquiries into the condition of the com
missariat of his own party. Significantly, Andrew
exhibited five loaves and two smaU lake fish. This
was all which the twelve had up to this moment pro
vided for their own meagre supper, and for his who
had preached and healed all that severe day. The
question of purchasing supplies was now discussed.
But it was calculated that between thirty and forty
doUars would be needed to provide any sort of enter
tainment, however simple, for so vast a number of
guests. To the poor missionary band any such sum
as this was out of the question, and the twelve were
much disturbed that the Rabbi did not make short

234 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
work of the situation and command the crowd to
break up.
It would have gone away at his wish. Just then
it would have done anything for him. Impulsive,
ardent, excitable, the throng was his. The people
— the sick whom he had cured, the troubled whom
he had comforted, the erring whom he had startled,
those longing for better lives whom he had invigor
ated — at that moment adored him so that they did
not see how they could leave him. This moved
him, and he felt as if he could not send them away.
A happy look swept his face. It was one of the
rare moments when he felt that he was loved by
the humanity he loved, and that what he did and
suffered for it was not all thrown away. It is plea
sant to think that he had this hour of comfort, and
that he had it just then and there.
Suddenly came this unexpected order : " Make
the company sit down. Separate them in groups of
fifties on the grass. Then feed them as I shall com
mand you."
The disciples, who had learned by this time to
question no order, however astounding, which their
master might give, obeyed him, perplexed enough.
With precision the immense throng was divided, and
delegates were deputed to attend to the wants of
each division in its turn. This man of peace showed
a military skiU in the management of great bodies
of men. The practical good sense, so rare in the
exalted temperament, but so evident in his, mar
shaled his thousands like an experienced general.
Indeed, we must remember that, in the handling of

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 235
masses, Jesus had acquired an extraordinary experi
ence. Palestine, a small country, about one hundred
and sixty miles long and seventy broad, was more
thickly settled than Massachusetts. This little land
is thought to have held between four and five millions
of people. There were two hundred and four town
ships in Galilee alone ; the smallest had a population
of fifteen thousand souls. Nazareth itself was a city
of four or five thousand at the least, possibly of
many more inhabitants.
Palestine teemed ; and there was great compact
ness in the apportionment of life. No recluse in the
wilderness, but a man always in contact with men,
Jesus had exceptional opportunities to develop those
elements of power which only masses of humanity
can call forth. Of these opportunities he made,
from first to last, an exceptional use.
On this day in the Month of Flowers — a day
which proved to be one of the conclusive crises of
his life — he indulged his wish to entertain his
immense audience. He did not often indulge him
self in anything. He who had no home of his own,
no chance to enjoy the happiness of being host ; he
who would have made so gracious and so great a
host, so generous, so thoughtful, so fuU of fine care
fulness for the comfort of his guests, felt a touch
ing pleasure on this evening. Excepting one other
instance, somewhat like it, the occasion stands alone.
This social entertainment personally given by Jesus
was a beautiful scene.
The people in their briUiant, many colored cos
tumes reclining on the vivid grass looked like flowers.

236 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
One of the recorders of the incidents, with more
imagination than might have been expected of the
plain and severe historians to whom we owe all that
we know of Jesus, spoke of the brUliant ranks as
garden beds, or parterres.
Jesus in his blue talith, on the height above them,
looked down ; slightly flushed with happiness, and
smiling. His white linen head-dress gave a certain
paUor to his complexion, which was more delicate
than that of most of his countrymen ; as his features
were more regular: these had something of the
Greek symmetry modeled by the Hebrew force.
His countenance was both winning and commanding.
In hours of exaltation, it drew the heart up to it by
a kind of glory that awed, while it attracted.
His appearance at that moment was one of great
beauty. His expression was that of more than usual
peace. It was one of the last times when those who
loved him saw him ; saw him free from anxiety or
pain ; and they remembered it as long as they lived.
His men had brought him their scanty provision
for supper, and he had taken it into his outstretched
hands. His eyes were fixed upon the sky. His
smile settled into gravity ; this slowly assumed the
look of prayer. Soon it was perceived that the
Rabbi was asking the blessing of God upon the even
ing meal, and the twelve bowed their heads with the
impulse of worship. Many in the throng did the
same. Jesus used the Hebrew form of grace proper
to be spoken over a meal of bread. He said :
" Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the
world, who causes to come forth bread from the

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 237
earth." Somewhat suddenly, he gave the order to
offer the food which he had blessed.
His friends, half in consternation, much embar
rassed, but trusting that it would all come out weU,
somehow, began to distribute five loaves of bread and
two fish, among five thousand people.
This obedience and confidence seemed ridiculous,
but proved sublime.
What was to be said ? What was to be thought ?
For five thousand ate, and were satisfied ; and ate
and could eat no more. And they left upon the
grass so much food, beyond the power of so many
hungry people to make way with, that the astounded
committee of the twelve went about, and picked up
many basketf uls of scraps and untouched provisions.
These were cheap wicker baskets, such as careful
people carried oh journeys, and used wherefrom to
feed beggars.
The wonder soon became understood among the
throng. It raised a tempest of enthusiasm. The
people were about dispersing, but now nothing could
move them. Who could leave a man who could do
a deed like that ? They rushed towards him. They
clambered up to get nearer to him. Huzzas arose ;
cries of admiration rent the still air. It was be
ginning to darken ; but no one thought of home
or shelter. No one thought of anything but the
taU, serene form, the gleaming face, just beginning
to grow indistinct in the dusk; those outstretched
hands, that presence of serenity and of strength ; the
loving heart, the mysterious gift, the mighty tender
ness, with the power to use it, and the will to use it,

238 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
as no other man had done. Everybody tried to get
nearer to him. Broken shouts arose, defining into
words :
"This is He!"
"The Messiah! The Wonderful ! The Anointed ! "
" Here He is ! Here is He we have sought so
long ! No one else could do such things ! Our
own eyes have seen ! It is the King ! "
Then from the valley, as the shadow darkened
and the outlines of the crowd became clouded to his
eye, Jesus heard the shout taken up and carried on :
" The King ! Let us to him ! Our King ! Our
King!" The groves echoed the cry, and it reverberated
with a curious sadness from rock to rock. The
lake seemed to receive it wistfully, and to repeat it
under breath of her lightest waves, as if she felt
afraid to say it aloud for his sake, because she loved
him. Jesus stood looking down ; — now a dim form, a
dimming face, high above the clamor of the people.
He seemed at one instant, in the oncoming night, to
blur and blend into it, like a mystery which might
melt into it and vanish forever ; at the next, to stand
there hke some grand, eternal fact, carved out of
the solid rock, and never to be shaken. He did not
speak. For his penetration was not deceived. He knew
that in this happy evening hour, while the sun
dipped and the wave whispered, and the light on the
grass went out; while the people shouted, under
standing nothing, and loved him without consider-

FIVE THOUSAND GUESTS 239
ing him, — he knew that the turning of his fate was
decreed. It has been said of him that he never trusted a
mob. The wisest of men have been deluded by the
adulation of an audience. He was not, even by
this one, his kindest, his most pleasing. He knew
that he could not depend upon these people to spare
him or to save him ; that they would huzza to-day,
and forget to-morrow. Did he understand that,
having helped him to his doom, they would leave
him to it ? We like to think that he did not, alto
gether, — not quite yet. Even a few hours' respite
was something to the tired man. But, while he
stood, drowned in his own deep thoughts, the enthu
siasm of the people had made headway against a
silence which they took to be that of irresolution
or assent.
The shout arose again ; this time with hot deter
mination :
" Jesus, our King ! We wiU make him King ! "
His quick divination perceived now the position
in which he stood. Five thousand men were solidly
moving from the plain, up the knoll, massing upon
him from aU points, with the intention of trying
force upon him, if flattery and entreaty failed. By
a bold coup his audience, his patients, his guests, —
all these people who were in debt to his sympathy
and kindness, — meant to capture him bodily, and
drag him to the front of a great political rebellion.
What should begin as a riot would end in a revolu
tion. An outburst of hero-worship would grow into
an uncontrollable tragedy.

CHAPTER XI
A DECISIVE CRISIS
Some hours had passed. The "first evening,"
the " evening between the evenings," and the " sec
ond evening " were gone. It was midnight ; and he
was at last alone.
It had been a hard contest ; but he had conquered
the people. This was a much more difficult thing
to do — as his throbbing heart and exhausted nerve
told him — than it had been for him to feed five
thousand men on five loaves of bread. In the esti
mate of his strange power one must rank very high
among mystical gifts the art, the force, the wit,
the wiU which peaceably dispersed the mob that
night. The personal friends of Jesus, swept into the gen
eral excitement, were almost carried off their feet.
They would have liked nothing better than to see
their Rabbi with a crown on his dear head. They
considered no throne too good for him. They would
have headed the rioters with equal zeal and indiscre
tion; and might have been in a Roman dungeon
before another sunset. Jesus found it as important
to control them as to dismiss the multitude of men
who had gone into such a frenzy over the events of
this exciting day.

A DECISIVE CRISIS 241
To the dismay of the twelve they were ordered to
take to their boat at once and sail away, and that with
out his company. This was confounding. What a
disappointment ! Not to stay and see what was going
to happen ? To leave the Rabbi alone with the mob ?
To have no share in this tremendous thing ? To be
sent home like children who could not be trusted in-
great public affairs ? It was hard. But they obeyed
him, for the command was given in a certain tone of
his, not too often, used, but as irresistible as whirl
wind, torrent, conflagration, or any force of nature
when it came. When Jesus spoke in this way, it no
more occurred to his friends to withstand him than
to defy Jehovah. They went. Uncomfortable and
unhappy, they set sail without him, and headed for
the western shore of the lake.
Jesus was now left quite alone upon the plain of
Batihah. He climbed to its highest hiUock and
sank, for he was worn out, upon the ground.
He recognized perfectly that the crisis of his life
had come. It was all in his own hands now, —
rather it was all in his own heart. It was his to
choose between glory and shame, between success
and failure. Strictly speaking, it was not a choice
between life and death. In either event, he stood
but scant chance of life. An ordinary man would
have been blinded by his position. A demagogue
would have suffered himself to be carried on the
shoulders of the people into the maddest and great
est of Hebrew insurrections. The duller zealot,
meaning generously, but thinking imperfectly, would
have rushed headlong and tried to retreat too late.

242 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The trap would shut down on leader and on people
alike ; and it would snap with a Roman lock.
Jesus recognized the fact that he lived in a time
of anarchy and under an iron autocracy. From five
million Jews Herod the Great had exacted three
millions of dollars a year, — a heavy tax for the
average income. Desperate poverty filled the land
which it stirred to perpetual revolt. The people
were so poor that to be on the edge of starvation
was a very common thing. Among the crowd that
evening, no one knew how many there were who had
no food with them simply because they could not
afford it. The sympathy of Jesus with this kind of
suffering was swift and steady. The first personal
petition in what was known to literature and to
worship as the Lord's Prayer was : Give us our
daily bread. The Jews had not the resources in
themselves or in their conditions for a successful
revolution against the proudest power of the world.
The political astuteness of the Rabbi from Naza
reth has never received anything like its apprecia
tion. Jesus had extraordinary comprehension of affairs.
In the lonely watch upon the shore of Gennesaret
that night, he measured the forces of nations and
grasped the situation of the civilized world. His
own exalted enthusiasm, his personal success,, his
passion for humanity, did not confuse him for a
moment as to the practical facts. He was familiar
with the history of his people, — of their riots, their
famous insurrections, and the fates of their unsuc
cessful leaders.

A DECISIVE CRISIS 243
He perceived distinctly that in any revolution,
for any cause, under any leadership, subject Jeru
salem would stand no chance against omnipotent
Rome. There would be an hour of fire of glory, of
romance, of splendid patriotism, of briUiant resist
ance, and then the worst must be expected. Many
a man has gladly given his life to be the chief figure
of such an hour, and to go into history as a patriot
defeated but magnificent.
It is easy to die a hero. How hard to die a
victim ! Jesus had to choose between the two. Lead
his people on a hopeless national revolt he would
not. Yet their political expectations were the sole
basis on which they were likely to meet him. Their
only inteUigent idea of their Messiah was that of a
powerful and obliging being who would free them
from Rome and make a nation of them. He, Jesus
their Christ, just for this hour their idol, he must
disappoint them. But, if he did it, he must meet
the consequences. There lay his terrible dilemma.
True, there was another way. Yes . - . there
was the other way. There had always been this
other method of dealing with the great problem of
his life. He had not used it, — never once to his
own advantage. It had been to him a holy treasure
held in trust ; caUed upon only under what he be
lieved to be the orders of God. Suppose he fell
back upon it now ?
There in the midnight and the moonlight, with
the lake at his feet, in silence, in exhaustion, in the
utter solitude of a man who knows that even if his
dearest friends were with him they could not under-

244 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
stand him, and so feels less alone to be without
them, he thought the question through.
There was this other way. Powers which other
souls knew not were his. He had not tested this
beautiful and dangerous difference from his kind aU
this while to no avail. He had not cultivated his
mystical force for over two years without a faith in
it, and a comprehension of it, that had grown with
the force itself. Between his first timid exercise of
functions occult and sacred and the great deeds
which he had done in the last six months there
was a long march. He had learned much from the
education of his own power. But it is not to be for
gotten that he learned everything from its restraint.
How much more than he had wrought had he left
undone ! How much more than he had given had
he held back ! How much more than the wildest
enthusiasm of his maddest mob believed him capa
ble of might he have achieved ! How much more
might he yet achieve ? . . . Ah, how much !
His thoughts moved back to the first conflict in
the desert near Jericho. Severe and decisive as
that had been, it was the trial of the theory, not of
the facts of life. It is one thing to forecast experi
ence and adjust it to principle in imagination. It is
quite another to face the actual crisis which experi
ence has slowly and painfully brought. Sore with
suffering yet throbbing with achievement, the mind
comes up with a shock in the clutch of the situation
which it has so long contemplated at a distance with
aU the ease of remoteness and much of the sense of
unreality. The visions of the desert were now the

A DECISIVE CRISIS 245
struggles of the hour. Jesus was not free from the
strange law by which a soul is often subjected to the
same kinds of trial all through life. This terrible
monotony in suffering he knew to the piteous end.
He had now to front his old questions, and meet
again the ghosts of the spiritual foes that he had
laid at the outset of his career.
Should he take that other, that omitted way?
Should he pursue his Father's plan, dim, inscruta
ble, so far above his age and his people that it had
no more coherence to them than a delusion of the
demonized whom he healed ? Or should he do the
thing, the only thing, from his position comprehen
sible to his race and his times ? Should he levy his
mystical powers ? Should he summon invisible co
horts to his aid ? Should he carry out the national
aspirations, not as a man among men, but as a God,
scorning men and their methods, — flinging aside
human restrictions and assuming divine prerogatives?
Should he confuse, baffle, smite, slay, triumph, by
inexplicable means? Should he work out the mis
sion of his life under human laws or above them ?
The Jews had the primitive idea of royalty, of its
purpose and its prerogatives. Jesus had quite an
other. The words " king," " kingdom," " throne,"
meant one thing to them, quite a different one to
him. In his brief, intense public life, wherein the
energies and fervors of a very long career had been
crowded into a little over three years, he had never
been untrue to the dreams of his first youth. His
exaltation did not desert him in the stress of his
tremendous experience. He had kept his great

246 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ideal. He had never deviated from his unapproach
able consecration. His belief remained unshaken
that he knew the purposes of God in his life's his
tory, and that these were not the expectations of
men. He had been selected for a fate as solitary as
it was sublime.
His was the kingdom of the soul. He was the
King of the spirit. His was the realm in which
the little life of nations, their wars, their revolu
tions, their political schemes, their paltry clangor,
could not enter. The ambitions of Augustus Impe-
rator were petty beside the aspirations of Jesus.
Nothing less than the permanent control of the
world would ever realize these. But this force must
come from within, not from without.
His legions were the elements of human charac
ter ; his court was in the human heart ; his throne
was humanity itself. Of its obligations and of its
possibilities he had a perfectly new conception to
enforce. This he had tried to make his practical, commer
cial people understand. He had preached, but they
were puzzled ; he had Uved, but they were perplexed.
He had suffered, but they did not comprehend why
or to what end. He had hoped against evidence
and struggled against fate. They did not, could not,
would not understand.
Now ! To sweep over everything like flood or si
moom ; to start and surge on like any common revo
lutionist, — this they could comprehend. The pa
tient, humble Rabbi, curing the sick, comforting the
unhappy, helping the poor, was a mystery. What

A DECISIVE CRISIS 247
should be done with him ? With it ? A leader of
revolts was altogether a simple problem. Add the
mystical element, to which the Hebrew mind was
quite accustomed. That was not half as perplexing
as a modest man of power honoring the claims of
duty in a plain way, using great gifts for no clearer
end than to make people weU, pure, and happy.
Suppose he took off the check imposed by his
subtle sense of spiritual honor? Suppose he gave
his mysterious nature the rein ? Suppose he brought
to the situation but a little portion of the forces, of
the resources, which were his, and which he now
knew were his ? If he had chosen precisely here to
add the extra-natural touch to the natural powers ?
. . . What a dazzling vision ! What success !
What glory ! How much more than the prospects
of a politician! It was the future of a spiritual
statesman. Jesus Christ was the only man of his
age who could have hurled Rome from the throne
of the world. But he could not have done it under
common laws, and that he was meant to do it under
the superhuman he did not believe. He would not
touch it on that basis. What then ?
The crisis was so profound, he had been so ab
sorbed, the night was passing in such emotion and
exhaustion, that the solitary thinker had not noticed
the change of weather. Suddenly a breeze fanned
him in the face from the southerly, and he perceived
that it had veered and was rising steadily. With
his quick consciousness of the situation of others, —
always putting it before his own, — he perceived in-

248 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
stantly that his friends were sailing against a head
wind, and remembered that it was by his particular
command that they were not ashore.
He rose at once, and stood looking off over the
lake, shading his eyes with his hand from the bril
liant Oriental moonlight. He could see from the
point where he stood that the little boat was having
a hard or even a dangerous time with what was now
a severe squall, if not a gale.
The claims of his solemn night's vigil yielded in
stantly to the interruption which mercy made upon
them. He hurried down to the shore of the lake.
His own trouble could wait. That of his disciples
could not and should not.
Six miles by water, but much more than that by
land, the distance to the western shore spread before
him. He had no boat. On that coast, now deserted,
none was accessible. It was far on in the night, and
no help was likely to reach the party ;_they might
drown before anything could be done for them.
Overcome with anxiety for his chosen friends, Je
sus performed one of the few really impulsive acts
of his life. He stepped directly into the water. It
was soon deep, and grew rapidly deeper. The space
between him and the struggling boat was far too
large for the strongest swimmer. The wind had
now become a tempest. The waves ran high, and
both wind and waves were against him. But he did
not stop to think of that. Exalted, insistent, he
trusted, himself upon the little sea. His heart was
so full of distress for those he loved that he could
not think of himself. His soul was so full of trust

A DECISIVE CRISIS 249
in God — his high mood vibrated so in harmony with
the being of his invisible Father — that the laws of
nature seemed to him at that moment like his serfs.
. . . Through them or against them, reach the
boat ! Defy the waves ! Trample the water ! . . .
Who can tell ? Had he ever done the deed before ?
In those long and lonely nights by the lake, un-
watched, unseen, had he ever experimented with his
mysterious faculties, trusting himself by these alone
upon the waters ? Could he have explained in this
way any of his singular appearances or disappear
ances which his friends were not always altogether
able to follow? Had he ever freed himself from
the thraU of the land, from the bondage of the keel,
in some weary and restless mood which only the
freedom of the water could calm ? Was the event
of this night the movement of an educated or an
untried faculty? Or was it rather the overflow
force of that hour of exaltation when five thousand
men had been nourished by his human vitality and
his mystical power ? Was his soul stiU so vibrant
with the vigor of a greater than human life that the
extra-natural was the most natural thing for him at
at that moment? However that may be, the mo
ment bore him on. Ecstatic, he trod the water as
men do in dreams, while living, or fancy that they
may do waking, after death. All lovers of the sea
will understand something of this instinct, which
lies like a sleeping faculty within them. Moving
swiftly, moving joyously, taU in the moonlight, pale
and solemn, he had the look, he seemed to have the
qualities, of an apparition.

250 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Such the occupants of the little boat took him to
be when he glided into their range of vision. He
approached them rapidly. His hands were out
stretched as if to gather them. His face melted
with shining pity. The boat lay over upon her side ;
she was capsizing fast. But the fishermen cried out
in superstitious terror. With the impulse of their
class, in aU ages and all lands the same, they were
more afraid of the supernatural than they were of
drowning. " A spirit ! See ! That is a spirit ! " Then they
saw the apparition smiling, just as the Rabbi smiled
any day on land, — the sweet, familiar smile which
had become the sun of their days and the moon of
their nights, the romance of their prosaic lives.
" Have courage. Do not be afraid," he said, " it
is I." But the fishermen huddled together upon the wind
ward rail of the sinking boat. Thomas shook his
head skepticaUy. James and Andrew whispered to
gether. John held out his hands towards the vision
of his Master longingly. But John was gentle, and
waited for others to act.
The, group clung to each other like frightened ani
mals. Jesus stood quite stiU. The water was pour
ing and dashing about the unseaworthy boat.
Then up spoke he who was always the first to
gather courage, and the surest to express it for the
rest of the twelve. Peter — never timid, seldom si
lent — flung out these impulsive words : " Lord, if it
be thou, order me, too, to walk upon the water ! I
would come to thee I "

A DECISIVE CRISIS 251
This chaUenge was quite satisfactory to the fish
ermen. It was their form of psychical research. It
was a perfectly reasonable test, to their minds, of
the nature of the phenomenon. An apparition might
walk on Gennesaret for aught that one knew to the
contrary ; but plainly, to enable a fisherman to do so
was out of the province of spirits. But if it were
their Rabbi, their own Rabbi ! —
Smiling, half amused, half tender, the figure beck
oned. At the gesture Peter sprang promptly into
the foam. . . . Why, he could tread the sea, — he,
too! Greatly excited, he took a few steps. The
surface of the water bore, or seemed to upbear, him.
Then the brave man suddenly lost his head.
The waves were running furiously. The Rabbi
looked a long way off. It proved to be no easier to
walk on the lake than it had always been. Peter
became so confused that he began to go under. At
the chfll of the water and its rush into ears and throat,
his jet of courage and trust went out like a candle
dipped in a wave. From sheer nervous coUapse, the
sturdy man of the oar and the sail was about to drown
in earnest.
Then he felt his hand grasped. What a vital,
powerful touch ! No other hand on earth could hold
the sinking so.
" My Rabbi ! " cried the panic-smitten man, —
" my Lord ! "
As if she, too, recognized her master, the boat
began to right herself.
Jesus stepped aboard in perfect silence. The
fringe and hem of his talith and tunic were wet ; but

252 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
his garments were otherwise dry, or only dampened
by spray. He looked mildly at Peter, who feU
dripping and gasping at his feet.
Awestruck, the fishermen dropped upon their
knees, their faces, beside their bolder mate. Whis
pers, inarticulate at first, then growing stronger and
quite distinct, passed from lip to lip.
" Thou art the Son of God ! "
Jesus smiled remotely, solemnly. He did not
reply. He sat down -among the demoralized sailors,
and by a mute gesture ordered the boat to put about
for the shore.
The events of this evening had been so disturbing,
or so unexpected, that Jesus, in face of them, found
his plans more or less disarranged. Besides, the
Sabbath, on which no Jew could travel, was close at
hand. It was now, we may think, the night of
Thursday to Friday. The boat made a difficult
landing, not precisely in Bethsaida, — which was
then the fishing-port or Fisherton of Capernaum, but
to the north of the Plain of Gennesaret, — and in
the light of a Friday morning, calm enough after the
storm, the little party landed near home in consider
able perplexity.
The keel had scarcely grated on the sand before
it was perceived that a large concourse was collecting
to meet the tired Rabbi, who, wherever he went and
whatever he did, could not escape his inevitable,
crowd. The throng on the northeastern shore of the lake,
the evening before, had dispersed in utter perplexity
and some resentment. Thousands of men, who were

A DECISIVE CRISIS 253
ready to drag him into the front of a revolution, had
scattered, en route for the Passover, disappointed
and bitter. They wanted no more of a Messiah who
refused his proper position at the head of the Jewish
nation. The popular idol must realize the popular
dreams. When the Anointed came, ease and idleness
would come with him. Fruit would ripen every week.
Grain would harvest once a fortnight. The neces
sities of life would fall into a man's hands without
working for them. Comfort and luxury would run
attendance on every whim. Miracles would multiply
for the asking. Every day some wonderful thing
would happen to amuse one. Life would become
a brilliant play, in which the spectator sat to be
entertained. First and finally, Israel would be a
nation again, and Rome would fall before her. Who
knew but the Hebrew Messiah might sit on the throne
of Augustus ?
With this Rabbi, who would not be what was
expected of him, the majority of the mob had done.
They scattered about their own affairs in a very iU-
humor. But the Rabbi had his friends left, and
some of them followed him to Capernaum as fast as
possible. The severe gale of the night, however, had
blown a certain portion of the Gennesaret fishing
fleet over towards Bethsaida Julias. When morning
came, where was the Nazarene ? He was known not
to have sailed in his own boat, which was seen to set
off without him. It was sure that he had not gone
by land, for he would have been met or overtaken.
A story, vague, amazing, began to take form.
In what manner had Jesus traveled from Batihah

254 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
to Capernaum ? People whispered and wondered ;
curiosity grew. The most incredulous or the most
credulous, those most eager to see him for his own
saketor for theirs, took passage on the storm-driven
fishing-boats, whose presence in the vicinity was a
convenient accident, and came across the lake in
search of him. Take it altogether, he was received
by a large and excited multitude of people. He
began immediately, in his characteristicaUy quiet
manner, to attend to the sick, as was always his first
impulse. He went about his usual work precisely as
if nothing out of the common course had happened,
healing, teaching, and preaching, as he saw the
opportunity. He had a wonderful respect for daily
duty, for the ordinary demands of life ; with which
he never suffered the extraordinary event to interfere.
But the movement of the extraordinary had now set
in upon his history. He was not to be able much
longer to ignore it.
It began that Friday by an ecclesiastical persecu
tion, of small proportions, but of wily and ominous
intent. A certain delegation of Pharisees and of
Scribes, who had come up from the capital with the
purpose of entrapping the great nonconformer,
attacked him almost as soon as he appeared in the
vicinity of his home, by an accusation of heresy. It
took a form grave to the creed of these pompous
sectarians, but nothing less than ridiculous to a
modern mind.
The Nazarene had allowed his foUowers to eat
without previously washing the hands, according to
the fuU Pharisaic ceremonial. Terrible omission!

A DECISIVE CRISIS 255
Fatal fault ! Fists were clenched. Phylacteries and
fringes shook in the bitter anger of religious intol
erance. Rumors of the strange scene on the plain
at Batihah had spread like fire among dry leaves.
Jesus had fed five thousand homeless, hungry people
crowding a desolate place, without keeping them
waiting while he insisted on the petty lavations of a
sect. He had put hospitality, humanity, and good
sense before dogmatism aud formalism. The dele
gation arraigned him openly for impiety.
The Nazarene stood silent for some moments after
this public onslaught. He was weary from the events
of the day before. He was spent from the sleepless
night, from the solitary struggle upon the hills, and
from the deed that he had done in the tempest.
Who measured the strain upon the mortal frame
given by his powerful conquest of the forces of nature,
by that act of mercy and of mystery ? His dearest
friend did not know that Jesus had come to the crisis
of his mature life, and that he knew he had come to
it. A man conscious that the grandest success in
the history of human power was in his grasp, but
deHberately electing the crudest of defeats ; a man
aware of near martyrdom, but, for the sake of a
principle too noble to be understood by other men,
refusing to evade danger by a footstep; a man
passionately craving love, sympathy, and loyalty, but
conscious that he was about to estrange them all ; a
man not baffled, but still master of the situation, —
he challenged his church and his state.
His delicate lip curled slightly with a scorn so
obvious that his silence seemed surcharged with it.

256 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Then, unexpectedly, he roused himself and faced the
heresy-hunters. Without a thought of himself, he turned arraigner.
Without a care for the consequences, he hurled at
the delegation from Jerusalem a series of the great
rebukes for which this gentle, this compassionate
man has become famous.
" You teach the commandments of men, not the
commandments of God ! You wash cups and pots
and tables. . . . Yet you dishonor father and mo
ther. . . . You are hypocrites ! "
"Rabbi, knewest thou how much the Pharisees
were offended?" The most timid of the disciples
came trembling to him afterwards and anxiously put
the question.
"They are blind leaders of blind men," replied
the Nazarene calmly. "Both shall fall into the
ditch." But his thoughts were not as calm as his voice or
countenance. He preached in the Capernaum syna
gogue on the Sabbath ; a powerful discourse, abso
lutely without evidence of fear or faltering. He
preached upon the topic which was in everybody's
mouth, the supper of the five thousand. He avoided
no question and parried no complaint of that great
event. He was as straightforward as if he had been
the safest priest or courtier, protected by the favor
of the authorities of the land, instead of the suspect,
homeless and hunted, that he was. He shot out the
truth, and disdained the results. He startled his
audience. He made astounding assertions :

A DECISIVE CRISIS 257
" This is the work of God," he said. " I am the
bread of life. . . . He that cometh to me shall
never be hungry. I came from Heaven, not to do
mine own will. I came to do the wiU of Him who
sent me. . . . He that believeth on me hath ever
lasting life. . . . The living Father sent me. . . .
The words that I speak are spirit and are life."
So he spoke, commandingly and courageously.
But his heart was heavy ; so many abandoned him
suddenly that he felt like a man shunned. Perhaps
he had not expected this trouble to come so quickly,
so sorely. He was so loving a man, he depended so
much on human tenderness, as aU highly organized
souls do, that coldness and desertion almost broke
his heart.
One day he turned pitifully to his chosen, the
twelve, who clung to him while others left him.
" Will ye also go away ? " he asked with pathetic
wistfulness. Tears started to his sad eyes. His
delicate face pleaded with the fishermen, his rough
friends, as if he cried out to them for something that
he must have. To their dying hour these men
remembered that moment, and the time came when
they thanked God that Peter had answered for them
all: "Master, to whom shall we go? The words of
eternal life thou hast."
But the pubhc agitation was now so great that
Jesus found it necessary to escape it for a time.
He resumed at once his interrupted plans of travel,
aud went with the twelve towards Tyre and Sidon ;
a calmer region, where temporary safety allowed him

258 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
to continue the work which was more important to
him than his own fate.
But there were indications of a certain change in
him which his followers observed. He had lost
something of his cheerfulness and ease of manner.
He grew more grave, more sad. He was much
alone. He was often absorbed. He sat sunken in
thought. He knew many sleepless nights. He
spent his vigils in prayer. He seemed somehow
removed from his friends by a consciousness of
trouble untold. At times he looked at them long
ingly, lovingly, as if he would have said something
which yet he never said. He turned away in silence
which they did not dare to break. His lips parted,
trembled, and closed. What sorrowful secret did he
withhold from them ?

CHAPTER XII
THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB
The time came soon enough when he told them ;
concealing nothing, revealing all that they could
understand and more. But he bore his dark secret
for a while yet, in the loneliness which he had en
dured so long that every nerve now began to writhe
away from it, and his heart to cry for a little human
comprehension. No man is so sensitive to sympa
thy as he who has lived the longest and the most
strongly without it. The time comes when he must
have it, or sink ; the very force of character which
has enabled him to dispense with it turns again and
rends an exquisite organization by force of tender
ness. The very depth of nature, which has been
lord of the emergency, now becomes its subject.
Jesus was approaching such a mental crisis.
He was now an unpopular wanderer, homeless,
and in peril. The malice of the church which had
already excommunicated him was backed by the
power of the state which hated and feared him. As
long as the mass of the people supported him, nei
ther palace nor Sanhedrin dared resort to extreme
measures. But the people had begun to desert him.
He had known their delusive attachment. He was
to know their caprice and their cruelty.

260 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The last six months of his life in Galilee he spent
as a hunted man, practicaUy an outlaw from the
more dangerous centres of population; pursuing
his missionary labors as well as he could against
odds in remote places. Some of the most interest
ing work of his life was done in this despairing
time. He treated the deaf, the dumb, the blind,
the leper, the maniac, — Jews or Gentiles, it mat
tered nothing to him, — every anguish that needed
him fed upon him. Dramatic cures and eloquent
discourses, bountiful mercy and beautiful thought,
crowded his days. He seemed to press them with
kindness, with pity to all the world. He gave him
self passionately, utterly, to suffering soul or suffer
ing body. He lived as great spirits do who know
that their time is short. But the greatest goes
dumb before this record of spiritual royalty.
Yet was he so watched and suspected that he was
obliged to conceal even his kindnesses, if he could.
He made many unsuccessful attempts to keep his
greatest cures as secrets, but the nervous excitement
of his healed patients prevented this.
It was one of the special hardships of his life
that its noblest objects created its gravest dangers.
The necessity to be silent, to repress, was always
upon him. It took difficult forms. A man living
to a certain great end, yet was he forced continually
to withhold its furtherance. About to die for a
supreme truth, yet he was often obliged to check its
expression. One day at Csesarea Philippi, a significant con
versation took place between himself and his twelve
friends.

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 261
" Whom," he asked suddenly, " do men say that
lam?" " John the Baptist, or Elijah — Jeremiah, or some
other prophet," was the prompt reply.
" But whom do ye say ? " persisted the Nazarene.
Then Peter uttered these memorable words:
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
" Blessed art thou ! " murmured the Rabbi, much
moved. "Thou art a rock. I buUd my church
upon thee ! "
His face blazed with a beautiful happiness, which
those who loved him saw but seldom now. But this
momentary glow died quickly down into the dull
remembrance of his true position.
" See to it," he said sadly. " TeU no man that I
am Jesus the Christ."
Up to this time there had been but few occasions
in his life on which he definitely admitted his own
celestial claims. After this time he did not attempt
to evade them. They had now grown quite clear to
his mind. It cannot be said that they never clouded
over. It cannot be said that he had passed aU ques
tion, aU doubt, all the subtle suffering which the
mere consciousness of his own mission and nature
brought upon him. But he had met the sun. Be
hind the darkest hour he knew that he had seen
it shine. He lived a life of intense determination
to believe in the Fatherhood of God at all odds, at
any cost. His trust in his mysterious relationship
to the Deity was racked to the limits of human
endurance.

262 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
One day the dispirited twelve, themselves tired
of trouble and danger, were gathered round him
like homesick children. Something in their affec
tionate trustfulness touched him to the quick.
They, too, like the rest of their race, had expected
a political Messiah; they had hoped to see their
Rabbi King of the World. His failure to become
what he might, and now his evidently growing un
popularity, troubled them. His declining fortunes
sorely tried their faith. Nothing tried their love.
Yet they were in a hard position. He felt it for them.
He had sat in profound silence for some time,
entombed in thought. Unexpectedly raising his sad
eyes, he looked at his foUowers so appealingly that
he who was dearest of them all crept near to the
Rabbi, and softly laid a hand upon his arm. The
eyes of John and the voice of Peter asked :
" What wouldst thou, Lord ? "
But Jesus answered nothing at all. He continued
to gaze at them so steadfastly that even Peter could
not talk. The little group held their breath. A
sudden terror, nameless, formless, began to clutch
their hearts. The look by which a great love an
swers foreboding that it cannot relieve crept sol
emnly upon his expression. They read in his
broken face the spelling of one awful word. His
lips could not, would not frame it till his pitying
eyes had said it.
Death ! . . . Their Rabbi, their lord, their dream
of life, their vision of human power and splendor,
of divine vitality — die ? The thing seemed so
incredible that its full shock could not reach their

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 263
senses. But they looked back into his quivering
face again, and they saw that terrible truth was on it.
As soon as he could speak, or they could listen,
he told them what he knew. Did he teU them all
he knew ? It was impossible to say this, or indeed to
say where his prevision of his fate began or ended.
The tragic movement of events taught these plain
men many dreadful lessons. At that moment they
were rent between the feeling that he could not be
doubted in anything that he said, and the passionate
protest of belief against accepting enormity like this.
They repeated the words slowly, in broken sentences,
with stiffening lips.
"Jerusalem . . . Condemned ... of the Priests
... To be kiUed . . . three days . . . Rise
again" . . .
Their thoughts grew rigid like their muscles
about these impossible ideas.
Impulsive Peter broke into a passion of re
proaches, finding fault, as hot-headed persons do,
with the being one loves most, because affliction has
smitten him. Peter acted as if the Rabbi had be
come morbid, and needed a healthy mind to check
him. But John, whom Jesus loved, crept closer, and
buried his face from sight of all the rest upon the
shoulder of his Master. When the dearest disciple
heard this presentiment or prescience of doom con
fided to his friends by Jesus, John put up his hand
entreatingly, and laid his finger on the white lips
which articulated the horrible words.

264 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Did John understand more than the others, or
better ? For the disciples were not fine of percep
tion about what Jesus had said. They found it
almost impossible, when they came to think it over,
to interpret him literally. He must mean this or
that; must refer to some unknown decline or in
crease of fortune. He was indulging in parable.
Or, perhaps, he thought of the general resurrection
of the dead, whatever that should signify.
One day Jesus found these good men wrangling
as to which of them should hold the highest political
office when he came to the throne of the Hebrew
nation. He turned away, astonished and mute.
After aU, had their minds gone no farther than
this? If they, with their opportunities, could not
understand, what should he expect of the rest of the
world ?
The Nazarene was now living intense days.
They passed in spiritual fervors which encroached
upon a wasting, but always revitalized strength.
His preaching indicated the exaltation under which
he moved. When was he more eloquent? His
language could not be more terse. His thought, fed
by his heightened feeling, was seldom, if ever, more
valuable. Immortal quotations from his addresses
date from this time : " Let a man deny himself . . .
to follow me. Whosoever will save his life shall
lose it. . . . Whosoever will lose it for my sake
shaU find it." What profit to a man if he gain the
world and lose his own soul ? . . . What shall he
give in exchange for a soul ? "
A week had gone. Dedication had done its work

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 265
upon his sensitive organization. He had grown pale,
thin, shining. His eyes were larger than usual, and
their hollows had darkened. His veined hands had
shrunken a little, as the human hand does with cer
tain temperaments, giving the first signal of bodily
change under suffering or sickness. What illumined
his patient smile ? A sacred fire was in his eye.
His disciples watched him in dull wonder.
There came a night when he bade the three on
whom he most depended to climb the hills with him,
and gave no reason beyond the familiar one, that
he would ascend to pray. Peter, James, and John
were tired with the day's traveling, but no one of
them objected. The Rabbi's manner was something
not to be argued with.
They were at the foot of beautiful Lebanon, high
est and whitest of mountains. It was an Alpine
ascent, involving a night spent in air too rarefied
for comfortable breathing, if one made the snow-
touched summit. The little party did not, but
mounted to a nearer foothill, and wondered why
this toil was added to a hot day's march. Jesus
climbed in advance, apart. His stout staff feU
firmly on the rocks. He showed less than usual
signs of weariness. Yet his friends knew how worn
he was.
The great mountain divided Jewish from Gentile
territory. It was an imposing height, and the view
therefrom was significant and inspiring.
The sun had set. Cool was coming. The road
started among cultivated slopes, and wound upwards
through orchards, vines, and grain fields. Figs and

266 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
apricots, mulberry, corn, and melon interchanged
outlines and colors of leaf or blossom or forming
fruit. The air was sweet. The world was ripen
ing. Clumps of oak succeeded to this richer level;
dwarf shrubs and rock ravines thickened as the
climb grew steeper. Turf, gravel, stunted cedars,
gorges and crevices, began to take the place of
warmer scenery. Warm became cool, delightful to
the sun-smitten travelers ; and now from above them
the scent of snow ! The group drew it in to thirsty
senses and to weary frames. Strength came, as it
always comes with snow. They felt invigorated and
excited. The hot,- dusty world lay below them, as
life lies below death, — a trouble escaped. Their
spirits rose, and so their souls.
To the dull watchers down in the plain and vaUey,
stately Lebanon gave no sign that mystery swept
over his head that night. Life went on as usual to
common minds and in common circumstances. Who
guessed that a wonder thrilled the mountain ? The
lowland and the heights are far apart. Lebanon
was always a beautiful summit, and the eyes of the
sad or the sick turned to it on this as on many other
evenings. Sunset on this peak has been captured by the
vivid pen of one who knew it well.
"Close upon the rose color deepening into red"
came " a death-like pallor, and darkness relieved by
snow." ..." A deep ruby flush was slowly fol
lowed by warm purple shadows." The Sea of Gali
lee, " between its dim waUs of hill," was lighted
with " a delicate, greenish-yellow hue. The flush

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 267
died out . . . and a pale, steel-colored shade suc
ceeded. ... A long, pyramidal shadow slid down
. . . and crept across the plain. Damascus was
swallowed up by it . . . the pointed end of the
shadow stood out distinctly against the sky — a
dusky cone of dull color against the flush of the
afterglow. It was the shadow of the mountain it
self, stretching away for seventy miles across the
plain — the most marvelous shadow, perhaps, to be
seen anywhere. . . . The sun at length slid into the
sea, and went out like a blue spark."
In the color, in the glory, remote from men, apart
from the fret of life, a group of four passed from
twilight to dark, in the attitude and in the absorp
tion of worship. Jesus had prayed aloud with his
three friends, caUing upon them — did they ever
reveal what endearing blessings ? He had now
moved somewhat apart from them that he might
have the privacy of personal and silent prayer.
They watched him reverently. But they were very
tired. The Master prayed a long time to-night.
And if one should faU asleep, and offer him that
disrespect ?
The three, struggling against the drowsiness which
began to overcome them, suddenly stirred and
started. They sprang to their feet. Every man of
them forgot that he was sleepy, thought and cared
no longer for himself or for his feelings or concerns.
For, what had happened? Or was happening?
Was the mountain on fire ?
Who was that ? What was that ? Where was
their Rabbi, — the plain man whom they were used

268 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
to seeing every day, the unpopular, hunted preacher,
with his blue talith stained by the climb up the
mountain, and his dear face furrowed with care?
He had vanished as the shadow of Lebanon had
vanished on the landscape when night melted the
hard outlines, of day away.
He was gone, that hunted missionary, bowed with
responsibilities and dangers, comrade of grief. In
his stead, what a vision ! Behold beauty, splendor,
joyousness, a kingly form ; light on his hair, on his
features, on his arms and hands. His dark linen
talith had taken on the texture of clouds, and the
color of white fire. His feet, an hour ago travel-
worn and dusty, now glittering, refused to touch the
earth. He trod on the mountain air. He floated
lightly, — as fair, as refreshing, as refreshed as the
snow beyond. His countenance was as if it had
been a medallion, carved out of living light.
A mist of gold broken into rainbow, brushed into
pearl, surrounded him. From it looked dim outlines,
half foreign, half familiar, with the Hebrew linea
ments ; faces of ancient saints and sages cherished
by the Hebrew imagination and faith.
The three simple-hearted men, to whom the sight
of these bright phantasms was given, feU flat with
terror, which arose quickly into ecstasy. Half in
toxicated with the presence of the transcendent,
never before granted to their experience, they began
to babble like children in happy delirium, not know
ing what they said.
But what should be said of him, the portrait in
that frame of glory ? Where was the worn face ?

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 269
Where the wasted hands, the troubled figure ? Like
the dust of travel, escaped in a bath of fire.
Pain and wanness vanished from him like the
staff which had helped him up the mountain, and now
lay forgotten. Humanity, transfigured, had mounted
into — what? This was no more the man they knew,
who shone ineffable before them. Then who ?
The fishermen were nervously anxious to tell
everybody what had happened. This wonderful
thing must bring all Palestine to the Rabbi's feet.
Were they not its elect witnesses, good men and true,
whose testimony could not be scorned ?
To their dismay, they were authoritatively ordered
not to say anything about it. Nay, even the remain
ing nine of the twelve were to be told nothing at all.
Peter, John, and James were astounded to find that
this splendid secret was theirs, and theirs alone.
They did not know whether to be more honored or
more troubled by the confidence.
They descended the mountain silently. They
looked askance at Jesus, wondering that he appeared
just as usual. They were afraid to address him.
They whispered among themselves and glanced over
their shoulders now and then, like people who had
seen sorcery. They were not imaginative men, but
they were loving ones, and they found it natural to
connect the great scene on the heights with the
strange mood which now consumed the Rabbi.
What store of strength did he need for the next
act in the tragic drama whose scenery had now
begun to shift with darkening swiftness ?

270 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Had his unseen Father, in whom he believed so
profoundly, taken this desolate son to his heart in
the splendors of a mystical hour ? Did it need the
night on Lebanon to fortify Jesus for the days which
were to come ?
He told no person. But he came down the moun
tain a changed and determined man. No more un
certainty, whether apparent or real, troubled his
purpose or controUed his movements. From that
hour, he turned without one hesitating motion to
meet his doom. It has been said of him in a few
strong words which discourage a weaker version of
the crisis : " From that time he set his face stead
fastly towards Jerusalem."
The history of martyrdom has its grandeurs, its
follies, and its delusions, like that of aU other human
enthusiasms ; and, in its awful processes, minor men
have exhibited great qualities. Thousands of them
have studied, in passionate desire to repeat it, the
bearing of Jesus of Nazareth. But when has it been
reduplicated ? Who has trodden such a road as he
with such a step ? It was so human, so sensitive ;
it winced so from anguish; it indicated at every
blood-drop suffering so acute that ordinary sym
pathy has not the nerve to follow it ; it was the
footfall of flesh on fire ; yet it trod like metal on
stone. Bravely to accept the inevitable calls forth a kind
of self-respect which often honors human character,
and takes the form of fortitude or courage. Jesus
elected the avoidable ; forced it, hastened it, and
faced it as if he had been king, not captive of his

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 271
fate. He moulded his own sufferings with the seren
ity of a sculptor modeling the statue of a god.
The Nazarene now set forth upon the itinerary of
his last journey through Palestine, moving from pro
vince to province as occasion dictated, facing or flee
ing immediate danger, as the large plan of his sacri
fice seemed to him to require. His dearest friend
never saw him falter. Relentless, determined, —
seeing it aU the while, — he trod into the trap which
church and state had laid for him in the capital.
Who, in the preconsciousness of a terrible fate,
lives as if it were not to be ? Which of us, knowing
that he is to die, can act as if he were to live ? Jesus
went straight on with common life. Daily duty pre
sented to him, as it always had, the foremost claims.
He preached, he taught, he prayed; he healed, he
rebuked, he forgave, he comforted. He gave his
last six months of life to everything but his own in
terests, to every being except himself. His patients
thronged his path early and late, as they had always
done. Sickness and sorrow accumulated in his way,
leaning upon him more heavily than ever. The woe
of the world clung to him more helplessly, more per
sistently, as if it were a sentient thing, and had a
dim foreknowledge that its opportunity was short.
His own spiritual force responded visibly to the
calls upon it in these intense months. He preached
with an ecstatic absorption. His mental powers
grew at once more profound and more simple. His
discourses at this period were many, and remain
matchless. When has the intellect of Jesus Christ
received anything like its recognition? We have

272 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
been accustomed to think of him so exclusively as a
great religious influence that the supreme quality
of his mind has escaped us.
Very many of his immortal thoughts, dating from
this crisis, were apparently and deliberately thrown
away in private' instruction. His acquired lack of
confidence in mobs gave him reserved opinions about
the uses of public address. He began to question its
permanent value. He became deeply conscious that
he must now seek permanence rather than immediate
effect for the truth which was about to cost him his
life. He began to trust his thought more and more
to his personal friends.
Type and the press did not exist. He had none
of the conditions of the modern reformer.
Yet the Nazarene forecast the methods of influ
ence which would be in power centuries afterwards.
The most eminent orator of history, 'he preferred the
medium of a few intelligent and controlling minds.
He confided his system of faith to twelve unlettered
men. Did he know that these would become the
editors and authors of the greatest publication in
the world ?
There was a suburb of Jerusalem which he came
to love and to seek, a convenient and pleasant retreat
(scarcely two miles away) for a traveler wearied of
the town, or for personal reasons unsafe within it.
In the course of a few brief visits to the capital, —
troubled, hurried stays that sent him forth from the
city sadder than he came, — the heretic preacher,
in these last dark months, had opportunities to culti
vate his warm friendship for one family resident in

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 273
Bethany. This was the preferred household of three
which came nearest of any that he had known since
boyhood to giving him a sense of home.
No closer ties than those between brother and
sister deviated the attachment of Lazarus and Mary,
who were unwedded, and of Martha, a widow, from
their gentle guest. The four made a circle of those
solitaries whose shared, yet separate lives, form the
best material for friendship. A beautiful devotion,
deferent from the hosts, faithful on the part of the
guest, grew into delicate intimacy.
Martha, proprietor of the home, a wealthy house
holder, a little fussy and arbitrary, as good house
keepers are ; Mary, the devotee, a little neglectful
and absent-minded, as dreamers are ; and Lazarus,
the younger brother of the family, made an interest
ing group. Their affection became peculiarly dear
to Jesus. His wasting heart threw tendrils around
them. Their open home was precious to the lonely
man. It is pleasant to think that, at this troubled time
of his life, he knew something of a home of real ease.
He had been so poor, so hunted ; he had so much of
privation, and so little of comfort ! The hospitality
of the poor and of the middle classes, spasmodically
offered, gratefully accepted, had been his usual lot.
He had met it cheerfully ; but his sense of homeless-
ness was pitifully acute.
He once wistfully compared his condition to that
of the wild creatures of the forests and the skies.
The foxes and the birds had their holes and their
nests. The Son of Man, he said, had not where to

274 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
lay his head. These plaintive words constitute one
of the rare complaints of his hard life.
His experience since the evening on the mountain
had been more than at some other times a desolate
one. At the very outset of his first journey to Jeru
salem (traveling by way of Samaria), he had been
refused outright admission to a village where, being
tired out, he had arranged to spend the night. This
breach of the commonest laws of Oriental hospitality
was so incredible that the indignation of the twelve
knew no restraint. They demanded, in a rage, that
the Rabbi should smite the offending town with the
wrath of heaven, clearly believing that he could do
it if he would. Gently rebuking them, the wearied
man patiently took his march again and humbly
walked on to another village. He showed no resent
ment. Worse than this had happened in Judea. To one
of his public addresses at Jerusalem befell an omi
nous interruption. Something, hurled by an unseen
hand, struck him violently. It proved to be a stone.
Smarting with the pain of a severe blow, quivering
with the nervous shock, the preacher paused and
steadfastly regarded the crowd. He perceived clear
signs of an intention to mob him by stoning him to
death. He changed color. His fine lips parted. What
just denunciation would they roll forth ? What aw
ful retort ? Earthquake, fire, flood, sunstroke, the
blows of the winds, or the resources of sudden death
which lurk in the human body — were these at his
disposal? Which would he select from the invisi-

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 275
ble ranks of his mystical guardsmen to protect him
self ? to punish his assailant ?
He chose the sting of a gentle word. " Many
kindnesses have I done you. . . . For which of them
do ye stone me ? "
Heartsick and hopesick, he had been lovingly re
ceived into Martha's luxurious home. He had sat
with Mary under the tents of green branches erected
in the court, or near the house, on Festival Week,
and rested in the flickering of cool shadows, talking
quietly of the great thoughts with which his mind was
throbbing, while the mistress of the house bustled
to and fro ordering his upper room, or preparing
for many guests. Of these he was the most distin
guished. He was treated accordingly. The social
position of Lazarus and the ladies of the family was
so prominent that their unconcealed devotion to the
Nazarene made them no special trouble in ecclesi
astical quarters ; they were, for whatever reason,
let alone in their heresy. At all events, they never
wavered from it. They became and remained his
fast and affectionate friends. Every comfort that
wealth and love could command their hospitality
crowded upon him. The worn-out man, accustomed
to a rude and simple lot, gratefully drew one long,
sighing breath in the soft air of gentle surroundings.
His exquisite delicacy of nature rested in it, like a
bruised nerve, long lacerated and neglected. Far
beyond common woe or want as his personal emer
gency had gone, all human distinctions looked
smaller than ever to him ; and he had never rated

276 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
them as of much consequence. But the educated
sympathy of refinement he did not, for he could not,
undervalue. He needed it too much just then. It
came at the right time. Friendship, at its best and
sanest, he tasted with a touching gratitude ; the ripe
and beautiful fruit he laid gently down when the
hour came ; no one heard him complain because he
must relinquish it.
It was in Perea, and the travelers were moving
with caution. He had found himself in such immi
nent peril in Judea that he had kept out of the pro
vince for a time, teaching, healing, and preaching
as usual wherever he went. He was about a day's
journey from Bethany. A sudden message reached
him from his friends there :
" He whom thou lovest is sick. Lord, hasten to
him!" But Jesus did not hasten to Lazarus. The inex
plicable mood which he had more than once shown
in emergencies took possession of him. With ap
parent disregard of the appeal, he went on about his
work where and as he was. Two days passed.
Strange silence came upon him. He would not talk
about the thing.
Two days ! A man might die and be buried in
the East in that time. And this his chosen friend,
of whose lavish hospitality he had freely partaken ;
this the household where, above aU others in Judea,
he loved and was loved ! It began to be rumored
that the healer was afraid to go to Bethany ; that
he would let his friend die, — like any timid, com-

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 277
mon man, — rather than risk his life so near Jerusa
lem. His disciples interrogated him persistently.
But the most that they gained was this enigmatic
explanation of his conduct : " It is that you might
believe." The sick man was asleep, he said. " When I go,
I will awaken him." Then the twelve remembered
the little maid, the child of Jairus, and how the
Rabbi spoke about her, affirming that she was not
dead. " If he sleep, he shall do weU," they answered
cheerfuUy, for they were much relieved, being anx
ious about their master's reputation in this matter.
But Jesus turned upon them one of his long and
silent looks."
" I teU you plainly," he said with decision, " Laz
arus is dead."
Suddenly, at the end of two days, he gave the
order to start for Bethany. And now the fishermen
took fright themselves. They begged him for his
life's sake and for theirs to keep away from the re
gion of the capital. They reminded him of the stone
which struck him on that startling day. They re
minded him that if Lazarus were dead there was
nothing to be done.
But he looked at them and strode on. His staff
scattered the dust far ahead of his party. It was
almost impossible now to keep up with him. His
unaccountable indifference and delay had warmed
into what seemed an unreasonable anxiety and hurry.
The talith that he wore that day was white, and
his tall figure looked like a piUar of light, as he
moved rapidly forward, in advance of his disciples,

278 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
who plodded after, rough and faithful, obedient and
perplexed, — perplexed as they always were. They
spent their lives in an intellectual strain. A man's
faith is worth something when it burns through such
mental conditions as theirs.
They overtook him before they came to their
journey's end ; and the group entered Bethany to
gether. The first news which reached them was as bad as
it could be. It was, indeed, as the Rabbi had said.
Lazarus was dead. More than that, he was dead
and buried.
Lazarus was the most prominent citizen in Beth
any, and the circumstances of his death were on
everybody's tongue. The village was astir with
mourners. Neighbors gossiped about the dead man's
tarrying friend, — not kindly. Muttered reproaches,
displeased and distressed faces, met the healer every
where. Before he had set foot within the borders
of the village, he felt himself to be the most unpop
ular man in it. He looked a little surprised at this.
He had grown more and more restless during the lat
ter part of the journey ; he had eaten little and with
difficulty ; he would take no rest at noon, but hur
ried along ; his nervous system seemed to be on an
unusual tension ; his expression was less serene,
more intent, and now it began to indicate sudden
pain. He panted slightly, as if he had received an
unexpected blow upon the face which affected his
breathing. He had stopped — so strong was the
popular feeling — with his group of friends about

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 279
him, and made no movement to advance into the
village. A grumbling by-stander viciously observed that
the Nazarene was not in a hurry to enter the house
where he had been so well treated, and whose be
reavement he could have prevented if he had taken
the trouble; for "there seemed to be no doubt but
that he was a very distinguished healer.
Jesus entered into conversation with no one, but
stood silently, looked so troubled that his disciples
felt discouraged. What did it all mean ? How
would he defend himself when people caUed him a
craven or a faithless friend? Why had he let it
happen as he had ? Why? Why? Why?
The old, unanswered question faltered to their
lips, and worried their hearts. Their minds found
no reply to it.
At last one of them plucked his robe, and whis
pered to him that Martha was coming. Jesus raised
his eyes, it seemed reluctantly, to meet hers. He
was prepared for any reproaches.
But, upon the first glance at her, his whole expres
sion changed. Hers was subdued, affectionate. The
voluble housewife, touched by grief, had acquired
a dignity and a gentleness which made another
woman of her. Her demeanor was self-possessed.
Her voice was controUed. Her eye met his frankly.
No veiled reproof was in it ; scarcely a question
troubled it. It trusted him.
"Lord," she said affectionately, "if thou hadst
been here " — She choked and stopped, but col
lected herself bravely. " My brother would not

280 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
have died," she added. " But I know that even
now, whatsoever thou shalt ask of God " —
" He shall rise again," replied Jesus quickly. He
was plainly more moved by the confidence of the
family than he could have been if he had been
covered with the hottest reproaches of grief and of
disappointed friendship. He seemed anxious now to
meet Martha on her own ground, and to interpret
the inexplicable position in which he had placed
himself. "Yes, Lord, I know. At the last day," said
Martha drearily.
Jesus lifted his face, his clasped hands parted and
outstretched above the weeping woman's head. The
by-standers had ceased to whisper. Evening was
coming on. The light was low. The air was quiet.
Clearly through the stiUness arose the voice of the
Nazarene, uttering for the first time the great words
that have thrilled the mourners of the world for
two thousand years, from the wail of that anguish
to the cry of our own, and which wiU be uttered in
triumph till the burial hour of death itself shall
strike: " I am the Resurrection and the Life. He
that believeth on me, though he were dead . . . shaU
live." ...
Mary was not like Martha. She could not go
hurrying out among all the neighbors. Her heart
was breaking. She could not speak. She would
answer no questions. She was crushed by the aston
ished despair which begins when the first excitement
of the burial is past. She was lying tearless, deso-

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 281
late, comfortless, when Martha came back for her.
The superior will of the elder sister could not do
much with the grief of Mary. The gentle mourner
had developed the unexpected decision which suffer
ing gives sometimes to the docile. Mary shook her
head when Martha, in considerable excitement, took
her by the hand, indicating that they were to go
forth together, and at once.
" But the Rabbi caUs for you," urged Martha,
with some of the impatience which the stronger feels
for the weaker sufferer.
Mary arose without a word, veiled herself, and
went out.
Now Jesus dreaded this meeting with Mary ; she
would make it harder than the elder sister had. She
was so sensitive, so dependent ; her nature was aU
love ; Lazarus had been her idol. They had been
nearer of an age than he and Martha ; they were
playmates in their little years and confidants in their
larger ones. Mary was very dear to Jesus. Her
high-minded nature, her thoughtfulness, her delicacy,
her essential womanliness appealed to him. And
Mary had trusted him ; he remembered how much !
Bereaved of her brother, bereaved of her friend
ship, shaken of her belief in everything that had
made the Rabbi precious and grand to her, could
she trust him still ? She had not the force of will
for it. But she had the force of love for it. One
look into her delicate, haggard face told him that.
In spite of everything that had happened, she trusted
him utterly. This was the kind of trust for which
he sought all his life. • Where had he found it before ?

282 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
" If thou hadst been here," she began, in Martha's
very words, " he had not died, — he had not died ! "
But there she faltered and broke quite down ; and
the poor girl sobbed so piteously that the coldest
eye in the crowd softened, and many a neighbor
turned his face away. Mary had thrown herself
upon the ground at the healer's feet ; her lips and
her tears touched them. His face worked ; he was
greatly moved ; it seemed as if he could not bear te
look at her.
Suddenly the by-standers heard a heart-breaking
sound. It was the groan of a strong and sensitive
man, who has repressed the expression of grief tiU
it has revolted against him, and wiU obey him no
longer. The Nazarene was weeping.
Lazarus had lain in his elaborate tomb three days ;
being four days dead. It was the fancy of his people
to believe that the spirit clung to the flesh until
such time, when it parted therefrom forever ; and
the laws that govern the insensate body when de
prived of its lord, the soul, should, as a consequence,
begin to act without hindrance.
The tomb of Lazarus was by the wayside, carved
into the limestone of the hill on which the village
was built. It was, in fact, a spacious cave running
deep into the rock ; one descended into it by many
steps ; it was protected by a heavy, movable slab.
The silver foliage of olive-trees softened the scenery
above it ; flowering vines hung over the f acade of the
vault, and everything that wealth and family defer-

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 283
ence knew how to do had signalized it ; but there
was nothing cheerful about it. The Hebrew grave
knew not the hopes of a happier faith, and little of
the dehcacies of modern feeling. Lazarus was dead.
He was buried. There was no more to be said. He
was locked back into the cells of the earth's ancient
prison, and despair, the jailer, held the keys.
"Where have you laid him?" the healer had
asked, in a voice almost inaudible from grief.
Some one had silently pointed in the direction of
the family burial place.
Some one else had said :
" See ! How much he loved him ! "
Whispering and muttering, the coUection of peo
ple, which was now large for a viUage crowd, had
foUowed the Rabbi, his disciples, and the bereaved
family. The outside mourners hastened to swell
the number. As they approached the tomb, they
began to wail aloud officiously. This seemed to
trouble the Nazarene ; and one of the twelve tried
to hush the dreary sounds.
The sun was now declining fast. The evening
was cool. The sky was a deep, palpitating blue,
brushed with rose, that had taken on the form of
a great wing, extending almost from west to east.
This was an unusual effect, and attracted attention.
Shadows were already beginning to dream among
the olive-trees. The air was remarkably still. Not
a leaf stirred. There was no more breath in the
wind than there was life behind the stone that locked
the cavern. The living themselves felt suffocated.
Respiration seemed to be ceasing in the world.

284 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Jesus stood alone, apart from his friends. He
and the tomb faced each other. He regarded it
steadily. The sepulchre seemed to frown. The
wing of rose-color in the skies deepened slightly.
The tint was reflected upon the white robe of Jesus.
His hands were clasped so tightly that they seemed
welded together ; and his fingers darkened towards
their tips, where the circulation was checked. The
features of his face were rigid. He observed no one.
No man dared address him.
What thoughts, incommunicable, incomprehensi
ble, traversed the solitary corridors of his mind?
The supreme deed of his life lay before him. What
if he failed in it ? Whathadhestakedon.it? His
reputation for common, human gratitude and loyalty
to friendship was precious to him. His fame as a
compassionate healer had its noble value. If these
went, what should he leave ? The memory of a man
who had preached great truths and neglected prac
tical virtues, — a prospect peculiarly abhorrent to
him. But if these went, what else would go with
them ? What grander name, what more transcend
ent claim ? If the events of the next half hour did
not verify the most solemn, the most mysterious
assumptions of his history, what would be lost? The
hopes, the ideals, the future of one heart-broken
man ? Nay ; the hopes, the ideals, the future of a
world. For thus he did believe. " I am the Resur
rection," he had said ; " I am the Life."
The moment was so critical that he covered his
face with his hands, that no man might see its exi
gency. But all men felt that he was praying.

THE MOUNTAIN: AND THE TOMB 285
When Jesus lifted his face, the people fell back.
The stillness without was as deep as that within the
tomb. He pointed to the stone.
" RoU it away ! " he commanded.
Recoiling hands obeyed him. Ghastly fear had
settled upon the spectators. Many of them would
have escaped the scene if they had found themselves
able to stir.
Jesus advanced slowly. He had grown very pale.
Otherwise he showed no agitation. He treated the
tomb authoritatively. He had the aspect of a king
about to overthrow a great foe.
" Lazarus ? "
Something in the accent laid upon this single
word shook the souls of those who heard it. Could
a dead man hear ? Should the buried answer ? Je
sus bent as if he would have entered the place of
burial. " Lazarus! Come forth!"
The shuddering breaths of the people could be
distinctly heard. For a moment there was no other
answer to this awful summons. Then the sepulchre
replied. She yielded hard. Centuries crowded
those moments.. Dusk was deepening. Within the
house of death it was quite dark. . . .
Are we sane men or delirious ? We are too many
to be mad ! Cling together ! Close up, shoulder
to shoulder. Take courage and reason from one
another's eyes. For what, in God's name, do we
see? . . .
Stooping to pass through the low door of the
tomb, the outlines of a fearful figure stirred.

286 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Lazarus, four days a dead man, hindered by his
grave-clothes, moved with difficulty. He slowly
raised himself upright, walked out a few steps, stood
bewildered among all the people, and solemnly re
garded the Nazarene.

CHAPTER XIII
INTO JERUSALEM
What was to be said ? Jerusalem and her sub
urbs trembled with wonder and dismay. The as
tounding story admitted of no qualifying interpre
tation. It must be accepted or rejected altogether.
It soon became evident that rejection was impossible.
Lazarus had been a live man a week ago. Dead,
and four days buried yesterday, he was alive to-day.
It was only necessary to visit Bethany and see for
one's self. Hundreds hurried, gaping, to the spot.
Curiosity inundated the village. His house was be
sieged. It was only a matter of hours before the
incredible facts were dashed into the face of the
church. The governing authorities took fright.
The Sanhedrin was hastily convened. The case of
the Jewish nation against Jesus of Nazareth was
formally opened that very Friday, within twenty-
four hours after Lazarus had emerged from his
tomb, and stood staring amid the flowers, in the
approach of night, among the appaUed and silent
witnesses of the inconceivable truth.
Strictly speaking, the preliminaries to the arrest
of the great heretic w.ere all illegal. The Sanhedrin
had no civil or criminal jurisdiction, except by the
mercy of Rome, and the hastiness of their procedure

288 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
was in itself irregular. But all formalities, ecclesi
astical, civic, or humane, were distorted by one mad
thrust. Lazarus had come out of his grave, — how,
who could pretend to explain ? But he was out, and
the Nazarene had done the, deed. The people were
frenzied with the thrill of it. They were massing
from all quarters to rally about Jesus. The cry,
" Messiah ! the Messiah ! " rang through capital
and countryside.
Pharisees and Sadducees, priests and scribes, stood
quaking. The greatest insurrection of Hebrew re
cord seemed to be upon them. It would be no insig
nificant riot if this terrible Rabbi should lift a finger
to enforce his royal claims. Then Rome would stir.
Her legions would awake. Her awful force would
roll upon the rebels. The Temple, the nation, would
be ground to dust that a wind might blow away.
And whose fault that ? His, — all his ; this rustic
pretender's, this indomitable preacher's, this scan
dalous heretic's ! The venom against Jesus, always
sullenly lurking among the religious classes, now
developed into sudden rabies. One of those pas
sionate ecclesiastical hatreds which challenge all
other forms of rage swept through the Sanhedrin.
In the uproar of indecision, — all united only in
fearing and abhorring the Nazarene, no two agreed
as to what should be done to him, — the cold voice
of the chief ecclesiastical officer was heard.
Joseph Caiaphas, being High-priest of the Jewish
nation, and forever to be known by this deed that
he did, arose and adroitly put the case. In a few
cynical words, sedulously adapted to inflame the

INTO JERUSALEM 289
animosity and alarm of the Sanhedrin, he brought
it to his will. The sinister suggestion, that here was
one man's life against the life of a nation, was
enough. A glow of what was called patriotism suf
fused the convention. Jesus of Nazareth was hotly
indicted as a criminal subject to the death penalty.
In Jerusalem what restlessness, what malice ! In
Bethany what happiness, what peace !
Jesus had done one of the bravest deeds of his
life. He had gone straight from the opened sepul
chre to the house of his friends. In the blazing
state of public feeling, this was a dangerous step.
The rumor of the resurrection had fired aU his
friends and foes, and, in the region of the capital,
his foes held the balance of power. Why did he
not immediately and quietly slip away, as he had
often done before when the wonder-working force in
him had gone too far for his own personal safety ?
But his heart and purpose took him, and he went
home with Lazarus.
Curtained by the soft, warm night, the family
group trod in a celestial hush. For very awe the
neighbors and spectators held aloof, following at the
distance of their fear.
Four silent figures moved on together up the vil
lage street. No man dared approach them. Mary
and Martha feU behind ; Martha was sobbing with
joy, but Mary was as still as a marble saint. Before
them, separate from tears or smiles, from common
human laws or expression, two leaned together and
apart from all the world. Dim in the darkness, Laza-

290 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
rus clung to the strong arm whose support he sought.
He seemed to be listening yet for the voice that had
summoned him from the fastnesses of death. But
Jesus did not speak. Moving, like spirits, the twain
passed on. And so Lazarus came to his house. The
mourners had left it but an hour ago. The over
turned tables and couches — the customary signals
of affliction — were not yet replaced. The disorder
of death and burial still pervaded the expectant
court and the beautiful rooms. All were empty.
The family were alone. No profane eye witnessed
that solemn coming home. At the threshold Jesus
paused, and extended his arms in benediction and
in welcome. Lazarus fell, like a shadow, at his feet.
The women dropped upon their faces. No one
spoke. The faint light from one hanging lamp left
by the mourners revealed the majestic form but not
the inscrutable face of the Nazarene.
... In this shelter of awe, of joy, of remoteness
from aU usual pains and pleasures, he remained for
the respite and the risk of several days and nights.
Jerusalem began to mutter for his life, but he stayed
on. He was visible to no man. Shut in with the
solemn experience of that one family selected to
know the ecstasy of heaven while enduring the an
guish of earth, he veiled himself.
Who shaU say what interchange of feeling or of
thought in that quiet space passed between himself
and the living man who had been dead? Who
knows if Lazarus needed yet the glorious vitality,
the supernal power, which had dragged him from
dissolution ? Is it to be thought that Jesus, careful

INTO JERUSALEM 291
for the permanence of the mighty thing that had
been done, chose to watch for a little over the man
on whose body he had wrought the deed of a divin
ity? He had done it under the limitations of a
man. What if Lazarus showed signs of weakness,
of relapse into the disease which had slain him ? If
he should sink suddenly? If the astonished vital
force, wrenched back into the mortal frame by the
law above laws which it had obeyed, should hesitate
anywhere? Dead Lazarus lived. Who could say
that he would continue to live ?
Sensitiveness to possible failure, and anxiety for
results, exist in proportion to refinement of power.
In those days smitten with awe and ecstasy, whose
scroll no one unrolled with the shielded family at
Bethany, did the heart of their great friend quiver
with an anxiety over the condition of Lazarus which
even they could not divine or share ?
These were the last days of happiness or calm
which Jesus of Nazareth was to know in the land
that he had tried to bless with his mysterious per
sonality, and which now resounded with curses upon
his gentle head.
This last little cup of peace was tinged — as every
thing in his life was discolored with suffering — by
the solitary and tremendous responsibilities attach
ing to him who could give a dead man life.
The future of the Christian faith rested at the
crisis, to an extent impossible to measure, upon the
necessity that Lazarus should remain a live man for
a sufficient time. It has been said 1 that he lived
on for thirty years. 1 Tradition.

292 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Bearing within himself the experience of corrup
tion, what vigor did he need to reconquer the sources
of life ! How did he get it ? Holding the awful se
crets of death, at whose door humanity has knocked
in vain for knowledge from the break of time till
now, did he ever reveal them by a word, a sign ?
Did curious Martha or reverent Mary ever share
with him one lesson of his terrible and blessed edu
cation ? Rather to his last hour did there rest upon
Lazarus something of the dignity of death. His lips
were closed. No person pried upon their reticence.
His lips were closed like those of the sepulchre from
which he had been summoned, and to whose dark
hospitality he must — who can guess with what
untold reluctance ? who can say with what inexpres
sible hope and courage ? — on some day return.
Be these things as they may, the dead man was
alive. By hundreds, by thousands, the witnesses of
the fact poured into Bethany. So intense was the
public excitement that the Sanhedrin were at their
wits' end. It is a matter of history that, before the
month was out within whose dark span the greatest
of dramas was to thrill the world, the authorities of
the Jewish Church seriously contemplated an at
tempt to put Lazarus to death again.
The Nazarene was now in imminent peril. Threats
of excommunication against any person who acknow
ledged his Messianic claims vied with popular in
ducements to effect his arrest. It was determined
at aU hazards to put a stop to his career. The dan
ger became so acute that Jesus reluctantly left
Bethany.

INTO JERUSALEM 293
The strange impressions under which his move
ments were ordered produced a plan of action which
gave for the moment to the most courageous of men
the appearance of retreat from his fate.
" My time is not yet come," was a favorite phrase
with him. Suddenly he disappeared. Jerusalem
and Bethany sought without success for him. The
detectives of the Sanhedrin tracked him in vain.
At a sufficient distance from their malice ; in a
little town known as Ephraim, always remembered
lovingly for the shelter that it gave to the hunted
man at the crudest crisis of his lot ; on the borders
of the wilderness, he crept into a temporary safety.
But he dared not, or he did not, long remain in any
one retreat. He was soon heard of in Perea, and
even in certain districts of Galilee. The itinerant
habits of his public life were still strong upon him.
He could not keep stiU. He could not stop work.
With intensified energy he pursued the service to
humanity which he so passionately loved. To lighten
suffering ! To ease sickness ! To help poverty !
To shame guilt ! To confirm purity ! To heal, to
comfort, to teach, to warn ! With exclamatory force
these motives propelled him. Those last few weeks
brimmed with marvels wrought out of a dedication
which would have burned him to ashes but for his
iUustrious sanity. He kept his perfect self-posses
sion. He never lost his eminent calm. He worked
as if he were to work on forever.
Lepers crawling to him ran from him : they came
corrupt ; they went clean. The born blind groped
to him, and left him, lingering reluctantly for the

294 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
last sight of his face, — the first human countenance
that they had ever seen, the one to be retained by
the newly responsive, sensitive retina as the tender-
est it should ever see. His heart, his mind, were
fuU. It seemed as if he gave himself no time to
consider his own fate. He ignored his own perils.
He worked as if he had been the most popular Rabbi
in Palestine.
The condemned heretic never wore the aspect of
an offender.
He did not even have the comfort which comes
from the grandeur of suffering greatly endured and
let alone. He was haunted and taunted by the
pettiest things.
In the territory of Herod deliberate traps were
laid for the views of Jesus about divorce, it being
the purpose publicly to draw from him expressions
of opinion which would expose him to the vengeance
of the monarch, whose family history made him irri
table on this delicate point.
John the prophet had perished for such cause.
Why not this other? Jesus parried the diabolic
casuistry with adroitness which astounded and si
lenced the wiliest polemicists in the province. They
could not even involve him in a rabbinical contro
versy, that might have opened a fresh charge of
heresy against him then and there.
He was pursued by paltry annoyances even among
his own friends. Those nearest to him fretted him
with incredible obtuseness. • His very dearest cut
him with the slenderest blades.
His favorite disciples wrangled even then about

INTO JERUSALEM 295
their official positions at right and left of him when
he should come to the throne. He found it impos
sible to make them understand the very essence of
his claims, the very basis of his doctrines. Femi
nine ambition laid a little finger on his great trou
bles, and the mother of James and John preferred
a formal petition for the advancement of her sons
when he should come into political power. He
knew to the fuU the incoherence of human fate
which does not relieve great souls moving on grand
errands of smaU worries, or free the noble from
paltry cares.
His chosen twelve gave themselves over to jeal
ousies almost too petty to credit or to record, while
this sad and solitary man, going patiently to defeat,
was making ready for death.
There now began the most extraordinary episode
in the annals of missionary travel, — the last jour
ney of the Nazarene to Jerusalem. While yet in a
safe position, he abruptly elected to thrust himself
into danger. Sheltered, he tore himself out of his
refuge. It was the bud of the year. Passover time
was coming on. It was not necessary for him to
attend the great festival, — he, an excommunicated
church -member, whose deference to ecclesiastical
customs could do nothing but irritate. But, as if
he were yet one of the most honored of her rabbis,
he chose to respect the religious observances of his
church. Quite as if nothing had happened, exactly
as if nothing were at stake, he started with his
twelve and some other friends, forming one of the
little festive bands with which Palestine was now
stirring joyously. ,

296 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
He was under no delusion. No false hope played
with his unerring inteUigence. He knew perfectly
what that journey meant. Deliberately he chose to
put himself into the very throat of danger. Stead
ily, sturdily, without one backward step, without one
hesitating movement, he marched to his doom.
Its very details were made, at that early day,
quite evident to him. How, no one asked. Upon
his exquisite sensitiveness the whole horrible minu-
tise were stamped. AU through those tired days
and waking nights he lived his fate through before
its time. The delicacy of imagination, which is the
essence of power and pleasure in the highest organi
zation, is always the fatal source of its pain. He
knew to the uttermost the relentlessness of this law.
Add to this his mystical enlightenment as to facts
unknown to other men. Here was illumination
whose working is no easier for us to explain to-day
than it was for his fishermen friends to comprehend
as they turned their faces towards Jerusalem with
him in the laughing spring weather. They alone
among all the happy pilgrims were going upon an
awful errand which they did not, would not, could
not understand.
He tried to explain it to them as they traveled.
He told them dreadful things. He used unsparing
language. What he should undergo, and when and
where, he related with distinctness. He spoke with
calmness of unendurable torment.
Where were the senses of his friends ? Dulled
by trouble, or blunted by love ? Dazed, perhaps,
by the sheer force of events which hurried them

INTO JERUSALEM 297
along a course inconceivable to their prepossessions.
They acted like people stupefied by the conviction
that they knew better than their Rabbi what should
happen to him. Aching for sympathy, he found
himself denied it because his dearest friends did not
credit his preconsciousness of his fate. They treated
him as too sanguine persons treat those more sensi
tive, and hence more anxious than themselves, dis
missing the matter as the nightmare of an unhealthy
temperament. Yet it were unphilosophical to blame
them. He never did. It was a severe education
that their affection for their Lord brought upon
these simple-natured men. They loved him accord
ing to their capacity. At least it was the best kind
of love that he had. He clung to it more and more
wistfully as the end drew on.
Burning Jericho swam in a crater of heat. The
travelers would have known where they were by the
temperature, if not by the map. They must pass
through a scorched and treeless region to reach the
place, and they arrived exhausted. This was the
town where the inhabitants could wear nothing
warmer than linen in winter. And spring was
bursting into summer now. The heat was oppres
sive to strangers, and more than hard enough to
those who had traveled on foot, and who reached
the city at the end of a long day's march. The sky
was like a metal cover shutting one down into a
brazier set upon coals. The air was a furnace.
Jesus felt his strength attacked by the climate
of this place. It was a little misery, but it made

298 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
his greater sufferings more difficult to bear. The
scented gusts of fire beat without mercy upon his
burning face and brow. The too-sweet odors of
Jericho the Perfumed aroused distaste in fine
senses. He lifted his eyes wearily to the balsam-
plantations, whose rich gums devoured the fresh
ness of the air. These were the famous plantations
once given by Anthony to Cleopatra, and sold by
her to Herod. Here was a bustling town. The
streets were f uU and noisy. Trade chattered every
where, — the great balsam traffic of Palestine, which
made this spot the centre of schemes and frauds,
and the meeting-place of commercial natures. Rome
took heavy revenues there, and made much account
of her tax-coUectors, whose duties were not light in
such a place, and whose persons were bitterly un
popular with her subjects. The Hebrews shunned
these men with a distrust as scorching as the atmos
phere. The chief collector, wishing to see the great Rabbi
as he entered the perfumed city at the head of his
band of pilgrims, climbed into a thick tree by the
roadside to escape the crush of the crowd, for he was
an under-sized man, and also to escape its enmity,
for he was not an obtuse person. There he quietly
took the measure of the famous preacher.
He saw a tall, finely modeled man, browned by
the excess of the sun, but singularly without redness
or rudeness of complexion. Jesus was walking
slowly. His staff looked ready to drop from his
tired hand; it had a white tint at the tip, like a
sceptre of silver blazing in the hot air. 'His face

INTO JERUSALEM 299
bore signs of weariness both of the spirit and of the
flesh, but none of weakness.
A puzzling strength seemed to fortify this ex
hausted pilgrim. The collector examined him with
a discernment in which reverence began to get the
better of curiosity. He did not speak to the distin
guished Rabbi. He would have Hked to do so ; his
heart went out in such a wave of longing as this
man of public experience had never felt to any pri
vate citizen. Official life had done its cold work
upon him ; sly opportunities had not passed him by ;
the consciousness of always being unpopular had
told upon him ; he was accumulating peccadillos ;
ideas of honor to which he had sworn allegiance at
the outset of his career were somehow slipping into
phantasmagoria. The man of the world who had
sunk a little lower than he was meant to go, or than
he had ever thought to be, regarded the Nazarene
with a strange pang, half shame, half moral resolve.
Then he saw that Jesus had stopped, and was look
ing him fuU in the face.
" Come down, Zacchaeus," said the Rabbi ; " I
sup at your house."
It had not been a cautious thing to do, but Jesus
had done it with his usual independence. The Jews
hated the collector, but Jesus became the guest of
Zacchaeus at Jericho without asking his country
men's permission. The moral crisis in the life of
an unpopular and tempted man appealed to him so
powerfuUy that he put aside every other considera
tion to reach it. This one soul above all others in
Jericho needed him. Here was one of the opportu-

300 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
nities to help an individual which he never disre
garded. The collector entertained the Rabbi deferentially;
he poured out the hospitality of an opulent home
with the generous gratitude of a man who has been
forced back to his true self by the power of a higher
nature. But the people muttered.
At this stage of his royal career, what kind of
a king was that? Zacchseus was not recognized in
respectable Hebrew society. Should the Messiah
of the nation fellowship with an outcast? Jesus
ignored these complaints. But they stirred sound
waves in the hot balsamic air, and echoes of them
came into the capital. Every Passover pilgrim car
ried his own tale. The conduct of the distinguished
heretic was the subject of discussion in every tent,
in every shop and house ; there was not a political
or ecclesiastical caucus in Jerusalem which did not
hiss with his name.
Jesus found his acquaintance with this man of
affairs at Jericho a comforting episode to himself.
This successful effort to uplift the moral tone of an
other was a temporary diversion from the acute con
sciousness of his own lot. The two parted with a
mutual regret. The man of the world looked rever
ently at the Nazarene : he felt that the man of an
other world existed ; he had never believed it before ;
he tried to express his thoughts, — he who was adept
in the diplomacy of Roman official life, — but he
could not, and he turned away to hide his emotion.
Jesus moved on at the head of his pilgrim band.
The bright morning blazed like a huge camp-fire.

INTO JERUSALEM 301
The party walked on among the plantations. Jeri
cho on her oasis added the breath of leaf -honey
to the perfumes of the balsams. In the sickening
scents, the path swam before the eyes of Jesus. His
thoughts swam, too. That brief distraction vanished
out of them. Jericho, its welcome, its hospitality,
the collector and his moral emergency, began to dim.
Images of unspeakable things which had beset the
imagination before returned. OutUnes of terrible
scenes began to fill in. Jesus walked giddUy^ and
was seen once or twice to stagger. . . . The sun
smote his head and made a rim around it. . . .
What was that ? Thorns ? He passed his hand
over his brow and then examined the palm carefully.
What color did he see ? One of the twelve spoke
to him. He found it impossible to answer. He
waUsed on silently. His head sank upon his breast.
. . . What sights ! What sensations ! Surely they
would pass soon. He quickened his steps. But it
aU kept pace with him. . . .
So he came into the great gorge through which
the road from Jericho wound harshly towards Jeru
salem. It was a steep, rocky cut, rough to pass and
haunted by robbers. Six hours' travel on foot took
the ascent from six hundred feet below to nearly
three thousand above the level of the Mediterranean.
It was an exhausting climb.
Jesus walked at the head of his Passover band.
Shadows and lights from the broken features of the
rocks that lined the way alternately iUuminated and
veiled his ascending figure. The gorge grew ruder.
Its dreariness deepened. He looked down into its

302 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
grim depths with a sick repulsion ; they seemed to
be waiting below for him.
" Though I walk through the yaUey of death " —
Old words from the Scriptures of his people came
to him. He reinforced his strength for the ascent,
which he made powerfully and silently. Once or
twice he slipped unaccountably, and seemed to
weaken ; but when asked what had befallen him, he
made no reply.
At moments he moved like a man who carried
some strange, intolerable burden.
. . . What was that upon his shoulders, bearing
heavily upon them, crushing him to the ground?
Had the light spring air acquired weight? He put
up his hand and brushed off something unseen. It
seemed to him to have a frightful shape, significant
of disgrace, portending agony.
" Through the valley of the shadow . . . Thou
shalt be with me."
And now the festal bands began to gather them
selves in preparation for the journey's end. Jerusa-
lem lay yonder ; the city of God and of his people.
Soon the marble and gold of the Temple would cut
the glittering air. Soon the ancient Songs of Ascent
would swell from ten thousand throats as the pil
grims climbed the last slopes to the sacred city.
Soon the joyful solemnity of the Passover supper
would blot the hardship of the pilgrimage from a
weary memory. The lambs, already bound and
bleating, with gentle, patient faces waited for the
sacrifice.

JERUSALEM FROM MOUNT OF OLIVES

INTO JERUSALEM 303
It was Bethany, the peaceful hamlet carried on
the shoulder of the Mount of Olives. Jesus and his
party had lingered here. It lacked now six days of
the Passover. He longed for a temporary, rest, for
the touch of tried friendship. His emergency was
so great that he felt a pathetic need of a little
comfort. The usual Passover crowd was increased to an
extraordinary size. From all corners of Palestine
and all quarters of the East, sightseers had added
themselves to the customary pilgrims. Cold curi
osity, poUtical and ecclesiastical malice, blotted the
religious anniversary.
The name of Jesus of Nazareth was on every lip.
Rumor had run far and wide with the recent events
of his career. It was said that he was coming into
Jerusalem at the head of phalanxes ; that he was
prepared to take the city by some adroit feint or
solid blow ; that he was ready to defy Rome, to head
a successful insurrection, and to capture the throne.
It was no longer a secret that the Sanhedrin had in
dicted him, and that this condemned heretic would
not fly. On the contrary, he had faced his fate
deliberately, and had been seen within two miles of
the capital. Crisis was in the air. AU the world
hurried to be present at the climax. Crowds poured
out into Bethany to obtain a sight of the great
offender. But in Bethany he was loved and trusted, and
Bethany met the general agitation by a feast whereat
he was the guest of honor. It was a Sabbath feast,
for he had arrived on Friday evening. Although

304 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
the supper was held in a private house, it partook of
a public character.
His personal friends, the most distinguished citi
zens in the viUage, were prominent in the entertain
ment. Living Lazarus himself, the startling object
of every gaze, was present.
Martha's housewifely genius was lavished upon
the occasion. She meant to make this a splendid
affair. True, Lazarus was alive and the Rabbi had
come, but supper must be properly served neverthe
less. Martha was very busy.
But Mary had slipped away out of sight, no one
knew why ; and it was a general surprise when she
was discovered in the attitude of worship at the
Rabbi's feet. A precious perfume swiftly fiUed
the dining-hall, and it was seen that Mary had
broken a box of spikenard and was anointing Jesus
with the costly tribute.
The treasurer of the twelve — he whose name has
become the synonym of infamy — spoke up curtly
with caustic reproach :
" This spikenard was worth nearly fifty dollars.
Why was it not sold and the proceeds given to
charity ? "
Strictly, there was not much force in this charge
of extravagance, for fifty dollars would have been
a small price at Rome for an alabastron of Indian
nard. But Judas had the adroitness of an unde
tected peculator. He set up pseudo-philanthropic
standards, and recaUed the general poverty. It was
well known that two hundred dinars (about thirty
dollars) could be made to provide bread for five

INTO JERUSALEM 305
thousand families, and that one dinar made the
wages of a day-laborer.
" This vast sum should have been given to the
poor," urged the treasurer severely.
The eyes of Jesus softly sought those of Mary.
He smiled gravely.
Mary glanced from him to her, brother, then looked
back at the Rabbi. Her heart was so full of adora
tion that she could not have spoken a word. Laza
rus watched the two in the sacred silence which now
so often enveloped him. He made no effort to enter
into the scene.
Slowly raising one white, tremulous finger, Mary
pointed at her brother solemnly, and sank upon her
knees at the feet of Jesus. There she veiled her face.
The eyes of the guests fiUed.
A fragment of the broken alabastron rolled in the
direction of Judas, who observed it uncomfortably.
Jesus turned his head. The brilliant dining-hall
floated before his eyes. His breath halted for an
instant. He glanced at his feet, from which Mary
was tenderly wiping the scented ointment. Almost
imperceptibly he started, as one does who sees some
thing painful which is unnoticed by others. . . . Was
that blood ? What stabbed — what hurt him so ?
A burning tear, a single one, had fallen upon his
foot from Mary's lowered lashes.
" Let her alone," said Jesus, not with unsteady
lip ; " she has done this for my burial."
Now he regarded his treasurer with a firm eye ; it
gave out no irritation, no resentment. Jesus spoke
gently.

306 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
In a few poignant words he suggested that charity
was never without its opportunities and its objects.
" But me ye wiU not have always." Then his
wistful voice rose into the ring of prophecy :
" I tell you wherever this' Gospel shall be preached,
this thing that she has done for me shall be spoken.
It shaU be a memorial of her throughout the world."
It had gone abroad that the Nazarene had now in
deed and truth come to the front of his revolution,
and that he was about to make his entrance into
Jerusalem in the triumph and splendor which the
people love to see wasted about their heroes, when,
springing from the humblest to the highest rank, the
strong wiU and the superior soul accept the station
that they have created for themselves.
The man and the moment had met. It was said
that Jesus had at last cast away his unaccountable
reluctance to filling his true position. It was said
that he was done with all those qualms and pecu
liarities which had prevented him from taking the
natural advantage of his popularity. It was known
that the indictment against his life, the enmity of
the church and the state, had produced no effect
upon him. Nothing checked his purpose. Nothing
modified his courage or his independence. He had
boldly left his shelter at Bethany. He was coming
down the Mount of Olives. He was advancing
towards Jerusalem. Intense excitement pervaded
the capital. Roman officer and Hebrew ecclesiastic
were nigh to love each other for the first time in
their common hatred of the Nazarene. The Sanhe
drin were stupefied. The government, though scorn
ful of the rustics, was perplexed.

INTO JERUSALEM 307
It seemed the easiest thing in the world to capture
this agitator now.
But in fact it had never been more inexpedient
to do so. Whence had his friends sprung ? The
earth, the very air, seemed to have created them.
Who would have believed that this hunted heretic
had such a foUowing ? Unpopular ? Why, it was
a*s if the whole world had wings and flew to him. It
was too true that Jerusalem hated him with deadly
persistence. But Jerusalem was under the restraints
which control a host. Her streets overflowed with
pilgrims from aU parts of Palestine, and with visitors
from the East. This multitude of strangers, famil
iar only with the main facts in the life of the Naza
rene, and unembarrassed by local dissensions, were
quivering with cordial interest in him. His direst
foe dared not strike out till it was to be seen which
way the currents would set.
From her Temple to her gates, Jerusalem watched
for him.
Who knew what secret service had been planning
the coup of this brilliant day? What unknown
resources had the carpenter commanded ? What
unestimated forces could thrust over the talith of
the Rabbi the purple of the King ? What legions
were at his back? What splendors glittered before
him? What mounted guardsmen, what shining
maU, what serried edges of spears, blazed around
him? On a caparisoned charger he was mounted
proudly. His war-horse already scented blood.
Magnificent in attire, imperious in carriage, he was
coming on to capture the city. His long reserve, his

308 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
false humility, had tossed off its mask. The true
force of this remarkable man had now expressed
itself. To make himself Dictator, to become King
of the nation, was clearly his intention. The peo
ple seemed to be at his feet. What would be the
consequence ?
The unrest deepened in the capital. The officers
of Rome could not deny that they shared it, though
treating the matter with well-bred indifference. The
Jewish Church sent her delegates into the crowd
with orders to report what was to be seen. Hurried
councils and secret threats and plots muttered in
Temple and palace.
The mob rushed on. The jam thickened. The
uproar increased. The Nazarene was said to have
descended the mountain, to be crossing the valley, to
be climbing the sacred hills of Zion. In an hour —
in minutes — he would be in sight. He and his
retinue were coming up rapidly, splendidly. In a
moment — Ah, there !
The cries of the multitude rose to the heavens.
For a space, one could neither hear nor see. A craze
to witness the gorgeous spectacle seized the quietest
man in the crowd. A kind of glorious madness set
in. Who would have believed that this country
Rabbi could have commanded such a demonstration?
Ah, behold! at last! That is he. Here is the
heretic. See the madman. Look at the Sabbath-
breaker, the blasphemer, the excommunicated Rabbi.
There is the revolutionist, the pretender. . . . Rub
the eyes well. Look again. Doubt your senses, but
look once more.

INTO JERUSALEM 309
The day was quiet and warm. Spring sang out
side of the city. The sky was a pallid, pure color.
All the people were in their Passover clothes. Festal
bands were coming up everywhere, and these from
without and those others, the throng from within the
capital, met in a mass.
In the centre of it was a plain man. He rode a
young animal whose neck had never before known
the bridle, — the colt of an ass, which, it was said,
had been mysteriously found, or strangely offered
to his service. No trappings, no tricks of effect,
deviated from the simplicity of his mount. No steed
of war bore him on his errand of peace. He had no
arms and no armor. There was no retinue. Not a
guardsman lifted a spear-tip to protect this defenseless
man. His courtiers were a motley group, fishermen
and common folk : they walked behind him sturdily ;
they had strong, serious faces, like those of men
whose characters had been tried and were capable of
further test ; their garments were poor ; a few women
were among the lot, modest and with thoughtful ex
pressions. When one came to examine the Nazarene
himself — oh, amazement ! He was but the simplest,
the gentlest of men. Pretender? Nay, the most
unpretending hero who ever showed himself at the
front of a national crisis. He was clad in his ordi
nary dress, the hyacinth-colored talith of the Rabbi.
The blue of his robe and the tint of the sky were
felt to harmonize without the reflection that they
did so. His head was bare. It wore no crown but
the touch of the Passover sunlight.
His nervous hand held no sceptre. Some one came

310 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
up as he passed through the suburban gardens, and
reverently offered him a spray of a palm-branch ; he
took it appreciatively.
Palms were everywhere. The trees were stripped
of their branches. Men and women tore them and
flung them. A green carpet fell at the feet of Jesus,
and he rode over it. Hosannas rose higher. The
people went mad with the welcome of him. They
cast off their cloaks and spread them in his way.
He rode on as if he had been riding over velvet and
treading upon pearls.
Now came a fresh outburst of voices and of warm
hearted words :
" Blessed be our King ! "
" Peace in Heaven ! "
"Glory in the Highest! Praise God for His
mighty works ! Blessed be Jesus our King ! '?
It was afterwards said that the most loving of^these
outcries came from the long-sick whom the healer had
cured; and some of them from the sick or sin to
whom he had given the health of purity ; and some
from the bereaved to whom he had restored the dying
or the dead ; that especially the very poor, and the
altogether neglected, and the heart-broken whom he
only had ever tried to comfort, and persons of no
consequence whom only he had ever remembered,
were in his retinue that day. These mingled their
hosannas with the plaudits of the stranger pilgrims
who had come out of the city. It was said, indeed,
that Jesus was borne into the capital on the love of
those who knew him best, and the trust of those who
knew him least.

INTO JERUSALEM 311
But as he rode along, it was noticed that his eyes
were fixed upon Jerusalem. The stately city, hin
dered by Olivet, visible only at two or three points
of the journey, now rose haughtily before him,
terrace upon terrace, straight from the Valley of
Kedron, as if from an abyss. From the Palace of
the Maccabees and that of the High-priest to the
towers and gardens of Herod, Jerusalem shot up
glittering. Her architecture had a cold look. Some
thing about it seemed to smile cruelly.
The countenance of Jesus melted and broke.
Those nearest him heard murmured words, — one
involuntary cry :
" Ah, Jerusalem ! If thou hadst known " — Then
he commanded himself and rode on. His face was
wet. Something inexpressible on it wrung the heart
to see. But his demeanor was high, and so quiet
that those whose hosannas had rung the loudest
began to fall silent, one by one. A sudden hush
smote the vociferating throng.
In a sUence which no man could understand,
either in himself or in another, Jesus, the prophet of
Nazareth in GaHlee, passed through the Gate Shusan
and entered the royal city.
Thus the great democrat, traveling like a peasant,
assuming and asserting nothing, avoiding lawlessness,
spurning display, humble and gentle, followed and
blessed by the poor, and loved by the unhappy,
treated the practical chance of political power.
Thus he put aside the opportunity of his life and
of his age.

CHAPTER XIV
IN THE TEMPLE
Without a symptom of fear the indicted man
went straight into the Temple and remained there
for a while. His manner was perfectly self-possessed,
and he preserved a noticeable silence, making no
public address that day to the turbulent people.
Sheer amazement at his courage held the hands of
the law back from him. Unmolested as he came, he
returned that night to Bethany and to his friends.
There they gave him such solace as they could.
It was little enough. His demeanor forbade intru
sion. The very air that he breathed seemed sur
charged with unknown tragedy. He was still cheer
ful, but the lines on his face grew tense. To the
loyalty of the twelve the three at Bethany added
an eager devotion, and two of these a subtler com
prehension. The solemn reticence of Lazarus, the
watchful tenderness of Mary, protected Jesus from
idle talk. His puzzled disciples would imitate this
reserve, this calm.
Here for a space he felt that he was so loved that
it mattered less whether he were understood or not.
He tried for the moment to throw off his intolerable
burden. Love and life seemed to be of necessity
one force united to demolish the fact of death.

IN THE TEMPLE 313
Quiet affection, home, peace, temporary respite from
trouble, wrought upon him something of the incredu-
lousness of pain and mortality which it is their na
ture to arouse in us aU. The images of his torment
retreated. That night the overstrained man knew
the bliss of a little sleep. He needed to, for it was
one of the last when rest was possible, either by the
friction of events, or from the condition of his own
brain and nerves. He awaked to thank God that
any had been permitted him.
But in the morning the consciousness of everything
returned. His true position was not to be ignored.
He faced it at once, and went directly into the capital.
He acted like one who was more fearful of seeming
to fly from danger than of danger itself. He was as
a man moving upon a terrible errand whose object
might be defeated if he deviated by a thought's
breadth from a certain course.
Those most in his confidence could not tell how
definite his impressions were becoming of the man
ner or the moment of his fate. Did he go into
Jerusalem each day knowing or unknowing whether
it would be his last? Could he or could he not
yet perceive precisely whence the blow would fall,
or who would strike it ?
The group at Bethany held the breath, and choked
the sobs, and adored him the more because they
could not help knowing that but for them he might
not have been in the strait that he was.
For this thing was true, and time has confirmed
the fact. But for Lazarus, the story of Jesus of
Nazareth might have been a different one to tell.

314 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Loyalty to friendship, sympathy with sorrow, — the
tenderest, the greatest deed of his life, directly
placed it in the final peril.
The popular feeling aroused by the wonder
wrought at Bethany did not decline. The Sanhe
drin became very much afraid of it. "The world
has gone after him," said Pharisee to Pharisee.
Unconsciously (for it would have broken her
heart to know it), Mary, the gentlest, the most lov
ing of women, had herself added a mesh to the net
which Bethany was destined to weave around him.
The Indian nard lavished upon his feet served to
mark the steps by which he was to be tracked and
trapped. For this little incident had an unusual
effect upon a low mind. It took disproportionate
hold of the thoughts of Judas. The petty peculator
had missed the opportunity to defraud on a large
scale. He resented the loss of wealth which had
never been, but might so easily have been, his.
Then he was irritated by the social embarrassment
of the Sabbath supper at Bethany. The gentle
reproof of Jesus had rankled.
Out of any twelve picked men chosen for an im
portant purpose, there is more than apt to be at
least one failure. The treasurer of the society of
Jesus had become that one. Judas had started in
honestly enough. To begin with, he thought he
loved his Rabbi, but the mercenary acid was in his
nature. Dishonor had eaten its way by unnoticed
degrees. He had deteriorated under the commission
and concealment of small pecuniary irregularities.
Judas, the only Judean of the twelve, had been

IN THE TEMPLE 315
an ambitious man as well. He counted upon politi
cal preferment when the Nazarene should come to
the throne ; he had relied more upon this than had
one or two others of the group who had said more
about it. He hid his expectations, but fondled them
accordingly. His present position gave him treach
erous hopes. He looked to nothing less than to be
Treasurer of State at Jerusalem, perhaps even at
Rome. He was bitterly disappointed at the turn
which the affairs of Jesus were taking. Instead
of capturing a throne, the misguided revolutionist
seemed to be walking straight into a Roman dun
geon. Judas was displeased with the whole situa
tion. It began to occur to him that the disciples
had a case against their Rabbi. It struck him that
he had not been personaUy well treated.
Judas was not a brave man. He had the timidity
produced by undetected dishonor. He now began
to dwell upon the risks of his position. What
would become of the followers of the Nazarene in
the event of his downfall ? He remembered the fiat
of excommunication — most dreadful of aU things
to a Jewish mind. — already extended to include all
persons who admitted the claims of this Messiah.
There had been other messiahs. There might be
others stiU. Was it possible, after all, that his Lord
was a pretender ? How madly had he thrown away
his chances! This descendant of David, this heir
to the Theocracy, had entered Jerusalem without
a claim. The thoughts of Judas began to coarsen fast.
Shapes of monstrous ideas groveling, crawled around

316 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
him. He tried to escape them at first. He called
upon his early ideals, his young trust and affection.
But his lost integrity did not respond. His sense
of honor protested feebly for a little, but it had
hardly life enough left in it to articulate. One day
he put out his hesitating hand and choked it.
He had gone away from the others to think this
thing out by himself. In a moment it was suddenly
plain to him. Now he knew what he should do.
He did actually stretch his grasping hand into the
hot air, and bring the fingers together as if he were
strangling some small, living creature. His face
had grown old when he rose and came back to the
side of his Rabbi. It was withered ; it looked like
the face of a corpse. For the highest in us is the
vitality of us, and, in order to kill his honor, a
man must kill himself. From that moment Judas
moved about the living world like a dead man. He
was done with it, and it with him. He made a few
attempts, in which there was something to pity, to
contend with his own condition. But the laws of
moral corruption are as inexorable as those of phy
sical decay. There is such a thing on this warm
earth as a dead soul.
On Monday morning Jesus seemed restless, but
his wan face was set with resolve. He was walking
rapidly into the city, when he suddenly turned very
faint. His broken night, part of it passed in the
woods on the Mount of Olives, had poorly prepared
him for the day's strain. He tried to find some
fruit by the wayside, selecting a fig-tree, on which it
seemed that some of last season's fruit might yet be

IN THE TEMPLE 317
hanging unobserved. But none was to be found, and
with a momentary assumption of the royal manner
which he sometimes wore, rebuking the tree (as he
might have rebuked the faithless, fruitless city be
fore him for its disregard of his nature and his
needs), he went on.
The twelve wondered at this incident. The Rabbi
was never impatient with little annoyances; he
never scolded ; this must have been a parable ;
but what ? The fishermen walked behind him into
Jerusalem puzzled, always puzzled. That Passover
week was a dense and terrible darkness through
which they beat about blindly, like birds caught in
the clouds of a tempest. All they understood was
that they loved their Lord, — their sad Lord, who
was not going to be King, after all. The whole
world was turning against him : he needed them ; he
had never needed them so much. They clung to
him lovingly, but m their hearts these simple men
were terrified at the position in which they found
themselves. Jesus arrived in the Temple at an early hour.
Here he found the very same abuses which he had
tried in vain to reform at the outset of his ministry.
In the Court of the Gentiles the shops were full.
Wine, oU, fruit, doves, were selling rapidly. Here
were the brokers vociferating, precisely as they did
three years ago, when he had lashed them out. The
old wrongs were going on in the same old way. He
felt the disappointment which any public teacher
feels, in returning to the scene of a former effort, to
find that everything that he has done to destroy

318 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
an error is apparently thrown away. He looked
about him for a whUe in bitter silence. Almost
forgetting for the moment that he was approaching
the end, and was not still at the beginning of his
career, he began enthusiastically to repeat his wasted
experiment to purify the holy place.
No whip was needed this time to scatter the of
fenders. The authoritative force and influence of
Jesus had greatly increased. His voice was a lash.
It struck and stung. The porters carrying unlaw
ful loads by a short cut across the Temple to save
steps, the brokers, the merchants, all the unwhole
some pack ran scattering before the command which
sprang from his lips.
Among the bedlam of noises, the bleating of
lambs, the flutterings of frightened doves, the curses
of the brokers, he stood, mournfully smiling. This
excommunicated man ended his public career as he
had begun it, by an act of passionate devotion to the
honor and the purity of his church. Not to conform
to the false because it was the ecclesiastical, but to
protect the true because it was sacred, was his last
as it had been his first devout and fearless care.
Attracted by the commotion of the scene, and
trusting to the reputation for human mercy which
always followed the Nazarene as if it had been white
fire raying about his head, the beggars and decrepit
folk from without the gates of the Temple began to
clamor for him. As if to show what the religious
idea really meant to him, Jesus turned quickly from
the desecrated Temple courts to these miserable
people.

IN THE TEMPLE 319
Now, indeed, the mournfulness went out of his
look, and for the moment his own high joyousness
flashed back to it. His instinctive happiness in
relieving suffering could not be repressed. They
crawled to him, ¦ — the crippled, the neglected sick,
the loathsome, and the blind ; and for one hour of
eager gladness he gave himself to them. He healed
with a dazzling swiftness never seen in his touch be
fore ; he comforted with a tenderness which might
have melted the very stones in the Temple pave
ment beneath his unsandaled feet. — What a smile !
It was soft fire from heaven itself. The artist who
could have painted him as he looked then would
have scorned the aureola. Jesus needed none but
the light of his lips and eyes.
Now he had never cured any of his patients in the
Temple before, and the scene aroused an awed atten
tion. Many crowded in to hear and to see, and the
physical discomfort of the press was as great as the
moral irritation produced by the healer's success.
The priests looked on darkly. Pharisees and Sad-
ducees and Herodians whispered with sullen dis
pleasure. Nothing which this patient, gentle man could do
was right, — his noblest acts most wrong of all.
The ecclesiastical officers were the more angered be
cause he gave them so little ground of legal offense,
and they watched him narrowly with a helpless rage.
The spectators looked at the priests, and many, who
had begun to shout for Jesus affectionately, were
alarmed and grew cowardly quiet.
But it happened that the chorister boys in the

320 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Temple, the sons of the Levite priests, had come out
to see the sight, and were not as quick as their elders
to catch the idea that the tide, on whose briUiant
flow the Nazarene had entered the city yesterday,
had already begun to ebb.
These boys came out, in their little consecrated
robes, and clustered around the Rabbi. Some put
up their hands and played with his talith. One or
two leaned against him with a graceful attitude, half
nestling, half aloof, prettily independent of too much
show of emotion, as a growing boy. is. He who
loved children so heartily stopped to chat with the
boys, and to welcome them ; for he was gratified by
their affectionate attention. Then the boys, remem
bering how all the world had cried after him the
day before, took up the words that they recalled most
easily, and began to shout in chorus, as they were
trained to sing, rhythmically :
" Hosanna ! Hosanna !
To the Son of David
Hosanna ! Hosanna ! "
The chorister boys wondered why no one took up
their tribute to the great Rabbi, but only a few
voices joined in the children's hosannas ; these came
from some of the poor folk, the cured patients of
the healer, who were sobbing and laughing for joy
in the Temple court. The mass of the crowd was
ominously silent. The chorister boys, puzzled, put
the hem of the Rabbi's robe to their lips, and stoutly
gathered closer to him, with the battle instinct of
boys coming up in them, and so repeated their
chant :

IN THE TEMPLE 321
" Hosanna !
See the Son of David !
Hosanna! "
Over this beautiful bulwark of youth, of trust, and
of song the eyes of the heretic healer sought those
of the officers of his church. For a moment there
shot from his a blazing question, to which their fall
ing lids had no reply. Then the priests caUed the
chorister boys and ordered them away.
But the Rabbi, quoting softly from the Scriptures
of the people, was heard to say :
" Out of the mouths of babes ... is perfected
praise." The chorister boys went away unwillingly, look
ing back with manful reluctance at the Nazarene,
who watched them affectionately till the enfolding
architecture of the Temple shut them from his sight.
He was so grateful for the trust of these children
that it makes the heart ache to think how smaU a
measure of human love did comfort him in the
dark week when he needed all that Palestine could
hold. He left the Temple at once, and went back to
Bethany. A sudden reserve had wrapped him.
He did not talk. Once he raised his hands to his
ears with an involuntary motion, as if he would smite
them deaf from something that he only heard. . . .
The clear, young voices of the boys rang on for a
little in his brain. He heard the ideal youth of the
world's future crying to him. It might have loved
and honored, it might yet honor and love him, — how
much, who could teU ? Oh, to live and know ! . . .

322 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Where were the hosannas? They had changed
to imprecations. One terrible word crashed in
upon the silenced choral.
" Crucify ! " Who said that ?
No one ; nothing but the inner voices of his own
fine organism, throbbing under laws which the
coarser being could not formulate and never knew.
Jesus collected himseU' and walked on to Bethany.
He spent a part of the night in the house of his
friends, wishing to give them the happiness of
thinking that he rested; but midnight found him
in the groves of the mountain. The olive-trees
"were kind to him." Pacing among their silver
arches, kneeling at their roots, his figure, sohtary
and solemn, moved from restlessness to exhaustion
aU night long. Prayer with him had never been an
easy reverie ; rather, the truest application of mind
and heart. It had always been energy. Now it
was growing agony. Dawn touched the brow of the
mountain. The sharp, slender outline of the high
est leaf on the tallest tree received the glitter, like
a spear. He did not sleep. He had slept for the
last time.
On Tuesday he went back persistently to the city.
His friends at Bethany, in anxiety all the more acute
because it was so ignorant, perceived that no human
love could any longer influence him to save himself.
It was hoped that the arrival of his mother for the
festival of the Passover might have moved him to
take some precautions. But nothing made the dif
ference. He was determined to dare the worst.
Walking with the twelve, he passed the fig-tree

IN THE TEMPLE 323
which had refused him fruit yesterday when he
was faint. The quickest eye among the disciples
observed instantly that the tree was withering, and
exclamations of surprise arose from the group.
Jesus took advantage of this episode to utter some
of the most remarkable sayings ever propounded by
any teacher of mankind. He laid down, in a few
trenchant words, his theory of prayer ; burning it in
upon the confused minds of his friends, as if through
them he would have branded it upon the intelligence
of the world. He seemed as if he were pleading
with all time to understand him.
"Oh," he cried, "have faith in God! ... Ye
yourselves could do more than this. . . . Whoso
ever shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe
that those things which he saith shall come to pass,
. . . shall have whatsoever he saith : . . . when ye
pray . . . believe that ye shall receive . . . and ye
shaU have."
"But," he added, qualifying this astounding
assertion with the gravest warning, " when ye stand
praying, if ye have anything against any one, forgive !
forgive ! " . . .
He went into the Temple without an obvious
tremor. The crowd was larger than yesterday's.
The delegates of an enraged church were on hand to
receive him. The day began by an absorbing scene.
Before he was aUowed to open his lips, the priests
and other important ecclesiastical representatives
officiaUy questioned his ordination as a Rabbi, and
hence his right to preach to the Hebrew people.
The sleepless man, his brain on fire for rest, turned

324 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
upon the polemicists instantly. His mind showed
no signs of weariness. It worked with unerring
obedience to a celerity and adroitness of thought
which was confounding. He parried the o*nset of
his antagonists by a keen rejoinder. Religious and
legal casuistry show nothing finer of its kind.
" Assuredly, I will give you my authority. But
pray answer me one question first. Whence did the
baptism of John come? Of Heaven or of men?
Answer me ! " he commanded.
The priests feU back and consulted. Here was
a dilemma! To say from Heaven was of course
to be asked, " Why, then, did you not treat John's
system of faith as if it were sent from Heaven ? "
To reply, " He taught nothing superior ; he was a
very ordinary person," was sure to enrage the peo
ple, who stolidly held to it yet that the murdered
teacher was a prophet.
" Answer me ! " repeated Jesus.
An aged priest was pushed forward as spokesman.
Candidly he said :
" Indeed we cannot tell."
" Then," replied the Rabbi, smiling quietly,
" neither do I teU you by what authority I do these
things." The officers of the church looked at each other
uncomfortably, and openly gave up the battle for the
time. Who would have believed this rustic from
Nazareth capable of such astuteness? The country
Rabbi had an intellect with which it proved danger
ous to cope. It seemed one must study the man
and his methods before venturing too far with him

IN THE TEMPLE 325
in public debate. The experienced controversialists
wavered. The priests ranged themselves in his
audience from very confusion, not liking to seem to
run from him ; and now, having an open field, Jesus
cast every personal consideration behind him and
began to speak.
He preached as if he had never preached before,
and never should again; as indeed he never did.
He spoke most of the day, and taught much by the
parable. He was interrupted by several important
episodes, but preached steadily on between them.
Each sect had its turn at him, in a common endeavor
to entangle the Rabbi to his own destruction.
The Sadducees worried him for his views on the
marriage relation, as it was connected with a belief
in personal immortality. The Pharisees maliciously
waylaid him on the subject of Roman taxation, —
as for instance : If he were in fact the King of the
Theocracy, could he be subject to Csesar? This
was a skillful and dangerous trap. Jesus did not
fall into it. This friend of the people upheld the
law of the land. He would have nothing to do with
socialistic mania. He has proved himself to be the
greatest revolutionist of all time, but he was the
revolutionist of character. He did not concern
himself with codes. These, he assumed, would take
care of themselves. He seemed perfectly indifferent
to them. He had the burning conviction that, if his
moral creed were accepted, the abuses and oppres
sions under which the mass of the world suffered
would right themselves. He held fast to principles,
and did not waste himself in ways and means of

326 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
application. The simplicity and grandeur of his
position in this respect were never so brilliantly
apparent as on his last appearance as a public
teacher in the Temple of his nation. His wiliest
adversary was silenced for the moment by very
admiration of him.
But theological controversy had not done with
him. AU day the leading schools of the church
contended over the calm and gentle preacher, who
exhibited such unexpected intellectual supremacy
that it put their best men on their mettle to contest
with him. An influential lawyer, who tried to en-,
tangle him into some dangerous public expression
about the Hebrew statutes, received an astonishing
reply. It has since become the basis of theoretical
sociology, and of the practical civilization of the
world. It was the superlative of the day's effort,
and had such an effect upon the trained debaters
who heard it that it was naively said :
"After that, no man durst ask him any ques
tions." Now he himself turned questioner : " What think
ye of the Christ ? " he suddenly asked. But the con
fused controversialists looked feebly at the com
manding face and figure of the preacher. No satis
factory reply was forthcoming. Jesus took the
occasion subtly to intimate his celestial claims, but
he did not dwell on them, and turned to another
subject. The plain people, who heard him with touching
attention, were gathered about him. They lifted to
him faces whose perplexity seemed to approach him

IN THE TEMPLE 327
with a force that he found it impossible to resist.
They looked so poor, so meagre, so nearly starved,
and so whoUy miserable ! Oppression sat heavily
on their ignorance and helplessness. He turned
to their ecclesiastical officers and influential citizens,
— pompous, sleek, comfortable men, living on easy
incomes, enjoying social distinction, scorning people
of the lower classes, and scarcely aware that these
had any rights. Jesus seemed overwhelmed with
the contrast, and with the thoughts which it started
in him. It was as if he took up into his heart in
that one moment aU the blind struggles of the down
trodden and ranged himself beside them.
With church and state on his track, with death at
his throat, Jesus flung his last chaUenge down. The
most terrible arraignments of his ministry now fell
from his merciful lips. Without a care for himself,
he scathed the very men who had it in their power
to slay or to spare him, in language which the
worms of the earth would have resented.
" Woe unto you, Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, —
woe unto you ! You make long prayers and devour
the homes of widows. . . . Lawyers ! you bind heavy
burdens on poor men's shoulders, and wiU not lift
them by a finger. . . . Pietists ! you pay tithes, but
have neither judgment nor mercy ! Blind guides !
FuU of iniquity ! Serpents ! Generation of vipers !
Woe unto you ! "
It was his last outcry for the " common people,"
whom he had always loved, whom he represented,
and for whom he was willing to die. It was his last
plea for the purification of his church, and for the

328 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
integrity of the national religious character. If he
had a chance left, this arraignment of ecclesiasti
cal hypocrisy and of social oppression would have
hurled it away. The courage which it must have
cost was something so evident and so sublime that
his listeners were stunned. The attack was received
in stony silence, ominous to the last degree.
Jesus paid no attention to the effect of his denun
ciation, unless it could be said that he clinched it by
turning his attention to a very poor woman who just
then had offered to the Temple treasury the smallest
sum allowed by law. He openly selected her contri
bution as the most important of the day, and passed
at once quietly to the next incident.
This proved to be one which was profoundly in
teresting to him. A delegation of Greeks who were
visitors at the national festival proffered a special
request for an interview with the distinguished
Galilean. Jesus was in the Court of the Women at
that moment, a part of the Temple wherein no for
eigner was aUowed ; and he went out of it to receive
the strangers. A brief but impressive conversation
ensued. Something about these visitors appealed
to him strongly. He was sensitive to their breadth
of thought and finish of manner. Greek culture
presented peculiar attractiveness to an independent
Hebrew mind. These foreigners had such sincerity,
such ardor in the pursuit of truth, they were so
unhampered by tradition, they were so natural, they
were such winning men, that his heart went out to
them. He would have liked to fling himself into
one mighty effort to illumine the undeveloped spirit-

IN THE TEMPLE 329
uality in this beauty-loving people. He thought of
the opportunities of a journey through Greece —
perhaps to Rome itself — or into the farther East.
It came upon him with a crushing force that the
world lay yet beyond his short, sad ministry.
Galilee and Judea had refused him. Jerusalem
was even now crouching for his life. But Palestine
was not aU. Three years were not a lifetime. The
end? Nay, he was but at the beginning. Effort,
sacrifice, achievement, — these might aU go on in
breath and joy. — Death was not the only way. . . .
Such a vision whirled before him of the possibilities
of living that he felt for the moment swept away
by it. He saw himself carrying the truth for which
he was martyr to the end of the known earth ; to
peoples kinder to him than his own ; to strangers
who would listen and love him and believe.
But this was to-day. There would be to-morrow;
then Thursday — Friday —
His expression changed visibly. He parted from
the Greek strangers with emotion. He could have
wished that he had not seen them. . . .
Who spoke ? No, it was thunder. Yes, again, who
spoke ? The voice came from above the meek,
bowed head of the Nazarene. Some said that the
air of the April day had uttered itself, but that no
man could translate the language, for it was an
unknown tongue. But there were by-standers having
fine ears who prostrated themselves upon the pave
ment of the Temple ; for they said that they heard
words which no one could forget, and that these
gave awful credentials to the mysterious teacher.

330 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
When these reverent persons raised themselves
from the marble court, they saw the Nazarene stand
ing rapt and listening. AU the trouble had gone
out of his face. He looked as if he had received a
reinvigoration of life. He was reinspired of hope,
of peace. At that moment no man dared address
him. Jesus had appeared in the Temple of his people
for the last time. Whether accidentaUy or inten-
tionaUy, his closing public address f eU into a thrill
ing picture of the final judgment of the human soul
before the bar of God.
In this discourse he assumed distinctly for him
self both royal and divine claims. In it he gave
some startling definitions of character. What was
done to the obscurest of miserable men was done
to him, he boldly said : " I am hungry — sick — in
prison. You feed and visit me."
Words like these overthrew every conception of
religious duty known to his church. They were
received in gloomy and pondering silence. He had
left the Temple and the capital without much pub
lic demonstration : few voices huzzaed ; none hosan-
naed. He began to feel his growing unpopularity
as he walked meekly away.
But his friends, never any too sensitive to his
moods, were blunt to his condition now. The twelve
began to indulge a little national vanity at that
untimely moment, and to chat about the grandeur
of the Temple. They pointed out to him the huge,
white blocks, some of them twenty-four feet' long,
which proudly supported the walls ; and they dwelt

IN THE TEMPLE 331
upon the glory and indestructibility of the build
ing. " The time is coming," observed the Rabbi quietly,
"when there shaU not be left one of these stones
upon another."
Forty years after, when the capital of the dis
graced nation went down in dust and flame, men
remembered the words spoken by this patriot, and
how — forgetting his own fate, and thinking only of
hers — he had foretold in tears the doom of the
city that he loved. On his way back to Bethany he
rested with his party on the brow of the Mount of
Olives. There, Jerusalem could be seen with a cer
tain beautiful insolence of bearing ; pallor of marble
and glitter of gold ornamented her as if she had
been a bride or a queen. She seemed to return the
gaze of the martyr whom she was hounding down,
with a chill inteUigence.
The twelve, now sobered and puzzled, crept close
to him in this quiet spot, and began in earnest to
ask him for explanations. What fate was indeed
before the royal city ? What awaited himself ? Or
them? What was a fisherman to do with the situa
tion into which his devotion to the fallen fortunes of
a defeated Lord had brought him ? What was to
happen if they lost him ? What did aU the para
bles and mysteries mean ?
Then he broke his reserve, and told them that at
which their hearts stood still. They were brave and
hardy men. But they began at last to understand
that this prophet whom they had served so long was
the King of sorrows and of failures, not of joys and

332 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
of success; and that his officers were the picked
men of suffering, not of pleasure. It was not power
which awaited them. It was ignominy.
The treasurer of the association listened, with the
rest, to these disturbing revelations. He heard
them with a sour dismay. He thought it indiscreet
in his Lord to speak so frankly at such a time, being,
as he was, a practicaUy defeated man. But Judas
found these intimations personally useful. He made
no remark upon them. His dark soul brooded upon
what he had heard in sinister silence.
The party went on thoughtfully to Bethany. In
the twilight one furtive figure set forth from the
villages unnoticed, and fled along the road back to
Jerusalem. Dark was down when this man re
entered the capital. With a kind of frenzied hurry,
as if he feared that he might wish to recall what he
was doing, if he gave himself time to think, he
dashed up the marble steps of the palace of Caia-
phas. At the door he stood, in the hot evening, with
cold drops running down his cowering body. Half
minded to fly, he went in. At a whisper the ser
vants admitted him, and the silken curtains of the
reception hall dropped behind his shaking figure.
Eavesdroppers were scattered. The High-priest of
the Hebrew Church and the trusted officer of Jesus
of Nazareth were together.
Jesus came to his friends at Bethany looking
so exhausted that they thought their hearts would
break. They begged him to rest in his own room
that night, for they reminded him that he had

IN THE TEMPLE 333
preached all day without sleep. But he refused
them gently. And while they were yet pleading
with him, he departed from their tender urgency,
and went out into the groves.
There, with the scalding brain and the deathly
faintness of vigil, all night he waked and prayed.
The mountain worshiped. But the palace blushed.
The polished slabs in her walls would have cried out
for horror if a single movement in the will-power
of the mystical solitary on Olivet had given them
tongues wherewith to save him. But they were as
mute as the laws of nature made them.
Undetected, undeterred, Caiaphas and his council
closed one of the compacts which history is ashamed
to record, but which the moral instinct of the race
never suffers her to forget.
Plainly, the crisis of the revolution has arrived.
It must be met by any means, fair or foul. Never
mind the method. Rid the nation of the Nazarene !
Who will put this pretender into our hands when
he is not protected by the presence of the people, —
the deluded people, whose confidence we have been
unable to wrench from him ?
Who will give him over to us in dark, in stealth,
and in dishonor blacker than any with which we
have a mind to stain our pious reputations ?
Yonder stands our opportunity. Fortune flings
at our feet one of his own men, — a trusted con
fidant. Incredible ! But this brilliant luck is ours.
Beckon the cringing figure. See to it that he makes
his own proposition. Close with it on any terms I
Close with it without an hour to consider or to re-

334 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
caU ! This is of the deeds which are best done with
the least reflection.
The High-priest, cultivated to the point where
one represses rather than expresses scorn, made
some effort not to draw back his robes from contact
with the low feUow who offered the person of his
Lord and friend for betrayal to the law. Haggling
with the ignorant man, the great Priest beat him
down, as if they had been petty tradesmen bargain
ing for the sale of a Passover lamb in the streets.
Jesus of Nazareth was sold to the National
Church — and the price was paid in silver from her
treasury — for three pounds and fifteen shillings;
the ransom of the lowest slave.
On Wednesday he did not go into the capital.
He passed the day in Bethany,, shielded for a last
respite from the worst, cherished among his friends,
loved, and a little understood. The eyes of Laza
rus, the tenderness of Mary, the longing of John
the dear disciple, clung to him throughout the day.
On his mother's beautiful face age grew rapidly.
He did not look at her often, — he could not bear
it. It came to be so that he could no longer bear
the presence of any who loved him, for the more
they loved, the harder it was ; and it was at a very
early hour that he left them all and went away
alone. The group of his friends stood in the court of the
house of Martha and watched him as he walked
in the direction of the olive woods. On his white
face dwelt the distance from human sympathy
which is peculiar to the appearance of the sleepless,

IN THE TEMPLE 335
It was a line which no love might cross ; but other
and awful barriers had now been thrown upon his
countenance. His own mother could not have ven
tured even to express her consciousness that these
existed. In a silence broken only by the sound of
stifled sobbing, he had parted on this last evening
from those who loved him best, and resumed for
another night his solitary vigil.
Once he turned, looking back, and lifted his
hands as if he would have blessed them, every one,
with that which yet he might not give them, and
as if he caUed down the love of Heaven on the
viUage which held the household that had comforted
him in his most desolate hours. Then the gloom
of the trees received his slowly moving figure,
utterly and silently, as God received his confidence
that night.

CHAPTER XV
GETHSEMANE
It was Thursday evening. Jerusalem, thrilling
with the solemn excitement of the paschal supper,
was pressed with pilgrims to her walls, and beyond
them. It was a clear night, and the mellowness of
the sunset, pouring over the white Temple, seemed
to overflow through the narrow streets. The vast
crowd moved exultantly, as if it were dripping with
light. A man carrying a pitcher of water, and walk
ing rapidly, was touched lightly from behind upon
the shoulder. Turning, he saw faces now familiar
to the people at large as those of two of the twelve
who followed the Nazarene.
" The Master desires your upper room," was the
abrupt announcement. " He would take therein the
paschal supper."
The man with the pitcher assented to the propo
sition without demur ; it has been said that he was
the father of one of the friends * of Jesus, and in cor
dial sympathy with him. At all events, the enter
tainment committee of the twelve proceeded, without
the difficulty which might have been anticipated
when the roof which sheltered the Nazarene would
be a marked and endangered spot, to make the need-
1 Mark.

THE CCENACULUM
SAID TO BE THE HOUSE OF THE LAST SUPPEE

GETHSEMANE 337
ful preparations for the great religious banquet of
the year. Since for every reasonable and sincere
observance of his church Jesus had always shown re
spect, it was like him to give the due to this occasion.
On this last evening he performed, as he had always
done, the simple duty of the hour, precisely as if he
had expected to live for double thirty years. Ecclesi
astical legend has dotted the land of Palestine with so
many traces of the great Rabbi's movements in which
history can put no faith, that a profound interest
attaches to the few localities which there is any rea
son to suppose may have been really identified with
his experience. The house in which he was enter
tained for the last supper of his life is thought to be
one of these few. It is still to be seen, a stone house,
outside the walls of the existing city, and in its time
stood so far south of the heart of the capital that it
escaped the general ruin.
It was a comfortable, in some sense a stately house,
of a degree befitting the position that Jesus had now
assumed as the foremost figure of the nation. It had
a large, upper room suitable for banqueting, and
giving through sufficient windows a wide outlook.
Couches surrounded the low, curved table on which
the red wine and water, the bitter herbs, the lamb
slain and blessed at the Temple and roasted entire,
were set forth in paschal order. There was no ser
vant in attendance, nor did the owner of the house
present himself among the group to whom he had
rented his room of state. The Nazarene and his
twelve were alone and unobserved.
It was early evening when Jesus appeared walk-

338 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ing slowly from Olivet, looking upwards at the Tem
ple, whose splendid outline and colorings smoked
with the burning of slain sacrifice. The smoke
coiled lightly against the unclouded sky, and van
ished in vague forms on the upper air, like the
passing of a spirit. He watched it without remark.
Ten of the twelve were with him ; they, too,
walked quietly. They were met by their paschal
committee, Peter and John, who had been appointed
to make arrangements for the supper. The group
assembled in the spacious upper room of the stone
house, and closed the doors.
Jesus took his place at the head of the table. He
had never before held the position of host at the
solemn festival of his church, and had not per
sonaUy offered sacrifice. He thought of this in
almost the same words that had come to him when
he partook of his first Passover, he then a boy,
blinded by his consciousness of mystery and by a
passing preconsciousness of suffering : " I shall be
the sacrifice."
That was at the beginning. This — this was
the end. He sank down upon the cushions of the
couch. An attitude " of rest, of happiness, and of
liberty " was necessary to the paschal feast ; the
tense muscles of his troubled figure battled with the
appearance of ease. He glanced at the slain sacri
fice, — poor, dumb symbol of suffering no less mute
than his own ! How power and helplessness met in
pain and death ! The evening light struck straight
upon his face. He looked out through the window
with eyes that were not limited by its proportions.

GETHSEMANE 339
The stone walls of the house widened and wavered to
his gaze. No point of compass seemed to restrain
his vision. It was as if he looked fairly on Olivet ; a
shadow was sombrely moving up the mountain. Yon
der was unseen Bethany. Invisible Galilee sat hidden
somewhere in the darkening map. There lay Naz
areth, Capernaum, the Lake, home, youth, freedom,
— the eager scenes of three dedicated years, crowded
with passionate hope and toil, with unswerving be
lief that he was walking God's way, that he was
forcing everything to the wishes of his Father, — of
his Father unseen, unproved, but trusted in spite of
that. And now ? What was the outcome of it all ?
The color of the evening entered the room solemnly.
He felt the peculiar grip at the heart that comes to
a man who knows that he is looking for the last time
at the setting of the sun.
He was so absorbed that he had not noticed at
first that there was a disturbance among the twelve.
Even on that night, at that hour, they were quar
reling pettily over the order of their precedence in
taking positions at the supper table. Judas had
somehow managed to get himself into the seat of
honor, at the left of the Rabbi. Peter, seeing this,
had gone over to the lowest seat on the opposite
side. The others were noisily arranging themselves
on the divans as they pleased. John was standing
irresolute. Jesus beckoned him to the couch at his
own right hand. The meal opened in discomfort.
Could they not have spared him, even then, this
last reminder how weak they were, how full of un
disciplined nature, how deaf to the real message

340 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
of his life with them? In three years how little
they had learned ! He looked at them with infinite
sadness. They seemed to him like children. He
spoke to them patiently. The meal proceeded with
decorum. But what was the Rabbi doing ? He had risen
from his couch and laid aside his talith. Girded
with a towel, as a servant is who waits on his supe
riors, he was moving about meekly with a basin and
ewer of water in his hand ; and, before a man of them
could stay him, they perceived that he was bathing
their feet, — a menial act, the humblest which he
could have performed. Shocked beyond power to
refuse, most of the twelve submitted to this strange
ceremony. But Peter protested hotly : " No, — no !
You shaU never wash my feet ! "
"Then," observed Jesus, smiling gently, "you
have no part with me."
" Lord," cried the impulsive disciple, " wash my
hands and my head also ! "
The room grew as still as the inner chambers of
the heart. Peter's heavy breathing could be heard
distinctly ; the tears stormed down his cheeks as
the Rabbi wiped his rough, large feet with the ser
vant's towel. But John, when in turn his Master
stooped to serve him, hid his face in the piUows of
the couch for delicacy.
In order Jesus passed to Judas. There for a
moment he paused. It was thought by those who,
being nearest, most plainly read the expression of
his face, that he would have omitted the treasurer
from the perplexing ceremony. But he did not.

GETHSEMANE 341
Drawing himself to his height, he seemed for the
instant to rise above the traitor like a flame that
might faU and annihilate him. Then the Rabbi's
kingly figure bowed itself, and his fine hands offered
to the basest soul in Palestine the same humble ser
vice that he expended on better men. Judas endured
the act without speaking, but he writhed under it.
Jesus resumed his talith silently. His appearance
seemed to have gained, not lost, in dignity by this
singular digression from the usual relation between
chief and subordinate. With more than royal
demeanor he returned to his couch, and authorita
tively began to explain his reason for what he had
done. " Ye call me your Master, as indeed I am. Yet
I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet.
Wash ye one another's feet ! Is the servant greater
than his lord ? "
Such a lesson in personal humility did he now set
forth as a man could not have forgotten till his last
breath had gone out in the struggle between the
nobler and the smaUer in him ; nor until he had
learned where lies the difficult border-line between
the force of individuality necessary to achievement,
and that force of vanity which usurps the energy
and the fair fame of the other.
The twelve thought how they had wrangled about
a seat at a supper, and they hung their heads.
To themselves they said, — and some whispered
the words to their neighbors, — " We will never do
a petty thing like this again. Next time we will be
larger-minded ; we wiU please him better."

342 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
This was one of the resolutions wrung from shame
when opportunity is past. There was to be no next
time. For two thousand years that meal in the
stone house has been known to men as the Last Sup
per. Yet the minds of those who partook of it did
not seem to grasp the fact that it was not to be one of
many more when they should be the guests of their
dear Lord ; he quiet, pale, tender, and looking,
please God, something happier than he did to-night.
Love deluded them, as it always does the loving.
They could not understand.
The time had come to undeceive them thoroughly,
and Jesus could put it off no longer.
The sun had long since set. The room was
lighted only by its festal lamps. A patch of star
light and darkness lay out beyond the windows, and
seemed to draw towards them like a curtain. Now
through the quietness strange words were heard ;
they came indistinctly from his lips, as if he found
it almost impossible to utter them. His familiar
face, broken with grief, turned from one of his
friends to another. He seemed to be appealing to
them to give denial to that which he was forced, by
a power beyond himself or them, to assert.
" For one of you — shall betray me."
Anguished cries interrupted him. " Nay, nay !
The thing is too dreadful to think of. . . . Lord,
not one of us, — not one of thy very own ! For
three years we have foUowed and trusted thee, —
loved thee. Lord, thou wrongest us ! (Has suffer
ing, think you, touched his brain ?)¦
" He will not answer. What a look he wears !

GETHSEMANE 343
The Passover lamp flares on his quivering face.
Who dares address him ? Not I — nor I. Where
is Peter, the spokesman ? Put the question, Peter !
Ask ! "
But the power of speech for once had died out
of Peter's throat and lips. His rugged face worked
with disturbance.
Across the table sensitive John, overcome with
the painfulness of the scene, had hidden his face
upon the breast of his Lord. He raised it once, try
ing to calm himself by a glance upwards at Jesus,
and at that instant Peter caught his eye. A swift
signal mutely conveyed the entreaty :
" Ask ! He loves you best."
But John could not command himself to speak
just then, and while he hesitated, low murmurs,
were heard creeping from trembhng lip to lip around
the paschal table.
" Lord, is it I ? Or I ? "
Some sobbed the words out, covering their faces
for shame that they could so much as bring them-:
selves to utter them ; and some shot them out
sternly, like men pushed by a mad fate, who would
know the worst at once. So much had been inex
plicable all this while ! Could a man be forced to
infamy against his will ? Who knew but this was
another mystery, another trouble ?
At that moment their love for Jesus seemed to
them the greatest fact in the world : they felt as if
heaven and earth were armed against it ; they felt
as if there had never been men so wronged as they.
" Lord," whispered John when the tension of the

344 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
scene was at its height, " who is it ? who shall it
be? TeU me!"
Jesus whispered to him a few words in reply. Al
this moment the treasurer on the other side, growing
too uncomfortable to keep still, leaned forward and
helped himself out of the dish that stood before the
Rabbi. Jesus dipped a bit of bread in the paschal
gravy, and without a smile handed it to Judas. The
treasurer accepted the courtesy, turned scarlet to the
brows, and sharply rose from the table.
" Do it quiekly, Judas," said the Rabbi in a stern,
loud voice.
When the group collected themselves, they were,
besides their Master, but eleven. Judas had skulked
away, having been sent, it was supposed, to prqvide
supplies for the Rabbi's comfort to-morrow.
When he had gone, there seemed to be fresh air
in the room. Each man took a long breath, and
noticed that his neighbor did the same. There set
in at once one of those subtle changes in the moral
atmosphere which every one feels, though no one
explains. Jesus himself visibly responded to some
powerful emotion.
He now began to talk to his friends freely. He
told them heart-breaking things. Were theirs aU
sanguine temperaments, untaught by nature to pre
pare for trouble? For even then, at the last
moment, they found it almost impossible to believe
in the tragedy that was upon them. He tried to
blunt the edge of the blade for them before it
struck. His whole heart seemed to go out in think
ing of them, — how they would bear this, how they

CHRIST AT THE LAST SUPPER

GETHSEMANE 345
could endure that, how they should act under such
circumstances. He who needed comfort as man
never needed it before, as no man has dared say
that he has needed it since, only had a care to give
it to those who loved him, and whom he loved best.
He called them by affectionate terms, — " Little
children." "I am with you for a little while longer," he
added plaintively, when he saw how startled they
were. " Love one another ! Remember how I have
loved you."
He spoke so touchingly that a man must have
a soul of frost who can recall his words without
emotion. The disciple whose independence of thought
no emergency could altogether fetter spoke out
brusquely :
" Whither goest thou, Rabbi ? "
" I go where ye cannot follow now," said Jesus
firmly. " Why not ? " persisted Peter. " I will lay down
my life for thee ! "
Jesus smiled, — a smile which no man could read.
"Thou shalt deny me, Peter, before the cock
crows." Inarticulate sounds of horror ran round the group.
Every man looked at Peter with indignation. He
had flung himself upon the floor ; his only reply was
to put up his hands and stroke his Lord's feet. No
one could see his face. Voluble Peter was past an
swering. He was saying to himself, " I will show
them ! He will see ! " His rough hands, gnarled

346 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
by the sheets that hauled the sails of Gennesaret,
continued to stroke his Rabbi's unsandaled feet.
The eyes of Jesus fiUed.
The evening was passing; aU too rapidly, aU too
heavily. Across the countenance of Jesus advanced
an immeasurable shadow. He took up the Passover
loaf and broke it, with a solemnity so significant that
every eye in the room now fastened itself upon him.
His low voice faltered a little in the Passover bless
ing, and when he said :
" This is my body, — broken, and for you. Eat."
He poured the wine into the paschal cups. It ran
a deep red in the light of the festal lamps.
" This is my blood," he added ; " drink."
In a silence like that of the after world, the group
obeyed him.
With bowed heads, with streaming cheeks, with
shrinking lips, they ate, they drank ; wondering, but
asking him no question now.
The cup trembled a little in his hands as he
pressed it to the lips of John. In his eyes rested
the solitary look of far prevision which his friends
had learned to know.
What did he see? Cruciform oak, nails, the
point of a spear, then the gush which comes from
the heart?
But what did he see ? Far down the years quiet
groups in holy houses, sitting with bowed heads. The
dull white of broken bread, the gleam of red wine,
the pure tint of silver, show and shift across the scene.
The afternoon wanes to dusk. Prayer and sacred
song are softly audible. This is one of the hours

GETHSEMANE 347
whose memory flits far across a driven life. Doubt
remembers it, and moral peril, and sorrow leans on
it. It comes to mean a power in the world of men,
gentle as that of motherhood, strong as that of
worship. With wet eyes, with hushed hearts, those
who celebrate this solemnity do think of him : they
murmur a name, — it is his ; they melt with tender
ness for suffering, — it is his.
The feeling that his own race, his own day denied
him, the future gives him. Millions offer what the
few refused. The true heart of the world wiU not
foreclose its sympathy from this man acquainted with
grief. With wide, grand eyes gazing out through the
windows of the upper chamber of the stone house,
he saw these things and spoke not of them. Sacra
ment was in his silence.
He broke it by some of the most beautiful words
that ever came from his lips. He began, in a voice
scarcely above a whisper, to offer to his friends his
last directions, to extend his parting benedictions.
The Passover lights burned low, and seemed
almost afraid to reveal his face, which melted into
dimness, which struggled into form, and wore a
wonderful expression. Sobbing was heard about
the paschal table. Some hid their faces in their
hands, but John wept upon the arm of his Lord.
Peter had not moved from the floor where he lay at
Jesus' feet.
" Let not your hearts be troubled. Ye believe in
God. . . . Believe in me. ... I am the way, I am

348 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
the truth, I am the life. ... I will not leave you
comfortless ! I will come to you ! . . . Now I go my
way. I go to Him that sent me. In the world ye
shall have trouble. Have good cheer. I overcome
the world. . . . How many things have I to say to
you ! But you cannot bear them, — you cannot bear
them now. . . . Peace I leave with you. I give you
my peace."
He did not speak for a space following these
compassionate words ; and when he found utterance
again, the eleven perceived that he was praying.
The voice for whose tenderness they should go starv
ing aU the remainder of their lives began to plead
with Heaven. They had never heard — who had
ever heard ? — a paschal prayer of consecration like
this one. It signified that the sacred services of the
evening were at an end.
"Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son.
. . . Thou hast given him power . . . that he should
give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given him.
. . . This is life eternal, ... to know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus the Christ whom Thou
hast sent. ... I have finished the work which Thou
gavest me. . . . Behold the men which Thou gavest
me. I pray for them."
Then followed for their sakes such loving entrea
ties, such thoughtfulness for them at the very ear of
God, as it wrung the souls of his friends to hear;
and they wept so that they feared lest they lose the
entirety of the prayer, whose solemn meaning came
to them but slowly in broken phrases : " Let them
be one, as we are one ; I in them, and they in me.

GETHSEMANE 349
. . . The world does not know Thee. But I have
known Thee, . . . O righteous Father ! "
The accents of prayer had but died on the lips
of Jesus when they opened again in song. Quite
firmly he led the strains of a Passover hymn, as the
ritual of his church prescribed. The ascriptions of
an ancient psalm dear to the Hebrew faith echoed
to the ceiling of the upper room, and floated strongly
from the open windows upon the evening air. All
the world could have heard the singing. It did not
occur to the hated and hunted man to say : " Hush !
Speak low, pray softly, but do not sing. Let us not
expose ourselves to danger unnecessarily."
In the certain ears of peril, in the grip of inev
itable death, triumphantly and joyously, the sweet,
deep, voice of Jesus rang out :
" O, give thanks nnto the Lord !
For He is good ! "
The shapes of shame and torture flitted into the
stone room. Images which froze the blood at his
heart huddled between him and the Passover lamps.
But he sang on strongly :
" Oh, give thanks nnto the Lord God of Heaven,
For His mercy endureth forever ! "
The singing penetrated into the open air; the
notes of his pathetic voice dropped into the street.
Few men had heard Jesus sing, and the beauty
of his tone attracted attention. Twos and threes
stopped to listen. Many foreigners, not occupied
with the paschal ceremony, were strolling about the
city. Groups coUected at no great distance from
the stone house.

350 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
A skulking figure, stealing down the street, waved
a Roman guardsman back, and listened with the
others. Judas Iscariot drew himself into the shadow
of an alley and watched. It was but a few moments
after this that the paschal party left the upper
chamber and came out into the street.
When the singing had ceased, the groups of lis
teners scattered. Jesus and the eleven passed ap
parently unnoticed, and set their faces eastward.
Having avoided the Temple area, the party turned
northward up the valley of the Kedron.
" Lord, I am ready to go with thee to prison and
to death ! "
" Simon, Simon ! I tell thee, before the cock shall
crow this day, thou shalt three times deny me ! "
" Lord, though I should die with thee, yet would
I not deny thee ! "
"Nor I, — nor I!"
" Rabbi, whosoever faileth thee, thou canst count
on me! "
" And me, — dear Lord, on me ! "
The speakers in this moving dialogue stared at
one another's whitening faces through the sickly
color of the late evening. It was not quite dark in
Gethsemane, for a full moon, contesting with a
stormy cloud, peered through. The garden rested
upon the arm of Olivet ; it was as if the mountain
tried to enfold it, and to conceal it from sight. For
the shadow of the cultivated olive grove, always thick,
seemed that evening dense. It was a still, cool spot,
secure from disturbance ; a favorite with Jesus. He

GETHSEMANE 351
had spent many solitary nights there. Vigil and
prayer whose sacred story no man knew, had dedi
cated it, — how often ! how desolately ! The place
was dear to him ; his feet turned to it instinctively.
The eleven had foUowed him, disturbed and subdued.
Now the group stood close together, aU pressing
about him.
They feU back when he signified, by a gesture,
his wish for the society of the three whom he pre
ferred. The rest remained, shut out from their Lord's
confidence, but they did not trouble him to ask him
why. The three walked apart with Jesus into the most
secluded portion of the olive garden. It was darker
here, and strangely still. Jesus stretched out his
arms with a groan. He who had suffered so much
and so long, and who never complained of the worst
that happened, nor ever wore on the feelings of his
friends, suddenly appealed to them by the most
piteous words :
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, . . . even to
death. Tarry, and watch with me ! " he entreated.
Before any one of the three could reply, he had
disappeared in the heart of the grove.
Under the olives it was black about the roots.
Far overhead, the struggling moon brought out
the silver look of the trees ; they blended from black
to light, as if blurred with a slow, soft brush. The
sharper outlines of the slim leaves were etched dis
tinctly. There was scarcely any wind ; but some
times a breath sighed, and the moon glanced below.

352 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Around the foliage of one thick tree its neighbors
gathered closely, as if they guarded it. The shadow
beneath was as dark as death. The light above did
¦not penetrate it.
At the foot of the thick tree, with knotted hands,
with face upon the ground, a solitary figure sank.
Human endurance has gone to the limits of pain,
shame, and death for all the causes that can torment
the souls and bodies of men. Fate and force have
met and fought in the name of every conviction that
feeds on the will of an unconquerable being, and
the war has gone mightily in many a strong heart.
But here was a man who carried a burden so isolate
that the imagination almost refuses to, hold it.
It has been asked, Why did not Jesus Christ
become: a maniac ?
There have been moral alienists who would, if
they could, have detected symptoms of mental dis
ease in this dauntless life. But the calm eye of his
personal sanity has replied to the interrogations of
twenty centuries. He had not even the usual pro
portion of morbidness or eccentricity which f aUs to
the lot of great, minds. Here was a sane man, who
believed that the salvation of the human race rested
upon himself. ...
In success, in activity, in religious oratory, in the
energies of mercy, this belief had passed for the
most part undistressed, if not undisturbed. Geth-
semane chaUenged it. Defeat, disgrace, and ap
proaching death shook conviction to the foundation.
At the roots of the olives the smitten man, with up-

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CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE
GETHSEMANE 353
reaching hands, groped like the blind. Above the
treetop was the sky ; he felt upwards for it, as if it
had been a thing that he could grasp and hold. The
upper branches stirred ; the brightening moonlight,
like some, forced and frightened witness, glanced at
the upturned face it saw, and fled. The thick foli
age closed in again. He had seen the heavens im-
pearled, hollowed like a chalice.
It seemed to him to be held to his recoiling lips,
a draught of agony which he must drink. He cried
out against it :
" Father ! Father ! "
He was still so young, so vigorous ! The blood
beat strongly in his being. He loved life, as all
weU souls and bodies do, and his were so sound!
Health throbbed in every artery, in every ceU. Sick
ness had never weakened him. No taint had ever
marred him. His system had never become the
slave of his overstrained nerves. Even the torment
of prolonged vigil had not conquered him. He was
alive to the last red drop in his fair, pure body ; he
was alive to the last energy of his unshaken brain.
And his heart ? — why, the life of his heart seemed
something great enough to supply the forces and the
fountains of the world !
Death! — at the top of vigor, at the brim of
existence ! Slow torture, and shameful, — and to
morrow ! Unnecessary death ! . . .
The stiUness startled him. Smitten with a sud
den sense of his loneliness, he staggered up and
gazed about him, looking for his friends. He had
spent himself in prayer, had shut himself in to the

354 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
society of God. Yet such a yearning for human
sympathy rushed upon him that it seemed as if he
would drown in it. He pushed the olive branches
apart, and called the names dearest to him, — Peter,
and James, and " John, John, John ! " he cried be
seechingly, like a man who pleads for his life.
But the tired men, sore with trouble, were aU
asleep. They turned stupidly at the sound of his
voice. Peter sprang. The lip of Jesus quivered.
"Could you not watch one hour with me?" he
gently said.
He went back to the thick olive-tree ; there on the
ground he fell again.
The drama of his life returned before him, swiftly
as scenery shot in flame and smoke. The devout
docility of his childhood, the pure dreams of his boy
hood, repassed ; and the first surprise of his extra-
consciousness. He heard the voice on Jordan when
his kinsman, the prophet, baptized among the reeds.
He listened to the message of the clouds when he
floated on the head of Lebanon. In the Temple,
when the Greeks came, mystery had uttered the
same words :
" My beloved Son 1 '" What had they meant?
What did they mean now ? As slowly, as naturally,
as the blossoming of character, his explanation of
his own being had presented itself to him. It had
developed as life develops, with no more haste, with
no more strenuousness ; with something of the same
uncertainty and bewilderment ; with passages of
glorious confidence ; with intervals of humble fear,
but steadily growing and gaining on doubt. He had

GETHSEMANE 355
known aU the noble self-distrust that only the finest
nature is capable of feeling ; and he had known all
the strong trust in another which only the highest
can know.
He had staked everything, he had suffered every
thing, on the conviction that he was in some supreme
sense different from that which governed the per-
sonaUty of any other man, the Son of his God;
chosen for a transcendent mission ; destined to lift a
world of men out of the doom of life.
By the solitary pressure of his own personal char
acter and history, he believed that he was required
to wrest the solid mass of human evil and misery
over into the direction of purity and peace.
If this was not the most tremendous delusion
which ever visited a human brain, then was it the
grandest affirmation. For such was not the task
of a man. It was the privilege of a Divinity.
Nor was this all.
With leisurely power there had forced themselves
upon this solitary being beliefs that set him more
and more apart from his kind. He had begun life
by wondering why he was not like other men ; he
ended it by understanding.
As naturaUy as manhood develops from infancy,
so Christhood had developed from manhood. Grad
ually, quietly, he had come to perceive that it was
his to live the divine life at the human odds.
But this was not all. It was the conviction of
Jesus that it depended upon himself whether men
should possess the privilege of personal immortality.
He beUeved that he held in his own hands the

356 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
gift of eternal life to the human soul. He believed
that upon the facts of his life, and upon the facts
of his death, this solitary responsibility rested. AU
through his later life, in these three years of patient
struggle to obey what he believed to be the wiU of
Heaven for him, he had felt the weight of this
inconceivable burden unevenly; now more heavily,
now more lightly, — not aU at once, or he must have
died of it. In Gethsemane the whole load rolled
upon his shaken frame.
It would have been something, it seemed, if he
had not altogether failed ! It would have been much,
if he could have supposed that he had taught his
own age or his own race what God meant him to
teach them.
Torment and death would have been easy to bear,
could he have felt that they were worth while.
But no one understood. Few cared. Most forgot.
In Gethsemane it seemed to Jesus of Nazareth that
he had achieved nothing. He was a defeated man.
He had missed his Father's errand. Through the
blind gates of death, in a few hours, he must be
pushed, to hold up his trembling, empty hands and
say: " Father, I trusted Thee, — but I have failed ! "
• There in the olive-garden lay his poor friends,
asleep again. Even they could not understand
enough to give him the little common, human sym
pathy that love saves for the emergency of the
beloved. He stole out and watched them, and re
turned with his head sunken on his breast. ... He
had bared it to the night air for very anguish, and

GETHSEMANE 357
he perceived now that heavy drops were falling from
his face and body and streamed upon his heart. He
looked at them. In the faint light it could be seen
that they were red. . . .
By the subtle law which may convert the most
sacred private experiences into world-wide value,
and which governed every event in the life of Jesus,
there have been given to us certain records of an
hour known only to himself and to God. The utter
most of prayer, the outermost of sacrifice were in
the words upon which the sorrow of the race will
stay itself until men shall cease to suffer, and shall
no longer need to cling for courage to the heroes of
pain. Of these, the consent of the world has placed
him first who bore the worst the most nobly, with
the least care for himself, and with the most touch
ing trust in God.
" Father, not as I wish ! — as Thou wilt ! "
As his white lips framed these words, the olive-
branches stirred above his head, and there, as in the
Jordan desert when his troubled life was at its morn
ing, the mystical did visit him. Men called that
presence an angel's, not understanding what an angel
is. Gethsemane knew the secret of that comforting ;
but she holds it.
Beyond the grove, in an open space, the now bril
liant moonlight caught, stealthily ascending the de
clivity, the glint of a spear. The sound of approach
ing feet furtively intruded upon the silence of the
garden.

CHAPTER XVI
ON TRIAL
As he stepped out from the shadow into the
lighter spaces of the garden, his foot was firm.
The signs of acute anguish were gone from his ex
pression and his manner. He had the appearance
of one who has absorbed vigor, which makes him
unconscious, for the time, of the unendurable. He
had received some celestial anaesthetic.
His friends were still sleeping. He called them
softly. They sprang to their feet, bewailing and
apologizing. They saw him standing straight and
stiU. " Take your rest now, " he said with his own
gentleness ; " he who betrays me is here."
Before the words had left his lips, confusion
seized the olive garden. Tramping steps grew
heavier on the pathway. Lights began to burn
through the trees. Armor flashed, and military
commands became audible. A delegation of Jew
ish priests and elders, formaUy accompanied by a
detachment summoned from the fortress of An-
tonia, or by a portion of the large guard posted
at the Temple during Passover week, advanced
upon Gethsemane.
Judas Iscariot preceded them alone, saluted the

THE BETRAYAL

ON TRIAL 359
eight who were left to guard the entrance of the
garden, and pushed on. In Gethsemane the twelve
were reunited for one tragic moment. Iscariot
hurried into the heart of the garden. Peter, John,
and James, now thoroughly awake, sprang at the
footfall, but the famihar face of one of their own
party quieted their fears for a time. Judas, whose
brain was confused with the imbecUity of crime,
made one childish effort to free himself from the
suspicion of the deed that he had perpetrated. With
a feeble, foolish smile, he stepped forward, put his
arms around his Rabbi, and effusively kissed him.
A hoarse " Hail, Master ! " passed the preconcerted
signal of identification to the arresting officers.
The lip of Jesus curled. Every fibre in his
body recoiled. But he submitted to the embrace
of Judas, as a god might submit to the touch of
a befouled spirit, in the process of some plan of
events too grand to be disturbed by a personal
repulsion. He aUowed himself ten words in reply. Scorn
has never scalded deeper.
" Judas ! Betrayest thou the Son of Man ? with
a kiss ? "
But the band had now come up. Judas fled to
it for protection. The Hebrew ecclesiastics shrank
behind the Roman soldiers, who pushed on with
the pomp of a detachment commissioned to cut off
a fleeing phalanx. Armed shadows swept under
the olive-trees, and quickly formed a cordon ; the
gentle, unresisting man stood caught within it.
The guardsmen carried torches, and lamps burn-

360 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ing upon long poles. These flared high above the
heads of the group, and dashed the scene on in
strong effects, — lights, shadows, colors, outlines,
coming out emphatically. Dark, Hebrew profiles,
handsome Roman faces, flashed forth ; the gleam
of mail, the lustre of swords, the threatening shapes
of heavy cudgels. There were weapons enough in
the party to have quelled a riot.
The moon had now become invisible ; a thick
cloud shielded it. The garden would have been
dark but for the torches, cutting reddish-yellow
swathes among the olive foliage, and trembling as
they revealed the quiet figure which now stepped
out to meet the arresting band.
This movement on the part of the captive was
unexpected, and caused a momentary perplexity.
Jesus stood forth alone, in the blazon of the light.
Some surprise was felt to see .that he was smiling.
" Whom seek ye ? " he asked in a natural tone,
not without a certain lordliness, like that of a
host disturbed by intruders on his own ground.
" We seek Jesus of Nazareth," returned the cap
tain of the troop, in some embarrassment.
" I am he," replied the Nazarene. He spoke
quietly, but there was that in his accent which
caused every man to look quickly upon him ; and
when they had looked, there was that in his appear
ance which caused every glance to drop before
him. What was it? — the lines of his lip? the atti
tude of his figure? the ray of his eye? There
shot from him a sudden force that no one could ex-

ON TRIAL 361
plain. Whether it smote the body, or the spirit,
could not be said. Was it some secret of nature,
unknown to common men, like the action of fire,
light, or storm ? Was it the reply of wronged in
nocence, or of startled will ? Or was it something
greater and stranger than these ?
In the person of the entrapped Rabbi stood ma
jesty incarnate. Indeed, a stronger term than this
passed through the minds of some who were present
at that scene, and who carried through life its
matchless impression.
The arresting officers fell back. Some of them
dropped to their faces on the ground. Judas fled to
the rear of the band. He dashed his hands across
his eyes, groveling on the ground. But no one
thought of Judas. Around the Nazarene was
drawn an invisible barrier that could not be crossed.
With a smile of deep significance Jesus repeated his
question : " Whom do ye seek ? ^' And with hesi
tating tone the Roman officer, standing at a trem
bling distance, replied as before, that he sought Jesus
of Nazareth.
" But I teU you that I am he," reiterated Jesus.
With these words the resisting influence between
captors and capflfve broke. The band rushed for
ward. The captain laid a hand upon the shoulder
of his prisoner. In a moment, Gethsemane had
become a battle-ground. The disciples of the Naz
arene now came to their senses, and surrounded
him. Swords flashed and clubs swung. Shouts
and cries clashed through the olive garden, and
torches fell hissing to the sod. Peter drew one

362 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
swift, hot-headed blow, and disabled his man (who
chanced to be a servant of the High-priest), not
mortally wounding, but deftly mutilating him.
But the voice of Jesus was now heard, bespeaking
protection for his party, and preventing a massacre.
" Put up your swords," he commanded, " my
Father has given me a cup. ShaU I not drink
it?" " See ! " he added kindly. The impulse and
habit of the healer came uppermost even at that
wild moment, and he put out his thin, fine hand
and reached the wounded man, whose hurt ceased
at the touch. The Hebrew ecclesiastics looked un
comfortable. The Roman officers stared. When
in the history, of war or riot, — where in the battles
of Asia or of Gaul, had they met an incident like
this ? Blood, and slaughter, and revenge, and bit
terness, they knew ; but a compassion so instinctive
that it made a man forget to defend himself, who
could understand ?
The hand of the captain relaxed on the prisoner's
shoulder. For a moment, a distressed uncertainty
wavered over the military band. In that space,
Jesus shook himself free of the Roman grip. He
stood at his kingly height. His eye swept the sol
diers and the Hebrews until it seemed as if it would
have mown them down, man by man. Crisis was
in his demeanor, and opportunity in the bewilder
ment of the arresting party. It seemed, for an in
stant, as if by sheer spiritual superiority he might
disband them, and escape. . . . But he did not.
He turned to his friends, scanning their familiar

ON TRIAL 363
faces tenderly, as if he would take a last look at
what was dearest to him.
" Could I not pray my Father ? " he said quietly.
" More than twelve legions of angels would He give
me if I asked them of Him."
To these startling words, no man replied. He
who had spoken them Ufted his face to the sky.
His hands raised themselves to his breast, and there
knotted together. He had the aspect of one who
is restraining an unfathomable power by an im
measurable wiU.
Stars burst through the breaking clouds ; his
eye traversed the spaces of the heavens from spark
to spark. He had a certain military bearing, like
that of a commander reckoning his forces. The
trained soldiery recognized something of this, by
instinct, and it was noticed that many of them
saluted, as if in the presence of a great general,
whose tactics they could not understand, but whose
superiority was not a thing to question.
Twelve legions ? How fight phalanxes of spirits ?
How conquer battalions of invisibles ? What could
one make of such an army ?
These impressions were but the material of a mo
ment. Then the eye of Jesus turned from heaven
to earth. By a grand gesture he signified his read
iness to surrender, and the hand of the captain fell
again upon his shoulder.
They led him, quite unresisting. He felt, before
he saw, that he was to be bound. He spoke to
them only once, — the tenderest reproach ever of
fered by captive to his captors :

364 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
" Why do you come to me as if I were a thief,
with swords, with weapons? ... I was with you
every day. I taught in your Temple. And ye took
me not." . . .
As they forced him out of Gethsemane, he looked
back for his friends, whom he had loved, and who
had loved him, and shared his lot so long. Their
names quivered on his lips. In the shadow of the
olives — was that courageous Peter ? John — John
must be here, though all the world besides had
failed. It occurred to him to call them. But he did not.
He perceived with a sinking of the heart, such as
he had never felt in all his troubled life, that they
had run ; they had deserted him, every man.
His head sank upon his breast as the Roman
captain thrust him down the slope of Olivet.
The action of the great tragedy now began to
move with such appaUing swiftness that the eye is
half blinded in the effort to foUow it.
Jesus had lived, though not a life of leisure, a
leisurely life. Up to this point there had been time
enough for everything. The childhood of the Naza
rene had passed with the orderliness which best
educates. His public career, short and intense as
it was, had taken its time. He had thought and
studied, preached and worked, planned and executed,
without haste, without rest ; in calm, in thorough
ness, and in symmetry.
The end came upon him like a cataclysm of nar
ture. It was a tempest out of season, hurling him

ON TRIAL 365
down in a moment. When one would have turned
to see whither he was borne, he was gone. He had
carried himself before the people of his nation, a
law-abiding man, for thirty-three pure and blameless
years. How did the law treat him ? A sham trial,
an iUegal sentence, hurried him to a barbarous
death. Between the moment of his arrest and that
of his execution there dashed by, at the most, fifteen
hours. It was something after midnight when he was led
out of Gethsemane. The April night was not warm,
and it grew chilly as it advanced. Reacting from the
extreme nervous strain of the last hour, Jesus felt
himself grow cold. Instinctively he tried to wrap
his body, damp with the exudations wrung from the
pores and blood-vessels by agony, and suddenly
exposed to the night air. Then the ropes on his
wrist began to cut. He who had been one of the
freest men in Palestine experienced the first sensa
tion of lost liberty.
Down through the Kedron VaUey, up through the
Golden Gate, the military band swept silently into
the sleeping city. No one spoke above a whisper.
The ripple of the brook was the loudest sound. The
moon was now clear again, and the movements of
the party could be distinctly followed by the glimmer
of its spears. The prisoner was calm. He wasted
no strength in futile struggles ; indeed, he seemed to
have none to waste. It was observed by some one
that the bound man missed his walking-stick that
had been left in Gethsemane. The Roman officers

366 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
were surprised at the evident fatigue of the captive.
At the bridge 1 across the brook, he stumbled from
very weariness, and fell. A mailed hand dragged
him up, and he struggled on. No one had ever
thought of the Nazarene except as a man of good
physical strength; but vigil and Gethsemane had
overthrown it. He was now very weak.
The agents of the Hebrew nation and the officers
of the Roman government entered the city like con
spirators, trying to cover their victim from chance
observation. The capital, crowded with strangers
and foreigners, who had come up to town full of
interest in the Nazarene, must not be roused.
There were the Galileans, too, a large and powerful
number, many of them friendly to the healer who
had saved their sick, to the preacher whose eloquence
had thrilled the shores of their lake. These fellow-
citizens of Jesus should be kept in ignorance of
what was happening. It was thought best to dis
pense with the services of the Roman soldiery as
soon as possible, and the captive was hurried into
the hands of the Jewish authorities.
In the palace of the High-priest, the party were
ominously received. They were evidently expected.
In the dead of night, the whole ecclesiastical family
were awake and up. Annas, the ablest and coldest
officer of the national church, who had retired from
active service on his honors and his wealth, himself
met the prisoner. The old man stroked his long,
white beard ; he thought of his personal income, and
the revenues from the booths that the young fanatic
1 Tradition.

ON TRIAL 367
had broken up ; for three years the Priest had cher
ished his grudge, but he said nothing about so low a
subject. Jesus had quite forgotten it, at the mo
ment ; he mildly returned the sarcastic gaze which
frostUy received him.
But the ex-Priest had no mind to commit himself
too far, in a matter whose importance was evidently
considerable : he turned the prisoner over to Caia-
phas. One silent, significant, Oriental gesture car
ried the powerful weight of the pontiff's advice to
his son-in-law.
The palace was weU lighted and astir. Many
church officers were to be seen; in fact, a secret
session of the Sanhedrin, irregular, incomplete, and
unlawful, was convened. The High-priest of the
Jewish nation appeared in full canonicals to judge the
case. His sacred robes rustled, stiff with embroidery.
The light from the hanging lamps caught the mitre
on his brow; across it blazed the jeweled words,
" HoHness unto the Lord."
The eye of Jesus Ufted and rested on the mitre,
but he did not speak ; he had not spoken. With
the instinct of the orator, his hand stirred as if it
would have indicated, by an eloquent gesture, some
thing of the emotion of the moment. But Annas
had ordered that the prisoner be not unbound ; his
wrists were crossed behind him. His flesh, more
sensitive than that of a ruder man, had already
begun to chafe beneath the ropes.
It suddenly occurred to him to ask himself why
he was enduring this petty indignity. There surged
within him the rush of his own peculiar conscious-

368 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
ness of power. It needed but a thought's force to
burst these bonds as if they had been cobwebs caught
upon his fingers. All his passionate love of liberty
leaped, — his foresight of worse humiliation to come,
his sense of wronged majesty, his insulted innocence.
His voluntary helplessness resented his conditions.
He thought how easy to be free, quietly to effect the
loosening of the rope, to point the finger silently at
the mitre, to blast the unholy brow that bore the
holy words, in a moment to turn his judges into his
prisoners, to convert the palace into the background
of such a scene as history had never witnessed.
He thought of that to which he gave himself over
if he accepted the natural course of events. He
remembered how costly it all was. ..." Must I be
the sacrifice?" he asked. His breath came fast;
his color changed; the pupil of his eye enlarged.
The Priest, who had begun irritably to cross-ques
tion him, suddenly drew back before the expression
of his prisoner. . . .
There was a moment in which every man in the
hall was aware of an oppressive exigency whose na
ture he did not understand. The swinging lamps
in the palace trembled on their slender chains.
Down the slopes of Olivet two timid figures stole
away from the groves where the eleven had hidden,
and like men who had been struck on the head and
stunned, suddenly gathering their lost senses, ran
through the vaUey and over the brook, hurried
through the Golden Gate, and across the Temple area.
Peter was ahead, and yet he kept falling behind as

ON TRIAL 369
impulsive people do, from misdirected energy. He
stumbled and regained himself, and pushed on ; but,
being now well within the waUs, he ceased run
ning, that he might not attract attention, and made
his way westward as naturally as he could, towards
the High-priest's palace. He was moaning openly,
and his rugged young face looked old.
But the dearest disciple walked with his eyes
upon the ground. He seemed to notice nothing.
In the moonlight it could be seen that his lips moved
dryly. "We aU, — we all forsook him," muttered
John ; " and we fled."
Jesus stood before his judges with closed lips.
They had not opened to blight his accusers, nor to
defend himself. His momentary agitation had sub
sided into intense calm. The palace stood untrou
bled ; the council chamber was not disturbed ; the
grim Hebrew faces, crowded in it, wore their natural
expressions, touched only by unusual animosity.
Nothing had occurred to startle.
It seemed to one who, having some acquaintance
among the guards, had effected an entrance to the
inner court of the palace that escaped catastrophe
vibrated in the air. It seemed as if anything might
have happened. But nothing had.
The Nazarene was suddenly aware that John was
as near him as he could get, and a smile of recog
nition flitted over the white face of Jesus ; it was
a warm smile, natural and sweet ; as if the prisoner
had forgotten that he had been deserted, and re
membered only that he was beloved.

370 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
John's face quivered ; he felt as if he could have
died of shame. Trying to hide his emotion, he went
away and busied himself exerting some influence for
the admission of Peter, who stood in terror without,
among the servants and soldiers.
The night was growing very chilly, and fires were
burning in the courts. Peter crept up, shivering,
and began to warm his hands childishly. He was in
a panic. The servants began to badger him with
servile curiosity. Mortal fear mounted to his brain.
Jesus missed John, and experienced a deepening
loneliness that threatened every moment to unnerve
him. But his whole attention was now required to
the events of the night. These were moving with
malicious swiftness. The condemnation of the Naz
arene was a whirlwind, not a process. Between
midnight of Thursday, and nine o'clock of Friday,
Jesus Christ was subjected to six distinct hearings
or trials ; and the procedure was illegal from begin
ning to end.
Caiaphas had begun hotly enough, and without
much tact. Briefly, who and where were the disci
ples of the accused ? In detail, what was his doc
trine ? Reply specifically to these questions. But
there was no reply. It seemed, for a time, that no
one could induce Jesus to break the remarkable
silence that he had elected to observe. Such scorn
of the High-priest, and of the Council, curled on
his sealed lips as might have withered Augustus,
the Emperor of the world. But unexpectedly came
these calm and unanswerable words: "I spoke
openly to the world. I always taught in the syna-

ON TRIAL 371
gogues and the Temple. ... In secret have I said
nothing. Why do you question me? . . . Ask
those who heard me."
A stinging blow on the cheek from the palm of a
hand — one of the utmost insults that an Oriental
could receive — was the retort. A few impudent
words accompanied it. Jesus, when he could re
cover himself, observed the servant who was respon
sible for this low thing. His reply came with the
gentle dignity of a master :
"Have I spoken evil? Then testify of it. If
weU, why do you smite me ? "
Irritated by the dignity or by the logic of the
prisoner, Caiaphas formaUy turned him over to the
council. The night was passing rapidly. The
ecclesiastical dignitaries began to fret at the loss of
their usual rest, and there was a general disposition
to hurry the proceedings, so that these comfortable
men could get to their beds.
He who had not slept for now many nights, and
whose countenance was carved with the deep chisel
of endurance approaching its limit, was the most
self-possessed man in the palace.
Dawn was coming. Opaque purple grew to trans
lucent gray beyond the windows, and showed past
the edges of the curtains drawn to conceal the deeds
of that night from the knowledge of the capital.
The eye of Jesus turned to meet the rising of this
last sun.
Witness after witness was forced to the front;
but they were all preposterously perjured, and the
case made little headway till one was found who

372 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
testified that the accused had been heard to utter
certain atrocities concerning the holy Temple. Then
Jesus remembered that in a moment of devout ec
stasy, he had once cried : " Destroy it ! I will build
it in three days," and his face changed subtly, so
that the Priest, believing him about to defend him
self, angrily cross-questioned him afresh. But the
prisoner preserved his majestic silence still.
Then Caiaphas feU back upon a show of his f uU
pontifical authority ; but his voice had more of the
shrillness of rage than the depth of dignity, when he
said: " I adjure thee, by the Living God ! "
At this appeal, the countenance of Jesus took on
a profound solemnity. He perceived that the crisis
of his fate was upon him. Should he reply ? He
stood on trial for his life, unaided. Not a witness
for his defense had been allowed him. His stately
reserve had been his only friend, had proved his
best protection. Should he break that frail barrier
between himself and his doom ? Now, when he was
expected to keep still should he speak, and take the
consequences? Silence was his one, last chance;
should he fling it away ? Then who would be the
sacrifice? . . .
"TeU us," insisted the High-priest; "are you the
Christ, the Son of God?"
"You have said it," replied the Nazarene, in a
natural tone.
The council took up the challenge feverishly ; sev
eral voices reiterated : " Are you the Christ? "
" If I teU you that I am, you wUl not believe me,"

ON TRIAL 373
returned the accused, " and if I ask you, ye will not
let me go."
Now Caiaphas, pushing the point that he had
made, followed up his brief advantage, repeating
exultantly: "Are you the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed?" And Jesus, in a ringing voice, replied, " / am."
A storm of execration half smothered his next
words, which were of a mysterious and commanding
character. Jesus grew mute again. He fastened
his eye upon the mitre of the High-priest, where the
jeweled inscription blazed which was understood to
hold the pledge of atonement for the sin of blas
phemy. Nor did he remove his gaze, while Caiaphas,
in the presence of his council, tearing his priestly
robe from throat to hem, in witness of the deadliest
offense known to the Hebrew code, cried out pas
sionately : " He hath blasphemed ! "
A scene too piteous to portray succeeded. AU
capital cases must go to the Roman law, but the
prisoner was practically considered as a condemned
man. Dragged from the council hall to the inner
court, he was given over to the maUce of his ac
cusers and of the spectators.
This took shocking forms. . . .
Day was deepening. The air was so still and so
clear that the crowing of a cock, far down the val
ley, outside the city gates, echoed to the palace and
through it, with shriU distinctness.
The tortured man turned and looked into the
court. There the bravest of his disciples, harried

374 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
by servants, and livid with terror, stood gesticulating
violently. His hoarse voice penetrated quite plainly
to his Rabbi's ears : " I tell you again, I do not know
the man!"
When Peter raised his wretched eyes, they met
those of Jesus, gently and mournf uUy regarding him.
He lived to be an old man, but it has been said of
Simon Peter that never, from that dawn to his last,
could he sleep past the hour that had known his
shame; but rising from his bed, while the cocks
called through the valleys, he prayed forgiveness for
his sin, and found it.
It was morning, and the light was full, when the
unresisting man, heavily chained, was led to the
Roman court for his civil trial. Pilate, the procu
rator, was on duty. The politician had no special
mind to condemn the prisoner ; and a natural disin
clination to severity in this case was deepened by
the influence of a woman, his wife. It was owing
partly to her presence that Pilate was occupying
the marble palace of Herod the Great, — a magnifi
cent building, thought by good architectural judges
to vie in splendor with the Temple itself.
The Roman matron, secretly merciful to the Naza
rene, and much interested in his affairs since she
and her husband had come from gay Rome to this
duU Hebrew town, had slept but lightly on the
night whose tragic events she more than half sus
pected. A broken dream, in which the figure of
the Galilean passed and repassed sorrowfully, had
vexed the lady. " He is a just person," she said to
her lord ; " have nothing to do with the case."

ON TRIAL 375
Pilate entered the judgment hall in an uncomfort
able humor, being more than ready to dismiss the
complaint against the Nazarene. But he perceived,
at a glance, that he had to encounter the solid front
of the inexorable Hebrew will. The nation had its
mind made up. Great was Rome, but she should
not save the heretic. The walls of the Prsetorium
told ready tales, and it soon began to be whispered
in the streets that Jesus was actually, though still
not formally, doomed.
It was then, when wavering hope first fainted in
the hearts of his friends, that a cringing figure
crawled into the presence of Caiaphas, and a shak
ing hand flung on the marble pavement at the High-
priest's feet, the silver paid by the church for the
betrayal of the great Rabbi, and hurled back into
her treasury by a belated remorse. Who in the
council of the nation had a moment to spare for
the scruples of a cast-off tool ? " Push him aside,
like the blood-money roUing at his feet ! Send a
servant to gather up the silver, for it is accursed,
being the price of blood. The holy treasury of the
Temple may not receive it back. When we have
attended to more important matters, we wiU devote
the sum to some estimable charity, — such, for
instance, as a burial-place for paupers, a worthy
cause needing furtherance in Jerusalem."
Nobody noticed the most wretched man in Pales
tine, as he fled out of the city, and blindly pushed
his way to the further edge of the Kedron valley.
But one thing was left for Iscariot to do; and he
did it with a promptness which caUs for a certain •

376 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
respect. The branch of the tree broke, and when
he was found, he was deep in the gorge upon the
jagged rock. But the fall had not marred his face,
and identification was immediate and complete.
The morning opened pleasantly. It promised to
be a fair day, warm and still. The city was soon
alive, and it was stUl a very early hour when the
rumors of the night's black story began to run
through the capital. To these were added the
presage of worse to come. It was said that Pilate
had come off uncomfortably from the forced trial.
The accusations of the Jewish church had not made
much impression on the Roman procurator. These
were chiefly three : the Nazarene had disordered
the nation, he had forbidden his followers to pay
their taxes to the Emperor, and he had put forth
royal claims for himself. Pilate could make little
or nothing of these points* He found the case
against the accused so weak that he was at a loss
how to handle it. When he personally put the
question, " Are you the King of the Jews ? " the
Nazarene ingeniously replied : " You say so." The
prisoner had added a few strange words : " My
kingdom is not of this world, . . . else my servants
would fight ; I came into the world for this reason
. . . that I might testify to the truth."
The cultivated pagan, not without some know
ledge of the philosophy of his day, was interested
in this reply. " What is truth ? " he mused aloud.
He regarded the remarkable Hebrew with fresh
attention. Something about the man touched him.

ON TRIAL 377
It seemed a pity to execute such a person as this, a
plain religious enthusiast, of a blameless life, and
of unusual intellect. Really, what had he done,
beyond rousing the jealousy of a sour lot of Jewish
priests? The Roman was puzzled, and uneasy.
He remembered the demi-gods of his own religion.
"I find no fault in the man," he said. At that
moment, some one in his hearing remarked that
Jesus was a Galilean.
" Then," cried the procurator, with a smile of
relief, " turn him over to Herod Antipas ! The case
belongs to his jurisdiction."
Throughout the city, in little secret groups, were
huddled the friends of Jesus. Matters had gone so
far that they dared not now announce themselves
for dear life's sake, and most of them found their
lives dearer than his comfort.
One, a woman, separated herself from the others,
and tried to get a footing near him, since access to
his presence was totally denied her. But the crowd,
that had begun to surge excitedly, forced her back.
Loud voices round her said :
" They take him to Herod ! "
She pushed on with the feeble step of a middle-
aged woman, made old by suffering before her time.
Now the current of the stream of people turned,
and she found herself borne in the direction of the
palace of the Maccabees, where Herod, having come
to town to celebrate the Passover, had taken up his
quarters. The palace glittered in the sun with a forbidding

378 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
cheerfulness. Its broad approach was decorated by
imported shrubs, and trees descended from the days
of Solomon. Under their cool shadow a file of
guardsmen tramped. The representatives of the
Hebrew church foUowed remotely, with civic dis
order of step. These did not enter the palace, nor
did they set foot in the praetorium. They were
excellent churchmen. They would not defile them
selves on Passover week, by crossing a heathen
threshold. The watcher had one distant glimpse of a tall
figure, chained, and closely guarded, and walking
with difficulty.
" He wiU never know that I am here," she thought.
The woman followed blindly ; she felt as if his
chains dragged on her body, making one prisoner of
the two. It was his mother.
A gentle hand touched her robe, and turning, she
saw the protecting face of her son's dearest disciple.
John stood silently beside her.
Painful rumors came from the palace. One
could scarcely force the mind to believe them, they
were so harsh. It was said that Herod, curious and
talkative at first, had lapsed into petty mockeries
and torments, unworthy of the meanest mind in
Palestine. It was said —
Suddenly, down the marble steps, the people saw
the miUtary movement stirring once again. Tossed
from the tetrarch to the governor, bandied between
Rome and Israel, the worry of the law, the case
went back.

ON TRIAL 379
The Nazarene was walking weakly down the long,
shaded avenue. The toy of whim and spite, he bore
himself majesticaUy. But his face took on a mortal
white, above the briUiant robe that taunted its
piteous color.

CHAPTER XVII
GOLGOTHA
The tumult in the city mounted rapidly. Rumor,
for once, was milder than the facts. These began
to take incredible shapes.
It was quickly known that Pilate, clinging to his
reluctance to condemn the Nazarene, had fallen back
upon the politic Roman custom which pardoned one
Hebrew criminal on Passover week. There lay in
the dungeon of Herod a troublesome fellow, a noted
revolutionist, under sentence for murder ; and pass
ing, strangely enough, by an ingenious alias, as Bar-
Abbas, the son of the father. The procurator was
bewildered when, having, in accordance with the
traditions of the great anniversary, recommended
the release of Jesus, there came back to him the de
mand that he should pardon the murderer instead.
Pilate was plainly at his wits' end; these had
drawn him into a difficulty from which they proved
unable to free him. It was said that he made
earnest, even eager efforts to save the Nazarene
from the fate that was upon him. It was noted that
the governor vaciUated over the case, and indeed,
pleaded for the prisoner. It was known that but
for the officers of the national church the Roman
might have saved the life of the great Hebrew, —

GOLGOTHA 381
to what a consequence, who can say ? The story of
the world's future depended on the decision of this
one man. But Rome was passing her day of de
cided wiUs. Firmness was going out of fashion in
the enervated national character. Pilate was a pol
itician, harried between a turbulent, coerced peo
ple and an unreasonable and exacting government.
Annoyed and unhappy, he threw up the game at
last, and yielded to the clamor of the Jewish nation.
He yielded to the people ; but the people yielded
to the priests. These pious incendiaries fired the
popular feeling, steadily and stolidly. They would
take no alternative ; they would listen to no compro
mise. They wrought the mob to a religious frenzy,
and the Nazarene went down before it.
The nearest friends of Jesus closed together.
They made a little band and kept as near him as
they dared, watching the praetorium for sight or
news of him. The streets were now fuU to bursting,
and movement became more and more difficult. It
was stiU early, with such monstrous rapidity had
the sham trial of the Nazarene proceeded. As the
morning advanced, the clamor in front of the palace
grew to alarming proportions. Suddenly the yells
and shouts of the mob became articulate. Two ter
rible words formed themselves out of the general
roar. Which among those who loved the Rabbi
best was the first to understand what those words
meant ? They turned, each man and woman of them,
instinctively, to spare his mother. It was too late
for that. Were her ears a little dulled by time and
trouble? Who can teU? Mary of Nazareth said no

382 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
word, while the air of Jerusalem quivered to the
laceration of the outcry : —
" Crucify ! crucify him ! "
Pilate came to the balcony of the great palace of
Herod. The superb building blazed in the strength
ening sunlight. The court room lay mistily within.
Guardsmen covered every exposed spot, — porticoes,
steps, avenues ; even the roof was armed. No one
knew how the day's riot would result.
The Roman governor had a worried look. The
people saw that he was agitated. A liveried slave
brought him a basin and ewer, and began to pour
water on his unsteady hands. Pilate held them up,
dripping in the morning light. They were white,
delicate hands ; the jewels on his fingers answered
gayly to the sun.
" I wash my hands ! I have washed them of this
innocent blood ! " said Pilate. He spoke theatri
cally. But he was in earnest, as the theatrical may be.
Then there rose from the throat of the Hebrew
people, on their holy week, one long, sinister cry.
Baser was never uttered by any nation.
" His blood be upon us, and upon our chUdren ! "
A centurion came up at this moment and roughly
ordered back a little group of Hebrews who had at
tracted his attention by their agitated appearance,
and their restraint of manner. A chance word of a
bystander caused the officer to follow them with dark
curiosity, but the person whom he sought was not
among them. For their Lord's own sake, his friends

GOLGOTHA 383
at Bethany had not shown themselves. The pre
sence of Lazarus in the capital would have infuri
ated the Sanhedrin, and would have hastened the
end, or deepened the sufferings, of the gentle life
with which his own was so marvelously inwound.
Lazarus accepted the look of being neglectful and
ungrateful, that he might offer the fact of loyalty.
But where was Mary ? Bearing her part in this
cruel dUemma, with strength, with sweetness, in
silence, — hidden somewhere, invisible to Jesus,
watching, listening, with eyes to which the mercy of
tears was denied. No woman in Palestine — hav
ing set apart the mother of Jesus in her solitary
sacredness — endured what the sister of Lazarus
did that day, and lived to know that she had en
dured it, and yet that she could not die.
Again on the portico of the palace appeared the
irresolute figure of the procurator. But this time
he was pitiably accompanied. When the mob be
gan to divine how, and by whom, the terrible cry
arose once more : —
" Crucify ! Crucify ! "
Pilate drew back with a gesture half dramatic,
half sincere. At a sign from him, one in the back
ground was thrust forward by military hands.'
" Ecce Homo ! " cried the Roman loudly.
There fell upon aU the people a sudden and solemn
hush. For the sight that they saw moved the basest
soul in the multitude, and the witnesses of it who
were the least unworthy painfuUy carried its repro
duction to their last dream.

384 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Jesus stood patiently, plainly to be seen, — a tall
man, symmetrically formed, in the vigor of his
youth. A robe of crimson purple dashed royal
color upon him. There was blood upon his brow,
and drops which his chained hands, hanging heav
ily, could not wipe away, thickened upon his cheeks.
A. mutter rustled through the crowd when it was
seen that a chaplet of thorns, woven in semblance of
a crown, had been violently pressed, by rude hands;
into his temples. It was soon perceived, from his
evident physical suffering, that worse had been done
to the man. He had passed through what was
called the "intermediate death." The penal scourge
of the times was often a severe weapon, — a leathern
strap, studded with spikes of iron or of bone ; nor
was it wielded with a merciful hand.
The sensitive flesh of the Nazarene quivered yet.
. . . His body was slightly bowed as if it still bent
forward in the instinctive attitude of one who would,
but cannot, avert blows. This detracted somewhat
from his height, but nothing • from his kingly de
meanor. His head rose nobly from his delicate,
bared throat. His dark, brown hair and beard,
curling and soft, finely .framed a face that Palestine
had loved before she hated, and which Rome re
spected while she feared. His features were strong,
but as soon as one had said this; one perceived that
they were fine. There was not a weak line in them,
but there was not a rude one. There shone upon
the man the Hght of such a stainless imagination,-
as seemed almost incompatible with the force and
experience which he plainly possessed. This look

CHRIST AND PILATE — ECCE HOMO

GOLGOTHA 385
was something before which the clearest heart felt
clouded. It caused a strange, personal discomfort
in one who was not too dull to be aware of it.
His Hps, exquisitely cut, trembled to every stir of
feeling ; but his chin had the moulding of a great
will. His eyes, large and luminous, burned from
sockets sunken by suffering. In their expression
was something ineffable. Not a spark of resentment
sprang from their inner stars. Unfathomable pity,
deep below deep, rayed from them. He looked as
if he could have taken his torturers to his heart, and
forgiven them before they asked it.
Signs of what he had endured he could not sup
press, and his face was very haggard. The most
pathetic thing about it was the indication that he
had not slept ; that he had endured much, and must
endure worse, with nerves shaken to their utmost,
and brain reeling. His whole physical system went
to his therefore tenfold torment, unfortified by nat
ural, human rest. Out of that mass of many thou
sands, this occurred, possibly, to two or three minds.
Now, full in his wasted face, from uncounted
throats the roar went up again :
" We have a law ! ... He made himself the Son
of God. He ought to die ! "
It was between eight and nine o'clock in the
morning when the word went forth that even the
allowable respite of two days between sentence and
execution was refused ; and that the man and the
cross — his last, his dumb companion — had come
together.

386 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
Crucifixion was not a Jewish death-penalty, nor
was it, at that time, the favorite that it later became
with Rome, when Hebrew souls went up by thou
sands from Roman crosses ; and when one of those
ghastly, historic retributions, which nations, like
individuals, sometimes undergo, avenged the Naza
rene. For this blameless man had been reserved the
exceptional death ; that of the lowest shame, that of
the sorest torment.
The day was as fair as it had promised, and there
was a show of happy sunlight upon his face and fig
ure when he was led out of the palace of Herod
towards the narrow, arched street, known for his
sake, from that time, as the Via Dolorosa.
The mob had a glimpse of his peaceful, melan
choly face as the cross was adjusted by leathern
straps to his arms and shoulders. A few, more
thoughtful than the mass, observed how exhausted
he looked.
He had but a very short distance to walk to the
hill then in use as the place of common execution.
It lay in a northwesterly direction from the Temple.
It was scarcely a quarter of a mile away. Great
surprise was felt, when the cry came up from the
following crowd :
" He cannot do it ! He has dropped. The man
is too weak to carry his own cross ! "
It was soon known that a stranger from Cyrene,
coming into the city, and meeting the brutal proces
sion, had been arrested, and forced by the Roman

GOLGOTHA 387
guards to bear the burden, under which the con
demned had sunken. No one had understood be
fore how far the strength of the Nazarene was gone.
In every mob there is hidden the warmth of some
human mercy ; and as the gentle prisoner went to
his death, the voices of the Hebrew women arose,
wailing. He had cared for them, and blessed their
wretched lives in so many ways that it was hard to
say which of aU his kindnesses was the kindest, or
which of his wonders had been the most wonderful.
He had cured their sick, he had saved their dissi
pated, he had loved their children, he had poured
out his exquisite sympathy upon their unknown
griefs. For the heart-break that only women know,
for the woe that women of their times endured, as
a matter of course, without complaint, he had been
divinely sorry. He had been the only man who ever
understood. The women sobbed and moaned bitterly, and cov
ered their faces with their robes, and their cry went
up to heaven against the men who had done this
murder. Then Jesus, when he heard the women weeping,
forgot himself, and turned to comfort them. And
he guarded them and warned them against troubles
and perils of the future, known, it seemed, only to
himself ; but which afterward, as he had said, fell
heavily upon them and their hapless children.
And the women wept the more, — not for their
own sakes, but for his, — because he forgot himself
and remembered them, in an hour when aU men
would have called it only natural if he had forgotten

388 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
everything in heaven and earth, except his own
emergency. This was now past aU human hope.
For the great heretic there could be no reprieve.
There was in Jerusalem something like an asso
ciation of Hebrew ladies, organized for the purpose
of relieving the sufferings of those condemned to
lingering deaths. The use of anodynes was their
chief or only practical method of doing this ; and a
mixture of myrrh and strong wine was found most
helpful to the tortured. The executive department
of this feminine charity was delegated to men.
The women who had followed Jesus, loving and
mourning him, were distressed when they learned
that the Nazarene declined their anodyne. After he
had been told of its nature, no one could persuade
him to touch it. At whatever cost, he chose con
sciousness as the road to death. It was said that
his convictions refused him the right to curtaU any
form of suffering which God allotted him. This was
a strange thing. Who could understand it ?
It was now nine o'clock in the morning. The
little, sarcastic revenge of Pilate, on the prominent
Jews who had forced him into an unpleasant posi
tion, had been affixed to the top of the cross. It
was ingeniously written, for the benefit of a mixed
population, in three languages, — Latin, Greek, and
Aramaean. This inscription set forth, as was usual,
the charge under which the condemned was to die.
A committee of Hebrew priests had hurried an
grily to the procurator.
" Take down the titulus ! " they demanded ; " it

GOLGOTHA 389
is offensive to us to say that he is King of the Jews.
Say that he claimed to be. Re-write the titulus ! "
But Pilate laughed.
Baffled and stung, a number of very religious
Jews ran up towards the place of execution, to see
for themselves what was happening. The priests
could not f oUow, for it was unlawful to defile them
selves with the associations of death, and at Passover
time. These pious persons climbed to the waUs of
the Temple area ; and there, as the April morning
broadened cheerfuUy, they sat in the pleasant light
and feasted upon what they saw. Golgotha was
quite within their range of vision. They watched
the scene, in all its details, as long as they could
see. A messenger, running, came breathless back to
them. They hurled ravenous questions at him.
"When the cross was lifted, — what did you
hear?" " Strange words."
" TeU us them ! Give us the words ! What did
he say?"
And the messenger, dropping his voice for uncon-
troUable awe, gave them the words. " As the Lord
Uveth, the man did say : ' Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do.' "
The priests glanced over their shoulders, and
each man saw that the others had turned white to
the lips. The oldest averted his face. The rest
gazed on.
Jesus, on Golgotha, looked down and off. He

390 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
saw the city and the Temple shining in the light of
life and spring. . . . On the waUs and pinnacles he
saw moving figures, and perceived that his agonies
were studied by the clergy of his church.
Below, he saw his worn, blue robe in the hands of
the soldiers, who were casting lots for his tunic.
Beyond, up the wooded slopes of Olivet, lay un
seen Bethany. His, dimming eye wandered over
the crest of the horizon towards beautiful Galilee ;
there came upon his confused senses a breath from
his dear lake, seventy miles away.
He seemed, for a moment, to be preaching in his
own boat. Some sick persons were brought to him,
on the shore, and a merciful instinct caused him to
move his hands, as if he would heal fhe sufferers.
The anguish" of the form of death which forbids
the victim even to writhe recalled his drifting mind.
It could not float far, for his brain was strong and
clear. • He retained throughout his torment his own
self-possession. He looked upon the people, thinking
of them in his favorite word. What a " multitude "
they were ! Had they all come out to see him suf
fer ? It would have been something if they had not
taunted him so !
He recognized faces among them, — this one he
had comforted in a great sorrow ; that one he had
cured of a cruel disease ; he identified persons whom
he had seen often in his audiences, and who had
believed in him and trusted him. He saw that they
were classifying him, now, with the common felons
who occupied the crosses at his right hand and at
his left.

GOLGOTHA 391
Suddenly he saw women pressing as near the
cross as they were aUowed ; faces familiar to his
childhood were in the group ; and there was one —
she came from Magdala; he had saved her from
great misfortunes. She had remembered it, and
had cared enough to be near him at the end. He
was touchingly grateful for this sign that he was
not quite forgotten. And there — God pity her ! —
there was his mother. Who was beside her ? The
dear disciple stood looking at his Lord. The face
of John was like a cast moulded out of love that
cannot act.
Across the countenance of Jesus passed the sem
blance of one of his most radiant smiles, such as
those remembered who knew him in the affectionate
relations of life. Many persons distinctly heard the
faint words by which he commended his mother to
the protection of his friend, —
" He is your son." ..." Take her ; she is your
mother." It was not unusual for' the crucified to linger
for days, and surprise penetrated the onlookers
when they perceived that the sensitive Nazarene was
already sinking. He had not been under torture
for yet six hours, but the signs of coming dissolu
tion were apparent even now.
Since noon the brilliant sun had deadened. At
first there were no clouds, and observant persons
cast anxious glances at the sky which had taken
on a coppery color. Darkness had indeed begun.
It was not yet mid-afternoon, but all the world
was blackening fiercely. Lurid redness gashed the

392 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
heavens ; it was as if they had been splashed with
blood. Between the crucified, high above the heads of
the living, an awful conversation was taking place.
From one of the condemned felons, taunts were
overheard :
" Then, why do you not save yourself, and us ? "
Reproaches for this brutality issued from the dry
lips of the other, a compeer in some dark past. It
was observed that this man addressed the sinking
Nazarene. He rephed faintly, offering some devout
comfort to his low companion in agony.
This exquisite self-forgetfulness did not stop the
ghastly hilarity, which still amused the mob at inter
vals, as it had all day.
" Why do you not come down from the cross, you
.Son of God?"
Why did he not ? How simple a deed that were !
Where were the forces of which he had spoken in
Gethsemane, in which he believed, but with whose
mystical reinforcement he chose to dispense ? Silent,
in unseen spaces, obeying unknown laws, marshaled
but unsummoned, thrilling for his command, they
awaited it.
The taunts came up :
" You saved other people ! Now let us see you
save yourself ! "
His lips, parching with the thirst of crucifixion,
moved painfully. There drove across his tortured
brain the thought of the consequences if he said the
word that burned for utterance, if he gave the sign
that battled through his being for expression.

GOLGOTHA 393
What did he hear ? Was it the dying throb of his
own great heart ? Was it the voice of God ? or the
waU of man ?
" Thou shalt carry the sins of the world. . . .
Thou Lamb of God I "
Jesus opened his closing eyes. They were fading
fast, and the figures in the moving mass before him
were scarcely visible. He could see his mother's
upturned face. He could yet feel upon him the
eyes of John, whose expression bore to him the
yearning of the frail, human love that might fail
him, and grieve him, but which loved him still, and
only asked to be trusted in its weakness and forgiven
for its faultiness, because it was human, and because
it was love.
But the faces of his dearest passed on into the
universal darkness, and went out. They were re
placed by ineffable visions. The stored strength of
a lifetime of prayer lifted all his nature, and shut it
in with God. Who forgot? Who deserted? His
Father loved . . .
Now aU the woe of souls unborn thrust itself upon
his consciousness. His own age, his own people,
had slain him. But he was not dying for his own
age. All times, all peoples, counted in the cost of
his anguish. He felt the human exigencies in which
belief would be hard, and scorn of the invisible nat
ural ; he thought of the weakened, and the pursued
by trouble, and of those who would find their suf
fering greater than their endurance. He remem
bered that it was his to show them how to trust
in God. . . .

394 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
A deadly darkness had swept down upon the
crosses ; a roar that was neither tempest, nor thun
der, occupied the air. In the swift and startling
gloom his face could be seen, struck out distinctly
by inexpUcable light. Before its expression, all the
people feU upon the ground, those who had hated
him praying Jehovah to spare their brutal souls ;
but those who loved him thought only of his, and
prayed for him.
• Ah God, what a cry !
... Uttered with the last energy which assists
dissolution, spoken in the tongue of his youth, and
of the lowly people for whom he had cared, the
piteous words which one who loves him sensitively
would not, even yet, urge the refusing lips to repeat,
carried the last surprise of his broken heart.
As his unanswered question went up from the
cross to the heavens, the darkness deepened to fright.
The wind arose, but feU at once to ominous calm.
Then the lips of the earth opened and spoke.
In the unnatural dark, aU the people ran hither
and thither, and could not see one another's faces.
But his upon the cross remained still visible, hang
ing a little higher than their own, and smitten out
in light.
The earthquake tore the rocks of Golgotha, and
the walls of the city reeled, and stones which sealed
the tombs in ancient burial gardens were loosened.
In some instances they were thrust off, and sepulchres
left open to the recoiling gaze.
The panic on Golgotha shook from centre to cir
cumference of the half-blinded crowd. The people

By permission of the Cassell Publishing Co.

GOLGOTHA

GOLGOTHA 395
fled in horror, anyhow, anywhere, as they could ; as
they ran, they beat their breasts, and uttered short,
terrified sounds.
The Roman officer, who had been posted at the
foot of the cross, feU flat with shame and terror.
" It was the Son of God ! " he cried.
When the priests, groping through the prolonged
darkness, huddled together in the Temple, they
found a fearful thing. The great and sacred veil,
hanging before the Holy of Holies, was rent across
its blue and purple, white and crimson folds, straight
through its embroidered, golden cherubim — torn
from end to end.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE resurrection and the life
When the darkness Ufted from the land, the
crucified Nazarene did not stir.
Was he dead so soon? There were those who
were indined to complain of him, because his sen
sitive and exhausted frame did not support torture
longer. Even in death, he offended his tormentors.
They took the quickest possible steps to make sure
of the fact that he was gone, beyond a question.
" Not a bone of him shaU be broken " had sung an
ancient poet of his people, in the days when prophecy
and literature clasped strong hands.
A Roman soldier stood on Golgotha with up
raised arm to apply the test of the crurifragium to
the motionless body of Jesus. But he laid his mal
let down with uneasy surprise, and took his spear
instead. Did there linger in the vigorous Galilean
the innermost ember of life ? The trained military
hand made no mistake in giving the vital wound.
Then the spear dropped as the maUet had, and the
Roman wished he had not marred the man. For
there was something that he could not understand
about the manner of this death.
It has since been said that there were certain phy
siological evidences that the crucified Rabbi had,

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 397
indeed, died most piteously, yielding to a mental
agony which, in rare cases, has been known to cause
a lesion of the central organ of life. It has long
been believed" by many who would have wished to
believe otherwise, that Jesus, in the literal sense of
the words, died of a broken heart.
The broken-hearted keep their own counsel ; and
the secret is his yet. By whatever road he trod the
last wUderness that lay between his lonely life and
its appaUing end, the end had come. FoUower and
foe, Jew and GentUe, accepted the fact : Jesus the
Christ was dead.
Now, upon the murdered man was poured a swift
tenderness which was offered to him — as it is to
many a sensitive and deserted soul — too late.
A prominent Hebrew who had long loved the
Rabbi in silence pushed his influence to the full,
demanded the body of the Nazarene, and obtained
from the Roman government its immediate posses
sion. He offered his own f amUy burial place, a new
tomb, that death had never occupied. The eminent
citizen achieved what lowUer friends could not have
accomplished, and the last dignities were offered
without disturbance to the body of Jesus before the
Sabbath sun had set. This was as the law compeUed.
The trembling fingers of his chosen friends drew
out the spikes from the feet that had trodden Pales
tine over only to do it kindnesses, and bathed the
hurts in the hands that had healed and blessed, but
never harmed. As these were composed for their
rest, one who had cared for him very much thought
how often they had been seen lifted over the heads

398 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
of the people, while he prayed that happiness, and
health, and holiness might come to them. The tears
of loving women dashed upon his face, when it was
drawn down within their reach. They who had
never ventured or thought to touch him while he
was alive, begged permission to lift his cold hand to
their lips. But his brow was so majestic that no
kiss could intrude upon it. In death, as in life, he
passed alone.
They bore him to his garden tomb as the light
was striking low upon the leaves of trees and plants,
and upon the petals of the closing flowers. They
carried him in haste and fear. Only his bearers and
two or three friends accompanied him. With tired
feet and tender thoughts he had foUowed many a
burial procession. But Jerusalem was ashamed to
foUow his.
Rudely embalmed, or wrapped in such spices as
could be hastily procured, and folded into fair linen,
his noble body was left in the outer chamber of the
pure, new sepulchre. He was not interred.
As the round stone roUed into its place the sun
sank. And the Hebrew nation piously set itself to
the observance of High Sabbath ; for it was Holy
Week. But there were ingenious minds among their
priests and leading men, and the Roman governor
promptly received one of the anxious committees
that had tried his patience all the week.
" Give us a watch at the tomb," urged the spokes
man shrewdly, " for the man has said strange things ;

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 399
he did claim that he would not stay in it three days.
He has his friends. They would steal his body to
save his reputation as a prophet. Give us guards ! "
So Pilate yawned, and gave them guards, for he
was weary of the subject. And the tomb was barred
with a small stone, which, adjusted to the disk, held
it in its place. A tablet of moist clay, so placed
that the least movement would break it, was stamped
with the imperial seal. The officers of Rome sat
without and guarded the tomb.
They sat there aU night on duty. The next day
they were relieved by other guards, and the next
night the watch went on again. So the Sabbath
came to its end, and midnight of Saturday to Sun
day foUowed.
The watch were brave men, and accustomed to
grim duties, but they had uncomfortable thoughts.
The night was long, and there was no wind. It was
so still that their own hearty breathing startled
them. The garden was in bloom all about the beau
tiful new sepulchre. The stalks of shrubs seemed to
stir as if they had been hit by passers ; but no one
moved. Now and then a flower stooped, as if it had
been brushed; but it had not been touched. The
air was faint with perfume ; the place was heavenly
bright. The white disk that locked the sepulchre
gave back the light, as if it were a gate of pearl.
Within the vault, Jesus of Nazareth lay in state.
It came on to be the hour when the night dies and
the day is not yet, but is seen to be approaching.
The moon was set. The cheek of the East had be
gun to pale.

400 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
The watchmen in the garden moved uneasily.
Who stepped ? There was no one. What stirred ?
Surely, nothing.
They passed to and fro, and came together at the
mouth of the sepulchre, where they stood on guard.
In any two comrades picked for united duty, there
is liable to be one finer and one braver than the
other. Of these two men, he who was the quicker
of eye suddenly went the color of terror, pointed
with his spear, and fell.
The stone that closed the tomb was moving.
The other guardsman sprang, with a Roman oath,
and struck at the stone with his sword, but he did
not hit it. The great disk began to stir in its groove
and slowly rolled out to one side.
The moon was down, but the sun was not yet up ;
yet the garden glowed ; a light that was neither of
the dawn nor of the sunset rayed upon the tomb.
The leaves of the vines that clung about it had the
look that foliage has when it is aflame, and every
flower in the garden was a bell or cup of fire. . . .
Glory became translucent ; translucence softly out
lined —
But the bolder of the guards turned as faint as his
mate, and dropped beside him.
Mary caUed Magdalene came to the garden, and it
was Sunday's dawn. She had not slept. The night
had been so brilliant, that it seemed as if she had
sat at the walls of Heaven. Her soul was floating ;
— had it wings ? She wondered why she had not
wept. She thought of her miserable past without a

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 401
pang. With a flight of joy she remembered what
the Rabbi had done for her. Other women had
ministered to him, and loved him : let them mourn
him ! They had not suffered as she had ; she felt
as if it were hers only to bless him. She felt as
if she outloved them aU — as, indeed, she had out
walked them aU, and so came first into the garden.
SUver gray was sweetening to rose along the east,
which was still dim ; but the prelude of the morning
had begun with pomp. It would be a stately sun
rise. The city lay melted in an unusual and beauti
ful mist. This had a gentle color, and gave a grate
ful indistinctness to the outlines of the palaces and
the Temple.
In the garden the dew was heavy. The scent of
the opening flowers was delicate. There was such
purity in the air that it was a delight to breathe.
The trees were fuU of song birds. Music, perfume,
light, color, flooded the garden, and rose against the
solemn shape of the sepulchre.
The woman crept up on tiptoe, as one does who
fears lest she might disturb a dear sleeper. She
held her breath — ah, what had happened ? What
had happened ?
The guards were nowhere to be seen. The great
disk was roUed from its position. The woman looked
in at the mouth of the vault ; the tomb was open
and empty.
With her hands upon her heart, Mary glanced,
and sped out of the garden. This was a matter for
men. She ran to the lodgings of Peter and the
dear disciple.
•0

402 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
" They have stolen him ! " she gasped.
Her breath was gone, and her courage with it.
All her high mood of the night and of the first
dawn had broken down. She came back, walking
weakly. She could not keep up with John, or with
Peter, who ran on without noticing her. She en
tered the garden drearily.
The other women were not organized like Mary.
They came up more deliberately, with their myrrh
and spices in their arms, thinking to finish the
burial preparations that the Sabbath law had inter
rupted, and to do for their Lord what should be
done, before it was too late. They were less sensi
tive, or more brave than she whose early misfor
tunes had shaken body and soul; and when they
saw the great disk rolled away, they did not run.
They put the myrrh carefully down upon the turf,
and stooped and crept into the tomb. And so it
befell them to see that which some of them were
afraid to speak of, and it happened to them to hear
that which others were more afraid not to tell. To
these last, the world owes the record of some of the
wonderful words in whose radiant hope the Chris
tian dead of centuries have been laid to rest.
So the women came out of the tomb, for he was
not there, and they, too, went away.
John came running to the sepulchre, and stopped.
Peter, panting heavily, pushed straight in. The
other followed him more slowly, and the two men
examined the tomb. It was to them but a»empty

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 403
vault. They saw no blinding sights ; they heard no
mysterious words. They saw the linen cloth lying,
as fair and fresh as when it had been wound about
his dear body — but nothing more. With shaking
hands they reverently examined the grave-clothes.
" He is not here, " they said. And they, too,
had gone away.
Mary was alone at last. She knelt down, gathering
her strength, and looked into the tomb for herself.
The marble slab was bare. There he had lain
in state, awaiting his burial. Beyond was the crypt
where they had meant to inter him to-day. The
air breathed in and out of the new tomb, as pure
and strong as dew and youth. The morning sun
streamed in. The sepulchre was empty.
Was it ? Look again ! At the head and foot
of the long, white slab, briUiance began to form.
The woman held her breath, and caUed her courage.
She was ready to believe in the inexplicable, but
she was sore afraid of it. Yet, as she gazed, she
ceased to be afraid. What she saw seemed to her
more natural than any common, usual thing, that
could be explained.
Call them spirits, call them angels, or name them
as one would, these strange, beautiful visions, with
eyes like the arrows of the storm, were messengers
of God. And God had never been explained.
Mary looked at the spirits confidingly. Her tears
ran down into a sudden, childlike smile.
" They have taken away my dear Lord, " she
said, " calh.you teU me where to find him ? "

404 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
A shadow fell over her shoulder, and entered the
tomb. There it lay solemnly. It was the shadow
of the figure of a man.
She had thought it was the keeper of the burial
garden, and began to explain to him how and why
she was there. Her sobs tore from her now so
that her words were hard to understand, and her
own ears were deafened by them. Her eyes were
blinded, too, by the tears which she had kept back
so long that they would have their way at last.
She did not recognize the stranger, while she
tried to talk with him, until he called her by her
own name.
Then a cry went up to the morning skies, that
arched like a dome of joy above the tomb.
" My Master ! "
She sprang towards him, crying and laughing,
and her words began to fall fast, like drops pour
ing from a flagon of delight.
" It is my dear Lord ! He is alive ! "
She fell at his feet, and stretched up her arms.
But he motioned her back.
Now, about the city, and throughout Judea, and
in all Palestine, great things were, said ; and as
great were never said, but took place in silence and
in secrecy ; while others were whispered under oath
of honorable persons, and so came into record.
Past many an ancient tomb whose stones the earth
quake had loosened at the hour when the Nazarene
gave up his ghost, stole silent figures ; into many a

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 405
home where the bereaved sat desolate, trod soundless
footsteps. The latch lifted, the curtain stirred, the
casement opened ; and one who had been mourned
for years came in and took his old, familiar place,
and smiling, looked about the room, to see if he
were remembered.
" The Resurrection " had been a theological
phrase in Palestine, accepted by some, refused by
others, and a puzzle to aU. Now it came to be
caUed a fact of history. For the dead had been
seen abroad, and recognized.
It also came, but not at once, to be understood
that this mystery had some connection with the other,
mightier one, which, in time, absorbed the interest
of all thoughtful men.
There were those who bowed their heads, and
smote their breasts and said : " We have crucified a
man. But we could not slay a God ! "
There were others who mused, and knew not what
to say. These were less afraid of not recognizing
a God than of deifying a man ; for this was their
nature. And to aU natures, the life and death of the
great Nazarene remained a mystery.
To none did the wonders which directly succeeded
his death seem more mysterious at the time than to
his chosen friends. The women came with their
joyous testimony ; but they were women. The men
Ustened to them in masculine incredulity ; they had
found only an empty tomb. No disciple had seen
angels ; and the Roman watchmen, for fear of their
lives, and being heavily bribed, withheld their star
tling witness, and thrust out the report that the body

406 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
had been stolen by the foUowers of the Nazarene
whUe the guards slept at their posts. This childish
tale was instigated by the priests, and the pardon of
Pilate to the offending watchmen was a part of the
price. Thus matters stood immediately after the death of
Jesus. Then that happened which changed every
thing. It was the late afternoon of the first Easter, when
two of the eleven,1 restless with sorrow, went out by
the western gate for a country walk. They took
the direction of a little place caUed Emmaus — a
lovely village set over the hills in bloom and green.
Life and light throbbed in the soft wind, in the gen
tle scenery. Thousands of birds were in the air.
The soul of spring swayed by dreamily. But the
hearts of the twain were as heavy as the clods of the
grave. Their Lord was dead.
In the bewilderment of fresh bereavement, they
talked drearily, — of him, of his great life, of his
piteous death, of aU that was precious and of aU that
was confusing to them in his history ; of the failure
of his purposes, of the ruin of their hopes and of
his. A stranger joined them as they were walking, —
it seemed that he was one of the festive bands with
which the suburbs of Jerusalem had been peopled
the past week — and entered into their conversation.
They thought him a very ignorant man, though he
had not that appearance, for he questioned them
1 Cleopas, and (by tradition) Luke.

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 407
minutely about the life and death of their Rabbi.
Was there a foreigner in Jerusalem who had not
heard what had happened? They answered him
with a sort of surprised condescension, but they
readily began to talk about their Lord ; indeed, they
could not speak of anything else. And as they
stroUed and talked, their feeling about the stranger
underwent one of the swift transformations which
simple minds experience in the presence of a supe
rior. This was no ordinary tourist. This was a
master of knowledge. He spoke of the Hebrew
Messiah; of the meaning of ancient prophetic po
etry ; of the possibilities hidden in the scriptures
of the race. He spoke of the recent events that had
shaken Palestine — of the national hopes and of the
national shame.
The two disciples felt deeply drawn to the stranger ;
their thoughts took a high turn ; courage and faith
swept back upon their despairing hearts, like fire from
heaven upon an abandoned altar. They clung so to
the stranger that, when he would have left them and
passed on up the country road, they could not, would
not, have it so. They begged him, nay, they com
pelled him, to accept their hospitality. So he in
dulged them, smiling, and went to supper with them
in their simple house of entertainment. There, it
seemed the only right thing for him to do to take
the head of the table ; his hosts did not even wonder
why. And it seemed to be wholly expected that
he should ask the blessing of God upon the bread.
Then it seemed not strange, in any way, when the two
began slowly and quietly to understand who he was.

408 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
How did this recognition come about ? Was it of
the mind, or of the heart ? Was it of the senses, or
of the spirit? Had they been bUnded or deafened?
Had he changed, or was it they? The secrets of
approach between the living and the dead were
God's, — were God's and his.
Like so much else that had been inexplicable,
this, the utmost mystery, now yielded to his con
trol. And they who loved and mourned a dead
Christ, lifted their eyes and perceived that he was
alive. Ah, the radiance ! the rapture ! The countenance
that had been overstrained with suffering was blind
ing bright. His wan and wakeful eyes had taken
on a look of rest which nothing could disturb again.
His tormented body shone with such vigor that it
seemed as if every nerve had forgotten that it had
ever known a pang. His fine lips quivered — not
with pain. When he smiled, it was as if the heart
would break with joy to see him. . . .
For forty days he whom Palestine had tortured
and slain, trod her dust, elate and wonderful.
It pleased him to reveal himself on many occa
sions, and by the witness of many eyes and ears. It
has been recorded that five hundred persons, at cer
tain places and times, met with personal knowledge
that the dead Nazarene lived again.
But it was to his own friends that his heart hur
ried, and his own received him rapturously. Once,
in a manner not known, he is thought to have found
his way to comfort heart-broken Peter. Once, and

By permission of Museum of Fine Arts, Bost<

THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 409
once again, in a fashion that the whole world knows,
he came into the upper chamber of the stone house 1
at Jerusalem, where the disciples sat behind doora
closed and bolted, fearful of priests, of Rome, and oi
the people, hiding from they knew not what perils,,
and consumed by misery. Here he saluted them
audibly : " Peace be unto you ! " he said. Here he
shared their evening meal, and they saw him eat,
before their eyes, the poor man's fare of fish and
honey which was aU they had to offer. Here a
mysterious solemnity took place, dimly understood
by those who witnessed it, but reverenced by them
and by aU who have loved him since, because it
proceeded from him.
After this, he took the pains to come back the
second time, to the same place and company, be
cause on his first appearance the skeptic of the
group was absent. He called on the distrustful
disciple who demanded for assurance of his Lord's
identity such exacting proofs as history has been
careful to specify, to employ his own methods of sat
isfying his doubts. Jesus yielded his incomprehen
sible personality, while Thomas, — being of the type
of mind that would to-day put the case of the res
urrection of Jesus Christ into the hands of experts
in psychological research, — investigated the marvel
as he would. The doubter thrust out his trembling
fingers. . . .
There was the spear-wound made by Rome. There
were the torn hands and feet, mutilated by Israel.
The apparition could be touched. It had form, sub-
1 Tradition.

410 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
stance. It was a body. It bore the likeness of the
torments with which life had seared it. . . .
As the skeptic f eU upon his knees, the upper room
echoed with the low cry with which the groping be
lief of aU men and all times will go reaching up to
mystery : " My Lord and my God / "
The beautiful part of the wonder was that Jesus
seemed to care for the same things that he used to
care for before he had died ; not only for the truths
and the friends, but for the places that he had loved.
He went joyfuUy into Galilee, which had been
dear to him ; and there he expressed wishes that his
disciples should meet him ; as they did. He came
to the lake and loved it and remained by it for a
while. And when the puzzled fishermen, coming back to
their old duties, went out on an unsuccessful trip,
and put about, tired and discouraged, he who had
so often met and helped them met them once again
upon the shore. And he cared for them and for
their disappointment, and did them one of his own
strange kindnesses, and ate a meal with them, as he
had done once or twice before since his reappearance.
But Peter dashed into the water, as he was apt to
do if he were afloat on any startling occasion, and
hurried, longing, to his Lord. A solemn and mem
orable conversation took place between them.
Upon these radiant scenes there fell not the soft
footfall of a shadow. All was as natural, as peace
ful, as pleasant, as a safe and happy life. Indeed,
happiness was a paltry word by which to speak of

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 411
the demeanor and expression of him who seemed to
know celestial delight upon terrestrial ground.
Beautiful Galilee, that had been kinder to him or
less unkind than any other province in the land, re
ceived and kept the secret of his movements, when
those who loved him best and saw him most often
knew not where he had gone or whence he came
again. He appeared and disappeared as he would,
peaceful and majestic.
He wore something of the look of mysterious joy
ousness which a spirit might, if it had the opportu
nity, after death, to come back to the scenes that were
best beloved in life. But they who saw him, and
conversed with him, and touched him said :
" It is not a spirit."
What sacred romance, what solemn delights and
surprises came into the Uves of those fishermen for
a six weeks' span ! There passed upon the shores
of Gennesaret a celestial drama, grand and still.
With every dawn these rugged men, grown gentle
and dreamy, hushed to awe, trembling with expec
tancy, awoke to say : " Will he come to-day ? " At
nightfaU they asked one of another, "Have you seen1
him ? Have you ?
But the time came when it was no longer possible
to say of his appearance that it was like anything
known to men, or imagined by them. Nor was it
possible to think that the earth could continue to
hold a presence such as his had now become.
There feU a day when he had bidden his friends
with him into the hills, and had talked with them

412 THE STORY OF JESUS CHRIST
tenderly, and directed their future, and glorified their
souls with love and faith, tiU they felt that they
could die for him and be happy ; as some of them
did, and were.
Then it was made known to them that he would
lead them away, and out of GaUlee, towards Jerusa
lem. Mutely they foUowed the mysterious caU.
Near Bethany, where he had been so beloved, he
paused. It was as if he would come to the home of
his heart before he went.
There the little group understood suddenly that
they were to lose him. It needed no parting words,
although he spoke them. His eye, his smile, his out
stretched hands, became remote. Ecstasy enwrapped
him. Mistiness began to blend upon him. The air
between himself and them trembled.
They dared not entreat him. . . . Now something
graver than joy, but which was not sadness, touched
his expression. His eyes foUowed them wistfuUy ;
pity was the last look, as it had been the first, that
they saw upon his face. Then love unutterable
blinded aU other consciousness, whether in himself
or in those whom he left. His voice ceased. His
features dimmed. His form faded. A delicate cloud
received him. He melted into it, and was not.
Thus vanished from the earth Jesus of Nazareth,
the Son of God.
Evil never touched his spirit. Corruption did not
approach his body. Even his ashes were not per
mitted to remain in the soil of the land that had
slain him.

THE ASCENSION

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE 413
He was born in denial of the laws of life. He
died in defiance of the laws of death. He was Lord
of law. Ideal of sacrifice, Master of suffering, the
grandest intellect, the purest heart that this low
world has known — its Supreme Soul — he passed.
He has left us the faith which bears his name.
He has left us the august opportunity of everlasting
life.

"Many other signs . . . did Jesus . . . which are
not written in this hook ; but these are written that ye
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." —
The Dear Disciple.

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