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 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK
 
 WHEN THE KING CAME
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION
 
 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 J>torie from tf)e four 
 
 BY 
 
 GEOKGE HODGES 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 (bc Biljctsittc press Cambridge 

 
 COPYRIGHT 1904. BY GEORGE HODGES 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October, 1904
 
 J3T 
 
 30 a 
 
 , To 
 MY CHILDREN
 
 THIS tells how once the King of Glory came 
 from heaven to visit us here on earth and 
 live amongst us ; how He was born in Beth- 
 lehem and brought up in Nazareth; how 
 He went about telling people of the Heavenly 
 Kingdom, and doing good, ministering to 
 the sick and the poor ; how He was misun- 
 derstood, and disliked, and even hated, till 
 at last they took Him in Jerusalem and 
 nailed Him to a cross so that He died; 
 and how, after that, He came to life again, 
 and went back into heaven, promising to 
 return.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FAOB 
 
 I. How THE KING WAS BORN IN A STABLE, AND 
 WAS BROUGHT UP AS THE SON OF A CARPENTER, 
 AND LIVED UNKNOWN FOR THIRTY YEARS. 1 
 
 1. THE YEAR ONE 3 
 
 2. THE HERALD OF THE KING ... 8 
 
 3. SHEPHERDS AND SINGING ANGELS . . 15 
 
 4. THE KING'S NAME 22 
 
 5. THE KING is TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE . 26 
 
 6. THE VISIT OF THE WISE MEN . . 31 
 
 7. THE CARPENTER'S HOUSE . . . .40 
 
 8. AT THE AGE OF TWELVE ... 47 
 
 II. How THE KING BECAME CONSCIOUS OF HIS KING- 
 SHIP, HEARING A VOICE OUT OF THE SKY ; AND 
 
 HOW CERTAIN FISHERMEN BELIEVED IN HIM AND 
 FOLLOWED HIM. 59 
 
 1. THE HERALD SPEAKS . . . .61 
 
 2. HEAVEN AND THE RIVER ... 68 
 
 3. THE THREE TEMPTATIONS . . . .76 
 
 4. THE TWELVE FRIENDS .... 85 
 
 5. THE KING GOES TO A WEDDING , 93
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 III. How THE KING WAS DRIVEN our OF THE TOWN 
 WHERE HE HAD LIVED, AND WENT ABOUT THE 
 LAND OF GALILEE, WITH HIS DISCIPLES, DOING 
 GOOD AND TEACHING THE PEOPLE. 101 
 
 1. THE KING AMONG HIS NEIGHBORS . . 103 
 
 2. A DAY OF THE KING'S LIFE . . 112 
 
 3. THE BROKEN ROOF 119 
 
 4. THE POOL OF THE ANGEL . . . 127 
 6. THE KING STOPS A FUNERAL . . . 134 
 
 6. THE STILLING OF A STORM . . . 139 
 
 7. THE WILD MAN OF GERGESA . . . 147 
 I 8. THE MINISTER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER . 154 
 9. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT . . . 160 
 
 10. THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN STORIES . 166 
 
 11. THE HERALD'S HEAD . . . .175 
 
 12. TWELVE BASKETS OF PIECES . . . 182 
 
 IV. How THE KING WAS HATED MORE AND MORE, 
 
 AND COULD NOT STAY EVEN IN GALILEE ; HOW 
 HE WENT AMONG THE HEATHEN, AND THEN INTO 
 THE LAND ACROSS THE JORDAN ; AND HOW AT 
 LAST HE SET HIS FACE TOWARDS JERUSALEM. 191 
 
 1. WHY THE KING WAS HATED . . . 193 
 
 2. IN THE LAND OF TYRE AND SIDON . 201 
 
 3. WHAT A BLIND MAN SAW . . .211 
 
 4. A ROCK FOR A CORNER-STONE . . 218 
 6. THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY . . . 225 
 
 6. THE LAD AT THE FOOT OF THE HILL . 232 
 
 7. THE GOOD SAMARITAN .... 240 
 
 8. THE PRODIGAL SON 248
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 9. THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR . . 257 
 
 10. AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS . . . 267 
 
 11. ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM . . . 277 
 
 12. IN THE STREETS OF JERICHO . . 286 
 
 V. How THE KING CAME TO JERUSALEM, AND WAS 
 BETRAYED AND CONDEMNED AND PUT TO DEATH 
 UPON THE CROSS ; AND HOW HE ROSE AGAIN 
 FROM THE DEAD AND ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN. 295 
 
 1. PALMS AND PSALMS 297 
 
 2. THREE DAYS OF THE HOLY WEEK . 304 
 
 3. PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES AND WEEDING 
 
 GUESTS 310 
 
 4. THE LAST SUPPER 321 
 
 5. IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE . . 331 
 
 6. CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS . . . 340 
 
 7. CHRIST BEFORE PILATE .... 351 
 
 8. CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED . . 361 
 
 9. THE EMPTY TOMB 370 
 
 10. THE KING WALKS WITH Two DISCIPLES 379 
 
 11. THE VISION OF THE SEVEN FISHERMEN 387 
 
 12. THE KING RETURNS TO HEAVEN . . 394
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION Raphael 
 
 (page 230) Frontispiece 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE SHEPHERDS H. LeRolle 18 
 
 CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE H. Hofmann 56 
 
 CHRIST AND THE FISHERMEN E. Zimmermann 88 
 
 LETTING DOWN THE SICK MAN Alexander Bida 124 
 
 JESUS RAISING THE WlDOW OF NAIN'S SON 
 
 H. Hofmann 136 
 
 JAIRUS' DAUGHTER H. Hofmann 156 
 
 JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA 
 
 L. Azambre 196 
 JESUS WITH MARY AND MARTHA AT BETHANY 
 
 H. Hofmann 212 
 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN Rembrandt 246 
 
 JESUS AND THE RlCH YOUNG MAN 
 
 H. Hofmann 258 
 
 THE LAST SUPPER Leonardo da Vinci 326 
 
 JESUS BEFORE PILATE M. Munkacsy 356 
 
 JESUS LEAVING THE PR^ETORiuM Gustav Dore 362 
 
 GOLGOTHA T. S. Gerome 366 
 
 THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS S. L'Hermitte 384 
 
 (From a Copley Print, copyright by Curtis & Cameron)
 
 How THE KING WAS BORN IN A STABLE, 
 
 AND WAS BROUGHT UP AS THE SON OF A CAR- 
 PENTER, AND LIVED UNKNOWN FOR THIRTY 
 YEARS.
 
 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 THE YEAR ONE 
 
 / 3 3 3 * 
 ONCE upon a time there was a Year One. 
 
 Strangely enough, it was not the beginning o 
 the years. The world was already very old : 
 nobody knows how old. People had been 
 living on the earth, time out of mind, in 
 mighty nations, fighting great battles and 
 building great cities. But somehow, every- 
 thing seemed to begin over again that year, 
 because that was when the King came. And 
 we have taken it ever since as the most 
 important of all dates. When we say that 
 this present year is Nineteen-hundred-and- 
 something, we mean that the Year One was 
 just so many years ago. 
 
 It is always to be remembered about that 
 year that one of its days was Christmas Day. 
 
 You may not think that strange. Christmas
 
 4 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 comes so regularly every year, like apples in 
 autumn and snow in winter, that it seems to 
 belong to the order of nature, and one may 
 easily imagine that it has been celebrated al- 
 ways, and that it is as old as boys and girls. 
 But the truth is that there was never any 
 Christmas till the Year One. 
 
 Year after year, and year after year, the 
 evergreen trees grew in the woods and no- 
 body came to get them. Nobody thought of 
 lighting them up with candles or of loading 
 them down with candies. The holly showed 
 its berries of red and the mistletoe its berries 
 of white, and nobody paid any attention to 
 them : except perhaps the Druids, whoever 
 they were, and they had never heard of 
 Christmas. The twenty-fifth day of December 
 came and went, like the twenty-second and the 
 twenty-ninth ; and boys and girls were born 
 and grew up into men and women with never 
 a Christmas carol nor a Christmas tree nor a 
 Christmas gift, and without having so much as 
 heard of the singing angels or of the Holy 
 Child ; because that was before the King came.
 
 THE YEAR ONE 5 
 
 Now, in the Year One, there lived in a 
 quiet little place, in a small village hidden 
 among hills, a young girl named Mary. I 
 cannot tell you how old she was, but we will 
 guess that she was at the age when girlhood 
 passes into womanhood. Neither can I tell 
 you how she looked, or whether her eyes were 
 brown like the earth or blue like the sky ; but 
 we may be sure that she had a sweet face, be- 
 cause she was very good and gentle, and had 
 a fair and sweet soul. 
 
 One day, Mary was sitting alone in her 
 room. She may have been reading ; for we 
 know that she loved to read. A poem which 
 she wrote, called the Magnificat, is full of the 
 memories of books. Or, she may have been 
 sewing ; for she was presently to be married, 
 and would be getting ready for the wedding. 
 She was to marry a neighbor, the village car- 
 penter, named Joseph. It was a spring morn- 
 ing, and the flowers were in blossom, and the 
 birds were singing, and the sun was shining. 
 Thus she sat, with her heart full of beautiful 
 thoughts, when of a sudden such a gleam of
 
 6 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 splendor shone about her that it seemed as if 
 the sun had been under a thick cloud and 
 had just come out and begun to blaze in good 
 earnest. Mary turned to see where this new 
 brightness came from; and there beside the 
 door, dressed all in white, stood a resplendent 
 angel. 
 
 The angel said, " Hail, thou that art highly 
 favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art 
 thou among women." And Mary was afraid, 
 and began to tremble ; so that the angel 
 
 said, " Fear not, Marv : for thou hast found 
 
 ' ./ 
 
 favor with God." Then, while she held her 
 breath and listened, he told his wonderful 
 errand. God had seen the sin and sorrow 
 that were upon the earth, He had heard little 
 children, and even grown men and women, 
 fathers and mothers, crying. He knew how 
 people were trying to be good and making a 
 sad failure of it because they were ignorant 
 or weak. And now God was about to do 
 what He had long promised : He was to come 
 and live among us. God had, indeed, lived 
 among men always, as He does to-day : always
 
 THE YEAR ONE 7 
 
 and everywhere we are in the presence of 
 God. But now he was to make himself 
 known in a new way. The King of Glory 
 was to take our human nature upon him, and 
 become a man like us. He was to come, not 
 in his royal robes of splendor, not in the gar- 
 ments of the sunset, not with his holy angels 
 with him, but as a little child, to be born as 
 we are, to grow as we grow, and thus by liv- 
 ing our life to teach us how to live. And 
 when the King came in his humility, Mary 
 was to be his mother. 
 
 And Mary said, " Behold the handmaid of 
 the Lord ; be it unto me according to thy 
 word." Then the angel departed from her. 
 That was the first day of the Year One.
 
 n 
 
 THE HERALD OF THE KING 
 
 THE King had long been expected. Men of 
 God in the Old Testament had promised that 
 the King should come. They had also pro- 
 mised that before he came, somebody should 
 appear to tell the people that he was coming, 
 and to prepare his way ; for that was the 
 custom when kings came. Sometimes the road 
 lay over wild lands, and companies of men 
 were sent to make it smooth. They cut down 
 forests, and bridged rivers, and even leveled 
 hills and filled up valleys. All this they did 
 under the orders of the king's herald. 
 
 One of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, 
 had said that when the King of Glory came, 
 such a herald should precede him with such 
 orders. The prophet, in his vision, heard the 
 herald's voice in the wilderness : " Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 
 Every valley shah 1 be filled and every moun- 
 tain and hill shall be brought low ; and the
 
 THE HERALD OF THE KING 9 
 
 crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
 ways shall be made smooth ; and all flesh shall 
 see the salvation of God." Another prophet, 
 Malachi, had said that the road to be made 
 ready for the King was not laid down on any 
 map, but was in the heart of man ; where the 
 valleys are valleys of ignorance, and the hills 
 are hills of pride, and the rough and crooked 
 ways are ways of sin. Malachi said that the 
 King's herald would be like the prophet 
 Elijah : " He shall go before him in the spirit 
 and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the 
 fathers to the children, and the disobedient to 
 the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people 
 prepared for the Lord." 
 
 At last, one day, just before the beginning 
 of the Year One, a strange thing happened to 
 a priest in the temple. The priest was a very 
 good old man named Zacharias. He lived 
 with his good old wife, Elisabeth, in a quiet 
 little place among the hills, where they were 
 much respected and loved by all their neigh- 
 bors. The old people liked the quiet of the 
 village, but they were much troubled by the
 
 10 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 quiet of their own home ; for every day, from 
 morning to night, no sound was there but 
 the sound of their own gentle voices. Many 
 times they had prayed to God to send them 
 a little baby, but then- prayers had not been 
 answered. 
 
 Now the time came when it was the turn of 
 Zacharias to go to Jerusalem to take his part, 
 with other ministers, in the temple service. 
 Services were going on every day in the 
 year, but there were so many ministers that 
 they had to take turns. And even when a 
 new company came week by week, they had 
 to draw lots to divide the service, one to do 
 this, another to do that. This time it so hap- 
 pened at the drawing of lots that Zacharias 
 was chosen to burn the incense. That was 
 a great honor which came only once in a 
 man's life. 
 
 So Zacharias went in to burn incense. One 
 part of the temple was called the Holy of 
 Holies : and nobody ever went into it except 
 the high priest, once a year. Just outside the 
 Holy of Holies was the Holy Place. The
 
 THE HERALD OF THE KING 11 
 
 doors which led into it were covered with 
 gold, and against them hung a heavy curtain 
 colored white and blue and scarlet and pur- 
 ple. Inside, there stood on the right a table 
 and on the left a great candlestick having 
 seven branches, and beside the candlestick 
 was the altar of incense overlaid with gold. 
 Two men went in with Zacharias, one carry- 
 ing a golden bowl full of incense, and the 
 other a golden bowl full of burning coals. 
 These they put on the altar and went out, 
 leaving Zacharias alone. Outside were all the 
 other priests and many people in great silence 
 praying. Zacharias was to take the incense 
 and sprinkle it on the burning coals so as to 
 make a thick fragrant smoke. " And the 
 smoke of the incense, with the prayers of 
 the saints, ascended up before God." 
 
 Then it was that the strange thing hap- 
 pened ; for as this white-haired old man cast 
 the incense on the coals and the place was 
 filled with smoke, suddenly he saw an angel 
 of the Lord standing beside him. And when 
 Zacharias saw him, he was troubled and fear
 
 12 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 fell upon him. But the angel said, "Fear 
 not, Zacharias : for thy prayer is heard ; and 
 thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and 
 thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt 
 have joy and gladness ; and many shall re- 
 joice at his birth. And he shall go before the 
 Lord." That is, the child, thus to be born, 
 should be the herald of the King. 
 
 You remember how Mary answered the 
 angel. She said, " Be it unto me according to 
 thy word." But she was young, and it was 
 easy for her to believe in wonders. Zacharias, 
 in his long experience, had learned that life 
 is governed by great, universal laws. One of 
 these laws is that little babies are not given 
 to old people. And that was the first thought 
 which came into his mind. " I am an old 
 man," he said, " and my wife well stricken in 
 years." Indeed, they were now such aged 
 folk that they had given up expecting that 
 their prayer would be heard. But the angel 
 answered, " You do not know who I am. My 
 name is Gabriel. I come to you straight from 
 God. He has sent me to tell you these glad
 
 THE HERALD OF THE KING 13 
 
 tidings. And now because you do not believe, 
 you shall be dumb and not able to speak until 
 this comes to pass." So he vanished out of 
 sight. 
 
 Meanwhile, the people in great silence wait- 
 ing without were wondering why Zacharias 
 stayed so long in the Holy Place. And when 
 he came out, and held up his hands in bless- 
 ing but was speechless, and could only make 
 signs to them, touching his lips and point- 
 ing to the sky, they knew that he had seen a 
 vision. So he did the duties of the day and 
 then went home to tell the great news to his 
 wife. 
 
 And by and by, that which the angel had 
 promised was fulfilled. The little boy came 
 into the quiet house of Zacharias and Elisa- 
 beth. And when he was eight days old, ac- 
 cording to the custom, he must be named. 
 All their neighbors and cousins were glad 
 that God had heard their prayer, and on 
 that day they came together to rejoice with 
 the happy father and mother. And they said, 
 " Of course, the baby will be named Zacharias,
 
 14 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 after the name of his father." "Not so," 
 said Elisabeth, " but he shall be called John." 
 " Why," the neighbors and the cousins said, 
 " there is none of thy kindred that is called by 
 this name. There is not another John in the 
 whole family." And they asked Zacharias, 
 making signs to him, for he seems to have 
 been deaf as well as dumb. And he took a 
 slate and wrote a sentence on it, as they 
 crowded about to see ; and the sentence was, 
 " His name is John." And at that moment his 
 speech came back, and his mouth was opened 
 immediately, and his tongue was loosed, and 
 he spake and praised God. And all who were 
 in the house were filled with fear and won- 
 der, and when they came out they spoke to 
 everybody whom they met, saying, " Have 
 you heard what has happened in the house of 
 Zacharias ? What manner of child shall this 
 be ? " But Zacharias and Elisabeth knew what 
 he should be. They knew that the child John 
 should be the prophet of the Highest, the 
 herald of the King.
 
 m 
 
 SHEPHERDS AN> SINGING ANGELS 
 
 MONTHS passed after these angelic visits. The 
 green of spring deepened into the green of 
 summer, and lilies grew in the fields, and the 
 fruits ripened and were gathered into barns, 
 and the cold nights came on. And one night 
 there were shepherds in a pasture close by the 
 town of Bethlehem, watching their flocks. 
 
 We seldom see shepherds in this country. 
 The men with sticks who drive sheep through 
 the streets are not true shepherds. Shepherds 
 never drive sheep : they go before and call 
 them, and the sheep know the shepherd's 
 voice and follow him. While the flocks are 
 in the fields, the shepherds stay among them to 
 keep them from straying off and getting lost, 
 and to protect them from wolves and bears in 
 places where such wild animals are found. 
 
 There are countries where the grass is green 
 all the year round, and where almost the only 
 snow which the people see is on the tops of
 
 16 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the mountains. In such countries the sheep 
 can feed in the fields even in the winter. 
 
 In the old time in the Year One peo- 
 ple when they went to church on great holy 
 days carried little lambs with them. That 
 would seem queer nowadays. Imagine a 
 church where everybody had a lamb under 
 his arm instead of a prayer-book ! I am afraid 
 that most small boys, and even some small 
 girls, would find it hard to sit perfectly still 
 in a church full of frisky little woolly lambs. 
 But in those days they were used to it, and 
 did riot mind it. The people brought the 
 lambs to give to God. And they brought the 
 very best lambs, because they wished to give 
 God the very best they had. Some of the 
 lambs came from these Bethlehem pastures : 
 and they who took care of the church lambs 
 would be good shepherds, gentle and kind 
 men. 
 
 So it was in the winter night, and the stars 
 were shining and all was still, and in the fields 
 the flocks were sleeping while the shepherds 
 watched. We may guess that, as they watched,
 
 SHEPHERDS AND SINGING ANGELS 17 
 
 they talked together and told one another 
 stories ; especially about David, who, when he 
 was a boy, had lived at Bethlehem and had 
 lain out many a frosty night in that very pas- 
 ture with his sheep, and once had killed a lion 
 and a bear. The lion and the bear had come 
 to get the sheep, and young David had fought 
 with them and killed them. And they sang 
 the -Shepherd's Psalm, " The Lord is my shep- 
 herd." And they spoke of the King of Glory, 
 how he would sometime come, according to the 
 promise ; and they wondered how he would 
 look, and what he would do when he came. 
 And they said, " When he comes he will be 
 seen here in Bethlehem." For that was writ- 
 ten in the Bible. 
 
 Then, as they watched and talked and 
 sang, suddenly something happened. 
 
 All at once a great and wonderful light 
 began to shine, brighter and brighter, in the 
 black sky, till the night was like the day. All 
 the clouds came out in the splendid garments 
 which they wear in the early morning and in 
 the late afternoon. And out of the central
 
 18 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 shining appeared an angel of the Lord, gleam- 
 ing like a flame of fire. The shepherds fell 
 upon their faces, not daring to look up, hardly 
 daring to listen or to breathe, while the angel 
 spoke. " Fear not," he said, " for, behold, I 
 bring you good tidings of great joy which 
 shall be to all people. The King has come ! 
 To-night he is born, yonder in Bethlehem. 
 There shall you find him, sleeping in a 
 manger." 
 
 And then the sky grew brighter still, as if 
 behind the clouds the gates of heaven itself 
 were swinging open, and out there came an- 
 gels upon angels, a multitude of the heavenly 
 host, shining and singing. This is what they 
 sang : 
 
 " Glory to God in the highest, 
 And on earth peace, 
 Good will toward men ! " 
 
 Then the chorus ceased, and the choir went 
 back into heaven, shutting the golden gates 
 behind them ; and the night was dark and 
 still again, and the shepherds were alone. So 
 up they leaped, crying one to another with
 
 SHEPHERDS AND SINGING ANGELS 19 
 
 great joy, " Let us go to Bethlehem and see ! 
 Let us find the King ! " And off they went, 
 down the frosty road, their eager feet making 
 a great noise in the silent night and their 
 breath white behind them. 
 
 Now, all that day, travelers had been jour- 
 neying in unusual numbers along the ways 
 which led to Bethlehem, for it was the time 
 of a census. Caesar Augustus, emperor of 
 Rome, wished to know how many people were 
 living in that part of the country, so that he 
 could make them all pay taxes. Every man 
 had to go to his own city; that is, to the 
 place in which his family belonged. So there 
 was a great stir all about the land, with men 
 going to this place and to that to have their 
 names written in the census-books. Among 
 the others, out of Nazareth came Joseph the 
 carpenter, because he was of the family of 
 David, and with him Mary, his espoused wife, 
 who was to be the mother of the King. Down 
 they came like other poor folk, over hill and 
 dale, till they arrived at Bethlehem. But
 
 20 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 when they reached the town there was no 
 place where they might stay. Every house 
 was full of guests, and the inn was already 
 crowded. The only shelter was a stable, a 
 common stable, strewn with hay, with dusty 
 cobwebs hanging from the rafters, and occu- 
 pied by cows and donkeys. There, accord- 
 ingly, they went. 
 
 And there, while the angels sang and the 
 sky blazed over the pastures of the sheep, 
 the King came. The King of Glory came! 
 The mighty God, the Maker of all things, the 
 Lord most high, came to dwell among us. 
 And behold, he was a little child. And Mary 
 wrapped him warm in swaddling clothes, as 
 the way is with babies, and laid him in the 
 manger. 
 
 There the shepherds, all out of breath with 
 running, found them, Mary and Joseph, and 
 the babe lying in a manger. And they told 
 what they had seen and heard about the sing- 
 ing angels and the King of Glory, while Mary 
 listened, remembering the angel who had ap- 
 peared to her. So the shepherds returned,
 
 SHEPHERDS AND SINGING ANGELS 21 
 
 glorifying and praising God for all the won- 
 ders of that night. 1 Thus was kept the first 
 Christmas, with carols by the choir of heaven, 
 and God's own Son, the Saviour of the world, 
 coming as a Christmas gift for all mankind.
 
 IV 
 THE KING'S NAME 
 
 A WEEK went by after the night when the 
 King came, and the day arrived when he 
 should be given a gift which he would keep all 
 the rest of his life. You know what I mean. 
 Many gifts are given to little new babies, some 
 of which they play with till they are torn or 
 broken all to pieces ; a few, like spoons and 
 cups, last a long time ; but this gift lasts al- 
 ways, and the child carries it with him wher- 
 ever he goes, even when he becomes a man ; 
 and never loses it, no matter what may happen 
 to him. This gift is his name. 
 
 The naming of a child is therefore a matter 
 of such importance that people may properly 
 make a great occasion of it. In those days it 
 was the custom to pray God to bless the child, 
 much as we do now at baptism. The neighbors 
 and the cousins came together, as they did at 
 the naming of little John, the son of Zacharias 
 and Elisabeth, and there was much rejoicing.
 
 THE KING'S NAME 23 
 
 It was time, then, to name the King, who 
 had been laid in the manger ; though he lay 
 no longer in the manger. They had, no doubt, 
 found a better lodging for him. Far from 
 home as they were, there would be some in- 
 terested neighbors to come in. The shepherds 
 would be there. And for cousins, it is quite 
 likely that Zacharias and Elisabeth came, 
 bringing their little boy, the King's herald, 
 now six months old. There was no question 
 as to the name ; no need to decide between 
 this good name and that. The angel had told 
 Mary at the beginning what the child should 
 be called ; saying, " Thou shalt call his name 
 Jesus." 
 
 Now, Jesus was a very common name. One 
 would think that a name which came straight 
 from heaven, brought by an angel, would be 
 uncommonly beautiful ; or at least quite new, 
 such as no mortal had borne since the world 
 began. For example, as St. Matthew suggests, 
 the King might have been called Emmanuel, 
 which means God with us. But the fact is that 
 there were other children by the name of Jesus.
 
 24 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 It was a plain, ordinary name, like John or 
 James. 
 
 The reason why it was so common is that it 
 had been the name of a celebrated general ; as 
 boys are sometimes called now after the heroes 
 of the wars. This general is known to us un- 
 der the name of Joshua. You remember about 
 him : how he led the army of Israel into the 
 Promised Land, and drove out the people who 
 lived there, fighting brave battles and settling 
 the country, like William the Conqueror. There 
 were two ways of spelling his name. Some- 
 times they spelled it J-o-s-h-u-a, and sometimes 
 they spelled it J-e-s-u-s. Thus it is spelled 
 once in the second way in the eighth verse of 
 the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the He- 
 brews. One was the Hebrew spelling, the other 
 was the Greek : that is the only difference. 
 
 For the King had come to be like us, and 
 to live the same life which we live. He did 
 not wish to take a strange name, nor even a 
 royal name, different from us. 
 
 And Joshua was a good man to be named 
 for; because the King had come to fight
 
 THE KING'S NAME 25 
 
 hard battles and to lead us against strong 
 enemies and finally to settle us in the King- 
 dom of Heaven. You know that when little 
 children are baptized, and the minister says, 
 " Name this child," and the child is given a 
 name, then the minister says, " We receive 
 this child into the congregation of Christ's 
 flock ; and do sign him with the sign of the 
 cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be 
 ashamed to confess the faith of Christ cruci- 
 fied, and manfully to fight under his banner 
 against sin, the world and the devil ; and to 
 continue Christ's faithful soldier unto his life's 
 end." Thus we are all soldiers, striving for 
 the right. 
 
 Moreover, the name Jesus means Saviour. 
 It stands for the whole purpose for which the 
 King came, to save us from our sins.
 
 V 
 
 THE KING IS TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE 
 
 THE next thing which happened in the child's 
 life took place when he was a little more than 
 a month old. One day, when the frost was 
 out of the air and the winter had begun to 
 change into the mildness of spring, his father 
 and mother wrapped him up, and took him 
 for a journey. It was his first sight of the 
 world. Where do you suppose they carried 
 him ? Six miles they went, over hill and dale, 
 from the little town to the big one, from 
 Bethlehem to Jerusalem. They could see the 
 city a long way off, for it stood on a moun- 
 tain. And in the midst of the city, with its 
 roof overtopping all the others, shining in the 
 sun, was the splendid church, the holy temple. 
 Joseph and Mary watched it from afar as they 
 made their way along the country road, not 
 only because it was bright and beautiful, but 
 because it was the end of their journey. That 
 was their errand, to take the child to church.
 
 THE KING TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE 27 
 
 There was service every day in the temple ; 
 and as Joseph and Mary passed along the city 
 streets, climbing higher towards the sacred 
 place, they saw many other people who were 
 going in the same direction. Some of them 
 were carrying little babies in their arms ; for 
 it was the custom to bring every first-born 
 child to present him to the Lord. The child 
 was brought to church, and the minister, in 
 the name of God, received him with prayer, 
 and then gave him back again to his father 
 and mother. It was a solemn and beautiful 
 way of saying, " All of these little children 
 belong to God, our heavenly Father ; and 
 they are to be brought up and cared for and 
 trained and taught as the children of God." 
 Then followed a special service for the mother. 
 The mother brought an offering, which, if 
 she were poor, consisted of a pair of turtle- 
 doves or two young pigeons. The service 
 began with the burning of incense on the 
 golden altar, in the Holy Place, as on the day 
 when Zacharias saw the angel. After that, 
 before the door of the Holy Place, on a great
 
 28 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 altar made of stone, the sacrifices were offered, 
 while those who brought them stood close by, 
 praying and praising God. The child's part 
 of the service was called the Presentation ; the 
 mother's part was called the Purification. 
 
 So it was that day. The child was presented 
 to the Lord, and the mother's offering was 
 duly made, and the service was over. Now 
 there was an old man in Jerusalem, whose name 
 was Simeon. He was a very good and holy 
 man, and, like many others, was wondering 
 when the King would come. Simeon did not 
 know that the King had come already ; but he 
 was sure that he must soon appear, for he had 
 had a wonderful dream, and in the dream God 
 had spoken to him, and had promised that be- 
 fore he died his eyes should behold the King 
 of Glory. And since it was written in the Old 
 Testament that the Lord should appear in the 
 temple, Simeon was all the time expecting him 
 at the daily services. Every day, as he climbed 
 the temple hill, he said to himself, " The King 
 may come to-day." Perhaps he thought that 
 the sky would suddenly open, and there would
 
 THE KING TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE 29 
 
 be a great light, brighter than the sun, and 
 out of heaven the King of Glory would come 
 down. 
 
 But this morning, as he came into the tem- 
 ple, praying in his heart that his great desire 
 might that day be granted, he heard the voice 
 of a little child. And when he looked, there 
 was a baby in its mother's arms. And as he 
 looked again, for the child was very beautiful, 
 a strange feeling came over him. It seemed 
 as if God were speaking in his heart again, as 
 He had spoken in his dream, and telling him 
 that here at last was the answer to his prayer. 
 He stopped and took the child up in his arms 
 and blessed God. And he said, " I have seen 
 the King of Glory. Now let me die in peace, 
 for mine eyes have beheld him who shall be 
 the Saviour of the world." And while Joseph 
 and Mary marveled at the old man's words, 
 he gave them his blessing, and said, " Behold, 
 this child is set for the fall and rising again of 
 many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be 
 spoken against." 
 
 Then came an aged woman, a widow, whose
 
 30 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 name was Anna. She was eighty-four years 
 old, and all her time for many, many years 
 had been spent in the temple. She was a 
 prophetess ; that is, her eyes were wonderfully 
 opened to see the will of God. And she gave 
 thanks to God when she saw the child, and 
 spoke of him to all her friends. 
 
 So the parents went out of the temple with 
 the child who had been thus strangely wel- 
 comed, and carried him back over the country 
 road.
 
 VI 
 THE VISIT OF THE WISE MEN 
 
 THEN the child grew and grew, as other little 
 children grow ; and for a good while nothing 
 happened except just the ordinary things. 
 But one day, there came to the door some 
 very extraordinary visitors. 
 
 Nobody knows how old the child was when 
 they came. Indeed, St. Luke, who was much 
 interested in the beautiful stories of our Lord's 
 childhood, knew nothing about them. So far 
 as he had learned, Joseph and Mary went back 
 to Nazareth after the presentation in the tem- 
 ple, carrying the child with them. But St. 
 Matthew had heard about the Wise Men. One 
 would think, to read the story in St. Matthew's 
 Gospel, that our Lord was as much as two 
 years old when the Wise Men came. In that 
 case, it was at Bethlehem that he learned to 
 walk and to talk, and began to say his prayers, 
 and to learn by heart some of the holy words 
 of the Bible.
 
 32 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Meanwhile, away in the east, nobody knows 
 where, men were watching the sky. They 
 lived out of doors in those countries much 
 more than we do, and the clouds and the stars 
 were of great interest to them. Every night 
 they looked to see the constellations rise and 
 set ; and when a comet blazed across the hea- 
 vens, they were filled with wonder. They did 
 not know that the stars were other worlds. 
 They thought that they were^ shining jewels 
 set in the blue roof of the sky. They imagined 
 that they formed mysterious sentences, which 
 one might read did he but know that celestial 
 language, and thus learn the story of the earth, 
 both past and future. Especially, they con- 
 nected the great stars with the great kings ; 
 and one of their number, a magician named 
 Balaam, had one day, in a vision, cried, " I see 
 a star and a king ! " meaning a king of the 
 Jews. 
 
 These men were called Wise Men. They 
 were very well acquainted with the sky, and 
 knew the stars by name. And one night as 
 they gazed, according to their custom, at the
 
 THE VISIT OF THE WISE MEN 33 
 
 lights overhead, behold, there was a new star 
 which none of them had seen before. There 
 it shone, brighter than any of the others, low 
 down in the western sky. And the men said, 
 " There is the star, and in that direction, to- 
 wards the west, is the land of the Jews. There 
 is a king born ! Let us go and see him." 
 
 So they started on their long journey. Some 
 say that they were as great as they were wise ; 
 that they were kings ; that there were three 
 of them, an old man named Caspar, and a 
 middle-aged man named Melchior, and a young 
 man named Balthaser ; that they rode on 
 camels and had a train of servants with them. 
 Indeed, we may imagine whatever we please ; 
 for nobody knows anything about it. 
 
 On they came, then, over the hard wild ways 
 which lead from the east to the west, till at 
 last they reached Jerusalem ; and there they 
 stopped to ask their way. " Where is he," 
 they said, " that is born King of the Jews ? 
 for we have seen his star in the east, and are 
 come to worship him." But the people knew 
 of only one king of the Jews, and his name
 
 34 . WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 was Herod ; and he had been born so long ago 
 that even now he was approaching the end of 
 his bad life. That was not the king for whom 
 they were looking. No : there was a new king, 
 a little child. So they went about asking peo- 
 ple in the streets, and the news spread, the 
 news of the appearance of these strange visit- 
 ors and of the strange question which they 
 asked. People said one to another, " Have 
 you seen those three dark-faced pilgrims out of 
 the far east ? Have you heard what they are 
 saying ? " And men began to be afraid. They 
 said, " Now there will be war. The two kings 
 will fight for the crown." 
 
 Presently, King Herod heard what was hap- 
 pening in the city, and he too was troubled. 
 The thought came into his heart that this new 
 king might perhaps be the King of Glory. 
 He knew that the people were waiting for a 
 king, and that promises of his coming were 
 written in the Bible. Herod was not a reader 
 of the Bible, and he had no idea that the 
 King of Glory was to come from heaven. 
 All that he had in his mind was a vague know
 
 THE VISIT OF THE WISE MEN 35 
 
 ledge that a great king was expected, and a 
 clear conviction that when the king came 
 there would be no more use for Herod ; and 
 he immediately determined that he would find 
 the new king, if he could, and kill him in his 
 cradle. 
 
 So he called the ministers together, and 
 when they came he said, " Where is it that 
 that king, of whom the Bible speaks, will be 
 born, when he comes ? " And the ministers 
 looked into the Bible, and there it was, written 
 down in black and white long, long before, 
 that the King of Glory should be born in 
 Bethlehem. " And thou Bethlehem, in the 
 land of Juda, art not the least among the 
 princes of Juda ; for out of thee shall come a 
 Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." 
 
 Then Herod called the Wise Men privately, 
 and they came to meet him in his palace, and 
 he asked them many questions. He seemed 
 particularly anxious to find out just how long 
 ago it was when the star appeared. And the 
 Wise Men, who were better acquainted with 
 stars than they were with kings, answered
 
 36 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 him in all simplicity. And the king said, 
 " You are to go to Bethlehem. Go, and search 
 diligently for the young child ; and when ye 
 have found him, bring me word again, that 
 I may come and worship him also." That is 
 what he said, the bad king, who meant to 
 kill him. 
 
 Away they went, then, out of the king's 
 palace, and made their way towards Bethle- 
 hem. And as they went, behold, they saw the 
 strange star, shining again in the night sky, 
 as they had seen it in their own land. And 
 they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. The 
 star seemed to go before them, leading them, 
 and at last to stand still over the little village. 
 And under the star was a house ; and in the 
 house, the King ! 
 
 The house did not look much like a palace. 
 Joseph was a carpenter, having nothing to 
 live on but his daily wages. He could afford 
 only the humblest lodgings. Neither did the 
 child look much like a king. There he stood 
 leaning against his mother's knee, looking at 
 the strange visitors with great eyes of won-
 
 THE VISIT OF THE WISE MEN 37 
 
 der, and probably more interested in the Wise 
 Men's camels than he was in the Wise Men 
 themselves. But the Wise Men kneeled be- 
 fore him and worshiped him. And when 
 they had opened their treasures, the queer- 
 looking boxes and bundles which they had 
 brought with them, they presented unto 
 him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 
 These gifts were of no use to the child. 
 Frankincense and myrrh are kinds of fragrant 
 gum which are found on trees and shrubs in 
 the East, somewhat like the sticky substance 
 which we find on pines. They were used to 
 make incense. (Frankincense means simply 
 pure incense.) That is, when .put on burning 
 coals they made a thick smoke with a sweet 
 smell. Such was the incense which Zacharias 
 was placing on the golden altar when he saw 
 the angel. Thus frankincense and myrrh were 
 used in the worship of God. Accordingly, the 
 Wise Men's gifts were meant only to express 
 the thoughts of their hearts. As they knelt 
 before the child and spread them out at his 
 feet, they said by these symbols what we say
 
 38 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 in the Te Deum when we sing, " Thou art 
 the King of Glory, Christ." And since the 
 Wise Men were not Jews but Gentiles, Joseph 
 and Mary may well have recited one to an- 
 other, after they went, the great words of the 
 Old Testament, " The Gentiles shall come to 
 thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
 rising. . . . They shall bring gold and in- 
 cense ; and they shall show forth the praises 
 of the Lord." 
 
 That night, before the next day dawned, 
 the Wise Men had a dream ; and, in the same 
 night, Joseph had a dream also. In the Wise 
 Men's dream God told them about Herod, and 
 warned them not to return to him, but to go 
 back to their own country another way. In 
 Joseph's dream, the angel of the Lord ap- 
 peared and said, " Arise, and take the young 
 child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, 
 and be thou there until I bring: thee word : 
 
 O 
 
 for Herod will seek the young child to destroy 
 him." So the Wise Men rose up, and, avoid- 
 ing Jerusalem, went to their homes far in the 
 east. And Joseph also waked and aroused
 
 THE VISIT OF THE WISE MEN 39 
 
 Mary, and they made a hasty preparation for 
 a long journey, and before it was light were 
 a good distance on the road which led from 
 Bethlehem toward the south. 
 
 And when the day came, Herod, too, opened 
 his eyes, and he remembered the Wise Men 
 and their errand. " This morning," he said 
 to himself, " I shall know about the King." 
 But the morning passed, and the afternoon 
 also, and no word came from the Wise Men, 
 and at last Herod saw that he would hear 
 nothing more from them, and he was very 
 angry. But he knew that Bethlehem was the 
 place where the King should be born ; and 
 he knew, according to the time which he had 
 diligently inquired of the Wise Men, that the 
 King could not be more than two years old ; 
 so he sent men who killed all the little chil- 
 dren in that village, all who were under two. 
 And there was lamentation and weeping and 
 great mourning in Bethlehem among the 
 poor mothers and fathers. But meanwhile 
 the King was on his way, all safe and sound, 
 to Egypt.
 
 VII 
 THE CARPENTER'S HOUSE 
 
 THE good angel had promised Joseph that 
 he would be sure to let him know when it was 
 safe for him to come out of Egypt. So, one 
 night, he appeared again in a dream and told 
 him that Herod was dead. "Arise," he said, 
 "and take the young child and his mother, 
 and go into the land of Israel ; for they are 
 dead which sought the young child's life." 
 Out of Egypt they came, then, very gladly, 
 riding part of the way and walking part of the 
 way, the child walking, too, past Bethle- 
 henij and then past Jerusalem, and so to their 
 own town of Nazareth. 
 
 Nazareth is an inhabited place, even to this 
 day. And not only are there still to be found 
 both fathers and mothers and little children 
 in it as there were then, but they are still living 
 in much the same way ; for life changes very 
 slowly in the East. Nazareth is among the 
 hills, which rise about it on all sides, like a
 
 THE CARPENTER'S HOUSE 41 
 
 sheltering wall. The streets run across the 
 bases of the hills, probably on the old lines ; 
 for few things which men make last so long 
 as a street. There is a town well, a clear spring 
 of cold water, which is still the centre of the 
 life of the place, as it was when our Lord was 
 a lad there. Twice a day, all the women and 
 girls go there with earthen pots on their 
 heads, bringing them empty and carrying 
 them away full ; and every week they meet 
 by the side of the stream which flows from 
 the spring, and have a good, neighborly time 
 doing their family washing. 
 
 So years went by, and the child Jesus grew, 
 and there were other children. The house was 
 full of them. There were James and Joses 
 and Jude and Simon, our Lord's brothers ; 
 and, at least, two sisters. The house in which 
 they lived was a white building, perhaps made 
 of clay, having a flat roof. The roof was 
 reached by an outside stairway. When the 
 weather was good, the family all slept on 
 the roof, each wrapped in a blanket, under 
 the stars. One of the Psalms tells how the
 
 42 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 grass grew on the roof, and how the hot sun 
 withered it. The house had no window in it : 
 all the light and air came from the wide door. 
 Once Jesus told about a woman who lost a 
 piece of money, and she took a broom and 
 a candle to find it ; for the corners were dark 
 even in the daytime. He had seen his mother 
 looking for things with a candle and a broom. 
 There was not much furniture in the house. 
 Joseph may have had his carpenter's bench 
 on one side, but he probably did most of his 
 work out of doors, except when it rained. 
 There would be a big chest on the other side, 
 for rugs and blankets. The room had a stove 
 in it ; and a tall lamp made of earthen-ware, 
 which was kept burning day and night. There 
 was a mill in which Mary ground grain to 
 make flour for bread, the little girls helping 
 her. The little boys helped their father at his 
 bench. For dinner they had large, round, flat 
 loaves of bread, like crackers, with butter 
 or cheese, and milk and honey ; sometimes 
 they had eggs, sometimes fish from the Lake 
 of Galilee ; with a dessert of grapes or figs.
 
 THE CARPENTER'S HOUSE 43 
 
 There was commonly a central dish of curds 
 or porridge, in which all dipped their broken 
 pieces of bread. Sometimes the children would 
 gather locusts, and their mother would roast 
 them, and grind them up with flour, and bake 
 them into nice grasshopper cake. 
 
 The children played among themselves or 
 with the children of the neighborhood before 
 the doors and in the street. They had a game 
 in which they pretended they were dancing 
 at a wedding, and another in which they pre- 
 tended they were crying at a funeral. And 
 sometimes some of the children would be 
 offended and say that they would not play. 
 All this Jesus remembered, and spoke of it 
 when he became a man. 
 
 Every little child was taught to say his 
 prayers, and learned sentences of the Bible. 
 The first words which Jesus, like all the others, 
 learned by heart were these : " Hear, Israel, 
 the Lord thy God is one Lord. Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
 with all thy soul and with all thy might." As 
 he grew older, he committed to memory
 
 44 
 
 eighteen other verses, and recited them at the 
 beginning and the ending of every day, when 
 he said his prayers. That was the custom in 
 all good households. These verses he pre- 
 sently learned to read and then to write. Then 
 his mother taught him the meaning of the 
 words, and told him the beautiful stories of 
 the old time which were written in the Bible, 
 about the faith of Abraham, and the great 
 deeds of Moses, and the courage of Joshua, 
 and the exploits of Samson. There were other 
 stories which would impress him still more, 
 because he could see with his own eyes the 
 places where they had happened. There was 
 a high hill near Nazareth, and when one 
 climbed it there was a wide view over all the 
 country. To the east was Mt. Tabor, where 
 Deborah and Barak fought in a wild storm 
 of rain against Sisera ; and Mt. Gilboa, where 
 King Saul fell down slain in a great battle 
 with the Philistines. To the west was Mt. 
 Carmel, where Elijah contended with the priests 
 of Baal, and called down fire from heaven. 
 And the child knew that to the south, across
 
 THE CARPENTER'S HOUSE 45 
 
 the plain and beyond the mountains, lay Jeru- 
 salem, the holy city. 
 
 On the sabbath, there was a service in the 
 synagogue, to which the child went with his 
 parents. There he heard the Bible read and 
 explained. The children stayed after service, 
 and had lessons of their own. Even on week- 
 days, the school met in the church, and much 
 of the teaching was religious. Thus our Lord 
 was taught about the world in which he had 
 come to live, learning arithmetic and geo- 
 graphy and history ; and about God who is in 
 all the world and over it, and who wishes even 
 the smallest children to tell the truth, to be 
 good and gentle, and to obey their parents. 
 And on holidays, he climbed the high hill to 
 see the view, and there thought over all these 
 things. 
 
 Sometimes, his brother James went with 
 him, and the two boys climbed together, talk- 
 ing as they went ; for James was a good lad, 
 with a serious mind. But the difference be- 
 tween James and Jesus was like the difference 
 between a statue and a tree ; that is, James's
 
 46 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 goodness was rather stiff and formal and made 
 by rule, while the goodness of Jesus was free 
 and natural. They were so unlike that James 
 was often shocked at the sayings of Jesus. I 
 am guessing at this from what we know about 
 them after they grew up. James could not 
 understand him. Indeed, he perplexed the 
 whole family. Many times, therefore, Jesus 
 sought the height alone, thinking his own 
 thoughts.
 
 VIII 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 
 
 EVERY year, Joseph and Mary went on a long 
 journey. They set out in the early spring- 
 time, when the leaves were green and the 
 blossoms were pink and white, and before the 
 days grew hot. First they walked a long way 
 to the east, till they came to the river Jordan, 
 on whose banks they pitched their tent and 
 spent the night. Then they turned to the 
 south, following the course of the river all that 
 day and the day after, and avoiding the coun- 
 try of the Samaritans ; for the Jews and the 
 Samaritans were enemies. The third night 
 they slept in Jericho. The next morning, turn- 
 ing to the west, they began to climb the hills, 
 along a rough road which was shut in on each 
 side by steep walls of rock. So they came to 
 Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, and a little 
 farther on, at a sudden turn of the way, they 
 beheld Jerusalem. That was their destination. 
 On this annual journey, Joseph and Mary
 
 48 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 had many companions. Indeed, it would not 
 have been safe for them to go alone, for the 
 roads were beset by robbers. Even between 
 Jericho and Jerusalem men sometimes fell 
 among thieves, who plundered and beat them 
 and ran away leaving them half dead. People 
 who went on journeys were therefore accus- 
 tomed to travel in companies or caravans. 
 Joseph and Mary, when they started on their 
 long walk, would have many of their friends 
 with them. Half of the people of the place 
 would be going on the same journey ; and on 
 the way other groups would join them, com- 
 ing out of other villages and bound in the 
 same direction. 
 
 For every year a great festival was held at 
 Jerusalem, called the Feast of the Passover. 
 It was kept in remembrance of the delivery of 
 the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. 
 The people were slaves to the Egyptians, and 
 one night a plague of death fell on the houses 
 of the masters ; in every house somebody was 
 dead. But the destroying angel passed over 
 the houses of the slaves. That night the slaves
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 49 
 
 rose up, and escaped out of Egypt. So they 
 became a nation. The Passover was the na- 
 tional birthday. The Fourteenth of Nisan, 
 for that was their name for the month, was 
 like our Fourth of July. It was accordingly 
 the custom to keep the Fourteenth of Nisan, 
 and all the following week, as a national holi- 
 day. But instead of keeping the festival, each 
 in his own home and town, all the people, as 
 many as could get away, gathered at Jerusa- 
 lem. Of course, there were many who had to 
 stay behind, to mind the babies, and tend the 
 stores. But there were great numbers, like 
 Joseph and Mary, who were able so to arrange 
 their affairs as to go on the spring pilgrimage. 
 One can easily see that they must have had 
 a merry time of it. Briskly they walked in the 
 early morning along the pleasant ways, stop- 
 ping to drink out of the brooks which ran 
 among the hills, resting and sleeping at noon 
 in the shade of the woods, talking cheerfully 
 one with another, meeting new people, and 
 seeing new sights. Thus they journeyed, like 
 the Pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales. Some-
 
 50 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 times, as they pitched their tents at night, or 
 started in the morning, somebody with a strong 
 voice would begin to sing, and all the others 
 would sing with him. The Psalms from the 
 one hundred and twentieth to the one hundred 
 and thirty-fourth were pilgrim songs. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, 
 From whence cometh my help. 
 My help cometh even from the Lord, 
 Who hath made heaven and earth." 
 
 So they sang beside the mountains. 
 
 " They that put their trust in the Lord shall be even as the 
 
 Mount Sion, 
 
 Which may not be removed, but standeth fast for ever. 
 The hills stand about Jerusalem; 
 Even so standeth the Lord round about his people, 
 From this time forth for evermore." 
 
 That was the song when the holy hills came 
 into view. Finally, they joined in a great glad 
 chorus as they entered the city itself : 
 
 " I was glad when they said unto me, 
 We will go into the house of the Lord. 
 Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem. 
 Jerusalem is built 
 As a city that is at unity in itself.
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 61 
 
 For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, 
 
 To testify unto Israel, 
 
 To give thanks unto the name of the Lord." 
 
 Of course, on so long a journey it was im- 
 possible to take the little children. They must 
 wait at home till they were old enough and 
 strong enough to go on this wonderful pil- 
 grimage and see the sights of the wide world. 
 Until then they must be content to listen to the 
 stories of their fathers and mothers about their 
 adventures by the way and the splendors of 
 the holy city. But now, at last, our Lord was 
 twelve years old, and his time came. Out they 
 started in the coolness and beauty of the spring 
 morning, making their way down the valley 
 by the river, and sleeping at night in tents 
 under the full moon ; for the Passover always 
 came when the moon was full. So he stood 
 presently on the side of the Mount of Olives 
 and gazed on the great city. 
 
 Jerusalem was built on hills, and had a 
 high, stout wall of stone about it, with a tower 
 at every turn. Within the walls were crowded 
 the white, flat-roofed houses, clinging to the
 
 52 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 terraced hillsides. And above all shone the 
 splendid temple. To the temple the pilgrims 
 made their way, Joseph and Mary holding 
 Jesus by the hand. Entering by a great arched 
 gateway, they found themselves in the temple 
 inclosure. This was a wide court, paved with 
 stone, and surrounded by four high walls. 
 Against the walls on the four sides were 
 porches, their roofs upheld by pillars. The 
 court was crowded with people ; some of them 
 being pilgrims like themselves, while others 
 were engaged in carrying on a noisy trade, 
 selling doves and lambs for sacrifices and 
 changing money, calling out at the tops of 
 their voices. In the midst stood the temple 
 itself. A great stairway of fourteen steps led 
 to an entrance which was called the Beautiful 
 Gate. This opened into a large room, without 
 roof, called the Court of the Women. Here 
 Mary waited, while Joseph and Jesus climbed 
 another stone stairway to a room called the 
 Court of Israel. This was separated by a low 
 
 barrier from a third room called the Court of 
 
 % 
 
 the Priests. Standing beside the barrier they
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 53 
 
 could see a large stone altar, and behind it a 
 stone building with a porch and a roof. In 
 this building, hidden behind doors and cur- 
 tains, were two rooms, one called the Holy 
 Place, in which stood the golden altar of in- 
 cense; and the other called the Holy of 
 Holies, an empty room, through whose floor 
 jutted up the bare rock of the top of the hill. 
 There in the Court of Israel they offered a lamb 
 for their sacrifice. A priest took the lamb and 
 killed it, burned a part of it in the fire which 
 was blazing and smoking on the stone altar, 
 and gave the rest to Joseph. So with the lamb 
 upon his shoulder Joseph, taking Jesus, re joined 
 Mary in the Court of the Women, and they all 
 betook themselves to the place where they were 
 to stay, and where with friends and relatives 
 they had arranged to eat the Passover Supper. 
 Then they all sat down together when the 
 evening came, and the roasted lamb was on 
 the table, and there were bitter herbs, and 
 bread and wine. And at an appointed moment 
 in the meal, Jesus as the youngest of the com- 
 pany said, " What does this service mean ? "
 
 64 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 And his father in answer told the story of the 
 Passover. Then they all sang songs: which 
 we have in our book of Psalms, from the one 
 hundred and thirteenth to the one hundred 
 and eighteenth. 
 
 "This is the day which the Lord hath made; 
 We will rejoice and be glad in it. 
 Help me now, O Lord: 
 O Lord, send us now prosperity. 
 Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." 
 
 Then there was a week of visiting, and see- 
 ing sights, and going to services in the tem- 
 ple ; and so the festivities were over and they 
 started to go home. A great many other peo- 
 ple, thousands of them, were starting at the 
 same time, and there was much confusion. But 
 at last they got safely out of the city gate and 
 over the Mount of Olives on the way down 
 hill to Jericho, when they missed Jesus. They 
 had noticed, of course, that he was not by 
 their side, but that had not surprised them,, 
 He was twelve years of age, a sturdy, inde- 
 pendent lad, and in the caravan there were 
 many whom he knew, some of them his rela-
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 65 
 
 tives. So they said, " He is with his cousins or 
 some other playmates. We shall see him when 
 it is time for supper." But supper-time came, 
 and even bedtime, and he did not appear. 
 Joseph and Mary went about in the dark, with 
 torches, asking all their neighbors where he 
 was ; but nobody knew. At last, with heavy 
 hearts, in deep distress, they hurried back 
 again along the road to Jerusalem, seeking 
 him. 
 
 But Jerusalem was a very large city ; and 
 just then, as we have seen, it was in confu- 
 sion, with crowds of people coming and going. 
 Joseph and Mary went to the place where they 
 had lodged, but he was not there. They 
 inquired of all the people whom they knew, 
 but could find no trace of him. One day had 
 already been spent in going as far as Jericho ; 
 another day in returning ; it was now the third 
 day. And the King of Glory, who had been 
 so solemnly and wonderfully intrusted to their 
 care, was nowhere to be found. 
 
 At last, they looked in the temple. There 
 in one of the porches was a company of people
 
 56 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 sitting on the floor, as the custom was, and 
 listening while wise men taught. The teachers 
 were called doctors ; not doctors of medicine, 
 but doctors of divinity, teachers of religion. 
 And in the midst of the gray-bearded doctors, 
 not only hearing them but asking them ques- 
 tions, was the child Jesus, while all who heard 
 him were astonished at his understanding and 
 answers. And when his parents saw him they 
 were both glad and amazed ; glad to find him 
 after their long search, but amazed that their 
 son, this little lad of Nazareth, should be sit- 
 ting so serenely in the midst of those learned 
 people, understanding what they said. 
 
 But the boy had done wrong, so they 
 thought. He had caused them great distress. 
 And his mother said, " Son, why hast thou 
 thus dealt with us ? Behold, thy father and I 
 have sought thee sorrowing." She reproached 
 him, with tears in her eyes, as mothers must. 
 But he answered, " How is it that you sought 
 me ? Did you not know that I would be found 
 in my heavenly Father's house ? " He meant 
 that they should have known him better than
 
 AT THE AGE OF TWELVE 57 
 
 to search for him from street to street. They 
 should have looked first in the temple. 
 
 It shows what he had been doing all that 
 week, while other boys were gazing at the shop 
 windows, or admiring the bright uniforms and 
 shining lances of the castle guard. He had 
 spent his time in the holy house, attending to 
 the words of the wise ; like the child who loves 
 to get away by himself with a book. 
 
 It shows, too, that already he had that habit 
 of attention which is a part of greatness. 
 When he was interested, he thought of no- 
 thing else. By and by, we shall see him think- 
 ing so deeply that for a long while, even for 
 days, he forgets to eat. Now he forgets what 
 time it is, and how his father and mother 
 are starting off for home. All his mind is on 
 the words of the wise men. That was differ- 
 ent from the ways of James and Joses and 
 the others. His father and mother could not 
 understand it. 
 
 But he turned about and took their hands 
 and went away between them, and so came 
 to Nazareth again and took up the old life.
 
 58 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Every day he did just what they wished him 
 to do. Every day he learned his lessons, and 
 said his prayers, and did his work, grow- 
 ing tall and strong; and everybody loved 
 him.
 
 II 
 
 How THE KING BECAME CONSCIOUS OF HIS 
 KINGSHIP, HEARING A VOICE OUT OF THE 
 SKY; AND HOW CERTAIN FISHERMEN BE- 
 LIEVED IN HIM AND FOLLOWED HIM.
 
 I . 
 
 THE HERALD SPEAKS 
 
 ALL this time, while the King was growing out 
 of boyhood into manhood, the King's herald 
 was in the wilderness. 
 
 The little John must have stayed at home 
 till he was as much as twelve years old. His 
 father and mother would not have allowed 
 him to go off alone till he was at least as old 
 as that. It may be that during these years the 
 little King and the little herald met. For their 
 mothers were related, and Mary visited Elisa- 
 beth before either of the children was born. 
 Elisabeth may have visited Mary at Nazareth, 
 bringing John with her. 
 
 John's father and mother, you remember, 
 were very old. They may have died while the 
 lad was in his tender years. He may have 
 gone to the wild woods because there was 
 nobody at home to look after him. But there 
 was a better reason. He went into the wilder- 
 ness because he was told to go by a voice
 
 62 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 which he heard in his soul. Even as a little 
 boy, he heard it calling him and calling him. 
 And as he grew older, he was able to make 
 out what it said. 
 
 The voice told him that the King was 
 coming. But that was no secret : many peo- 
 ple knew that, and were waiting for him to 
 appear. The voice told him that he, the little 
 John, was to be the herald of the King. But 
 this, too, he knew before. His father and 
 mother had told him many times the beauti- 
 ful story of the angel at the altar, and of the 
 message which was brought from heaven. He 
 knew that he was to go before the King and 
 prepare his way in the hearts of the people, 
 preaching like Elijah. Then the voice told 
 him to go into the wilderness. Little by little, 
 he came to understand that he was not to be 
 a minister like his father, nor a carpenter like 
 his uncle, nor a fisherman like his cousin, but 
 was to spend a great part of his life as a 
 hermit. He was not to live in a house, nor 
 walk about iii the streets of towns, but was to 
 be a man of the woods, living all by himself,
 
 THE HERALD SPEAKS 63 
 
 under the sky and the trees. Thus he was to 
 prepare himself to be the herald of the King. 
 For no serious work can be done without 
 preparation. Not even a game of ball can be 
 well played without knowing the game and 
 practicing it often. Not even a school exami- 
 nation can be passed without getting ready 
 for it by hard study. Nobody can be a motor- 
 man without learning how, or a soldier with- 
 out being drilled. Thus the boy John would 
 first study the life of the woods. He would 
 spend his holidays camping among the hills. 
 He would learn how to make a hut, and how 
 to get fire by rubbing sticks together, and 
 how to find food and cook it, and how to see 
 his way where there was no path. He would 
 get acquainted with the habits of the wild 
 bees, so as to know where they kept their 
 honey, and how to take it without getting 
 stung. He would get his mother to teach him 
 how to make grasshopper cake. He would 
 make friends with the wild animals, so that 
 he might live safely in their neighborhood. 
 Thus he would prepare himself to be a hermit.
 
 64 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 But that was only the beginning. All his 
 hermit life was meant to prepare him to be 
 the herald of the King. In order to be the 
 herald of a king one must know the king 
 when he appears. And in order to know the 
 King of Glory it was necessary to have a pure 
 heart, and to be accustomed to the presence 
 of God. So years went by, and John still 
 lived in the depths of the woods. He cared 
 little about what he had to eat or to drink, 
 and was not at all particular about his clothes. 
 He devoted himself wholly to God, saying his 
 prayers in the face of the stars and of the 
 sun, feeling and seeing God in the wonderful 
 world about him, and trying in every way to 
 increase in the knowledge and the love of God. 
 And that went on till John was thirty years 
 of age. 
 
 Then, one day, the voice which had called 
 him into the woods told him that it was time 
 for him to go out. " Come," said the voice, 
 " and stand beside the river. There speak to 
 all who pass by, saying that the King is com- 
 ing, and that if they wish to see him they
 
 THE HERALD SPEAKS 65 
 
 must first make their hearts clean of sin, and 
 as a sign of it they must have their bodies 
 washed in the running water; they must be 
 baptized. And, presently, among the company, 
 you will find the King himself. You will see 
 the Spirit descending upon him." 
 
 So John went out and stood beside the 
 river Jordan. There was no bridge, but the 
 stream was shallow and the road ran through 
 the river. People were coming and going, wad- 
 ing across the ford. The wilderness came near 
 the edge of the water, a tangle of tamarisks 
 and willows, and there were stones along the 
 bank, and reeds in the wet places. John was 
 a strange figure, his long hair falling upon 
 his shoulders and his long beard falling upon 
 his breast, a great rough cloak of coarse yel- 
 low cloth about him, made of camel's hair, 
 and tied about his waist with a belt of leather. 
 Coming from his long stay in the wild woods, 
 and standing there in his youth and strength 
 with his long staff in his hand, his face 
 browned by the sun and the breeze, and a 
 look in his eyes as of one who had seen God,
 
 66 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 he was a strange and striking person, and 
 everybody stopped to see and hear him. Day 
 by day, the crowd increased about him. 
 
 There were country people going in to mar- 
 ket, and city people going out to see their 
 farms. There were soldiers in the uniform of 
 the Roman army, and publicans who collected 
 the Roman taxes : men whom most people 
 hated, for the Romans had conquered the 
 land and held it by force of arms. There 
 were those who came from curiosity, having 
 been told that a wild man was saying wild 
 things at the ford of the Jordan. There were 
 those who came hoping to find a man of God, 
 and finding him indeed ; and among them 
 several young fishermen from the Lake of 
 Galilee, of whom we shall hear much again. 
 There were those who were living lives of sin, 
 daily breaking the Ten Commandments. There 
 were messengers from the great people, from 
 the governor and the chief priests, from the 
 leaders of the temple and of the synagogue, 
 Sadducees and Pharisees, to ask John who he 
 was, and to carry back word to their masters.
 
 THE HERALD SPEAKS 67 
 
 Indeed, outside the crowd, but within hearing, 
 were some of the great people themselves, who 
 had come to see with their own eyes and to 
 hear with their own ears. To all these the 
 herald spoke, in a loud voice, telling them 
 that One whom they knew not stood among 
 them, even the King of Glory ; and baptizing 
 all who repented of their sins.
 
 n 
 
 HEAVEN AND THE KIVER 
 
 ALL this time Jesus had been living at Naza- 
 reth. It is likely that during these unrecorded 
 years Joseph died, for we hear no more about 
 him. In that case, Jesus, as the eldest son, 
 became the head of the family. Probably he 
 worked at the carpenter's bench, with plane and 
 saw and hammer, and built houses and mended 
 roofs ; and the neighbors sent for him to make 
 their doors and tables, and yokes for their oxen. 
 The family grew up about him, from boys and 
 girls to men and women. At least two of the 
 brothers, James and Jude, married : St. Paul 
 tells us that. And there were small nephews 
 and nieces. When our Lord took little children 
 in his arms he knew how to hold them. There 
 was always a baby in the carpenter's house. 
 
 The life of the great world went on out- 
 side, with its business and its battles, with 
 ships putting out to sea, and soldiers march- 
 ing, and streets of cities full of eager people.
 
 HEAVEN AND THE RIVER 69 
 
 From the hills of Nazareth one looked down 
 on the great roads which ran across the plain : 
 from Egypt, traveled by merchants; from 
 Jerusalem, with pilgrims coming and going ; 
 from Damascus, with caravans. To the north 
 of the village lay the highway from the sea, 
 along which Roman legions made their way, 
 with sound of trumpets, the sun glittering on 
 the points of their spears, and all the Nazareth 
 boys perched on high rocks and in the trees 
 to see them. Nazareth was a station on these 
 lines of travel, like a town where railroads 
 meet, and was kept acquainted with the world's 
 news and knew the world's ways. It had a 
 bad name among the villages of the neigh- 
 borhood ; so that our Lord, growing up there, 
 did not live a sheltered life, in which it is 
 more easy to be good than to be bad, but was 
 exposed to continual temptation. He knew all 
 the trials which boys have to meet in public 
 schools and in the streets of cities. He was 
 tempted in all ways just as we are : with this 
 difference, that he never sinned. All his life 
 long, he never did a wrong deed, nor said an
 
 70 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 evil word, nor even had in his heart a sinful 
 thought. Thus the years went by. 
 
 Then, one day, the word came that a new 
 preacher perhaps a new prophet was 
 preaching at the ford of the Jordan. Some- 
 body who passed by said so ; or perhaps some 
 Nazareth neighbor going to Jerusalem, to the 
 temple or the market there, had gone to hear 
 him, coming back with great accounts of the 
 speaker and the sermon. People talked about 
 it in the street after supper. And our Lord 
 determined to go down and hear the preacher 
 with his own ears. 
 
 Probably he went on foot, in a company of 
 the neighbors ; but it is likely that he walked 
 alone, at a little distance from the others, 
 thinking his own thoughts for he had much 
 to think about. Eighteen years had now passed 
 since he sat as a boy in the temple and listened 
 to the teaching of the doctors. During these 
 years he had gradually come to see that he 
 was different from other men. As he grew 
 tall and strong, his mind and his soul grew 
 and became great. He felt his strength of
 
 HEAVEN AND THE RIVER 71 
 
 spirit as a strong man feels his strength of 
 body- More and more, as he talked with James 
 and Joses and the others as they worked to- 
 gether, he came to see that his thoughts were 
 not as their thoughts. As he stood alone on 
 the heights of the hills, and looked out across 
 the world and up into the sky, he felt that 
 God was wonderfully near to him, so that he 
 could almost touch him with his hand. He 
 heard, like John, a voice in his soul, calling 
 him away from the carpenter shop, away from 
 Nazareth, to be a leader and a helper of men. 
 As yet, however, all was dim and vague. He 
 increased in stature and in wisdom, but he had 
 not yet come to a full knowledge of himself. 
 
 So he arrived at the ford of the Jordan, 
 and there was John the Baptist, in his great 
 cloak, preaching, the crowd pressing close about 
 him. 
 
 Sometimes the people asked John questions. 
 The men who came from the rulers asked him, 
 saying, " Who are you ? are you Elijah ? " 
 "No," hesaid. " Are you the King of Glory? " 
 " No." " Who are you, then, that we may
 
 72 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 have an answer to take back to our masters ? 
 What do you call yourself ? " He said, " I am 
 the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
 * Make straight the way of the Lord.' " " Why, 
 then," they said, " do you baptize, if you are 
 neither Elijah nor the King of Glory ? " "I 
 baptize," he answered, " with water only, teach- 
 ing people to prepare their hearts for the com- 
 ing of the King. The King will come. Yes, 
 he has come already. Here among you in the 
 crowd he stands, even now, unknown." And 
 John stretched out his great arms right and 
 left, as if he were inviting the King to come 
 forth and declare himself. And Jesus stood in 
 silence, listening. 
 
 The soldiers were much impressed when 
 John spoke of the life which a true man ought 
 to live, and they said, " What shall we do ? " 
 And the publicans said, " What shall we do ? " 
 And he told them to be just and honest and 
 contented, and to do good to others. 
 
 Sometimes, John the Baptist spoke very 
 sternly, seeing the wickedness of the world, 
 and crying out against it. He especially re-
 
 HEAVEN AND THE RIVER 73 
 
 proved those who seemed to be better than 
 they really were, telling them that God would 
 judge every man according to his works, and 
 that already it was as when a woodsman marks 
 with his axe where he will strike the tree. 
 And he looked straight at a company of gentle- 
 men on the edge of the crowd, so that every- 
 body knew whom he meant, and the gentlemen 
 turned away in confusion and anger, saying 
 one to another that the speaker was but a 
 crazy man. 
 
 Meanwhile, between the answers and the 
 speeches, people were coming up in little 
 groups to be baptized, wading out and plun- 
 ging with a great splash into the river, or 
 standing while John poured water on their 
 heads. And among them Jesus came that he 
 might be baptized. It is not likely that John 
 the Baptist knew him, having spent so many 
 years in the woods ; but the moment he saw 
 him he perceived that he was some great per- 
 son. There was a light in his eyes which made 
 him unlike anybody else. Indeed, when John 
 looked again, he was almost sure that here at
 
 74 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 last was the King of Glory. And he said, " I 
 must not baptize you. It is for you to baptize 
 me." But our Lord insisted, and into the water 
 they went, the two together, the herald and 
 the King, with the river beneath and heaven 
 above. And John baptized him. 
 
 This ceremony did not mean what baptism 
 means now. Baptism, as we have it, is the ser- 
 vice by which persons are admitted to mem- 
 bership in the Christian society, the church. 
 Our Lord's baptism was like what we call ordi- 
 nation. It was the act by which he entered 
 into the ministry. 
 
 There he stood, then, between heaven and 
 the river; and a wonderful thing happened. 
 The divine voice, which had spoken so often 
 in the soul of John and in the soul of Jesus, 
 seemed now to them both to be speaking 
 straight from the sky. They two felt that 
 they were surrounded by a blaze of glory, 
 the heaven being open and shining down 
 upon them. The herald saw a form, dim and 
 shadowy, as of a fluttering dove coming down 
 and resting on the King. It was the sign
 
 HEAVEN AND THE RIVER 75 
 
 which had been promised him long before 
 in the wilderness, by which he should recog- 
 nize his Lord and Master. And the voice said, 
 " Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am 
 well pleased."
 
 in 
 
 THE THREE TEMPTATIONS 
 
 THE voice from heaven changed the whole 
 manner of our Lord's life. He worked no more 
 at the carpenter's trade after that. He had a 
 much more important business ; for he knew 
 now, with all certainty, that he was indeed the 
 Son of God. 
 
 Nobody knows all that that means. Even 
 wise persons who have studied it deeply are 
 not able to make us understand it in its full- 
 ness. But some things in it are quite plain. 
 
 It is plain that Jesus was the Messiah. 
 Messiah is a Hebrew name, as Christ is a 
 Greek name ; and they both mean one who 
 has been anointed. It was by anointing, 
 that is, by pouring fragrant oil on one's head, 
 that a man was made a priest or a king. 
 This was a way of saying that God had called 
 this man into his high service, and that he 
 would give him blessing and strength from 
 heaven. The people, for a long, long while,
 
 THE THREE TEMPTATIONS 77 
 
 had been looking for a wonderful Anointed 
 One, who should be their king and their priest 
 at the same time, a king to make them great 
 and a priest to make them good. Mysterious 
 things were said about him in the Bible. They 
 were all expecting him ; but in a temple or a 
 palace, not in a carpenter's shop. That day by 
 the river, when the Spirit as a dove came down 
 from heaven, God anointed Jesus. 
 
 Jesus was the Messiah ; but the name Son 
 of God meant more than that. One day, he 
 said that anybody who had seen him had seen 
 God, because he was in God and God in him. 
 God is in all the world, where the heavens de- 
 clare his glory, and all things show his wisdom 
 and his might : God is the Father. God is also 
 in all men, speaking to us in our hearts by the 
 voice of conscience : God is the Holy Ghost. 
 But in neither of these ways does God speak 
 very clearly to us. Nature does not make us 
 sure of his love, and conscience does not make 
 us sure of his will. But God is in Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of God. By him, God speaks and tells 
 us plainly of his love and of his will. In him
 
 78 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 God so dwells that Jesus Christ is at the same 
 time man and God. 
 
 This was the great meaning of the word 
 from heaven. At that moment Jesus came to 
 complete knowledge of himself. It was as if a 
 prince, brought up in the house of a carpen- 
 ter, had at last discovered the secret of his 
 birth, and learned his place in the world, cry- 
 ing, " I am the son of the king ! " So Jesus, 
 with the light of heaven in his eyes and the 
 voice of heaven in his ears, said over and over 
 to himself, trying to realize it, " I am the Son 
 of God ! I am the Son of God ! " 
 
 sL 
 
 Immediately, he went away alone, seeking a 
 place where he might think. He plunged into 
 the wilderness out of which John had come. 
 There he stayed, days and days, out of the 
 sight of men, in the silence of the woods, with 
 the wild beasts for neighbors, thinking and 
 thinking, making out what all this meant for 
 him and for the world, planning his new life. 
 Long after, he described what took place there, 
 putting it in the form of a story. Thus one 
 time when the apostles had been preaching so
 
 THE THREE TEMPTATIONS 79 
 
 that people turned from their sins, he said, 
 " I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of 
 lightning," meaning that he foresaw the day 
 when evil would be wholly cast down by the 
 good. So here he said, telling what happened 
 in his soul, " The devil came and spoke to 
 me ; " meaning that one wrong thought after 
 another came and attacked him. 
 
 He said that one day he was very hungry ; 
 for he had been so occupied with his great 
 thoughts that he had forgotten even to eat. 
 You remember how he was so interested that 
 day in the temple that he forgot to go home. 
 So days and days passed there in the wilder- 
 ness, during which he sat still, with his eyes 
 upon the ground, thinking and thinking. At 
 last he was aroused by the appearance of a 
 visitor, and when he looked to see who came, 
 behold, it was the devil. The devil began in a 
 very friendly way, as he always does, and said, 
 " It is now a long time since you have eaten 
 anything. You must be very hungry. And 
 here you are in the wild woods, a long way 
 from good food. If you are the Son of God,
 
 80 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 speak to these flat stones and turn them into 
 bread. The Son of God can do that. More- 
 over, you are going out presently into the world, 
 to tell men about God ; you are not going to 
 be a carpenter any more. How will you sup- 
 port yourself ? How will you get bread to eat ? 
 Make your own bread. Use your divine powers 
 to help yourself." That is, the devil suggested 
 that he ought to look out for his own interests, 
 for his own comfort and advantage. Here he 
 was giving up his business in order to devote 
 himself entirely to the service of God. Was 
 that a wise thing to do ? For there are people 
 who think of nothing but their own pleasure. 
 They are like the old woman in Mother Goose, 
 who "lived upon nothing but victuals and 
 drink." Our Lord turned his back upon that 
 kind of life. " It is written," he said, " ( Man 
 shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
 which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' ' 
 That was the first temptation. 
 
 Then the devil did what a regiment of sol- 
 diers sometimes do in battle. The soldiers 
 pretend to run away, so as to get the enemy to
 
 THE THREE TEMPTATIONS 81 
 
 chase them, and thus they get the enemy into 
 an ambush where there are guns firing upon 
 them from all sides. The devil pretended to 
 agree with what our Lord said. " Of course," 
 he answered, " the body is not of so much im- 
 portance as the soul. It is best to do the will 
 of God, even if we go hungry. We ought to 
 think only of God. Come, let us do as you 
 say." And the devil took him away off to the 
 holy city, and placed him upon the top of one 
 of the high towers of the temple, and they 
 looked down, and the men and women seemed 
 like ants crawling over the pavement far below. 
 " Now," said the devil, " let us rely upon the 
 word of God. God says that he will give his 
 angels charge over those who love him, and in 
 their hands they shall bear them up lest they 
 stumble over the stones. Cast thyself down." 
 There it was, sure enough, in the Bible, look- 
 ing like an invitation to do all sorts of wild 
 and reckless things, trusting in the care of 
 God. There have been people who have met 
 the first temptation and overcome it, and have 
 devoted themselves to God's service, and then
 
 82 
 
 have been tempted to neglect or to abuse 
 their bodies, feeling that somehow God would 
 be pleased to have them fast or whip them- 
 selves or break the laws of nature. But our 
 Lord answered, " It is written again, ' Thou 
 shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' ' That 
 is, we are not to run needless risks to see if 
 God will save us. We are, indeed, to be on 
 guard against paying too much attention to 
 our bodies, but we are also to be careful to 
 pay them such attention as they need. So our 
 Lord determined that though he must give up 
 his trade and be in peril of hunger in the ser- 
 vice of God, he would still live a natural life, 
 taking all proper care of himself. Thus he met 
 the second temptation. 
 
 These two, you see, were like the rocks on 
 either side of a narrow river. Some have struck 
 the rock on one side and have lived lives of 
 mere worldly comfort ; some have struck the 
 rock on the other side and have become fa- 
 natics, doing foolish things like crazy people. 
 Our Lord went straight between. But now 
 this course brought him to a mountain. For
 
 THE THREE TEMPTATIONS 83 
 
 the devil was not yet discouraged. The devil 
 is very patient. " I know what you want," 
 he said ; " you want the whole world to be 
 good and happy. Let us go up on this high 
 mountain, where we can see the world." So 
 up they went, in the vision, and there the 
 world lay, spread at their feet like a great 
 map. It was the sight which he had seen so 
 many times from the great hill near Nazareth ; 
 and he looked now with the same deep long- 
 ing in his heart, to help men and to save them. 
 There lay the little towns, in every one of 
 which sin and sorrow lived, because the devil 
 had them in his power. And the devil said, 
 " Now I will go away and leave the world in 
 peace. I will go out and all joy shall come 
 in, if you will do one thing. Here in this soli- 
 tary place, where no man can see us, kneel 
 down before me ! " It was as if the devil had 
 said, " You cannot govern the world without 
 me. You cannot even begin your great plans 
 without my help. If you determine always to 
 be perfectly good, always to do perfectly right, 
 always to follow the ideal wherever it leads
 
 84 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 you, you "will fail. That is the truth about it. 
 You will get yourself killed." To which our 
 Lord answered, " Get thee behind me, Satan ; 
 for it is written, ' Thou shalt worship the Lord 
 thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' ' 
 
 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels 
 came and ministered unto him.
 
 IV 
 
 THE TWELVE FRIENDS 
 
 So the King came out of the wilderness, with 
 his face shining like a star. But he still wore 
 his carpenter's clothes ; and that kept most 
 people from knowing who he was, for with 
 most people clothes mean a great deal. Out 
 of the wilderness he came into the valley of 
 the river, and there was John the Baptist 
 preaching. And the King walked slowly by 
 along the road, and John looking over the 
 heads of the crowd saw him. And he spoke to 
 two men who stood beside him. " There he is," 
 he said. " There is the King of Glory." And 
 immediately the two men followed the King. 
 One of these men was named Andrew ; the 
 other was named John. We will call him John 
 the Apostle, to distinguish him from John 
 the Baptist ; though after this we shall not 
 hear much about John the Baptist, except 
 once. Andrew and the new John were fisher- 
 men from the Lake of Galilee. They lived
 
 86 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 in Capernaum or in Bethsaida : the towns 
 were close together. They were partners in the 
 fishing business. Each of them had a brother. 
 Andrew's brother was named Peter, and John's 
 brother was named James. They were all 
 partners together, these four friends. 
 
 Each of the pairs of brothers had a good 
 mother. The mother of Andrew and Peter 
 was named Mary, and the mother of John and 
 James was named Salome. The mothers were 
 neighbors and good friends, like the sons. 
 Both of them became friends of the King, and 
 went about with him and with their sons, and 
 cared for them. But Salome had been a friend 
 of the King from his boyhood, for she was 
 his aunt. Our Lord's mother was her sister. 
 Thus James and John were our Lord's cousins. 
 It is likely that Jesus had known all four of 
 these young fishermen for many years, Caper- 
 naum being but a little way from Nazareth. 
 Probably they were all about the same age, 
 about thirty ; though Peter was older than 
 John, for, as we shall see by and by, he could 
 not run so fast.
 
 THE TWELVE FRIENDS 87 
 
 Andrew and John were the first to join 
 themselves to the King, hearing what John 
 the Baptist said. They followed Jesus, and 
 he heard their footsteps as they came hurry- 
 ing after him, and turned about and said, 
 "Whom are you looking for? " They answered, 
 with deep reverence, bowing down, " Master, 
 where are you staying ? " And he said, " Come 
 and see." So they went on together, the King 
 and the two fishermen, and spent that after- 
 noon talking till the sun went down, asking 
 questions and answering them. 
 
 The next day, Andrew found Peter and 
 brought him to Jesus ; and John found James. 
 Then our Lord himself found Philip, who was 
 already a friend of the four partners, and, like 
 them, a fisherman. Philip had a friend named 
 Bartholomew, also called Nathaniel, who lived 
 in Cana, not far from Nazareth and not far 
 from Capernaum. Philip told Bartholomew 
 that they had found the Messiah, that his 
 name was Jesus, and that he came from Naza- 
 reth. Bartholomew could not believe it. He 
 knew Nazareth as we know any little homely
 
 88 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 town in our neighborhood. It seemed impos- 
 sible that any good thing could come out of 
 Nazareth. But Philip said, " Come and see." 
 And Bartholomew came and saw and believed. 
 Thus already six friends had gathered about 
 the King. Nobody knows what Bartholomew's 
 trade was : he may have been a fisherman like 
 the other five. That was the chief business 
 of that neighborhood. There were many fish 
 in the Lake of Galilee, and when they were 
 caught and salted they were sent all over the 
 empire, and people ate them at fine dinners, 
 even in Rome. The fishermen did not get 
 rich, but they were by no means poor. James 
 and John and their father Zebedee had men 
 working for them. It was a healthy and happy 
 occupation for those who had strong arms and 
 an independent spirit and patience and cour- 
 age. They lived out of doors, with the wind 
 blowing in their brown faces. They were 
 accustomed to danger, for the lake was subject 
 to sudden storms. In such a life, these six 
 if we may count the friend from Cana had 
 passed their days since they were boys ; and
 
 THE TWELVE FRIENDS 89 
 
 all that time had been good friends, not only 
 fishing together, but talking together, talk- 
 ing about the sermons at the synagogue, and 
 the true life, and the world in which they 
 lived, and God above them and beside them. 
 They were just the men whom the King 
 wanted, manly and open-minded. 
 
 By and by, though this was after some 
 months, the King invited six others. One 
 was named James, and was called " the little ; " 
 either to distinguish him from our Lord's 
 cousin, or because he was a short man. An- 
 other was Thomas, a very matter-of-fact per- 
 son, with a mind of his own, and rather in- 
 clined to look on the dark side. Two were 
 named Judas, one of them being also called 
 Iscariot. That means a man from Kerioth, 
 a town of Judea, a long way from Capernaum. 
 Judas Iscariot was a stranger to the others ; 
 but they came to know him only too well. 
 Another friend was Simon, who belonged to 
 a wild secret society called Zealots, who were 
 all the time laying plots against the Romans. 
 Another friend was Matthew.
 
 90 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 In the lists of the twelve friends, or, as they 
 are called, the twelve apostles, the name of 
 Judas Iscariot always comes last. But I have 
 here put Matthew at the end, partly be- 
 cause it is likely that he was the last to be 
 called, and partly because there is a story con- 
 nected with his call. A great road ran through 
 Capernaum. Sometimes it was called the Way 
 of the Sea, and sometimes the Great West 
 Road. It connected the lands of the east with 
 the lands of the west, extending from beyond 
 Damascus to the coast of the Mediterranean. 
 Caravans, like trains of cars, were all the time 
 going back and forth over it. The Romans 
 had paved it, and kept it in good order, and 
 for this service they collected toll. There was 
 a toll-gate at Capernaum, and one of the men 
 who sat at the gate was Matthew. Many peo- 
 ple disliked Matthew very much, because he 
 worked for the Romans, and they hated the 
 Romans. They disliked him all the more be- 
 cause he was a Jew. It seemed to them a 
 shameful thing that one of their own people 
 should be in the employ of the foreign con-
 
 THE TWELVE FRIENDS 91 
 
 querors. So Matthew was one of the most 
 unpopular persons in town. Few respectable 
 persons would have anything to do with him. 
 He had money and a large house, but his only 
 associates were those who were in his own 
 business. He had even been turned out of the 
 church. 
 
 It is much to Matthew's credit that in spite 
 of all this he was a good man. The six fisher- 
 men, who saw Matthew at the toll-gate every 
 day, knew that ; and they knew also that the 
 King did not care anything for popularity. 
 Wherever the King found a good man, he 
 loved him. It must have been pretty hard for 
 Simon to love Matthew, whom all his secret- 
 society friends hated so. But the toll-gate 
 was near the place where Jesus was accus- 
 tomed day by day to speak to the people. 
 And Matthew sat there, hearing every word 
 he said. Every sentence went into Matthew's 
 heart and stayed there. And one day, after 
 the sermon, the King passed by the gate 
 along the Way of the Sea, and as he went 
 he held up his hand to Matthew and said,
 
 92 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 " Follow me." And Matthew stood straight up, 
 and went out and followed him. That night 
 he gave a great dinner at his house, and had 
 all his friends there, a strange company, and 
 the King sat at the table. For Matthew felt 
 just as Andrew and John and Philip did; 
 having come himself to know Christ, he 
 wanted his friends to know him. 
 
 Thus there were twelve friends of the King, 
 according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And 
 they were called Apostles, which means Men 
 who are Sent ; because our Lord was teaching 
 them so that he might send them to teach 
 others.
 
 OUR Lord had no intention of returning to the 
 carpenter's bench, but he wanted to go home. 
 He wanted to see his mother, and his brothers 
 and sisters. He had now been away a long 
 time, and they would be anxious about him ; 
 they would be wondering what had become 
 of him. And he wanted to tell them. So he 
 started in that direction, probably taking Peter 
 and Andrew, and James and John, and Philip 
 and Bartholomew with him. The way led 
 through Cana, where Bartholomew lived. And 
 when they came to Cana, our Lord found his 
 mother there and other Nazareth folks, who 
 had come to a wedding. The village was full 
 of people with happy faces, and there was 
 music and dancing. In that country every- 
 body lives out of doors, and the pleasure of 
 one family is shared by all the others. 
 
 Our Lord was acquainted with the bride and 
 groom. His family and theirs were such old
 
 94 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 friends, perhaps relatives, that his mother 
 was quite at home there, and went in and out 
 of the kitchen, where they were preparing the 
 wedding supper. So the King was invited to 
 the feast, and all his new friends with him. 
 You see how pleasantly and naturally Jesus 
 Christ began his new lif e ; not as a hermit like 
 John the Baptist, and not even as a priest in 
 the temple or as a preacher in the synagogue, 
 but just like other people, taking part in the 
 simple joys of his neighbors. Even now, com- 
 ing to them as the Son of God, he did not make 
 himself different from them, but sat down in 
 the old way at the table ; and not a boy or a 
 girl stopped laughing because he was there. 
 They had a better time than ever. 
 
 But in the middle of the feast, our Lord's 
 mother came behind him and whispered to 
 him. " They have no wine ! " she said. She 
 had been in the pantry, and had found the 
 family in much distress. Here were all the 
 people, and not wine enough ! It was prob- 
 ably a little wedding, and the seven unexpected 
 guests had made a difference. Let us remem-
 
 THE KING GOES TO A WEDDING 95 
 
 ber that in that country everybody drank wine. 
 It was almost as common as water. Life was 
 much more simple than it is at present; and, the 
 people living out of doors as they did, wine did 
 not do them so much harm as it does here. 
 The drinking of wine was one of the joys of 
 social life. And now the wine was giving out ; 
 the skin bottles looked like big toy balloons out 
 of which the gas has escaped ; and the party 
 would be spoiled. So the mother of Jesus 
 came and told him, not knowing what he 
 would do, but hoping that he might do some- 
 thing. It shows how she was accustomed to 
 depend upon him when things went wrong at 
 home. It was he who always made them right. 
 " Yes," he answered. " I see. I will attend 
 to it presently." And she went back and told 
 the servants, " Whatsoever he saith unto you, 
 do it." 
 
 Now there stood there, out of sight of the 
 wedding guests, six stone jars for water, 
 large jars, like those in which, in the Arabian 
 Nights, the forty thieves were hidden. For 
 while the Jews used little water at dinner,
 
 96 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 they used a good deal before dinner. They 
 poured it on their hands to make them clean 
 before they ate, and were very particular about 
 it. Having so many guests, the family had 
 borrowed water-jars from their neighbors, and 
 so much water had been taken out of them 
 that they were almost empty. There they stood 
 against the wall, a line of empty jars, when 
 our Lord, rising from the table, went out and 
 found them. " Fill them with water," he said 
 to the servants. And they filled them up to 
 the brim. " Now," he said, " draw out and 
 carry to the master of the feast." So in they 
 dipped their buckets and drew them out all 
 dripping. But do you know what it was which 
 filled the jars, and dripped from the buckets, 
 and gleamed in the glasses on the table ? It 
 was wine, red wine ! And the master of the 
 feast tasted of it, and he said, " This is the 
 best wine that ever I drank." And he lifted 
 a shining glass in honor of the bride and 
 groom, saying, "Most people bring in the 
 choicest wine at the beginning, but you have 
 kept it until now."
 
 THE KING GOES TO A WEDDING 97 
 
 This is what is called a miracle. The King 
 of Glory did many miracles, of which this was 
 the first. 
 
 There was a time when people thought that 
 God was very far away. They knew that God 
 had made this world, but they thought that 
 after he had made it he had gone back again 
 into heaven, where he had stayed, for the most 
 part, ever since. But sometimes things hap- 
 pened here on earth which were so wonderful 
 that they said, " God must have come back 
 and done that : " and these wonderful things 
 they called miracles. 
 
 The truth is, as we know now, that God has 
 never gone away at all. He is here always and 
 everywhere. Everything that happens in the 
 world of nature, even though it happens every 
 morning, like the rising of the sun, is done by 
 God. What wise men call " laws of nature " 
 are only God's usual ways of dealing with us. 
 So when we come upon some new and marvel- 
 ous thing, like talking without wires across 
 hundreds of miles, or turning water into wine, 
 or making sick people well by speaking to
 
 98 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 them or praying for them, we do not ask, as 
 men once asked, " Did God come down and 
 do this, or is it only the work of man ? " We 
 ask, " Does this belong to the usual or to the 
 unusual ways of God ? " That is, is this the 
 sort of thing which happens only once, by 
 which God suddenly makes his presence known, 
 or is it done in accordance with such a " law " 
 or custom of God that many people might 
 learn to do it if they were only good enough 
 or wise enough for God to teach them ? Our 
 Lord said, " The things that I do shall ye do 
 also, and greater things than these shall ye 
 do." And that has come true, at least, the 
 first part of it has come true, with regard to 
 curing the sick. 
 
 There are some of our Lord's wonderful 
 works, however, which we cannot explain by 
 any knowledge which is known to us. When 
 we come to such miracles, as we do just here 
 at the wedding in Cana, the thing for us to say 
 is that all our largest knowledge is very, very 
 small. One of the wisest men who ever lived 
 said that with all his wisdom he was like a
 
 THE KING GOES TO A WEDDING 99 
 
 child picking up pebbles on the shore of a vast 
 ocean. Even now we know but little about the 
 world we live in, or about God who lives in 
 the world and in our souls. 
 
 Jesus turned the water into wine. That is 
 all we know about it. The Son of God could 
 do it, and he did it ; to add to the happiness of 
 the guests at a village wedding.
 
 Ill 
 
 How THE KING WAS DRIVEN OUT OF THE 
 TOWN WHERE HE HAD LIVED, AND WENT 
 ABOUT THE LAND OF GALILEE, WITH HIS 
 DISCIPLES, DOING GOOD AND TEACHING THE 
 PEOPLE.
 
 THE KING AMONG HIS NEIGHBORS 
 
 AND now, at last, after these great weeks, the 
 King was back again in his own home. There 
 was the little town in the hollow of the hills 
 with the green heights about it. The dusty 
 streets ran between the white houses, and there 
 among them was the carpenter's cottage, and 
 beside it, in the shade of the trees, the carpen- 
 ter's bench. The shavings lay beneath it as 
 he had left them on the day when he started 
 on his journey. His mother and his brothers 
 and sisters stood at the door ; and as the sun 
 set and the stars came out, and the cool winds 
 blew down from the peaks above, they talked 
 together in the twilight, and he told them 
 what he had done while he was away. 
 
 But not all. There are some things which 
 cannot be said unless the listeners are in perfect 
 sympathy ; and even then there are thoughts 
 too deep and hopes too high for speech. It is 
 not likely that our Lord told them that he was
 
 104 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the King of Glory, the Son of God. It is not 
 likely that he told them that he was the Mes- 
 siah, though they may have guessed that that 
 was what he thought. He said that he would 
 never be a carpenter again, that he had de- 
 cided to give up his trade and to go about the 
 country preaching ; and he must have said that 
 he had been led to this decision by the call of 
 God. Of this we may be as sure as if we had 
 sat there in a dark corner hearing what he 
 spoke. And they did not like it ; that, too, is 
 plain. James did not like it ; he felt that it 
 was irregular and improper. He wished to 
 have all things go quietly on in the usual way. 
 The brothers and sisters agreed with him. 
 They all had good arguments against it. The 
 mother probably said little, dimly remember- 
 ing the message of the angel ; but she did not 
 like it, either. They were ah 1 against it. They 
 urged him not to do it, but to live like other 
 people. They were satisfied with things as 
 they were, but he was not satisfied. 
 
 Then came the sabbath day, and everybody 
 went to church. The church, which they called
 
 THE KING AMONG HIS NEIGHBORS 105 
 
 the synagogue, stood in the midst of the 
 houses like a New England meeting-house in 
 a country town, except that it had no steeple. 
 It was a plain, square building, entered by 
 three doors. Within were two rows of pillars, 
 and at the end of the room was a platform, on 
 which sat the most important people, in the 
 chief seats. In the midst of the platform was 
 a pulpit, and behind the pulpit a curtain, and 
 behind the curtain a chest, and in the chest a 
 Bible. But there was no New Testament in 
 the Bible; that had not yet been written. 
 And the Old Testament was in pen-and-ink, 
 on various rolls of parchment. Overhead, be- 
 fore the curtain, hung a lighted lamp. So in 
 came the congregation : old men and women 
 who had known our Lord from the days of 
 his early childhood, and remembered him be- 
 fore he could walk ; and young men and women 
 who had been to school with him, with whom 
 he had played and worked ; and boys and 
 girls. And our Lord, still wearing his car- 
 penter's coat, sat in his usual place beside his 
 family.
 
 106 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 The service began with a long prayer, which 
 everybody knew by heart ; then they read out 
 of the Bible, different men coming up from 
 the congregation, each reading a few verses, 
 and, if he chose, making some brief comment 
 upon them. The ruler of the synagogue indi- 
 cated the men who were to read. Last of all, 
 he beckoned to Jesus. 
 
 Word had already gone about the village 
 that the carpenter felt that he was called to 
 be a prophet. Nowadays, when we speak of a 
 prophet we mean one who foretells what will 
 happen in the future, but in the Bible the 
 name is used for a preacher, for a man who 
 speaks in the name of God. The Bible pro- 
 phets said many different things in the name 
 of God, but one message they all had in com- 
 mon : they declared that the world about 
 them must be changed. Men, they said, were 
 doing wrong, and must stop it and do right. 
 Accordingly, quiet people, and all who liked the 
 old ways, and men who were in authority, and 
 all who were responsible for the evils of the 
 time, dreaded and hated the prophets. It was
 
 THE KING AMONG HIS NEIGHBORS 107 
 
 not pleasant news that a prophet had appeared 
 in Nazareth. Jeremiah, in the Old Testa- 
 ment, was brought up in a little town called 
 Anathoth, which was inhabited entirely by 
 ministers. It was a place of the priests. Every- 
 body in the street was a minister, or a minis- 
 ter's wife or sister, or a minister's son or 
 daughter. Such a place should have been dis- 
 tinguished for its goodness and gentleness. 
 But when they heard that Jeremiah was set- 
 ting up to be a prophet, they tried to kill him. 
 The ministers threw stones at him. This helps 
 us to understand what happened at Nazareth. 
 One time in Boston, just before the Civil War, 
 a mob of perfectly respectable people mer- 
 chants, bankers, and lawyers tried to kill 
 William Lloyd Garrison, because he was a 
 disturber of the peace of society. Every pro- 
 phet disturbs the peace of society. That is 
 what he is for. 
 
 So they looked at Jesus as he sat among 
 them, not quite knowing what to think, re- 
 membering all his beautiful life but afraid of 
 what he might do next ; and when he stood up
 
 108 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 to read the Bible in the service they listened 
 so intently that they held their breath. So in 
 the stillness he found the place, in the book 
 of Isaiah, and read these words : The Spirit of 
 the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
 me to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath 
 sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach 
 deliverance to the captives, and recovering of 
 sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 
 are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of 
 the Lord. This he read, and gave back the 
 book, and sat down ; for in those days the 
 preacher sat when he preached. And he said, 
 " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your 
 ears; " meaning, " This is true to-day of me. 
 The Lord has sent me to do all this." 
 
 At the sound of his voice and in the hearing 
 of these gracious words, they were filled with 
 awe and wonder. But some said, " These are 
 bold sayings for a carpenter. Joseph's son is 
 taking much upon himself." And they re- 
 membered how he had been one of them all his 
 life long, and some were his cousins, and some 
 had held the ladder while he mended the wall,
 
 THE KING AMONG HIS NEIGHBORS 109 
 
 and some lived next door to his married sisters 
 and did not like them very well, and some 
 had hired him by the day to do their work. 
 They began to talk together as he spoke, and 
 to interrupt him with questions. Some said in 
 the words of an old proverb, " Physician, heal 
 thyself ; " that is, " You speak of doing great 
 things for the nation, but here you are a poor 
 man whom nobody has ever heard of. Make 
 something of yourself, enrich yourself, get 
 yourself accepted by those who are in author- 
 ity ; then come and say these great words and 
 we will listen to you." It was like the first 
 temptation. 
 
 To some he said, " It is because you know 
 me so familiarly that you reject me : a pro- 
 phet is without honor in his own country." 
 And when they cried, " Show us a miracle and 
 we will give you honor," he spoke of famous 
 prophets of the old time, how they had done 
 wonderful works of blessing, not for their own 
 people, but for strangers. Elijah had fed a 
 woman of Sidon during a famine, and Elisha 
 had cleansed the leprosy of Naaman the Syrian. 
 
 IKO ' 3UW SCX1 
 
 '100H3S1VMHOM31YIS
 
 110 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Finally, they rose up in great anger, and 
 rushed upon him where he sat, laying hold on 
 him with rough hands, and pushing and pull- 
 ing him got him out of the church into the 
 street. The service was stopped, and the holy 
 sabbath was profaned with their noise and 
 shouting. And one cried, " To the cliff ! " 
 proposing that they should cast him down 
 headlong over a steep place. But he looked 
 upon them so that they loosed their hold. 
 There was a light in his face like the sun at 
 noon. They took their hands off in fear, and 
 let him go ; and he turned about and walked 
 back through the crowd who stood in sudden 
 silence watching him. Down he went along 
 the street, past the church, past his own house, 
 past the town well, and out of sight. 
 
 He never lived in Nazareth again. Indeed, 
 after that, he had no settled home. Once he 
 said, "Foxes have holes and the birds of 
 the air have nests, but the Son of man hath 
 not where to lay his head." The worst of it 
 was that his own family turned against him. 
 His brothers did not believe in him. After a
 
 THE KING AMONG HIS NEIGHBORS 111 
 
 while they thought that he was out of his mind, 
 saying one to another, " He is beside himself." 
 One time they all went out, his mother and 
 his brothers, to take him as he was preaching 
 to a crowd of people and bring him home, and 
 somebody said, " There are your brothers and 
 your mother," and he answered, " Who is my 
 mother ? and who are my brethren ? " And 
 he looked round on them which sat about 
 him, and said, " Behold my mother and my 
 brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of 
 God, the same is my brother, and my sister, 
 and mother."
 
 n 
 
 A DAY OF THE KING'S LIFE 
 
 AFTER that, our Lord was very busy with his 
 great work of helping people. At first in 
 Capernaum, and then in other places in Galilee, 
 he went about preaching and blessing. Some 
 of these words of wisdom and works of won- 
 der are written down in the four records of his 
 life which are called the Gospels. Once we 
 have an account of almost a whole day. We 
 know what he did in the morning and in the 
 afternoon and in the evening. 
 
 The place was Capernaum, on the Lake of 
 Galilee, where several of the apostles lived, and 
 where our Lord spent so much of his ministry 
 that it was called his own city. It was then a 
 busy town, though to-day nobody knows just 
 where it stood, so completely has it fallen into 
 ruins. A week had now passed since the sab- 
 bath at Nazareth, and the holy day had come 
 again, and again our Lord with his disciples 
 went to the service. Here, as at Nazareth,
 
 A DAY OF THE KING'S LIFE 113 
 
 people had been talking together about him, 
 telling what had happened at the wedding 
 feast and in the synagogue. And one day that 
 week he had used Peter's fishing-boat for a 
 pulpit, sitting in it a little way from the land, 
 while the congregation stood upon the shore. 
 And after the sermon he had gone out on the 
 lake with Peter and Andrew, and James and 
 John, while they fished ; and they caught so 
 many fish that their net brake, and even the 
 boats were filled so full that they began to 
 sink. After that, the fishermen fished no more 
 for a long time, but went about everywhere 
 with Jesus. People knew that, and talked 
 about it. 
 
 So when our Lord entered, everybody in 
 church turned around to see him. " The 
 prophet has come," they whispered. " There 
 he is in the midst of his disciples." And, 
 naturally enough, when the time came for 
 reading the Bible in the service, Jesus was 
 called upon to read and preach: and so he 
 did, and they were all astonished at his teach- 
 ing. Did you ever hear anybody speak in a
 
 114 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 very loud and unnatural voice, as if he were 
 speaking a piece, and then somebody else 
 speak quietly and naturally as if he were talk- 
 ing just to you ? That is like the difference be- 
 tween the sermons which were usually preached 
 in the synagogue, and the sermons which our 
 Lord preached. 
 
 Now there was in the synagogue that morn- 
 ing a man with an unclean spirit ; or, as we 
 would say, a lunatic. The mind is still a deep 
 mystery to us, even after all the wisdom of 
 the wisest men. A diseased mind still per- 
 plexes the doctors. In that day, they said of 
 some such persons that they had a devil; 
 meaning that an evil spirit dwelt within them 
 and spoke with their lips, and threw them 
 into fits, and tormented them. Nowadays, 
 the doctors speak of a subliminal self and a 
 dual personality, meaning practically tne same 
 thing. Only now, people who have evil spirits 
 are not allowed to go to church, but are shut 
 up in hospitals. This poor man had an un- 
 clean spirit ; that is, in addition to the man's 
 own natural self, there was another self
 
 A DAY OF THE KING'S LIFE 115 
 
 another spirit which would take possession 
 of him. 
 
 There he sat, then, in the synagogue among 
 his neighbors, a miserable being, and our Lord 
 spoke, and the man listened. And suddenly 
 the other self cried out, " Let us alone ; let 
 us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou 
 Jesus of Nazareth ? Art thou come to destroy 
 us ? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One 
 of God ! " And Jesus rebuked him, saying, 
 "Hold thy peace, and come out of him." 
 And the man fell upon the floor, and when 
 he came to his senses again, his other self, the 
 evil spirit, had gone out of him. That was an 
 interesting thing to happen in church during 
 the sermon ! 
 
 Some of the people did not like it at all, 
 feeling that he ought not to have done it on 
 the sabbath. They were very careful about 
 the way in which they kept the sabbath, and 
 had made a great many rules about it, so that 
 the day which God made for people to rest in, 
 and to rejoice and be glad in, had become like 
 a day in jail. Our Lord paid no attention to
 
 116 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 these rules, but lived as naturally and freely 
 on that day as on any other. He said that the 
 sabbath was made for man, not man for the 
 sabbath, and that they kept the holy day in 
 the holiest way who made it a beautiful and 
 happy day for themselves and for their neigh- 
 bors. And the people did not like it. They 
 said nothing that sabbath in Capernaum, but 
 they thought much. Afterwards, it was one 
 of the chief matters of complaint against him. 
 But many of the congregation were greatly 
 pleased and astonished, partly by the sermon 
 and partly by the miracle. " What thing is 
 this?" they cried; "what new teaching is 
 this ? He speaks even to the unclean spirits 
 and they obey him." 
 
 So they stood talking on the steps of the 
 meeting-house, watching him as he walked 
 with his disciples down the street, the man 
 who had been cured walking with them. He 
 was to dine that day at Peter's house. But 
 there was sickness in the family. Peter was 
 married, and his wife's mother made her home 
 with them, and she had a fever. Peter's wife
 
 A DAY OF THE KING'S LIFE 117 
 
 had stayed at home from church to take care 
 of her. And now she met them at the door 
 with a troubled face. And Peter said, " How 
 is your mother ? " And she said, " Much 
 worse." And our Lord said, "What is it? 
 What is the matter?" And they told him. 
 And he went in where the sick woman lay, 
 and took her by the hand, and lifted her up. 
 And she was strong and well again, and rose 
 and ministered to them. She went into the 
 kitchen and helped to get the dinner. 
 
 That afternoon, the news went from house 
 to house through all the town, and that night, 
 after the sun was set and the air was cool, 
 and the sabbath day was over, they brought 
 to him all the sick folk of the neighborhood, 
 some on beds and some on crutches, crowding 
 all the street before the house. And the Lord 
 came out and stood in the front door, and laid 
 his hands on many of them and healed them. 
 
 Thus the busy day was ended amidst the 
 thanks of grateful people, but there were 
 many others like it. Day by day Jesus went 
 about doing good. His heart was full of com-
 
 118 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 passion, and he was very sorry when he saw 
 anybody in trouble. He was not the only per- 
 son who was curing the sick by a word and a 
 touch, and casting out devils. Many ministers 
 were doing that, and many people have done 
 the same since, even to this day. It has always 
 been wonderful, this effect of a strong mind 
 on a weak body. Even now the men of sci- 
 ence do not understand it. It is one among 
 many strange facts which nobody is able to 
 explain. What we do understand is that our 
 Lord was filled with the spirit of pity and 
 mercy. The Son of God, who by his life and 
 words taught us about God, was full of kind- 
 ness and affection for the sons of men. That 
 is the meaning of the miracles, and it is more 
 important than any miracle. 
 
 The next morning, rising up a great while 
 before day, he went out and departed into a 
 solitary place, and there prayed. There Peter 
 and the others found him, and said, "All 
 men seek for thee." And he answered, " Let 
 us go into the next towns, that I may preach 
 there also, for therefore came I forth."
 
 in 
 
 THE BROKEN ROOF 
 
 So the King went to the next towns, and 
 then to others farther off : but rarely very far. 
 Most of this part of his ministry was spent so 
 near the Lake of Galilee that from every hill 
 he could look back and see the shining of the 
 blue water. His new friends, the fishermen, 
 went with him, making a pleasant company 
 as they walked and talked along the green 
 ways, and sat at noon in the cool of the great 
 trees. And the King stood in the market- 
 places of the little towns and spoke to the 
 people who were gathered there, telling them 
 always that the kingdom of heaven was at 
 hand, and that if they wished to see it they 
 must put away their sins, and that whoever 
 saw it would find it beautiful and satisfying 
 beyond all imagination ; and this was called 
 the gospel ; that is, the good news, for that 
 is what the word means. So he went about 
 telling the good news. And in all the places he
 
 120 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 found sick people, on whom he laid his hands 
 that he might make them well. This he pre- 
 ferred to do quietly and privately, for he did 
 not like excitement, or crowds, or to have peo- 
 ple staring at him. Sometimes he asked the 
 sick not to tell who healed them ; but they 
 were usually so very happy and thankful that 
 they could not keep it to themselves. And 
 the result was that our Lord could not stay 
 any longer in the towns, but walked in the 
 country among the farms. 
 
 One day, however, he came back to Caper- 
 naum, and went into a house, probably Peter's 
 house. And people heard that he was there, 
 and again the street before the house was 
 crowded, though this time the crowd was 
 mostly made up of well people. Some who 
 had come that other day on crutches were 
 now walking as briskly as if they had gone on 
 two feet all their lives. And Jesus preached 
 to them. He preached the gospel to the poor, 
 and deliverance to those held captive by false- 
 hood or by sin, and the acceptable year of 
 the Lord. There they stood listening.
 
 THE BROKEN ROOF 121 
 
 Now there was a young man in Capernaum 
 who was paralyzed so that he could not walk. 
 It may be that he could not even talk, for in 
 the midst of all the wonders of that day he 
 seems to have said nothing. We may guess that 
 he was a young man, for we shall presently 
 hear our Lord calling him " Son ; " and our 
 Lord was only thirty years of age. He was 
 a young man, then, looking forward to a 
 long life of uselessness and pain. Moreover, 
 lying as he did day after day, much of the 
 time alone, he had opportunity to think, and 
 there were thoughts in his heart which had not 
 come to him when he was strong and active, 
 busy with work and play. He learned, as he 
 lay there, that he was sick in his soul as well 
 as in his body. He began to realize his sins. 
 He began to see that, while it is bad enough 
 to have a lame body, it is much worse to have 
 a pale, thin, weak, and lame soul. And when he 
 prayed God to make him well, he asked to be 
 free not only from his palsy but from his sins. 
 
 The young man had four friends. And 
 when they heard that our Lord was come
 
 122 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 again to town, they met together. " The Pro- 
 phet is here," they said one to another, " he 
 is in Peter's house. You know what happened 
 that morning in the synagogue, and that even- 
 ing in the street in front of Peter's house ; 
 how he healed the sick. Let us take our 
 friend to him that he may lay his hand on 
 him and heal him." So they came in with 
 this great plan, and there on his bed lay the 
 sick man. It was a very simple bed, only a 
 quilt or a blanket spread upon the floor ; and 
 they took each man a corner and carried him 
 out into the street. But as they came near to 
 Peter's house, they saw the crowd. It was a 
 great crowd, filling all the street, and it was 
 plain that they could not get through it. 
 There was the Master in the house, but they 
 could not reach him. What should they do ? 
 The wide door was open, and the Master sat 
 within, but a hundred people stood between. 
 How could they come into his presence ? 
 
 The house, like the other houses, was but 
 a single story high, and the roof was flat. 
 There was an outside stairway leading up ; for
 
 THE BROKEN ROOF 123 
 
 the roof was a cool place in hot days ; the lake 
 winds swept across it. People sat on the roof 
 in that country, as we sit on the porch. So 
 the men climbed up. Up they went with much 
 difficulty, the two who were ahead bending 
 down, and the two who were behind holding 
 their arms up, to keep the palsied man from 
 falling out. And when they got upon the roof, 
 what did they do but begin to break a hole in 
 it. They kicked with their heels and pulled 
 with their hands, and the people below heard 
 a great noise going on above, and pretty soon 
 splinters began to fall upon their heads, and 
 there, as they looked up, was a man's strong 
 hand, and his arm and shoulder, and by and 
 by his face, and at last there were the faces 
 of four men looking down through a large 
 opening. And the four took the blanket and 
 let the sick man down through the broken roof, 
 right at the Master's feet. 
 
 Our Lord looked at them and then at him. 
 He was glad to see how sure they were that 
 he would help them. And the young man's 
 face was like an open book, and his eyes
 
 124 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 prayed, though his lips were still. His eyes 
 said, " Lord, help me. Help me to get rid of 
 my sins and of my sickness." But his sins 
 troubled him most. And our Lord answered the 
 longing of the sick man's heart. " Son," he 
 said, " thy sins be forgiven thee." For that 
 was a part of the gospel which he preached, 
 that our Father in heaven forgives the sins 
 of all those who are truly sorry and wish to 
 be better. So he said, speaking very kindly 
 and affectionately, " Son, thy sins be forgiven 
 thee." For he knew that the soul is the most 
 important part of a man, and that to have a 
 sick soul is the worst of all possible ills ; and 
 he ministered to the sick soul before he did 
 anything about the sick body. 
 
 But in the house were certain scribes sit- 
 ting. A scribe is a man who writes, as a pro- 
 phet is a man who speaks : that is what the 
 names mean. And there is a wider difference 
 than that. The words which the prophets 
 spoke were new words, which they had heard 
 from God ; but the words which the scribes 
 wrote were old words, copied out of old books,
 
 LETTING DOWN THE SICK MAN
 
 THE BROKEN ROOF 125 
 
 mostly out of old law books. The prophet 
 was a man of the present and of the future, 
 but the scribe was a man of the past. The 
 scribes were very conservative persons ; that 
 is, they liked to have everything go on in the 
 old way, by rule. Already, they had begun 
 to distrust and dislike our Lord because he 
 spoke, not as one who is reciting a dull les- 
 son, but as one who is telling what he thinks 
 himself. And when the scribes heard him 
 say, " Thy sins be forgiven thee," they were 
 shocked greatly. They began to whisper 
 among themselves, saying, " Who is this that 
 speaks thus in the place of God ? Who can 
 forgive sins but God only ? " And Jesus read 
 their minds as he had read the eyes of the sick 
 man. And he said unto them, " Why reason ye 
 these things in your hearts ? Which is easier 
 to say, ' Thy sins be forgiven thee,' or to say, 
 ' Rise up and walk ? ' But that ye may know 
 that the Son of man hath power on earth to 
 forgive sins," turning to the sick man : " I 
 say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and 
 go thy way into thine house." And immedi-
 
 126 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 ately the man arose and took up his blanket, 
 and went forth before them all ; the crowd 
 parting to let him through, all being amazed 
 and saying, "We have seen strange things 
 to-day." 
 
 Long after, our Lord said to his disciples 
 that they were to do just as he had done ; 
 when they saw a sinner who was sorry for his 
 sins, they were to assure him of the forgive- 
 ness of God. And the sins, he said, which 
 you shall thus forgive shall be forgiven in 
 heaven. But the scribes looked in their old 
 books, and though they found something about 
 the priests in the temple forgiving sins, they 
 found nothing which seemed to them to jus- 
 tify our Lord's great words. And the deed of 
 mercy which he did served only to embitter 
 them against him.
 
 IV 
 THE POOL OF THE ANGEL 
 
 I SAID that our Lord, at the beginning of his 
 ministry, stayed most of the time near the 
 Lake of Galilee. But the great days came as 
 the year went round, the great days of the 
 church, when all who could get away from 
 home made a journey to the temple. So our 
 Lord went also to pray in the great church 
 which they called the house of God. And 
 one day there was a feast of the Jews, and 
 all the roads to Jerusalem were filled with 
 pilgrims on their way to church, and Jesus 
 and his disciples went up with them. 
 
 The temple stood on a rocky hill, looking 
 out over all the country round. At the foot 
 of the hill there was a spring, and a little 
 stream of cold water running out of it. They 
 had a sheep market by the side of the stream, 
 for the sheep were thirsty after being driven 
 in over dusty roads out of the country. There 
 was always a flock of them with their noses
 
 128 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 in the water drinking, and there were men 
 buying and selling. But besides the shepherds 
 and the men who were buying sheep, there 
 were always other people who were there, not 
 for that business, but for medicine. Amongst 
 the shepherds, and the butchers, and the priests 
 who were getting lambs for the sacrifices at 
 the temple, were sick folks in great numbers, 
 some of them blind, some of them lame, who 
 had come to bathe in the spring. 
 
 The water bubbled up out of the ground 
 in a great pool. And beside the pool was a. 
 porch with five arches. And the sick people 
 lay on blankets in the porch waiting for the 
 moving of the water. For this was a strange 
 pool. Sometimes the water lay so still that 
 the sick folks could use it for a looking-glass 
 and could see their thin and anxious faces in 
 it all but the blind ones. But presently 
 there would be a great commotion in the 
 water, as if somebody were blowing it with 
 the breath of a giant, or were stirring it with 
 a huge stick. And some people thought that 
 this was caused by an angel going down into
 
 THE POOL OF THE ANGEL 129 
 
 the clear pool. And as soon as this happened, 
 all the sick people scrambled down as best 
 they could into the water, and the sickest 
 were helped down by their friends. The idea 
 was that whoever got in first would be made 
 whole of whatsoever disease he had. It must 
 have been a strange sight, that crowd of mis- 
 erable people limping and crawling and rolling 
 down into the pool. 
 
 Now one day our Lord came by, and he 
 was very sorry, for his heart was always full 
 of compassion for those who were in trouble. 
 It made him sad, too, to see them struggling 
 so one against another, each trying to be the 
 first and to get the blessing for himself. So 
 he stopped and looked. And there among the 
 crowd he saw one man who had been sick 
 longer than the others. He had had an in- 
 firmity thirty and eight years ; he had hardly 
 had a well day since he was a boy. There he 
 lay close by the pool, waiting for the angel, 
 but waiting always in vain ; for when the 
 spring began to stir somebody else always got 
 in before him. When Jesus saw him lie there,
 
 130 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and knew that he had been now a long time in 
 that condition, he said to him, " Do you wish 
 to get well?" To get well! That was what the 
 man desired with all his heart, though he had 
 almost ceased to hope. So he answered, " Sir, 
 I am a poor man and I have no friends. When 
 the water is beginning to stir, I have no man 
 to put me into the pool ; but while I am com- 
 ing, another steps down before me." Then our 
 Lord said, " Arise, take up thy bed and walk." 
 
 And immediately the man started to get up. 
 That shows that he had great faith in our Lord. 
 He had never seen him before ; probably he had 
 never even heard of him ; but he saw him now 
 and heard his voice, and he believed in him with 
 all his heart. Some men would have said, 
 " Why, I can't do that. You don't know how 
 sick I am. I have been lame all my life, almost 
 forty years. I can't get up." But this man tried. 
 When Jesus told him to get up, he tried to do 
 it. And when he tried, God gave him strength. 
 So he took up his bed and walked. 
 
 But it happened that that day was the sab- 
 bath. You remember that the people had made
 
 THE POOL OF THE ANGEL 131 
 
 themselves a great many rules about it. The 
 commandments said that nobody should work 
 on that day, meaning that there should be a 
 good holiday every week, and that all people, 
 especially those who worked very hard, should 
 have a rest. But the ministers had been so 
 anxious that the day should be a rest day that 
 they had tried to keep the people from doing 
 anything at all. They had spoiled the beau- 
 tiful day. One of their rules was that it was 
 wrong to carry anything during the sabbath. 
 So when they saw this man, with his glad face, 
 leaping up and down as he walked, first on 
 one leg and then on the other to make sure 
 that they were both sound and strong, and 
 carrying his bed rolled up in a bundle under 
 his arm, they stopped him. They said, " It is 
 the sabbath day ; it is not lawful for thee to 
 carry thy bed." He answered them, "I have 
 been a sick man, lying on my bed for eight 
 and thirty years, and to-day I have been cured 
 at the pool of the angel. He that made me 
 whole, the same said unto me, 'Take up thy 
 bed and walk.' ' Then they asked him in an
 
 132 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 angry voice, " What man is that which said 
 unto thee, i Take up thy bed and walk ? ' 
 They did not think at all what a good and 
 wonderful and blessed thing it was that this 
 poor neighbor of theirs had been made well. 
 All that they thought of was that one of 
 their little rules had been broken. They were 
 angry with the man for being healed, and with 
 our Lord for having healed him. 
 
 All this seems very strange to us, though 
 there are still people who care more for their 
 own way than they do for the bodies or even for 
 the souls of their fellow-men. Such persons 
 made many a complaint during our Lord's 
 ministry, for he went straight on doing good 
 deeds, no matter what day of the week it was. 
 One sabbath day he was in a synagogue, and a 
 man was there who had a withered hand, and 
 they watched him whether he would heal him 
 on the sabbath day, that they might accuse him. 
 And he called the man to come and stand up 
 where all could see him. So there he stood, 
 the poor man with his useless arm. " Now," 
 he said, " say what is in your hearts. Is it
 
 THE POOL OF THE ANGEL 133 
 
 lawful to do good on the sabbath days ? " And 
 they said never a word. And he looked around 
 upon them all with deep indignation, being 
 grieved because their hearts were so hard that 
 they thought of their rules rather than of the 
 need of the man. And he said to the man, 
 " Stretch forth thine hand." And he stretched 
 it out ; and his hand was restored whole as the 
 other. 
 
 But the man who came from the pool of the 
 angel did not know who our Lord was; so 
 when they said, " Who told you to carry your 
 bed on the sabbath day?" he could not an- 
 swer ; for our Lord had gone away through 
 the crowd. Afterwards Jesus found the man 
 in the temple, and said unto him, " Behold, 
 thou art made whole : sin no more, lest a worse 
 thing come unto thee ; " meaning that sin is 
 worse than sickness, and that disease of the 
 soul is a worse thing than disease of the body. 
 But the Jews not only hated our Lord for 
 what he had done, but from that day forth 
 they sought to kill him, because he had done 
 these things on the sabbath day.
 
 THE KING STOPS A FUNERAL 
 
 You remember that Nazareth was in the 
 midst of the hills, and that on the south lay a 
 wide plain. From the Nazareth heights, across 
 the plain, one could see the white houses of 
 a village called Nain, built on a hillside. In 
 this village there lived a poor widow with her 
 only son. One day this son, his mother's con- 
 solation and hope and support, fell sick and 
 died. It was very sad, and everybody in the 
 viUage was full of sympathy for the mother, 
 so that when the day came for the funeral 
 there was a great company of people to join 
 their tears with hers. 
 
 The word Nain means " pleasant ; " and 
 pleasant it was, indeed, amidst the trees, look- 
 ing out north and east and west toward the 
 high mountains, and even having a glimpse, 
 when the sun was shining, of the blue sea. 
 But the poor mother did not look at the view, 
 nor did she know whether the sky above her
 
 THE KING STOPS A FUNERAL 135 
 
 head was black or white. Everything was 
 dark before her eyes. 
 
 A rough, steep path led up the hill to the 
 village. And down this path came the funeral 
 procession : first mourning women making a 
 loud lamentation, then young men carrying 
 the body on a wide flat board, then the mother, 
 and after her the people of the town. But as 
 they started to go down, another and very 
 different company started to go up. There 
 was quite a crowd of these people, some from 
 Capernaum, some from the country round 
 about, fishermen and farmers in rough clothes, 
 and among them one who was dressed as they 
 were, but to whom they all gave reverence. 
 And as they went he talked, while they all 
 listened eagerly. And there they met, on the 
 side of the hill, in the middle of the rocky 
 path, the procession of mourners and he 
 who came, as he said, to bind up the broken- 
 hearted. So our Lord saw the poor mother, 
 and was very sorry. And immediately he said 
 what we all say when we see any one cry- 
 ing. He said, " Don't cry ; " only, when we say
 
 136 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 that, our friends go on crying just the same, 
 and we cannot do anything except show our 
 sympathy. When our Lord said, " Don't cry," 
 he knew how to change tears into smiles. 
 For he put out his hand and touched the 
 hier ; he touched the board on which the 
 dead man lay. And they who bare him stood 
 still. And the mother stopped in her sad 
 journey, and looked up to see what it all 
 meant, and the people of the two companies 
 crowded around. And our Lord said, " Young 
 man, I say unto thee, Arise." And he that 
 was dead sat up and began to speak. What 
 did he say? Did he finish some sentence 
 which death had suddenly interrupted ? Or 
 did he greet his mother as one who comes 
 back from a strange journey ? Or was his first 
 word a thanksgiving to the one who had thus 
 enabled him to go on caring for his mother ? 
 It is all unknown to us. It is all a mystery ; 
 both the words which he spoke, and the power 
 which made him able to speak. 
 
 But this we know : that our Lord cared. 
 Sometimes death comes in such a way that it
 
 JESUS RAISING THE WIDOW OF NAIN'S SON
 
 THE KING STOPS A FUNERAL 137 
 
 seems as if God does not care ; when the 
 young and strong, who are so much loved and 
 so much needed, are taken away. Then we 
 may remember that day at Nain. God does 
 not stop the funeral, but he cares. He is 
 sorry for those who mourn. For he who came 
 up the hill at Nain was in God, and God in 
 him ; and when we know him, we know God, 
 as he said. And this, too, we know : that every 
 morning God raises us from the death of sleep 
 to the light of a new day ; every morning he 
 gives us back our life. 
 
 What did the young man of Nain do with 
 his new life ? Our Lord told him what to do 
 with it, for he delivered him to his mother. It 
 was like that day on the cross when he said, 
 u Son, behold thy mother." He meant that 
 the young man was to be a good son, obe- 
 dient and loving, better than he had ever 
 been before. 
 
 So the procession turned straight about, 
 and all the mourning women stopped their 
 crying and wiped their eyes ; and the sky 
 overhead was blue, with the sun shining in
 
 138 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the midst of it ; and the people glorified God, 
 some saying, " A great prophet is risen up 
 among us," others, " God hath visited his 
 people ; " and the mother and her son walked 
 side by side, and Jesus was with them.
 
 VI 
 
 THE STILLING OF A STORM 
 
 ANOTHER time, our Lord had been teaching 
 all day long, and as the sun began to go down 
 he was very tired, but the people would not 
 go away. They begged him to continue speak- 
 ing ; and he knew that if he walked away 
 they would all follow him. But the place 
 where he was teaching was by the side of the 
 lake. Probably he sat in a boat anchored near 
 the shore, as he often did. His favorite pulpit 
 was a boat. There was one way to get apart 
 from the crowd, and that was to row out into 
 the lake. Our Lord beckoned therefore to Peter 
 or John and told him to take up the anchor 
 and row out ; though even then the people ran 
 down and got all the boats which were fastened 
 there, and rowed out after him. But they were 
 all so interested in our Lord's great words, and 
 so intent on keeping as near him as they could, 
 that not one of them looked at the sky. So 
 when the storm came, it took them unawares.
 
 140 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 The water is a bad place for a storm. Up 
 comes the fierce wind and blows and blows, 
 and the sky is black with hanging clouds. 
 Up come the threatening waves, each with its 
 white cap, blustering about. And the boat 
 rolls and tosses, and turns this way and that. 
 And sometimes the water gets into it and 
 down it goes ; and sometimes the wind tips the 
 boat over, and throws the people into the 
 water so that they never come up again. But 
 all this is very dreadful indeed when the dan- 
 ger appears suddenly, because nobody is ready 
 for it. The waves are peaceful and pleasant, 
 and the boat is going quietly along, when all 
 at once the wind comes leaping down from 
 some opening in the hills along the shore, as 
 if it had taken a quick run to get a start and 
 then had jumped right over into the middle 
 of the water. And before the people have 
 time to think twice, the wind is shaking 
 them as a giant might shake a body. This 
 is the way in which storms often behave on 
 the Lake of Galilee. And thus did the storm 
 conduct itself that evening when our Lord
 
 THE STILLING OF A STORM 141 
 
 and some of his disciples had launched out 
 into the deep. 
 
 I said that he had been teaching all the 
 day and was very tired. Boys and girls do not 
 understand that teaching is hard work. They 
 do not realize that their teachers get tired. It 
 seems to them that the only persons in the 
 school who have a hard time are those who have 
 to study and recite. Teaching is not so bad 
 when everybody is interested and responsive. 
 Sometimes children are asked, " What do you 
 pay for coming to this school ? " And the right 
 answer is, " We pay attention ! " Teaching 
 is easy when all the scholars pay attention. All 
 the people to whom our Lord spoke paid atten- 
 tion ; there was no trouble about that. The 
 things that he said were so interesting, and he 
 said them in such an interesting way, that every- 
 body was interested. But his hearers did not 
 all like what he said, as we shall see by and 
 by. They did not even like what he did, as 
 we have seen already. So in every company 
 of listeners, there were enemies ; and as the 
 months went by, the number of them increased.
 
 142 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Our Lord saw their objecting faces, and heard 
 them whisper one to another, and it was very 
 hard. 
 
 So that day, after hours of this hard work, 
 the first thing that he did as the boat began 
 to move through the water, and the crowd was 
 left behind, was to go into the stern of the boat 
 and He down with his head on a cushion. There 
 he fell asleep; and no sooner was he fast asleep 
 than the storm came. Black clouds hastened 
 from their hiding-places behind the hills, 
 white waves pushed and pulled and clutched at 
 the boat, and pretty soon there was so much 
 water in the bottom of it that some of the 
 men had to stop rowing and begin to bail. 
 Still the wind blew harder and harder, and 
 the waves roared louder and louder, and rose 
 higher and higher, and the boat rocked faster 
 and faster, and farther and farther. And at 
 last the disciples were very much afraid. They 
 had been on that lake every day since they 
 were little boys, and had weathered many a 
 storm : but it seemed as if they had never seen 
 a tempest like this. The water poured in faster
 
 THE STILLING OF A STORM 143 
 
 than they could bail it out. It began to look 
 as if the boat, and all who were in it, must 
 go to the bottom. 
 
 Meanwhile, our Lord was still asleep. The 
 howling of the wind had not awakened him, 
 nor the pitching of the boat, nor even the cold 
 water splashing over him. It shows how tired 
 he was. 
 
 Finally, the disciples called to him with 
 loud voices ; " Master, Master," they cried, 
 "we perish." And some said, "Master, we 
 perish ; save us." Who ever heard anything 
 like that ? A crew of fishermen, who knew all 
 about a boat and all about a storm, turned 
 for assistance to a carpenter ! Of what use is 
 a carpenter in an open boat on a high sea ? 
 You remember that Jesus was brought up in 
 a hill town, where the only water was in the 
 bottom of the village well. It is not likely 
 that he had had any experience in boats. And 
 the fishermen knew that. This is what makes 
 it so remarkable that they should have called 
 for help from him. It shows that they had al- 
 ready come to see that he was the wisest and
 
 144 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the strongest and the best man they had ever 
 known. They felt that only God could save 
 them ; and that Jesus was very near to God. 
 So they cried, waking him. out of his deep 
 sleep, " Master, Master, we sink ! save us ! " 
 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and 
 said unto the sea, "Peace, be still." And 
 the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 
 And he said unto them, "Why are ye so 
 fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?" 
 Then they were almost as much afraid of him 
 as they had been of the sea, saying one to an- 
 other as the waves went down, u What manner 
 of man is this, that even the wind and the sea 
 obey him ? " 
 
 Afterwards, when they told this story, there 
 was another which they liked to tell with it ; 
 about how one time some of the disciples 
 were rowing by themselves one evening on 
 the lake, having left our Lord on the shore ; 
 and suddenly the wind began to blow and the 
 waves began to rise, and they rowed and 
 rowed and got no nearer to the shore ; and 
 then they saw a dim light out across the water,
 
 THE STILLING OF A STORM 145 
 
 and it seemed to move and to draw near to 
 them, and there in the middle of the lake was 
 a man walking on the water ; and they were 
 filled with great fear, and cried, "It is a ghost ! " 
 but the man spoke in a voice which they 
 knew, saying, " It is I, be not afraid ; " and 
 there was our Lord walking across the wet 
 waves as if he were walking through the grass 
 of a meadow. So he got into the boat, and 
 the wind ceased to blow. That is what they 
 said ; and some added that Peter, seeing our 
 Lord coming over the lake, said, " Lord, if it 
 be thou, bid me come unto thee on the 
 water ; " and he told him to come. So Peter 
 began to walk on the water ; but the wind was 
 boisterous, blowing hard against him, and the 
 water was rough, and Peter was afraid, and 
 as he" began to fear he began to sink, so that 
 he cried, " Lord, save me ; " and immediately 
 Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught 
 him, and said unto him, " thou of little 
 faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ? " 
 
 These wonderful stories have never been 
 explained : but thus much is plain, that if
 
 146 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 we have Jesus in our company no storm shall 
 ever bring us to shipwreck. The winds of 
 disaster blow, and the waves of misfortune 
 rise, and Jesus seems far distant, asleep or on 
 the shore. Even when he comes to our assist- 
 ance across the troubled water, the sight 
 seems too good to be true, and we cannot 
 believe our eyes, thinking that we see only a 
 vision. But it is he himself, who has promised 
 to be with us and to help us, everywhere and 
 always, till all storms are stilled and all our 
 boats are safe on shore.
 
 VII 
 THE WILD MAN OF GERGESA 
 
 Now on the other side of the Lake of Galilee, 
 where the boat landed after the stilling of the 
 storm, the people were all heathen. They were 
 Greeks, probably descendants from soldiers of 
 Alexander, who had settled there after the wars 
 were over. The great power of the world at that 
 time, however, was not Greece but Rome ; so 
 there were Roman soldiers quartered in the 
 Greek cities across the lake, who protected the 
 people but oppressed them at the same time. 
 The shore was in many places steep and rocky, 
 with the valleys of rivers running back into the 
 country ; and on the shore, as Jesus and his 
 disciples drew near in the boat, they saw a 
 sight which they could not have seen any- 
 where on their own side of the lake : they 
 saw a great herd of swine feeding. You know 
 that the Jews never ate pork, nor do they eat 
 it to this day. So they kept no pigs. But the
 
 148 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Greeks kept pigs, and there they were feeding 
 at the top of the cliffs. 
 
 Moreover, as the disciples looked, they saw 
 something else which they disliked to see, and 
 that was a graveyard. For the Jews were very 
 particular as to what they touched. They had a 
 great desire to be always pleasing to God, and 
 they thought that there were some things in the 
 world which God objected to, and that whoever 
 even touched such things must wash himself, 
 saying many prayers, and so make himself 
 clean, before God would receive him again. 
 Pigs were considered unclean, and pagan people 
 were unclean, and whatever was dead w r as un- 
 clean, according to their rules. When our Lord 
 put out his hand and touched the widow's son 
 at Nain, many who stood by thought it very 
 strange. They said nothing about it in the 
 great joy of the moment, but they spoke of it 
 afterwards and did not like it. So here were 
 three unclean things at the same time : it was 
 a pagan land, and pigs were feeding in it, 
 beside a graveyard. 
 
 The truth is that our Lord paid no attention
 
 THE WILD MAN OF GERGESA 149 
 
 to these rules. One time he spoke very plainly 
 and said that it is not that which enters a 
 man's lips by which he is defiled, but that 
 which comes out : that is, it does not matter 
 so much what we eat as what we say. To speak 
 an evil word is worse than to break all the rules 
 about unclean things. And for this the people 
 who were in authority hated him. They hated 
 him because he disregarded their distinctions 
 between the clean and the unclean, as they did 
 because he cared so little for their rules about 
 the sabbath. 
 
 But now, coming down from the rocks to 
 the shore, was something worse than a pig or 
 a pagan or a graveyard : down came a wild 
 man. 
 
 The wild man had his dwelling among the 
 tombs, living in the holes in the rocks in which 
 lay the bones of the dead. At night, when it was 
 dark and still, those who passed by could hear 
 him crying and screaming in a dreadful voice. 
 And in the daytime anybody who came near 
 enough though most people kept as far away 
 as possible could see him running about
 
 150 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and wringing his hands, and cutting himself 
 with sharp stones so that he was covered with 
 blood. The man had a home and friends, and 
 several times his friends had come and caught 
 him, and tried to keep him from hurting him- 
 self any more. They had tied him up with 
 ropes and even with chains ; but every time he 
 had broken loose, like Samson, and had got 
 away. There he was, his hair blowing about 
 his face, jumping up and down, waving his 
 arms, crying out dreadful things, and making 
 his way as fast as he could along the rocks to 
 the place where our Lord's boat was coming in. 
 It seemed a bad place to land. No doubt, 
 had the disciples been by themselves, they 
 would have turned the boat away. Even as it 
 was, they must have trembled, and they prob- 
 ably stood a little behind our Lord. But the wild 
 man, when he came where they were, did not try 
 to hurt them. He fell down on his knees on the 
 wet sand at our Lord's feet, crying with a loud 
 voice, " What have I to do with thee, Jesus, 
 thou Son of God most high ? " For the wild 
 man had an evil spirit. He was a crazy person.
 
 THE WILD MAN OF GERGESA 151 
 
 And our Lord, as the man came, commanded 
 the evil spirit to come out of him. It was the 
 man's other self, his evil self, who spoke. He 
 cried, " Do not torment me." And Jesus said, 
 " What is your name ? " And the man said, 
 " Legion." A legion was a great regiment 
 of Roman soldiers, and men used the word 
 when they meant a great number, and when 
 they thought of power and cruelty. So the 
 man said that his name was Legion, meaning 
 that many evil spirits had their abode in him. 
 " Do not torment us," cried the spirits, " let 
 us go into the swine." And suddenly, as he 
 spoke, there was a great commotion among 
 the swine. The crazy man rushed towards 
 them, and the drove of pigs, grunting and 
 scrambling, hurried away in a fierce panic, on 
 and on towards the edge of the steep cliff, 
 and over into the deep water. And the men 
 who were in charge of them, who with all 
 their sticks and cries had not been able to pre- 
 vent their mad plunge into the sea, ran as fast 
 as they could go into the near town, and there 
 declared that a thousand devils had gone out
 
 152 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 of the crazy man into the herd of swine. So 
 the owner came to see what had happened, 
 and there were the pigs drowned in the sea, 
 and the man sitting quiet and at peace at the 
 feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. 
 And when the disciples told them what was 
 done, they were both afraid and angry ; for 
 they were more concerned about their pigs 
 than they were about the man. There was the 
 poor man, their neighbor, delivered from his 
 dreadful state ; but their pigs were gone. And 
 do you know what they did ? They asked our 
 Lord to go away. They told him that they did 
 not want him in their country. The sun had 
 set, and it was now growing dark ; but the dark- 
 est place in that neighborhood was not in the 
 midst of the thick trees, nor even in the caves 
 of the graveyard where the man had lived 
 among the dead ; it was in the hearts of the 
 owners of the swine. 
 
 People do not often keep droves of pigs, 
 nowadays, in our part of the country, but 
 they keep other things. They keep stores, 
 and mills, and houses, and lands, and money.
 
 THE WILD MAN OF GERGESA 153 
 
 Whenever they think more about getting 
 these things and keeping them than about 
 the bodies and souls of their fellow-men, then 
 they are like the people of Gergesa, who cared 
 so much for their pigs that they sent our 
 Lord away. 
 
 After that, the man who had been cured, 
 asked Jesus that he might join the company 
 of his disciples. But Jesus told him that the 
 best thing that he could do was to go back to 
 his own home, to his wife and children, and 
 his neighbors, and tell them what great things 
 God had done for him. So our Lord and the 
 others got into the boat and rowed away over 
 the dark lake, and the man went into the city 
 and stopped all whom he met and told them 
 of the power and love of Jesus.
 
 vm 
 
 THE MINISTER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER 
 
 THERE were two kinds of churches in that 
 country : the temple in Jerusalem and the 
 synagogues in other places. There was only 
 one temple, and it was great and beautiful, as 
 we have seen, like a cathedral, with carved 
 stone and brass. There the Feast of the Pass- 
 over, and the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast 
 of Tabernacles like Easter and Whitsunday 
 and Christmas were celebrated, and the 
 sacrifices were offered. The men who con- 
 ducted these services were called priests. 
 There were a great many synagogues; at 
 least, one in every town and village of the Jews' 
 own country, and in every place about the 
 world where Jews were living. They looked, 
 as I have said, like New England meeting- 
 houses, and the services which were held in 
 them consisted of Bible-reading and preach- 
 ing. The men who conducted them were 
 called ministers and rulers of the synagogue.
 
 THE MINISTER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER 155 
 
 Thus there was much the same difference then 
 that there is now between priests and minis- 
 ters. 
 
 One of the ministers of the Capernaum 
 synagogue was named Jairus. He had one 
 only daughter, a little girl of twelve, and she 
 was very sick, so that day by day she grew 
 worse rather than better, until at last the 
 doctor had to tell her father and mother that 
 he could do no more. She lay a-dying. But 
 that very morning our Lord came back from 
 his hasty visit to the land across the lake, and 
 found all the people waiting for him. For 
 Jairus remembered that wonderful sabbath in 
 the synagogue when Jesus had cast out the 
 unclean spirit, and he felt, and his friends 
 felt, that our Lord might help him in his deep 
 distress. So out of the waiting crowd came 
 the minister as our Lord approached, and fell 
 down at his feet and begged him to come into 
 his house. " My little daughter," he said, " lies 
 at the point of death, but come and lay thy 
 hand upon her and she shall live;" and immedi- 
 ately our Lord raised him up and followed him.
 
 156 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 But there was a great crowd in the street. 
 Some were there from curiosity, that they might 
 see him ; some because they had heard him 
 speak and wished to hear him speak again, 
 desiring to know more about God and the 
 kingdom of God ; some because they were in 
 trouble and hoped that he might help them. 
 And in the crowd that day there was one 
 woman who was in two kinds of trouble at the 
 same time ; she was both sick and poor. She 
 had spent all her money, and she had spent 
 it all upon the doctors, trying to get well, in 
 vain. The worst use of money is to spend it 
 for things which make the spender and his 
 friends sick; but the next to the worst use 
 is to spend it in seeking for health without 
 finding it. This poor woman had gone to 
 one physician after another. Every doctor in 
 Capernaum had knocked at her door; and 
 not one had done her any good. There she 
 was, able to walk out a little way in the street, 
 but still hopelessly sick. And that day as she 
 walked she heard the footsteps and voices of 
 a crowd coming behind her, and looking about
 
 JAIRUS" DAUGHTER
 
 THE MINISTER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER 157 
 
 she saw our Lord in the midst of them. And 
 immediately she said to herself, " If I may 
 but touch his garment, I shall be whole." But 
 she was very timid. She did not dare to go to 
 him before all those people, and tell him how 
 she needed his blessing. She just waited till 
 the throng overtook her, and mingled with 
 the others, and made her way, nearer and 
 nearer to him, and at last got where she could 
 put out her hand and touch his cloak. And 
 at once she was made whole. 
 
 But the King stopped. He looked about 
 upon the crowd and said, " Who touched me ? 
 who pulled my coat ? " And one drew back 
 and said, "Not I;" and another said, "Not 
 I." And Peter said, " Master, the multitude 
 throng thee, and press thee, and sayest thou 
 ' Who touched me ? ' ' ' But our Lord repeated 
 the question. " Somebody," he said, " hath 
 touched me, for I perceive that strength has 
 gone out to somebody here from me." Then 
 when the woman saw that she could not be 
 hid, she came trembling, and fell down on her 
 knees before him in the dusty road, and told
 
 158 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 him what had happened. And he put his 
 hand upon her head. "Daughter," he said, 
 " be of good comfort : thy faith hath made 
 thee whole." 
 
 Meanwhile, the minister stood by, anxious 
 and impatient, thinking of his little daughter. 
 And as the woman went away and our Lord 
 turned to go with him to his house, there 
 came a messenger with great sadness, saying, 
 " It is all over, do not trouble the Master fur- 
 ther ; the little daughter is dead." But when 
 Jesus heard it, he said, " Fear not ; only be- 
 lieve, and she shall be made whole." So they 
 went on together. And as they came near the 
 minister's house, they heard the sound of cry- 
 ing, and saw that there were many people in the 
 street. It looked as if the whole parish had 
 come to show their sympathy. In that coun- 
 try, when people cry, they cry with their lips 
 as well as with their eyes, and when anybody 
 is dead they hire mourners who can cry very 
 loud indeed to come and help them make their 
 lamentation. And there they were, weeping 
 and screaming, making a dreadful noise.
 
 THE MINISTER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER 159 
 
 The first thing which our Lord did was to 
 turn all of these people out of the minister's 
 house. " Give place," he said, " for the maid 
 is not dead ; she is asleep." Then he went 
 in, taking with him only Peter and James and 
 John and the father and mother of the child. 
 So they stood at last in the silent room, where 
 the little girl, all still and white, lay upon the 
 bed, and our Lord took her by the hand. 
 " Talitha cumi," he said, for that was the 
 language which they spoke then ; meaning, 
 " Get up, little daughter." And the child 
 opened her eyes and rose up. And our Lord 
 led her to her mother saying, " She is hungry ; 
 give her something to eat."
 
 IX 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 
 
 So people came from all directions to see the 
 King and to hear his words. Some came be- 
 cause they hoped that he would do a work 
 of wonder; and these were moved either by 
 curiosity, that they might stand by with eyes 
 wide open while some sick person was made 
 well, or by their own distress, being themselves 
 sick or in trouble. Some came because they 
 were poor and hungry or disliked by their 
 neighbors, and so the world seemed to them 
 a bad world, and they wanted to know what 
 Jesus would do to make it better. Very few 
 of the great people came, the rulers or the 
 rich ; and very few of the ministers. The 
 congregation which gathered about our Lord 
 looked quite unlike the congregation which 
 met in the synagogue on the sabbath day. 
 The King of Glory came unto his own, and 
 his own received him not ; that is, the people 
 who read their Bibles, and said their prayers,
 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 161 
 
 and went to church, and were thought to be 
 very good, disliked him greatly. Both the 
 priests and the ministers or, as we would 
 say to-day, both the Catholics and the Pro- 
 testants criticised him, and objected to what 
 he said and did, and hated him. 
 
 He did not often preach long sermons ; in- 
 deed, for the most part, he did not preach at 
 all, but just talked in his natural voice. He 
 liked best to speak to a few people, in a quiet, 
 friendly way, walking in the country, or sitting 
 under a tree or in a boat. But twice he spoke 
 at length to a considerable company, so that 
 we have a report of what he said. Once he 
 was on a mountain, where he preached the 
 Sermon of the Beatitudes. The other time he 
 was on the lake, where he preached the Ser- 
 mon of the Parables. That is, in the first 
 sermon he was telling people how to be happy, 
 for that is what " beatitude " means ; and in the 
 second sermon he taught the people by means 
 of stories, for a parable is a story. 
 
 Nobody knows where our Lord preached 
 the Sermon on the Mount. But it does not
 
 162 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 greatly matter, for all the hills about the Lake 
 of Galilee look much alike, and are all very 
 different from Mt. Sinai. You remember the 
 Sermon on the Mount which Moses preached : 
 how he stood on Sinai, a great, bleak, rocky 
 height, in the midst of a desert ; and how he 
 brought down the Ten Commandments, cut 
 on slabs of stone ; and how there was an 
 awful storm, the lightning flashing and the 
 thunder booming. But the Eight Beatitudes 
 were spoken on a gentle hill, green to the top 
 with trees and shrubs and grass, and over- 
 looking the pleasant lake. We may safely 
 guess that the sun was bright, and that birds 
 were singing in the air and flowers were shining 
 on the ground. Indeed, our Lord in his ser- 
 mon spoke of the birds and the flowers, how 
 the Father in heaven cares for them every day. 
 There on the grass sat the congregation at 
 our Lord's feet, the poor, the sad, the sinful, 
 and the outcast ; and he spoke sitting at the 
 foot of a green tree. 
 
 So he began with the Eight Beatitudes : the 
 eight ways to be happy. Blessed are the poor
 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 163 
 
 in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of 
 heaven. Blessed are they that mourn : for 
 they shall be comforted. Blessed are the 
 meek : for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed 
 are they which do hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness :for they shall be filled. Blessed 
 are the merciful : for they shall obtain mercy. 
 Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall 
 see God. Blessed are the peacemakers : for 
 they shall be called the children of God. 
 Blessed are they which are persecuted for 
 righteousness 1 sake : for theirs is the king- 
 dom of heaven. That is, the true source of 
 happiness is in our own hearts : not in the 
 houses in which we live, nor in the clothes 
 which we wear, nor in the money which we 
 have, but in ourselves. If we try always to do 
 right, so that God shall approve of us, then 
 we shall be happy, no matter what things hap- 
 pen to us. There may be a great difference 
 between happiness and wealth, but happiness 
 and goodness always dwell together. And he 
 showed how the Ten Commandments are to 
 be kept with our hearts as well as with our
 
 164 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 hands; so that the commandment "Thou shalfc 
 do no murder," really forhids us even to think 
 hatefully about our neighbor. 
 
 Then he taught the Lord's Prayer ; which 
 we say in English words which are nearly a 
 hundred years older than the English Bibles 
 which we commonly read. When the Bible 
 was translated in the time of King James, 
 /everybody knew the Lord's Prayer by heart 
 in the old form, and most people kept on 
 saying it that way. Here our Lord showed us 
 that if we wish to do the things that are right, 
 and thus to be happy, we must every day ask 
 God to help and bless us. For prayer is as 
 necessary to the life of the soul as food is to 
 the life of the body. 
 
 Then he gave the Golden Rule : Whatsoever 
 ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
 even so to them. Afterwards, he put this in an- 
 other and still stronger way in the New Com- 
 mandment. " A new commandment I give 
 unto you, That ye love one another ; as I have 
 loved you, that ye also love one another." And 
 he said that we ought even to love those who
 
 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 165 
 
 hate us, trying to do them good in return for 
 the evil which they do to us. " Everybody," 
 he said, "loves his friends ; but my true disciples 
 will love their enemies." 
 
 At the end of the sermon, he compared the 
 congregation to the Two Houses. " Once," he 
 said, "there was a wise man who built his 
 house upon a rock. Down he dug into the earth 
 until he found the solid rock, and there he 
 set the corners of his house. And then a storm 
 came. The rain descended, and the floods 
 came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that 
 house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon 
 a rock." That, he said, was like the people 
 who heard his teaching and listened to it with 
 attention and then did what he said. " And 
 every one that heareth these sayings of mine, 
 and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a 
 foolish man, which built his house upon the 
 sand : and the rain descended, and the floods 
 came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that 
 house ; and it fell : and great was the fall of it."
 
 X 
 
 THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN STORIES 
 
 THIS sermon was preached, not on a mountain, 
 but on the lake, where our Lord sat in a boat 
 and the people stood on the bank. The sermon 
 was all in stories, seven of them, one after an- 
 other ; though some of them were very short. 
 These stories are called parables, which means 
 that they were told, not for the sake of telling 
 a story, but in order to teach the truth : for 
 sometimes there is more valuable truth in a 
 story than there is in a long chapter full of 
 facts. 
 
 All these stories were about the kingdom 
 of heaven. The people were looking and 
 praying for the coming of the kingdom of 
 heaven, but they were thinking more about the 
 kingdom than they were about heaven. They 
 were expecting a king with a crown upon his 
 head, and a sceptre in his hand, and a royal 
 robe over his shoulders, sitting on a throne. 
 What they wanted was that such a king should
 
 THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN STORIES 167 
 
 conquer their enemies, and make them again 
 a free and rich nation. They wanted wealth 
 and power. So, when the King came with no 
 palace and no throne, going about quietly like 
 other men, and dressed like a carpenter, they 
 did not know him. In these stories, the King 
 tried to show his people what was the true 
 idea of the kingdom. The kingdom, he said, 
 is not like the kingdoms of this world ; it is 
 not on the map, but in the heart. Its power 
 is the truth ; and they belong to it who are 
 trying to live here on earth, as well as they 
 can, the life of heaven, the life of good- 
 ness and usefulness, and love of man and 
 God. 
 
 So he said that the kingdom of heaven is 
 like a beautiful pearl for the sake of which 
 a man sold all that he had and bought it ; 
 that is, the most important of all things is the 
 life which is lived in obedience to God. And 
 he said that the kingdom of heaven is like 
 leaven, or, as we say, yeast, which is put 
 into dough so that it makes bread ; meaning 
 that the citizens of the kingdom would little
 
 168 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 by little change the world in which they live, 
 and make it as different from the present 
 world as bread is different from dough. And 
 he said that the kingdom of heaven is like a 
 grain of mustard seed, a very little seed, which 
 grows up into a big tree, so that the birds 
 built their nests in it; and that meant that 
 the kingdom was indeed beginning very 
 small, only a little company of disciples, but 
 it should grow and grow and grow till it 
 should include the whole world. These were 
 some of the short stories. The longest of all 
 was the Story of the Sower. 
 
 Once upon a time, our Lord said, a man 
 went out to sow his field. The man had a 
 large bag of grain by his side, and as he 
 walked he kept putting his hand into the bag, 
 and taking out the grain and scattering it 
 over the ground. In the middle of the field 
 there was a path, a hard path, trodden day 
 after day by the feet of men and horses. Some- 
 body was walking over it, or driving over it, all 
 the time. Some of the seed fell on this beaten 
 path. There was a place on one side where
 
 THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN STORIES 169 
 
 the field lay at the foot of a hill, and the 
 hill was made of rock, and over the rock the 
 soil was very thin ; only a few inches of earth, 
 and then the rock beneath. In a corner of 
 the field there had been a great many briers 
 and thistles the year before, and they were 
 just getting ready to start up again and make 
 a bramble patch. The rest of the field was 
 ploughed land, ready for seed. 
 
 So the man with the bag went back and 
 forth across the field, scattering the grain. 
 And some fell on the hard path, and some on 
 the thin ground, and some among the bram- 
 bles, and some on the good ploughed land. 
 And pretty soon a man came walking along, 
 wearing heavy boots, and, as he went along the 
 path, he stepped on some of the seeds which 
 lay there and broke them into little pieces. 
 So they never grew. And by and by a bird 
 came along that way and caught sight of the 
 grain, and he was glad, for there was nothing 
 that he liked better than grain. But, as he 
 was a generous little bird, he took only a nib- 
 ble or two and then flew away to tell all the
 
 170 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 other little birds in that neighborhood that 
 there was a fine dinner ready for them on the 
 path, and would n't they like to come and eat 
 it ? So a whole flock o little birds came flying 
 as fast as their wings could carry them, and 
 lighted down among the grains of wheat, 
 and in a very short time nothing was left 
 there but the path. And so nothing ever grew 
 out of that grain. 
 
 But the seeds in the shallow soil began to 
 grow at once. When the sun came out, there 
 was so little earth that it was warmed through 
 very quickly : and as there is nothing which 
 seeds like better than to be comfortably warm, 
 the grain grew beautifully. Little leaves poked 
 up their little green heads through the ground, 
 and there they breathed the air and drank the 
 rain, and every morning they were taller than 
 they were the night before. But while seeds 
 like to be warm, they object very much to 
 being scorched. Unhappily, after these seeds 
 had got their good start, and the stalks of 
 wheat were beginning to say to themselves that 
 they were much taller than any other wheat in
 
 THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN STORIES 171 
 
 the field, for the other wheat did not grow 
 nearly so fast, there came a very hot day. 
 The sun blazed and blazed until the tall wheat 
 felt as if it were living next door to a big 
 bonfire. The little roots tried to get away 
 from the hot sun, down in the cool earth : 
 but there was the hard rock. They could 
 not find a cool place anywhere. So the wheat 
 began to wither. It began to feel like a man 
 who has a sunstroke. At last it fell down 
 flat upon the ground, and it never got up 
 again. So that seed did not amount to any- 
 thing. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the bramble patch the wheat 
 was growing, but the thorns and thistles were 
 growing also. Now all seeds need to have 
 enough to eat, but thorns and thistles are like 
 greedy children who try to get all the food 
 there is upon the table. The corner of the 
 field was the table, and the dirt was the food, 
 and the thistles crowded out the wheat; and 
 as there was not quite enough to go around, 
 the wheat grew more and more hungry, and 
 thinner and thinner, day by day, till it was
 
 172 " WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 starved. And nobody ever got any grain from 
 that seed. 
 
 But in the ploughed land, where the man 
 came with a sharp hoe and cut away the 
 weeds, the wheat grew and became taller and 
 taller, until at last it was above the heads of the 
 farmer's boys and girls, and the ears of wheat 
 appeared ; and finally, when the man who had 
 planted the seed came to reap the harvest, he 
 found that these seeds had grown into good 
 wheat, a hundred times as much as he had sown. 
 
 That was the end of the story ; but after the 
 sermon was over some of our Lord's disciples 
 came to him and said, " What did you mean 
 by the Story of the Sower ? " For they knew 
 that he did not tell the story just for the 
 pleasure of it. And so he told them. He said 
 that the seed is like the word of God ; that is, 
 like the message which comes to us from God 
 in a sermon, or in a book, or in a talk with a 
 friend. And some who hear have hearts like 
 the beaten path. Thoughts about other things 
 are trampling up and down in them, like the 
 man with the heavy boots ; or such thoughts
 
 THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN STORIES 173 
 
 are flying about and whispering to them, like 
 the little twittering birds ; so that the word of 
 God does not make any impression upon them. 
 They do not pay any attention to God. Others 
 who hear are like the shallow places. They 
 are at first greatly interested, full of joy and 
 enthusiasm, and determined to do great things. 
 But they go home, and the little daily duties 
 and worries come; somebody teases them, some- 
 body tempts them, somebody asks them to do 
 what they do not like to do, and all the good 
 resolutions wither away, like the grain in the 
 hot sun. Others who hear are like the bramble 
 patch. They begin weh 1 , and hold out bravely 
 for a time, and really wish to mind the word 
 of God. But bad things that used to grow 
 in their hearts commence to grow again, like 
 thistles in the field : briers of falsehood, briers 
 of laziness, brambles of selfishness. And the 
 good is crowded out. The easiest garden to 
 take care of is a weed garden ; it needs no 
 care at all. But it is good for nothing. Some 
 people, our Lord said, have weed gardens in 
 their hearts.
 
 174 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 But the true citizens of the kingdom try 
 every day to do the King's will, to keep down 
 all that is wrong in them, and to make what is 
 right grow strong. They are like the good 
 ground. In them God is well pleased.
 
 XI 
 THE HERALD'S HEAD 
 
 WHILE the King did these works of wonder 
 and spoke these words of wisdom, the King's 
 herald lay in prison. You remember how sternly 
 John the Baptist spoke to men who were living 
 in sin, and how it made no difference to him 
 whether the sinner was rich or poor. To the 
 gentlemen who were proud of their good birth, 
 he said that God, if he chose, could change 
 the stones of the river-bank into descendants of 
 Abraham, and that by their actions one would 
 guess that their real father was that old ser- 
 pent, the devil. Now Herod the Great, when 
 he came to die, had divided his kingdom among 
 his sons, and one of them, named Herod 
 Antipas, thus became ruler in Galilee and be- 
 yond the Jordan. Of course, the Romans 
 were the real rulers, but they appointed him as 
 one of their governors. Herod Antipas was 
 married to the princess of a little kingdom in 
 Arabia, but about this time he went on a visit
 
 176 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 to Rome to see his half-brother, Herod Philip ; 
 and while he was there he fell in love with 
 Herod Philip's wife, whose name was Herodias. 
 Then Herodias left her husband for Antipas, 
 and Antipas's wife fled home in great distress 
 and anger to her father. All the country knew 
 about these scandalous and wicked doings. 
 But Herodias and her daughter Salome came 
 and lived in Herod Antipas's splendid palace 
 at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, and nobody 
 said anything, except in whispers, for it is not 
 easy to reprove kings and queens. 
 
 But John the Baptist did not speak in a 
 whisper. He spoke up in a great loud voice, 
 and said in his sermons to the people, and at last 
 to the king himself, that it was all terribly bad ; 
 and that it was against all laws of man and of 
 
 O 
 
 God, that he should have his brother's wife. 
 And that is how he went to prison. Herod 
 had a great, black stone fortress beyond the 
 Jordan, the fortress of Machaerus, and there 
 he put John into a dungeon. Herodias would 
 have put him to death, but she was afraid of 
 the people, for the people reverenced John.
 
 THE HERALD'S HEAD 177 
 
 Even Herod respected the brave man who was 
 not afraid to speak the truth to the king's face. 
 So John lay in prison, though his disciples 
 were allowed to come and visit him. It seemed 
 very hard to the Baptist, after all his free life 
 in the wilderness, to be shut up behind stone 
 walls. He had not had even a roof over his 
 head since he was a child. And one day, strong 
 man as he was, he became very discouraged, and 
 sent some of his disciples to Jesus, and said, 
 " Are you truly the King ? Are you he that 
 should come, or must we look for another? " 
 For John the Baptist, like the other people, 
 was expecting a king like Herod a better 
 and mightier Herod. And when Jesus kept 
 on living so quietly, and going about with a 
 group of fishermen, and saying that his king- 
 dom was not of this world, John knew not 
 what to think. So John's disciples came with 
 their master's question. And our Lord said, 
 " Stay with me this day." So they stayed with 
 him that day, and he did just what he was al- 
 ways doing : the blind received their sight, and 
 the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, and
 
 178 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the deaf heard, the dead were raised up, 
 and the poor had the gospel preached to them. 
 " Now," he said, " go back to John and show 
 him what you have heard and seen." So they 
 went back, but what John said we do not 
 know. 
 
 Then Herod had a birthday, and he made a 
 supper to his lords, high captains, and the chief 
 people of Galilee. The tables were spread in 
 a splendid room, with walls made beautiful 
 with pictures, with dishes of silver and gold, 
 music playing while the feast went on, and many 
 servants bringing all sorts of pleasant things 
 to eat. At last, when they had all had a great 
 deal more to drink than was good for them, 
 the king sent for Salome, the young daughter 
 of Herodias, and she came in and danced, so 
 that the king was delighted. And Herod, 
 hardly knowing what he was saying, spoke up 
 before all his nobles and said to the little 
 daughter, " Ask of me whatsoever you will, 
 and I will give it to you." And as she stopped 
 to think, and all the guests were looking at him 
 and at her, " Yes," he cried, " whatsoever
 
 THE HERALD'S HEAD 179 
 
 thou slialt ask of me, I will give it to thee, unto 
 the half of my kingdom." 
 
 There was the promise, then, and the child 
 could have her wish. What should it be? 
 Among all the beautiful things in the world, 
 what shall the princess choose? One day, 
 King Solomon had a chance to ask for what 
 he wanted most, and he asked for wisdom. 
 But the king cannot give wisdom ; indeed, this 
 king had no wisdom to spare. Well, lovely 
 gowns, then, or jewels, or gardens, or money 
 to buy them all. It was a hard matter to de- 
 cide, and the girl went to ask her mother ; a 
 very good thing to do, if she had had a good 
 mother. 
 
 But now Herodias saw her opportunity. 
 All this time she had been longing to have 
 her revenge for what John the Baptist had 
 said about her. They were hard words, and 
 the worst of it was, she had deserved them 
 all : but so much the more she hated him. 
 Already, as we have seen, she had tried to 
 have him killed. Now was the time. So Sa- 
 lome went out and said to her mother, "What
 
 180 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 shall I ask ? " And Herodias said, " The head 
 of John the Baptist." And Salome came run- 
 ning back in great haste into the dining-room, 
 and cried out in a high voice, so that every- 
 body heard what she said, " I will that thou 
 give me by and by in a charger [that is, on 
 a great platter] the head of John the Baptist." 
 Then what did the king do ? If he had 
 been a good king, he would have told his 
 daughter what a wicked thing that was to ask. 
 But he did not do that. He was exceedingly 
 sorry. But he had promised to give her any- 
 thing she wished, and she had wished for John 
 the Baptist's head, and he did not consider 
 that we ought never to keep bad promises. 
 The only thing to do if we make a wicked 
 promise, is to break it. He was afraid that his 
 nobles would laugh at him if he did not do 
 what lie said he would. For their sakes which 
 sat with him, he would not reject her. So he 
 sent an executioner, and commanded his head 
 to be brought ; and the executioner went and 
 beheaded the herald of the King of Glory in 
 the prison. So he died, whose birth the angel
 
 THE HERALD'S HEAD 181 
 
 had promised at the altar, whose name had 
 been given him amidst the rejoicings of his 
 father and mother and their friends, who had 
 lived for years in the wild woods, and then 
 had come forth to welcome the King of kings. 
 And his head was brought in by the execu- 
 tioner, on a great silver platter, and the exe- 
 cutioner gave it to the girl, and the girl gave 
 it to her mother.
 
 XII 
 TWELVE BASKETS OF PIECES 
 
 AT the time of the beheading of John the 
 Baptist, the apostles were on a journey about 
 the country, two by two. Our Lord had sent 
 them to teach as they had heard him teach, 
 and to cast out devils and heal the sick. So 
 they had been walking pleasantly between the 
 green fields, two by this road and two by that, 
 each man with a staff in his hand, speaking in 
 the market-places, going home to dinner and 
 to spend the night, if any good citizen in- 
 vited them, or, if there were no such invita- 
 tion, sleeping on the hay in the meadow and 
 quenching their thirst in the cool streams. 
 
 Now they came home to tell our Lord how 
 God had blessed them beyond all their expec- 
 tations, but they brought the bad news with 
 them of the death of the herald. Our Lord 
 saw, too, that they were very tired, for there 
 had been so many people coming and going 
 about them that they had no leisure so much
 
 TWELVE BASKETS OF PIECES 183 
 
 as to eat. So he said, " Come now apart into 
 a desert place and rest a while." For he knew 
 that tired people cannot be of much use to 
 their neighbors. They got into a boat, there- 
 fore, and rowed out into the lake. They were 
 both tired and sad. In the death of the Bap- 
 tist they saw not only the loss of a friend, but 
 the murder of a prophet. John had met the 
 fate of many prophets. Would it be their own 
 fate also ? 
 
 So they rowed in silence across the narrow 
 lake and landed where there were no houses. 
 There was much grass in the place, and back 
 from the water were low wooded hills. There 
 they sat down to rest. But the people had 
 seen them departing, and they said one to 
 another, " There is the Prophet. He is going 
 with his disciples across the lake. Let us go 
 too." And they made haste on foot, running 
 along the road about the head of the lake ; 
 and as they went the crowd increased, for 
 when they hurried through the street of any 
 village everybody came to the doors and win- 
 dows, crying, " Where are you going ? What
 
 184 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 is the matter ? " And they said, " We are 
 going to find the Prophet of Nazareth." 
 And the men and women and even the chil- 
 dren cried, " We will go with you ! " So there 
 was a great multitude. There were even sick 
 persons among them. As the crowd ran by 
 the house, father Josiah would say to mother 
 Miriam, " The Prophet is yonder in the fields. 
 Shall we not carry our little Deborah, and ask 
 him to make her well?" And away they 
 would go, carrying Deborah on a blanket be- 
 tween them. 
 
 By and by, therefore, a distant sound was 
 heard in the beautiful stillness where the 
 Master and the apostles rested in their weari- 
 ness and sadness. And one said, " It is like 
 the sound of many voices." Another said, 
 "I hear the tramping of many feet." And 
 a third stood up to look, and said, " A great, 
 great crowd is coming." Did our Lord say, 
 " But we are tired and sad ; let us go back 
 upon the hills, and hide us from their sight 
 among the trees ? " No ; the moment he saw 
 the people his heart was filled with compassion
 
 TWELVE BASKETS OF PIECES 185 
 
 toward them, because they were as sheep not 
 having a shepherd ; and he began to teach 
 them many things, and to heal those who were 
 sick among them. 
 
 But when the evening came his disciples 
 came to him and said, " This is a desert place, 
 and now the time is far passed. Send them 
 away, that they may go into the country round 
 about, and into the villages, and buy them- 
 selves food ; for they have nothing to eat." 
 They had come out in such great haste and 
 eagerness that they had brought nothing with 
 them. Our Lord said to Philip, " Whence shall 
 we buy bread, that these may eat?" Philip 
 answered, " It would take two hundred dollars 
 to buy enough to give each one even a single 
 piece of bread." Our Lord said, "How much 
 have we ? Go and see." And Andrew came 
 back and said, " There is a lad here with five 
 barley loaves and two small fishes. But what 
 are they among so many ? " Even now, when 
 there is a great work to be done for man and 
 God, one disciple says, " It is impossible," 
 while another says, " Here is something to
 
 186 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 begin with." And our Lord still does as he 
 did then ; he takes the small beginning and 
 makes it great. 
 
 And Jesus said, " Make the men sit down." 
 So the men sat down, by companies of hun- 
 dreds and fifties, on the green grass, in number 
 about five thousand. And he took the five 
 loaves and the two fishes and looked up to 
 heaven, and blessed and brake the loaves, and 
 gave them to his disciples to set before them ; 
 and the two fishes divided he among them all. 
 So they went forth, the twelve apostles, 
 each with a fragment of bread and a bit of 
 fish which our Lord had blessed, arid each 
 gave to one man, and then to another man, 
 and then to still another, and behold, there was 
 still enough to give, and so it went till they 
 had all eaten, all the five thousand, and wo- 
 men and children beside. And after they 
 were satisfied, he told the apostles to gather 
 up the fragments that remained, that nothing 
 should be lost. Therefore they gathered them 
 together, and filled twelve baskets with the 
 fragments of the five barley loaves, which
 
 TWELVE BASKETS OF PIECES 187 
 
 remained over and above unto them that had 
 eaten. Every apostle filled his lunch basket 
 full. 
 
 Then these men, when they had seen the 
 miracle which Jesus did, said, " This is of a 
 truth that Prophet which should come into 
 the world ; " meaning the Messiah. And some 
 said, " Come, he is the Messiah ; let us make 
 him our King." And all rose up, all the five 
 thousand, with great shouts, waving their arms, 
 calling him their King. And when he started 
 to go away and to escape them, telling them 
 that he could never be the kind of king they 
 meant, they tried to compel him, even by 
 force. And still he refused and resisted, free- 
 ing himself from their hands, sending his dis- 
 ciples away to their boats, and himself going 
 in the gathering dusk into a mountain alone. 
 
 That was the turning-point of our Lord's 
 ministry. Up to that time, his disciples had 
 been many, crowds greeted him and followed 
 him wherever he went. There were those, in* 
 deed, who greatly disliked him, and sometimes 
 already they had even threatened that they 
 
 : ;
 
 188 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 would kill him. But the common people heard 
 him gladly. Now, however, there was a re- 
 action. He had told them plainly that he 
 would never be a king such as they wished ; 
 and they would not have him as the King of 
 truth. The next day he spoke in the syna- 
 gogue in Capernaum, and said things which 
 were so hard to understand that from that 
 time many of his disciples went back and 
 walked no more with him. He was not quite 
 sure even of the twelve, and said, " Will ye 
 also go away ? " But Peter answered for them 
 all, saying, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? 
 Thou hast the words of eternal life." 
 
 Then the next day came scribes from Jeru- 
 salem, and met our Lord as he walked in the 
 street, and reproved him in the presence of 
 the people, saying that he dishonored God be- 
 cause he did not keep the customs. They said 
 that all men who became our Lord's disciples 
 ceased to be good churchmen. But our Lord 
 reproved them, saying that God was dis- 
 honored by their customs. He said that their 
 religion was in their lips and not in their
 
 TWELVE BASKETS OF PIECES 189 
 
 hearts. God, he said, did not care for their 
 petty rules : he is to be served by honesty, 
 and mercy, and truth, and a good life. And 
 he called them blind leaders of the blind. 
 
 After that, in Galilee as well as in Judea, 
 our Lord was hated by more and more people, 
 some of whom sought his life. He had to go 
 away, out of his own land, into the heathen 
 countries round about.
 
 IV 
 
 How THE KING WAS HATED MORE AND 
 MORE AND COULD NOT STAY EVEN IN GALILEE ; 
 HOW HE WENT AMONG THE HEATHEN, AND 
 THEN INTO THE LAND ACROSS THE JORDAN ; 
 AND HOW AT LAST HE SET HIS FACE TOWARDS 
 JERUSALEM.
 
 I 
 
 WHY THE KING WAS HATED 
 
 IT seems to us very strange and sad that 
 the King was rejected by the citizens of his 
 own kingdom. But so it was. Among the 
 enemies of our Lord there was not one who 
 had ever been in jail. On the contrary, those 
 who were the most bitter against him were 
 generally thought to be uncommonly good 
 people. Twice every week they fasted. Out 
 of every hundred dollars which they earned, 
 they gave ten to the church. Some of them 
 were ministers : some as we would say 
 were wardens and vestrymen. They were 
 all church-members. It is true that our 
 Lord said that they were hypocrites; which 
 means that they were not so good as they 
 seemed to be, and that their religion was in 
 their lips rather than in their hearts. But 
 even their badness was the badness of good 
 people. 
 
 One reason why they hated our Lord was
 
 194 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 that they were very formal and precise per- 
 sons, while he was always perfectly natural, 
 direct, and simple. Many of the things which 
 he said and did shocked them greatly. For 
 example, the name by which they thought 
 of God was Jehovah, but they felt that that 
 name was so sacred that they ought never to 
 speak it nor write it. On the other hand, our 
 Lord, who was in God and God in him, and 
 to whom praying was as natural as breath- 
 ing, spoke of God as one whom he knew very 
 well, calling him Father, even using the name 
 Abba by which the little Hebrew boys and 
 girls addressed their fathers. So they said that 
 our Lord was a blasphemer : that is, one who 
 speaks disrespectfully of God. 
 
 Another reason why they hated our Lord 
 was that he paid so little attention to some of 
 their customs. They had a great many ways of 
 doing things, which to us seem strange and 
 even foolish, but which they considered so im- 
 portant that they felt that anybody who did 
 differently was bad. Some of these customs 
 were connected with the keeping of the sab-
 
 WHY THE KING WAS HATED 195 
 
 bath, some with the washing of hands, some 
 with the treatment of outsiders. 
 
 Thus, they had a good law that men should 
 not work in the fields on the sabbath : nobody 
 should cut grain or thresh it. The purpose was 
 to give all laboring folk a day off every week 
 for rest. But they were so afraid that the law 
 might be broken, that they said that if any 
 one even picked a single head of wheat and 
 rubbed it in his hands to get a kernel from 
 the husk, he was cutting grain and threshing 
 it. One day, our Lord and his disciples went 
 across a field of wheat, and the disciples began, 
 as they went, to pluck the spears of grain. 
 And the scribes said, " Behold, thy disciples 
 do that which is not lawful to do upon the 
 sabbath day." But our Lord paid no heed to 
 their complaint. 
 
 They had another law that all persons 
 should wash their hands before they sat down 
 to dinner : an excellent habit, if one's hands 
 need washing. But their idea was that a great 
 many things in the world are unclean, or, as 
 we might say, unlucky. If anybody touched
 
 196 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 these things, God did not like him till he had 
 washed off the unlucky touch. But our Lord 
 knew better. The things, he said, which God 
 does not like are bad works and bad actions. 
 And he told his disciples that they did not 
 need to wash their hands in order to keep the 
 favor of God. 
 
 They were also very careful about associat- 
 ing with outsiders, who did not belong to the 
 church. Some of these were Gentiles, that is, 
 heathen people ; some were Samaritans, who 
 were part Jews and part heathen ; some were 
 publicans, who were in the employ of the hea- 
 then ; some were plain sinners. The Jews 
 would not eat with such persons, nor would 
 they willingly have any dealings with them. 
 They despised and hated them. But our Lord 
 felt that people who were living in ignorance 
 and sin should be helped to be better, and he 
 knew that in order to help anybody one must 
 first make friends with him. Sometimes he 
 said that he was like a shepherd who goes in 
 search of a sheep which is lost. Sometimes he 
 said that he was like a physician whose busi-
 
 JESUS AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA
 
 WHY THE KING WAS HATED 197 
 
 ness is to care for those who are sick. He was 
 going through Samaria, one time, and being 
 thirsty and tired he sat down on a stone by a 
 well, and a Samaritan woman came to draw 
 water. She was a Samaritan, and, besides that, 
 a person of bad character ; but our Lord spoke 
 to her kindly. Sometimes, when the scribes 
 wished to call him by a bad name, they said 
 that he was a Samaritan himself, and that he 
 was a friend of publicans and sinners. They 
 felt towards publicans and Samaritans as peo- 
 ple in some southern towns feel towards ne- 
 groes. 
 
 It was for these reasons that when the King 
 came unto his own, his own received him not. 
 They were interested in little things : he was 
 interested in great things. They were busy 
 with seeds and herbs, mint, anise, and cum- 
 min, tying them up in ten bundles, to give 
 one bundle to the church. He was intent on 
 justice, mercy, and truth. They were thinking 
 about their customs ; he was thinking about 
 God and man. And they hated him. They 
 saw that he was a prophet, and that the people
 
 198 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 crowded about him : they could not help see* 
 ing that he was preaching truth and goodness; 
 but he was unlike them, and they hated him. 
 It has happened many times since then. That 
 was all that they had against him : that his 
 custom of keeping the sabbath, and of washing 
 his hands, and of dealing with outsiders was 
 different from theirs. But that was enough. 
 They went to church, and said their prayers, 
 and read their Bibles, and fasted twice in the 
 week, and hated the King of Glory. 
 
 The result was that it was no longer safe 
 for him to live in his own country. He had 
 never spent much time in Judea, except to go 
 to Jerusalem for the great church festivals. 
 Galilee had been the place of his ministry, 
 and especially that portion of it which lies 
 about the northern part of the lake. But after 
 the scribes came up from Jerusalem and at- 
 tacked him in Capernaum, he could not stay in. 
 Galilee. The great people turned against him, 
 and the common people disappointed because 
 he would not be their king followed their 
 example. He was no longer surrounded by
 
 WHY THE KING WAS HATED 199 
 
 enthusiastic crowds. Men and women looked at 
 him with eyes of suspicion and dislike. They 
 spoke one to another as he passed by, saying, 
 " There goes the prophet of Nazareth. Have 
 you heard how the scribes from Jerusalem 
 reproved him and disowned him ? He is a 
 sabbath breaker, and a despiser of our holy 
 customs, and associates with low people. There 
 is Matthew, the publican, speaking to him this 
 moment." And there were threats against his 
 life. 
 
 So he took his twelve friends, and they went 
 away together. He never stood again on the 
 hills of Nazareth. He never spoke again to the 
 people on the shore of the lake, nor sat in a 
 fisherman's boat. He walked no more between 
 the pleasant fields. As they went they looked 
 back for a last sight of the place where they had 
 lived. They saw the white houses of Chorazin 
 and Bethsaida and Capernaum shining against 
 the blue line of the water. And our Lord took 
 his leave, with great grief. " Woe unto thee, 
 Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if 
 the mighty works had been done in Tyre and
 
 200 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Sidon which have been done in you, they had 
 a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth 
 and ashes. And thou, Capernaum ! high and 
 lifted up, thou shalt be brought low." Then 
 he turned about and set his face towards Tyre 
 and Sidon, cities of the heathen.
 
 II 
 
 IN THE LAND OF TYRE AND SIDON 
 
 So our Lord and his twelve friends went away, 
 leaving the Lake of Galilee and the fishing-nets 
 behind them : and by and by, when the road 
 climbed the high hills, there was a silver line 
 along the far horizon which meant the salt 
 sea, the Mediterranean. Beyond lay Greece, 
 and then Italy, and then Spain ; and north of 
 Spain, France and England ; and west, across 
 the unknown ocean, America. He looked out 
 into the wide world. He was a fugitive, driven 
 from his native land ; but heaven was his true 
 native land, and he was Lord of Life. There 
 were great thoughts in his heart, of which the 
 twelve friends knew nothing. He had now 
 ended that part of his ministry in which he 
 had gone about among his own people, speak- 
 ing words of wisdom and doing works of won- 
 der. He was still to teach and still to bless, 
 but the greater part of his time was to be given 
 to the Twelve. One purpose of this journey
 
 202 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 into a foreign country was that he might be 
 with them more intimately. He was to prepare 
 them to carry on his work after his death. 
 For he saw now that he must expect death. 
 
 Presently, they came to a little town near 
 the great seaport of Tyre, where the signs over 
 the shop doors were in Greek, and the people 
 said "Good-morning" in Greek when they 
 met in the street. There he found a lodging, 
 and went in and shut the door. He felt that 
 he was in a place where nobody knew him, and 
 was glad. After what had happened, he wished 
 to be alone. But he could not be hid. It may 
 be that some dim rumor of him had traveled 
 even over those long roads. For there were 
 people coming and going. As long ago as 
 King Solomon's time men had gone from Tyre 
 to Jerusalem on business, as brass-workers and 
 wood-carvers, as artists and architects. Some 
 such person, working in the temple or in 
 Herod's palace at Tiberias may have brought 
 the word. Somebody mav have seen him in 
 Judea or in Galilee, and now, seeing him 
 again, recognized him.
 
 IN THE LAND OF TYRE AND SIDON 203 
 
 Or, perhaps, they knew him without having 
 seen him. As he passed by, they observed him. 
 They did not need to be very keen of sight to 
 perceive that he was different from other men. 
 One day, Paul and Barnabas, journeying 
 through Asia Minor, came into a place, and 
 the people running together cried, " The gods 
 are come down to us in the likeness of men ! " 
 They guessed that by the way Paul and Barna- 
 bas looked. They said at once that Barnabas, 
 who was a tall, fine-looking man, must be Ju- 
 piter, and that Paul, who talked a great deal, 
 must be Mercury. And here, in the land of 
 Tyre and Sidon, was God indeed, the almighty 
 and eternal God, come down in the likeness of 
 a man. He could not be hid. Men pointed 
 after him as he walked along the street, and 
 women looked out at him from the windows of 
 the houses, saying, " Who is this ? " 
 
 Thus it was that news of his arrival reached 
 a woman who was sitting by the bedside of 
 her sick daughter. She was a heathen woman : 
 they were all heathen in the neighborhood of 
 Tyre and Sidon. She was one of those out-
 
 204 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 siders whom the scribes so much disliked. 
 Her little girl had been brought up a heathen. 
 She had never heard of the wanderings of 
 Abraham, but she knew all about the wander- 
 ings of Ulysses. She had never been told of 
 the adventures of Samson, but her mother had 
 told her many, many times the brave stories of 
 the adventures of Hercules. She was quite ig- 
 norant of Aaron and the Golden Calf, but she 
 could have told you of Jason and the Golden 
 Fleece. She was a little heathen maiden, and 
 said her prayers to the little statue of a Greek 
 god, for that was the best she knew. And 
 now she was very sick, and had been in that 
 sad state a long time. Something was the 
 matter with her head, so that she said discon- 
 nected, foolish things when she talked. As 
 her mother said, she was grievously vexed with 
 a devil. That is all that her mother knew about 
 it, and we ourselves, as I have said before, 
 know little more. 
 
 The news came, then, that some great one 
 was come to town ; out of the land of Israel, 
 some said ; and others added either guess-
 
 IN THE LAND OF TYRE AND SIDON 205 
 
 ing or having questioned the apostles that 
 he was a son of David, a king and priest in 
 one, like the Wise Men of the East ; a god in 
 the likeness of a man. Nobody quite knew who 
 he was, but he was good and great ; anybody 
 could see that. So the next neighbor on one 
 side came in and said, " Why don't you go to 
 the Son of David and tell him of the sickness 
 of your daughter ? Why don't you get him to 
 lay his hand on her and make her well ? " And 
 the next neighbor on the other side said, 
 " You go and speak to him, and I will stay with 
 the little girl while you are gone." 
 
 So the mother went. She met our Lord and 
 the Twelve walking in the street, and imme- 
 diately she cried to him, " Have mercy on me, 
 Lord, thou Son of David : my daughter is 
 grievously vexed with a devil." For that is how 
 mothers feel about their children. " Have 
 mercy on me," she said: not, "Have mercy 
 on my daughter." The daughter's pain was 
 the mother's pain. " Lord, thou Son of 
 David, hear me and help me ! " But our Lord 
 said not a word.
 
 206 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Here was a marvelous thing. He who had 
 never before turned a deaf ear to any call of 
 distress said not a word. On he went in silence, 
 the Twelve about him, and the mother follow- 
 ing. I told you that when people cry in the 
 East, they cry with their lips as well as with 
 their eyes. And so she did. She cried so that 
 women heard her in their kitchens, where they 
 were busy about the stove, and came running 
 to the door to see what was the matter. Men 
 came hurrying around the corners of the street. 
 There was a crowd. Jesus went on, and she 
 came after crying, and the crowd followed. 
 
 At last the apostles said, " Master, send her 
 away, for she cries after us. We came here to 
 be hid, and she is raising the whole town about 
 our heels." The apostles were annoyed and 
 impatient. I wish that one of them had said, 
 " Master, is there not something which we 
 can do for her?" But they showed no pity. 
 There was a time, in the Middle Ages, when 
 people had an idea that it was a good plan to 
 pray to the saints. The saints, they thought, 
 would be more likely to hear them than God.
 
 IN THE LAND OF TYRE AND SIDON 207 
 
 This story does not bear out that belief. Of 
 course, Peter and Andrew, and James and 
 John and the others were better men after- 
 wards than they were that day in the Tyrian 
 village ; but I should think that when this re- 
 mark of theirs was read in church, it might 
 have discouraged some of those who were pray- 
 ing to them. Might not Peter still be inclined 
 to say, " Send her away, for she crieth after 
 us?" One time, our Lord and the Twelve 
 were going to Jerusalem, and they came at 
 nightfall to a village in Samaria, and nobody 
 would take them in ; and James and John 
 proposed that he should call down thunder 
 and lightning and destroy them all. None of 
 the saints even the best of them has 
 ever been so loving as he. 
 
 But this time our Lord answered his apostles, 
 and it seemed for the moment that he would 
 do as they suggested. " I am not sent," he 
 said, " but to the lost sheep of the house of 
 Israel." That is, the lost sheep for whom I am 
 seeking are not of this heathen fold. I am 
 concerned about the Jewish sheep. And so
 
 208 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 he was. He had, indeed, been criticised for his 
 brotherly dealings with outsiders, but up to 
 this time he had really had little to do with 
 them. When he sent his apostles out to preach 
 and heal, he had told them to go only to the 
 Jews. Because all good work must begin with 
 the doing of one thing well. Nobody succeeds 
 who is content to help a great many people a 
 little. The true way is to help a few people a 
 great deal. Then these few will be helpers in 
 their turn. Thus, more slowly but more surely, 
 will the great work be done. Accordingly, our 
 Lord had addressed himself to the Jews, his 
 own people. He had sought the lost sheep of 
 the house of Israel. That, as he said, had been 
 his mission. That had been his wise plan. 
 Thus he spoke, and the woman heard. 
 
 Did that send her away ? Not for a moment. 
 It may be that the tone of voice explained the 
 words, so that she knew that he was but think- 
 ing aloud, considering what he would better 
 do : " Thus have I done through all my min- 
 istry ; shall I now change ? " Anyhow, the 
 woman made her way through the reluctant
 
 IN THE LAND OF TYRE AND SIDON 209 
 
 company of the apostles, past St. Peter and 
 St. John and St. Simon the Zealot and St. 
 Matthew the Publican, and fell down on her 
 knees at our Lord's feet, so that he stood still, 
 looking at her. " Lord, help me ! " she cried, 
 and there was hope and faith in her voice. 
 The saints were no friends of hers, but he 
 would be her friend. " Lord, help me ! " But 
 he answered, half musing and half smiling, 
 " It is not meet to take the children's bread 
 and to cast it to dogs." As if he said, " Don't 
 you know that I am a Jew, and that Jews 
 believe that they belong to the household of 
 the heavenly Father, while you Gentiles are 
 but dogs ? " Did he think, as he spoke, of 
 the contrast between the cold unbelief of the 
 scribes, with their great pretensions, and the 
 warm faith of this heathen woman whom they 
 despised ? Did he take these hard words upon 
 his lips, showing by his tone of voice that he 
 did but quote the common saying of his nar- 
 row countrymen, and that he had no sympathy 
 with it ? It is plain, at least, that the woman 
 understood him. She looked into his face
 
 210 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and saw only kindness there. " Shall the 
 dogs," he said, "ask for the children's bread?" 
 " Yes, Lord," she cried, " not the bread, but 
 the crumbs ; even the dogs eat of the crumbs 
 which fall from their master's table." And the 
 Lord replied, " woman, great is thy faith : 
 be it unto thee according as thou wilt." 
 
 So the woman went home with a glad heart, 
 and before she got to the house there were the 
 neighbors running out to meet her, and the 
 little girl herself stood at the gate.
 
 Ill 
 
 WHAT A BLIND MAN SAW 
 
 THEN our Lord spent a long time in the 
 country which lies to the north and to the 
 east of the land of the Jews. Several times 
 he appeared unexpectedly in Jerusalem, on the 
 great church days, and there spoke in pub- 
 lic places where large companies heard him. 
 But he never spent the night in town. He had 
 a friend named Lazarus, who with two sisters, 
 Mary and Martha, lived in Bethany, a little 
 place near Jerusalem. It is likely that he was 
 their guest. It was not safe for him to stay in 
 the city, for the Jews sought to kill him. 
 
 On these occasions the people were much 
 perplexed about him, not knowing what to 
 think. We can even hear them talking among 
 themselves, quite as the Romans talk in Shake- 
 speare's play when Julius Caesar rides in pro- 
 cession. As the Master speaks, First Citizen 
 says to his neighbor, " Of a truth, this is the 
 Prophet." Second Citizen answers, with em-
 
 212 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 phasis, striking one hand upon the other, 
 "This is the Christ." But Third Citizen 
 rebukes them, crying, " He hath a devil and 
 is mad; why hear ye him ? " To which First 
 Citizen and Second Citizen indeed reply, 
 " These are not the words of him that hath 
 a devil ; " but they do not speak with much 
 assurance, and by and by, at the urging of 
 the authorities, all these citizens begin to 
 look about in the road for stones to throw 
 at him. 
 
 There were two parties in the state and in 
 the church. Those who belonged to one party 
 were called Sadducees ; those who belonged to 
 the other were called Pharisees. The priests 
 of the temple and most of the officers of gov- 
 ernment were Sadducees ; the ministers of the 
 synagogues were Pharisees. The Sadducees car- 
 ried on elaborate services ; the Pharisees cared 
 more for sermons. The Sadducees were a small 
 party, confined almost entirely to Jerusalem ; 
 the Pharisees included in their party most of 
 the good, earnest, religious people of the na- 
 tion. It was the Pharisees who hated our Lord
 
 JESUS WITH MARY AND MARTHA AT BETHANY
 
 WHAT A BLIND MAN SAW 213 
 
 because he disregarded their customs. The 
 Sadducees hated him because they were afraid 
 that he would stir up a revolution. " The Ro- 
 mans will come," they said, " and take away 
 our place and nation." One day the two par- 
 ties united in sending the police to arrest our 
 Lord, intending to shut him up in jail. But 
 the officers came back empty-handed. "Why 
 have ye not brought him ? " cried the Saddu- 
 cees and Pharisees. The officers answered, 
 " Never man spake like this man." They had 
 stood in the crowd, listening to him. 
 
 From these visits, as I said, our Lord re- 
 turned to the lands where there were no Jews, 
 or very few. One day he was in the city of 
 Bethsaida. This was not the fishing town 
 where some of the Twelve had lived, but a 
 place at the head of the lake, mostly inhabited 
 by Romans. There the signs in the shop win- 
 dows were in Latin, and even the smallest boys 
 and girls spoke Latin as they played together 
 in the street. Our Lord was walking along, 
 and there came to him a little group of men 
 leading a blind man.
 
 214 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Now, the fact that one cannot see does not 
 imply that he cannot speak. Indeed, this 
 man did finally speak ; but net at first. At first 
 he said never a word, letting his friends do all 
 the talking. Probably the man came to Jesus 
 because he was persuaded by his friends. He 
 had no desire to come. He had been to all the 
 doctors, and not one had given him a ray 
 of light. He had no faith in doctors. " But 
 this is not a doctor," said his friends. " This 
 is a man of God. When he speaks, even in 
 Bethsaida, God hears in heaven and answers." 
 So they persuaded him. " Very well," he said, 
 " I will go to please you, but I don't believe 
 in it. It is all folly and delusion. And I will 
 not ask him to heal me. You may, if you 
 choose, but not I." Thus he came into our 
 Lord's presence, actually blind, and practically 
 dumb. 
 
 Our Lord took the blind man by the hand 
 and led him out of the town. He took him away 
 alone, apart from all his friends. This he did 
 partly that he might have a chance to talk to 
 the man quietly and intimately, and partly
 
 WHAT A BLIND MAN SAW 215 
 
 that the blind man might have a chance to 
 talk to him. For after the man had declared 
 to his friends that he would not say a word, 
 not a word was he likely to say so long as his 
 friends were by to hear. Along they went, 
 then, the Master and the man, down one street 
 and up another, past the houses, out into the 
 green country. With every step, as our Lord 
 held the man's hand and talked in his gentle 
 and wonderful way, the man's mind began to 
 change ; he began to think that one who could 
 speak in that way could do whatsoever he would. 
 Indeed, the walk was a necessary part of the 
 cure, for if the man continued in his indiffer- 
 ence and unbelief, our Lord himself could not 
 help him. Thus, one time in a certain place, 
 our Lord could do no mighty work because 
 of the unbelief of the people. The faith of 
 the man himself was an essential part of the 
 miracle. And on the way, the man's faith 
 grew. 
 
 At last, they were quite out of the town, 
 and our Lord stopped. He touched his fingers 
 to his lips and placed them on the man's blind
 
 216 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 eyes. " Now," he said, as he took away his 
 hand, "do you see anything?" The man 
 looked up, and there was a strange new light 
 before him, as if after a black night the sun 
 were dimly rising far away. " Yes," the man 
 cried, " I can see ! I can see ! Why, I see men 
 walking about like trees ! " What did he 
 mean? He said that he could see trees and 
 men coming hand in hand along the country 
 road, looking like brothers. That, I suppose, 
 is the way in which even now we see with our 
 minds. We see God and great truths about 
 him and ourselves in a dim, confused way, 
 like the man who saw the procession of the 
 trees. He was like one who walks in a fog. 
 Sometimes in a fog it is hard to tell, at a little 
 distance, which are trees and which are men. 
 So we look about, ignorantly, in this wonder- 
 ful world. 
 
 But after that, Jesus put his hands upon his 
 eyes and made him look up ; and he was re- 
 stored, and saw every man clearly. That clear 
 sight, we hope, will come sometime to us, and 
 we shall understand the meaning of the words
 
 WHAT A BLIND MAN SAW 217 
 
 and works of God. Then our Lord sent the 
 man away to his home, saying, " Do not go into 
 the town, nor tell it to any in the town." For 
 he did not wish to draw a crowd about him, 
 nor about the man.
 
 IV 
 A HOCK FOR A CORNER-STONE 
 
 IN those days our Lord and the Twelve were 
 continually going about from place to place, 
 mostly among heathen people. Wherever they 
 went, they walked ; and as they walked, they 
 talked. Many people passed them on the road 
 without looking at them twice. Men with gar- 
 den stuff to sell at the next market pushed on, 
 leaving the Twelve and the Master in a cloud 
 of dust ; and when their wives said, " What 
 did you see when you went to town to-day ? " 
 they shook their heads, saying that they had 
 seen no sights. They had passed St. Peter and 
 St. John and St. Andrew and St. James and 
 eight other apostles, and the Lord in the midst 
 of them ! If a single marketman had but 
 stopped and asked two sensible questions, no 
 matter what, and then when he reached home 
 had written down the answers and kept them 
 for us, he would have been one of the bene- 
 factors of the race, and famous to the end of
 
 A ROCK FOR A CORNER-STONE 219 
 
 time. Suppose he had said, "What is it of 
 which you men are talking as you walk and 
 are glad ? " But they all went on about their 
 dull business and asked nothing. 
 
 One day, as the Twelve were speaking of 
 their experiences in their own country, before 
 they were driven out, our Lord said, " What 
 do they say of me ? What did you hear as you 
 went about ? Whom do men say that I am ? " 
 The Twelve answered, " Most men say that 
 you are John the Baptist come to life again ; 
 though some think that you are Elijah ; while 
 others have a vague idea that you are one of 
 the old prophets, they know not which." 
 
 The people do not seem to have thought 
 of him as meek and lowly. Both John the 
 Baptist and Elijah were strong, masterful 
 persons, who came with a great message from 
 God, and defied kings. The prophet, as I said, 
 was commonly a revolutionist, dangerous to all 
 bad men. Such was the impression which Jesus 
 made upon such of his countrymen as were 
 but slightly acquainted with him. They saw 
 that he was a kind and tender friend to all
 
 220 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 who were in trouble, and that he seemed to be- 
 long to heaven rather than to earth, like a saint 
 come down from Paradise on a short visit ; but 
 they saw also that he was very stern to those 
 who were setting their customs above the word 
 of God, and wearing pious faces to make men 
 think them better than they were, and that he 
 was one who at any moment might begin to 
 cast down the mighty from their seats. Many 
 persons, for excellent reasons, were afraid of 
 him. This is what the apostles had heard as 
 they sat at people's tables in the country 
 towns. 
 
 "But whom say ye that I am?" Then 
 Peter, who was a quick, impulsive person, 
 always first to speak and first to act, said, 
 "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God." And the Lord answered, " Blessed art 
 thou, Peter. No man told you that. You 
 have been taught it from heaven. And now I 
 say that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I 
 will build my church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." Towns had gates 
 in that country, and there men gathered to-
 
 A ROCK FOR A CORNER-STONE 221 
 
 gether, talking and making plans and bargains. 
 Our Lord said that all the plots of the wicked 
 should not prevail against his church. 
 
 Had he been teaching them about the 
 church ? We do not know. All that we know 
 is that for a moment he looked into the long 
 future. There he stood, hated by the leaders 
 of the church to which he belonged, forsaken 
 by most of his disciples, with only the Twelve 
 about him, and they, like him, fugitives from 
 their own country, in the midst of strangers. 
 It seemed a situation which called for grief 
 and discouragement. It looked like utter fail- 
 ure. But he knew how that which we call 
 failure is sometimes splendid success in God's 
 sight. He saw the church founded on a rock, 
 and builded to the skies. 
 
 Peter's name was Simon, and when he was 
 called by his full name, it was Simon Bar-jona, 
 which means in English, Simon Johnson. But 
 our Lord had named him Peter, meaning stone 
 or rock, as a man on whom he could depend. 
 Peter had now said the word on which the 
 church should stand : " Thou art the Christ,
 
 222 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the Son of the living God." Immediately our 
 Lord warned the disciples that they must keep 
 all this a secret. Peter had spoken the truth ; 
 they knew now who their great friend was ; 
 but they must not tell. If they did tell, it was 
 certain that the Pharisees and Sadducees would 
 kill him. 
 
 For neither the Sadducees nor the Pharisees 
 could believe that one so unlike themselves 
 was the Son of the living God. If he was, then 
 they were all wrong, and must change the 
 whole course of their lives. Everything that 
 they stood for was at stake. They already 
 suspected that this was what he claimed to be. 
 Once they tried to get him to confess it, say- 
 ing, " How long dost thou make us to doubt ? 
 If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." But he 
 would not tell them. The moment he told 
 them, his ministry and his life together would 
 come to a sudden end ; he would die a death 
 of violence. Sometime, indeed, they must be 
 told, but not yet ; and when the time came, he 
 himself would tell them. Meanwhile, he mado 
 the apostles promise to keep the great truth
 
 A ROCK FOR A CORNER-STONE 223 
 
 to themselves. Even they could hardly see 
 more than the beginning of its meaning. 
 They were like the man who saw men looking 
 like trees. But there it was, the supreme truth 
 which is at the heart of the church, and by 
 which we all live ; that in Jesus Christ God 
 spoke to us and dwelt amongst us. On this 
 rock, as on a corner-stone, the church is 
 founded. 
 
 He began to teach them that the Son of 
 man must suffer many things, and be rejected 
 and be killed. He added that he would be 
 raised again from the dead, but they did not 
 understand that. The fact which affected them 
 was that their Master must die. Now that they 
 really knew him, and knew that he was divine 
 as well as human, he must be violently parted 
 from them, and be put to death. Why must 
 he die, a young man, hardly more than thirty 
 years of age? They could not bear it. And 
 Peter, speaking again in his quick way, cried, 
 " Be it far from thee, Lord ; this shall never 
 be unto thee." To which he replied in words 
 which mean, " I know how hard it is ; I who
 
 224 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 love life and hate death. All my human na- 
 ture bids me to escape. I pray God even now 
 that this bitter cup may somehow be taken 
 away from me, that I may not drink it. But 
 I know that the end will be as I have said. 
 And you too, friends, must suffer. You in 
 your turn must take up your cross and follow 
 me to death."
 
 AMONG the Twelve were three whom our Lord 
 loved more than the others. This he showed 
 by liking to have them near him. Thus, when 
 he went into the room where the minister's 
 little daughter lay, white and cold, upon her 
 bed, he left nine apostles outside, and took 
 with him only these three, Peter and James 
 and John. This was not because they were 
 so much better than the others. None of the 
 nine, except Judas, made such mistakes or had 
 such faults as the three. I suppose that the 
 explanation is that Peter and James and John 
 loved him more, and he was able to give them 
 more of his love because they were able to re- 
 ceive it. Anyhow, he preferred their company. 
 One day he took these three with him to 
 climb a mountain, leaving the nine to wait in 
 the valley. And on the way down he said, 
 " You must not tell. You must keep it a deep 
 secret until I shall rise from the dead." They
 
 226 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 did not know what he meant by rising from 
 the dead, but they promised him that they 
 would tell no man what they had seen upon 
 the height. Then for months and months they 
 went about remembering a strange and won- 
 derful sight, and wishing that they could speak 
 of it to Andrew and Philip and the rest, but 
 saying never a word till the time came. For 
 they knew how to keep a secret. Then they 
 told. 
 
 They said, " You remember that day when 
 we knew for the first time that our Master was 
 the King of Glory, and when for the first time 
 he told us that he must be put to death. You 
 remember how we thought about it all that 
 week, and talked among ourselves sometimes 
 with pride and sometimes with grief, and how 
 at the end of the week we three went away 
 with him alone while you stayed below. That 
 night a marvelous thing happened, but he told 
 us not to tell. Now the time has come when 
 there is no more need of secrecy. Listen, thus 
 it was." And they spoke, while the others sat 
 about them with open ears and eyes.
 
 THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY 227 
 
 It was towards the end of the day, when our 
 Lord and the three began to ascend the moun- 
 tain. As they were going up, the sun was 
 going down. And the shadows deepened on 
 their path, and the stars came out ; and below, 
 when they came to a clear place and could 
 look off, the lights of the scattered farmhouses, 
 like other stars, were shining in the dark. Pre- 
 sently they stopped, and were silent in the 
 solemn stillness. And our Lord began to pray. 
 It was for this he had brought them apart 
 upon the mountain, that they might feel the 
 presence of God, and pray. 
 
 He liked to pray in lonely places. Some- 
 times, as when he was at Capernaum, he rose 
 very early in the morning and went to the 
 shore of the lake, and there walked, looking 
 at the sky and at the ground, with holy 
 thoughts in his heart. Once he told his dis- 
 ciples that it was a good plan, when they 
 prayed, to shut the door. Some of the Pharisees 
 had a way of saying their prayers standing on 
 the corner of the street, folding their hands 
 and lifting their eyes to heaven, so that
 
 228 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 people who passed by should say, " See that 
 good man ! " Our Lord did not approve of 
 that. He greatly disliked every form of " show- 
 ing off." So he said to his disciples, " When 
 you pray, go into your room and close the 
 door." That night on the mountain the dark- 
 ness was like a door between him and the 
 world. 
 
 There, then, he prayed, not asking God to 
 give him this or that, but simply standing in 
 the presence of God, as a little child stands by 
 his father's knee ; feeling the nearness and the 
 love of God, praying in his heart rather than 
 with his lips. But the three were tired, and 
 it was late, and the night was dark and 
 still. One would hardly think that the saints 
 would go to sleep saying their prayers ; but 
 these saints did. As they prayed their eyes 
 grew heavy, and before they knew it they 
 were fast asleep. How long they slept, they 
 did not know; but suddenly, in the midst 
 of their dreams, they saw a light. They 
 opened their eyes, heavy with sleep, and 
 there was our Lord still praying, but now his
 
 THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY 229 
 
 clothes were shining with a dazzling whiteness, 
 like the clouds on a bright day, and his face 
 was like the sun when it looks down at noon. 
 There he stood, the King of Glory indeed, no 
 longer dressed like a carpenter, but clad in ra- 
 diant garments like the angels, with the glory 
 of heaven reflected in his eyes. And there were 
 two men with him. How Peter and John and 
 James knew them I cannot tell, unless it was 
 by hearing how our Lord addressed them ; for 
 they had not come up from the valley, but down 
 from the sky, having died hundreds and hun- 
 dreds of years before. One was Moses, who 
 met God on Mt. Sinai and brought down the 
 Ten Commandments. The other was Elijah, 
 who prayed to God on Mt. Carmel, and was 
 wonderfully answered with lightning and rain. 
 Our Lord stood between these two great men 
 and they talked together, and the three dis- 
 ciples, half asleep and half awake, heard dimly 
 that the subject of their conversation was our 
 Lord's approaching dreadful death, of which 
 he had spoken a week before. Indeed, it was 
 as if the words which he had then uttered were
 
 230 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 now wonderfully acted out : the Son of the 
 living God in his divine glory speaking of the 
 cross. 
 
 And when the heavenly visitants made as 
 if they would return to that blessed paradise 
 whence they had come, Peter started up, in 
 his impulsive way, as if to detain them. 
 Hardly knowing what he said, through fear 
 and sleep, " Master," he cried, " it is good for 
 us to be here. Let us make three tents, one for 
 thee and one for Moses and one for Elijah." 
 He and his two companions would pull down 
 branches from the trees, that Jesus and Moses 
 and Elijah might stay upon the mountain. 
 But as he was speaking, there came a swift and 
 blinding cloud, like a sudden fog blown in 
 from the sea, and the disciples were filled with 
 fear, and fell upon the ground, covering their 
 faces with their hands. And out of the cloud 
 came a voice, such as had spoken at our Lord's 
 baptism, saying, " This is my beloved Son ; 
 hear him." And Jesus came and touched them, 
 saying, " Arise, be not afraid." And when 
 they looked up, it was dark night again, with
 
 THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY 231 
 
 the stars shining, and they saw no man any 
 more save Jesus only with themselves. 
 
 Then, the next day, as they went down, he 
 told them not to tell. And they kept it in 
 their hearts, remembering how they had seen 
 his glory, the glory of the Son o God.
 
 VI 
 
 THE LAD AT THE FOOT OF THE HILL 
 
 THE next day after the vision of the King 
 of Glory, two very different groups of people 
 were approaching one another from different 
 directions. One was our Lord and the three 
 disciples coming down the hill, the other was 
 a man and a boy making their way along the 
 valley. 
 
 This boy had something strange and dread- 
 ful the matter with him. Sometimes at home 
 his mother would hear a loud cry of distress 
 in the next room, and running in, would find 
 the boy in the middle of the fire. And he 
 would say that somebody had pushed him in ; 
 but there was nobody in the room except the 
 lad himself. Close by his house was a deep 
 pond, and the boy was always getting into it. 
 The moment he found that no one was watch- 
 ing him he would run and jump and throw 
 himself into the water, so that many times he 
 was almost drowned. And he would say that
 
 THE LAD AT FOOT OF THE HILL 233 
 
 somebody had taken him by the shoulders 
 and thrust him in ; but nobody was ever to be 
 seen who could have done so mean a thing. 
 Then, when he was playing with the other 
 boys, something would happen which was not 
 in the game. He would suddenly give a cry, 
 and fall upon the ground and gnash his teeth, 
 and foam at the mouth. And he would say 
 that somebody had knocked him down, but 
 not a hand had touched him. Besides all this, 
 he was deaf and dumb. Never a word could 
 he either hear or speak. And he kept growing 
 weaker, pining away, so that it seemed as if 
 he must soon die. 
 
 The secret of it all was that he had an evil 
 spirit; that is, as we say nowadays, he had 
 times of being violently crazy. 
 
 Of course, his father and mother had called 
 in all the doctors, and even the ministers ; for 
 the ministers were sometimes able to cure crazy 
 people. But none of them had helped him. 
 At last, the news came that the Prophet of 
 Nazareth was in that neighborhood. The lad's 
 parents did not quite know who the Prophet
 
 234 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 of Nazareth was : for some said this and some 
 said that about him. There was a rumor that 
 the people of his own country had cast him out. 
 All agreed, however, that he was very kind, 
 and that he had expelled many devils. So in 
 the early morning of that day, the father spoke 
 to the boy, making motions with his hands, 
 and told him that they were to take a long 
 walk, and that at the end of the road they 
 would find one who would make him well, so 
 that he should no longer fall into the fire or 
 into the water. 
 
 But the two reached the foot of the hill be- 
 fore the Master and the three came down. 
 Only the nine were there. Meanwhile a crowd 
 had gathered. There were friends of the family 
 who had come along to see the cure, and many 
 idle persons such as are always ready to fol- 
 low a crowd, and some of the ministers. For 
 although it was a heathen country, some Jews 
 were living there. The father said, " Where is 
 the Prophet ? " The apostles answered, " He 
 is in the mountain. Last night he went up, 
 leaving us here to wait for him." " When will
 
 THE LAD AT FOOT OF THE HILL 235 
 
 he come down ? " " We do not know ; perhaps 
 to-day, perhaps not till to-morrow. What do 
 you want ? " "I have brought my sick son. 
 You are the Prophet's disciples, can you not 
 cast out a devil?" "Oh, yes!" they said, 
 " we know how to cast out devils. Bring the 
 boy to us." So the boy was brought, and the 
 multitude pressed in on every side, and Mat- 
 thew and Andrew and the others prayed 
 and made motions, and tried to do what 
 they had seen the Master do, but all in vain. 
 The boy lay upon the ground in great dis- 
 tress ; his father was in despair ; and the 
 disappointed people were becoming more and 
 more angry. " These men are impostors," 
 some were saying. " Shall we not stone 
 them ? " 
 
 All this time our Lord was coming down along 
 the quiet road beneath the trees, with the three 
 disciples beside him. But as they neared the 
 foot of the hill they began to hear loud voices, 
 as of men in a dispute, and now and then 
 a scream, as if there were some one in distress. 
 And presently they came in sight of the noisy
 
 236 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 crowd, who were shaking their fists in the 
 apostles' faces. And somebody looked up, and 
 cried, " There is the Prophet now ! " and they 
 all ran to meet him, and when they beheld him 
 they were greatly amazed, like the people of 
 the old time who saw the face of Moses shin- 
 ing as he came down from Sinai, and running 
 to him, they saluted him. And he asked the 
 ministers, " What is the matter ? What is the 
 question which you are so bitterly debating ? " 
 And while they sought for words with which 
 to answer him, the father came. "Master," he 
 cried, " I have brought unto thee my son, which 
 hath a dumb spirit ; and wheresoever he taketh 
 him he teareth him ; and he foameth, and 
 gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away; and 
 I spake unto thy disciples that they should cast 
 him out ; and they could not." 
 
 And the Master looked at the disciples, and 
 what he saw in their faces troubled him greatly. 
 For he saw that they were thinking of them- 
 selves. We know that, because of two con- 
 fessions which they made the next day. They 
 confessed that they had been disputing among
 
 THE LAD AT FOOT OF THE HILL 237 
 
 themselves which was the greatest. They con- 
 fessed, also, that they saw a stranger who was 
 doing what they could not do : he was casting 
 out devils. And they stopped him. That is, 
 as the crowd came, the nine said, " Now we 
 will show them what great power we have. 
 We will work a miracle ; w r e will cast out this 
 devil, and amaze them." The thought in their 
 hearts was not one of pity for the father and 
 the boy. They wanted, as we say, to " show 
 off." Not for the lad's sake, and not for the 
 Master's sake, but for their own glory, they 
 purposed to do this deed of healing ! We may 
 guess, too, that Andrew said, " I am the one 
 to lay my hands upon him, for I was the first 
 apostle of you all; " and that Philip answered, 
 " No, I am the one, for the Lord himself went 
 in search of me and called me ; " and that the 
 others made claims each for himself, saying, 
 " I am the greatest." And the result was that 
 there was no miracle. Neither God nor man 
 responds to that selfish spirit. 
 
 Our Lord was greatly grieved. His heart 
 was full of the thought of his coming death,
 
 238 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 wherein he would give himself for the good 
 of men ; and here were his disciples inter- 
 ested only in themselves. It made him feel his 
 loneliness, in the midst of people who were 
 so far from understanding him. " faithless 
 generation/' he sighed, looking in the faces of 
 the excited apostles, " how long shall I be with 
 you ? how long shall I suffer you ? " And he 
 turned to the father. " Bring thy son hither." 
 So he brought him, and one of the lad's bad 
 fits came upon him, and he fell upon the 
 ground, rolling over and over, foaming at the 
 mouth. And he asked his father, " How long 1 
 
 7 O 
 
 ago is it since this came unto him ? " And he 
 said, "Of a child; and ofttimes it hath cast 
 him into the fire, and into the water, to destroy 
 him : but if thou canst do anything, have com- 
 passion on us, and help us." Now that the 
 apostles had failed, the man feared that the 
 Prophet would fail also. But our Lord said to 
 him, " If thou canst believe, all things are pos- 
 sible to him that belie veth." And straightway 
 the father of the child cried out, and said with 
 tears, " Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbe-
 
 THE LAD AT FOOT OF THE HILL 239 
 
 lief." And the Lord said, " Thou dumb and 
 deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, 
 and return no more into him ! " And the deaf 
 spirit heard, and the dumb spirit cried out with 
 a loud voice, and the lad lay suddenly still with 
 shut eyes, so that many said, " He is dead." 
 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted 
 him up, and he arose. And the father and the 
 son went home, hand in hand, praising God 
 and full of gratitude.
 
 VII 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN 
 
 OVER the Jordan lies a land which was called 
 Perea, that is, the land beyond. There our 
 Lord spent the greater part of the remaining 
 months of his life. He went to Jerusalem 
 for a few days at the Feast of Tabernacles, 
 when he healed a man born blind. He was 
 again in the city at the Feast of the Dedication 
 of the Temple. One of these days came in the 
 fall, the other in the winter. Perea was a 
 Jewish district, like Judea and Galilee. In 
 the towns were synagogues and Pharisees. 
 
 New disciples now gathered about him, and 
 one day he chose seventy of them and sent 
 them out before him into the cities of Perea, 
 as he had sent the Twelve into the cities of 
 Galilee. So the Seventy went, healing the sick 
 and preaching the Kingdom of God, and peo- 
 ple listened to them, especially simple and 
 poor people. The Pharisees despised them, 
 but men and women who lived on farms and
 
 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN 241 
 
 in the back streets of towns received them. 
 At that time Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, 
 " I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and 
 earth, that thou hast hid these things from 
 the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
 unto babes." Many of the wise and prudent 
 hated our Lord, as they did in Judea. They 
 thought that they knew all knowledge, and 
 were much displeased when he came teaching 
 things which they had never taught. It hurt 
 their pride. 
 
 Sometimes these people asked him questions, 
 hoping that he would not be able to answer 
 them. Once, when a company of them sat 
 about him, a lawyer stood up and said, " Mas- 
 ter, what shah 1 I do to inherit eternal life ? " 
 This he asked, not because he felt himself in 
 danger of missing life eternal, or because he 
 wished our Lord to help him. He spoke as a 
 lawyer, whose business it is to ask questions. 
 Our Lord answered, " You have the law-books ; 
 what do you read there ? " 
 
 For the law meant more then than it com- 
 monly means now. Nobody would think of
 
 242 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 looking in a modern law-book to find out how 
 to inherit eternal life. These books are about 
 bargains and mortgages and corporations and 
 crimes. People read them to learn how to 
 keep out of jail. But this lawyer's books were 
 full of religion. Some of them are in the Old 
 Testament. They showed how good and bad 
 actions affect not only the present, but the fu- 
 ture life of men. So the lawyer, remembering 
 the words of his books, answered, " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, 
 and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbor as 
 thyself." And Jesus said, " Thou hast an- 
 swered right: this do, and thou shalt live." 
 But the lawyer was not satisfied. Our Lord 
 had answered his question, but that was not 
 what he wanted. So he asked another, hoping 
 that this one would be too hard for him. He 
 said, " And who is my neighbor ? " For this, 
 as you remember, was one of the matters of 
 difference between our Lord and the chief 
 people of the Jews. They said that the Jews 
 had no neighbors except such as were of their
 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN 243 
 
 own race and religion. They did not call Sa- 
 maritans, or Gentiles, or publicans, or sinners 
 neighbors ; they called them strangers, and 
 had no love towards them whatever. Our 
 Lord replied in a parable. 
 
 He told a story about a man who was walk- 
 ing along a very lonely road. There were 
 steep rocks on either side and many sharp 
 corners. Sometimes the way went down so 
 deep among the cliffs that it was almost dark ; 
 sometimes it climbed so high upon the hills 
 that the traveler, as he went, could look out 
 over miles and miles. The man did not seem 
 to enjoy the journey. Every little while he 
 stopped and listened. When he came to a 
 corner, he looked very cautiously to see if there 
 were anybody on the other side. Sometimes, 
 when a stone loosened from the rocks came 
 rolling down into the road, he would look up, 
 greatly alarmed, and wonder if somebody's 
 foot had stirred the pebble from its place. For 
 the traveler was afraid of robbers. 
 
 The road was called the Red Road, partly 
 because the white rocks through which it ran
 
 244 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 had red streaks in them, and partly because of 
 other red streaks which were not in the rocks, 
 but were made by the blood of wounded men. 
 Almost every day robbers would rush out upon 
 some traveler and take away all that he had, 
 leaving him bleeding by the wayside. That 
 is why the man kept such a sharp lookout as 
 he hurried along. 
 
 At last, however, in spite of all his looking 
 and listening, down came the wild brigands 
 from behind a rock or around a corner. They 
 caught the poor man, choked him, threw him 
 down and beat him, and after taking all his 
 goods and money, away they went, leaving him 
 lying on the hard rocks, half dead, making the 
 Red Road redder than ever. 
 
 By and by there came a priest on his way 
 from Jericho to Jerusalem to take his part in 
 the service of the temple. When he saw this 
 poor man, he did not stop to help him, but 
 turned across to the other side of the road, and 
 went straight along, without looking back, 
 " Dear me," he said, " there have been robbers 
 here, and very lately, too. Perhaps at this very
 
 THE' GOOD SAMARITAN 245 
 
 moment they are dividing their spoil in the 
 thievish corners of the rocks. They may hear 
 my steps. This is a place of peril. Let me get 
 out of it as soon as I can." So on he went, 
 thinking only of himself. 
 
 Presently there came another traveler, bound, 
 like the priest, from Jericho to Jerusalem, and 
 on his way to the temple. This man was a Le- 
 vite, that is, he sang in the choir. The choir- 
 man saw at once that something had happened, 
 and he felt as many people feel when there is an 
 accident. He wanted to see how the robber's 
 victim looked. So, instead of going by on the 
 other side, he crossed over and stood beside the 
 wounded man. And the poor man, groaning 
 with pain, looked up and saw the Levite, and 
 said to himself, " Ah ! here is a friend who will 
 give me help ; he has come to take me up." 
 Then do you know what the singer did ? He 
 turned away and left him. 
 
 It was as if a company of people were cast 
 away on a desert island, and looking day 
 after day across the ocean, watching for a sail ; 
 and one day somebody cries, " A ship ! a ship,"
 
 246 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and there is a splendid vessel with flags flying ; 
 and they hail the ship, and the captain hears or 
 sees and begins to come in towards the land ; 
 and their hearts are filled with joy and they 
 hurry about packing their things, making ready 
 to go home ; and then, suddenly, without a 
 word, the ship turns and sails away and presently 
 is out of sight. How disappointed they would 
 be ! It would have been better not to have seen 
 the ship at all. It was with such a feeling that 
 the wounded man watched the Levite as he 
 climbed the hill. So the Levite left him. And 
 presently the priest was praying and the Levite 
 was singing in the service, as if they thought 
 that God sees only what takes place in church, 
 and does not know what happens on the road. 
 At last, there came along a man whom all 
 the Levites and the priests disliked, because he 
 did not go to their church. This man was a 
 Samaritan. He stopped as he saw the wounded 
 traveler, and had compassion on him, and went 
 to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in 
 oil and wine. He lifted him up on his own 
 horse, and walked beside him, supporting
 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN
 
 THE GOOD SAMARITAN 247 
 
 him. By and by they came to an inn, and the 
 Samaritan got a place for the man to sleep, 
 and sat up with him all night, nursing him. 
 Then in the morning, when he must go away 
 about his business, he called the landlord 
 and paid the poor man's bill, and put in hk 
 hands some money beside that, saying, " Take 
 care of him, and if it costs more, let me know 
 when I come again, and I will pay it." The 
 Samaritan was a stranger both to the man and 
 to the country ; he knew also that the man's 
 friends, and probably the man himself, disliked 
 Samaritans. Yet he did all this. 
 
 " Now," said our Lord to the questioning 
 lawyer, " which of these three, thinkest thou, 
 was neighbor unto him that fell among the 
 thieves?" And he said, "He that showed 
 mercy on him." Then Jesus said unto him, 
 " Go, and do thou likewise."
 
 VIII 
 THE PRODIGAL SON 
 
 ONE of the reasons why the King was hated 
 was that he was so kind to those whom the 
 great and rich people, and even the ministers, 
 disliked. The Pharisees and Sadducees felt 
 that Gentiles and Samaritans and publicans 
 and sinners should be avoided. But Jesus felt 
 that it was as bad for good people to keep 
 away from those who were in error or sin, as 
 it would be for the doctors to keep away from 
 the sick. So he went amongst them, and 
 made friends with them, and was able to help 
 them. Almost every day he dined with some- 
 body who had hardly ever had a respectable 
 person under his roof before. He said that 
 God was not in the least like the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees ; the ministers and the priests 
 were both mistaken about God. 
 
 Once he reminded them that a shepherd 
 who has a hundred sheep will go in search of 
 even one which is lost, and will seek that
 
 THE PRODIGAL SON 249 
 
 sheep for hours and hours through briers and 
 brambles, and when he finds it will be so glad 
 that he will bring in all his friends and neigh- 
 bors. " And you know, " he said, " what a 
 woman does who has ten pieces of silver and 
 loses one, how she takes a candle and a broom, 
 and searches the whole house till she finds it, 
 and when it is found she calls her friends and 
 her neighbors together saying, ( Rejoice with 
 me ; for I have found the piece which I had lost.' 
 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the 
 presence of the angels of God over one sinner 
 that repenteth." Then he told the story of the 
 Prodigal Son. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a man who had 
 two sons. The elder was quiet and steady, but 
 the younger son was a restless lad who was 
 weary of staying at home, and wished to go and 
 see the world. So the younger went one day to 
 his father and asked for the money which 
 would properly come to him when he was of 
 age. " Father," he said, " give me the portion 
 of goods which falleth to me." And the father, 
 who was a man of wealth, gave to both his sons.
 
 250 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Then the younger took his money, and 
 went a long way off into the midst of the 
 great world, and there had a fine time. He 
 spent his money for this thing and for that, 
 buying what was sweet to eat and sour to 
 drink, and all he thought about was how to 
 have a better time to-morrow. Thus the days 
 went by. Some of the sweets gave him a 
 toothache, and some of the sours gave him 
 a headache, and none of the pleasures lasted 
 long ; but he fancied that he was enjoying 
 them all. At last, one morning, he waked to 
 find that he had not a penny in his pocket. 
 All that his father had given him was gone. 
 And then something happened ; there arose a 
 mighty famine in that land. Now a famine, 
 as of course you know, is a time when every- 
 body is hungry and there is nothing to eat. 
 There had been no rain. The grain had 
 stopped growing, and the grass had stopped 
 growing, and everything had ceased to grow, 
 except people's appetites they grew bigger 
 and bigger. 
 
 This was exceedingly hard for the lad who
 
 THE PRODIGAL SON 251 
 
 had spent all his money. Moreover, he found 
 that in losing his wealth he had lost his 
 friends also. All the gay young men and 
 women to whom he had given so many gifts 
 and pleasures now turned their backs upon 
 him, and when they saw him in the street, 
 went around the corner to avoid him. For 
 they had been only his money's friends. In- 
 deed, he himself had not been a true friend 
 to them. He had never really cared about 
 anybody but himself. He had never helped 
 another; so now there was none who would 
 help him. 
 
 Only one course was open to him, except 
 to starve, and that was to go to work. But 
 even work was hard to find. He did not know 
 enough to do such work as calls for training. 
 In spite of his fine clothes and his soft hands, 
 he could do nothing but what is called un- 
 skilled labor. That is the hardest kind and 
 the worst paid. But when there is a famine, 
 business fails, and there are few chances even 
 to get such jobs as that. At last, the only oc- 
 cupation he could find was that of a swineherd.
 
 252 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 He had a hard time getting even this place, 
 but he succeeded, and there he was day after 
 day, in sun and rain, tending pigs in the field. 
 And because it was a time of famine, when 
 food was failing even in rich houses, he had 
 to have his dinner with the pigs. Now a bill 
 of fare for a pig's dinner is not a pleasant en- 
 tertainment for a man, even when the trough 
 is well supplied. Think, then, what it must 
 have been in the midst of a famine. The swine 
 had husks, and the prodigal son had nothing 
 better. The farmer came out with a bucketful 
 of husks and dumped them down upon the 
 ground, and the boy and the pigs fought to- 
 gether for the best pieces. 
 
 Then the prodigal thought of home. He 
 could shut his eyes and see how it all looked : 
 the house where he was born, with trees about 
 it ; the rooms within, and all the familiar furni- 
 ture ; the table spread for dinner, and his father 
 and mother and elder brother sitting down. 
 Was there a place on one side left for him? 
 Why, even his father's servants had enough and 
 to spare, and he was perishing with hunger.
 
 THE PRODIGAL SON 253 
 
 Finally, he could stand it no longer. He 
 said to himself, " I will go home. I will arise 
 and go to my father, and will say unto him. 
 Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
 before thee, and am no more worthy to he 
 called thy son : make me as one of thy hired 
 servants." So he filled his pockets with husks, 
 and shut the gate upon the swine, and turned 
 his face towards home. 
 
 Now that day his father was looking and 
 looking down the road. I suppose that that 
 had happened many times, for the father was 
 very sad about his son. It had been many 
 months since he had heard from him, and the 
 last news had not been pleasant news. So he 
 watched the road, saying to himself, " Some 
 day he will come back." Away down the street, 
 walking slowly, like one who is weary after a 
 long journey, or like one who is very doubtful 
 if he will be welcome, came a man : probably 
 a tramp, for his clothes were ragged and dirty, 
 and yet with a familiar look. And the father 
 looked again, and behold, it was his son. 
 
 What did the father dc ? Did he say, " There
 
 254 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 is my bad son, who has disgraced himself and 
 me. He has spent all his money and is coming 
 back for more. He thinks that I will forgive 
 him, but he will find that he is very much mis- 
 taken." Or did he say, " Yes, it is my boy, 
 now, what shall I do ? What shall I do ? Shall 
 I take him back or not ? " No : he rose up in- 
 stantly, running out of the house and down 
 the road, so that he met his son while the lad 
 was yet a great way from the house. He had 
 compassion, and greeted him, and put his 
 arms around him and kissed him. And the 
 son began to say the words which he had been 
 repeating to himself, " Father, I have sinned 
 against heaven and in thy sight, and am no 
 more worthy to be called thy son." But the 
 father brought him in, and called the servants. 
 " Bring forth the best robe," he said, " and put 
 it on him ; and put a ring on his hand and 
 shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted 
 calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry." 
 So they cooked the very nicest dinner which 
 they knew how to make, and the neighbors 
 were sent for; and after dinner men were
 
 THE PRODIGAL SON 255 
 
 brought in with banjos and violins, and all 
 began to dance. 
 
 There was one exception, however, to this 
 merriment. That was the elder brother. He 
 was working in the field, knowing nothing of 
 this great event. When he caine home to sup- 
 per he was much surprised to hear a great 
 noise of talking and laughing, with music and 
 dancing. All the young men and women of 
 the neighborhood seemed to be there, having a 
 beautiful time. The elder brother thought it 
 strange that there should be a party at his 
 house, and he not be invited. So he called one 
 of the servants and asked what these things 
 meant. And the servant said, " Thy brother 
 is come ; and thy father hath killed the fatted 
 calf, because he hath received him safe and 
 sound." But he was angry, and would not go 
 in. " My brother has been a fool," he said to 
 himself, " and bad besides. Now he comes 
 home and my father takes him in and makes 
 much of him. My brother ought to have a 
 whipping instead of a supper." 
 
 Then the father left the guests and the
 
 256 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 dancing, and came out and spoke to his discon- 
 tented son. And the son answering, said to his 
 father, " Lo, these many years have I stayed 
 quietly at home, and minded your business and 
 my own, working early and late upon the farm, 
 and never disobeying you. And you have never 
 given any party for me. You have never made 
 a supper that I might be merry with my friends. 
 And now your son has come, who has wasted 
 your money in rioting and drunkenness, and 
 you are giving him the best you have." But the 
 father said, " Son, thou art ever with me, and 
 all that I have is thine. It was meet that we 
 should make merry and be glad ; for this thy 
 brother was dead and is alive again ; and was 
 lost, and is found." Even then, I fear that the 
 elder son did not have a cheerful face, nor did 
 he kiss his brother when he met him. 
 
 Our Lord meant that the Gentiles, the Sa- 
 maritans, the publicans, and the sinners were 
 like the prodigal son, and the Pharisees and 
 Sadducees were like the elder brother; but 
 God is like the compassionate and loving and 
 forgiving father.
 
 IX 
 * 
 
 THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR 
 
 MOST of our Lord's disciples were poor peo- 
 ple. The rich were not much interested in 
 the things which chiefly interested him. They 
 were giving their attention to their business 
 and their pleasure, making money and spend- 
 ing it. Moreover, they were quite satisfied with 
 the world as it was, living comfortably in their 
 pleasant houses, and dreading any change. 
 There was still another reason why the rich 
 did not join him. Not only were they intent 
 upon this present life and satisfied with it, but 
 many of them were selfish. Jesus taught that 
 all persons should share their possessions with 
 others. He said that if a man had two coats, 
 he ought to give one to his neighbor who had 
 none. But the people who had two coats did 
 not like that, and those who had twenty coats 
 were very angry about it. 
 
 It must be confessed that our Lord did not 
 make it easy for the rich. One day a young
 
 258 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 mail came, desiring to be one of his disciples, 
 and the young man had great possessions. 
 Everybody was surprised to see him, for it was 
 as if a millionaire should propose to become a 
 member of the Salvation Army. The man came 
 running, filled with enthusiasm, and kneeled 
 before our Lord, saying, " Good Master, what 
 shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " The lawyer 
 had asked the same question, but the young 
 millionaire asked it in an altogether different 
 spirit. He was deeply in earnest. Jesus said, 
 " Thou knowest the commandments, Do not 
 commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do 
 not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy 
 mother." " Yes,"answered the rich young man, 
 " all these have I kept from my youth up." For 
 he was as good as he was rich. Our Lord looked 
 upon him in his youth and strength and ardor, 
 and loved him. " All this," said the man, 
 "have I done: what lack I yet?" And the 
 Lord said, " Yet lackest thou one thing : sell 
 all that thou hast and give to tho poor, and 
 thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, 
 follow me." You see how hard it was. Our
 
 THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR 259 
 
 Lord did not say that to other rich men ; he 
 said it to this rich man because it was exactly 
 what he needed. The man had never done 
 anything bad, but, on the other hand, he had 
 never done anything good. He had lived a 
 perfectly proper, but a very selfish life. His 
 only way was to break with it all, to give it all 
 up, and come out into a totally different man- 
 ner of living. But the young man rose slowly 
 from his knees, with a long face, and turned 
 about and went away. He felt that that was 
 too much. 
 
 It was at that time that our Lord said, 
 " How hard it is for them that trust in riches 
 to enter into the kingdom of God ! It is easier 
 for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, 
 than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom 
 of God." Not because it is wrong to be rich, 
 nor because God likes the poor better than the 
 rich, but because the rich are so tempted to be 
 satisfied and selfish. One time he told a story 
 about a rich man, and what happened after he 
 was dead. 
 
 There were two men who were near neigh-
 
 260 
 
 bors, but in a strange way. One lived in a 
 fine house, the other lived on the sidewalk by 
 the gate. One was a rich man, the other was 
 a beggar. The rich man was splendidly dressed 
 in silks and velvets, in purple and fine linen, 
 and fared sumptuously every day. He had ser- 
 vants to wait upon him, and every day at break- 
 fast and luncheon and dinner they brought 
 him all manner of pleasant things to eat and 
 to drink in vessels of gold and silver. 
 
 But the beggar had what was worse than 
 nothing. It was not his fault that he was poor. 
 Some people are poor because they are lazy, 
 but this man was sick. His body was covered 
 with sores. As weeks went by and he got no 
 better, his friends felt that something must be 
 done. Either they were so poor themselves 
 that they could not take care of him, or else 
 they were tired of nursing him. So one night 
 they took him up, and carried him out, and 
 put him down at the gate of the richest man 
 in town. " Now," they said, " let us see ; per- 
 haps the rich man will be good to him." But 
 there he lay, and the rich man paid no atten-
 
 THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR 261 
 
 tion to him. He was so weak that he could 
 not even keep the dogs off. The street dogs 
 came, growling and yelping, and thrust their 
 noses into his face and licked his sores. Some 
 persons who passed by put money into his 
 hand. But that did little good; what he needed 
 was not a dime, but a doctor ; he should have 
 been taken to a hospital. Sometimes fine car- 
 riages stopped beside him at the gate, and 
 beautiful ladies got out, taking care that their 
 gay gowns should not brush against the beg- 
 gar, and went into the house, and he could 
 look through the lighted windows and see 
 them sitting at dinner, while musicians played. 
 And he wished that he had even the crumbs 
 which fell upon the floor. 
 
 There is one visitor, however, who comes 
 sooner or later to everybody, entering all gates, 
 and knocking at all doors. None is so rich 
 and none so poor but this visitor takes him by 
 the hand. The visitor is death. So death 
 came in due time to the rich man and to the 
 beggar. First the beggar died, and the angels 
 came and carried him away from all his hun-
 
 262 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 ger and pain into the blessed paradise above. 
 And in paradise was a great feast, and Abra- 
 ham, the father of the faithful, was at the 
 head of the table. And do you know what 
 they did with the beggar ? They brought him 
 in and gave him the place of honor. There 
 he sat at Abraham's right hand. Or rather, 
 there he lay, for that was then the fashion. 
 They had couches instead of chairs, and the 
 guests leaned on their left elbows. There was 
 the beggar, then, in Abraham's bosom ; that 
 is, reclining next to Abraham. 
 
 Then the rich man died, and was buried. 
 They had a stately funeral for him, with a 
 long procession of mourners. The minister 
 praised him in a sermon, and people said 
 how much he would be missed, and what good 
 dinners he gave, and what disposition he had 
 made of his money. And nobody doubted for 
 a moment but that he had gone to heaven. 
 Some people wondered a little if he would be 
 satisfied with Abraham's table, having always 
 dined so well himself, but they were all sure 
 that he was in the same good society in heaven
 
 THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR 263 
 
 as that which he had so adorned on earth. 
 This, however, was a sad mistake. When the 
 rich man opened his eyes after the sleep of 
 death, he was in a place of torment, flames 
 were burning all about him. He who had been 
 rich was now miserably poor ; all his treasure 
 had been put in a bank in the town where he 
 had lived, none of it had been laid up in 
 heaven. He was in great pain. Among his 
 other distresses, he was dreadfully thirsty, and 
 not a drop of water was in reach. But across 
 a deep ravine was a place of pleasure, cool and 
 shadowy, with the wind blowing across it, and 
 sweet rivers flowing down delectable moun- 
 tains between flowery fields. And there was 
 Abraham, and with him all the blessed saints 
 at dinner. And next to Abraham, between 
 him and Isaac, with Jacob and Joseph across 
 the table yes, there was the beggar who 
 used to lie beside the rich man's gate. 
 
 The rich man had never driven the beggar 
 from his gate. He had even given him a small 
 coin now and then, and had let the servants 
 feed him. Once in a while he had spoken to
 
 264 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 him. He knew that his name was Lazarus. 
 And now the rich man cried and said, " Father 
 Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Laza- 
 rus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in 
 water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented 
 in this flame." That was not much to ask : 
 though the rich man did not quite realize how 
 all had changed, he being now a beggar, 
 while Lazarus was an honored guest at Abra- 
 ham's table. But Abraham said, " Son, re- 
 member that thou in thy lifetime receivedst 
 thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
 things ; but now he is comforted, and thou 
 art tormented. And beside all this, between 
 us and you there is a great gulf fixed : so that 
 they which would pass from hence to you can- 
 not; neither can they pass to us, that would 
 come from thence." 
 
 The judgment of God may be very differ- 
 ent from the judgment of men : that is what 
 our Lord meant. Some who seem to be rich 
 are, in God's sight, poor and miserable, all their 
 wealth being perishable, so that they cannot 
 take it with them when they die ; while some
 
 THE RICH MAN AND THE BEGGAR 265 
 
 poor persons, like our Lord's poor disciples, 
 may be rich in the best treasures, and be 
 counted among the chief citizens of heaven. 
 
 O 
 
 Good society, according to our Lord, is not 
 determined by clothes, or bank-books, or birth, 
 or manners, but by simple goodness. 
 
 Then the rich man remembered his five 
 brothers. He had never done much for any 
 one who was poorer than himself, but he was 
 a good friend to his own companions, and 
 especially to his own family. " I pray thee, 
 father," he cried, "that thou wouldest send 
 Lazarus to my father's house ; for I have five 
 brethren ; that he may testify to them, lest 
 they also come to this place of torment." He 
 imagined his brothers, sitting at dinner in their 
 beautiful dining-room, thinking of nothing 
 but the pleasures of this life, and so making 
 ready to enter into pain in the next life ; and 
 in comes Lazarus, straight out of the grave, 
 with a message from heaven ; and the five 
 brothers rise up in great terror, and listen to 
 his words, and thereafter live quite differently, 
 sharing their wealth with the poor. But Abra-
 
 266 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 ham answered, " They have Moses and the 
 prophets ; let them hear them." As if he had 
 said, " There is a church around the corner 
 from their house, and ministers are holding ser- 
 vices and reading the Bible and preaching there 
 every sabbath day. The ministers are bring- 
 ing messages from heaven, and warning peo- 
 ple not to have all their treasure here below." 
 " Nay, father Abraham," replied the rich man, 
 " but if one went unto them from the dead, 
 they will repent." But Abraham answered, 
 " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, if 
 they mind not what is said in church and 
 written in the Bible, nothing will help them. 
 They will not be persuaded, though one rose 
 from the dead."
 
 X 
 
 AT THE GEAVE OF LAZARUS 
 
 THERE was another Lazarus beside the one 
 who lay a beggar at the rich man's gate, and 
 then sat next to Abraham at the table in para- 
 dise. This other Lazarus, as you will remem- 
 ber, was a dear friend of our Lord. He lived 
 a little out of Jerusalem, at Bethany, and was 
 a man of wealth. His two sisters, Mary and 
 Martha, lived with him. They were so rich 
 that one time when Mary wished to do our 
 Lord a special honor, and to show him her 
 reverence and love, she took an alabaster 
 box of very precious ointment and broke the 
 box and poured the ointment on his head as 
 he sat at dinner : and the apostles who were 
 at the table whispered among themselves that 
 the box and the ointment together must have 
 cost at least three hundred dollars. 
 
 Our Lord loved Mary and Martha and Laza- 
 rus, and probably stayed with them whenever he 
 visited Jerusalem. At first they treated him
 
 268 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 with much ceremony, and made him a great 
 supper. But he did not like that. One time 
 Martha was very busy preparing for this feast, 
 bustling about and seeing to this and to that, 
 while Mary sat quietly at our Lord's feet lis- 
 tening as he talked. By and by, Martha came 
 in and complained that Mary left her to do all 
 the work : to which our Lord replied, " Martha, 
 Martha, thou art careful and troubled about 
 many things ; but one thing is needful : and 
 Mary hath chosen that good part which shall 
 not be taken away from her." That is, he cared 
 much more for talking than he did for eating. 
 It is likely that after that they received him very 
 simply as one of the family. So he came in and 
 went out, as if their house were his own home. 
 But now, while our Lord was in Perea, telling 
 about the good Samaritan, and the Prodigal 
 Son, and the Rich Man and the Beggar, Lazarus 
 fell sick. His sisters at once sent word of this 
 illness to our Lord. The messenger came and 
 brought the bad news, saying, as he had been 
 taught, " Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick." 
 But Jesus did not go. He abode two days still
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS 269 
 
 in the same place where he was. The sisters 
 waited and the disciples wondered. They all 
 knew that he loved Lazarus. They knew also 
 that Lazarus was every day getting worse and 
 worse. But still he stayed. The message of 
 the anxious sisters was like the prayers which 
 many people pray to God in great distress, and 
 God seems not to answer. 
 
 After two days, however, he said to his dis- 
 ciples, " Let us go into Judea again." They 
 answered, " Master, the Jews of late sought to 
 stone thee; and goest thou thither again?" For, 
 the last time he was in Jerusalem, at the Feast 
 of the Dedication, in the winter, he had barely 
 escaped alive. They had wondered that he did 
 not go when the word came from Bethany, for 
 it did not seem like him to be afraid : but now 
 that he determined to go, their hearts sank 
 within them. " I have my work to do," he said. 
 " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go, that 
 I may awake him out of sleep." " Lord," they 
 answered, not quite knowing what he meant, 
 " if he sleeps, he shall do well." But Jesus was 
 speaking of the sleep from which the sleeper
 
 270 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 does not wake again in this world, and he said 
 plainly, " Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for 
 your sakes that I was not there, to the intent 
 ye may believe ; nevertheless, let us go unto 
 him." Then were the disciples in deep despair, 
 and Thomas said to the others, " Let us also 
 go, that we may die with him." 
 
 Meanwhile it had come to pass even as 
 Jesus had said. Lazarus had died, and, accord- 
 ing to their custom, on the same day they had 
 buried him. When Jesus came, he found that 
 he had lain in the grave four days already. 
 Somebody told him that as he came near the 
 town ; and at the same time somebody hurried 
 to the house and found Martha, and told her 
 that their friend was coming. The house was 
 full of people, and was in great disorder, all 
 the chairs and tables being upset, as was their 
 way at a time of mourning. The messenger 
 found Martha busy here and there, but Mary 
 was in her own room with the door fast shut. 
 So Martha went and met our Lord ; but Mary 
 sat still in the house. And Martha said, 
 " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LAZAKUS 271 
 
 had not died. But I know, that even now, 
 whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will 
 give it thee." Jesus answered, " Thy bro- 
 ther shall rise again." Martha said, " I know 
 that he shall rise again in the resurrection 
 at the last day." Jesus said unto her, " I am 
 the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth 
 in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; 
 and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
 never die. Believest thou this ? " She did not 
 in the least understand it. She listened as 
 people listen to-day, with tears in their eyes, 
 when the words are read at the beginning of 
 the burial service. But she said, " Yes, Lord ; I 
 believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, 
 which should come into the world." For these 
 dear friends at Bethany knew in a dim way, 
 like the Twelve, that Jesus was the King of 
 Glory. Our Lord said, " Where is Mary ? " 
 
 Then Martha, leaving Jesus where he was, 
 outside the town, went back and found her 
 sister, and whispered to her, saying, " The 
 Master is come, and calleth for thee." As 
 soon as Mary heard that, she arose quickly
 
 272 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and came unto him. And the mourners, see- 
 ing her go out, said, " She goeth to the grave 
 to weep there ; " and they followed her. Then, 
 when Mary was come where Jesus was, and 
 saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying 
 unto him, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my 
 brother had not died." Mary and Martha had 
 said that over and over to each other during 
 the past four days. So Mary lay at the feet 
 of Jesus weeping, and the friends who came 
 with her were weeping also. And our Lord 
 was very sorry, knowing indeed that he would 
 presently change tears into smiles, but enter- 
 ing into their deep grief. This he did that he 
 might be able to help them. They on their 
 part must have faith, he on his part must have 
 sympathy. He groaned and was troubled. 
 He said, "Where have ye laid him?" They 
 answered, " Lord, come and see." And as they 
 went, weeping, and Jesus weeping with them, 
 some said, " Behold how he loved him ; " and 
 others said, " Could not this man, which 
 opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that 
 even this man should not have died ? "
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS 273 
 
 Jesus, therefore, again groaning in himself, 
 came to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone 
 lay against the mouth of it. " Take away the 
 stone," he said. But Martha, who, as we have 
 seen, was a plain-spoken, practical person, said, 
 " Lord, shall we do that ? Remember, he has 
 been dead four days." To whom our Lord re- 
 plied, "Said I not unto thee that if thou 
 wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory 
 of God ? " Then they took away the stone 
 from the place where the dead was laid. 
 
 And Jesus stood and prayed. " Father," he 
 said, lifting up his eyes, " I thank thee that 
 thou hast heard me. And I know that thou 
 nearest me always ; but because of the peo- 
 ple which stand by I said it, that they may 
 believe that thou hast sent me." And when 
 he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud 
 voice, " Lazarus, come forth." And he came 
 forth. He that was dead rose up and came 
 forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes ; 
 and his face was bound about with a napkin. 
 There they stood, the sisters, the apostles, 
 and the people of Bethany, and saw that
 
 274 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 sight. And Jesus said, " Loose him, and let 
 him go." 
 
 Then a thing happened which was almost 
 as strange as that. Some of the company, in- 
 stead of being filled with joy and wonder, were 
 filled with fear and anger. They beheld their 
 neighbor come to life again, but what they 
 thought of most was that now the Prophet of 
 Nazareth would gain more disciples. He whom 
 the chief people so hated would be more power- 
 ful than ever. And these men went straight 
 from the empty grave to the Pharisees in Jeru- 
 salem, and told them what our Lord had done, 
 and the Pharisees told it to the Sadducees, and 
 the Pharisees and the Sadducees together held 
 a council saying, " What shall we do? for this 
 man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus 
 alone, all men will believe on him ; and the 
 Romans shall come and take away our place 
 and nation." And the high priest, Caiaphas, 
 spoke and said, "It is better that one man 
 should die than that the whole nation perish." 
 Then from that day forth they took counsel 
 together to put him to death. Thus was ful-
 
 AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS 275 
 
 filled the saying of our Lord that they who do 
 not hear the voice of God in the Bible and in 
 daily life will not be persuaded, though one 
 rose from the dead. 
 
 Jesus had brought a dead man back to life, 
 and many believed on him, but therefore the 
 priests and the ministers would kill him. The 
 priests and the ministers and the people of the 
 church were thinking of themselves : even the 
 prayers which they prayed were selfish prayers. 
 " The Prophet of Nazareth," they said, " if he 
 comes into power, will turn us out. His ways are 
 not as our ways, neither his thoughts as our 
 thoughts. We must put an end to his influence 
 by putting an end to his life." They had said 
 such things before in private. Now they said 
 them aloud in public. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lazarus was alive and well. He 
 never told what he heard and saw while he lay 
 four days dead ; or, if he did, we do not know 
 what it was. Robert Browning wrote a poem 
 in which he imagined an Arab physician visit- 
 ing Lazarus. It was a good while after the day 
 of the opened tomb, and the physician asked
 
 276 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 him about it, and heard him tell the story. He 
 said that Lazarus was the most singular man 
 he had ever met. The things which interested 
 or troubled most men, such as the march of an 
 invading army, did not affect him : while some 
 slight wrong word or act of a child at play 
 would put hun in great fear, more than if the 
 child showed symptoms of a fever. And if 
 somebody said, " Why, that is such a little 
 thing," he would look at him in surprise, as if 
 one were to hold a lighted match over a bar- 
 rel of gunpowder, and say, "Why, it is such 
 a little blaze." 
 
 Perhaps we would judge of things in the 
 same way if we had spent four days in the 
 other world.
 
 XI 
 
 THE raising" of Lazarus made so much excite- 
 ment that our Lord felt obliged to go away. He 
 knew of the determination of the Pharisees and 
 Sadducees to kill him : but his hour was not yet 
 come. He retired, therefore, to a place called 
 Ephraim, among the northern hills of Judea, 
 on the borders of a rocky wilderness. There he 
 stayed with his apostles, preparing himself and 
 them for the final and fatal visit to Jerusalem. 
 Winter was now over, and spring had come. 
 All the trees were green with tender leaves, 
 and flowers were growing by the side of all the 
 little brooks. It was the season of the Feast of 
 the Passover, and for this feast our Lord was 
 waiting. He knew that Jerusalem would be full 
 of people. They would come from all the land, 
 from Judea, and from Galilee, and from Perea, 
 from the towns in which he had spoken his 
 blessed words of wisdom and had done his 
 gracious works of wonder. At that day, in that
 
 278 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 city, the whole nation would be represented. 
 Then and there, accordingly, the King would 
 come. The King of Glory had now made it 
 plain what kind of a kingdom he proposed to 
 establish, and he would present himself to his 
 people that he might be accepted or rejected. 
 He foresaw how it would be. He told a story 
 once about a man who planted a vineyard, and 
 let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far 
 country for a long time : and at the season, he 
 sent a servant to the husbandmen that they 
 should give him of the fruit of the vineyard ; 
 but the husbandmen beat him and sent him 
 away empty. And again he sent another ser- 
 vant ; and they beat him also, and treated him 
 shamefully and sent him away empty. Again 
 he sent a third, and they wounded him also, 
 and cast him out. Then said the lord of the 
 vineyard, " What shall I do ? I will send my 
 beloved son ; it may be they will reverence him 
 when they see him." But when the husband- 
 men saw him, they reasoned among themselves, 
 saying, " This is the heir : come, let us kill him, 
 that the inheritance may be ours." So they cast
 
 ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 279 
 
 him out of the vineyard, and killed him. You 
 see what he meant. The planter was God, the 
 husbandmen were the Jews, the servants were 
 the prophets who had come with messages from 
 God and had been stoned, the son was the Son 
 of God. Jesus knew that they would do to him 
 what the wicked husbandmen did to the lord's 
 son in the story. 
 
 But the day came, and he started on his 
 last journey. He steadfastly set his face to go 
 to Jerusalem. He walked before along the 
 road, and the apostles walked behind ; and 
 they were amazed to see him. On he went as 
 a hero advances into battle. They had never 
 seen him look like that before. " It cannot 
 be," they said one to another, " that he is go- 
 ing to defeat. He would not walk with such a 
 step as that towards death." And they began 
 to lift up their hearts, thinking that in Jeru- 
 salem they might find a crown and not a 
 cross. But he turned about and spoke to them 
 in the old way, saying the old words, repeat- 
 ing what he said that day when they had all 
 recognized him as the King of Glory. " Be-
 
 280 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 hold," he said, " we go up to Jerusalem, and 
 all things that are written by the prophets 
 concerning the Son of man shall be accom- 
 plished. For he shall be delivered unto the 
 Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully 
 entreated, and spitted on ; and they shall 
 scourge him, and put him to death ; and the 
 third day he shall rise again." But even now 
 they did not understand. 
 
 Indeed, so far were they from understand- 
 ing, that two of the aposties, James and John, 
 made now a strange request. Their mother 
 was in the company, with Mary Magdalen, out 
 of whom our Lord had cast seven devils, and 
 other good women, who ministered to our 
 Lord and to the Twelve ; and the two brothers, 
 being perhaps ashamed to go themselves, per- 
 suaded the mother to ask the King for the best 
 places in his kingdom, one for James and one 
 for John. " Grant," she said, " that these my 
 two sons may sit, one on thy right hand, and 
 the other on the left, in thy kingdom." They 
 still thought that the King of Glory would be 
 the ruler of Jerusalem, that he would have a
 
 ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 281 
 
 court and a palace, and would sit upon a 
 throne of gold. The two fishermen wished to 
 sit on gold thrones also. The ten were much 
 displeased when they heard of this request of 
 the two, for they, on their side, had a mind to 
 occupy high seats in the new kingdom. But 
 our Lord called them all together, and taught 
 them the true meaning of greatness. " Who- 
 soever will be chief among you, let him be 
 your servant. For even the Son of man came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
 and to give his life a ransom for many." 
 Greatness, he said, does not consist in having 
 many servants, but in being, one's own self, 
 the servant of many people. 
 
 One day, on this journey to Jerusalem, 
 mothers came bringing young children to him 
 that he should touch them, and his apostles 
 rebuked those who brought them. The apos- 
 tles were altogether too active in keeping peo- 
 ple away from our Lord ; as, indeed, many of 
 their successors have been. But when Jesus 
 saw it, he was much displeased. He said, 
 " Suffer the little children to come unto me,
 
 282 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and forbid them not ; for of such is the king- 
 dom of heaven. Whosoever shall not receive 
 the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall 
 not enter therein." The little children, simple 
 and natural and affectionate and truthful, had 
 the spirit which the Sadducees and Pharisees 
 so sadly lacked. And he took the little ones 
 in his arms, put his hands upon them, and 
 blessed them. 
 
 Another day, as he entered into a certain 
 village, there met him ten men who had a 
 grievous sickness. They were lepers. They 
 had a disease which begins with a little sore 
 spot on the skin, and keeps on spreading till 
 the leper is worse than dead. People said that 
 it was like ski, which begins with some small, 
 wrong act, or even thought, and unless it is 
 stopped, grows on and on into dreadf ul disaster 
 to both soul and body. And because it was a 
 symbol of sin, and also because it was catching, 
 the leper had to live apart from other people. 
 When he went along the road, he must cry 
 " Unclean ! unclean ! " so that whoever was com- 
 ing might take warning and get out of the way.
 
 ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 283 
 
 Ten of these poor men, brothers in misery, 
 met our Lord as he came to the first house of 
 this little village. They stood afar off, not ven- 
 turing near, and lifted up their weak voices and 
 cried altogether, " Jesus, Master, have mercy 
 on us." For they had heard that he was kind, 
 even to lepers. And when he saw them, he said, 
 " Go show yourselves unto the priests." For 
 the priests were the Board of Health. The rule 
 was that if any leper felt that he was cured, he 
 must go to the priests in the temple and let 
 them examine him that they might make sure 
 of his condition, whether he was really well or 
 not. So our Lord said, " Go show yourselves 
 unto the priests." 
 
 But the men were still lepers. They were 
 not in the least cured. Why, then, should they 
 go to the priests ? If they had been like some 
 people, they would not have gone a step. Some- 
 times even small children, when they are told 
 by their parents to do this or that, say, "Why? 
 What for ? " But the lepers asked no ques- 
 tions. Straight they started, fast as they could 
 go on their feeble legs, to find the priests in
 
 284 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 their office in the temple. And as they went, 
 they were cleansed. Step by step, as they made 
 their way along the Jerusalem road, their pains 
 were eased, their sores were healed, and their 
 skin began to grow like the skin of a little 
 child, and they were well. By doing what the 
 Lord had said, setting their faces in the right 
 direction and keeping on, they were cleansed. 
 So that here also their leprosy was like sin, 
 which is overcome more and more by every 
 good deed that the sinner does. 
 
 They were cleansed then ; should they go 
 on or turn back ? Nine of them went on. That 
 was what they were told to do, and they did it. 
 They went to the priests and showed them- 
 selves, and the priests pronounced them cured, 
 and they returned to their homes. No doubt 
 their hearts were full of gratitude as they were 
 full of joy. But they said nothing. Of the 
 ten, only one turned back. One of them, when 
 he saw that he was healed, turned back, and 
 with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on 
 his face at our Lord's feet, giving him thanks. 
 And he was a Samaritan ; he was one of those
 
 ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM 285 
 
 whom the priests and the ministers despised. 
 And Jesus said, " Were there not ten cleansed ? 
 but where are the nine ? They are not found 
 that returned to give glory to God, save this 
 stranger." And he said unto him, " Arise, go 
 thy way : thy faith hath made thee whole."
 
 XII 
 IN THE STREETS OF JERICHO 
 
 THE way to Jerusalem lay through Jericho. 
 The city stood in the valley of the Jordan, be- 
 tween the river and the hills, in the midst of 
 palm-trees, and was great and beautiful. It 
 was a place of business, being a station on an 
 important road, and had a custom-house where 
 publicans took the toll and made merchants 
 pay a fee for carrying their goods across the 
 border. And chief among the publicans was 
 a man named ZacchaBiis, whose office had made 
 him rich; but the riches of Zacchaeus had 
 not made him respected. The publicans were 
 everywhere hated by the Jews, because they 
 were in the service of the Romans. The taxes 
 which were paid at the custom-house were not 
 spent, like our taxes, for roads and school- 
 houses, but were sent to Rome to increase the 
 wealth of Roman nobles. Accordingly, Zac- 
 chaeus, while he was one of the richest citizens 
 of Jericho, was one of the most unpopular.
 
 IN THE STREETS OF JERICHO 287 
 
 None of the nice people, as we say, would as- 
 sociate with him. 
 
 When the news came to Jericho that the 
 Prophet of Nazareth would pass that way on 
 his journey to Jerusalem, even Zacchseus heard 
 it. All the people were interested in his com- 
 ing, but nobody was more interested than the 
 publican. He had heard that there was a pub- 
 lican among our Lord's twelve friends. There 
 was a great crowd, however, in the streets of 
 Jericho. The season of the Passover was every 
 day bringing companies of pilgrims through 
 the city on their way up the Red Road to the 
 feast. When our Lord came, many came with 
 him, especially from Galilee. For, in spite of 
 the Pharisees, there were still good men in 
 Galilee, who believed in him with all their 
 hearts. Indeed, there were so many following 
 him to Jerusalem that it seemed a little like an 
 invasion. People whispered one to another 
 First Citizen and Second Citizen putting their 
 heads together that he was on his way at 
 the head of his disciples to make himself a 
 king, to meet the Pharisees and Sadducees who
 
 288 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 had threatened his life, and to drive them from 
 their seats of power. All the more on that ac- 
 count were the men of Jericho desirous to see 
 him. So the street which ran through the 
 heart of the busy town was filled with a great 
 multitude ; all the windows were open, and 
 heads were thrust out, watching for him. 
 
 But Zacchseus was little of stature. Go 
 where he would along the main street, there 
 was always some large, tall person between 
 him and the middle of the road. He could not 
 see. Any boy knows what he himself would 
 have done in such a case; and Zacchseus, 
 man as he was, did just that thing. He ran 
 along before the procession and climbed up 
 into a tree. Then they came, the Lord, and the 
 Twelve, and the pilgrims from Galilee. It was 
 not much of a procession, for a boy. There 
 was not a uniform, or a flag, or an instrument 
 of music from its beginning to its end. All 
 that the boys saw was a line of dusty men, in 
 the dress of farmers and fisher-folk, looking 
 very tired after a long journey. But the pub- 
 lican saw more than that. In the midst walked
 
 IN THE STREETS OF JERICHO 289 
 
 the Master, the Prophet of Nazareth, the friend 
 of publicans. Zacchseus looked at him with 
 all his eyes, and with his heart also. 
 
 The Lord, too, was looking about him as he 
 walked. He did not care for crowds, nor for 
 applause ; he was never thinking of himself ; 
 he was always watching for an opportunity to 
 do good to somebody. And as he went, he 
 heard men hooting and calling names, and 
 pointing their fingers at somebody who was 
 standing in a tree. The crowd had discovered 
 the publican, and were making use of the oc- 
 casion to tell him what they thought of him. 
 " Who is that ? " asked the Master. " Who is 
 that whom the people hate ? " And one said, 
 " That is Zacchaeus, the publican, the most 
 unpopular man in town." So the Master came 
 to the tree, and when he saw the publican, he 
 spoke to him. " Zacchaeus," he said, " make 
 haste and come down ; for to-day I must abide 
 at thy house." And he made haste, and came 
 down, and received him joyfully. And the 
 crowd stood in amazement. Then they went 
 together around the corner of the street, the
 
 290 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Prophet whom they had all come out to see, 
 and Zacchaeus. And they all murmured. 
 They said hard words beneath their breath. 
 They went home and told their wives, growing 
 more angry the more they thought about it. 
 " He was gone," they said, raising their hands 
 in horror, " to be guest with a man that is a 
 sinner." 
 
 Indeed, it was a strange matter : the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury comes to town, and, leav- 
 ing the procession of the mayor and the clergy 
 and the chief citizens, takes the hand of a no- 
 torious gambler and goes with him to dinner. 
 What blank and black looks ! For nobody 
 could dislike a gambler more than the people 
 of Jericho disliked a publican. 
 
 So they went into the house, and Zacchaeus 
 stood and said unto the Lord, " Behold, Lord, 
 the half of my goods I give to the poor ; and 
 if I have taken anything from any man by 
 false accusation, I restore him fourfold." Up 
 to that moment Zacchaeus had never given 
 a penny to the poor ; never had he restored a 
 dollar to any man from whom he had extorted
 
 IN THE STREETS OF JERICHO 291 
 
 more than his due. The hatred of the church 
 people had but hardened the publican's heart. 
 But the courtesy of our Lord melted it in a 
 moment. And Jesus said, " This day is salva- 
 tion come to this house, forasmuch as he also 
 is a son of Abraham." The sons of the father 
 of the faithful, and members of the household 
 of God, are to be found in unexpected places. 
 " For the Son of man," he added, " is come 
 to seek and to save that which was lost." The 
 Lord, when he looked up into the tree, saw 
 a man who was lost, and he left everything 
 and went and found him. 
 
 The next day, as he went out of Jericho with 
 his disciples and a great number of people, a 
 blind man, named Bartimseus, sat by the way- 
 side begging. The crowd came, and the blind 
 beggar heard the noise of their feet and the 
 sound of their voices, and as they came he 
 plucked the cloak of the nearest man and said, 
 " What is it all about ? " And the man said, 
 " Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." The beggar 
 knew who that was. He had listened to the talk 
 of the town. The talk of the town was full of
 
 292 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 criticism of Jesus, but that did not affect the 
 beggar. He was so poor that he could have 
 his own opinions; he had nothing to lose. 
 People speak of being independently rich, but 
 Bartimaeus was independently poor. When, 
 they told him that the Prophet of Nazareth 
 had gone to dinner with a sinner, the beggar 
 was much pleased. He was well acquainted 
 with sinners, and knew that many of them are 
 better than they seem. 
 
 So, when the man in the crowd said, " Jesus 
 of Nazareth passeth by," Bartimseus began to 
 cry out, and say, " Jesus, thou son of David, 
 have mercy on me." And many charged him 
 that he should hold his peace. They told him 
 in good plain Hebrew to be still. But he cried 
 the more a great deal, " Thou son of David, 
 have mercy on me." And Jesus stood still at 
 the sound of this loud voice, and commanded 
 him to be called. And men, seeing that the 
 Master would befriend the blind man, changed 
 their manner, and spoke kindly to him, say- 
 ing, "Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth 
 thee."
 
 IN THE STREETS OF JERICHO 293 
 
 Now it was early in the morning, and there 
 was a chill in the air, for the spring was 
 young, and the beggar had a long cloak 
 wrapped about him. This he cast away, and 
 came to Jesus. And Jesus said, " What wilt 
 thou that I should do unto thee ? " The blind 
 man said unto him, " Lord, that I may receive 
 my sight." And Jesus answered, " Go thy 
 way ; thy faith hath made thee whole." And 
 immediately he received his sight, and followed 
 Jesus in the way.
 
 How THE KING CAME TO JERUSALEM, 
 AND WAS BETRAYED AND CONDEMNED AND 
 PUT TO DEATH UPON THE CROSS; AND HOW 
 HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD AND AS- 
 CENDED INTO HEAVEN.
 
 PALMS AND PSALMS 
 
 ON they came, then, our Lord and the Twelve, 
 and the pilgrims from Galilee, out of the gates 
 of Jericho, up the Red Road, on the way to 
 Jerusalem. At noon they rested in the shadow 
 of the great rocks : at night they came to 
 Bethany. The little town was already full of 
 people who had come to the Feast of the Pass- 
 over. Some of them slept in tents, some in 
 the fields, some in the houses of friends. Our 
 Lord stayed with Lazarus. The next day was 
 the sabbath, and that evening they made him 
 a supper in the house of a Pharisee named 
 Simon, who had been a leper. For not all the 
 Pharisees were enemies. Lazarus sat at the 
 table, and Martha served. That was the time 
 when Mary broke the alabaster box of precious 
 ointment. She broke the box, and poured the 
 ointment on our Lord's head. 
 
 Some of the guests did not like that, per- 
 haps because they felt that our Lord would not
 
 298 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 like it : he was always so plain and simple, 
 and seemed not to care to have things done for 
 him. So one said, thinking he was speaking 
 our Lord's thought, " Why was not this oint- 
 ment sold for three hundred dollars, and given 
 to the poor? " Thespeaker had also another and 
 worse reason for saying what he did. He was 
 the treasurer of the Twelve. All their money 
 was kept in one bag, and he carried the bag. 
 It was never very heavy : partly because so 
 little was put into it, partly because so much 
 was taken out whenever they found anybody 
 in need, and partly some of them were be- 
 ginning to suspect because the treasurer 
 took what did not belong to him ; he took 
 money out of the bag and put it in his own 
 pocket. The treasurer's name was Judas 
 Iscariot. But our Lord said that Mary had 
 done right, and added, looking forward to 
 the cross, " She has anointed me for my 
 burial." 
 
 Then came the day which we call Sunday, 
 and that morning, at the service in the temple, 
 people were saying one to another, " Will the
 
 PALMS AND PSALMS 299 
 
 Prophet come ? What do you think, will he 
 come to the feast ? " Some answered, " No, the 
 rulers have determined to kill him ; he will 
 keep himself out of their reach." But others 
 answered, " Yes, he has come already. Last 
 night he slept at Bethany, and to-day he will 
 be seen here in the city." "What is that?" 
 men cried. " Is he indeed coming ? Let us go 
 out to meet him." Accordingly many people 
 went out from Jerusalem, singing as they went, 
 and having in their hands branches of palms 
 which they waved as the wind waves the tops 
 of the trees. 
 
 Meanwhile, our Lord was making his pre- 
 parations at Bethany. It had been written, 
 centuries before, in the Old Testament, that 
 when the King came he would come sitting 
 on an ass's colt : " Fear not, daughter of Sion, 
 behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's 
 colt." In that country the horse was used in 
 war, the ass was used in peace. So our Lord 
 sent two disciples to the next village, where a 
 man lived whom he knew. " There," he said, 
 " at the corner of the street, you will find a
 
 300 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 colt tied by the door ; loose him, and bring him 
 to me." And they found, as he had said, and 
 untied the colt ; and the man who owned the 
 beast looked out and said, "What are you 
 doing with my colt ? " and they answered, as 
 our Lord had taught them, " The Master 
 needs him." So the owner knew that they 
 had come from his friend the Prophet of 
 Nazareth, as had been arranged. 
 
 They brought the colt, and cast their long 
 cloaks over his back for a saddle, and seated 
 our Lord thereon, and started for the city. 
 There was a great company of people follow- 
 ing, and presently they met the multitude who 
 were coming from Jerusalem, who turned 
 about so that Jesus was in the midst. And 
 they threw their garments in the road that he 
 might ride over them, and tore down branches 
 from the trees and spread them in the way, and 
 sang psalms : " Hosanna : blessed is he that 
 cometh in the name of the Lord : Hosanna in 
 the highest." And the whole multitude of the 
 disciples rejoiced with great joy, and praised 
 God with a loud voice for all the mighty works
 
 PALMS AND PSALMS 301 
 
 that they had seen. One cried, " He healed the 
 sick in our town. They were brought to him 
 on beds and went away walking and leaping." 
 Another cried, " I was dumb, and he made me 
 speak." And another, " I was a leper, and he 
 made me clean." And others, " We stood by 
 when Lazarus came out of the grave." The 
 loudest voice of all was that of BartimaBus, 
 crying, " I was blind and he gave me sight." 
 Thus they went, laughing and crying, shout- 
 ing and singing, and Jesus riding in the midst ; 
 till some of the Pharisees said, " This is too 
 much. Master, rebuke thy disciples." And he 
 answered, " I tell you that, if these should 
 hold their peace, the stones would immediately 
 cry out." 
 
 In this manner the King came towards his 
 own city. Even now he wore no crown, and had 
 no royal robe upon his shoulders : he was very 
 different from other kings. Nevertheless he 
 came as a king, to see at last whether they would 
 accept him or reject him. Even on the way, 
 in the midst of the palms and the psalms, his 
 heart sank within him. He felt that the Phar-
 
 302 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 isees, with their cold looks, represented most 
 of the people. It was indeed possible that the 
 city might give him a loyal greeting, but not 
 likely. They came to a place in the road where 
 the way rounds a corner of the mountain, and 
 Jerusalem came suddenly into view across a deep 
 ravine. There it lay, the holy city, on its splen- 
 did hills, with its great buildings, and, crowning 
 all, the stately temple with its shining roofs. 
 Then the King stopped, and tears came into his 
 eyes, and he cried, with a bitter lamentation, 
 " If thou hadst known, even thou at least in 
 this thy day, the things which belong unto thy 
 peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes." 
 And so it was. It seemed for a moment as if 
 all the world had gone after him ; the city was 
 moved at his entrance ; but the movement was 
 one of curiosity. Few people had any idea what 
 the procession meant. They saw a crowd of 
 farmers from Galilee, and one riding amongst 
 them, and they said, " Who is this?" and the 
 farmers answered, " This is Jesus, the Pro- 
 phet of Nazareth of Galilee." But the city folk 
 thought little of the people who lived in the
 
 303 
 
 country. They paid no more attention. And 
 in a little while the men with the palm branches 
 were lost in the general crowd which filled the 
 streets. 
 
 The disowned King went into the temple, 
 and there looked about, sadly and sternly, and 
 then returned alone, or with only the Twelve 
 beside him, to spend the night at Bethany.
 
 n 
 
 THREE DAYS OF THE HOLY WEEK 
 
 ON Monday, coming from Bethany down the 
 Mount of Olives to Jerusalem, Jesus saw a fig- 
 tree full of leaves, and turned aside to gather 
 some of the fruit ; but not a fig was to be 
 found upon it ; there was nothing but leaves. 
 It was like the Pharisees and Sadducees, who 
 seemed to be so good, with their splendid 
 temple and their many synagogues, and all 
 their services and their interest in the church, 
 but were not so good as they seemed. And 
 our Lord said, "Let no fruit grow on thee 
 henceforward for ever." So they went on into 
 the city. 
 
 Our Lord entered into the temple, and there 
 looked again upon the sights which he had 
 observed the day before with such sad and 
 stern eyes. For the temple stood, as you re- 
 member, in a great yard which was paved with 
 stone and had a stone wall about it. This yard 
 was called the Court of the Gentiles, because
 
 THREE DAYS OF THE HOLY WEEK 305 
 
 the Gentiles were free to go into it if they 
 chose, though they were not allowed to pass 
 the gate of the temple itself. It had been in- 
 tended that this court should be a holy place 
 for strangers. It was hoped that men who 
 were not Jews might enter and remember God 
 and pray to him. 
 
 But nobody was praying there that day. 
 The Feast of the Passover, with its multi- 
 tudes of worshiping pilgrims, had of course 
 increased the number of the sacrifices. Every- 
 body who came to the holy city would wish to 
 offer a sacrifice on the altar in the temple. 
 And in order to accommodate these pilgrims, 
 so that they might get the oxen, the sheep, and 
 the doves which they must bring to the priests, 
 a market was opened in the Gentile court. 
 Indeed, it was much more like a county fair 
 than like a church. There were stalls for sheep 
 and oxen, and cages for doves, and men were 
 buying and selling. There were tables at which 
 money-changers sat to trade small coins for 
 large ones, and to exchange foreign money 
 for Jewish. And those who bought and those
 
 306 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 who sold were making a great noise, filling 
 the air with shouts and cries. Thus prayer 
 was made impossible. 
 
 This our Lord had observed the day before. 
 Now, when he came back, he had a whip in his 
 hand, a scourge of small cords. And pre- 
 sently there was a great commotion in the place. 
 They who were coming in at the gates met 
 sheep and oxen rushing out, and behind the 
 sheep and oxen was our Lord. He overturned 
 the tables of the money-changers, and the 
 seats of those who sold doves, crying, " Take 
 these things hence." " Is it not written," he 
 said, " ' My house shall be called a house of 
 prayer for all nations ? ' but ye have made it 
 a den of thieves." He would not even allow 
 men to carry bundles across the yard. He 
 stopped whatever interfered with prayer. There 
 he stood, in the name of God, rebuking the 
 traders and the priests. Thus for the second 
 time our Lord presented himself as the leader 
 of the people. This time, many were impressed, 
 and a company of choir boys, coming out of 
 the temple, began to sing verses of psalms
 
 THREE DAYS OF THE HOLY WEEK 307 
 
 which had been sung the day before on the 
 way from Bethany, " Hosanna to the Son 
 of David." 
 
 On Tuesday, coming again to Jerusalem, 
 our Lord and the Twelve passed the barren fig- 
 tree, and behold, it was withered away. When 
 he was come into the temple, the chief priests 
 and the elders of the people came to him and 
 said, " By what authority doest thou these 
 things ? and who gave thee this authority ? " 
 But they dared not lay hands upon him, for 
 now many of the people were on his side, tak- 
 ing him for a prophet. So all that day he 
 taught in the temple, and the Pharisees and 
 the Sadducees disputed with him, asking him 
 hard questions, trying to entangle him in his 
 talk, hoping that he might say something 
 which they could use against him. But he put 
 them all to silence. 
 
 As the sun was setting he went away with 
 his disciples, knowing that it would not be 
 safe to stay in the city after dark. And they 
 sat down outside the walls, on the rocks of the 
 Mount of Olives. The sun as it went down
 
 308 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 shone upon the city and the temple, so that 
 the disciples were amazed at the strength and 
 beauty of the place. " Master," they cried, 
 " see what manner of stones and what build- 
 ings are here ! " But he answered, " Seest thou 
 these great buildings ? there shall not be left 
 one stone upon another that shall not be 
 thrown down." And he told them how the 
 splendid city should be destroyed, and how at 
 a time which no man knew, not even he him- 
 self, even the wide world should come to an 
 end, and how he would return to be the judge 
 of all men. 
 
 On one of these three days, as he went away, 
 he took his leave of Jerusalem, as he had be- 
 fore taken his leave of Chorazin and Bethsaida 
 and Capernaum, saying, " Jerusalem, Jeru- 
 salem, thou that killest the prophets, and 
 stonest them which are sent unto thee, how 
 often would I have gathered thy children to- 
 gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
 under her wings, and ye would not ! " 
 
 On Wednesday, the fear and anger of the 
 chief priests and the scribes and the elders of
 
 THREE DAYS OF THE HOLY WEEK 309 
 
 the people came to such a pass that they held 
 a meeting in the palace of the high priest, 
 Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take 
 Jesus and kill him. But they decided that they 
 must wait till the feast was over, and the pil- 
 grims were gone home. They did not dare to 
 take him publicly, on account of the people. 
 As they were still debating, however, there 
 was a knock at the door, and somebody came 
 back with strange news. " There is a man here 
 who says that he is one of the disciples of the 
 prophet. Shall we let him in ? " " Yes," they 
 said, " admit him." And in came one of the 
 Twelve, the dishonest treasurer, Judas Isca- 
 riot. And Judas said, " What will ye give me, 
 and I will deliver him unto you ? I will lead 
 you to a place where you may seize him 
 quietly, and take him. What will you pay 
 me ? " And they promised to give him thirty 
 pieces of silver. So he went out of the meet- 
 ing of the clergy, leaving them very glad, and 
 shut the priest's door behind him, and walked 
 again beside our Lord.
 
 Ill 
 
 PHAEISEES AND SADDUCEES AND 
 WEDDING GUESTS 
 
 ON one of these three days our Lord told the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees that they were like 
 the guests whom a king invited to a wedding. 
 
 Once, he said, there was a king whose son 
 was to be married. The king had planned to 
 celebrate this glad event by giving a splendid 
 dinner, and had sent out many invitations. 
 All the chief people of the land had been 
 bidden to the wedding. So the day came, and 
 the king sent forth his servants to say to them 
 that were bidden, " Come ; for all things are 
 now ready." But they would not come. The 
 servants came back, and there was no one 
 with them. 
 
 This was so strange a thing, for most 
 persons will think twice before they decline 
 an invitation to a royal wedding, that the 
 king said to himself, "There is some mis- 
 understanding. The servants must have made
 
 
 WEDDING GUESTS 311 
 
 a mistake. Perhaps they did not make it plain 
 that this is the day." So he sent other ser- 
 vants, saying, " Tell them which are bidden, 
 ' Behold, I have prepared my dinner ; my oxen 
 and my fatlings are killed, and all things are 
 ready ; come unto the marriage.' ' It must 
 have been a great banquet ; they had roasted 
 several oxen, and fatlings besides. But again 
 the servants came back without the guests, 
 bringing only their excuses. One of the in- 
 vited guests said, " I have bought a piece of 
 ground, and I must needs go and see it. I pray 
 thee have me excused." And off he went down 
 the right-hand road into the country to his 
 farm. Another said, " I have bought five yoke 
 of oxen, and I go to prove them ; I pray thee 
 have me excused." And off he went down the 
 left-hand road into the country to his farm. 
 Another said, " I am very busy to-day, buying 
 and selling ; I cannot leave the store." Another 
 said, " I have married a wife, and therefore I 
 cannot come." None of these excuses were 
 good ones. The new acres and the new oxen 
 would keep until the morrow ; the day of the
 
 312 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 marriage of the prince was a holiday, and no 
 time for shop-keeping; as for the man who 
 was just married, he might have brought his 
 wife along. It was plain that in truth the in- 
 vited guests did not wish to sit at the king's 
 table. That was what was the matter. 
 
 Indeed, a few of the servants did not come 
 back from their errand, because some of the 
 guests had not only declined the invitation 
 which they brought, but had set the dogs upon 
 them, and beaten them ; some they had killed. 
 The servants showed their torn coats and their 
 bruised shoulders, and told the sad fate of their 
 companions, and the king was very angry. He 
 sent out soldiers to punish the murderers as 
 they deserved. 
 
 Meanwhile, there was nobody to sit down to 
 dinner with the king and queen, or to do honor 
 to the prince and the new princess. So the king 
 said to the servants, " The wedding is ready, 
 but they which were bidden were not worthy. 
 Go out now into the streets and lanes of the city 
 and bring in all who will come, the poor, the 
 maimed, and the lame, and the blind." Then
 
 WEDDING GUESTS 313 
 
 the servants went as they were told into the 
 streets and lanes and invited to the king's din- 
 ner those who had never had a good meal in 
 their lives. " The king," they cried, " holds a 
 great feast to-night in his royal palace. Even 
 now the table is spread, with an ox at each 
 end and any number o fatlings in between ; 
 and you are invited, and you, and you," point- 
 ing now to one and now to another. " Come 
 you all into the king's banquet-hall and sit at 
 the feast which the king gives in honor of his 
 son." 
 
 So there came all manner of people, poor 
 folks in rags, and men on crutches, and blind 
 men led by their little boys or dogs. But even 
 then the tables were not filled. For so gener- 
 ous and universal was the invitation that a good 
 many people did not believe that the king had 
 sent it. " Who are we ? " they said one to an- 
 other, " that the king should send for us ? What 
 cares he for the like of us ? " They thought it 
 was all too good to be true. So yet there was 
 room. And the king sent the servants out again, 
 saying, " Go out into the highways and hedges,
 
 314 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 into the country, and along the roads, where 
 strangers pass, and compel them to come in, 
 that my house may be filled." And the wedding 
 at last was furnished with guests. 
 
 That is what our Lord said, and the Phari- 
 sees and Sadducees listened, knowing that he 
 meant them. They were the court people, whom 
 God the king had set in office and esteem in 
 his kingdom. And God's servants, like John 
 the Baptist, had gone bidding them to sit at the 
 royal table and to enter into the joy of their 
 Lord. John the Baptist had been killed, and 
 the apostles had been turned away, as in old 
 times the prophets had been stoned. So God 
 would take them at their word, and would open 
 the palace his church to all sorts of peo- 
 ple, to Gentiles and Samaritans and publicans 
 and sinners. 
 
 But there was another chapter in the story. 
 This he spoke to such as were accepting the 
 divine invitation. By and by, he said, after the 
 tables were filled and the dinner was in pro- 
 gress, the king came in to see the guests. Now, 
 one thing had been required of all who came :
 
 WEDDING GUESTS 315 
 
 each was to put on a wedding garment. But 
 the people who lived in the lanes had no such 
 fine attire, neither had the guests who had been 
 found in the shade of the hedges, and the stran- 
 gers who had been brought in from the high- 
 ways had no such apparel in their bags. So the 
 king provided wedding garments for them all. 
 " This," said the servants at the door, " you 
 must put on, this robe of white, or that of 
 purple, and then you may enter." But one man 
 strode in, paying no attention. And when the 
 king came in to see the guests, he saw this man 
 sitting in his dusty coat. And the king called 
 the man, and spoke to him in kind but re- 
 proving words. "Friend," he said, "how earnest 
 thou in hither, not having a wedding gar- 
 ment ? " And the man was speechless. He had 
 no excuse. He had thought that it did not 
 matter. He had not taken the trouble to heed 
 the king's one requirement. So the king told 
 the servants to take him and turn him out ; 
 and out he went from the shining hall into the 
 dark night. 
 
 Our Lord meant that God invites us all into
 
 316 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 the joy of his presence, into his favor here and 
 into heaven hereafter. No matter who we are, 
 though we be poor and blind and lame, he asks 
 us all. But he wishes us to put on the wedding 
 garment of a good life ; he wishes us to clothe 
 ourselves with modesty, and honesty, and truth, 
 with the mantle of charity and prayer. He who 
 fails to do so, though he be but one among a 
 multitude, God will discover him and send him 
 into outer darkness. 
 
 Again, on one of those days when he taught 
 in the Temple, he told about another wed- 
 ding. 
 
 One time, he said, there were ten virgins who 
 were waiting. There they sat, watching for a 
 procession. The ten were bridesmaids, and that 
 evening the bridegroom was to come to meet 
 his bride, and they were all to go together to 
 the wedding. And since it was dark, the ten 
 had brought their lamps with them. The lamps 
 were round bowls to hold oil, each with a wick 
 to float in it ; and each bowl had a sharp point 
 at the bottom to stick into the end of a pole. 
 Thus they were not unlike the torches which
 
 WEDDING GUESTS 317 
 
 are used nowadays in torchlight parades. But 
 the wedding people were late in coming, as 
 is frequently the case, and the watching was 
 long, and the hours went on to ten and then 
 to eleven, in a country where all people were 
 accustomed to go to bed early, and finally the 
 bridesmaids fell asleep. The torches stood, ten 
 in a row, against the wall, and the bridesmaids 
 slumbered and slept. 
 
 And at midnight there was a cry made, 
 u Behold, the bridegroom cometh ; go ye out 
 to meet him." And one looked, and there, far 
 down the long street, were lights and people. 
 The procession was approaching. So the ten 
 maidens, in great haste, began to prepare their 
 lamps. But now a discovery was made : five 
 of the lamps were empty. Five of the brides- 
 maids had brought their lamps, but had neg- 
 lected to put any oil into them. Were they 
 thinking of their beautiful dresses, so that 
 they forgot ? Or did they say, " Oh, well, we 
 shall manage somehow : we shall get some oil 
 somewhere?" They were like the men and 
 women who never say their prayers, nor go 

 
 318 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 to church, nor think much about pleasing 
 God, saying to themselves, " It will come out 
 all right somehow." 
 
 But all the time the procession was advan- 
 cing, and they had no oil ; at least, they had 
 only enough to make a little sputtering flicker 
 in the wick. And the foolish maidens said unto 
 the wise, " Give us of your oil ; for our lamps 
 are gone out." They thought that there would 
 be enough oil to go around. There are some 
 who think that if they do but belong to the 
 church, or are members of a religious family, 
 it wiU not matter much about their own lives : 
 when the time comes, they will go into heaven 
 with the others. But the foolish five were much 
 mistaken. The wise five had just enough for 
 themselves, and not a drop to spare. So the 
 wise said, " You must go and buy some oil. 
 Our lamps will go out, too, if we take any of 
 our oil out, and there will be no lights to greet 
 the bridegroom." 
 
 Then the foolish bridesmaids hurried away 
 in great distress to find some oil. But it was 
 now the middle of the night ; the grocers had
 
 WEDDING GUESTS 319 
 
 long ago shut up their shops. Here they ran 
 and there they ran, knocking at this door and 
 at that, trying to buy or borrow oil ; but all 
 in vain. 
 
 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom 
 came. The wedding procession, with music 
 and laughter, and lights and singing, passed, 
 and the wise virgins took their places in it, 
 with their lamps shining like great stars. So 
 they went to the house of the wedding. And 
 when they were all in, do you know what they 
 did ? they shut the door. They that were ready 
 went in with the bridegroom to the marriage, 
 and the door was shut. 
 
 And by and by, there was a sound outside 
 as of hurrying feet, and of hard breathing 
 after long running, and there were the foolish 
 virgins. They had no oil in their lamps, but 
 they stood in the dark and knocked. They 
 knocked and knocked, but the music drowned 
 the sound. Then they called ; " Lord, Lord," 
 they cried, " open to us." But the bridegroom 
 answered and said, " Verily, I say unto you, I 
 know you not. Here are my friends, beside
 
 320 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 me in the house. Who are you who come so 
 late?" 
 
 " Watch, therefore," said the Master, " for 
 ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein 
 the Son of man cometh." And when he 
 comes, a lamp is of no use unless it has oil in 
 it. And the Master looked at the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees ; for the lamp of a good pro- 
 fession will light no one into the approval of 
 God without the oil of a good life.
 
 IV 
 THE LAST SUPPER 
 
 ON Thursday the Feast of the Passover began. 
 It celebrated the birth of the Jewish nation. 
 The Jews had been slaves in Egypt, and on 
 that day, ages before, they had escaped. They 
 had been in a great hurry, for they knew not 
 at what moment the Egyptians might pursue 
 them, and there had been no time for them 
 to make bread. They had eaten supper, each 
 family in its own house, having a lamb for 
 meat. The blood of the lamb they had 
 sprinkled on the side-posts of the door, as a 
 sign to the avenging angel that Jews and not 
 Egyptians lived there, and the angel, seeing 
 the blood, had passed over their houses, but 
 in every house of the Egyptians there was 
 mourning that night. For bread, they mixed 
 together flour and water, and baked it without 
 yeast. This is what is called unleavened bread. 
 And when the anniversary of that escape came 
 round, centuries and centuries after, they kept
 
 322 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 it by sitting down to the same kind of supper, 
 a lamb, and bread unleavened, remem- 
 bering how God had delivered their ancestors 
 out of Egyptian bondage. This they do even 
 to this day. 
 
 Jerusalem, then, was full of people ; for the 
 lamb must first be offered in the temple, and 
 the supper must be eaten in the city. Every 
 house was filled with guests. In all the 
 markets men were buying lambs, in every 
 kitchen women were making ready to roast 
 them. Accordingly, that morning, the dis- 
 ciples said to the Master, " Where do we go 
 to-day to eat the Passover? In whose house 
 shall we find a room and a table for our 
 feast ? " But in the group stood Judas, listen- 
 ing. To-day, for the first time, the Master 
 would stay in the city after dark ; where would 
 he stay ? There might the rulers send to take 
 him. There, in the night, when all the people 
 were sitting at their suppers, and nobody was 
 in the streets, he might be arrested without 
 noise or tumult. Where would he go ? 
 
 But our Lord saw the face of Judas. A man
 
 S 
 
 THE LAST SUPPER 323 
 
 who has such thoughts in his heart as Judas 
 had, can hardly help showing them in his eyes, 
 even if he does not reveal them with his lips. 
 As the weeks had passed since the day when 
 Jesus told the disciples that he would be put 
 to death, he had seen a change in Judas. Judas 
 had continued with the Twelve, but he had been 
 ill at ease. He had hoped once, as did they all, 
 that the King would appear in power. Indeed, 
 as we have seen, they still had that hope, even 
 as they drew near to Jerusalem on the last jour- 
 ney. But the hope of Judas had grown less 
 and less. He had seen how our Lord's enemies 
 increased in number and in hatred. For a mo- 
 ment, on the day of palms and psalms, he had 
 held up his head, thinking that the city would 
 receive its King. But the procession had been 
 a failure, and after that Judas expected no- 
 thing. Then on Monday our Lord had driven 
 out the traders ; and the Sadducees, as he knew 
 well, would not forgive that. It was plain to 
 Judas that all would soon be over. It was plain 
 also to Jesus that Judas had lost hope, and with 
 it had lost faith.
 
 324 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 And therefore the false apostle listened 
 eagerly to learn where the supper would be 
 eaten. But our Lord had arranged it so that 
 he should not know. Jesus turned to the two 
 disciples in whom he felt he could put perfect 
 trust and gave them his directions. " Go into 
 Jerusalem," he said, " and in the street as you 
 pass the gate you will see a man carrying a 
 pitcher of water. Follow that man, and when 
 he goes into a house, go in after him. Ask for 
 the master of the house, and say to him, ' The 
 Lord sends you this message : " Where is the 
 guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover 
 with my disciples ? " ' And he shall show you a 
 large upper room furnished: then make ready." 
 Thus Judas was no wiser than before. 
 
 The two went, and there was the man with 
 the water pitcher ; and as he turned about, they 
 followed : so they came to the house, and all 
 happened as the Master had arranged. There 
 was a large upper room, reached by an outside 
 stairway, and in it was a table, with couches 
 placed about it. Then Peter and John carried 
 a lamb to the Temple, that a priest might kill
 
 THE LAST SUPPER 325 
 
 it, and brought it back to have it cooked, and 
 all things were made ready for the supper. The 
 sun set, and the evening came, and under cover 
 of the darkness our Lord and the others made 
 their way down the Mount of Olives, into the 
 city, to the upper room. 
 
 Now, as they took their places there was a 
 strife among them which of them should be 
 accounted the greatest ; that is, they desired, 
 each of them, to sit beside the Master in the 
 place of honor. Peter said, "The place is 
 mine : I am the oldest." John said, " No, it 
 is mine : he likes me best." Our Lord seems 
 not to have settled the matter, putting one 
 above and one below. That was not his way. 
 He showed them how it was all wrong, all 
 that contention as to which should fare better 
 than another. He rose from the table and laid 
 aside his cloak, and took a towel and tied it 
 about his waist. After that, he poured water 
 into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' 
 feet and to wipe them with the towel. For in 
 that country, where men wore sandals, it was 
 the custom for a servant to wash the feet of
 
 326 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 guests who came in from the heat and dust. 
 Our Lord, then, looking into the faces of 
 the Twelve who had been disputing which 
 was the greatest, took the part of a servant. 
 Peter, indeed, protested, as no doubt they all 
 did. Peter said, " Lord, dost thou wash my 
 feet? Thou shalt never wash my feet ! " But 
 our Lord insisted. He washed their feet, even 
 the feet of Judas. Then he said, as he put 
 his cloak about him, and took his place again, 
 " Do you know what I have done ? I whom 
 you all call greatest have washed your feet, 
 like a servant. That is what the greatest 
 ought to do. He only is truly great who is 
 serving others." 
 
 Then they went on with the Passover sup- 
 per. There was a roasted lamb upon the ta- 
 ble, and a dish of bitter herbs, like lettuce, 
 with vinegar in which to dip them, and cakes 
 of unleavened bread, round and flat. After 
 they had eaten, came a solemn conclusion of 
 the feast. A cup of wine was blessed and 
 passed about, and then the herbs were eaten, 
 each person dipping the leaves in the vinegar.
 
 THE LAST SUPPER 327 
 
 Here our Lord paused, and looking about on 
 the disciples said, " Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, that one of you shall betray me." You 
 know, he meant, how I sit here in peril of my 
 life, how the rulers have passed a sentence 
 against me that I must die, and are watching 
 daily to take me. One of you, my friends, 
 shall deliver me into their hands. This he 
 said, with sorrow in his face. " The Scrip- 
 ture must be fulfilled," he said, " where it is 
 written, ' He that eateth bread with me hath 
 lifted up his heel against me.' ' ' And they 
 were exceeding sorrowful, and began every 
 one of them to say unto him, " Lord, is it I ? 
 is it I ? " To which our Lord replied, " He 
 that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, 
 the same shall betray me. One of you, my 
 friends, who at this moment is eating this 
 supper with me shall do this deed. The Son 
 of man goeth as it is written of him : but woe 
 unto that man by whom the Son of man is 
 betrayed ! it had been good for that man if 
 he had not been born." Then Judas said in a 
 faint voice, "Is it I ? " and John whispered,
 
 328 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 lying next to Jesus, " Lord, who is it ? " and 
 the Lord dipped leaves in the vinegar and 
 gave them to Judas, saying, " What thou 
 doest, do quickly." But this he said in such a 
 way that no man at the table knew the meaning 
 of it. Some thought that Jesus was sending the 
 treasurer on some necessary errand. Judas, 
 however, knew. Up he started from the pre- 
 sence of his Master, from the company of the 
 friends among whom he had lived so long and 
 intimately, and turned his back upon them 
 all, and went out into the night. 
 
 Then, in the order of the feast, came the 
 blessing of a second cup, which was followed by 
 the recitation of the story of the escape from 
 Egypt, and by the singing of certain psalms, 
 from the one hundred and thirteenth to the 
 one hundred and fifteenth. And as he blessed 
 the cup, and gave thanks, and told them to 
 take it and divide it amongst themselves, he 
 said, "I say unto you that I will drink no 
 more of the fruit of the vine until that day 
 that I drink it new in the kingdom of God." 
 And they began to understand that the end
 
 THE LAST SUPPER 329 
 
 was near at hand and that this was the last 
 supper. 
 
 Then he took bread, and when he had given 
 thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, 
 saying, " Take, eat : this is my body, which is 
 given for you : do this in remembrance of me." 
 And then the cup, with which the Passover 
 supper ended : and when he had given thanks, 
 he gave it to them, saying, " This is my blood 
 of the new testament, which is shed for you, 
 and for many, for the remission of sins : do 
 this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance 
 of me." He had told them that he was to die, 
 but now he added that he was to die for them 
 and for many. And he asked them to remem- 
 ber. When you sit at the table together after 
 I am gone, break the bread as I am doing, and 
 pour the wine, and think of me ; how my body 
 was broken and my blood was shed. 
 
 After that, he talked with them long and 
 tenderly, trying to show them how it was best 
 for them that he should go away, and telling 
 them that they must show their love for him 
 by doing the things which he had taught them.
 
 330 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 " I see that you are very sorry," he said. 
 " Sorrow hath filled your heart. Indeed, the 
 hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall 
 be scattered every man to his own, and shall 
 leave me alone. Yet I will give you peace. Be 
 of good cheer. I have overcome the world." 
 Then he prayed with them, and when they had 
 sung another hymn the psalms, from the 
 one hundred and fifteenth to the one hun- 
 dred and eighteenth they went out into the 
 Mount of Olives.
 
 V 
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 
 
 THE full moon was shining as our Lord and the 
 disciples came down the outer stairs from the 
 upper room. The streets were still, except where 
 sounds of merry voices came from the houses 
 where happy people sat at the Passover table. 
 The little company met no opposition on the 
 way, and passed without hindrance through 
 the city gate. The road ran down the hill into 
 a deep valley, crossed the bridge of a little 
 stream called the Kidron, and then climbed the 
 ascent of the Mount of Olives. Over the brook, 
 at the foot of the mountain, was a little garden 
 of olive-trees, called Gethsemane. 
 
 On the way they had continued the conver- 
 sation of the upper room. Did they remember, 
 as they went down, the words of the psalm 
 about the valley of the shadow of death ? Into 
 that dark valley they were now descending. 
 " The time has fully come," the Master said,
 
 332 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 " of which I have been telling you. The Phar- 
 isees and Sadducees will take me, and mock me 
 and scourge me and spit upon me and kill me. 
 And you, my friends, my dear friends, whom 
 I have chosen to be with me, who have stayed 
 beside me even when others turned their backs, 
 even you will desert me. It is written, ( I will 
 smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the 
 flock shall be scattered abroad.' ' : Then Peter, 
 speaking first of all, cried, " Though all men 
 shall be offended because of thee, yet will I 
 never be offended." To which our Lord re- 
 plied, " I tell thee, Peter, that this very night 
 before to-morrow dawns, even in this night 
 before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny 
 me thrice." But Peter declared more earnestly 
 than before, " Lord, I am ready to go with 
 thee both into prison and to death. Even if 
 I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in 
 any wise." Likewise also said they all. 
 
 So they came into the garden, and he left 
 the disciples by the gate, saying, " Sit ye here, 
 while I go and pray yonder." But he took 
 Peter and James and John with him into the
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 333 
 
 deeper shade of the olives. The others sat upon 
 the grass in the moonlight, some thinking, 
 some sleeping, some listening to faint sounds 
 as of one in great distress crying to God in 
 prayer, but the words were lost in the bab- 
 bling of the running brook, or in the rustle 
 of the wind in the leaves of the trees. 
 
 Peter and James and John went with the 
 Master. And he began to be both troubled 
 and amazed. The more clearly he saw the 
 certainty of his approaching death, the more 
 impossible did it appear. He was not afraid. 
 Even then he might have escaped easily. He 
 had but to walk out of the garden gate, and 
 on along the road over the Mount of Olives, 
 past Bethany, into the country, and no man 
 would harm him. If he would but live in peace 
 and quietness, no Pharisee nor Sadducee 
 would touch him. All that they wished for 
 was that he would be silent. He might still 
 live, if he would return to the bench of the car- 
 penter. But that was utterly impossible. He 
 had come, the Son of God, in the name of God, 
 to teach the truth of God. That was his whole
 
 334 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 life : he could not imagine himself living and 
 not doing that. 
 
 But that he who thus came, on such a mis- 
 sion, with such a message, should be rejected ; 
 that he whose heart was full of love should be 
 hated ; that they to whom he came should kill 
 him, this amazed him, with a sad and dread- 
 ful amazement. And he said to the three, " My 
 soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death : 
 tarry ye here and watch with me." And he 
 went forward a little, and fell upon the 
 ground, and prayed that if it were possible 
 the hour might pass from him. Must it be ? 
 Must this calamity come? To die was little, 
 but thus to die was terrible beyond all speech 
 or thought. That the Pharisees and Sadducees 
 
 O 
 
 should kill him, the very clergy of the church, 
 with the approval of the church people, this 
 was what broke his heart. If the common sin- 
 ners of the street had hated him, he could 
 have borne it ; but that the good should hate 
 him, that men should come out of church, 
 from the act of prayer, and plan to kill him, 
 this amazed him and crushed him to the
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 335 
 
 ground. He fell upon his face and prayed, 
 saying, " my Father, if it be possible, let this 
 cup pass from me ; let me not thus die by the 
 hands of those whom I love : nevertheless, not 
 as I will, but as thou wilt." 
 
 And he came out of the deep shadow to 
 the three disciples, and found them sleeping, 
 and said to Peter, who had made such great 
 promises, " What, could ye not watch with me 
 one hour ? " And then he added, seeing that 
 they were very tired, " The spirit, indeed, is 
 willing, but the flesh is weak." Again he went 
 back into the darkness, and being in an agony, 
 he prayed more earnestly, saying, " my 
 Father, if this cup may not pass away from 
 me, except I drink it, thy will be done." And 
 his sweat was as it were great drops of blood 
 falling down to the ground. And when he 
 rose up from prayer, and was come unto his 
 disciples, he found them again asleep, partly 
 for weariness and partly for sorrow. Then, 
 going back he prayed a third time, saying the 
 same words : and the third time, when he went 
 for sympathy to the disciples, he found them
 
 336 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 again asleep. And when they waked at the 
 sound of his steps, and were ashamed and 
 sorry, he said, " Sleep on now, and take your 
 rest." 
 
 But now there was a noise as of hurrying 
 feet in the road which led from the city. 
 Torches were seen flickering between the trees 
 by the bridge across the Kidron. Jesus knew 
 well what it all meant. " It is enough," he 
 cried, waking the three, and calling to the 
 others. " The hour is come. Behold, the Son 
 of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 
 Rise up, let us go to meet them ; lo, he that 
 betrayeth me is at hand." 
 
 Judas had gone from the last supper to find 
 the men to whom he had sold his soul. He 
 may have said, " The prophet is in such and 
 such a house, in the upper room, with only 
 the group of his apostles with him. Send a 
 band with me, and we may take him before he 
 goes." If so, they came too late, finding the 
 place empty. But the next step was sure. 
 "He will be found, then, in the Garden of 
 Gethsemane." For with this quiet spot the
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 337 
 
 apostles were familiar. Many times they had 
 resorted thither. Judas knew every tree, and 
 could find his way from corner to corner, even 
 in the dim light of the moon. There he had 
 lain in the heat of the day, and in the cool of 
 the evening, close by the Master, and had 
 listened as he talked. Judas knew it well. To 
 the garden, accordingly, he brought his band 
 of servants from the high priest's house, and 
 now they came with lanterns and torches and 
 weapons. And the traitor had given them a 
 sign, saying, " Whomsoever I shall kiss, that 
 same is he ; take him, and lead him away 
 safely." And as soon as he was come, he went 
 straightway to Jesus, as if he were still one 
 of the twelve friends, saying, "Master, Mas- 
 ter," and kissed him. 
 
 Then they laid their hands on Jesus, and 
 took him. And Peter, quick and impulsive 
 now as always, stretched out his hand and 
 drew a sword which he had buckled to his 
 side, and struck the nearest man, cutting off 
 his ear. But the resistance went no further. 
 One of the other apostles had a sword, but he
 
 338 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 did not draw it. Indeed, Jesus told Peter to 
 put his sword into its sheath. " Do you not 
 know," he said, " that if I were to ask my 
 Father, he would send me instantly an army 
 of angels ? But it may not be." And, hearing 
 that, all the apostles first Peter, and then 
 James and John and Thomas and the others 
 forsook him and fled. Away they went, 
 running in dreadful haste this way and that 
 among the trees of the garden. And Jesus 
 was left alone. 
 
 But as they who had arrested Jesus led him 
 out of the gate, a single strange figure came 
 in sight. A young man, evidently just from 
 bed, came following after, having a sheet 
 wrapped about him. Some of the band turned 
 back and drove him away and chased him, 
 catching the sheet but not succeeding in catch- 
 ing him. Out he went into the darkness and 
 was lost to sight. It is in St. Mark's Gospel 
 that this white-gowned person appears, and 
 some have thought that he was none other 
 than St. Mark himself. We know that Mark 
 was then a lad living in Jerusalem, and that
 
 IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 339 
 
 a few months later his mother's house was the 
 meeting-place of the disciples. It may be that 
 the upper room was in that house, and that 
 Mark, awakened by Judas and his searching 
 party, had hurried, just as he was, to warn our 
 Lord at Gethsemane, and had arrived in time 
 to hear how Jesus prayed while the disciples 
 slept, and to see the great drops as of blood 
 upon his forehead.
 
 VI 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 
 
 IT was past midnight, but the moon lighted 
 the way. They that had laid hold on Jesus 
 led him over the Kidron bridge, beneath which 
 the little river ran like a stream of silver. Be- 
 fore them, at the summit of the hill, rose the 
 walls of the city and the open gate. At first, 
 as they entered, the people seemed to be asleep. 
 The streets were empty and all the windows 
 dark ; only a sentry was pacing back and forth 
 along the castle wall. But presently there was 
 a sound of running feet. The palace of the 
 high priest was all alight, and out of the en- 
 trance servants were running down this street 
 and that, knocking on the doors of great 
 houses ; and men looked out and said, " What 
 is the matter?" and the servants answered, 
 " He is taken ; you know who. There is to be 
 a meeting of the Sanhedrin immediately, that 
 he may be put on trial."
 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 341 
 
 The Jewish people had two rulers. One was 
 Pilate, the Roman governor, who was the head 
 of the state ; the other was Caiaphas, the high 
 priest, who was the head of the church. The 
 high priest could do nothing without the con- 
 sent of the standing committee, the Sanhedrin. 
 The members of this committee were, therefore, 
 summoned out of their sleep. While our Lord 
 was being led along in the midst of the police 
 and the crowd, they were hastily putting on 
 their clothes, and making their way to the 
 place of meeting. Jesus was brought in, and 
 the trial began. 
 
 The high priest asked Jesus of his disciples 
 and of his doctrine. He answered, " I spake 
 openly to the world : I ever taught in the syn- 
 agogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews 
 always resort, and in secret have I said nothing. 
 Why askest thou me ? ask them which heard 
 me what I have said unto them : behold, they 
 know what I said." And as he finished speak- 
 ing, an attendant, one of the lower officers of 
 the court, struck him in the face with the 
 palm of his hand. The servant, seeing no
 
 342 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 doubt how all was going, and thinking to gain 
 favor with his master, struck the King, say- 
 ing, " Answerest thou the high priest so ? " 
 Our Lord turned and said quietly, " If I have 
 spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ; but if 
 well, why smitest thou me ? " But the high 
 priest did not rebuke the brutal servant. 
 
 Instead of that, the priests and elders, and all 
 the council, sought false witness against Jesus, 
 to put him to death. -O^hey were determined 
 to kill him, but they wished to kill him legally. 
 They knew that many of the people believed 
 him to be a prophet. They feared that they 
 would be called to account for what they did. 
 So they were careful to observe the form of 
 lawv^ There must be witnesses, two at least, to 
 testify against a criminal. If they could fii^d 
 no true ones, false witnesses would do as welL^ 
 
 So the servants hurried again into the night 
 to bring in witnesses. Now one day, as he 
 taught in the temple, Jesus had said something 
 which nobody quite understood. Whether 
 the words themselves were so mysterious, or 
 whether there was so much confusion that
 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 343 
 
 they were not heard distinctly, we do not know. 
 Anyhow, they were reported to the authorities, 
 in one way and another, and they were now 
 brought up against him. Two false witnesses 
 came and said : " This fellow said, ( I am able 
 to destroy the temple of God, and to build it 
 in three days." But they did not agree. 
 They could not remember exactly what he said. 
 Even the apostles did not understand it, though 
 long after, thinking it over, they concluded 
 that he must have spoken of the temple of his 
 body. But nobody knows. He had said some- 
 thing, however, about the destruction of the 
 temple : that was plain. He had spoken, they 
 believed, against that holy place in whose ser- 
 vice the Sadducees were engaged. And so 
 speaking, he had spoken against the Sad- 
 ducees. There they sat, then, in the council, 
 ready to vote against him. 
 
 But the false witnesses had not agreed to- 
 gether. Another evidence must be found 
 against him in order to convict him legally. So 
 the high priest, clad in his robes of office, stood 
 up solemnly in the midst, and asked Jesus,
 
 344 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 saying, " Answerest thou nothing ? what is it 
 which these witness against thee?" But he 
 held his peace, and answered nothing. And the 
 high priest said unto him, " I adjure thee, by 
 the living God, that thou tell us whether thou 
 be the Christ, the Son of God." Thus the mo- 
 ment came which our Lord had long awaited. 
 " Do not tell," he said to Peter, on the day of 
 the great recognition. " Do not tell," he said 
 to the three, as they came down from the moun- 
 tain of the transfiguration. He himself would 
 declare the great truth in his own time. Thus 
 he stood looking into the faces of the leaders 
 of the people. " Yes," he said, " I am. I am the 
 Christ, the Son of God. By and by you shall 
 see me sitting on the right hand of power and 
 coming in the clouds of heaven." 
 
 Then the high priest rent his clothes ; he 
 grasped his flowing gown of linen and tore 
 it from top to bottom, as was then the way of 
 men in great excitement. " He hath spoken 
 blasphemy," he cried. " He claims to be the 
 Christ, the Messiah promised of the prophets, 
 the King of Glory, the Son of God. What fur-
 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 345 
 
 ther need have we of witnesses ? Behold, now 
 ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye ? " 
 Our Lord's mysterious words about the temple 
 had determined the Sadducees to vote against 
 him : this declaration decided the Pharisees. 
 (it was as they had suspected, then ; this Naza- 
 reth carpenter, who had despised their cus- 
 toms, claimed to be the Christ. But, indeed, 
 they were all against him. The trial was no 
 trial. Even as they came out of their houses 
 their minds were made up. " What think ye ?" 
 They; answered and said, " He is guilty of 
 death?' 
 
 Thus it all ended. He who had come from 
 heaven, in whom God dwelt and he in God, of 
 whom the Father of all had said, " This is 
 my beloved Son," the King of Glory, was 
 condemned to death. /He told them who he 
 was : I am your King, and they cried out 
 against him. The high priest rejected him. So 
 did the lesser priests, and the preachers of 
 the synagogue, and the whole church. The 
 church of God resolved to kill the Son of
 
 346 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 The church, however, had no power to put 
 any man to death. That belonged to the state. 
 1 \paiaphas had condemned Jesus, but in order 
 that the false Christ, as he thought, should be 
 killed, he must be given over into the hands of 
 Pilate.^t was as yet too early in the morning to 
 see Pilate. The moon had gone down, but the 
 sun had not yet risen. They must wait. Jesus 
 was, therefore, given into the charge of the ser- 
 vants of the palace till the day should dawift 
 The scribes and elders returned to their homes. 
 Jesus, with his hands tied, stood amidst the 
 servants. And the servants, seeing in him one 
 whom their masters had condemned to death, 
 mocked him. They struck him first on one cheek, 
 then on the other, and spat in his face. They 
 put a cloth over his eyes to blindfold him, and 
 each, in turn, dancing about him beat him, cry- 
 ing with each blow, " Thou prophet, prophesy 
 now, who is he that smote thee ? " 
 
 In the mean time two of the fleeing disciples, 
 seeing that nobody was following them, had 
 turned back. Keeping in the shadow of the 
 walls and houses, they approached the palace
 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 347 
 
 of the high priest, and at last, plucking up 
 courage, entered. The first to go in was 
 John ; and finding that no attention was given 
 to him, he went out and brought in Peter. 
 The palace was built about an open court, into 
 which the rooms opened. Across this court 
 were clattering little breathless groups of men, 
 belated members of the council, servants 
 going on hasty errands. In a hall whose lights 
 shone out into the court Christ was standing 
 before Caiaphas. It was cold in the early spring 
 morning, and the servants had built a char- 
 coal fire on the stone pavement, and stood 
 about it warming themselves. And Peter 
 joined them, holding out his cold hand to the 
 blaze. ]But Peter, as we have already seen, was 
 a talkative person, and now in his great excite- 
 ment he could not keep silent. It was plain 
 by the look of ^him that he was a stranger 
 from the country.- His clothes hinted that and 
 his voice proved it ; for the fishermen of Gali- 
 lee had a way of speaking which people in 
 Jerusalem thought to be queer. They did not 
 pronounce their words as the city people did.
 
 348 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 No sooner, then, had Peter opened his mouth 
 than the man to whom he spoke knew that he 
 came from Galilee. 
 
 The first to address Peter was a maid-servant, 
 who attended the door. She said, at once, as 
 he came in, " Art not thou also one of this 
 man's disciples?" And Peter, already tired 
 from lack of sleep, nervous and afraid, and now 
 taken by surprise, said, " I am not." John and 
 he had come to see the end, the end of all 
 their hopes. There were no longer any disci- 
 ples. That beautiful brotherhood had been 
 broken up. The Master was on trial for his 
 life, and they who had followed him would see 
 him no more. So Peter spoke out of the bit- 
 terness of his heart. He had been his disciple, 
 but he was such no longer. 
 
 Peter came in, then, and stood by the fire, 
 getting what news he could about the proceed- 
 ings in the palace, but looking so miserable 
 that another maid-servant gazed curiously at 
 him and said, " And thou also wast with Jesus 
 of Nazareth." But he denied a second time, 
 saying, " I know not what you say ; " that is,
 
 CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 349 
 
 " I don't know what you are talking about." 
 And he went out into the porch, into the pas- 
 sage which led from the court into the street. 
 As he stood by the gate a first faint streak 
 of light began to appear in the east, and a 
 rooster in some neighboring barnyard sounded 
 the signal of approaching day : the cock 
 crew. 
 
 What had the Lord said about the crowing 
 of the cock? Peter started back, but as he 
 did so the woman at the gate called to the men 
 at the fire. " See this fellow," she cried ; " is 
 he not one of them ? " " Yes," they answered, 
 looking sharply at him, "he is a Galilean ; his 
 speech shows that." And one of them, a kins- 
 man of the man whose ear Peter cut off, started 
 up and said, " Yes, yes, I saw him in the gar- 
 den with him." And Peter began to call even 
 Heaven to witness that he was no disciple of 
 the Prophet. "I do not even know this man 
 of whom ye speak." And again the cock 
 crew. 
 
 And at that moment Jesus was led forth, 
 and, hearing Peter say these words, the Lord
 
 350 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 turned and looked upon him. And Peter re- 
 membered the word of the Lord, how he had 
 said unto him, " Before the cock crow twice 
 thou shalt deny me thrice." And he went out 
 and wept bitterly.
 
 VII 
 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 
 
 AT last the day came which we call Good 
 Friday, and early in the morning the officers 
 of the Sanhedrin took Jesus to deliver him to 
 Pilate. 
 
 They had already been to prayers in the 
 temple. They had bowed down before God, 
 asking him to bless them. They came from 
 the trial before Caiaphas on their way to the 
 trial before Pilate, and the service was a quiet 
 interval between. There they prayed before 
 the altar, while in the priest's house the Lord 
 of Life was being mocked and spat upon. 
 And they were not bad men : that, as I have 
 said, was the strangest part of it. < ^They were 
 quite sure that they were doing right, They 
 said their prayers with as clear a conscience as 
 any inquisitor before he burned his neigh- 
 bor at the stake r ^They acted as they did, not 
 because their hearts^were full of sin, J)ut be- 
 cause their minds were full of prejudice. N They
 
 352 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 considered themselves good churchmen ; they 
 stood for the old way of the church. And 
 he was not a good churchman : so they said. 
 That was the heart of the whole matter. That 
 is why they hated him and killed him. They 
 were afraid that the Son of God would do 
 harm to the church. 
 
 But there was an unpleasant interruption in 
 the midst of that early service. Suddenly, as 
 they were saying their prayers, a man came in 
 with a wild, excited voice, having his hands 
 full of silver pieces. " I have sinned," he cried, 
 " in that I have betrayed the innocent hlood." 
 In he came out of. a sleepless night, filled with 
 bitter remorse. "O udas had done a deed which 
 has made his name despised and hated. He 
 had betrayed his friend. But there was good 
 in him, in spite of that. Nobody knows why 
 he did it. The little money that he got for it 
 seems an insufficient reason. Anyhow, he was 
 sorry for iO However f ull his heart may have 
 been of evil when Satan entered into him, it 
 was full now of the old love. He came to make 
 a desperate appeal. " Let him go," he asked.
 
 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 353 
 
 " He has done nothing amiss, I have betrayed 
 the innocent blood." "What is that to us?" 
 said the priests and elders, scowling at him. 
 " See thou to that ! " IsgThen Judas raised his 
 hands and flung the silver from him. Away 
 flew the thirty pieces, ringing and sliding over 
 the temple floor. And the traitor went and 
 hanged himself^ 
 
 The elders and scribes and the whole coun- 
 cil carried Jesus bound to Pilate. But Pilate 
 was a Roman and a heathen. When he 
 thought of God, which was not very often, 
 he thought of him as Jupiter, not as Jeho- 
 vah ; and when he said his prayers he sprinkled 
 grains of incense on burning coals before an 
 idol. The scribes felt that God would not like 
 them if they touched their feet to Pilate's floor. 
 So they stood calling for Pilate, with a crowd 
 gathering out of the neighboring streets, and 
 the news spreading about the town that the 
 Prophet had been seized at last ; he had been 
 seized and had made no resistance. One cried, 
 "He said that he could bring down twelve 
 regiments of angels." " Yes," answered an-
 
 354 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 other, " but he did not do it." Thus the en- 
 thusiasm of Sunday and Monday, such as it 
 was, passed away. Some there were who cared, 
 but not many, and they were mostly in hiding. 
 The crowd did not care. 
 
 Dilate heard their voices as he sat at break- 
 fast, and went out. " What accusation," said 
 he, " bring ye against this man? '/^ They said, 
 " He claims to be the King, the King of the 
 Jews." That was, indeed, a serious accusation, 
 and a true one. They meant it for a charge 
 of treason. Ca3sar at Rome was the King of 
 the Jews ; the scribes wished Pilate to believe 
 that our Lord was the leader of a rebellion, that 
 he was planning a revolution against Rome. 
 It was easy to believe that. The Jews hated 
 to be under the rule of the Romans, and many 
 times rebelled, sometimes for a day in a single 
 city, sometimes in a fierce and wide revolt. At 
 that moment there was lying in Pilate's prison 
 a man named Barabbas, who had led a riot 
 in the streets of Jerusalem in which men had 
 lost their lives. The charge, then, was a likely 
 one.
 
 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 355 
 
 But Pilate did not believe it. He already 
 knew something about Jesus. He knew that 
 the priests had delivered him for envy, because 
 they feared that he would influence the peo- 
 ple against them. He knew that the King of 
 the Jews had undertaken no quarrel against 
 Rome. So he took Jesus into his palace, leav- 
 ing the council and the crowd outside, and 
 said, " Art thou the King of the Jews ? " 
 Jesus answered, " Why do you ask ? Do you 
 say this of yourself, or did others tell it of 
 me ? " Pilate replied, " Am I a Jew ? Thine 
 own nation and the chief priests have deliv- 
 ered thee unto me : what hast thou done ? " 
 Jesus said, " I am indeed a king, but not of 
 an earthly kingdom. In my kingdom there is 
 neither crown nor army. I was born and came 
 into the world that I should bear witness to 
 the truth. The kingdom of God which I 
 preach is the kingdom of the truth." Pilate 
 did not understand. " What is truth ? " he 
 said. But it was plain that here was no cause 
 for the interference of a Roman governor. 
 He went out to the multitude before the pal-
 
 356 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 ace door, and said, "I find no fault in him 
 at all." 
 
 Then was the whole council filled with 
 anger and great dread. <(They had delivered 
 Jesus to Pilate, and Pilate was about to set 
 him freeNThus the end would be worse than 
 the beginning. They cried out with loud 
 voices, making all manner of charges against 
 him. One said, " He forbids the people to pay 
 taxes ; " and another, " He has set the whole 
 land in commotion, from Galilee to Judea." 
 " If he is a Galilean," said the governor, " he 
 belongs to Herod," the Herod who had be- 
 headed John the Baptist. Pilate tried, accord- 
 ingly, to transfer the case to Herod, but in 
 vain. Still the crowd, continuously increasing, 
 besieged the door. 
 
 ^Pilate then thought of Barabbas. "Here," he 
 said to the people, " is another man under a like 
 accusation. He, too, has taken part in an in- 
 surrection, an evil part. You have your choice, 
 now, for I will follow the old custom and re- 
 lease a prisoner at the Passover. Which will 
 you choose, Jesus or Barabbas ?^ It seemed
 
 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 357 
 
 for a moment that the multitude would ask 
 for the release of Jesus. Why should they 
 not ? He had gone about among them doing 
 good, healing the sick, bringing cheer to the 
 poor, making himself one of the people, and 
 never seeking his own gain. And the people 
 had heard him gladly. ^But the city is differ- 
 ent from the country, and a crowd is different 
 from the men who comprise it. A crowd will 
 do what hardly a man in it would be willing 
 to do alone. Moreover, the priests and the 
 scribes, the influential people, persuaded the 
 crow<p* What was Reuben to say, coming from 
 the farm, or Levi, from the fishing fleet, in 
 answer to these great men. 
 
 So the crowd obeyed the rulers, and when 
 Pilate said, " Shall it be Jesus or Barabbas ? " 
 they cried with a great voice, "Barabbas!" 
 Pilate said, " What will ye then that I shall 
 do unto him whom ye call the King of the 
 Jews? " And they cried out again, " Crucify 
 him." Then said Pilate unto them, " Why, 
 what evil hath he done ? " But they had no 
 other answer. They cried out the more exceed-
 
 358 
 
 ingly, " Crucify him." And with the other 
 voices some were heard which said, " If thou 
 let this man go thou art not Caesar's friend ; 
 whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh 
 against Caesar." And that word settled Pilate's 
 mind. He was himself in peril, then. They 
 would carry a report to Rome, and there were 
 enemies who were ready to make the most of it. 
 
 Even as he sat, however, on the judgment 
 seat, ready to deliver to the death of the cross 
 a man whom he knew to be guiltless of any 
 wrong, his wife sent him a message. " Do 
 nothing," she said, " against that just man. All 
 night I dreamed about him, dreadful dreams." 
 But it was too late.,^ilate did indeed take a 
 basin of water, and wash his hands before the 
 multitude saying, " I am innocent of the blood 
 of this just person : see ye to it/x^But the crowd 
 answered, " His blood be on us and on our 
 children." And Barabbas was released. 
 
 Jesus was then given over to the soldiers, 
 as was the way with a condemned prisoner, 
 that they might scourge him. And the sol- 
 diers took him into the common hall, and gath-
 
 CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 359 
 
 ered the whole band together, and they took 
 off his own clothes, and put a purple robe 
 upon him, some ragged and tarnished cast-off 
 finery ; and they made a crown of thorns and 
 put it on his head, and into his tied hands 
 they thrust a reed for a sceptre, and they pre- 
 tended to do homage to him as a king, bow- 
 ing down on their knees before him each in 
 order, saluting him, " Hail, King of the Jews ! " 
 then spitting in his face, and striking him 
 with the reed. 
 
 Even after this scourging and mocking, 
 Pilate made one more effort to release his 
 prisoner. He appealed to the pity of the mul- 
 titude. The king was led before his people, 
 with the mock crown on his head and the 
 mock sceptre in his hand, and the ragged robe 
 of royal purple over his shoulders ; and Pilate 
 said, " Behold, I bring him forth to you, that 
 ye may know that I find no fault in him. 
 Look at him. Behold the man ! " But when 
 they saw him there was no pity in their hearts. 
 They cried the same fierce cry, " Crucify him, 
 crucify him." " What ! " said Pilate, " shall I
 
 360 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 crucify your king?" And they all answered, 
 " We have no king but Caesar.'* Thus the 
 last word was spoken. Our Lord's own clothes 
 were put again upon him, and he was led away 
 to be crucified.
 
 vm 
 
 CKUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED. 
 
 THE death sentence was pronounced a little 
 before nine o'clock. Since there was danger 
 of disturbance when the pilgrims from Gali- 
 lee should hear that the Prophet of Nazareth 
 was to be crucified, it was decided to proceed 
 without delay. Our Lord's clothes having 
 been put again upon his back, covering the 
 wounds made by the scourge, he was led out 
 on the way to the place of execution. 
 
 Pilate's soldiers marched before and behind 
 him. CTwo thieves who had been brought out 
 of prison, having a like sentence, went the 
 one on the right hand and the other on the 
 leftN And a crowd followed, made up partly 
 of clergymen, partly of pitying women, and 
 partly of idlers from the corners of the streets. 
 Afar off came a few friends, the ipostle John, 
 and his mother, who, as you remember, was 
 our Lord's aunt, and Mary Magdalene, and 
 another Mary, mother of James the Little,
 
 362 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 and with her the mother of our Lord him- 
 self. 
 
 Thus the forlorn procession passed along 
 the streets, and out of the gate of the city to 
 the place of execution. Our Lord, like the 
 two thieves, carried his cross upon his back. 
 One of the soldiers had a hammer and some 
 stout nails. Another who walked in front had 
 a board which bore an inscription. The board 
 was to be nailed over our Lord's head upon 
 the cross. " The King of the Jews," it said, 
 showing who he was and for what crime he 
 suffered: "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of 
 the Jews." The priests had entreated Pilate 
 to change it, so that it should read, " I am the 
 King of the Jews," meaning that this was a 
 false claim which he made. But Pilate would 
 not change a word. 
 
 The cross was heavy and our Lord was 
 very weary. All night he had had no sleep ; 
 since the supper in the upper room he had 
 eaten nothing. And he had suffered much ; 
 the agony in the garden, the pain of betrayal 
 by Judas and of denial by Peter, the shame
 
 CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED 363 
 
 of condemnation by Caiaphas and by Pilate, 
 the distress o the scourging ; besides, he had 
 been on his feet since midnight. It was too 
 much. He stumbled and fell beside the city 
 gate. 
 
 Now at that moment there was coming in 
 out of the country a strong-armed person 
 named Simon of Gyrene. ^Simon was the father 
 of two sons who were afterwards numbered 
 among the disciples.,- They may have been 
 with him that morning ; two boys, one named 
 Alexander and one named Rufus, each hold- 
 ing a hand. The soldiers stopped this country- 
 man, and taking the cross from the shoulders 
 of our Lord put it on the broad shoulders of 
 Simon, and the procession moved again ; the 
 little boys, if they were there, coming on be- 
 hind their father, very scared and silent. 
 
 The women bewailed and lamented, seeing 
 that our Lord could not carry the cross. But 
 he turned to them and said, " Daughters of 
 Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for 
 yourselves and for your children, for the city 
 which thus crucifies the innocent shall be
 
 364 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 surely punished." Indeed, the day came when 
 the Romans set up hundreds of crosses along 
 that same road, and on them crucified the 
 chief citizens of Jerusalem, and the city, as 
 our Lord had said, was laid level with the 
 ground. 
 
 At last they came to the hill called Gol- 
 gotha. The crosses were laid upon the ground. 
 They who were to be crucified were fastened 
 to them by nails driven through the hands 
 and through the feet/CThe crosses were lifted 
 up, and thrust heavily into the earth, into 
 holes dug to receive them. All this time our 
 Lord had said no word. No cry had come 
 from his lips when the nails pierced his hands 
 and his feet. Now he spoke, praying for those 
 who had done this thing : " Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do.'\ 
 
 An opiate was offered him, as was the cus- 
 tom in crucifixion, to deaden the pain, wine 
 mingled with myrrh ; but when he had tasted 
 it and knew what it was, he would not drink 
 it. He would meet death with a clear mind. 
 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified
 
 CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED 365 
 
 Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, 
 to every soldier a part; for the soldiers had 
 the clothes of those who were crucified. But 
 his coat was without seam, woven from the 
 top throughout. They said, therefore, among 
 themselves, " Let us not tear it, but cast lots 
 for it, whose it shall be." So they cast lots. 
 And the rulers derided him, saying, "He 
 saved others; let him save himself, if he 
 be Christ, the chosen of God." And the 
 soldiers, each with his share of our Lord's 
 garments under his arm, cried, " If thou be 
 the King of Israel, save thyself." Even the 
 thieves joined in this cry of derision, saying, 
 " If thou be Christ, save thyself and us." 
 Thus from all sides came this noise of ha- 
 tred: "He saved others, himself he cannot 
 save. Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend 
 now from the cross, that we may see and 
 believe." 
 
 But one of the thieves joined but faintly 
 in this uproar, and presently rebuked the 
 other. " Dost not thou fear God," he said, 
 " and you in the hour of death ? We, indeed,
 
 566 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 are punished justly, for we receive the due re- 
 ward of our deeds ; but this man hath done no- 
 thing amiss." And he turned to Jesus, in the 
 face of the soldiers and the deriding priests, 
 and said, " Lord, remember me when thou 
 comest into thy kingdom." And Jesus said 
 unto him, "Verily, I say unto thee, to-day 
 shalt thou be with me in paradise." 
 
 Then our Lord saw his mother standing by 
 the cross, and with her the apostle John, whom 
 he loved the best of all. And he said to his 
 mother, " Behold thy son ! " meaning that John 
 was now to be a son to her. And to John he 
 said, " Behold thy mother ! " And from that 
 hour that disciple took her unto his own 
 home. 
 
 So the painful moments passed, and noon- 
 day came, and black clouds rose up and cov- 
 ered the sky and hid the face of the sun, as 
 if the world itself were going into mourning 
 for this death. And darkness deepened in the 
 soul of Jesus. " Eloi, eloi" he cried, " lama 
 sdbachthani ? " The very words have been re- 
 membered, as if his voice had given them a
 
 CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED 367 
 
 meaning which could not be translated. " My 
 God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " 
 This was the first sentence of a psalm which 
 was written by one who, thinking that God 
 had deserted him, found that after all God 
 loved him, through all his sufferings, with an 
 unfailing love. They who stood by, faintly 
 hearing what he said, mistook the meaning. 
 "Eloi" sounded like Elias." "Behold," 
 they said, " he calleth for Elijah. Let alone ; 
 let us see whether Elijah will come to take 
 him down." Even then, they thought, some 
 miracle might happen. There might be a sud- 
 den shining in the black sky, and down might 
 come the prophet of the old time, riding in 
 his chariot of fire. And as Jesus said "I 
 thirst," they filled a sponge with vinegar and 
 put it on a reed and lifted it to his mouth, 
 partly in pity, partly in awe. Jesus then cried 
 with a loud voice, " It is finished," adding a 
 word of faith and prayer, " Father, into thy 
 hands I commend my spirit," and so died. 
 
 It was then three o'clock, and the next day 
 was the sabbath ; and the sabbath, according
 
 368 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 to their custom, began at sundown on the day 
 before. The priests accordingly asked Pilate 
 for leave to put the thieves out of their mis- 
 ery, so that all the bodies might be removed 
 before the holy day. And Pilate gave permis- 
 sion, ^sfhen came the soldiers and brake the 
 legs of the two thieves and killed them, but 
 Jesus, they found, was dead already ; to make 
 sure, one of the soldiers with a spear pierced 
 his side\ 
 
 council, men of eminence, who had been dis- 
 ciples of Jesus in secret for fear of their 
 neighbors. He was now dead, indeed, and it 
 was too late, as it seemed, to do anything for 
 him; but remorse made them bold. Joseph 
 of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for 
 the body of Jesus. Nicodemus brought myrrh 
 and aloes to embalm it. They took the body 
 from the cross, and laid it in a cave in Jo- 
 seph's garden. Then, because the hour was 
 late, leaving the embalming unfinished, they 
 rolled a great stone to the mouth of the cave, 
 putting their shoulders to it, and departed.
 
 CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED 369 
 
 When the moon arose there remained only a 
 group of soldiers, placed on guard, pacing up 
 and down before the tomb of him who had 
 claimed to be the King of Glory and the Son 
 of God.
 
 IX 
 
 THE EMPTY TOMB 
 
 disciples of the dead prophet had one 
 consolation. Nothing could rob them of the 
 memory of their friend. All day Saturday 
 they thought of hmfc It was the sabbath, but 
 it is not likely that they went to church. How 
 could they worship in the temple with Saddu- 
 cees, or in the synagogue with Pharisees, who 
 had brought their Master to the death upon 
 the cross ? Somewhere, no doubt, they met ; 
 perhaps in the upper room where they had sat 
 with him at the last supper. There they prayed 
 that God would give them comfort and under- 
 standing ; there they remembered Him. 
 
 These men had had an experience such as 
 nobody else has had since the world began : 
 they had known a Perfect Man. It is true 
 that the Pharisees and Sadducees did not think 
 that he was perfect. They criticised him, as 
 we have seen, and found such faults in him 
 that they desired to kill him. But what
 
 THE EMPTY TOMB 371 
 
 seemed faults to them, seemed virtues to the 
 disciples, and all men since have agreed with 
 the disciples. Jesus was the one Perfect Man 
 of all time. In him our human nature came 
 to its highest excellence. He lived our com- 
 mon life, and was tempted in all things like 
 as we are, yet he sinned not. The best men 
 that ever lived have tried and prayed to be 
 like him, and none of them have succeeded. 
 
 The Perfect Man died because in order to 
 live he must submit to the Pharisees and Saddu- 
 cees : and he could not do that. The most 
 important thing in the world is true religion, 
 because that means the good health of the 
 soul. God had appointed the Jews to be the 
 teachers of true religion, but they had fallen 
 into error. The Pharisees and Sadducees were 
 teaching that which was not true concerning 
 God and concerning man. Our Lord came 
 that he might establish the kingdom of the 
 truth ; that is, that he might show us how to 
 live aright. He came to save our souls. But 
 the Pharisees and Sadducees were so sure that 
 they themselves were right that they put him
 
 372 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 to death. Thus he died in the endeavor to 
 give us true religion. He laid down his life 
 for our sake. 
 
 But that was not all. Other men have died 
 for love of God and man. He was not like 
 other men. He was the Christ, the Son of 
 God. He said mysterious words about him- 
 self words which are still mysterious de- 
 claring that he came from heaven, and would 
 come again, and that whoever had seen him 
 had seen the Father. God was in him, he said, 
 and he in God. In him was fulfilled the say- 
 ing : " God so loved the world that he gave 
 his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believ- 
 eth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life." Men had asked, " Does God 
 care ? " He who made us, and put us in this 
 world where sin and pain abound, is he truly 
 concerned about us? does it matter to him 
 that we suffer ? does it matter to him whether 
 we do right or wrong? does God care?" 
 There was no answer to this question in nature. 
 So God sent his Son to answer it. The Son of 
 God came to tell us of the love of God. He
 
 THE EMPTY TOMB 373 
 
 said that God cares for every one of us. He 
 said that sin is a very dreadful thing, and en- 
 dangers our souls as disease endangers our 
 bodies, and grieves God. He said that God feels 
 towards sinners as the father felt towards the 
 prodigal son, and that every sinner who is 
 truly sorry for his sin will be forgiven. And 
 all this he showed by his life and by his death. 
 He by whom God spoke to man went about 
 healing the sick and comforting the sad, and 
 at last for our sake died upon the cross. 
 " Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
 man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus 
 in the name of God laid down his life even 
 for his enemies. Then he said that his body 
 would be broken and his blood shed for our 
 sake, to save us from our sins, and that he 
 came to give his life a ransom for the world, 
 and in those words are great meanings of his 
 death such as even now the wisest men do but 
 dimly understand. God was in Christ, recon- 
 ciling the world unto himself. 
 
 But was that true? Was God in Christ? 
 was it indeed the most high God who spoke
 
 374 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 by him? Of course, the Perfect Man will tell 
 the truth. We may believe what he says, be- 
 cause his life shows that he is in God and God 
 in him. But even the Perfect Man may not 
 know it all ; he may guess at some of it. We 
 want to be absolutely sure. We want to know 
 with certain knowledge, that this which the 
 Perfect Man says of the love of God is no 
 guess, but is the truth. We are not satisfied 
 with the word even of the Perfect Man ; we 
 would have the word of God. But he who 
 said that he was the Son of God died like a 
 man. Could he be the Son of God and die 
 like that? 
 
 Even the men who had been his nearest 
 friends could not give a good answer to that 
 question. They lay awake all night Friday and 
 Saturday thinking about it, and talked of it 
 all day. They had seen him die. They had 
 seen the nails in his hands and feet, and the 
 wound of the spear in his side. He was as 
 dead as the two thieves. Where were all his 
 great words now ? 
 
 At the time when our Lord was buried,
 
 THE EMPTY TOMB 375 
 
 certain women had stood by to see where 
 he was laid. Two of them were mothers of 
 apostles, Salome, the mother of James and 
 John, and Mary, the mother of James the 
 Little ; two had been grievously sick and our 
 Lord had healed them, Mary Magdalene, and 
 Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward. There 
 had been no time on Friday to embalm the 
 body. It had been wrapped in linen, and 
 myrrh and aloes had been placed about it ; 
 but then the sabbath had come. The women, 
 accordingly, had gone away weeping, and had 
 agreed to meet very early on the first day of 
 the week, as we say, on Sunday, to finish 
 the embalming. So on the sabbath, which we 
 call Saturday, they sat still, thinking and talk- 
 ing and crying ; and on Sunday morning, as 
 the day began to dawn, they started from the 
 city to go to the garden where the Lord was 
 buried. 
 
 It was a day in spring, and the shadows of 
 the night still lay upon the world. The women 
 could but dimly see the way before them. 
 There were deeper shadows in their hearts.
 
 376 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 As they came near to the garden, one of them 
 said, "The stone! the great stone which 
 Joseph and Nicodemus rolled before the mouth 
 of the cave : how shall we roll it away ? " 
 They were all much troubled about it. But 
 as they entered the garden and came in sight 
 of the place, behold, the stone was rolled away. 
 They knew not what to think. Who had done 
 this thing ? There was the mouth of the cave, 
 black and open in the dun light. They came 
 near, trembling and afraid, and looked in ; 
 and the tomb was empty. They said one to 
 another, " They have taken away our Lord." 
 But who had taken the body away, or where 
 they had laid it, they could not imagine. The 
 tomb was empty ; that was plain. They said, 
 " We must go at once and tell the disciples." 
 But as they turned to go, they became aware 
 of two men in long, white, shining garments ; 
 and the women, when they saw them, fell down 
 upon their faces in great fear. But the men 
 said, " Why seek ye the living among the dead. 
 He is not here ; but is risen. Remember how 
 he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
 
 THE EMPTY TOMB 377 
 
 saying, ( The Son of man must be delivered 
 into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, 
 and the third day rise again.' ' And they re- 
 membered his words. He had told them that 
 he would rise again, but they had not under- 
 stood. They had not thought of such a rising 
 as this. " The Lord is risen," said the man in 
 white, " he is alive for evermore." With this 
 wonderful news the women hurried back to 
 the city. The shadows were gone, the sun was 
 shining, the sky was bright, and all the birds 
 were singing. The women ran along the road 
 in fear, and joy, and great amazement. 
 
 Thus they came to the apostles' lodging and 
 knocked upon the door. " The tomb," they 
 cried, " is empty. The great stone is rolled 
 away and the body is not there. And we saw a 
 vision of angels which told us that he who was 
 dead is now alive." But the apostles did not 
 believe it. It might, indeed, be true that the 
 tomb was empty : they believed that. But they 
 paid no attention to what the women said about 
 the angels. " You imagined it," they said : 
 " there were no angels. That is an idle tale."
 
 378 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 Nevertheless, they saw that the story of the 
 women called them at once to examine the 
 tomb, and two of them, Peter and John, 
 started together for the garden. They ran 
 both together, but John, probably because he 
 was the younger, left Peter far behind, and 
 came first to the sepulchre. He stooped down 
 and looked in. The tomb was empty indeed : 
 nothing was to be seen except the linen which 
 had been wrapped about the body. Then came 
 Peter, breathing hard from running, and went 
 into the sepulchre. Perhaps the body had 
 been laid in some deeper recess of the cave. 
 No, the tomb was empty. There on the ground 
 lay the linen clothes, but the napkin which 
 had been about his head was not lying with 
 the linen clothes, but was wrapped together 
 in a place by itself. There was no sign of 
 violence or of haste. It did not look as if the 
 grave had been robbed. But the grave was 
 empty. John went in, and was as perplexed 
 as Peter. So they went back to their own 
 home, walking slowly, with their eyes upon the 
 ground, thinking and wondering.
 
 X 
 
 THE KING WALKS WITH TWO 
 DISCIPLES 
 
 ALL day the disciples had been perplexed with 
 rumors. Now somebody said that the women 
 had seen not only an angel, but the Lord him- 
 self. Jesus met them, saying "All hail!" 
 and they came and held him by the feet and 
 worshiped him. Then somebody else said 
 that there had been an earthquake in the mid- 
 dle of the night, and that the angel of the 
 Lord had descended from heaven and rolled 
 back the stone from the door and sat upon it. 
 The women had seen him, and his face was 
 like lightning and his raiment white as 
 snow. 
 
 Presently it was reported that Mary Mag- 
 dalene had seen the Lord. Mary was stand- 
 ing by the door of the sepulchre weeping, and 
 as she wept she stooped down and looked into 
 the sepulchre, and there were two angels sit- 
 ting, the one at the head and the other at the
 
 380 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 feet where the body of Jesus had lain. And 
 they said, " Why do you weep ? " and she 
 answered, "Because they have taken away 
 my Lord, and I know not where they have laid 
 him." And when she had thus said she turned 
 back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not 
 that it was Jesus. Jesus said, " Why do you 
 weep ? Whom do you seek ? " She supposed 
 that it was the gardener. The morning was 
 still dark and her eyes were full of tears. 
 " Sir," she said, speaking to the gardener, " if 
 thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou 
 hast laid him, and I will take him away." 
 Jesus said, " Mary." She turned and recog- 
 nized him, and cried " My Master ! " And 
 Jesus told her not to touch him, but to go 
 and tell his brethren, the disciples. So she 
 went in haste and told them as they mourned 
 and wept. " He is alive," she said. " I have 
 seen him with my eyes." But even then they 
 did not believe. 
 
 That afternoon two men, one of whom was 
 named Cleopas, took a long walk. They lived 
 in a village called Emmaus, half a dozen miles
 
 THE KING WALKS WITH DISCIPLES 381 
 
 out of Jerusalem. They had been in the city 
 over the sabbath and were returning home. 
 They may have stood beside the cross ; they 
 may have spent the day with the disciples ; all 
 that we know is that they had been friends 
 and followers of our Lord. And as they went 
 they talked together of all these things that 
 had happened. The sun, which had been 
 shrouded in darkness on Friday, was now shin- 
 ing brightly, and all the spring birds were 
 singing Easter carols in the green trees, and 
 Easter flowers were shining all along beside 
 the road. It was a beautiful, glad day. But 
 the two men did not see the sun ; they did 
 not hear the birds ; as for the buds and blos- 
 soms, they might have been briers and bram- 
 bles, the men would not have known the 
 difference. For do you know what they were 
 doing as they walked between the pleasant 
 fields ? They were both crying. These grown 
 men were crying as they went so that every- 
 body who passed them on the way noticed 
 them. People stopped to look after them and 
 said : " What has happened ? Have they had
 
 382 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 bad news ? Are they returning from a fune- 
 ral? Why do they cry?" 
 
 At last, as they came into the country, and 
 the city was out of sight behind them, one of 
 the passers-by spoke to them. " What are you 
 talking about ? " he said, " as ye walk and are 
 sad ? " And Cleopas answered, " You must be 
 a stranger in Jerusalem. You must have come 
 to the Passover from a long way off, or you 
 would not ask. Do you not know the things 
 that are come to pass then in these days ? " 
 And he said, " What things ? " And they said, 
 " Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a 
 prophet mighty in deed and word before God 
 and all the people : and how the chief priests 
 and our rulers delivered him to be condemned 
 to death, and have crucified him. We believed 
 in him with all our hearts. We thought that 
 he was the Christ, the deliverer of Israel. 
 But he died and was buried. That was three 
 days ago. There have been strange things 
 said to-day. Certain women of our company 
 went out very early this morning to the sepul- 
 chre and found it empty. They came back
 
 THE KING WALKS WITH DISCIPLES 383 
 
 declaring that they had seen a vision of angels 
 which said that he was alive. But when some 
 of the men went they found only the empty 
 tomb. They saw no angels, neither did they 
 see the Lord. He was crucified and dead and 
 buried, and his body has been taken away. 
 That is all that we know. Do you wonder 
 that we go home crying as we go ? " 
 
 As they spoke the stranger walked beside 
 them, and when the tears came again into 
 their eyes and voices, he said, " Have you not 
 read the Bible ? Do you not know that the 
 Christ must suffer all these things ? What is 
 meant by the psalm where it is written, l They 
 pierced my hands and my feet ? ' What is 
 meant by the chapter in Isaiah where it is 
 written, ' He is despised and rejected of men, 
 a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
 He was wounded for our transgressions, he 
 was bruised for our iniquities : the chastise- 
 ment of our peace was upon him, and with 
 his stripes we are healed ?' " The words which 
 he said, and the voice in which he spoke, im- 
 pressed them deeply. " You thought," he
 
 384 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 said, " that Jesus could not be the Christ, the 
 Son of God, because he died upon the cross. 
 But you see that holy men of old time, look- 
 ing forward to the time of Christ, saw that he 
 must be put to death. It has all happened as 
 the prophets said. Yes, and more also : Christ 
 dies, but he rises again from the dead." Their 
 hearts glowed within them as he spoke. 
 
 So they drew near to the village where they 
 lived, and as they came to a parting of the 
 ways he made as though he would have gone 
 farther, but they urged him, saying, " Abide 
 with us ; for it is towards evening, and the 
 day is far spent." And he went in to tarry 
 with them. And it came time for supper, and 
 they sat down together, Cleopas and his friend, 
 and the women and the little children of the 
 family, and the stranger. They asked the 
 stranger to say the blessing. And as he said 
 it he took bread and brake it and gave to them. 
 And their eyes were opened, and they knew 
 him. It was the Lord himself ! And he van- 
 ished out of their sight. 
 
 Then they rose up immediately and hastened
 
 THE KING WALKS WITH DISCIPLES 385 
 
 back to Jerusalem, but there were no more 
 tears in their eyes as they ran along the road. 
 That night the disciples were together with 
 the doors fast shut, for they were still afraid 
 of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Only ten of 
 them were present, for Judas was dead, and 
 Thomas was so overcome with grief and dis- 
 appointment that he stayed by himself, think- 
 ing his own thoughts, asking only to be left 
 alone. The ten were sitting at the table, hav- 
 ing finished their supper. There was still some 
 fish on the table, and some honey in the comb. 
 Peter was talking excitedly. " I have seen 
 him," he was saying. " He came and spoke to 
 me. He is alive." Then there was a sound of 
 hurrying steps upon the stairs, and a quick 
 knock at the door, and when one said, " Who 
 is it ? what do you want ? " a voice said, " This 
 is Cleopas of Emmaus, with great news. Open 
 the door." Cleopas and his friend were ad- 
 mitted, and the door was locked again. And 
 they told what things were done in the way, 
 and how he was known of them in breaking 
 of bread.
 
 386 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 And as they thus spake, Cleopas telling 
 his story, and the ten crying, " He is risen in- 
 deed and hath appeared to Peter," Jesus 
 himself stood in the midst. The doors were 
 shut, and stayed shut. He had not entered by 
 the doors. He appeared, as he had vanished 
 at Emmaus, suddenly, out of the air. " Peace 
 be unto you," he said. But they were terrified 
 and affrighted, supposing that they had seen a 
 spirit. And he showed them his hands and 
 his feet, with the marks of the nails, and tak- 
 ing fish and honey ate before them to make 
 them know then that it was indeed himself. 
 " Peace be unto you," he said again ; " as my 
 Father hath sent me, even so send I you." 
 There he stood, in their sight, the risen Lord. 
 He who had died was now alive.
 
 XI 
 
 THE VISION OF THE SEVEN FISHER- 
 MEN 
 
 OUR Lord had now shown himself alive to 
 most of the apostles, and to a few others. They 
 were all able to say that they had seen him 
 face to face. But there were two who would 
 not believe, even on the word of all these hon- 
 est persons. 
 
 One of these unbelievers was James, our 
 Lord's brother. James had never believed that 
 Jesus was the Son of God. He believed, in- 
 deed, that the King would come, the King of 
 Glory, but that his own brother with whom 
 he had played as a boy was the King of Glory 
 seemed to him impossible. James had not ap- 
 peared when Jesus left the carpenter's bench 
 and began to preach. At one time, he had 
 convinced himself and his brothers that Jesus 
 was out of his right mind, and they had gone 
 to bring him back. None of his brothers be- 
 lieved. They all loved him : we may be sure 
 
 iMvi&L Oi
 
 388 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 of that. But their love did not make them his 
 disciples. All this must have grieved our Lord. 
 He must often have remembered his unbeliev- 
 ing family in the midst of his new friends. 
 And now that he had come back out of the 
 grave, one of the first persons whom he sought 
 was James. What he said, and what James 
 answered, we know not ; but after that our 
 Lord's brothers were always found in the com- 
 pany of the disciples. 
 
 The other unbeliever was Thomas. He had, 
 as we have seen, a gloomy way of thinking, 
 and was always sure that things would turn 
 out for the worse instead of for the better. 
 " Let us go with him," he said once, " that 
 we may die with him." Thomas had seen our 
 Lord upon the cross, and he could think of 
 nothing but the nails in his hands and feet 
 and the gash of the spear in his side. The two 
 came and said, " Thomas, last night at supper 
 while you were away we saw the Lord. He 
 came into the room where we were and blessed 
 us." Thomas answered, " I know that you all 
 think so, but it is something which I cannot
 
 VISION OF THE SEVEN FISHERMEN 389 
 
 possibly believe on any evidence except that 
 of my own senses. Except I shall see in his 
 hands the print of the nails, and put my finger 
 into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand 
 into his side, I will not believe." So the days 
 went on till Sunday came again ; and that even- 
 ing as they sat together, and Thomas with 
 them, still having the doors tight shut, again 
 came Jesus, and appeared of a sudden in the 
 midst of them, saying as before, " Peace be 
 unto you." Then he said to Thomas, " Reach 
 hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; and 
 reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my 
 side; and be not faithless but believing." 
 And Thomas tried the tests. Down he fell 
 upon his face, crying, "My Lord and my 
 God." And Jesus said, " Thomas, because 
 thou hast seen me, thou hast believed ; blessed 
 are they that have not seen, and yet have be- 
 lieved." 
 
 Sometimes even those who saw him did not 
 believe ; for though he was the same friend 
 and master who had died upon the cross, and 
 had in his body the marks of his suffering,
 
 390 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 yet he was mysteriously different. Two disci- 
 ples could walk with him and hear him talk 
 and yet have no idea who he was. He appeared 
 and vanished. He lived, but the new life was 
 not a continuation of the old. He did not 
 come back as Lazarus did, having the body of 
 our common human nature. He had now, as 
 St. Paul says, a spiritual body. Though when 
 we say that, we are not much wiser than we 
 were before, for we do not know what a spir- 
 itual body is. 
 
 At last there came a time when days and 
 days passed by without a sight of him. Even 
 on Sunday, which they were beginning to call 
 the Lord's day, he did not visit them. When 
 he would come again, they did not know ; and 
 he had given them no directions. They knew 
 not what to think or what to do. One day, 
 Peter and Thomas, and Nathaniel, and James 
 and John, and two others, all fishermen, were 
 talking together, and Peter said, " I am going 
 a-fishing." The others answered, " We also 
 will go with thee." They could not bear to be 
 idle ; they would return to their old trade. So
 
 VISION OF THE SEVEN FISHERMEN 391 
 
 they got into a boat and went out upon the 
 lake, as they had done so many times before, 
 and fished all night with a torch in the stern 
 of the boat to attract the fish. But they 
 caught nothing. And it began to be morn- 
 ing. A faint light appeared in the east, the 
 water changed from black to gray, and a dim 
 line of shore appeared. 
 
 And on the shore somebody stood and 
 called. " Boys," he cried, as one says to fish- 
 ermen, "have you caught anything ?" They 
 answered, " No." He said, " Cast the net on 
 the right side of the boat." So they cast the 
 net on the right side of the boat, and so many 
 fish came into it that they could not pull it 
 over the side. Immediately John said, " It is 
 the Lord." And Peter, when he heard that, 
 fastened his coat about him and jumped into 
 the water, and so swam ashore. The others 
 rowed the boat, dragging the net with fishes. 
 As soon, then, as they were come to land they 
 saw a fire of coals burning on the shore, and fish 
 laid upon it, and bread, and the stranger stand- 
 ing beside it. The stranger said, " Bring some
 
 392 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 of the fish which you have caught." Peter 
 went to help and they drew the net to land, 
 and counted the great fishes, a hundred and 
 fifty and three; and for all there were so 
 many, yet was the net not broken. The stran- 
 ger then invited them to breakfast. " Come," 
 he said, " and eat of the meal which I have 
 prepared," and he gave them bread and fish. 
 
 All this time they looked at him, and at one 
 another, and then back at him. He seemed 
 a very friendly stranger. There was some- 
 thing familiar, too, about him, stranger though 
 he was. Indeed, they all knew that he who 
 stood beside the fire and fed them was the 
 Lord himself. But was it the Lord, indeed ? 
 They wished to say, " Who are you ? " but 
 they dared not ask the question. It was the 
 Lord, but they did not know him as they 
 would have known Andrew or Matthew. They 
 recognized him with their hearts rather than 
 with their eyes. 
 
 So they breakfasted together on the sand. 
 And after they had eaten, the Lord turned to 
 Peter. " Simon," he said, calling him by his
 
 VISION OF THE SEVEN FISHERMEN 393 
 
 other name, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
 thou me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," 
 said Peter, " thou knowest that I love thee." 
 But he did not claim to be a better lover than 
 the others : he had learned the hard lesson of 
 humility. The Lord said, " Feed my Lambs." 
 The fisherman was to be a shepherd; the 
 lambs which he was to feed were to be the lit- 
 tle children of the flock of Christ. He was to 
 show his love by his great care for them. 
 
 Then the Lord said a second and a third 
 time, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? " 
 And when Peter again assured him of his love, 
 he answered, " Feed my sheep." Thus Peter, 
 who had three times denied his master, spoke 
 now these three times to tell him that he truly 
 loved him. 
 
 SI AifiNOKMAL SCHOOL, 
 ttos
 
 XII 
 THE KING RETURNS TO HEAVEN 
 
 So forty days passed by. Some of them were 
 days of wonder, when the Lord came and 
 talked with the disciples. Others were days 
 of expectation, when the disciples waited and 
 he did not come. Indeed, they knew not at 
 what moment or in what place he might ap- 
 pear. Now he was suddenly present with them 
 in Judea, then in Galilee. Sometimes one of 
 them walking by the lake or going to pray in 
 the silence of the hills, would find the Lord 
 standing beside him. On one occasion he 
 made himself known to more than five hun- 
 dred disciples at once, most of whom were still 
 living when St. Paul was writing his epistles. 
 One purpose of these appearances was to 
 make them certain that he who had died upon 
 the cross had come to life again. They saw 
 him face to face, and heard him speak. Thus 
 they knew beyond all doubt that he was in- 
 deed the Son of God. He who had lived so
 
 THE KING RETURNS TO HEAVEN 395 
 
 many quiet years at Nazareth, and had been a 
 carpenter there, earning his bread like other 
 men ; he who had gone out preaching the 
 kingdom of God, and had taken them with 
 him, treating them as dear, familiar friends ; 
 he whom the Pharisees and Sadducees had 
 hated and had brought at last to the death of 
 the cross, he was the Son of God. He was 
 the Word of God ; that is, by him God spoke. 
 And the Word was God. In him, their friend, 
 God dwelt here on earth. They had not un- 
 derstood it. When his enemies had seized him, 
 his disciples had forsaken him and fled. But 
 now, seeing that death had no dominion over 
 him, they cried with Thomas, " My Lord and 
 my God." 
 
 Another purpose of the appearances was to 
 assure them that death is not the end. It seems 
 the end. The body dies, and so far as we can 
 see, the soul dies with it. There is no voice 
 nor answer after that. What we need is a 
 clear word from beyond the grave. We want 
 somebody to come back and tell us. Christ 
 came back, declaring that death is not a wall
 
 396 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 but a door. After we die we shall live again ; 
 
 lie said, " Because I live, ye shall live also." 
 
 Then he gave his disciples their last in- 
 structions. They were to go now and teach 
 what he had taught them. What they had 
 heard in secret, they were to proclaim 
 openly. Those who received the teaching 
 and believed, and desired to live in the new 
 way, they were to baptize. Thus they were to 
 initiate them into a new society. He had al- 
 ready told them how they were to break bread 
 and eat it, and to pour wine and drink it, in 
 remembrance of him. This they were to do at 
 the meetings of the new society. 
 
 One day he took them out as far as Bethany. 
 They went again over the familiar way, out of 
 the Jerusalem gate, into the valley which had 
 been to them the valley of the shadow of 
 death, past the Garden of Gethsemane at whose 
 gate they had deserted him, and up the ascent 
 of the Mount of Olives, where palm branches 
 still lay withered by the side of the road. Men 
 who met them saw eleven disciples. The Mas- 
 ter, in the midst of them, they saw not. Only
 
 THE KING RETURNS TO HEAVEN 397 
 
 the disciples, who had the clear vision of faith, 
 saw him. They knew now the answer to the 
 question which one of them had asked, " Lord, 
 how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, 
 and not unto the world?" 
 
 But there was one matter which still per- 
 plexed them. The kingdom of God which 
 they had so long expected, and of which the 
 Lord had said so much, when and how was it 
 to come ? Even now they could not get rid of 
 the old notion of a kingdom with a palace and 
 a throne, and a place of power among the na- 
 tions. So they asked him as they went, " Lord, 
 wilt thou at this time restore again the king- 
 dom to Israel ? " And he answered, " The 
 time is in the hand of the Father, and it is not 
 for you to know it. But the Kingdom is in 
 your own hearts and in the hearts of those 
 who shall receive your words. You shall be 
 the founders of it. You who to-day are poor, 
 and unknown in the great world, and hated 
 by many men, shall be given power from on 
 high, the power of goodness, and of love, and 
 of the grace of God. You shall be witnesses
 
 398 WHEN THE KING CAME 
 
 unto me, telling how I came, the Son of God, 
 from heaven, to give men life here and here- 
 after, teaching them to live as I have com- 
 manded you, showing my spirit in your lives. 
 And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
 end of the world." 
 
 When he had spoken these things, raising 
 his hands over his disciples in farewell and 
 blessing, while they beheld, he was taken up, 
 and a cloud received him out of their sight. 
 And while they looked steadfastly toward 
 heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood 
 by them in white apparel, saying, " Ye men of 
 Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? 
 This same Jesus which is taken up from you 
 into heaven, shall so come in like manner as 
 ye have seen him go into heaven." And the 
 disciples remembered the saying, " A little 
 while, and ye shall not see me ; and again, a 
 little while, and ye shall see me, because I go 
 to the Father." They began to understand it. 
 They began to see that the Lord had appeared 
 and disappeared during the forty days to teach 
 them to expect him always and everywhere.
 
 THE KING RETURNS TO HEAVEN 399 
 
 Into the cloud he went, and out of the cloud 
 he comes, the cloud of human need. They fell 
 upon their faces and worshiped the King of 
 Glory. Their hearts were full of faith and 
 love and joy. He had gone away out of sight 
 only to return invisible and to abide with them 
 and with us all forever. 
 
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