Page:As others saw Him.djvu/212

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AS OTHERS SAW HIM.

fence unto us. He spake as one having authority, and it seemed to us as arrogance. And when we would speak with him in the gates, and know his own thought, he evaded our questionings and eluded our testings. He seemed aloof from us and our desires. All Israel was pining to be freed from the Roman yoke, and he would have us pay tribute to Rome for aye. Did he feel himself in some way as not of our nation? I know not; but in all ways we failed to know him.

And as I was communing thus, the sun shone forth from a rift in the clouds and illumined for a space the crown of Calvary, and I stretched forth my hands to the figures on the cross, and cried aloud in my perplexity, "Jesus, what art thou?" And then I bethought me, and my hands fell to my side, and I said, "What wert thou, Jesus?" Naught answered me but the distant rumbling from the gloomy clouds.

But the sun was setting over Israel, and I turned to my father's house, there once more to celebrate the Feast of the Deliverance from Egypt.