HERALDS OF GOD
story of Gethsemane. He took his hearers into the darkness of the Garden, and spoke of our Lord's prayers, of the anguish of the conflict and the sweat of blood; he spoke of the seamless robe with the red marks of that agony upon it; then suddenly he broke off into Mark Antony's appeal to the citizens of Rome:
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent—
and the preacher, having quoted the almost unbearably moving passage, added the cry that broke from the Roman's lips when the crowd at last caught fire "Now let it work." Then back to the Garden, and the place of prayer, and the dark betrayal night, and the eternal love that agonized for sin; and it is said that when the sermon closed that day with a great shout "Now let it work!" the spiritual effect was well-nigh overwhelming.
Such occasions, however, are the exceptions which prove the rule. Have you noticed how often there comes in the greatest literature, after the surge and passion of a mighty theme, the contrasted beauty of a quiet and measured close? You have it in the Greek tragedians: if Aeschylus and Sophocles sometimes bring the dramatic tension near to breaking-point, they invariably relax it in the final scene. You have it in the closing lines of Paradise Lost, of the Idylls of the King, of the Tale of Two Cities, of Sohrab and Rustum,
138
