Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/160

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152
PHILOCHRISTUS.

they departed from the synagogue. But Jesus looked wistfully at them, like unto one hoping for good news; for he thought that they would have understood that God had sent him, perceiving the finger of God in the healing of the man that was sick of the palsy. But when he perceived their dissimulation, he was silent until he had come forth from the synagogue: and then I heard him sigh, and he said in a low voice to himself, "For judgment am I come into this world, that those who see may see not."

During the rest of that day Jesus sat musing: and at one time he seemed to be sad, but at another time to rejoice. But even when he was sad, there always appeared a joy beneath the sadness; so that his sadness was but as the cloud that dappleth the side of a mountain, the summit whereof shineth bright in the sunlight. For it was the nature of Jesus always to be cheerful and to rejoice; insomuch that peace and joy seemed to go forth from him to all men and things around him, and from them to come back with increase to him again. But now he was sorrowful, as we gathered, because of the hardness of heart of the Pharisees. For howsoever they might outwardly dissemble, yet did he discern their hearts, that they were inwardly grieved, yea, at the goodness of God; wherefore now indeed, after this second token of their hardness, it seemed to be indeed the will of God that the Good News should be of no avail unto the Scribes, save only to make their eyes blind, and their hearts fat, and their ears hard of hearing. For this cause our Master sorrowed: but for some other cause he rejoiced, or seemed in expectation of some joy to come.

But as for the rest of us, we disputed among ourselves touching this new power which Jesus had brought into the world: for it seemed more than human, and such as no prophet before him had ever used or so much as sought