Page:Jesus of Nazareth the story of His life simply told (1917).djvu/26

 who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come as you have seen Him going into Heaven."

"This Jesus." Who was this wonderful Man? Was He a true Man, and if so, was He more than Man? Pilate, the Roman Governor who condemned Him to death, was so struck by His calm majesty, His silence, and His patience in the midst of cruel injustice and pain, that he asked Him: "Whence art Thou?" He wanted to know if He was a mere man, or if there was any truth in the belief of many, that He was more than Man, that He was the Son of God.

Pilate's Prisoner made him no answer, because none was needed. He had been three and thirty years in the world, and the question: "Whence art Thou?" had been answered so plainly by the wonderful works He had done, that those only who were wilfully blind could help knowing who He was and whence He came.

About five years after the Ascension of Christ into Heaven, a young man was hastening to Damascus to seize and punish all he could find, men and women who believed in Jesus of Nazareth. Suddenly, a light from Heaven shone round about him, and, falling on the ground, he heard a Voice saying to him: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" And he said: "Who art Thou, Lord?" And the Voice made answer: "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest."

That question and its answer changed the persecutor Saul into the great St. Paul. He came to know and love our Blessed Lord so well, that neither tribulation, nor danger, nor the sword, nor death, nor any creature, he said, could separate him from Him.

Now the question of Pilate and of Saul was of im-*