Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/251

Rh that the most part had been sorely shaken in their faith, because Jesus had denied to work a sign in heaven: and it was even as Jesus had warned us; the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees had entered into our souls. Wherefore, although we all still called our Master, as before, the Christ or Anointed, and the Redeemer, or at the least, the Prophet, yet inwardly we were wavering in our hearts; and a breath would have moved us this way or that way, towards belief or towards unbelief. For indeed we were being driven down, as it were, from our former faith, whereby we had believed in Jesus as a worker of wonders or fulfiller of prophecy; and we were falling (as it seemed, but in truth we were rising) to another and a new belief in Jesus as a man, full of tenderness and suffering and patience, and withal of a goodness that could not be deceived nor disappointed; and this perchance was the very thing whereat Jesus aimed, to wit, that we should believe in him as the Son of man, conquering through weakness. For our former belief was as the mire or shifting sand, because it could give no firm footing: but our new belief in the Son of man was to be as the rock whereon we and all others were to stand immovable for ever. But we, at this present, being, as it were, still on the sand, and not yet aware of the Rock, how nigh it was at hand, we, I say, knowing in our minds that we wavered, were notwithstanding desirous to keep our wavering secret; insomuch that we spake little on this matter one to another, yea, we would scarce confess it each man to himself: so greatly did we tremble at the very thought of severing ourselves from Jesus. Yet, for all our dissembling, Jesus knew our thoughts, even as though he had been seated in our hearts.

By this time the aspect of the country shewed that we were leaving the region of the lake. For the thickets of