Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/255

Rh so he remained, gazing steadfastly on the rock and waiting for our answer, for as long, I suppose, as one would take to count ten very slowly.

I have read in a certain story of enchantments how a prince was caused by a magician to plunge his head into a vessel of water and to hold his breath, and behold, while he was holding his breath beneath the water, he seemed to himself to have travelled long journeys and to have been shipwrecked and to have had many other adventures, and to have married a wife and reared up children, and to have passed through a life of many years even till he had reached old age, and all this within the compass of a single breath. Even so was it with us while Jesus was waiting our answer. For we seemed in that moment to be summing up all our past life and all the life that lay before us, in order to answer this question of Jesus aright. For we dared not lie to him nor flatter him; yea, rather we would have displeased him sooner than have flattered him. Such a constraint lay upon us to speak the truth at all times in his presence; and especially now. But what the truth might be we knew not, and searched through all the past and groped in the future, if perchance we might light upon it.

A few Sabbaths, before, we should have been very ready with an answer; for then all men said that Jesus was the Redeemer, the Christ; and we had often said the same thing. But now many stumbling-blocks lay in our path. The Scribes and the pious and the learned, all, save a very few, had rejected Jesus. The patriots had joined themselves to him for a long time, but they too had cast him off; yea, and even the rest of the men of Galilee had been led away with them. The poor, as well as the rich, were now against us. In fine, none were now on our side except a few of the lowest of the people, sinners and