Page:The centurion's story (IA centurionsstory00macf).pdf/30

 would not lift a finger. He would not speak a word in his own behalf.

Marcus, the figure hanging there in the shadow, twisting and turning in restless involuntary movements that strained and tossed and strained again at the hideous nails that held him, searched my soul as never it was searched before.

Marcus, there be reaches in my mind, there be depths unexplored in the recesses of my heart, there be heights unsealed of my imagination such as never I have dreamed on before. This man exposed them to me. Is this man god? I begin to wonder. I had said that he was the noblest man I had ever seen; the manliest, but as I write and memory informs my reason again and yet again of what I saw this afternoon, I begin to question if we did not slay upon the cross the God of all the world. Two questions mount themselves like twin consuls in my mind, each inquiring insistently of the other, and one says, "He must be god, for how could man bear himself as he bore himself to-day, and die as he died?" The other says, "He must be man, for how could god bear what he bore to-day and die as he died?" But enough of speculation. You will think I am beside myself—perhaps I am. Perhaps he was. One human incident I must relate that shows the fine, high calm and utter selflessness of the man. When the darkness was thickest, instinctively we all huddled closer to the cross, for there appeared once more that strange luminous glow upon his hair and features which I had noted in the garden. While we clustered round, I heard a sob. The figure of a woman had pressed near, supported by a young man. She pressed close—I did not restrain her.