Rejected of Men. Говард Пайл
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and we must not be blamed when we fulfil our destiny.
Shortly after that visit of the priests and Levites to the baptisms of John, the promised Messiah suddenly appeared in the midst of the motley crowd gathered to hear the truth.
A poor woman, the mother of two ordinary fishermen, thus described the divine miracle that thereupon happened. She told it somewhat thus: “I saw it. There was a great many people around; some saw it and some did not see it. I can’t tell just how it was, but it was after He went down into the water with John. There was a light as if it was sunshine up this way; then something came. It looked like a dove–they all said it was a dove. It looked like it came down upon Him. I don’t know how long it lasted–I saw it for a little and then it was gone. He was standing in the water along with John; then He came out close to where I stood. The folk were calling out ‘Hallelujah!’ all about us. They were crying ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’They crowded so they pushed me into the water. I felt as though I were going crazy, and I, too, kept calling out ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’”
Even in the recounting of such a reality it sounds shocking. How shocking, then, must it have been to those of us who were living when it really happened.
But with this, the mission of John came to an end. The crowds that had gathered about him departed hither and thither, and the earth was left bare and desolate where the growing things of the spring-time had been trampled into the dry and dusty soil by the treading of many feet–where the pure waters of the streams had been defiled by human contact.
V
THE BEGINNING OF THE WORKS
WITH the dispersion of the great crowd of poor ignorants who had gathered about John the Baptist, we thought that the agitation was ended.
We were mistaken.
For a time nothing more was heard of the Christ whom John had baptized. Then, suddenly, there came rumors, first from one side and then from another; fugitive words telling of a renewed excitement that had begun to ferment obscurely in that same nether class that had followed John to his baptism. Gradually these rumors became more and more dominant, and every day more people heard of and became interested in what was said. The interest was not very great with us, but it was sufficient to keep alive the observation of the daily papers.
The Messiah who had been baptized by John had reappeared, and many people of the poorer classes were gathering about Him in numbers to hear His teachings and to receive His word. These poor people asserted that He performed many miracles; that He could heal the sick and diseased by merely touching them with His hand; that He caused the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see. It was said that many miraculous cures had already been performed by Him.
It happened at this time that a party of men of the literary and artistic world had chartered a vessel and had fitted it up as a floating studio, adorning it with antique furniture, rugs, hangings, and bric-à-brac.
It was a very merry party–a party of sadducees who strenuously believed in no resurrection. There was Archibald Redfern, the writer-artist-man-about-town; Corry King, assistant editor and business manager of the Aurora; Marcey, the architect; Chillingham Norcott, the artist; Allington, of the publishing-house of Richard White & Co.; Dr. Ames, Pinwell, and others. During the cruise, Norcott, Pinwell, and Redfern had enriched the panels of the cabin with marines and landscapes and decorative pieces until the interior looked almost like a picture-gallery. Everything was as luxurious as possible. They had engaged Pierre Blanc to go with them and to cook for them, and they paid him six hundred dollars for the three or four weeks of the cruise. When it is said that Dr. Ames himself selected the wines and liquors, nothing more need be said concerning the provisioning of the expedition.
The cruise had been a complete success, and now they were about returning to the metropolis again. They had run short of ice, and had put in at a small coast town for a fresh supply.
Redfern, who had arrogated to himself the position of head-steward, had gone ashore in the boat with the steward de facto. There he heard strange and wonderful reports of miracles that were being performed in the neighborhood.
As the boat, returning from the shore, touched the side of the schooner, Redfern came scrambling aboard, and almost immediately his loud, brassy voice was heard from end to end of the vessel, telling of wonders performed and of miracles wrought.
Some of the party were mildly gambling at poker under the awning, waiting Redfern’s return with the ice. Corry King lay stretched out upon a couch in his shirt-sleeves reading a magazine, a tall glass of brandy-and-soda at his elbow. Norcott was sketching listlessly; the others were talking together. They all looked up at the sound of Redfern’s loud voice. There was nothing funny in what he said, but they all laughed.
“And you have returned cured of body and sound of soul, I suppose,” said Ames.
“It isn’t of myself I’m thinking,” said Redfern, in his strident, insistent voice, a voice that almost stunned the hearer if he were near by and not used to it. “It’s not of myself I’m thinking. I’m thinking of you. I tell you, boys, this is the chance of your life. I’m going to take you all ashore this afternoon. Your souls have run down during this cruise, and what you want is to get a good brace of salvation before you get back home again.”
They all went ashore in the afternoon. The town appeared to be singularly deserted. A few guests hung about the third-class summer hotel porch, sitting uncomfortably on the hard, wooden chairs in the shade. An occasional inhabitant appeared here and there on the hot, sandy stretch of street, but everywhere there was a feeling of dull and silent depletion. The party inquired at the hotel office and found that He whom they sought was then supposed to be at a certain place about six miles below the town where there was a high and rocky hill. They found that they could obtain a conveyance, and, after a good deal of jocular chaffing with the fat and grinning hackman, the vehicle was ordered, and a team of four horses. It was a dusty, rattletrap affair, and the party piled in with much noisy confusion, struggling for seats, and sitting in one another’s laps. The hotel guests sat looking on with a sort of outside interest and amusement. Then the hack drove away with a volley of cheers and a chorus of mimic coach-horns.
“Look here, boys,” called out Corry King, “what I want to know is whether Redfern’s taking us down here for our sakes or for his own? Either he has got to take this thing seriously or else we have.”
“It’s all for your sake, my boy! For your sake!” cried out Redfern’s brazen, dominant voice. “I made up my mind last night when I saw the way you bucked up against Marcy’s luck in that last jack-pot that you needed some sort of salvation to pull you through till we get you home again.”
It was three o’clock before they approached their destination. As they drew near they found that everywhere vehicles of all sorts were standing along the road, the horses hitched to the fence at the road-sides. They could see from a distance as they approached that the hill was covered with a restless, swaying mass of people, and then they saw that the crowd was moving voluminously all in one direction–away from the crest.
“I’m afraid you’re too late to hear Him, gentlemen,” said the driver, and he urged the horses forward with greater speed.
It was true; they were just too late to hear that sermon which voiced the sublimest code of ethics the world has ever heard–sublime, but, in our opinion, impracticable.
Presently they were met, almost suddenly, by the broken, ragged outskirts of the moving crowd that was beginning to pour away from the hill. They had not, until then, any idea how great was the agitation centring around this strange being.
Then, almost in a moment, the crowd became so dense that the hack could make no further progress. “I reckon we’ll have to pull out of the way,” said the driver.
“All right,” said Redfern; “pull away.”
And now the crowd was so thick about them that it was with some difficulty that the driver could edge his horses over to the side of the road. And every instant the mass of men and women grew more and more dense. “Look out where you’re going! Look out there!” cried a chorus of voices, as the crowd melted and dissolved before the