“I do not comprehend this mysticism, though the word-frame is beautiful.”
“Then know it. On the cross, Immanuel cried: ‘It is finished!’ Glorious salvation’s work was finished; but then He lingered still to bless, especially His friends. Count the steps. He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast the seven devils and who doubtless clung to the Savior, her only hope, her only deliverance from the awful realities of the tragedy in her soul. Thy Rizpah was never so ill as Magdalene, yet surely she is worthy as much tenderness.”
“Secondly. Jesus appeared to His mother; love’s appearing. I see her now, in mind, by the record here unnamed—left in the sacred privacy of her grief; too stricken to minister, but close to the triumph, because all needful of its blessing. I see a third step—Jesus, by special appointment, meeting the backsliding fisherman of Tiberias, now gone away to his nets, persuading himself he had done and suffered enough, even as does Sir Charleroy to-day.”
“I’ve been called Pilate. Go on. Call me Peter; I can bear it.”
“Fourthly. The Christ joined Luke and Cleopas, the Greek proselytes, now doubters; but the chill of their misgivings was burned away in hearts inflamed, while they journeyed to Emmaus.”
“Now call me Luke-Cleopas, priest. I’ve the chill of the doubts, I’m sure.”
“Fifthly. He came to His own little church-of-the-upper-room, to breathe on it peace and to display His all-convincing body; then He waited a week for a special unfoldment to Thomas, the all-doubter, leaving him filled with all faith.”
“Oh, that He’d come to Sir Charleroy!” said the knight.
“He does, but the knight’s eyes are holden, and he starves while toiling for fish in a dead sea. Listen to these words by the shore of Tiberias: