“Oh, my son! How canst thou ask me to leave thee and set out on the road in search of the Rabbi of Galilee? Obed is rich and hath slaves, and in vain they sought Jesus over hills, and through sandy plains from Chorazim to the Country of Moab. Septimus is mighty and hath soldiers, yet in vain they hunted for Jesus from Hebron to the sea! How canst thou ask me to leave thee? Jesus is afar off, and our grief abideth with us within these walls and imprisons us between them. And were I to meet with him, how should I persuade this longed-for Rabbi, for whom the rich and mighty sigh, to come down from city to city as far as this solitude in order to cure such a poor little impotent on such a ragged mattress!”
But the child, with two long tears on its thin little face, murmured: “Mother, Jesus loveth all the little ones. And I am still so small and have such a heavy sickness and should so like to be cured!” To which the mother sobbing: “child of mine how can I leave thee? The roads of Galilee are long, and the pity of men is short. So ragged, so limping, so sorrowful am I, that even the dogs would bark at me from the homestead doors. None would give ear to my message, none would show me the dwelling-place of the sweet Rabbi. And, my child! perhaps Jesus is dead, for not even the rich or the mighty meet with him. Heaven sent him. Heaven hath taken him away. And with him the hopes of the sorrowful have died for ever.” The child raised his trembling little hands from out of his dark rags and murmured: “Mother, I want to see Jesus.”
And immediately, opening the door slowly and smiling, Jesus said to the Child: “I am here.”
BALLANTYNE PRESS