The man who but a moment before realized for them the absolute visual picture of Christ Himself, as He may have looked on one of those great moments of tenderness and triumph which star the Holy Gospel with the radiance of their recital, was now, indeed, a visible picture in his own body of the "Man of Sorrows Who was acquainted with grief," The Redeemer Who fell by the way.
Sir Thomas and Hampson were standing by the Teacher as he fell, and it was their arms which received the swooning form, carried it into an inner room, and laid it gently upon a couch.
But it was Mary, tall, grave and unutterably lovely in her healing ministry, who chafed the cold, thin hands, wiped the damp moisture from the pale and suffering brow, and called back life into the frail and exhausted vessel of God.
While the Teacher was being tended by his friends Sir Thomas had given orders to the butler to take his other guests into the large dining-room, where there was some supper waiting for them.
Every one assembled in the great, rich room, with its Jacobean carvings and family portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds.
But nobody ate anything, or sat down at the long, gleaming table. One and another took a sandwich, but every one was too expectant and highly strung to think of food in the ordinary way.
Probably for the first time in the lives of the society people there, they felt a real brotherhood and equality with the rugged sons of toil. The cultured accents of Park Lane mingled with the rougher voices of the Master's disciples. Distinguished and famous men walked with their hands upon the shoulders of the peasants from Wales. Beautiful women in all the splendor of dress and jewels hung upon the words of some poor servant of God whose whole worldly possessions were not worth twelve inches of the lace upon their gowns.
It was an extraordinary scene of absolute, uncalculating love and brotherhood. As in the very early Christian time, the mighty and the humble were once more one and equal, loving and beloved in the light which streamed from the Cross on which the Saviour of them all had died in agony that they might live in eternity.
There was no single trace of embarrassment among Joseph's followers. They answered the eager questioning of the others with quiet and simple dignity. The marvellous story of Lluellyn Lys was told once more with a far greater fulness of detail than the public Press had ever been able to give to the world. The miracles which had taken place upon the wild hills of Wales were recited to the eager ears of those who had only heard of them through garbled and sensational reports.
During the half-hour all the London folk were put in possession of the whole facts of Joseph's mission and its origin.