The article of Eric Black in the Daily Wire was far less enthusiastic in tone than that written by Hampson, Joseph's old and trusted friend. It was very judicial in manner, and from this very circumstance it gained an additional weight, and had, perhaps, even a greater influence than the other.
Eric Black, the brilliant young journalist, had never faltered in his resolve to follow the banner of Christ since the night when, with his own eyes, he saw the man of God raise up the sufferer from his sick bed. At the same time, Black, far more than Hampson, was a man of the world, a young, brilliant, modern man of the world. He realized that in order to make the Kingdom of Heaven intelligible it was most certainly necessary to understand the kingdom of this world as well. To plant the good seed in the waiting ground one must not only know all about the seed itself, but must be acquainted with the properties of the ground in which it is destined to fructify.
In thoroughly understanding this, the journalist, in his great summing-up article of the work of Joseph the evangelist, had refrained from enthusiastic comment, and had merely stated and made a record of indubitable, incontrovertible fact.
Never before, during the time of the Teacher's ministry, had there been a concise epitome of its events, its progress, and its results.
London, and all England, indeed, was supplied with such a document now, and even the most thoughtless were compelled to pause and wonder what these things might mean.
Every instance of the supernormal happening—Eric Black refused the word supernatural, and substituted for it the wiser and more comprehensive word—was tabulated, set forth in detail, and attested by the affidavits of witnesses whose bona fides could not be doubted.
The enormous charities which had begun to be active under the ægis of the Teacher were explained and discussed, and in one day London was amazed to learn of great fortunes which were being deflected from their old paths and were pouring their benefits to relieve the necessities of the downtrodden and oppressed. Names and sums were given, and the man in the street gasped as he realized the tremendous force of a personality which had already captured millions of money for the work and service of God.
If some of the wealthiest and most celebrated men in England had gladly given up a great part of that which they possessed for the benefit of others, was there not, indeed, something beyond all ordinary explanation in this stupendous fact?
Perhaps, indeed, such occurrences as these impressed the great mass of the public more even than the supernormal occurrences to which Black's famous article bore witness. To the mind of the ordinary self-seeking man there is something far more wonderful in the fact of a man with a hundred pounds giving seventy-five of it away to other people, without hope of earthly reward or wish for earthly praise and recognition, than even the appearance of an angel in the sky heralding the second coming of Our Lord would probably be.
The brain of each single unit of the human race is exactly what he has made it by a long series of habits and thoughts directed to one object. It is not more wonderful that the sot and low-minded man cannot appreciate beautiful music or perfect scenery than it is that the self-centred intellect is unable to accept the evidence for the unseen or realize that this life is but a phantom that will pass away.