"'And mine rejoiceth.' I answered. 'We shall see him! I shall be near him! Oh, if he be like this sweet prophet of God, I shall love him with all my soul's being! How wonderful that we are to be thus associated with this Divine Person! Welcome the hour of his blessed advent!'
"'Wilt thou welcome the advent of a sufferer?' said a voice so near that it startled us by its abruptness, and, looking round, we saw, standing within the shadow of a wild olive tree, a young man who was a stranger, but to whom I afterwards became deeply attached. His face was pale and intellectual, and his form slight but of the most symmetrical elegance. His question at once made me sorrowful, for it recalled the sad prophecy of Esaias.
"'He is also to be king and monarch of the world, and infinitely holy and good,' I said. 'If thou hast been near, thou hast heard the glorious things the prophet has spoken of him.'
"'I have been near—I was reclining beneath this tree when you seated yourselves there. Be not deceived; the divine Man who is to come is to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He is to be rejected by Israel and despised by Judah. Those whom he comes to bless will despise him for his lowliness and obscurity. His life will be a life of tears, and toil, and heaviness of heart, and he will at last be cut off from among the living, with the ignominy due only to a transgressor. Dost thou welcome the advent of a sufferer?'
"'But how knowest thou this? Art thou a prophet?' I asked with surprise and admiration.
"'No, brother, but I have read the prophets. I heard, moreover, the words of this holy man sent from God, and he dwells more on the humility of the Christ than on his kingly grandeur. Believe me, the kingdom of Shiloh is not of this world. It cannot be of this world, if such is to be his life and death; and that it is to be his life, Esaias clearly states. Let me read to you his words.' He then took a roll of parchment from his bosom, and read by the clear tropical moonlight, that mysterious and inexplicable passage which beginneth with the words: 'Who hath believed our report?' When he had ended, he resumed: 'This is not the history of a prosperous earthly monarch, but rather the painful record of a life of humiliation, of shame, and of contempt.'
"'But thou dost not say, brother,' said Joseph, with some warmth, 'that the sacred Person borne witness to by this prophet is to be an object of contempt?'
"'Does not Esaias say that he will be despised, beaten with stripes, rejected of men, imprisoned, and put to death like a transgressor of the law?'
"'There can be no question but that Esaias speaks of the Messiah,' I remarked.
"'This prophet of Jordan now bears full testimony to Esaias, and plainly maketh application of his words to him whom he has come beforehand to proclaim,' answered the young man, with singularly graceful eloquence in all he said. 'Let us who have been baptized this day for the remission of our sins, expect a Messiah of sorrows, not a conquering prince. Let us behold one who is to humble himself beneath the yoke of human infirmities, that he may be exalted, and draw all men after him to a kingdom in the heavens.'