“There and then a shiver of recognition crept through my veins. I knew them; I revered them, I had spent many hours in their company. The first face I had recognized was that of an old man, urbane and ironical, a citizen of the world; it was the face of Plato. Beside him was a man, older, less urbane, more ironical; it was the face of Socrates. Thinkers, warriors, saints, and innovators began to teem before my gaze. There was St. Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi, Shakespeare and Goethe, Leonardo and Dante, Washington and Cromwell, Kant and Spinoza, Isaac Newton, Giordano Bruno, Voltaire. I thought I discerned the faces of at least two women among this assembly; one was that of Joan of Arc, the other that of Mary the Magdalene. There appeared to be hosts of others of all times and countries which sprang into being as I gazed, but though I recognized them then, I cannot pause to enumerate them now. For this gathering was strangely representative, and the living were not excluded--I saw a great Russian, a great Englishman, and a great Frenchman of our own day--but I must resist the temptation to give the names of all I beheld. “No sooner had the scope and representativeness of this gathering declared itself and it had ranged itself miraculously within a little room, than a kind of commotion overspread it. They seemed to be discussing some difficult point among themselves. However, this action of theirs had no time to engage my anxiety, for I understood immediately that they were seeking a foreman to their jury. Now you would suppose that among a concourse of all who had attained an immortal preëminence in mental and moral activity, to choose a leader from amongst them would be impossible. But this was not so. Their discussion was over almost before it began. They had no difficulty whatever in nominating one among their number to speak for them all. “It was with an indescribable curiosity that I observed a slight, strangely garbed figure emerge from their midst. And when he came to assume his place at the head of his immortal companions, which you, sir, are occupying now, I was devoured by an overpowering eagerness to look upon his face. And by this time so immensely powerful had been the impact of this jury upon my imagination, that it had obtained an actual existence and proceeded in sober verity to conduct the business of the court. And I was sensible that the painful curiosity with which I awaited the foreman’s revelation of his identity was shared by all who were present. All were craning with parted lips to look upon his face. And when at last he lifted his head, and his pale and luminous features shone out of the gloom and overspread this assembly, a kind of half-stifled sob of surprise, a sort of shudder of recognition, passed over the crowded court. The face was that of the man called Jesus of Nazareth.