Philochristus: Memoirs of a Disciple of the LordAbbott, Edwin Abbott
Religion
Philochristus: Memoirs of a Disciple of the Lord
Abbott, Edwin Abbott
Christian fiction; Jesus Christ -- Fiction
Now a certain woman in this village (a worshipper of idols, after the
manner of the people of that land) had a daughter possessed with an
unclean spirit, which, whensoever it took her, drove her to all manner of
wickedness, even to the attempting of her mother’s life. So the woman had
resolved in her own mind that when Jesus passed by (for he must needs come
through that village), she would beseech Jesus to heal her daughter, and
she had told her daughter of her purpose, and likewise all her friends and
acquaintance; and she had been advised of the approach of Jesus and was
watching for us. Therefore seeing us pass quickly through her village, she
adventured to bring out her daughter unto Jesus: but her daughter would
not come. For even then, at the hearing of the name of Jesus, the devil
took her, and she shrieked aloud and strove against her mother, and would
have slain her: but her mother ran forth from the house and followed
Jesus, calling and crying aloud and piteously lamenting.
Now to us it seemed a strange thing and an unseemly, that a prophet of
Israel should thus be beset and importuned by an heathen woman. So we
expected that Jesus should have at once sent the woman away. But Jesus
uttered never a word, nor so much as turned his face towards her, but
journeyed steadfastly forward. And even as one running a race towards a
goal settleth his soul upon the prize that is before him, even so seemed
Jesus to settle his soul upon the snows of the mountain of Hermon: for
they shone in the light of the rising sun, like unto a dove sent from God,
whose breast‐feathers are as silver, and whose wings like unto fine gold.
But the woman ceased not from her following and lamenting, and poured
forth before Jesus all the story of her troubles.
At last we adventured to accost Jesus, and we besought him to send her
away. But he answered us, still not turning his face, “I am not sent but
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Yet as he spake, he slackened
his going, and spake, as it were, like unto one doubting somewhat, and
willing to have his words amended. Now came the woman in haste up to him,
and threw herself before his feet and said, “Lord, help me.” Then Jesus
stayed. Yet did he still keep his eyes fixed on that which he saw afar
off; and for a brief space he was silent; but then he said, as though he
were asking a question of his own soul, “It is not meet to take the
children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs?” But the woman answered,
“Truth, O Master, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their
master’s table.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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