Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Poor families -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Once I stopped and entered a grey, small building. It was a Roman
Catholic church. I walked about it aimlessly, and my eyes caught the
picture of Christ in life-size. For the first time in my life, perhaps,
the sight of it stirred nothing within me. What use could He be to me?
Could He comprehend such a thing at all? It is true that He had become
human in order to feel with us, but He was a good man. He only knew
the sins and passions of others, never did He know a sin, or a passion
of His own. Of godly descent. He was endowed with godly strength, with
godly wisdom, with godliness. What did He really know of the nature of
a thief, of a murderer, of a perjurer? And though He had died for the
sake of love, what did He know of the sufferings of lovers?
I turned away from the picture and went out of the church. I went out
on tip-toe by force of habit, but on my soul dawned the religion of
life, which is older than the doctrine of Jesus ... and all round me
walked its disciples. Men and women who had done with dreaming and
were ready for the unknown hereafter--men with strong fists and hard
looks, by which one could tell that they had battled with life; women
whose faces looked wrinkled and worn, telling their story of hardship
and silent surrender; men and women who in their days of severity and
bitterness had surpassed the miracles wrought by Him, the Galilean; men
and women among whose numbers I was also enlisted.
And out of that new consciousness arose to me a new wisdom and a new
love--a wisdom which reigned over all former wisdom, and a love which
reigned over all former love. And when I returned with it into my
solitude, the stones began to speak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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