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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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