The Crucifixion of Philip StrongSheldon, Charles M.
General
The Crucifixion of Philip Strong
Sheldon, Charles M.
Christian fiction
The officer spoke almost brutally, forgetting for a moment that the
prisoner's hands were manacled; remembering it the next instant, he
pulled off the man's hat, while Philip looked calmly at the features.
Yes, it was the same hideous, brutal face, with the hare-lip, which had
shone up in the rays of the street-lamp that night; there was no
mistaking it for any other.
"Why did you want to kill me?" asked Philip, after a significant pause.
"I never did you any harm."
"I would like to kill all the cursed preachers," replied the man,
hoarsely.
"You confess, then, that you are the man who fired at me, do you?"
"I don't confess anything. What are you talking to me for? Take me to
the lock-up if you're going to!" the man exclaimed fiercely, turning to
the officer.
"Philip!" cried his wife, turning to him with a gesture of appeal, "send
them away. It will do no good to talk to this man."
Philip raised his hand in a gesture toward the man that made every one
in the room feel a little awed. The officer in speaking of it afterward
said: "I tell you, boys I never felt quite the same, except once, when
the old Catholic priest stepped up on the platform with old man Gower
time he was hanged at Millville. Somehow then I felt as if, when the
priest raised his hand and began to pray, maybe we might all be glad to
have some one pray for us if we get into a tight place."
Philip spoke directly to the man, whose look fell beneath that of the
minister.
"You know well enough that you are the man who shot me Tuesday night. I
know you are the man, for I saw your face very plainly by the light of
the street-lamp. Now, all that I wanted to see you here for before you
were taken to jail was to let you know that I do not bear any hatred
toward you. The thing you have done is against the law of God and man.
The injury you have inflicted upon me is very slight compared with that
against your own soul. Oh, my brother man, why should you try to harm me
because I denounced your business? Do you not know in your heart of
hearts that the saloon is so evil in its effects that a man who loves
his home and his country must speak out against it? And yet I love you;
that is possible because you are human. Oh, my Father!" Philip
continued, changing his appeal to the man, by an almost natural manner,
into a petition to the Infinite, "make this soul, dear to thee, to
behold thy love for him, and make him see that it is not against me, a
mere man, that he has sinned, but against thyself--against thy purity
and holiness and affection. Oh, my God, thou who didst come in the
likeness of sinful man to seek and save that which was lost, stretch out
the arms of thy salvation now to this child and save him from himself,
from his own disbelief, his hatred of me, or of what I have said. Thou
art all-merciful and all-loving. We leave all souls of men in the
protecting, enfolding embrace of thy boundless compassion and infinite
mercy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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