"Would God, my brethren, ye who hear these things, This day, were minded as the prophet was Who thus from God reported them to you! He but foresaw them, and he saw them; ye Saw them, and did not see! And yet, even yet, Look back, as forward he; lo, touch your eyes With eyesalve that ye be not blind, but see! See, with Isaiah, how Messiah was 'Wounded for your transgressions, bruised so sore For your iniquities, how chastisement On Him was laid that peace should bring to you, How stripes whereby He bled to you were health.' "Meekly and thankfully Isaiah sinks Himself, one drop, into the human sea, And says 'we,' 'our,' and 'us'--do ye the same. O brethren, if this day ye hear His voice, A whisper only in your ear from heaven, I pray you, harden not your heart. Confess Your fault, and say with your own prophet, 'We, All we, like sheep, have gone astray, astray, And God on Him hath laid the sin of all.'" At such expostulation and appeal Ineffable, found hidden in the words Of prophecy, Rachel her heart felt fail Into a pathos of repentance sweet With love and soft sense of forgiveness, bought For her at cost so dear!--and she dissolved In sobs and tears of sorrow exquisite, Better than joy, and uncontrollable. The mastership of Jesus now to her Merged in the sweetness of His saviorship; The duty of obedience to a Lord All taken up, transfigured, glorified, In the transcendent privilege of love. Never such grief in joy, such joy in grief, Was hers before--for self was wholly slain And her whole life grew love unutterable. Yet longed she, with a hope that half was pain, For Saul, while Stephen brokenly went on: "O ye to whom for the last time I speak, My heart is large for you, it breaks for you, And melts to tears within me while I plead. I pray you, I beseech you, in Christ's stead, Be reconciled to God. Hearken this once And answer, Were it set your task, in choice Few words to frame the image and the lot Of Jesus whom ye slew, how otherwise More fitly could ye do it than was done Aforetime by Isaiah when he wrote Prophetically thus of Christ to be: 'Oppressed He was, yet He abased Himself And opened not His mouth; even as a lamb Led to the slaughter, as a sheep before Her shearers speechless, so He opened not His mouth. His grave they with the wicked made, And with the rich they laid Him in His death.' Say, brethren, was not Jesus very Christ?