Christian fiction; Neighborhoods -- Scotland -- Fiction
king of men, the servant of men, the Lord Jesus Christ, the everlasting
son of our Father in heaven.
“Now this mountain on which he was praying had a small lake at the foot
of it--that is, about thirteen miles long, and five miles broad. Not
wanting even his usual companions to be with him this evening--partly, I
presume, because they were of the same mind as those who desired to take
him by force and make him a king--he had sent them away in their boat,
to go across this water to the other side, where were their homes and
their families. Now, it was not pitch dark either on the mountain-top or
on the water down below; yet I doubt if any other man than he would have
been keen-eyed enough to discover that little boat down in the middle
of the lake, much distressed by the west wind that blew right in their
teeth. But he loved every man in it so much, that I think even as he was
talking to his Father, his eyes would now and then go looking for and
finding it--watching it on its way across to the other side. You must
remember that it was a little boat; and there are often tremendous
storms upon these small lakes with great mountains about them. For the
wind will come all at once, rushing down through the clefts in as sudden
a squall as ever overtook a sailor at sea. And then, you know, there is
no sea-room. If the wind get the better of them, they are on the shore
in a few minutes, whichever way the wind may blow. He saw them worn out
at the oar, toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them. So
the time for loneliness and prayer was over, and the time to go down out
of his secret chamber and help his brethren was come. He did not need to
turn and say good-bye to his Father, as if he dwelt on that mountain-top
alone: his Father was down there on the lake as well. He went straight
down. Could not his Father, if he too was down on the lake, help them
without him? Yes. But he wanted him to do it, that they might see that
he did it. Otherwise they would only have thought that the wind fell and
the waves lay down, without supposing for a moment that their Master or
his Father had had anything to do with it. They would have done just as
people do now-a-days: they think that the help comes of itself, instead
of by the will of him who determined from the first that men should be
helped. So the Master went down the hill. When he reached the border
of the lake, the wind being from the other side, he must have found the
waves breaking furiously upon the rocks. But that made no difference to
him. He looked out as he stood alone on the edge amidst the rushing wind
and the noise of the water, out over the waves under the clear, starry
sky, saw where the tiny boat was tossed about like a nutshell, and set
out.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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