Christian fiction; Wingfold, Thomas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“The marvellous man who is reported to have appeared in Palestine,
teaching and preaching, seems to have suffered far more from sympathy
with the inward sorrows of his race than from pity for their bodily
pains. These last, could he not have swept from the earth with a word?
and yet it seems to have been mostly, if not indeed always, only in
answer to prayer that he healed them, and that for the sake of some
deeper, some spiritual healing that should go with the bodily cure. It
could not be for the dead man whom he was about to call from the tomb,
that his tears flowed. What source could they have but compassion and
pitiful sympathy for the sorrows of the dead man’s sisters and friends
who had not the inward joy that sustained himself, and the thought
of all the pains and heartaches of those that looked in the face
of death--the meanings of love--torn generations, the blackness of
bereavement that had stormed through the ever changing world of human
hearts since first man had been made in the image of his Father? Yet are
there far more terrible troubles than this death--which I trust can only
part, not keep apart. There is the weight of conscious wrong being and
wrong doing--that is the gravestone that needs to be rolled away ere a
man can rise to life. Call to mind how Jesus used to forgive men’s sins,
thus lifting from their hearts the crushing load that paralyzed all
their efforts. Recall the tenderness with which he received those from
whom the religious of his day turned aside--the repentant women who wept
sore-hearted from very love, the publicans who knew they were despised
because they were despicable. With him they sought and found shelter. He
was their saviour from the storm of human judgment and the biting
frost of public opinion, even when that opinion and that judgment were
re-echoed by the justice of their own hearts. He received them, and the
life within them rose up, and the light shone--the conscious light of
light, despite even of shame and self-reproach. If God be for us who can
be against us? In his name they rose from the hell of their own hearts’
condemnation, and went forth to do the truth in strength and hope. They
heard and believed and obeyed his words. And of all words that ever were
spoken, were ever words gentler, tenderer, humbler, lovelier--if true,
or more arrogant, man-degrading, God-defying--if false, than these,
concerning which, as his, I now desire to speak to you: ‘Come unto me,
all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and
ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light’?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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