"Look at those roses!" he exclaimed; "God planted the species, a crude and simple plant, and turned it over to man to do what he might with it; and in the same way he placed man himself here,--to perfect himself if he would. I am not jealous of God, nor envious of you; but just why He should have arranged to spare you all this labor, and commanded us to work out our own salvation, I cannot comprehend." It struck me as a remarkable coincidence that he should have used the very words of one of our own greatest logicians. A longer silence followed. The Master walked with his head inclined, in the attitude of profound thought. At last he drew a deep breath and looked up, relaxing his brows. "It may be prodigiously presumptuous," he said, "but I am inclined to think there has been a mistake somewhere." "How, a mistake?" I asked. He paid no heed to the question, but said: "Tell me the story,--tell me the exact words, if you can, of this Great Teacher whom you believe to be the Son of God?" I gave a brief outline of the Saviour's life and death, and it was a gratification to me--because it seemed, in some sort, an acknowledgment, or concession to my interpretation,--to see that he was profoundly affected. "Oh!" he cried,--his hands were clenched and his body writhed as with the actual sufferings of the Man of Sorrows,--"that a race of men should have been brought through such awful tribulation to see God! Why could they not accept the truth from his lips?" "Because they would not. They kept crying 'Give us a sign,' and he gave himself to death." I grouped together as many of the words of Christ as I could recall, and I was surprised, not only that his memory kept its grasp on them all, but that he was able to see at once their innermost meaning. It was as if he dissolved them in the wonderful alembic of his understanding, and instantly restored them in crystals of pure truth, divested alike of mysticism and remote significance. He took them up, one by one, and held them to the light, as one holds precious gems. He knew them, recognized them, and appraised them with the delight, and comprehensiveness, and the critical judgment of a connoisseur of jewels.