endurance, but He was worn, as those about Him did not understand, with constant inner agony.  That was His great weariness....  It was not an imposing Figure.  Nothing about Him challenged the Romans.  They were but abandoned boys who bowed to the strength that roars, and the bulk that makes easy blood-letting.  Even in custody, He was beneath the notice of most Romans, so inflamed and brutish from conquest were they; and Pilate, though the Tragic Instrument, was among the least ignoble of them——­’”

Bedient felt vaguely the interest of Vina Nettleton in what he was saying.  It was a remarkable moment.  His mind was crowded with a hundred things to say; yet he was startled, diffident, in spite of the joy of speaking these things aloud.

“What a hideous time of darkness!” he added in the silence.  “The Jews were but little better than the Romans.  They were looking for a king, a Solomon sort of king with temples and trappings and sizable authorities.  Isn’t it divine irony, that the Messianic Figure should appear in the very heart of this racial weakness of the Jews?  And their lesson seems still unlearned.  New York brings this home to-day....  So, to the Jews and the Romans, He was insignificant in appearance.  His beauty was spiritual, which to be recognized, requires spirituality—­a feminine quality.

“And among the disciples:  Hasn’t it occurred to you again and again how their doubting egos arose, when His face was turned away?  Poor fellows, they were bothered with their stomachs and their places to sleep; they quarrelled with the different villagers, and doubtless wished themselves back a hundred times to their fishing-banks and kindred employments, when the Christ moved a little apart from them.  I can see them (behind His back), daring each other to approach and make known their fancied injustices and rebellions.  It was so with the multitudes before they looked upon His countenance.

“But when He turns, whether in sorrow or in anger, the look is invincible....  That is always true, whether the Face is turned upon one, or the Twelve, or the multitude—­in the crowded market-place, or by the sea where the many were fed, or on the Mount—­perfect tributes of silence answered His direct attention, and all spiteful, petty ego outcroppings vanished....  So there were two Figures:  One, a man, slender, tired and tortured; and an Angel Countenance, before whose lustrous communications all men were abased according to their spirit.”

He paused, but the women did not speak....

“Dear God, how lonely He was!” Bedient said after a moment, as he regarded a picture of the Christ alone on the Mount, and the soldiers ascending to make the arrest “There were two who might have sustained in His daily death agonies.  I have always wished they could have been near Him throughout the Passion. They would not have slept, that darkest of nights while He prayed!  I mean Saint Paul, who of course did not see the Jesus of history,