Yet He was the Redeemer too, for that likeness had in one sense always underlain the tumult of mistake and conflict.  He had brought man out of darkness and the shadow of death, guiding their feet into the way of peace.  He was the Saviour for the same reason—­the Son of Man, for He alone was perfectly human; He was the Absolute, for He was the content of Ideals; the Eternal, for He had lain always in nature’s potentiality and secured by His being the continuity of that order; the Infinite, for all finite things fell short of Him who was more than their sum.

He was Alpha, then, and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.  He was Dominus et Deus noster (as Domitian had been, the Pope reflected).  He was as simple and as complex as life itself—­simple in its essence, complex in its activities.

And last of all, the supreme proof of His mission lay in the immortal nature of His message.  There was no more to be added to what He had brought to light—­for in Him all diverging lines at last found their origin and their end.  As to whether or no He would prove to be personally immortal was an wholly irrelevant thought; it would be indeed fitting if through His means the vital principle should disclose its last secret; but no more than fitting.  Already His spirit was in the world; the individual was no more separate from his fellows; death no more than a wrinkle that came and went across the inviolable sea.  For man had learned at last that the race was all and self was nothing; the cell had discovered the unity of the body; even, the greatest thinkers declared, the consciousness of the individual had yielded the title of Personality to the corporate mass of man—­and the restlessness of the unit had sunk into the peace of a common Humanity, for nothing but this could explain the cessation of party strife and national competition—­and this, above all, had been the work of Felsenburgh.

“Behold I am with you always,” quoted the writer in a passionate peroration, “even now in the consummation of the world; and, the Comforter is come unto you.  I am the Door—­the Way, the Truth and the Life—­the Bread of Life and the Water of Life.  My name is Wonderful, the Prince of Peace, the Father Everlasting.  It is I who am the Desire of all nations, the fairest among the children of men—­and of my Kingdom there shall be no end.”

The Pope laid down the book, and leaned back, closing his eyes.

II

And as for Himself, what had He to say to all this?  A Transcendent God Who hid Himself, a Divine Saviour Who delayed to come, a Comforter heard no longer in wind nor seen in fire!

There, in the next room, was a little wooden altar, and above it an iron box, and within that box a silver cup, and within that cup—­Something.  Outside the house, a hundred yards away, lay the domes and plaster roofs of a little village called Nazareth; Carmel was on the right, a mile or two away, Thabor on the left, the plain of Esdraelon in front; and behind, Cana and Galilee, and the quiet lake, and Hermon.  And far away to the south lay Jerusalem....