and thou shalt be the Messiah.' Never, perhaps, would such be men's
spoken words, but the prevailing condition of their minds might often
well take form in such speech. Whereon will they ground their complaint
should God give them their hearts' desire? When that desire given closes
in upon them with a torturing sense of slavery; when they find that what
they have imagined their own will, was but a suggestion they knew not
whence; when they discover that life is not good, yet they cannot die;
will they not then turn and entreat their maker to save them after his
own fashion?

Let us try to understand the brief, elliptical narrative of what took
place in the synagogue of Nazareth on the occasion of our Lord's
announcement of his mission.

'This day,' said Jesus, 'is this scripture fulfilled in your ears;' and
went on with his divine talk. We shall yet know, I trust, what 'the
gracious words' were 'which proceeded out of his mouth': surely some who
heard them, still remember them, for 'all bare him witness, and wondered
at' them! How did they bear him witness? Surely not alone by the
intensity of their wondering gaze! Must not the narrator mean that their
hearts bore witness to the power of his presence, that they felt the
appeal of his soul to theirs, that they said in themselves, 'Never man
spake like this man'? Must not the light of truth in his face, beheld of
such even as knew not the truth, have lifted their souls up truthward?
Was it not the something true, common to all hearts, that bore the
wondering witness to the graciousness of his words? Had not those words
found a way to the pure human, that is, the divine in the men? Was it
not therefore that they were drawn to him--all but ready to accept
him?--on their own terms, alas, not his! For a moment he seemed to them
a true messenger, but truth in him was not truth to them: had he been