The traveller is pale as the great figure on the cross. On his broad
forehead a black line extends from one temple to the other. It is the
cobbler of Jerusalem. The poor artisan, who hardened by misery, injustice
and oppression, without pity for the suffering of the Divine Being who
bore the cross, repulsed him from his dwelling, and bade him: "Go ON! GO
ON! GO ON!" And, from that day, the avenging Deity has in his turn said
to the artisan of Jerusalem: "GO ON! GO ON! GO ON!"

And he has gone on, without end or rest. Nor did the divine vengeance
stop there. From time to time death has followed the steps of the
wanderer, and innumerable graves have been even as mile-stones on his
fatal path. And if ever he found periods of repose in the midst of his
infinite grief, it was when the hand of the Lord led him into deep
solitudes, like that where he now dragged his steps along. In passing
over that dreary plain, or climbing to that rude Calvary, he at least
heard no more the funeral knell, which always, always sounded behind him
in every inhabited region.

All day long, even at this hour, plunged in the black abyss of his
thoughts, following the fatal track--going whither he was guided by the
invisible hand, with head bowed on his breast, and eyes fixed upon the
ground, the wanderer had passed over the plain, and ascended the
mountain, without once looking at the sky--without even perceiving the
Calvary--without seeing the image upon the cross. He thought of the last
descendants of his race. He felt, by the sinking of his heart, that great
perils continued to threaten him. And in the bitterness of a despair,
wild and deep as the ocean, the cobbler of Jerusalem seated himself at
the foot of the cross. At this moment a farewell ray of the setting sun,
piercing the dark mass of clouds, threw a refection upon the Calvary,
vivid as a conflagration's glare. The Jew rested his forehead upon his