Page:As others saw Him.djvu/52

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
46
AS OTHERS SAW HIM.

Indeed, his whole countenance and bearing changed in like manner, so that every word he uttered seemed to be the outcome of his whole being.

But most of all was it the vividness of his eyes that impressed his words upon us. I had seen them flashing with scorn in the Temple, I now saw them melting with tenderness in the synagogue; and there was this of strange in them, that they seemed to speak other and deeper words. As he gazed upon us, I felt as if all my inmost being was bare to the gaze of those eyes. They seemed to know all my secret thoughts and sins; and yet I felt not ashamed, for as they saw the sins, so they seemed to speak forgiveness of them.

What I felt then, others felt with me, for, as I afterwards learnt, each man felt the same as the eyes of Jesus fell upon him; and most curious it was that each man thought as I did, that the eyes of the speaker were upon him during the whole of the discourse. I have seen here in Alexandria portraits of men painted by your subtlest artists, in which, from whatever