CHAPTER III.
IT had been a bold stroke on his part this bringing the Nazarene straight into the house; for Martha's was a ruling, decided spirit, and she had set her face against offering hospitality to this Man, interested though she was in all that she had heard of Him. There was danger in being in His company. Already the Jews had sought to stone Him, and His presence in their house might mean their own death, or at least suspicion of complicity in His condemnation of the ruling powers, and thus cast a slur upon their house forever. Yet, when the Man of Sorrows stood by the gate, when those eyes, overflowing with grief at the sins of nations, fell upon her, she felt herself reduced to nothingness; even the inmost thought of cowardice and treachery seemed revealed, and the consciousness was born in her that she was, if not in the presence of God Himself, in that, indeed, of one of His most powerful prophets.
Pale and doubting and hesitating at His reception, Jesus stood at the gate, wondering how He would be received; as He has stood at the gate of each human heart, pleading piteously for hospitality, for entrance into the affections, for rest in the souls of men; yet pleading, so often, alas! in vain. There was something so pathetic in His glory and in His silent waiting for admission, that Martha felt over-
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