Not as
the Babe, heralded by angels, worshipped by Eastern shepherds, adored
by Gentile kings, throned on His Mother's knee, wise-eyed and God-like,
stretching omnipotent baby hands toward this mysterious homage which
was His due; accepting, with baby omniscience, the gold, the
frankincense, the myrrh, which typified His mission; nor as the Divine
Redeemer nailed helpless to the cross of shame; dead, that the world
might live. These had been the visions of her cloistered years.
But in the chapel on the mountain she had seen Him as the human Jesus,
tempted in all points like as we are, His only visible halo the "yet
without sin," which set upon His brow in youth and manhood the divine
seal of perfect purity, and in His eyes the clear shining of
uninterrupted intercourse with Heaven.
As she had left the chapel, turning from the sculptured figure which
had helped her to this realisation, she had become wondrously aware of
the Unseen Presence of the Christ, close beside her. "As seeing Him
Who is invisible" she had come down from the mount, conscious that He
went on before. She seemed to be following those blessed footsteps
over the heather of her native hills, even as the disciples of old
followed them through the cornfields of Judea, and over the grassy
slopes of Galilee. Yet conscious also that He moved beside her, with
hand outstretched in case her spirit tripped; and that, should a hidden
foe fling shafts from an ambush in the rear, even there that Unseen
Presence would be behind her as a shield.
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