re not more than the twittering of
dazed sparrows.

The moment of the meeting of the hosts was come, and with it the
opportunity the sufferers were seeking; if not taken, it would be
lost forever, and they would be lost as well.

"Nearer, my child--let us get nearer. He cannot hear us," said the
mother.

She arose, and staggered forward. Her ghastly hands were up, and
she screamed with horrible shrillness. The people saw her--saw her
hideous face, and stopped awe-struck--an effect for which extreme
human misery, visible as in this instance, is as potent as majesty
in purple and gold. Tirzah, behind her a little way, fell down too
faint and frightened to follow farther.

"The lepers! the lepers!"

"Stone them!"

"The accursed of God! Kill them!"

These, with other yells of like import, broke in upon the hosannas
of the part of the multitude too far removed to see and understand
the cause of the interruption. Some there were, however, near by
familiar with the nature of the man to whom the unfortunates were
appealing--some who, by long intercourse with him, had caught
somewhat of his divine compassion: they gazed at him, and were
silent while, in fair view, he rode up and stopped in front
of the woman. She also beheld his face--calm, pitiful, and of
exceeding beauty, the large eyes tender with benignant purpose.

And this was the colloquy that ensued:

"O Master, Master! Thou seest our need; thou canst make us clean.
Have mercy upon us--mercy!"

"Believest thou I am able to do this?" he asked.

"Thou art he of whom the prophets spake--thou art the Messiah!"
she replied.

His eyes grew radiant, his manner confident.

"Woman," he said, "great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as
thou wilt."

He lingered an instant after, apparently unconscious of the presence
of the throng--an instant--then he rode away.

To the heart divinely original, yet so human in all the better
elements of humanity, going with sure prevision to a death of all
the inventions of men the foulest and most cruel, breathing even
then in the forecast shadow of the awful event, and still as hungry
and thirsty for love and faith as in the beginning, how precious and
ineffably soothing the farewell exclamation of the grateful woman:

"To God in the highest, glory! Blessed, thrice blessed, the Son
whom he hath given us!"

Immediately both the hosts, that from the city and that from
Bethphage, closed around him with their joyous demonstr