military roads for the legions of Suwarrow. It
needed dynamite to tunnel the St. Gotthard--dynamite directed by
science--and as I read this I fell a-thinking. The old story, that
mediaeval Christ in magenta and pearl gray, with his disciples in
artistic symphonies of harmonious and contrasted color, no doubt
transformed the world. But a new world has arisen which sorely needs
transforming again, and is it not possible that the conventional
Christ, who no doubt did mighty things in the past, may have become as
obsolete as blasting powder. May we not hope that if the conventional
Christ did so much, the real Christ may do much more; that the
realization of the Christ as he actually lived and died among us may be
as much superior in its transforming efficacy as the dynamite of the
modern engineer is to the powder sack of the soldiers who marched under
old Suwarrow? Of one thing we may at least be certain, and that is, if
everyone of those who call themselves by the Christian name would but
say one Christ-like word, and do one Christ-like deed between every
sunrise and sunset, it would lift a very Alpine mass of sorrow and
anxiety from the weary heart of the world. What then might not be done
if in very truth, and with all sincerity, we, each of us, tried to be a
real Christ in his or her sphere, the sent of God in the midst of those
with whom we pass our lives?

One more word and I have done. The actors play different parts as they
grow old. They begin with being children in the tableaux and they pass
in turn from one role to another. The Judas of 1890 was the apostle
John in 1880. When the Christ was selected in 1870, he was chosen out
of four competitors. One of the unsuccessful today plays King Herod,
the other Pontius Pilate. So it is ever in real life. Few, indeed,
are those who are always Christs. When Christians ceased to be martyrs
they martyred their enemies. The church came from the catacombs to
establish the inquisition. In our own lives we may be Christs today
and atheists tomorrow. Power and authority destroy more Christs than
the dungeon and the stake. And perhaps one reason why the
Ober-Ammergauers have been able to give us the Christ we see this year
is because in their secluded valley they have remained poor and humble
in spirit, and have never ceased to remember the story that transformed
the world.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of King of the Jews, by William