ayed in the roads. The valley
was beautiful under the sunlight of as warm and as beautiful a spring
day as ever fell over the fields of France. I stood on the very spot
where the peasant girl of Orleans caught her vision. I looked down
over the valley with "the green stream streaking through it," with
silence brooding over it, a bewildering contrast with the day and the
month that had just preceded; and it all stands out as one of the
Silhouettes of Silence.
Another day, another hour, another part of France. They call it
"Calvaire." It covers several acres. The peasants go there to worship
in pilgrimage every year. There is a Garden of Gethsemane, with
marvellous statues built life-size. Then through the woods there is a
worn pathway to the Sanhedrin. This is of marble. Jesus is here
before his accusers in marble statuary.
As his accusers question him and he answers them not, they wonder. But
those who have seen "Calvaire" in France do not wonder, for from that
room there is a clean swath of trees cut, and a quarter of a mile away
looms, on a hill, a real Calvary, with the tree crosses silhouetted
against the sky, and Jesus is seeing down the pathway the hill of the
cross.
Then there is "The Way of the Cross," built by peasant hands. It is a
road covered with flintstones as sharp as knives. This flint road must
be a mile long, and it winds here and there leading to Calvary, and
along its way are the various stations of the cross in life-size
figures. Jesus is seen at every step of this agony bearing his cross
until relieved by Simon. Over this flintstone every year the people
come by thousands, and crawl on their naked knees or walk on their
naked feet. Every stone is stained with blood; stumbling, cruelly
hurt, bleeding, they go "The Way of the Cross," and I have no doubt but
that they go back to their homes better men and women for having done
so.
The day that we went to "Calvaire" it was a fitful June afternoon. As
we walked along "The Way of the Cross," across the field, past the
living, almost breathing, statues of the Master bearing his cruel
cross, past the sneering figures of those who hated him, and past the
weeping figures of those who loved and would aid him, and as we came to
the hill itself, suddenly black clouds gathered behind it and rain
began to pour.
"I am glad the clouds are there back of Calvary. I am glad it is
raining as we climb the hill of Calvary. I am willing to b
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