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the Spectator (H. C. Minchin, 13th December 1902) describes with vivid power what must frequently have been in such a man's mind : —
The ranks are crowded, tier on tier,
And midst them in my place am I,
As oft before ; we talk and jeer,
Waiting to see yon captive die
Who in the arena stands alone;
He turns his face — I see my own !
'Tis I that wait the roar and rush When bars are raised; 'tis I that fall Upon my knees, amid the hush Of cruel tongues, on Christ to call ; Upon whose parted lips the while There breaks a glad triumphant smile.
Some points deserve attention in this unexpected but most interesting statement that He was with the wild beasts.
1. His Recognition of their Presence. — It was the sudden per- ception of a soul in stress of conflict. Eelaxing one moment from its intense agony, it saw, gathered around, the wild beasts of the desert. It remembered them in its after-thoughts on the deadly struggle with more terrible foes,
^ Can we recall experiences like this in our own life battle ? At night, in a great suspense, when the soul is sick, blind, help- less, and the forces of being are warring with one another, there has come a momentary change of mood. The carving of some picture-frame, a face hung on the wall, the blazonry on some book, the chance phrase on an open page — trifles like these fasten them- selves on our minds. We turn dully from them, but the impres- sion is ineffaceable. Even when the memory of the trial grows dim, it is they that keep it living.
Or we have sought under a sudden blow to escape from " the world's grey soul to the green world." On the hillside or the moor we have sat with bowed heads and downcast eyes. It seemed as if we had outlived all loves, buried all hopes. Yet through some chink the flower at our feet enters into the heart, mingles with our thought, and strangely belies our misery. The cup passes from us, and again, again we live. Tliese hours change us, but their memory clings round that single thing : the flower which we never see without the whole sorrow and relief returning. As Kossetti has expressed it in his poem, " The Wood- spurge " — ■
56 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
The wind flapped loose, the wind was still, Shaken out dead from tree and hill : I had walked on at the wind's will, I sat now, for the wind was still.
Between my knees my forehead was, — My lips, drawn in, said not Alas ! My hair was over in the grass. My naked ears heard the day pass.
My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon ;
Among these few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.
From perfect grief there need not be Wisdom or even memory : One thing then learnt remains to me, — The woodspurge has a cup of three.^
^ Above the altar the antique glass of the East Window contained a figure of the Saviour of an early and severe type. The form was gracious and yet commanding. . . . Kneeling upon the half-pace, as he received the sacred bread and tasted the holy wine, this gracious figure entered into his soul, and stillness and peace unspeakable, and life, and light, and sweetness filled his mind. He was lost in a sense of rapture, and earth and all that surrounded him faded away. When he returned a little to himself, kneeling in his seat in the church, he thought that at no period of his life, however extended, should he ever forget that morning, or lose the sense and feeling of that touching scene, of that gracious figure over the altar, of the bowed and kneeling figures, of the misty autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind.- Heaven itself seemed to have opened to him, and one fairer than the fairest of the angeKc hosts to have come down to earth.^
2. Was He afraid of them ? — " Be not afraid of them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." Here for all time is the reprobation of physical fear, of mere cowardice in Christians ; here, too, is the commendation of a right fear, " the fear of God " in the Old Testament sense, which flies from evil suggestion, which shrinks from dishonouring Him, a fear which is the realisation of both the holiness and the power of the Supreme Being. If there is one passage in the Lord's ' W. Robertson Nicoll. ' J. H. Shorthouse, John Inglesant.
ST. MARK 57
life more than another where we may in all reverence associate such fear with His Person, it would be the occasion of His temptation in the wilderness. Fear is an essential factor in any real temptation. Of physical fear during that time our Lord knew nothing ; the words, " He was with the wild beasts " point conclusively to this ; but that He felt a godly fear during the awful contest seems plain, though this was cast out, in the issue, by the triumph of a perfect love.