DEEP CALLETH UNTO DEEP
“Where is the man who heals the blind?” demanded Chelluh, leaning heavily
on the child.
Tor trembled, but he answered boldly enough. “He will be in the court of
the Gentiles healing the blind.”
There was a great concourse of people crowding the street which led up to
the temple, and amongst them numerous cripples, palsied men on litters,
sick children in the arms of anxious, wild‐eyed mothers, and blind
beggars, led like Chelluh by willing guides.
“Yes, the King is in the temple,” repeated Tor confidently. Then he
shouted “Hosanna!” in his shrill childish voice, as he had done the day
before. The cry was echoed by myriads of voices both far and near.
Chelluh’s heavy hand descended upon his guide’s curly head. “Be silent,
fool,” he hissed. “There is tumult ahead. Keep clear of the crowd, I say,
and look sharp!”
They were near the main entrance of the temple now, and the stream of
newcomers was met by an excited mob of people coming out. Imprecations,
shouts, and loud angry cries blended confusedly with the whir of moving
wings, for a great cloud of doves hovered uncertainly over the place, now
flying, now settling on the roofs and pinnacles of the marble porticoes.
Chelluh stopped determinedly and snuffed the air like an animal.
“What is going on within?” he demanded of Tor.
The question was answered by a woman in a foreign head‐dress who chanced
to pause in the crowd beside them. “The Nazarene has thrust out the
sellers of doves and the money‐changers from the great court,” she said
laughingly. “With these eyes I saw it. The Prophet cast down the tables
with no gentle hand, loosed the doves, and drove out the craven Jews
before him like a flock of frightened sheep. ’Twas a great sight. Also,
the money was scattered all over the court among the multitude. Even I, a
Gentile, am the richer for it.”
“Money?” exclaimed the blind beggar greedily. “Come, let us go in, I would
I had eyes that I might glean of this harvest.”
“The man gives eyes also for the asking,” said the woman indifferently. “I
have witnessed miracles of healing till I am weary of them. The Jew is a
great magician, surely; but his own countrymen hate him, and the Romans
care naught for miracles, so betwixt the two he will perchance fall to the
ground.”
Tor was not listening, he was watching for a good opening through which to
pilot his blind charge. “When thou art healed, thou wilt become a servant
of the King,” he said softly in the ear of the blind beggar.
“Ay, and will I?” sneered Chelluh; “and what will I do then?”
“Fetch blind folks to be healed,” said the child simply. “Now I see him,”
he added, with joyful certainty. “Do but follow quickly and thou shalt be
blind no longer!”
Like the showers and sunshine of the Father which bless the good and the
evil alike through all the years of all the ages, so was the healing power
of him who manifested the Father in every act of his life. And so it came
to pass that many came to be healed of blindness in those last great days,
and went away with seeing eyes and blind souls.
Chelluh’s first act after receiving his sight was to stare hard at Tor. “I
am minded to know thee again,” he said thoughtfully.
The boy shivered beneath his gaze. Chelluh with seeing eyes was even more
terrible than Chelluh blind. Those devouring eyes were roving like the
eyes of a beast of prey over the excited crowd. They fastened at last on a
man who stood not far from the Nazarene. “I know that man’s voice,” said
Chelluh. “Who and what is he?”
“He is a servant of the King,” said Tor. “His name is Peter.”
“His name is Peter,” repeated Chelluh, and struck his palms together
softly. He turned and without another word plunged into the crowd and was
gone.
Tor forgot him presently. He was edging his way nearer and nearer to the
wondrous Voice. Jesus was teaching the people, and his words fell upon the
child’s ignorant ears with a strange and potent charm. He could not
understand; but he listened because he loved; and, listening and loving,
he comprehended something of what was being said, even as a babe discerns
the speech of its mother. Love answereth love, as deep calleth unto deep.
At night Tor followed his Master and the twelve when they went forth out
of the city to lodge in the house of his friends in Bethany. This time the
child slept on the ground in the shelter of the garden wall, begging a
crust and a cup of water from one of the villagers at dawn. No one
questioned the boy and so he was able again to follow almost at their
heels when the little party set out for Jerusalem.
There was a withered fig‐tree near the wayside, and Tor heard the
Galilean, Peter, pause and say to his Master, “Rabbi, behold the fig‐tree
which thou cursedst is withered away.”
And Jesus looked upon the withered tree and answered the Galilean on this
wise: “Have faith in God; for I tell thee that whosoever shall say unto
this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt
in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he
shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and
ask for, _believe that ye have received them_, and ye shall have them. And
whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one;
that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Tor was crouching in the shelter of a bush and heard every word
distinctly. His thin face burned with excitement. “He said ‘whosoever,’”
he murmured. “He said ‘whosoever.’” Tor knew something of the custom of
prayer. Many times he had seen the rich Pharisees standing motionless at
the street‐corners praying. Also, he had begged in the temple court, where
many persons prayed aloud. For himself, he never prayed. The God of the
Jews regarded not beggars, he told himself. Now as he crouched behind the
bush, listening to the departing footsteps of the thirteen men, he began
to say over to himself the word “Father,” which the man who had opened his
eyes said so often.
He repeated it softly to himself many times. Then he sprang up and
followed hard after his Master, vaguely comforted and glad at heart.
The day was a long one, passed mainly in the great Court of the Gentiles,
and Tor, mingling with every gaping crowd which surrounded the Nazarene,
was puzzled and troubled by much that he saw and heard. There was no
shouting of Hosanna to‐day, no royal acclamations. The people stood close
in serried ranks and listened doubtfully to the strange teachings of the
King in the seamless robe—the King who wore no crown and whose followers
bore no arms. He was telling stories to the multitude, stories so simple
that even a beggar could understand them. The child pressed close, so
close that he could have touched the sandaled feet of the man who had
opened his eyes. And so he listened to the stories of the father and his
two undutiful sons; the absent lord of the vineyard and his wicked
servants; the generous king who made a marriage feast for his son, and how
it befell that the very beggars were gathered into the feast. The child
smiled and trembled and wept aloud beneath the power of that wondrous
Voice; more than once the Master’s deep eyes rested upon the small
upturned face with its wistful look of adoration.
And once, as he was speaking, the hand of Jesus rested for a moment on the
rough curls of the beggar’s head. Ah, the rapture of that moment! Tor knew
now deep in his heart that he was the accepted servant of the King. He
could have remained there forever listening to the stories; but the temple
police began to clear away the crowd with loud authoritative cries and
random thrusts of their gilded poles of office.
“Make way!” they shouted. “Make way for the holy and reverend chief
priests and the honorable elders of the Sanhedrim!”
Through the narrow passage thus cleared there came presently in great pomp
and glory a stately delegation from the supreme council of the Jewish
hierarchy. The chief priests wished to question publicly this worker of
miracles—this teller of strange parables, who openly wrought his mighty
works in the temple of Jehovah without their will or permission. “By what
authority doest thou these things?” they demanded. “And who gave thee this
authority?”
And Jesus, calm and unafraid, answered them after their own custom with
another question. “I also will ask you one thing,” he said, “which if ye
tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The
baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?”
The gorgeously‐robed official who had put the question glanced about him
at the hostile faces of the multitude, with a truculent air of scorn and
contempt. Thus mumbling and stammering angrily in the midst of his great
beard, he turned and conferred in a whisper with his companions. “If we
say, From heaven,” he muttered, “the fellow will ask, Why then did ye not
believe him?”
“Ay,” quoth another, “but if we say, From men, there is the multitude to
be reckoned with, for all hold that John was a prophet.”
And so they presently faced the Master, their fierce eyes under the
glittering insignia of the priestly office glaring at the calm, pale Man
of Nazareth. “We know not,” they said.
And Jesus replied, “Neither tell I you by what authority I do these
things.”
The priests withdrew in sullen silence, and the telling of strange stories
went on; but Tor, somehow swept from his position by the shifting crowd,
found himself near the defeated priests. They had paused to listen with
the others, and were standing with folded arms and sneering faces by one
of the great pillars of the portico.
Tor slipped behind the column, of a sudden all ears. These men were
speaking in a half whisper of the King, his Master. They hated him; Tor
was sure of it. “The fellow will ruin us if we cannot stop his blatant
mouth,” said one. “Listen now to his open threats: ‘The kingdom of God
shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing
forth the fruits thereof.’”
“And he calleth himself our King,” sneered another. “A pretty pass hath
the chosen people come to when the rabble choose a Nazaritish carpenter
for King. Aha, I laugh at him!”
“’Tis no time for mirth,” growled another. “The multitudes are ever agog
for some new thing; stoning or crucifixion is better than laughter for
such an one. Hark you, the thing must be put down and speedily. I know a
way and a man; he—” The voice dropped to low whispers, and Tor, trembling
with vague fright, and scarce knowing what he did, wriggled his way
through the crowd toward the white‐robed figure of Jesus.
Peter, the Galilean, was also talking excitedly with a man in the
outskirts of the crowd. Tor fixed his eyes upon the tall, broad‐shouldered
fisherman with some confidence. “I will tell him,” he said to himself, and
hovered expectantly near, waiting for an opportunity to speak. “He must
declare himself unmistakably and at once,” the small, dark‐faced man was
saying with an impatient gesture. “This telling of pretty tales and
working of miracles has gone on over long, say I. We should arm ourselves
and make ready, and the Sanhedrim must be won over by some great sign from
heaven. We can do nothing without them.”
“And I say let the Master work out his plans as it pleaseth him,” said
Peter boldly. “Saw you not his kingly air on Sunday, Judas? He is every
inch a King, I tell thee, and able to make of us princes and high
priests—ay, and to sweep away all oppressors by the word of his mouth.”
“Able, perhaps,” muttered Judas shaking his head, “but I doubt him. The
man careth nothing for money—nothing for power. I know him. What are his
plans? Does any one know them? Do we who are nearest him dare ask him? He
is, perchance, nothing more than a dreamer, and our ambitions and hopes
are founded upon the shifting sands of his visions. Nay, I know what thou
wouldst say, Simon. But thou art no statesman—no patriot. I hear the
chosen people groaning in their slavery. I see the iron heel of Rome about
to crush out the last lingering life of the nation. Will this man save us?
Can he, I ask? Or is he—” Judas choked convulsively, and tore at the neck
of his garment with quivering hands. “I am half mad with the torture of
it,” he groaned, “the—the waiting—the doubt; I—I fear that he—”
“Nay, thou art a truculent and unbelieving fellow at heart,” said Peter
easily. “Didst hear how the Master answered the priests but now? I could
have laughed aloud to see them slink away like whipped curs.”
“Like whipped curs—yes,” muttered the other. “But they will return anon
like ravening wolves, unless he declare himself. ’Tis folly—folly!” He
turned and plunged hastily into the crowd, and Peter, left to himself,
began to smite his great hands softly together. “He hath the power to put
them all to silence,” he said half aloud. “He will do it—let no one fear!”
“I fear,” said Tor, suddenly speaking at the fisherman’s elbow. “I
fear—_for him_.”
“What now, small one,” quoth Peter, staring down at the child with a
displeased shrug. “Have I not told thee to keep thy distance?”
“Yes, but I will not,” said Tor doggedly. “Listen, Galilean. I heard the
men in long robes speak of _him_. They hate him. They will kill him, if
they can. Take care of him—_thou_.”
“My Master can take care of himself, boy,” said Peter boastfully. “He is a
King; also, I am his servant.”
“Where is thy sword, servant of a King?” demanded Tor, eyeing him
doubtfully.
“My sword—my sword?” stammered the fisherman. “I have no sword.”
“Then get one,” advised Tor briefly.