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They greet each other with the salutation, "Peace be to you," and then they rapturously add, "To-day we shall see our Lord." In that intimacy which should always mark the followers of Christ, they give Quintus their welcome; and at once he feels himself among a congenial brotherhood. One is by name Nicodemus, a member of the Great Sanhedrin.
"Christ says, `the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Christ did not leave Nicodemus with this answer, which might well have perplexed him, as it has those who have turned aside from it as incomprehensible; but He shows how man must do his part to bring about that new birth.
Having experienced a material birth, we conceive of no other as being either possible or necessary, and like Nicodemus we go in the night of our ignorance to ask the divine Teacher, Truth, questions concerning spiritual things, only to be told we must be born from above if we would know the things of the spirit. 'That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit.
Therefore, he had no scruples about instigating the death of such a one. Notwithstanding all this uncompromising and straightforward religiousness, he needed to be brought from death to life. Next: Nicodemus, I suppose it will be admitted, was an earnest and religious man.
"Now, old Nicodemus, listen to me," interposed Ben Zoof; "you just get rid of that pouch of yours, or we will get rid of you. Take your choice. Quick, or out you go!" The avaricious old man was found to value his life above his money; he made a lamentable outcry about it, but he unfastened his girdle at last, and put it out of the car. Very different was the case with Palmyrin Rosette.
Dental surgeons suggested doctors, doctors suggested death, death suggested skeletons and so, by a logical process the conversation melted out of one of these subjects and into the next, until the topic of skeletons raised up Nicodemus Dodge out of the deep grave in my memory where he had lain buried and forgotten for twenty-five years.
Ah, I am the greatest Nicodemus that ever tumbled out of the moon! Modeste has millions, and I've lost her; for we can't get back from the poles, where we are to-day, to the tropics, where we were three days ago! Well, I am all the more anxious for your triumph over the grand equerry, because I told the duchess I came here only for your sake; and so I shall do my best for you."
Perhaps he was more fully convinced than Nicodemus, and at the same time even more timid in avowing his convictions. We may take these two contrite cowards as they try to atone for their unfaithfulness to their living Master by their ministrations to Him dead, as examples of secret disciples, and see here the causes, the misery, and the cure of such.
The sculptor Leone Leoni, who was employed upon the statue of Giangiacomo de' Medici in Milan, wrote frequently to Michelangelo, showing by his letters that a warm friendship subsisted between them, which was also shared by Tommaso Cavalieri. In the year 1560, according to Vasari, Leoni modelled a profile portrait of the great master, which he afterwards cast in medal form. This is almost the most interesting, and it is probably the most genuine contemporary record which we possess regarding Michelangelo's appearance in the body. I may therefore take it as my basis for inquiring into the relative value of the many portraits said to have been modelled, painted, or sketched from the hero in his lifetime. So far as I am hitherto aware, no claim has been put in for the authenticity of any likeness, except Bonasoni's engraving, anterior to the date we have arrived at. While making this statement, I pass over the prostrate old man in the Victory, and the Nicodemus of the Florentine Piet
She also closed the mouth, and then embraced the sacred body of her beloved Son, pressing her face fondly and reverently upon his. Joseph and Nicodemus had been waiting for some time, when John drew near to the Blessed Virgin, and besought her to permit the body of her Son to be taken from her, that the embalming might be completed, because the Sabbath was close at hand.