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Updated: June 8, 2025
To all Nathanael's objections he had only the reply, 'Come and see. And here he says: 'Oh! if we could see the Father it would be enough. He was one of the men to whom seeing is believing, and so he speaks. His petition is childlike in its simplicity, beautiful in its trust, noble and true in its estimate of what men need. He longs to see God.
But her curiosity was restrained, partly by that of the old servant behind, who kept up a close though reverential observance of all the sayings and doings of "Ma-a-ester" Nathanael's wife. She did not like even accidentally to betray how very little of Kingcombe her reserved husband had told her, and how she knew scarcely more of his family than their names.
Whether by Agatha's real inclination, or by some unnoticed influence of Nathanael's, who, gentle as his manners were, through a score of other opposing wills seemed always silently to attain his own, Mrs. Thornycroft's hospitable schemes were overruled.
Nathanael came from Cana of Galilee, a little hill village, three or four miles from Nazareth. We all know the bitter feuds and jealousies of neighbouring villages, and how nothing is so pleasant to the inhabitants of one as a gibe about the inhabitants of another. And in Nathanael's words there simply speaks the rustic jealousy of Cana against Nazareth.
And it is because I saw thee under the fig-tree that I knew thee to be "an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." So then, under the fig-tree, Nathanael must have been wrestling in prayer; under the fig-tree must have been confessing his sins; under the fig-tree must have been longing and looking for the Deliverer who was to 'turn away ungodliness from Jacob. So solitary had been that vigil, and so little would any human eye that had looked upon it have known what had been passing in his mind, that Christ's knowledge of it and of its significance at once lights up in Nathanael's heart the fire of the glad conviction, 'Thou art the Son of God. If we had seen Nathanael, we should only have seen a man sitting, sunk in thought, under a fig-tree; but Jesus had seen the spiritual struggle which had no outward marks, and to have known which He must have exercised the divine prerogative of reading the heart.
Christ said to the first two that followed Him, 'Come and see. Philip met Nathanael's thin film of prejudice with the same words, 'Come and see. Christ greeted the approaching Nathanael with 'When thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee. And now His promise is cast into the same metaphor: 'Thou shalt see greater things than these. There is a double antithesis here.
It made Nathanael's wife rather thoughtful. She wondered what was the feeling like, when people "belonged to one another."
The person most like, and yet very unlike, too, in some things, was don't laugh, please was Miss Valery. That, I fancy, was the reason why I liked her so from the first, and was ready to do anything she bade me." "Then when you consented to be married it was not for love of me but of Anne Valery?" And beneath Nathanael's smile lingered a little sad earnest.
Agatha seated herself next to Miss Valery, quietly they were all so very quiet. Anne whispered, "How is he?" and the rest listened for the answer the usual answer, which all foreboded. Then Harriet made an attempt to speak of other things of how the rain pattered against the window-panes, and what an ill night it was for Nathanael's journey. She even began to doubt whether he would come.
Nay, once, in the descent of a hill so steep, that a Cockney equestrian would have been frightened out of his seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he snatched little Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been awakened towards him.
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