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Updated: July 5, 2025
She was praying before she knew what prayer was. A crucifix hung over Merthyr's head. She had looked on it many times, and looked on it still, without seeing more than the old sorrow. In the night it was dim. She found herself trying to read the features of the thorn-crowned Head in the solitary night. She and it were alone with a life that was faint above the engulphing darkness.
And, out of the hazy impression of the first sermon he had fidgeted through, he remembered the picture of Christ which the good man in the pulpit had drawn, sitting in a mockery of purple, receiving the open-palmed blows of cowards. In his extremity the story recurred with sharp insistence and all night he had been haunted by this thorn-crowned remembrance.
She stands between me and memory, and mine eyes grow weary and dim trying to see beyond that vision, recalling to my mind the picture of that Cross, the thorn-crowned head, the pierced hands and feet.
She was praying before she knew what prayer was. A crucifix hung over Merthyr's head. She had looked on it many times, and looked on it still, without seeing more than the old sorrow. In the night it was dim. She found herself trying to read the features of the thorn-crowned Head in the solitary night. She and it were alone with a life that was faint above the engulphing darkness.
But what that husband was remains unknown till the day when the grave shall give up its dead, and the secrets of hearts oppressed and sinned against and sorrowful shall be revealed. She lingered weakly there, within the restful room, for seven days, and then one morning we found her with her eyes upon the thorn-crowned face, her own quite still and smiling.
A black figure as large as life rests upon the altar. It is stretched upon a cross. The eyes are white and glassy; the thorn-crowned head leans on one side. The body is enveloped in a damascened robe spangled with jewels. This robe descends to the feet, which are cased in shoes of solid gold. The right foot rests on a sacramental cup glittering with gems.
What shall I do? cries this despairing soul at the beginning of my Bible. 'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin! answers the man who leaned upon the Saviour's breast and gazed full into the thorn-crowned face of the Crucified. 'That is what I want! exclaims the man at Malabar, speaking, not for himself alone, but for each and all of us.
But a Face was before him, white, thorn-crowned, bent watchful over the world. He was sent of Jesus. To do what? Preach peace by murder? What said his Master? "That ye resist not evil." Bah! Palmer said the doctrine of nonresistance was whining cant. As long as human nature was the same, right and wrong would be left to the arbitrament of brute force.
He paused. His lifted hand dropped to his side, and a change passed over his face. What was that he saw standing there in the storm? A form, thorn-crowned, with bleeding hands, and pierced side. The lips moved. "Father, forgive them," he heard Him say, "they know not what they do."
His cheeks were wan and pale, blood trickled from the thorn-crowned brow, but there was no wavering in the lines of the face though they were distorted with pain, no giving in, no drawing back, not though one word from those livid lips could have called even now unto God, and ten thousand legions of angels would have come down at that word to avenge the outrage and to proclaim His godhead.
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