The moment of the meeting of the hosts was come, and with it the opportunity the sufferers were seeking; if not taken, it would be lost forever, and they would be lost as well.
"Nearer, my child let us get nearer. He cannot hear us," said the mother.
She arose, and staggered forward. Her ghastly hands were up, and she screamed with horrible shrillness. The people saw her—saw her hideous face, and stopped awestruck—an effect for which extreme human misery, visible as in this instance, is as potent as majesty in purple and gold. Tirzah, behind her a little way, fell down too faint and frightened to follow farther.
"The lepers! the lepers!"
"Stone them!"
"The accursed of God! Kill them!"
These, with other yells of like import, broke in upon the hosannas of the part of the multitude too far removed to see and understand the cause of the interruption. Some there were, however, near by familiar with the nature of the man to whom the unfortunates were appealing—some who, by long intercourse with him, had caught somewhat of his divine compassion: they gazed at him, and were silent while, in fair view, he rode up and stopped in front of the woman. She also beheld his face—calm, pitiful, and of exceeding beauty, the large eyes tender with benignant purpose.
And this was the colloquy that ensued:
"O Master, Master! Thou seest our need; thou canst make us clean. Have mercy upon us—mercy!"
"Believest thou I am able to do this?" he asked.
"Thou art he of whom the prophets spake—thou art the Messiah!" she replied.
His eyes grew radiant, his manner confident.
"Woman," he said, "great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt."
He lingered an instant after, apparently unconscious of the presence of the throng—an instant—then he rode away.
To the heart divinely original, yet so human in all the better elements of humanity, going with sure prevision to
