Howard Pyle

“ It is as powerless to save you from that flood of doubt as the African’s fetich of wood is impotent to save him from the deluge of water that bursts upon and overflows the world about him. When that black and awful torrent–the fear of annihilation–sweeps down upon the man, it, the image, is torn away from his grasp like a dead fragment of wood and is swept away and gone, leaving him to struggle alone and unaided in the overwhelming flood.
And yet man continues to worship this dead, self-created image. ”

“ Gilderman sat leaning back in the brougham smoking and looking out upon the hot bustle of the street. The ceaselessly streaming crowds on the sidewalk hurried and jostled and pushed, paying no attention to the heat or to their fellow-men or to heaven or to hell, or to anything but the business they were just then so intent upon–each man a little life in himself shut out from all the other little lives around him. ”

“ A long gravel roadway circled in a great sweep around a wide spread of lawn, framed in by clumps and clusters of trees and rhododendron bushes. You got a glimpse of the stream at the bottom of the slope and a fringe of willows; beyond that a strip of lawnlike paddock, another hill, and then, far away, a thread of the broad stretch of water.
The trees were bare of leaves as yet, but Gilderman could see that it would all be very beautiful in the later spring and summer. They stood for a while enjoying the view. Then they all went into the house. ”

“ THE ONE THING WE LACK GILDERMAN, when he left the club, found that he was in that peculiar psychological state that comes upon one now and then–a state in which one feels that one has not altogether determined to do a certain thing and yet finds one’s self in the very act of doing it. As it had been the day before, so now he found himself possessed by a strange impulsion that drove him forward as though not of his own volition. He walked briskly down towards the depot, but it did not seem to him that he even yet had made up his mind to embark upon the undertaking. ”

“ What power has it to turn aside those floods of doubt which, now and then, bursting their bonds, sweep down upon and overflow the soul, drowning out even the faint little spark of hope which we all so carefully cherish. That image, like the image of the man-hero, is dead and impotent excepting as the man’s own imagination makes it living and potential. Pray to your imaginary God in such times of black terror, and see how little that empty image can help and aid you. ”

“ What we think we believe in is not the living Christ as He was in the flesh, but a Christ we have created for ourselves–a white-robed, visionary figure that passes through the world of humanity like a spirit rather than like a man of flesh and blood.
For the story of Christ is surrounded by the narrative of such incredibly miraculous happenings that it is necessary for us to create such a spiritual image, or else we cannot believe those narratives at all. It is with us now as it was in those ages past–we cannot bear to have the spiritual image of truth blasphemed by the living fact. ”

“ The real man is exactly a different thing. He is of real flesh and blood, and his speech and action depend upon his own volition and not upon your imagination. You may, if you choose, decorate the image in your mind with the laurel wreath of hero-worship, and you may cause the most noble and exalted thoughts to seem to pass through the imagined hero’s mind. But it is not the living man whom you crown, nor do those thoughts really pass through the brain of the living man. That which you crown is only your own idea–your own created image of the man ”

“ Yea; judgment-day may come and the angel may blow his trumpet until the earth shall crack and heaven itself shall tremble, but the ears of man are deaf to the blast and his eyes are blind to the terrors that overhang the soul. In his ears are stoppers of clay and over his eyes is a film of flesh, and neither sound nor sight can reach him. ”

“ This is a poverty whose recreation is to sit out upon the doorstep that leads into the dirty street or upon the fire-escape, or, in hot weather, maybe upon the roofs among the chimney-stacks and a net-work of electric wires. This is a poverty that breeds harlots and criminals as corruption breeds maggots.
For all this misery Dr. Caiaphas was in nowise to blame, but, nevertheless, when he first entered into the parish, coming, as he did, fresh from a wholesome provincial community, he felt that the condition was a crime to which he himself was somehow indirectly a party. ”

“ A poor carpenter had died that the Law and the Gospel might be preserved, and a few rough fishermen–a few poor, ignorant, superstitious outcasts thought that they saw the flaming orb of day turned into a smoky blackness; that they felt the earth strain and crack beneath their feet; that they beheld the bulwarks of religion split in twain from top to bottom.
Gilderman was worried that morning because the baby had caught cold. ”

“ Gilderman recognized that his talk was out of place, but he still continued. “Why do you call it stuff, Stirling? It’s only stuff to you because you don’t believe in it. The future life in another world is as real to me as–as going out of this café into the smoking-room yonder. What is life without such a belief as that? If you regard this life as all that there is for a man to live, then the world is a pit of misery worse than hell, and God is a jesting devil juggling with the misery and the pangs of mankind whom He created for His own amusement. ”

“ Gilderman was silent, and, by-and-by, Dr. Caiaphas voluntarily continued: “The Divine Word leads us to understand that God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is revolting to me to even listen to the supposition that the God of Heaven could have a human son–a carpenter by trade–and that the mother should be the wife of a common carpenter.” ”

“ Gilderman knew that they were laughing at him, but he did not care. He stood perfectly still, with his mind turned inward. What the Man had said was true. He saw it all, as in a light of surpassing brightness. He was unhappy, not because of the things he lacked, but because he had so much. He saw it all as clear as day. It is the lack of things that produces happiness, not superabundance. A rich man, such as he, could never be happy. If he would be really happy, he must give up all. ”

“ There was an indescribable remoteness about the young Roman that repelled, without effort and without offence, any approach at familiarity.
Then they brought the gray horse out of the stable and began to hitch it to the dog-cart. It was, indeed, a neat, toppy little animal, and Gilderman looked upon it with pleasure. The innkeeper went over to see that all was right, pulling here and there at a strap or buckle, and Gilderman, taking out his cigar-case, lit a cigar. The gray sky was beginning to break up into patches of blue, and suddenly the sun shone out and down upon his back. ”

“ There must be a Creator for these things–a Creator infinitely potent, infinitely intelligent–or else those things could not have been created.
On the other hand, man looks about him upon the earth, and there he beholds an equally and infinitely perfect creation. For every one of the myriad blades of grass, and every one of the myriad leaves of the trees, and every one of the myriad flowers of the field, is, in itself, as tremendously perfect in its every minutest particular as is the greatest sun that flames in the empty heavens. ”

“ That which the intelligent, thoughtful men of that day saw was, apparently, a common man, a journeyman carpenter, travel-stained, weary, footsore, riding upon a shaggy little ass, surrounded by a knot of rough fishermen and followed by a turbulent multitude gathered from the highways and the byways. For He had chosen for His associates, not the good and the virtuous, the reputable and the law-abiding citizen; He had chosen the harlot, the publican, the sinner, the outcast. For He proclaimed with His own lips that He was the Saviour of the sinners and not of the righteous. ”

“ The very material universe exists infinitely, and we behold with the eyes of the flesh. We do not comprehend it, yet we know that it really is.
In the hollow vault of night we behold countless myriads of huge and flaming suns, scattered like dust through the sky, or sparkling in points of radiance, and we know that that created stellar system extends, without limit, into the emptiness of limitless space. We know that each incredibly gigantic sun–flaming with light and heat–follows a perfect and well-assigned orbit. ”

“ What wonder, then, that men not only deny their Creator and their Redeemer, but even refuse to believe that the soul within them is alive. To them the body seems alive and not the soul; to them it seems as though this world is the end of everything.
Mrs. Gilderman, though she had not recovered from her confinement with the rapidity that a washerwoman might have done under the same circumstances, was, nevertheless, so nearly quite well by the end of the month as to be able to be down-stairs and about the house. ”

“ As he made his way back through the crowd he heard the Voice saying to those who stood about: “I tell you this for truth, that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I say this to you, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” ”

“ It was incredible to the wise and even-minded priest that any man–be he never so poor, or ignorant, or credulous–could, in that age of light, listen to the blasphemous assertions of an insane fanatic, that God was really about to send a Son into the midst of such a turbulent and disorderly tumult. How was it possible for any human creature to conceive that the Messiah would appear in the midst of such a rabble as that gathered in the wilderness to a mad baptism? ”

“ In our souls we disbelieve that which seems to us to be unbelievable. We endeavor to stimulate faith, first by saying that we believe, and then by creating for ourselves an imaginary image of Christ who might have performed the miracles if He had really lived.
Nearly all intelligent and thoughtful men really do believe in the existence of an infinitely intelligent and infinitely powerful deity.
For a man has but to gaze about him and he [44] beholds, with the eyes of his flesh, infinity itself–infinity of what is great; infinity of what is minute; infinity of time; infinity of space. ”

“ Caiaphas had seen much of poverty in a provincial town, and it was with him as it was with other people in the smaller cities and communities–he did not know what it meant to be poor in a great city such as the metropolis. To be poor in a small city is altogether a different thing from the dreadful poverty of the great congested communities where rents are expensive and living dear. A man may be poor in a provincial town and yet have a comfortable home. ”

“ Pilate had come to the table and was standing looking down at the cards that still lay face up upon the board. Some one was explaining the game to him. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been playing the game for about forty years now and I don’t think I ever saw a piece of luck like that. Four queens against four jacks!”
Gilderman, as he walked away, heard the words and his bosom swelled with a still bigger load of triumph. As he whirled home in the electric cab he lay back in the leather cushions and gave himself up to the delight of his triumph. He was filled full with a great and pervading joy. ”

“ Almost instantly Gilderman had seen the face of Him whom he sought. It was raised a little above the heads of the crowd, for He was sitting resting on the corner of the open platform that ran along the length of the hotel front. He was surrounded by His immediate disciples. The crowd stood about Him, partly in the road, partly upon the open porch. Some women and two or three men, apparently belonging to the house, were leaning out of the windows above looking down and talking together. There was a ceaseless buzz of talk–a ceaseless restlessness pervading the crowd. ”