click to read pdf file - The Preterist Archive

BRITANNICUS UNDERGOES A NEW EXPERIENCE 199
divided to the right and left hand, and the light fell full on the
face and figure of one man who stepped a pace or two to the
front.
He was dressed, as was not unusual at Home, in Eastern
costume. He was a man a little past the prime of life. The
hair which escaped from under his turban was already sprinkled
with grey. His dark eyes seemed to be lighted from within
by a spiritual fire his
; figure was commanding, his attitude
full of dignity. His face was a perfect oval, and the features
were of the finest type of Eastern manhood. When once you
had gazed upon him it seemed impossible to take the eyes from
a countenance so perfect in its light and spiritual beauty a
countenance in which a fiery vehemence was exquisitely
tempered by a pathetic tenderness. His whole appearance
was magnetic. It seemed to flash into all around him its
own nobleness, and to kindle there that flame of love to God
and man which burnt on the altar of his own heart. That
such a soul should be convinced of a truth seemed alone sufficient
to convince others. That such lips should testify to a
fact rendered all disbelief of the fact impossible to those who
once fell under his influence. That such a man could be the
herald of a new religion seemed like a certain pledge that
the faith which he held must sooner or later overcome the
world.
In his aspect was something indescribably different from
that worn by the noblest philosophers of Rome. On all sides,
in the Roman amphitheatre and in the Roman streets, you saw
faces which were cruel, and proud, and seamed with every
evil passion ; faces cunning, and sly, and leering, and degraded ;
the slavish faces of those, who were slaves in soul, and the
ignoble faces of those whom an ignoble society had cowed by
its terror and degraded by its vice. Even in the Senate you
saw noble lineaments on which servility, and care, and a life
spent under tyrants and in households where every slave might
be a potential enemy, had impressed the stamp of gloom
and fear. But in the face of this Apostle there was softness
as well as strength, and hope as well as courage. His
eyes shone with a joy which seemed to brighten in the
midst of affliction, as the stars brighten in the deepening
twilight.
As he entered the whole assembly rose to their feet by a