THE MASTER
ow when the darkness came over the earth Joseph of Arimathea,
having lighted a torch of pinewood, passed down from the hill
into the valley. For he had business in his own home.
And kneeling on the flint stones
of the Valley of Desolation he saw a young man who was naked
and weeping. His hair was the colour of honey, and his body was
as a white flower, but he had wounded his body with thorns and
on his hair had he set ashes as a crown.
And he who had great possessions
said to the young man who was naked and weeping, 'I do not wonder
that your sorrow is so great, for surely He was a just man.'
And the young man answered, 'It
is not for Him that I am weeping, but for myself. I too have
changed water into wine, and I have healed the leper and given
sight to the blind. I have walked upon the waters, and from the
dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed the
hungry in the desert where there was no food, and I have raised
the dead from their narrow houses, and at my bidding, and before
a great multitude of people, a barren fig-tree withered away.
All things that this man has done I have done also. And yet they
have not crucified me.
The House of Judgement
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Oscar Wilde Collection
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