46 Walks in New England 



explicable terror, excused themselves in what way 

 they could, and the ruling Jews imposed secrecy 

 upon them, and sealed it by a bribe, and taught 

 them the tale that the disciples of the false prophet 

 had stolen away his body, and this was the story 

 current among the Jews. 



The concern of the Christian church has been 

 too much with the body, stolen away privily, and 

 too little with the living Christ, the spirit, which 

 was not and could not be so treated, since he was 

 free, and privileged to take a body as he should 

 please, a body which might be present to his im 

 mediate followers, and be translated to spiritual 

 essence on the hill of Ascension, and might at any 

 time appear in vision before fine and simple souls 

 to say to them, when faith should shrink, &quot; I have 

 ascended to my father and your father, to my God 

 and your God.&quot; It was not necessary longer to 

 live the life of earth ; had he done so, he would 

 have been a noble force dissipated in unequal 

 struggle with the conditions of alien men and low 

 planes of life. 



Instead of such a failure, he rose above earth 

 and became a transcendent and glorified ideal ; 

 imagination wove around his risen form the trans 

 figured splendours of the life he had lived among 

 his fellows ; and the man of the people, born in 

 poverty, reared in labour, who rebuked the proud 



