The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1892-12-24
.'ECCE HONOR"
s.Ecca HomolN

"ECCE HONOR"
"Ecce Homol" III
Thus spake Pontius Plate wneh no
had examined the prisoner, Jesus OIL
Nazareth, and sought to turn him over
TO the Jews as acquitted of all sin.
behold the Mani" Il,
Had PLATE only known the grand
creature who stood so silent before him,
so meek, so calm, while the mob ragged
around him; so unmoved while that
terror-strikine cry of %''crucify him, cru
civ himl' rams from lip to lip and
became a hoarse cry in the terrible voice
of the mob, he would not have said that
but 'Ecce Deusl'
Imagine that mob of enraged human
animals, with all the baser passions in
control; with hearts burning with the
hate and malice of bigotry, frenzied and
enraged; wild beasts in impulse and hy-
enas in spirit; fierce as famished wolves
that prowl Siberia's frozen plains; fend-
ish and b~loodthirsty, seeking, demand
ing, bowling for the life of this grand,
this divine Goldman standing so quietly |
there in the Roman court.
True, this man had not the ambrosial
locks of Jove. His was not the front of
Mars, nor the faultless physique OF
Apollo. The strength of Hercules was
not in his arms, nor yet the speed of
Hermes in his limbs. These, with at
tributes of various powers, were the
signs by which PLATE knew his gods,
and he had never known any other
standard of measurement for a God.
Hence he saw in the Nazarine only a
man charged with sedition, with heresy,
with conspiracy against the Roman EN-
pire, but had found him guiltless of
them all.
And why should PLATE, ambitious
politician that he was, seeking only to
find favor in the eyes of his Imperial
master at Rome-for in that favor was
promotion, honor and wealth-engrossed
in the affairs of state, and with a turbu-
lent nation of half-subjugated Jews to
govern; what could he know Of this
prisoner, anything beyond that he was
only a manp
"Ecce Homol"
.Al1&ndSxef.h had he knownl
B and a God-two in
nterrifed by the storm of
esution that ragged around
tfiim. AFGodwhose heart was full OF
love and compassion for the very crea-
lures who were demanding his death.
A man undaunted by the mad waves of
human passion that surged about him.
A God who could with a breath have
swept out of existence the multitude
that demanded his life; who could, with
one blow of his staff, have reduced to
|, chaos the court, the temple, the walls of
the city, and all the signs by which man
had magnified his W prowess, and was
a vet too merciful to thus exemplify his
| own omnipotence.
7 Yes, here was one who had witnessed
t the birth of the first star; had seen it
sped from the plastic hand of Deity,
| flashing in the realms of space; had seen
its fires glow in the heavens for count
, less centuries, and then, as its flames
. died out, watched its embers turn to
) ashes on the h~earthstone of the universe.
Here was one whose ears had gladdened
at the first faint music of the spheres
l back in Creations pink-fushed morn,
I when the stars sang first their matin
song.
Here is n who had stood at the right
hand of the Father when He said: LEI
us make man in ourown image.
, Here was n who was older than the
universe itself, standing there with the
! fresh color OF thirty years in his cheek
J the flash OF youth still radiant in his
b clear and steady eyes.
s But what of this mani Aye, what OF
the MAN? Strip him of all divinity
9 clear away the aureole of Heavenly
: majesty. Dispossess him, as he dispos'
!. sessed himself, of all claims to Godhood
Z Consider his lowly birth as real; that hi
was conceived as other men, and remove
all suggestions that he was to God NOR
n than any other creature, and where dt
= we find one like unto him? History, il
,r all its annals, does not name his paral
lie lei. Nor does tradition, which boast
l. the linking of the known to tn
unknown, coming from far beyond tn
border-land of recorded things; reachin
far, far in the past, until it is lost in tn
perspective of human conjecture, claim
ing to have descended from the ver
dawn of time, tell OF one who at once
=. fully united the attributes of a God wit
the tenderness and affections of q man
With the power to destroy he sui
,;e mitted to destruction. With the abilit
RS. to escape all suffering he suffered Il
le- ignominy Of disgrace, and the keene
ell pangs of torture the edict of the Sanh
drim could inflict. Yet through it
W. not n word of protest, not one murml
i've of complaint; and only once an quito
ry, that indicated the terrible anguish of
N death upon the cross.
And why?
Simply that his teaching, the divil
principle of the '~'fatherhood of God al
~ the brotherhood of man." should
at deeply impressed upon the hearts
nd mankind, that expressions should cea
of on earth, that peace, right and JUST
re; should prevail, and man become in spiI
as in image a likeness unto God.
IN, "Ecce Homo!"
ne, Yes behold him. Invisible IN t
ng flesh, but dominant and rel present
the spirit. Eighteen hundred and nil
ty-three years ago he was born. Thir
a. one years or more afterward he "
cruciied. But see those tall spiI
pointing toward Heaven and FASH
S. back the ron- ="
syv'