A Second Coming

But the boy shrank back.

'You are not my father. Where is my father and my mother?'

'They are in the next room, asleep. They have given Me their bed. And, because they have done so, I am your Father too. So in your sleep you smiled?'

'Did I? I expect it was because I dreamed that I was happy.'

'Was your happiness but a dream?'

'While I was asleep. Now I am awake I know I'm happy.'

'But you are lame?'

'So's father. I don't mind being lame if father is.'

The Stranger was still. He smiled, and touched the child upon the shoulder. And the boy gave a sudden cry. He drew up his night-shirt, and looked down at his right leg.

'Why, it's straight! – like the other.' He began to move about the room. 'I'm not lame! I'm not lame!' All aglow with excitement, he went running through the door. 'Father! mother! my leg's gone straight! I can run about like other boys. Look! – I'm no longer lame!'

When his mother saw that it was so, she took him into her arms and cried:

'My boy! my boy! God be thanked for what He has done to you this day!'

When they saw that the Stranger was standing in the doorway the father and mother were silent. Their hearts were too full to find speech easy. But the boy ran to Him.

'Oh, sir! make father's leg straight like mine!'

The Stranger asked of his father:

'Would you have it so?'

But the lame man answered:

'If it may be, let me stay as I am; for if I had not been lame I might never have known Your face.'

To which the Stranger said:

'That is a true saying. For by suffering eyes are opened; so that he who endures most sees best. For to all men God gives gifts.'

The woman busied herself in making breakfast ready. When they were at table, the lame man said:

'Lord, if You will not stay with us, may we come with You?'

'Nay; you are with Me although you stay. For where My own are, I am.'

'Lord, suffer me to come! Suffer it, Lord!'

'If you will, come, until you find the way too long and the path too hard for your feet to travel; for the road by which I go is not an easy one.' He turned to the woman. 'Do you come also?'

'If You will, I will stay at home, to make ready against You come again.'

He answered:

'You have not chosen the worse part.'

While they had been sitting at breakfast the boy had run out into the street, and told first to one and then to another how, with a touch, a wonderful Stranger had straightened his leg, so that he was no longer lame. And, since they could see for themselves that he was healed of his lameness, the tale was quickly noised about; so that when the Stranger came out of the shoemaker's house, He found that a number of people awaited Him without. A woman came pushing through the crowd, bearing a crooked child in her arms.

'Heal my son also! Make him straight like the other!'

And being moved by pity for the child, He touched him, so that he sprang from his mother's arms, and stood before them whole. And all the people were amazed, saying:

'What manner of man is this, that makes the lame to walk with a touch?'

So when He came out into the Brompton Road He was already attended by a crowd, some crying:

'This is the man who works miracles!'

Others:

'Bring out your sick!'

With each step He took the crowd increased, so that when He came to the narrow part of Knightsbridge the street became choked and the traffic blocked. The people, because there were so many, pressed against Him so that He could not move, and there began to be danger of a riot.

The lame man, who found it difficult to keep close to His side, said to Him:

'Lord, if You do not send them from us we shall be hurt.'

But He replied:

'It is to these I have come, although they know it not. If I send them from us, why did I come?'

When they reached that portion of the road where it grows wider in front of the park, the pressure became less. But still the crowd increased.

'He goes to the hospital,' they cry, 'to heal the sick with a touch.'

And some ran on to St. George's Hospital, and pushed past the porters up the stairs and into the wards, and began to lift the sick out of their beds. And those who could walk, being persuaded by them that had run on, went out into the streets. So that when He came, He found awaiting Him a strange collection of the sick, who were ill of all manner of diseases. And the people cried:

'Heal them! – heal them with a touch!'

But He replied:

'What is it you ask of Me? I came not to heal the sick, but to call sinners to repentance.'

They cried the more:

'Heal them! – heal them with a touch!'

'If I heal them, what then? Of what shall they be healed? Of what avail to heal the body if the spirit continues sick?'