The Jew grasped the hand of the Greek and murmured _Brother_.
“Let me tell you another thing,” the Jew added, after a moment. “I have _seen_ him. Yes, I have seen Jesus and recognized in the full-grown man the unutterable something that spoke so powerfully to us in the child.”
“Not in dreams, though I scarcely dream of anything else, but with these bodily eyes. You see that, as news of the wonderful doings in Judea thickened upon us, I became too restless to remain quietly here while the world was being shaken only a few days’ journey away. My brother, who long before the death of our father had taken this khan, felt very much as I did; and so we agreed to go together and see for ourselves, instead of having the facts filtered to us through the imaginations and prejudices, it may be, of other people. Accordingly we went; and not only recognized him, as I have said, but were at once recognized by him and called by our names. None of our acquaintances were about him, we knew not a soul in Capernaum, and yet, as soon as he saw us, he said ‘Shaphan and Nathan, sons of Reuben, welcome.’.... We were with him several days and heard him teach the people as surely people were never before taught. _We_ said, as did his other hearers, _Never man spake like this man_. And then the things that he did! Oh, it was good and yet awful to be there! How mightily and easily he did things which God alone can do! We saw lepers white as snow turned into sound men at his simple word: also one man who had lost a hand had it instantaneously restored in our presence. In passing through the country we met many who testified that they had been cured by him of the worst forms of disease in their last stages—cured in a moment, and without the use of any natural means whatever. Indeed, the land is full of such cases, so that not even the worst enemies of Jesus pretend to doubt his miraculous powers.”
“Tell me of the man whose hand was restored,” said Cimon.
“A company of us were passing through a street when some blind men met us and cried to Jesus for help. We halted just before a butcher’s stall where a man was dividing some meat with a cleaver. Another man and myself were pressed by the crowd close to the block where the work was being done. In his anxiety to see Jesus deal with the blind men, my neighbor laid his hand on the block suddenly, for the purpose of raising himself somewhat to get a better view, when the cleaver descended and struck off his entire hand. The blood spouted. A great outcry was made, and Jesus came up. He calmly said to the maimed man as he held up the bleeding stump, _Be whole_: and at once I saw a new hand occupying the place of the old. The whole crowd, as well as myself, carefully inspected the substitute and compared it with the original hand that still lay on the block.”