William O'Hollaren
Published: 2018-05-05
Total Pages: 78
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Excerpt from The Creighton Quarterly Shadows, Vol. 30: The Student Magazine of the Creighton University, Omaha; April, 1939 Sturdy Roman soldier tramped slowly back and forth keeping guard. His weatherbeaten features seemed to betoken stolid calmness, but there was a strange unquiet in his heart. It was a mystery to him. He had served in many provinces, in Spain, in Gaul, along the Danube. Strangeness, violence and bloodshed were part of the day's work everywhere, but here in the province of Pontius Pilate everything was stranger than anywhere else. The air was hot and stifling. The language of the people came stiffly and haltingly from his mild Italian mouth. The customs of these mysterious J ews - who could understand them.2 And then the events of these days just past were the most puzzling of all. And here he was guarding the tomb of the poor car penter and preacher who had been at the bottom of the whole disturbance. A miracle worker some called him, others said a seducer and a disturber. More probably, thought the soldier, a poor fanatic whose hot Oriental blood had disturbed his reason. Thousands of people fed with a handful of bread and fish, lepers made clean and dead men brought to life what fantastic tales were these? And yet that majestic calm - no word of complaint no word of defiance, no word at all. Could a fanatic keep this up? Even dry old Pontius Pilate seemed ill at ease during the man's trial. And well he might; there surely was something about the man. A bad business. He was glad it was over. After all the shouting of the bloodthirsty rabble on Calvary, it was exceedingly peaceful here in the very early light of this Sunday morn. The soft colors throbbed in the sky like a small pulse at the finger of day. The great stone over there at the door of Joseph's rock tomb kept the poor carpenter's remains secure from friend and foe alike. The pacing soldier watched the birds flitting through the dusty leaves of the olive trees. He was sorrowful. For him their songs were muted. For a long time he had known that he was growing more deaf. He was fortunate in knowing the army routine so well. Since early youth he had subjected himself to the rigid discipline of army life and he was frightened lest the only life he knew should be taken from him if his defective hearing were discovered. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.