Luke 9:28-36 And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.… The human face is a "book where men can read strange matters." Said Dr. Bellows in a recent sermon: "There is an ecumenical council in the soul of man," a conflict of opinions good and evil, a debate on the great truths of duty and destiny; and we might carry out the figure and say that the doings of this great council in the soul cannot be kept secret by closed lips, for the face is a bulletin-board that constantly indicates the working of the heart. We have all seen how anguish of heart "disasters the cheeks" and furrows the face, and writes upon it the epitaphs of buried hopes; we have seen "faces tramped as hard as a highway by the hoofs of pain and oppression," and every one is thus familiar with the fact that sorrow engraves its story in the countenance. But look, also, into the faces that glare at you from the dens of infamy; faces that seem to contain the ruins of the ten commandments; faces that hurt you more than a blow; faces where "from the eyes the spirit wildly peeps"; faces like petrified vices, not a finger-touch of God left whole upon them, and you will realize that vice as well as misery makes its trademark on the visage while it ravages the heart. Great soul-artists always recognize the fact that we are to see the mind in the visage. Dickens makes even the dogs to lead their blind masters up side alleys to escape the cruel face of Scrooge, while on the other hand, the little boy in the churchyard looks with tears into the face of "little Nell," as her countenance is being transfigured by approaching death to see if she is already an angel, as the neighbours have said she will be soon. (W. F. Crafts.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. |
    |