But I may, perhaps, help you to understand it, by
telling you what this centurion was.
He was not a Jew. He was a Roman, and a heathen; a man of our race,
very likely. And he was a centurion, a captain in the army; and
one, mind, who had risen from the ranks, by good conduct, and good
service. Before he got his vine-stock, which was the mark of his
authority over a hundred men, he had, no doubt, marched many a weary
mile under a heavy load, and fought, probably, many a bloody battle
in foreign parts. That had been his education, his training,
namely, discipline, and hard work. And because he had learned to
obey, he was fit to rule. He was helping now to keep in order those
treacherous, unruly Jews, and their worthless puppet-kings, like
Herod; much as our soldiers in India are keeping in order the
Hindoos, and their worthless puppet-kings.
Whether the Romans had any _right_ to conquer and keep down the Jews
as they did, is no concern of ours just now. But we have proof that
what this centurion did, he did wisely and kindly. The elders of
the Jews said of him, that he loved the Jews, and had built them a
synagogue, a church. I suppose that what he had heard from them
about a one living God, who had made all things in heaven and earth,
and given them a law, which cannot be broken, so that all things
obey him to this day--I suppose, I say, that this pleased him better
than the Roman stories of many gods, who were capricious, and
fretful, and quarrelled with each other in a fashion which ought to
have been shocking to the conscience and reason of a disciplined
soldier.
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