The Face of the Infant Jesus

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 14 March 1907, Page 33

The Face of the Infant Jesus

In a- ' Christmas Sermon ' in the c Christian Register ' (Unitarian), December 20, 'the Rev. John C. Kimball tells the following story (quoted by the 'Sacred Heart Review '•) illustrating the power upon brutalised men of the picture of the Child Jesus :— 1 Out in Western Texas, where I- was awhile before our Civil Warj- there stood, an old Spanish mission church, named San Jose, nearly ■ ruined by having been made the scene of repeated battles, but still" having over its altar a very fine picture of the crucifixion-. One day a party of roughs from San Antonio, fearing neither God nor man, -broke into the building and wiUli' their pistols, began making a target of its. picture. The old priest in charge of the place implored them, with tears in his eyes and with every persuasion piety and hcyrror, could prompt, to desist from the sacrilege. In vain. ,They only threatened to fire also at his own white head. ,At last, with happy inspiration, he seized a picture of the Sistine Madonna near biy, having in it the wonderful Child Pace of the Infant Jesus, and, holding it up before that of the Crucifixion, bade them, if they must shoot, to fire at that. Thje brutal leader, with a ringing oath, at once levelled his revolver at the Child Pace. But those calm, sweet, unfathomable eyes, the marvel of all art, looked straight and trusting into ' his ; and he did what, fronting man, he never yet had done,— dropped its muzzle with a bit of tremor. His companions jeered at him for his cowardice, and again he raised the weapon, "but with the same result. A third time he tried and failed. Then, with a strange look in his own eyes, but a voice there was no jeering at now, he faced his fellow-ruffians, " shouting : " Away with you all ! The man who shoots at that Child, I'll put a bullet through him.!" '