ord, and my servant shall be
healed."

But how did the Centurion know--seemingly at first sight, that Jesus was
the Lord God? Ah, how indeed?

I think it was because he had learnt the soldier's lesson. He had seen
many a valiant officer--Tribunes, Prefects, Consuls, Emperors, commanding
men; and fit to command men. There was no lack of such men in the Roman
empire then, as the poor, foolish, unruly Jews found out to their cost
within the next forty years. And the good Centurion had been accustomed
to look at such men; and to look up to them beside, and say not merely--It
is a duty to obey these men, but--It is a delight to obey them. He had
been accustomed--as it is good for every man to be accustomed--to meet
men superior to himself; men able to guide and rule him. And he had
learned--as every good soldier ought to learn--when he met such a man,
not to envy him, not to backbite him, not to intrigue against him, not to
try to pull him down: but to accept him for what he was--a man who was to
be followed, if need be, to the death.

There was in that good Centurion none of the base spirit of envy, which
dreads and therefore hates excellence, hates ability, hates authority;
the mutinous spirit which ends, not--as it dreams--in freedom and
equality, but in slavery and tyranny; because it transforms a whole
army--a whole nation--from what it should be, a pack of staunch and
faithful hounds, into a mob of quarrelsome and greedy curs. Not of that
spirit was the good Centurion: but of the spirit of reverence and
loyalty; the spirit which delights in, and looks up to, all that is brave
and able, great and good; the spirit of true independence, true freedom,
and the true self-respect which respects its fellow men; and therefore it
was, that when the Centurion came into the divine presence of Christ, he
knew at once, instinctively and by a glance, into what a presence he had
come. Christ's mere countenance, Christ's mere bearing, I believe, told
that good soldier who He was. He knew of old the look of great
commanders: and now he saw a countenance, in spite of all its sweetness,
more commanding than he had ever seen before. He knew of old the bearing
of Consuls and of Emperors: and now, in spite of Christ's lowly disguise,
he recognised the bearing of an Emperor of emperors, a King of kings. He
had learnt of old to know a man when he met one; and now, he felt that he
had met the Man of all men, the Son of Man; and tha