Volume 2

Jesus' Picture 125
these gifts from him." Then the slaves approached with
the presents. Jesus replied to the envoy that the good intentions
of his master were pleasing to Him, and He commanded
the disciples to take the gifts and distribute them
among the poorest of the assembled crowd. Then He unfolded
the letter and read it. I do not remember all that
was in it, but only that the king referred to Jesus' power
to raise the dead, and begged Him to come and cure him.
The part of the letter containing the writing was stiff; the
envelope pliable, as if of some kind of stuff, either leather
or silk. I saw, too, that it was bound by a string.
When Jesus had read the letter, He turned the other
side of the stiff part and, drawing from His robe a coarse
pencil out of which He pushed something, He wrote
several words in tolerably large characters, and then
folded it again. After that He called for some water,
bathed His face, pressed the soft stuff in which the letter
had been folded to His sacred countenance, and returned
it to the envoy. The latter applied it to the picture he had
vainly tried to perfect, when behold! The likeness instantly
became a facsimile of the original. The artist was filled
with delight. He turned the picture, which was hanging by
a strap, toward the spectators, cast himself at Jesus' feet,
arose, and took leave immediately. But some of his servants
remained behind and followed Jesus who, after this
instruction, crossed the Jordan to the second place of
Baptism which John had abandoned. There these new
followers were baptized.
I saw the envoy on his way home passing a night outside
a city near which were long stone buildings like brick
kilns. Very early the next morning some of the workmen
hurried to the spot, because they had seen there a bright
light like a fire. Something remarkable then took place in
connection with the picture, and a great crowd of people
gathered on the spot. The artist exhibited to them his picture,
as well as the cloth with which Jesus had dried His