Autobiographical Sketches, Annie Besant [books you have to read .TXT] 📗

stately preface of his was one of my favorite pieces of reading, and his dignified defence against all novelties of "that which must be old because it is eternal, and must be unchangeable because it is true", at once charmed and satisfied me. The delightful vagueness of Stanley, which just suited my mother's broad views, because it _was_ vague and beautiful, was denounced by Pusey--not unwarrantably-- as that "variegated use of words which destroys all definiteness of meaning". When she would bid me not be uncharitable to those with whom I differed in matters of religion, I would answer in his words, that "charity to error is treason to truth", and that to speak out the truth unwaveringly as it was revealed, was alone "loyalty to God and charity to the souls of men".

Judge, then, of my terror at my own results when I found myself betrayed into writing down some contradictions from the Bible. With that poetic dreaming which is one of the charms of Catholicism, whether English or Roman, I threw myself back into the time of the first century as the "Holy Week" of 1866 approached. In order to facilitate the realisation of those last sacred days of God incarnate on earth, working out man's salvation, I resolved to write a brief history of that week, compiled from the four gospels, meaning then to try and realise each day the occurrences that had happened on the corresponding date in A.D. 33, and so to follow those "blessed feet" step by step, till they were

"... nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross."

With the fearlessness which springs from ignorance I sat down to my task. My method was as follows:

MATTHEW. | MARK. | LUKE. | JOHN.
| | |
PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY.
| | |
Rode into | Rode into | Rode into | Rode into
Jerusalem. | Jerusalem. | Jerusalem. | Jerusalem. Spoke
Purified the | Returned to | Purified the | in the Temple.
Temple. Returned | Bethany. | Temple. Note: |
to Bethany. | | "Taught daily |
| | in the Temple". |
| | |
MONDAY. | MONDAY. | MONDAY. | MONDAY.
| | |
Cursed the fig | Cursed the fig | Like Matthew. |
tree. Taught in | tree. Purified | |
the Temple, and | the Temple. | |
spake many | Went out of | |
parables. No | city. | |
breaks shown, | | |
but the fig tree | | |
(xxi., 19) did | | |
not wither till | | |
Tuesday (see | | |
Mark). | | |
| | |
TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY.
| | |
All chaps, xxi., | Saw fig tree | Discourses. No |
20, xxii.-xxv., | withered up. | date shown. |
spoken on Tues- | Then discourses.| |
day, for xxvi., 2 | | |
gives Passover as | | |
"after two days". | | |
| | |
WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY.
| | |
Blank. | | |
(Possibly remained in Bethany; the alabaster box of ointment.)
| | |
THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY.
| | |
Preparation of | Same as Matt. | Same as Matt. | Discourses with
Passover. Eating | | | disciples, but
of Passover, | | | _before_ the
and institution | | | Passover. Washes
of the Holy Eu- | | | the disciples'
charist. Gesthse-