EARLY in the seventeenth century, a Dusseldorf artist was engaged in painting a picture of the crucifixion, for a church in that city. He gave a great deal of thought to the picture, but am a relief to his mind and feelings he undertook at the same time to paint a Spanish dancing-girl. The model chosen for the latter was a lively young gipsy in her teens.
On her first arrival at the studio, Pepita was full of wonder, and her eyes roved from one marvel to another.
Presently she began examining the pictures. Soon the great altar-piece caught her attention. For days she gazed at it intently. At last, in an awed voice, she asked―
“Who is that?” pointing to the most prominent figure.
“The Christ,” answered the artist Stenburg carelessly.
“What is being done to Him?”
“Being crucified,” ejaculated the artist. “Turn a little to the right. There that will do.”
Stenburg, with his brash in his fingers, was a man of few words.
“Who are those people about Him―those with the bad faces?”
“Now, look here,” said the artist; “I cannot talk to you. You have nothing to do but stand as I tell you.”
The girl dared not speak again, but she continued to gaze and speculate. Every time she came to the studio the fascination of the picture grew upon her. Sometimes she ventured an inquiry, for her curiosity consumed her.
“Why did they crucify Him? Was He bad, very bad?”
“No; very good.”
That was all she learned at one interview; but she treasured each word, and every sentence was so much more known of the mystery.
“Then if He was good, why did they do so? Was it for a short time only? Did they let Him go?”
“It was because―” The artist paused with his head on one side, stepped forward, and arranged her dress.
“Because?” repeated Pepita, breathlessly.
The artist went back to his easel; then looking at her, the eager, questioning face moved his pity.
“Listen, I will tell you once for all, and then ask no further questions;” and he told her the story of the Cross—new to Pepita, though so old to the artist, that it had ceased to touch him. He could paint that dying agony, and not a nerve of his quivered; but the thought of it wrung her heart. Her great black eyes swam in tears.
The altar-piece and the Spanish dancing-girl were finished simultaneously. Pepita’s last visit to the studio had come. She looked upon the beautiful representation of herself without emotion, but turned and stood before the altar-piece, unable to leave it.
“Come,” said the artist, “here is your money and a gold piece over and above. The ‘Dancing-girl’ is already sold: I shall want you some time again.”
The girl turned slowly.
“Thanks, signor!” but her eyes, full of emotion, were solemn. “You must love Him very much, signor, when He has done all that for you, do you not?”
The face into which she looked flushed crimson. The artist was ashamed. The girl, in her poor, faded dress, passed from his studio, but her plaintive words rang in his heart. He tried to forget them; but impossible. He hastened to send the picture to its destination; still he could not forget, “all that for you.”
At last the pain was not to be borne. He would face it and conquer it. He went to confession. Father Hugo questioned Stenburg. He believed all the doctrines of the Church. So he gave him absolution, and assured him that “all was well.” The artist allowed a liberal discount on his altarpiece, and, for a week or two, felt at ease. But then up rose the old question, “You must love Him very much, do you not?” and would be answered He grew restless, and could not settle to his work So, wandering about, he heard of things which had not come under his notice before. One day he saw a group of persons hastening to a house near the walls―a poor place―and then he noticed others coming in the opposite direction, and they, too, passed into its low doorway. He asked what was happening there; but the man he questioned could not satisfy him. This roused his curiosity.
A few days later he learned that a stranger, one of the “Reformed,” lived there―one of those despised men who appealed on every occasion to the Word of God. It was hardly respectable, hardly safe, even to know them; yet, perhaps, here he might find that which he sought. They might possess the secret of peace. So Stenburg went to observe, perhaps to inquire, certainly not to join them; but a man cannot approach the fire and remain cold. This Reformed preacher spoke and looked as one who was walking the earth with Christ; yes, one to whom He was all. Stenburg found what he longed for—a living faith. His new friend lent him, for a time, a precious copy of the New Testament; but, hunted from Dusseldorf after a few weeks, he left, and had to take the Book with him. Its essence, however, was left is Stenbnrg’s heart.
Ah! no need to question now. He felt in his soul the fire of an ardent love. “Did all that for me! how can I ever tell men of that Love, that boundless Love, which can brighten their lives, al it has mine! It is for them, too, but they do not see it, as I did not. How can I preach it? I cannot speak. I am a man of few words. If I were to try, I could never speak it out. It burns in my heart, but I cannot express it—the love of Christ!”
So thinking, the artist idly drew with a piece of charcoal in his fingers a rough sketch of a thorn-crowned head. His eyes grew moist as he did so. Suddenly the thought flashed through his soul, “I can paint! My brush must proclaim it. Ah! in that altar-piece His face was all agony. But that was not the truth. Love unutterable, infinite compassion, willing sacrifice!”
The artist fell on his knees, and prayed to paint worthily, and thus speak.
And then he wrought. The fire of his genius blazed up. The picture of the crucifixion was a wonder.
He would not sell it. He gave it a freewill offering to his native city. It was hung in the public gallery, and there the citizens flocked to see it, and voices were hushed and hearts melted as they stood before it, and the burghers returned to their homes repeating to themselves the words written so distinctly beneath―
“All this I did for thee;
What hast thou done for Me?”
Stenburg also used to go there, and watching far back from the corner in the gallery the people who gathered about the picture, he prayed God to bless his painted sermon. One day he observed, when the rest of the visitors had left, a poor girl standing weeping bitterly before it. The artist approached her. “What grieves thee, child?” he asked.
The girl turned; she was Pepita. “Oh! signor, if He had but loved me so,” she said, pointing to the face of yearning love bending above them. “I am only a poor gipsy. For you is the love, but not for such as I;” and her despairing tears fell unrestrained.
“Pepita, it was also all for thee.” And then the artist told her all. Until the late hour at which the gallery closed they sat and talked. The painter did not weary now of answering her questions, for the subject was the one he loved best. He told the girl the story of that wondrous life, death, and resurrection, and also explained to her the union that redeeming love effected. She listened, received, and believed his words. “All this I did for thee.”
Two years have passed. Winter had come again. The cold was intense, and the wind moaned down the narrow streets of Dusseldorf, and shook the casements of the artist’s dwelling. His day’s work was done, and by the blazing pine logs he was seated, reading a copy of his beloved Gospel, which he had with difficulty obtained.
A knock sounded at the door, and a man was admitted. He wore an old sheepskin jacket, on which the snow had frozen; his hair hung in dark locks about his face. He glanced ravenously towards the bread and meat upon the table as he gave his message.
“Would the gentleman come with him on urgent business?”
“Wherefore do you wish me so?”
“I cannot say,” replied the man; “but one who is dying wants to see you.”
“Eat,” said the artist. “I will accompany you.”
The man murmured his thanks as he devoured the food.
“You are hungry?”
“Sire, we are all famished.”
Stenburg brought a bag of provisions.
“Can you carry this?”
“Ah! gladly, gladly. But come—there is no time to lose.”
The artist followed. His guide led him quickly through the streets, and out into the country beyond. The branches were laden with snow, and the great crowded trunks confusing. No path, but the man never hesitated. He silently and swiftly kept ahead of Stenburg. At last they came to a glade belted round with trees, with a few tents.
“Go in there,” said the man, pointing to one of the tents, and then turned to a group of men, women, and children, who thronged about him. He spoke to them in a wild tongue, and lifted his bag from his shoulder.
The artist, crouching, crept into the tent. A brilliant ray of moonlight illuminated the poor interior. On a mass of dry leaves was the form of a young woman. Her face was pinched and hollow.
“Why, Pepita!”
At the sound of the artist’s voice the eyes opened. Those wonderful dark eyes still were brilliant. A smile trembled to her lips, and she raised herself on her elbow.
“Yes,” she said, “HE has come for me! He holds out His hands! ‘For thee.’ All this I did for thee;” and she bade him farewell.
Long years after both the painter and the gipsy girl had met in another land, a gay young nobleman drove in his splendid equipage into Dusseldorf, and while his horses were baited, wandered into that famous gallery. He was rich, young, intelligent—the world bright, and its treasures within his grasp. He stood before Stenburg’s picture arrested. He read and re-read the legend on the frame. He could not tear himself away―it grew into his heart. The love of Christ laid its powerful grasp on his soul.
Hours passed; the light faded. The curator touched the weeping nobleman, and told him it was time to close the gallery. Night came―nay I rather, for that young man, the dawn of eternal life. He was Zinzendorf.
He returned to the inn and re-entered his carriage, but to turn his back on Paris, and seek again his home. From that moment he threw life, fortune, fame, at the feet of Him who had whispered to his heart―
“All this I did for thee
What had thou done for Me?”
Zinzendorf, the father of the Moravian Missions, answered that question by his devoted life and his welcomed death.
Stenburg’s picture no longer hangs in the gallery of Dusseldorf, for when some years ago the gallery was destroyed by fire, it perished; but it preached, and God used it to tell of His gift―Calvary’s Substitute―of whom Paul said, “He loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Can you, reader, say, “For me”? ANON.