“Jesus seems to me to say:…
If I held my face to my testimony only till danger came close, and then prayed for the Father to deliver me with twelve legions of angels, that would be to say that the Father would do anything for his children until it began to hurt him. I bear witness that my father is such as I. In the face of death I assert it, and dare death to disprove it. Kill me, do what you will and can against me, my father is true, and I am true in saying that he is true. Danger or hurt cannot turn me aside from this my witness. Death can only kill my body but cannot make me its captive.
Father, thy will be done! The pain will pass. It will be but for a time! Gladly will I suffer that men may know that I live, and that thou art my life.”
— George MacDonald, Your Life in Christ: The Nature of God and His Work in Human Hearts, p. 46-47