Jonah

JONAH stood again before Amaziah, the High Priest. On his face, dark with woe, were drawn lines of determination. He held out his hands, empty, and brown as the earth.

“I have not brought you anything this time,” he said, “not even an eagle’s feather.”

Amaziah chose to ignore this greeting. “What now, Jonah,” he exclaimed cheerfully; “do you not bring me another war? The presence of my favorite prophet fills me with the liveliest hopes.”

But Jonah shook his head. “I am weary of being a prophet,” he said simply; “I have come to ask you to make me a priest.”

Without losing the serenity of his expression, Amaziah looked thoughtfully at the young man whose weary face expressed dissatisfaction and bitterness. The old High Priest seemed to be reaching back into his own past, to the time when he, too, had had a choice to make. And his face, as he gazed at Jonah, softened; an expression almost of pity crossed his features, sharp and cruel as a hawk’s.

“This is bad news, Jonah,” he said gently. And he was silent, waiting for an answer.

But Jonah had nothing further to say.

Amaziah stroked his chin. “Tell me,” he said at last, “what has caused you to look with dissatisfaction on your career at the very moment when all Israel speaks of you with admiration?”

“What is the good of admiration?” asked Jonah sadly. “I have a living to make.”

“Ah,” said Amaziah, and his face clouded, “so that is it. What a nuisance.”

And he sat looking before him with a frown.

“You do not really wish to be a priest,” he said at last; “for one thing the duties would soon prove irksome to one of your temperament.”

Jonah threw out his hands. “What is there for me to do?” he cried. “Shall I keep cattle, like my brother Aaron? Or am I to beg, with a bowl?”

“There are worse things than begging,” said Amaziah. “In the desert every one is a beggar.”

“I am tired of the desert,” said Jonah; “I am not going to live there any longer.”

But Amaziah held up his hand reprovingly. “My son,” he said gravely, “one does not change the course of one’s life with impunity, or for no reason.”

“There is a reason,” said Jonah. He looked down at his feet; then he looked boldly up again. “I wish to marry,” he said.

The High Priest made a gesture of discouragement. “I might have guessed,” he murmured. And he gazed sadly at the prophet, on whom he had been counting to help further his own plans. Presently he said with a sigh,

“I can see that this maiden’s father does not wish to give her away for nothing.”

“He is wealthy,” said Jonah gloomily. “For that reason he cannot abide a poor man for a son-in-law.”

Amaziah nodded his head. “Naturally,” he agreed; “if he is wealthy, he feels obliged to add to his fortune. It is only those without anything who can give away what they have, without suffering an overbearing sense of loss. For one thing they do not lose as much, and for another, having nothing, they are not required to succeed in the world, and so they can afford to be generous.”

As Jonah did not reply to this observation, he continued in a grave voice:

“Are you really determined upon this thing, my son? Think well. Marriage in your case may well be a calamity. You have a name already famous in Israel. You are at the outset of a career like that of Samuel. It is safe to predict that you will go far. And you wish to give this up in order to be married? Such a thing is incredible. Farewell to glory, Jonah.”

Jonah folded his arms, and regarded the High Priest with a gloomy and obstinate look. “Nevertheless,” he said firmly, “that is my decision.”

“It is not even your loss,” continued Amaziah earnestly, “wholly; it is Israel’s. It is you who shine like a lamp in her darkness; yours is the voice of hope in her night. If you were Amos, or Hosea, I should say that Israel could get along without you. But you are different; you are the messenger of God’s geniality. Israel cannot afford to lose you, Jonah, my son.”

However, Jonah was proof against arguments of this kind. Seeing which, Amaziah exclaimed,

“What will God think of His prophet, who no longer listens to His voice?”

Jonah replied with an effort: “Is God only audible in the desert? And must He be silent in the Temple? I tell you, He will speak to me wherever I am.”

Almost at once he astonished Amaziah by crying out in a muffled voice, full of pain, “Do you think this is easy for me?”

Amaziah seized what he took to be his advantage. “You are confident,” he remarked in quiet tones, “but I have noticed that God does not speak to my priests with the same enthusiasm with which He addresses Himself to the wild and savage hermits who live in the desert of Tob and Golan. And it is my experience that His angels do not enter the cottages of married men with the same boldness with which they visit the huts of bachelors. If it is true that prophets have sometimes been married, it is also true that they have often left their wives and gone out alone to live in the wilderness.”

“That,” said Jonah stubbornly, “is a personal matter, which need not concern us.”

And he added, “You cannot shake me in my resolve.”

Amaziah looked at him sadly. But suddenly his brow cleared, and he struck his palms together. “Wait,” he cried; “if the father of this young woman did not object to your poverty, then there would be no reason for you to become a priest.”

“Well,” said Jonah sourly, “he does object.”

“Then,” exclaimed Amaziah, “for the glory of his country he shall be prevailed upon to change his mind.”

And he waited with a smile for the name of the unreasonable man whose opinions were making a successful war with Nineveh highly improbable.

“It is Prince Ahab,” said Jonah.

At once the smile left Amaziah’s face, to be replaced by a look of consternation. The High Priest sank back in his seat, and stared at Jonah with brows which slowly drew together into a frown. His fingers caressed his chin; he sat for a long time without speaking. At last he said:

“My son, the more I think of things, the more convinced I am that you would not make a good priest. It is the duty of a priest to serve men, and the Temple. You cannot be a good priest, and at the same time be given to divine illumination, because God deals only in generalities, and does not bother Himself about the details of administration.

“A priest must conform; he must not have ideas of his own. He is a soldier with certain duties to perform: he must obey his superiors, and must serve the interests of the men and women who worship the god.

“That would never do for you; your spirit is too lively. You would try to change everything.

“Moreover, since you are not a Levite, I cannot make you a priest of Adonai. I cannot believe that you would be willing to become a priest of a baal such as Melcarth or Kemosh.

“Besides, can you read or write? No? Well....

“I can do nothing for you.”

So saying, he clapped his hands, to show that the interview was at an end.

“Will you speak to Prince Ahab?” cried Jonah wildly.

Amaziah did not reply. Instead, two Nubian slaves came forward, and hustled Jonah out of the house.

A number of people, hearing that the prophet Jonah was in town, had gathered in the street, to gaze at the man who had won a victory over the Aramæans. When they saw Jonah they waved their sticks and shawls, and cried,

“Hurrah for the prophet.”

“God bless Jonah.”

“There is a great man; just look at him.”

One old woman came hobbling forward, to touch the hem of his cloak. Jonah did not even see her. His eyes, hot with anger, were on the ground; he saw the dust, and the tip of his own beard. Finding an old woman in his path, he gave her a shove; whereat she fell with a bump to the ground.

“Oh my,” she said, when she had got her breath. “Oh my. Well, there’s a great man for you. Tst; I feel better already.”