Miriamne comprehended the situation in a moment, and all radiant with smiles, bounded to the side of her aged friend, crying: “Father, oh, you’ve a bonny family coming; over fifty youths and maidens; some Jews, some Gentiles. They’ve been comforting the wounded and now have spontaneously formed some sort of friendly guild.”
“That’s praiseworthy so far,” the saintly man replied.
“And don’t blush; when I asked the leader what were their purposes and name, a dozen cried out at once; ‘We’re Father Adolphus’s angels of mercy!’”
“They could easily have found a better title, but youth in its frank celerity interprets human need. We all must have a pattern or hero. That’s the reason there are pagans; not finding the true God, some invent one. Anyway, God blesses the merciful.”
“Oh, these angels are splendid; so earnest; so happy; so every thing good! They all wear balsam-twig crowns, and are singing improvised ditties about charity and humanity, and such like.”
“Praised be God if they mean them, daughter.”
“Mean them? Why they’ll make the ancients groan if they go to the crossways with their enthusiastic singing. ‘Black-frowns!’ if they disturb the Passover solemnities, won’t there be trouble?
“And Bozrah will never understand the meaning of the ceremonial, the phantom of which meaning some to-day are pursuing, until it beholds sweet charity sincerely applied, rising with healing and life in its wings to pass over savingly where humanity has pains and death.”
The old priest looked away toward Jerusalem, as he spoke—his voice meanwhile becoming very tender, almost tremulous. Had one been able to enter his heart, there would have been seen a memory picture of Calvary. Miriamne was awed for a few moments; the old man was lost in thought; presently she recalled his attention: “Father, the band is just at hand. Shall I introduce you?”
“It is needless; I formed that Band of Charity, though I gave them not the name; most all except the recruits of to-day know me.”
The singers went by, saluting the priest as they passed; obeying his signal to them not to tarry.
Miriamne turned to her comrade with quickened confidence, and with her usual impetuosity exclaimed:
“I want to be what you like. Make me a Balsamite!”
“Thou hast a mother who might object.”
“Oh, no, no; not if she knew all, as do I.”
“Some have called my work witchcraft.”
“I don’t care, since I know better. Make me a Balsamite, now, please?”
“So be it, child. Put thy hand on thy heart and repeat: ‘I promise my Merciful Father always to show heartfelt kindness to all His creatures, especially those in misery, because of His everlasting goodness toward myself.’”
“I promise that gladly. Is that all?”
“Yes; thy badge, a sprig of the evergreen balm-shrub, shall teach thee the rest.”
“Teach me the rest?”
“Puzzled again, child? Well, I’ll teach thee, and the shrub shall recall my lessons. As thou dost learn to love nature, as thou wilt when getting back to a more child-like faith, nature will talk to thee all the time. See, this is unfading; so is mercy. When torrid suns make the shrub suffer, it sweats or weeps these healing gums. Trials make all good souls fruitful. Then see, this little shrub gives to the world all it receives, transforming its earthy nourishments, sunshines and showers, into a medicament for sufferers. It is a type of the All-Giver. It has but three flowers, and I read in these the signature of a Triune God. This thou wilt, perhaps, read some time for thyself, when thou hast learned the mystery of the Unspeakable Gift.”
“My father, your wisdom is very beautiful.”
“Would, my child, that my words ever be to thee as the nuts of this little evergreen emblem, though rough-coated, still filled with liquid of honey sweetness.”
The maiden yearned to embrace the priest. Had she done so, her feelings would have been like those of a daughter toward a father, or a devotee toward God. She yearned to express love for father. The fountain of that affection, hitherto unevoked, was full. But she restrained herself, and said, as she clasped the old man’s arm: “May I be crowned?”
“Yes, daughter; having served the bleeding as thou didst to-day, thou mayst.” The priest twined together some of the balsam bows and placed them upon her brow. “I saw once, at Damascus, a painted presentment of the mother of our Lord, on wood, from which, continuously, there exuded a precious nard, of all healing virtue. So they said, at least; and more than this, I was assured it had power to heal even the wounds of infidels.”
“Is this really so?”
“I believe a Christian kindness to an unbeliever a medicine to the soul of the blesser and blest. That’s why I’m merciful to Moslem.”
“But you court dangers, do you not? I remember your telling me once, that fanatics, or men with a false religion, falsely practiced, were like mad dogs—one could never tell when they might bite the kindest master.”
“True, some forgetting the essence of all religion worth the name, Charity, to propagate their theories, easily befool their consciences and murder gratitude. But ingratitude is a Christian and Jewish, as well as a heathen fault. In this all are alike. Still, though a man spoil all the good I try to do him, there’s one thing he can not spoil.”
“And that is what?”
“The bird of sunny plumage that sings in my heart because of the good I attempt. I met a French pilgrim, a while ago, who spent his time mostly in helping, as he could, to make the Mohammedan children he met, happy. He sang to them, gave them presents, acted as umpire in their sports, and if one got hurt he mothered it—(that’s what he called his tender, odd ways). Some called him wrong in his head, but when I knew him I believed that one sane, amid thousands crazed.”
“Who and what was he?”
“I asked him, and for reply got only this: ‘I’m Melchisedec, a priest of the wayside, seeking to win silver hands, silver feet, and crown jewels.’”
“Well, he would have frightened me, if I’d met him speaking that way and in such moods?”
“Oh, no; he was not frightful; he seemed to attract even the birds, and the ownerless curs ran to him when others spurned them. He once, when sick, told me that he came from Toul, in Lorraine, where was enshrined an image of Madonna with a silver foot. He believed that tradition, which declared that that presentment of Mary gave a sign by taking a step, on a certain time, which warned some of great impending danger, and thereupon the member was changed to the precious metal.”
“It’s a pretty story.”
“At least the lesson is honey-like. No being can strive to help another without finding the All-Shining often in his own soul. So our crowns are made.”
CHAPTER XIX.
THE QUEEN’S CHILDHOOD.
Miriamne, all aglow with pleasurable excitement and filled with a curiosity which at times rose to very serious questioning as to her own faith, anxiously sought to compass an early meeting with the “Old Clock Man.” She could not content herself to wait a chance opportunity, and so, remembering that it was his custom at evening time to visit, alone, for meditation various old ruins like those of the Reservoir, she determined to seek him there; it being not very far from her home. With beating heart she repaired thither at sunset, the day after the Mameluke attack. Having traversed the Reservoir’s side some two or three hundred feet, she was on the point of returning, for the place was very lonely, when a voice startled her.
“Oh, Father Adolphus, how you frighten me! I’m so glad you came!”
“Looking for me, yet frightened at finding me. Glad I came, though I scared you?”
“Well, men and women when frightened are glad of the fellowship of any thing seemingly strong. It’s easy for the terrified to believe or trust.”
By Carl Muller.
THE EDUCATION OF MARY.
“There’s rare philosophy in thy head, little woman.”
“So? What were you saying when I startled so?”
“That the silvering of the moon brought out thy person beautifully. So she that sits above the moon, a queen in heaven, would beautify thy soul if thou shouldst elect to put on the character she ever wore.”
“I can’t do that, knowing so little of her.”
“A woman’s way of saying, tell me more.”
“You would not torment your Mary with such repartee.”
“Woman again. Art thou jealous already?”
“Fie.”
“Say that again! Once the foil of one of thy sex is penetrated, not having arguments, she can at least say ‘fie’! Well, even ducklings hiss when helplessly entangled.”
“Adolphus Von Gombard, I’ll not call you ‘father’ again, if you approach me any more in this courtier fashion.”
“Again, I say, an old head; but I’d plead privilege.”
“At least old enough to discern the sacred line that bounds all proper commerce between the sexes. You plead privilege; I grant you the noblest any woman can give, the privilege of guiding my immortal soul; but I remember to have heard that he who would shepherd such as I, must be to her as a woman. The relationship between us must be as that between the angels of heaven who neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
“Some young women receive teachings most willingly from fine-favored and patronizing instructors.”
“I know it; but let none patronize me so. I’ve begun to adore the Sacrist of Bozrah, but if a breath or word passes that makes me think of him chiefly as being a man, then I shall sit in his presence in fright, or flee as I would were I to find the place changed into a lonely night-draped waddy, my only company an image of some leering, giant Bacchus. But this unequal defence is painful.”
“Then desist and tell me what I’m to do.”
“You have been my ideal man, for heaven’s sake rob me not by changing!”
“Right nobly spoken, daughter. Now pardon me, for I was putting thee to a test.”
“A test?”
“Yes. It’s forbidden, by customs hereabout, for man and woman, as we, alone to converse face to face; perhaps wisely, if one be bad and the other weak. Yet the custom is heathenish—low moral tone engendering mighty suspicions!”
“Did my priest think me a heathen?”
“No, not that; but they say the moon makes lovers and others mad. I was wondering whether I was dealing with a bundle of romancings or an earnest girl?”
Delicately the maiden avoided the query with another:
“You loved Mary: why did you not wed her?”
“Woman again; doomed to make all vistas end in wedlock. With your sex love, beginning to give, gives all readily, and seems to find no rest until there’s conjugal union.”
“I have not desired to give all that way to those I’ve loved!”
“It is all or nothing. Ye women love only relatives, and never cease to desire to make all relatives whom ye want to love. Why, girl, my Mary is a saint; she died ages ago, after the flesh; but as a model for all womankind lives forever,”
“How was she your Mary, then?”
“She belongs to every noble minded man as his inspirer.”
“Mary—you call her Mary. I thought all the holy and the great had uncommon names?”
“In fiction they do; in reality the name is nothing.”
“Was she wise and beautiful?”
“One of our most holy teachers, Epiphanius, who lived less than four hundred years after Mary, spent many years at Bethlehem and gathered facts that caused him thus to write. ‘She was of middle stature, her face oval, her eyes brilliant and of an olive tint; her eyebrows arched and black, her hair a pale brown, her complexion fair as wheat. She spoke little, but she spoke freely and affably. She was grave, courteous, tranquil. In her deportment was nothing lax or feeble.’ Saint Denis, the Areopagite, who is said to have seen this queen of David’s house in her lifetime, declared that she was ‘a dazzling beauty,’ that he ‘would have adored her as a goddess had he not known that there was but one God!’ Of this much I’m certain, my Bozrah Miriamne, one so serene of character, and so pure, must have reflected her inner, imperishable beauties in her features.”
“Father Adolphus, you mention strange names. There are none that sound like those revered by my people. Do you ever hate my race? If you do you must not teach me any doctrine.”
“Hate? Why, I love all peoples, and by faith I am made a child of Abraham.”
“Then you are a proselyte?”
“Not by any forms. I believe in the God of Abraham and His Messiah. That makes me a perfect Jew.”
“This is strange. My mother never unfolded it to me.”
“Ah, she has not yet looked into these royal mysteries?”
“But, good father, is your name among our chronologies?”
“Thanks to the God of the Patriarchs, yes; it is with that of Moses, David, Elijah, and all the rest, in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
“Where?”
“In Heaven.”
“How wonderful; yet I’m afraid to hear more.”
“Shall I take thee home?”
“No; tell me more of Mary. You say she made you lonely and a father?”
“I must then begin her history, and show thee how and why she lived?”
“Do you think it will tire me?”
“Fear not! Her story is a poem, a picture, a tragedy; it’s one long delight.”
“Then tell it to me, I pray you.”
So the priest proceeded:
“When the world was very wicked, and therefore very sad, God in His goodness was drawn to send from heaven a light-bearer—some one to tell man his duty and able to win back to the Great Father mankind’s straying affections. Thou dost know this much, and hast read in thy sacred Scriptures how God called to the universe, all chaotic and dark, to come forth into beautiful form; how he said to the darkness, ‘Let there be light.’ That history bears within it a fine sermon. It’s a picture of God’s. Out of sin, darkness, confusion, there emerged a perfect man in a Paradisiacal home, with a perfect, beautiful woman as a help-mate by his side. That was God’s ideal of perfection and happiness. It delighted the Father of Joys to make it. This is ever true; behind all clouds in God’s Providence is sunshine, and beyond all disorders somewhere at last will walk forth unalloyed pleasure, a Sabbath-like rest, and fullness of harmony.”
“Oh, can you make me believe and feel this?”
“Wait patiently.”
“I try to do so; but I’m discouraged by the present miseries in my family and in all our nation.”
“God mourns over all our sorrows before they or we are born, but His wisdom and power of cure are faultless. Wait. Times are mending, and the moral sphere is dipping into the rim of light’s oceans. I think the angels perceive the world now, as thou perceivest the new moon.”
“The poetry of the words I can not interpret.”
“The moon’s a dark globe, with a ribbon of silver across it.”
“And things have been worse; now are bettering?”
“Assuredly so. Believe there is a God, and thou’lt rest in hope. Go back a little in history to when Cæsar Augustus, of awful pagan Rome, ruled the world, having won dominion through desolating wars. The most educated Romans then believed in no hereafter, and sought openly, without restraint, the grossest pleasures. The ignorant believed in fabled monstrosities. Rome set the fashions of all the world. The Jews, thy people, God’s people, were lower, morally, then, than ever they had been before. They were divided into warring families and sects, holding a few forms and traditions, but having little heart in religion. The rest of mankind was barbarous. Thou hast heard how the Roman Titus overthrew Jerusalem, slaughtering thy people by thousands, defiling their holy Temple and seeming to blot out nearly the whole of thy race. That time of Titus was midnight; since that the day has been slowly advancing. Before that awful culmination of sorrows, the Divine Trinity held august council, and, as say the traditions of my church, determined to bring a holy sunrise to the earth’s midnight. The trouble of all creation was that man had fallen. The Divine Council decreed to confound the devil, who broke up the first home and ruined the first pure pair by causing to emerge from another home, another pair. They came, this time mother and Son, to be the moral patterns for the race, the beginning of a new, sin-conquering dispensation. The fathers hand down these sayings: ‘The august, regal Triune Council thus decreed: “Let us make a pure creature, dearer to us than all others.”’ They say she was begotten upon the Sabbath, the birth-day of the angels, whose queen she was to be. Then one thousand of the ministering spirits were commissioned to defend her; while Gabriel was sent to announce the glad tidings of the birth of a Saviour’s mother, in Hades. Her angels appeared as young men, of majestic mien, of marvelous beauty and pure as crystals. Their garments were like gold, richly colored, and could not be touched any more than could be the light of the sun.”
“How charming! But is this all true?” exclaimed the maiden.
Without reply, the priest continued: “They were crowned with diadems, exhaling celestial perfumes; in their hands they bore interwoven palms; on their arms and breasts were crosses and military devices. They were swift of flight, some of them six-winged, like the angels of Isaiah’s vision.”
“How dazzling! But is this all true?” Miriamne persisted.
“Well, it’s not in thy sacred books nor in mine so written.”
“Then you are giving me your imaginings?”
“Oh, no; but after the manner I have spoken, it is recorded in revered traditions of my church, and none can very well disprove the sayings.”
“I wonder if such honors made Mary proud?”
“A strange query.”
“I’d like to love one such as she, but could not if she were haughty or lofty, like the great of earth.”
“It would have made such as thou proud, perhaps; but there was none of the serpent in her whose Offspring was to crush the serpent’s head.”
“Is there any of the serpent in me?”
“I’m not thy judge.”
“Then she was immaculate?”
“Ah, that’s a question for the doctors. I’m too simple to know beyond what is written. I’m glad to know that she rejoiced in her son, as a God and a Saviour!”—“She was of noble family, though her parents were poor,” the priest continued. “Her mother was by name Anna, and worthy of the name, which is by interpretation ‘gracious.’ Traditions of her goodness are many, and the good and great have honored her memory. I paid Anna homage, that of a youth respectful of worthy motherhood, at Constantinople, in a church erected in the year 710 to commemorate that saint. Among others, also Justinian, the Emperor, in the year 550, dedicated a sacred place to Mary’s mother.”
“Then she had her meed of praise, at last?”
“Tradition, though tardy, has been just; but I trust not tradition alone. I easily reason that there must have been much of goodness and womanly beauty in the mother that bore such a woman as Mary. I know that God can bring forth angels from the offscourings, but that is not His way. He works by steps upward. I tell thee, girl, the mother gives her life to her offspring, and in spite of training, almost in spite of regeneration, the characteristics of this parent will reappear in the child. But to my story about Mary’s parents, Jehoikim and Anna.
“Blessed be God, Anna and Jehoikim were untainted by the pride of life, and, though living in a time of loose morals, walked lovingly, constantly with each other, through all their days. I talk to thee as to a prudent, but not prudish, young woman. Society is well rotted when divorce is about as common as marriage; it was that way in Anna and Jehoikim’s time. Why, even the exacting Pharisees then taught that a man might divorce a wife who had lost her personal beauty, or badly cooked her husband’s meat. Jehoikim might have left Anna, for she was childless; that was reason enough for divorcement to the average Jew, then. But their love was beautiful. The man, as was his duty, clung tenderly to his wife; her misfortune making her all the more in need of his tenderness. Dost thou not think so?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know.”
“Pardon my earnestness; it made me forget thy inexperience!
“Well, God rewarded their constancy, and they became the parents of my Mary. The father had a noble ancestry; but, what is better, within himself a royal heart. He bore by right the priestly office; but that was not much to such a man, in respect to worldly gain. Honest priests in his time were generally poor; the priestly preferments went, most richly laden, to those who dealt corruptly, and truckled to the ruling powers. Mary’s father was above sordidness and simony. He had little to give or to leave to his beloved, but he left his child a good name and the remembrance of the blessed. So while God chose the humble to confound the mighty, and serenely exalted those of low estate, He was mindful to choose His elect from the ranks of the morally great. Such are found in all places and times, and when surrounded, as were these pious parents, by the gross, low and selfish, they shine with transcendent splendor. In Tisri, the first month of the Jewish civic year, while the smoke of the holocausts were ascending, to invite heaven’s pardon, Mary, who was to bring forth the world’s greatest offering for sin, was born at Nazareth. Her career was fore-ordained, and she was soon walking her course of piety and sorrow. Though inexperienced and tender-hearted, sorrows in heaviest, grimmest forms fell upon her. Her father died when she was, it is said, only nine years of age; not long after, the girl knelt, a mourner, by the bier of her mother; the golden hairs of youth mingling, in the disheveling of utter grief, with the gray, which crowned the queen and guide of her heart, her mother. On the threshold of her life Mary’s parents were called away from her, leaving her no heritage but their precepts and example. They say that Jehoikim’s hands were stretched out, as in benediction, when he died, and so remained until his burial, reminding all that his last act was a commendation of his little daughter to Him who carries the lambs in his bosom! The picture of these outstretched hands, and of the girl embracing the aged dead mother, are often in my mind; they never fail to deeply move me. Poor orphaned lamb!”
Miriamne brushed away a tear, a sort of self-pitying tear. She ran forward in mind, to the day when she, herself, would be orphaned, without a benediction, or, perhaps, a cheering memory. Then she questioned:
“Did your Mary have other friends?”
“Yea, her Heavenly Father. It is said, also, that she was cared for by the elders of the people, and religiously trained under the very shadows of the Temple. We may readily believe this; for, in her after life, she evinced a self-possession in adversity that witnessed of a thorough religious culture. If there was no other evidence, her splendid poem, the ‘Magnificat,’ would convince any seeking proof, that Mary had had surpassing benefits and privileges in the study of God’s words, as well as in the best learning of her people, the Jews. But, Miriamne, I’ll weary thee; let us turn toward thy home.” Presently they stood not far from the old stone house of Rizpah; then Von Gombard drew from under his mantle a roll of writings. “Here, take and read. After its perusal I’ll see thee again.” So saying, the old priest lifted a hand in blessing, and then moved away toward his abode.
CHAPTER XX.
THE WEDDING, THE BIRTH AND THE FLIGHT.
“Take that one hour at Bethlehem out of human history, and eighteen centuries of hours are left but partially explained.”—Prof. Newman Smyth.
“What so engages thee, daughter?” questioned Rizpah, as they sat together at evening in the old stone house.
“I’m reading the story of a lovely orphan girl. I wish I were, in heart, as lovely as she.”
“Was she a white citadel, pure and strong?”
“Peerless, indeed; the very queen of women, I think.”
“Oh, then thou must be reading of glorious Rizpah? Now fill me with this matter! I thirst to hear.”
Miriamne, though fearful of further exposing her thoughts and study, obeyed, knowing full well that nothing would so stimulate her mother’s curiosity as attempted evasion.
“I’ve been reading of the orphan girl’s marriage. Shall I go back, or continue from that period? Her name was Mary, and she was a Jewess; that’s the sum of the beginning.”
“Go forward,” sententiously replied the elder.
Miriamne complied:
“The guardians and relatives of Mary determined that she should early wed some proper person to be her protector, and so, according to Jewish custom, they went about the selection of a husband for her as soon as she had reached her fourteenth year. This selection was deemed a pious and serious duty by all the participants therein; therefore it was made by an appeal to the Lord with lots. Zacharias, the presiding priest, managed the proceeding, as follows: He first inquired God’s will in prayer. An angel brought reply, saying: ‘Go forth; call together all the widowers among the people, and let each bring his rod.’
“In truth here is refreshment! If all weddings were contrived under the wisdom of older heads, there would be fewer mad marriages.” Rizpah swayed back and forth as she spoke. She was remembering, now, the curse of Harrimai that day in Gerash, long years before. She thought him a monster then, but now she was enshrining him in mind by the Angel of the Lots.
“Shall I go on, mother?”
“Go on.”
“He to whom the Lord shall show a sign, let him be husband of Mary,” read Miriamne.
“Ah, the Lord would not trust the youths to draw! He knows that a man is like to harass the life out of one woman before he learns to care for another rightly. God was good to Mary in hedging her in to a widower if needs be that she must marry.”
Rizpah did not sway back and forth now; she sat erect and laughed bitterly.
By Raphael.
THE MARRIAGE OF MARY AND JOSEPH.
Miriamne continued:
“There were many splendid youths who rejoiced to be permitted to bring their wands.”
“Oh, ho! then they were suffered to draw for the girl? But what matter—the Angel of Lots presided! He’d not let the youths succeed!” Again Rizpah laughed, and as mockingly as before.
Miriamne again read:
“After prayer each deposited his almond tree with the aged Temple priest. In the early morning they anxiously sought the verdict. It was found that all the rods were dead, except that of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Mathan; but his blossomed as that which, ages before, confirmed miraculously the priesthood of Aaron’s sons. Then there appeared another miracle, for as Joseph reached forth his hand to take his blooming branch, there issued from among its luxurious blossoms, miraculously, a white dove, dazzling as snow. For a moment the dove gracefully suspended itself in the air, turning its eyes from one to another of the competitors; then it alighted on Joseph’s head. ‘Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgin and keep her for the Lord,’ said the priest, solemnly, to Joseph. All the rivals responded ‘Amen,’ and then the dove flew away toward heaven. Joseph was thirty-three years old, of pleasing countenance, very modest, graceful, and of comely figure, and a widower.
“When all was told to Mary she modestly replied: ‘I knew it, for the Lord has been with me.’ Zacharias told Mary that Joseph was a true, honest Jew, a carpenter by trade, and trained by a father who fully believed the adage of Rabbins, which said that ‘He who would not make his son a robber makes him a mechanic.’ ‘Besides this,’ said the Temple priest, ‘thy espoused one is like thyself, of the royal house of David. The blood of twenty kings mingle in the veins of you both. God grant that to that house of David there soon be born another, greater than all before, to deliver our holy nation from foreign masters.’ Mary made no reply, but as a blush of hopefulness passed over her face, she looked very earnestly toward heaven and seemed to be repeating the prayer of the priest to the All Father. The formal betrothal then took place. Joseph presented his chosen bride a small token of silver, saying: ‘If thou consentest to be my bride, accept this.’ She took it, smiling affectionately, and then the witnesses signed the usual Jewish compact, which read as follows:
“‘I Joseph, said to Mary, daughter of Jehoikim, become my wife under the law of Moses and Israel. I promise to honor thee; to provide for thy support; thy food and thy clothing; according to the custom of Hebrew husbands, who honor their wives, as is befitting. I give thee at once thy dowry and promise thee besides nourishment, and clothing, and whatsoever shall be necessary for thee, also conjugal friendship, a thing common to all nations of the world. Mary consents to become the wife of Joseph,’ The two signed the document.”
“See Miriamne, the Jews were wise; they made the husbands do most of the promising. They knew that the wives would be all wifely without such pledging.” And Rizpah again bitterly laughed.
“Shall I proceed?”
“Yes, oh, proceed; it’s a Jewish poem.”
“Thereupon Joseph placed a jeweled ring upon Mary’s fourth finger, with a smile and a blush, saying, the ‘physicians say, my beloved, that a nerve and a vein, reaching the heart together, lay close to the surface of that finger.’ And she understood and was happy. A benediction was pronounced, and then the espoused pair were ready to depart to Joseph’s house. He was to be the guardian of the maiden from that hour forth. The hereditary servants of the families took up the line of march, bearing flaming torches; immediately after these followed a procession of women, richly garbed and wearing golden tiaras and pearl bedecked girdles. Behind these attendants of the virgin, followed a goodly company of dexterous musicians and singers, discoursing rapturously the significant canticles of Solomon. As the latter went on from time to time they broke out of the line of march and disported themselves in the eastern star-dance, saying as they did so, to one another, ‘the morning stars sang at creation; the dawn of a new home coming by love, is next to creation the most joyous of all events.’ So the dancers went on, and as they rejoiced in poetic motions, they thought of the stars which yet tremble as if with the thrilling of that first delight they shouted. Of all, the sweet orphan girl now companioned was the center. She was bedecked with costly jewels, the glad tributes of those that loved her; over her was the significant veil, and, so beneath the wedding canopy, she entered Nazareth to be a wife. Her sky had become very bright, for hers was a heart that took exquisite joy from the honeyed petals of affection’s flower. No bride ever more fully entered into that supreme state, the all exalting, entrancing, expanding, thrilling period of new married life. She went forward in the proud consciousness that her weakness had overcome a giant, and that while she lead a royal captive, she was supremely happy in her utter bestowal of her all upon the one only man now became almost next to God in the temple of her soul.”
Miriamne paused, and Rizpah wept a little.
“Shall I go on or pause, mother?”
“Go on, dear.”
“But you weep, are you ill?”
“Oh, no, except in memory. This is sweet sorrow, that beats us back and forth; contrasting dark endings with bright beginnings; heaven high hopings with black disappointments, and happy lives with our own, all interwoven with miseries. I walked once in the sweet illusions of bridal days, but an utter widowhood came before death called. That’s the worst bereavement.”
“But some marriages are all happiness, are they not?” queried the daughter.
“Some, but not many. That’s the rule. Most of them begin well enough, but wedded mates are not as wisely tender as lovers; they too soon entomb all their joys in graves of selfishness and lust. So then the dove flies from the blossom of espousal never to return.”
“Perhaps, such as they did not love enough to begin with and so separated?”
“Some who would die for each other before marriage, would die to be quit of each other, after. Hence the brood of suicides, and that blackest crime of all, murder, which often raises its treacherous, cruel head within the marriage chamber.”
“How comes this error, trouble, horror?”
“In wedding bodies, without consents or courtings of the souls, if those, who, though mismated, happen to join lives, were only wise, they might yet be happy, growing together. But read more daughter.”
“In the fullness of time, the angel Gabriel, known amid the Seraphim as God’s champion, the chosen of Jehovah and His messenger of comfort and sympathy from heaven to man, was commissioned to carry the glorious news to earth. He spread his rainbow pinions, and with his own radiance to lighten his course, passed from the confines of the august court of the Divine Presence, the companionship of his fellow archangels, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, to go out across the planet-lightened realms of everlasting space. His course was watched with throbbing interest by the spirits of mercy appointed for ministering to man. Gabriel sped on, with sweeps of power which almost devoured distances, nor paused to bask for a moment in the many-colored lights of the golden and silvery shielded planets or constellations that he passed in his rapid flight. The wheeling suns and rushing worlds, marching and charging along the shoreless oceans of eternal space, had no splendors nor powers with which to challenge his high mission; though theirs was grand, his was grander. He traveled at love’s behest, on mercy’s work, to carry to this little earth, rolling along, mostly in shadows, the mandate of glory, the news of heaven’s great saving device. He bore proclamation in its substance and its realizations forever the manifold wisdom of God; the wonder of all who know to think or reason. And so that voyage passed into the pages of history and the records of eternity as well.
“Mary, whom Gabriel sought, was engaged in evening prayer as was her wont, with her face toward Jerusalem’s Temple.”
Miriamne paused; she perceived that she had arrived at a part of the manuscript which Father Adolphus had marked with a red line to remind her it was from his Christian Bible. She feared to read this portion to her mother.
“Read on, daughter, the words are precious; they are as songs in the night to my soul.”
Miriamne continued:
“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
“To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
“And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail! thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
“And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God.
“And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.”
Miriamne read the last word “Joshua.”
She proceeded:
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
“And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
“Hold! hold!” cried Rizpah. “What is this? the faith of the Nazarene?”
Miriamne was awed. She feared she had proceeded too far; but quickly remembering an explanation of Father Adolphus, replied: “Be content, mother, I read but that that appears in our holy prophets, Isaiah, the poetic and vehement; his words you so much prize have here an echo.”
Rizpah gazed at her daughter, with a puzzled, questioning expression for a moment, and then sententiously said, “Read on.” She was alert, though severe. Her curiosity was ruling, but her prudence was conserved, at least in her own mind. The daughter was anxious, but could not retreat; she knew she must read further or make a futile effort to explain her reluctance. The two were a study; each afraid of the other: each anxious to aid the other to truth; both on guard, and, while professing to be all love for each other, attempting to move forward to a fuller fellowship by indirection. The outlines of the cross were appearing in that household, and never was there to be complete accord until there it ruled all hearts.
Miriamne continued to read, but confined herself chiefly to notes made by the old priest on the margin of her manuscript.