“Miriamne:—As I promised, I have herein recorded, for the help of thy memory, further facts about the Bethlehem Mother, Mary. Keeping constantly in heart the wonderful words of the angel Gabriel, she followed with constancy the wanderings of her Son as He went forth to heal and preach. She heard with pride and joy that a Dove of Peace from heaven overshadowed Him at His baptism in Jordan; but immediately she was plunged into anxiety, for he disappeared from the haunts of men in a prolonged absence. This was during the time of His temptation in the wilderness. He returned to gladden her, but immediately set forth to new trials, labors and dangers. The young Miracle-Worker was denounced and driven from among the people of His youth. Tradition points to the very place where his mother fell fainting, when she saw the people of Nazareth dragging her Son to a precipice by the city, with intent to cast Him down to death. At that place of the mother’s overcoming the Empress Helena builded the sanctuary called the ‘Church of the Terror.’ But that loyal mother never wavered in her allegiance to her Son, but, shortly after these things formally, publicly, bravely, received baptism at His hands in Jordan, at Bethabara. Indeed, this act on her part evinced not only the faith of a disciple, but the zeal of motherhood; her Son’s cause seemed to be failing, and she espoused it to strengthen it in its most trying hour. She was willing to dare all things to win for her Beloved a possible gain, however small.
“The gathering storm grew darker about the Carpenter’s Son, and the leaders of the people were planning His destruction; but He pursued his work of healing and teaching serenely; His mother constantly hovering near him to encourage Him. She heard that John the Baptist, son of Elizabeth, the herald of her own Child, had been slain because he had been true to God. The harlots of the Court of Herod had procured John’s death, because that holy man had rebuked their vices. But even this shocking event did not overawe the mother of the Founder of the New Kingdom. She stood in splendid contrast with the murderers of the prophet. It was purity, almost single-handed, against lust corseleted by the nation; two phalanxes; one of few, the other of many; but, as common in this world, each led by a woman. Mary, like a parent bird fluttering over her nestling, sought by the fowler, hovered around her offspring. She exemplified the finest, fullest utterance of faith, ‘Jesus only,’ by determining to break up the home in Nazareth, in order that all the family might keep near the beloved One in His journeys. So it happened that when He was near Capernaum, working Himself nigh unto death, they visited Him to persuade Him to rest. Of this it is written:
‘While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him.
‘Then one said unto Him, Behold, thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee.
‘But He answered and said unto him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
‘And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
‘For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.’
“To all He herein proclaimed the doctrines of His kingdom, self-denial, and though the words seem harsh, they were most kind, for by them He said, as it were, to His disciples: ‘Behold these all-sacrificing relatives of mine are twice related to me; by blood and by sufferings.’ It was, on Jesus’ part, a public adoption of His own family. As He had been publicly adopted from on high when He typically submitted to death in His baptism, so when He beheld His mother, having forsaken all to be with Him, he proclaimed those that had elected to share His sufferings His kin indeed. The sword of His suffering bitterly wounded her when the rabble howled after the Healer, “Thou wast born in fornication.” But He, amid all His engrossments, never forgot to minister to His mother as a courtly, reverent, loving Son. These words of a holy book not only speak of the workings of the providence of God, but assure us that He that uttered them was prompted to comfort His own widowed mother: ‘But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
“‘But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.’
“And now for the present I close with all holy salutations.
“A. von G.”
By P. R. Morris.
THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS.
Rizpah was so engrossed with the matter of the letter that she scarcely observed the initials at its end. As she turned the letter over there fell into her lap a pictured parchment. It represented a woman, half kneeling and with arms outstretched toward a beautiful child, the latter balancing, and, as it were, taking a first lesson in walking. “That woman’s face is some way very like that of my Miriamne’s in beauty and thoughtfulness,” soliloquized Rizpah. Then observing a tent in the picture, at one side and under the tent, the form of a strong, dignified man, she again scrutinizingly exclaimed, “In truth, that face is Harrimai’s! How like my father!” For some time she sat considering the group, and then again spoke to herself: “Ah, I see, these are none other than the girl wife, husband and child of whom Miriamne has been reading! But what an improper legend at the bottom? ‘A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also!’ A sword has no place in that happy group!” And Rizpah still gazed at the charming presentment. Suddenly she started from her seat. “What’s this?” she cried as she traced a dark cross made by the shadow of the child’s outstretched arms and reaching from his feet to the mother’s bending knees. “I have it now; the cross is the sword! Some of the Nazarene heresy, the witchery of the ‘Old Clock Man!’” Rizpah flung the picture from her as if it were a serpent. She thought she saw a paramount duty, and without an instant of delay she hastened back to Miriamne, this time in angry mood—Rizpah of Bozrah, the fanatical Nemesis of heresy.
“Here, girl! Whence this book of devils!”
Miriamne, in fright, leaped from her couch, and Rizpah, laying hold of her arm, half dragged the bewildered, trembling girl to the adjacent apartment. “These?” imperiously questioned Rizpah, as she pointed vehemently toward picture and manuscript lying together on the floor.
The maiden, overcome by the suddenness of the stormy outbreak, spoke tremblingly, pleadingly:
“Oh, mother, forgive me if I’ve done wrong! Father Adolphus, the old—”
“Oh, yes, the old wizzard! he gave them to thee,” interrupted the mother. “Enough! ’tis as I expected; the Christian’s doctrine of devils!”
Miriamne reached forth, mechanically, to take the denounced objects, but Rizpah at once intercepted her, spurning them with her foot.
“Don’t touch the leprosy! To-morrow we’ll hire some Druses beggars to burn them!”
“But, mother, they are not ours; we must return at least the painting; it cost great labor!”
“Leave that to me! Now, further and finally for thee, rash girl, I’ve commands. Listen! Thou art never again to meet or speak to that hoary-headed old wizzard, Von Gombard.”
“But, mother—”
“No evasion nor compromise!”
“I can not treat the kind old man that way. He is so good, and all the people, Jews and Gentiles, love him,” pleaded Miriamne.
“Enough! and, in brief, meet him or speak to him again, and I’ll disown thee! I’d drive thee, daughter of mine though thou art, out of my home to starvation and pray God to send all the plagues written in His book to haunt thee, while thy life remained, rather than tolerate heresy!”
So saying, Rizpah fell upon her knees, as if even then to utter an imprecation.
In terror the daughter ran to her, and shielding her eyes from the parent’s anger-distorted countenance, she pitifully cried:
“Mother! Oh, mother! Don’t curse me! Save me! save me!”
The elder woman’s body swayed and dilated as if she were possessed of some furious demon, checked and muzzled, but struggling to break forth. Evidently the pathos of the daughter’s appeal touched some responding chord of mercy, for the mother restrained herself and then suddenly arose and swept out of the bed-chamber. And yet Miriamne was not reassured; she felt the fascination of dread. With trembling her eyes were riveted on the open door; her ears heard the heavy, stately, threatening, departing footsteps, and great misery overwhelmed her. She felt, if she could not express it, that the breakers of a mighty wrath were heaving and tossing in that bosom on which she had hitherto rested when in pain or peril. She knew the meanings of those wavy motions, so like those of the boa retiring for renewed attack. She saw them passing up and down the form of Rizpah as the latter went out, her eyes burning, her body dilating. She had observed these things in her parent before, but never as now directed toward herself.
In terror and anguish Miriamne fled out of the old Giant-house. There was relief and a sense of getting more truly under the sheltering wings of God in getting out under the serene canopy of heaven. So, often, the grief-stricken seek solitude, absence from all that has crossed and hurt, separation from all earthly, in a lonely appeal to the Holy and Loving. And so these two women, bound to each other by the strongest human ties, needing, because of their isolation, each other supremely; after all, loving each other with a choice, tried love, willing each to endure any cross, even unto death, for the other’s weal, and both anxious to serve God loyally, went apart. They exemplified the cross-purposes and misunderstandings that beset and mar life’s pilgrims. They needed sorely, both of them, pilot and beacon; some one to inspire as well as to exemplify all that is best in womanhood. The need was patent, but the remedy but dimly discerned.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE MISERERE AND THE EASTER ANTHEM.
“But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away.”—II Cor., 3:15.
Midnight and moonlight were in Bozrah, and midnight and moonlight were in Miriamne’s heart as she wandered out into the city. She did not see her way further than to know it must be some direction other than toward her home. That place all her life hitherto the dearest spot on earth, was become her dread. As she moved away from it she did not look back. It seemed to her that there was an angry cloud enveloping it; a cloud holding a furious thunderbolt. As she went on, she rapidly passed through a series of painful feelings; those that naturally beset the runaway girl. First she felt very reckless, then, surprised at her recklessness, then very lonely as if every tie that bound her was broken, and then affrighted as she thought of confronting the great, strange, selfish world alone. A woman so young and so inexperienced; a bird with half-fledged wings, thrust out of the parent nest into a storm; altogether a pitiable creature. In the moonlight of her conscience, after a time, she dimly discerned a line of duty. It seemed to her that it were best for her to turn toward the church of Adolphus, and she resolutely turned thither. Before the resolution she had walked aimlessly; now with an aim and with some soul comfort. She did not have power to analyze her feelings; had she had such power she might have discerned the fact that she was turning toward something her reason told her was very good, therefore the soul comfort came as the harbinger of conversion. As yet the moonlight within, like that without, was not strong enough to resolve the shadows in and about her. She knew, and that alone, certainly, that she was miserable, wounded, bruised. So storm-beaten, in a flight from the ancient Rizpah and her counterpart, Rizpah of Bozrah, the maiden naturally turned toward the place where there seemed rest, escape; the haven known to all the troubled and sick of the Giant city. With a great throb of joy she at length drew nigh the Church of Adolphus. All was silent about it; but its up-pointing spire, emblem of eternal, aspiring hope, rest on a rock, stability—in grand contrast with the grim ruins God’s revenges had scattered in dire confusion all around, assured her. She remembered then that she had heard some say that they had been blessed beyond all telling, in hours of trouble, by the services of that sanctuary. She perceived that the church, from spire to portal, was flooded with silvering moonlight, while all beyond and around it was in shadows; then she wearily sank down by a small porch near the great entrance. As she sank she moaned a broken prayer: “Oh, God, take me!” Utterly overcome, she wished for a moment for death’s release; and death’s similitude, fainting, sometimes sent in mercy, came over her. How long she lay unconscious, she knew not. She was suddenly aroused by the stroke of a muffled bell; she opened her eyes and beheld forms gliding out of the darkness into the chapel. For a moment she felt a superstitious fear that chilled her. She vaguely remembered that that bell had been wont to toll thus solemnly when there was a funeral. Simultaneous with the thought she questioned, Was she herself dead? But she quickly collected her thoughts and then comprehended that there was to be a midnight service in the chapel. She remembered that Father Adolphus was wont to have such, at intervals. She longed to taste the joys within of which she had heard, and was at the same time restrained, lest by entering she should in some way part from her mother and the faith of her childhood forever. Conscience and desire waged war with each other, and the girl was too much excited to stand still or to reason clearly. She, therefore, mechanically moved through the open doors with the throng, out of the darkness into the light. Once within the place the grateful sense of peace and the splendors of the various appointments, beyond all she had ever before experienced, engrossed all her thoughts. The lofty arches, the well wrought pillars, the niches, in which were here and there saintly paintings, the lights, disposed so as to produce an impression of seriousness and rest, the hum of subdued voices, all came to her as balm. At the east she beheld a silver altar, velvet draped; on either side of it lofty columns with golden plinths and capitals; just back of the altar, in a light that made the face of the presentment more beautiful, she discerned the image of a woman, splendidly robed and jewel-crowned. For a moment she thought she was looking upon one living, for the crowned woman was so beautiful, so much a part of the place, and seemed so inviting. She contrasted her, in mind, with the terrible picture of Rizpah. Just then, with little persuasion, she could have run toward the woman, back of the altar, and plead for sympathy. The feeling was momentary. Little by little the truth dawned upon her, and she thought, “this represents the beautiful Mary of Father Von Gombard.” Then the moonlight within the maiden’s soul began to change into dawn. She gazed and gazed, and as she was so engaged, her thoughts took wing for heaven and her soul cried within itself as a babe for its mother. She knew not her way, but she knew she needed and yearned for a guide as pure as heaven and as serious as God. Her meditations were interrupted when she perceived the place growing darker about her, the forms of the congregation now becoming like so many moving shadows. All around her bowed their heads as in prayer, and, impressed by the solemnity of the place, she did likewise. There was a long silence. The hush of death was over the place, the only sign of life the stealthy movements of a tall, dark-robed personage, who glided about the chancel. The tower bell tolled again, once, twice, thrice; its muffled tones, as they died away, being prolonged, then caught up and borne onward with organ notes which filled the trembling air with entrancing melody. Then the organ tones softened and died away into subdued minors. “How like the sighings of autumn evening breezes, before a rain,” thought Miriamne. The place again was full of melody, the organ being reinforced by lutes and dulcimers, played by unseen hands. But the worshippers were silent; all bowed, apparently, in prayerful expectation. It was all new and exceedingly impressive to the maiden, and she was carried along by the spirit of the hour.
The draped figure passed down from behind the altar-lattice and moved, on tip-toe, from one to another of the worshipers. Miriamne was curious, yet frightened. “What if he came to me?” The question she asked herself made her tremble. If it were the priest, she was sure he would be very kind and yet how would she explain her absence at that hour from home? She was alert to hear the words he spoke to others near her, and when she did, she took courage. They seemed just such as she needed. She knew the voice; it was that of Father Adolphus, in the tenderness and triumph of one filled with unearthly hopes and heavenly sympathy. The cadence of his voice accorded with the plaintive tones of the organ. Miriamne’s heart fluttered like a caged bird, back and forth, from yearnings to fears, as the priest drew nearer and nearer to her. She yearned to hear spoken to herself his balm-like benedictions; she feared, lest recognizing her, he should reprove. He seemed about to pass, as if not perceiving her. Now more intensely she yearned and dreaded than before. She could not restrain herself, and so she sobbed aloud like a child in pain. The priest tenderly placed his hand on her head and softly said: “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse us from all iniquity.”
“Oh, Father Adolphus,” she sobbed, “is this for me?”
The priest started, but quickly recovered himself, and again spoke in the same tone as before, his voice rising in accord with a triumphant strain of the music: “He died that we might live!” Miriamne clasped and passionately kissed his hand.
The place had become darker, little by little; the organ tones meanwhile growing deeper and more solemn, while voices from an unseen choir blended with them. Miriamne, recognizing, from the words of the singers, the penitential Psalms, followed the worship with deepened interest from the fifty-first to the fifty-seventh of the sacred songs. They expressed the pains and tempests of her own soul as they voiced sublimely sin-beseeching pardon. The Christian and Jew were for the moment made akin. The man at the organ was a master of his art, and while handling the keys of his instrument, he also played on the hearts of his hearers. He was aiming to reproduce Calvary, its scenes, emotions and meanings, and he succeeded. The devout assembly, following the motive and movement of the composition, was led mentally to realize the journey from the Judgment Hall to the Crucifixion. There were measured, mournful, dragging tones; Jesus bearing his heavy cross; then followed discord and confused uproar, the voices of a mob. Later on there were dirges and silences, followed, as it were, by blows and ugly cries. The nailed hands, the uplifted cross and the sneers of those who passing wagged their heads, were all revived to the imagination. With these sounds, from the first, there ran along a sustained minor strain, sometimes nearly obliterated, at other times ruling. It was as mournful as the sigh of the autumn winds amid the dying leaves and night rains. In the color and movement of that minor there was feelingly expressed the deep, poignant, undemonstrative sorrow of the mother that followed the thorn-crowned and scourged Son to his martyrdom. Then came a long silence, broken only by the fleeting whispers here and there. The worshipers were in earnest prayer. They were at the cross, as the friends of Jesus, in earnest communings. Again the organ broke in on the silence; there was a rush of air as if some one passed in rapid, terrified flight, followed by a sound like swiftly departing footsteps; the fleeing disciples came to the minds of the worshipers. Then the organ tones deepened to the rumblings of approaching thunders—heralds of a climax of catastrophies, while above the rumblings a solitary, piercing voice, which ended in a thrilling, agonizing cry: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” Following this came peal upon peal from the organ; louder and louder; discord and confusion; ending in mighty crashings. The rocking earth; the earthquake; the rent veil—all the tragedy of Cavalry—was presented in awful realism to the minds of the kneeling worshipers. Every light had been quenched, the temple within was as dark as a tomb, and not a sound could be heard but moans and penitential weepings. To one any way superstitious and not knowing the intent of the presentment, the whole would have seemed very like the realm of the lost, filled with damned souls, making pitiful last appeals to mercy; but to the worshipers there came a vision of a stark, dead form on a cross, standing out vividly against the darkness of Calvary around that cross the amazed, condemned crucifiers and a few disciples, the latter whispering about the burial. The realism was oppressive and some present cried out, as if by the bier of a loved one, while some fainted away. But the Healer was there. Father Adolphus, with a voice full of tears, with the pathos of Him that went down to preach hope to “the spirits in prison,” spoke to the penitents of peace, light and glory through faith. As the old Missioner went from one to another the lights of the chapel, one after another, reappeared. Presently the aged consoler stood by Miriamne: “Hast thou felt the power of the Cross, my child?”
“Oh, Father Adolphus, I do not know; I only know I’m very wretched!”
“‘Godly sorrow worketh repentance’; but thou wert as happy as a bird thou thoughtst and saidst a few days ago?”
“I was a bird—a girl then! I’m a woman now. I’ve lived years in hours.”
“Any sudden trouble?”
“Oh, yes, a tempest and tempests.”
“Possess me of all, daughter.”
“I can not. It’s every thing. I seem so useless and nobody loves me!”
“Thou art too young to be morbid and art greatly beloved by One.”
“Oh, I can not come to Him. I’m under His ban; I do not honor my parents. How can I? One, my father, I never knew. I’ve seen him through my mother’s eyes, and to despise. Now I am afraid of her, and my terror is poisoning the love I once felt for her. Oh, I’m miserable, lost! Father, Father, save me!” And the wretched girl flung her arms passionately about the old priest.
“Ah, girl, I can not; but there is One that can save.”
“Save, save me—one so lost?”
“He is a ‘Prince and a Saviour.’”
“I do not know Him. He can not love me, and one must love me to save me; I’m so needy and wicked.”
“Well said, and He is love. Only believe.”
“I don’t know how to believe.”
“Like a poor, sick babe, all need, thou, amid thy weaknesses, hast power at least to cry.”
“Cry? What shall I cry?”
“‘Help thou mine unbelief.’”
Slowly, by wisely simple gospel-counsels, the aged teacher lead the penitent girl Christward. As they communed the congregation departed, and an attendant lighted the lamps. Presently the music of the organ again broke forth; but now in cheerful and triumphant strains. Miriamne listened, and as she did, a change came over her countenance. Her dawn was coming.
“Art looking up, daughter?”
“This music is like spring morning melodies, and I’m singing to it, in soul, I think.”
“It is the morning song of souls; the angel’s greeting to Mary. Observe the words; first the ‘Hail Mary’ before the wondrous birth; then the serene assurance of the mourning mother at the grave, ‘He is not here, He has risen.’”
“Ah, Adolphus, how blessed are you Christians in a religion all mercy, all songs, all love, and all nearness to God!”
“‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.’”
“I would I could hear Him say as much to me; but I can not go, come, nor do any thing else; not even stay away; I’m a bit of wind-drifted down!”
“Come all ye heavy laden,” measuredly replied the priest.
“Oh, if there were some one to bear me onward; blind and weak as I am!”
“He carries the lambs in His bosom!”
“Alas, I feel myself cowering away from His Holiness, when I attempt to approach Him alone!”
“All to Him must go alone, in prayer as in death. He meets with a plenteous mercy the confiding ones who come by sorrows’ thorny path, as He will meet the needy in judgment who have only faith’s plea. Fear not to go alone; solitude has its benefits, and He is sole accuser or excuser. The terms of His rebuke are eternal secrets, as are the terms of His forgiveness. They lie alone, between the Blesser and the blessed.”
“Is the lovely woman there, your Mary?”
“Yes, child.”
“And she was the mother of this Saviour?”
“Yes.”
“And was He like her?”
“He is, eternal; the ‘I Am’—not was nor shall be—always.”
“Oh, yes; but is He like the woman?”
“In my soul I so believe, to my joy; for she was godly, therefore, God-like.”
“Then I can love Him, trust Him, and I’m sure He’ll pity me, at least.”
“Amen,” piously ejaculated Father Adolphus. Then he said: “Now child, rest; it’s too late to go home. My sister, yonder, will care for thee till morning, and then thou must hie to thy home. Thou yet mayst be its peace-maker and blesser.”
Easter-tide came. All nature was serene and seemed to recognize the memorial of holy, happy association. Father Adolphus was astir early to ply his industry of mercy for the suffering. “Poor, unhappy land, and unhappy because so blind! Oh, man, man, how thine eyes are holden, while fatlings, birds and flowers rejoice!”
“Ah, unbenumbed by sinning, they, like the cattle in Bethlehem’s stable, are first to see the Saviour born of woman. ‘Praise ye the Lord, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’” Thus soliloquized the old priest as he passed toward well-known haunts of misery in the Giant City.
Miriamne was called to a late breakfast by the kindly sister of Adolphus. The aged woman said little, but every act seemed freighted with motherly interest, and was like balm to the heart conscious chiefly of loneliness and wretchedness. The maiden longed to have the elder woman solicit her confidence, but the latter did not respond to the mute, though manifest desire. “It is better so. God’s work is best done in an hour like this, when He alone is left to searching and counsel.” So thought this aged minister. Experience under Father Adolphus had given her this wisdom.
The coming of evening brought to the little religious house its master all cheerful, yet well wearied by a day of ministering for God.
“Art here yet, daughter?” was his first greeting.
“Yes; where else should I be? I’m friendless, lost, unhappy; even to a vague longing for death; but I’m frightened at that longing, since it seems as if I was as friendless in Heaven as on earth. Oh, it’s awful to be a two-fold orphan!”
Just then the church-bell rang forth a merry peal.
Miriamne looked a question, and the old priest continued: “Hark, it’s the pæan of peace, declaring that the Day Spring from on high has visited all those in the shadow of death.”
“Another service?”
“Yes, the best of all. We cling to the hours of this day and battle night away in joy, thus declaring our hope in the resurrection, the end of all nights. Listen, that’s my organ, the one I myself made.”
Miriamne listened, and there was wafted to her an Easter anthem; at intervals containing the sentence: “Thou that takest away the sins of the world have mercy.”
As they passed into the chapel, the maiden remarked: “There are more women here than there were at the other service?”
“The other celebrated death; the chief pain-maker of woman’s life; for they live in love whose ties are constantly sundered by man’s last enemy. They are allured by the beautiful things, the joys, the hopes of our Easter service. It proclaims eternal victory over the destroyer.”
“How beautiful the woman’s form back of the altar, good Father, to-night.”
“Our moods within appear to us on objects without. So strangely the Kingdom of Heaven, beginning in the soul, spreads everywhere. It is natural, though to think that the resurrection time brought all joy to the childless mother: to this one as it did and does bring a thousand times to other mothers, like her bereaved.”
The Easter service went onward, a succession of joys; the march of a pilgrim army with the goals in view; the triumph of truth, the crowning of life, the final discomfiture of death. Miriamne brightened as the service advanced; then came a fullness of joy; then a reaction and she finally fell into a sleep akin to a trance. It was the resting of the wounded on the way of healing. There was a Divine overpouring and a babe-like sleep of perfect trust; from this the voice of the priest aroused her!
“Miriamne seems to rest.”
“Oh, such a dream! I followed the songs to the sky and wished my body had wings. God lifted me up and I slept, dreaming myself into His presence. I thought I was in heaven.”
“Thou art near it, child.”
“Oh, this wonderful calm! What makes me so happy?”
“Hast thou any token?”
“I do not know: I murmured as the people sang these words: ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth;’ as I murmured that, every thing, got brighter, and I felt no more under the yoke and load!”
“He is thy Vindicator. ’Tis well.”
Then tears coursed down the old man’s face.
And so the girl that fled out of her home, away from the phantom of Rizpah of the ancients, away from her mother; a pilgrim; all wants, all yearnings, in a few brief hours, had found a city of refuge, an everlasting hope and was in soul serenely resting.
By Mengelburg.
JESUS AT THE AGE OF TWELVE WITH MARY AND JOSEPH ON THEIR WAY TO JERUSALEM.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A HEROINE’S PILGRIMAGE.
“Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word.”—Mary.
Miriamne, the day after her conversion, at evening, was sitting in the portal of the church at Bozrah, musing. “Oh, how I thank Father Adolphus for showing me the way to this peace!” The western sky, to the maiden’s rapt imagination, seemed very like the gate of Heaven, and in her meditations she exclaimed as if talking to those in glory, yet near to her: “Mother of my Saviour, I need a mother! Thou and I, two women, loved of the same Lord, shall we not evermore be friends?” Then the stars glittered through the fading sun light like night-lamps, set along the parapets of that far off city, and the maiden felt as if heaven’s doors were being shut. She was oppressed with a sense of being left alone, and thereupon cried out, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, do not leave me here in the dark; Oh! thou mother, sainted and happy, may I not be where thou art until morning?” The cry or prayer of the girl, having in it much of the poet, little of the skilled theologian, was one likely to be censured by those adept in stately forms, and yet it was very natural. Miriamne was but an infant in experience and had yet to learn that after the resurrection came Pentecost; then the Ascension. Steps like these are in the believer’s experience; conversion is a rising from the dead to be followed by the assuring work of the Holy Spirit, then Heaven. But the soul quickened from the charnel-house of sin and inducted, not only into a new inner life but into a new fellowship, hungers for more and more. Hence, it is a common thing for the young convert to wish to die, and be away from life’s turmoils and defilements at once and with the glorified, immediately, forever. It is as if the disciple would pass at once from the sepulcher directly up the Mount of Ascension. In this spirit Mary Magdalene pressed forward to embrace to her human heart the newly risen Saviour that morning when he tenderly restrained her. There was something for her to be and do before the final rest on the Divine bosom, in unending rapture. “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended,” as if He would say, “I myself, have other work yet, before the eternal gates are lifted up for my triumphal entrance as the King of Glory.” “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father.” The master words were, “Go;” “say.” The load Jesus put on His followers was the same in kind, though infinitely less, that He took on Himself. Some way it was love burdening with blessing, for He that in dying agony sent the Rose of His heart, Mary, to the home of John instead of at once to Paradise, knew surely that then for her that was best. “To go” and “tell” was best for Magdalene, as to stay and work for a time is best for all:
So Miriamne’s prayer, though so worded that it would have been censured by the learned churchmen, was heard in heaven, and He that said: “My peace I leave with you,” ministered, all unseen by human eye, to that lamb, bleating alone amid the dark giant castles of Bashan and the darker castles of fears that hover not far from each new-born of His Kingdom. She passed from repining, from morbidly wishing to die and from thoughts solely of her own weal, to the second stage of experience; that stage, where the young convert is influenced with a burning zeal to tell of the blessings found and thereby win others for the Saviour. Miriamne soon felt desire inexpressible to run and tell others of her joy. Then her mind recurred to her father, living somewhere far to the westward, just beneath where she had fancied the gates of heaven were a little while ago. “No, no; I cannot go yet! I must stay here and do something. Oh, I’d be ashamed to go to heaven and leave my father, my mother, my brothers, my people in their misery!” As she thus spoke she pulled her hand quickly down by her side. The motion like to one pulling away from some leading influence. A voice at hand spoke: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
Miriamne, with a slight startled exclamation, turned to see whence the voice and with joy beheld Father Adolphus.
“Oh, dear Father, I’m glad you came this way! I want to tell you above all others how happy you made me.”
Solemnly and tenderly the old man replied: “‘Not unto us, oh Lord; not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth’s sake.’”
“Yes, He has done it; but you helped, good teacher; and I am so happy! Oh, I do not know myself! I feel so changed. I’m growing wiser, happier and stronger every minute.”
“If so, then, He that called thee, daughter, had a purpose.”
“I know it; see it; feel it. I’m called to help my people; to bring together Sir Charleroy and Rizpah.”
“Say ‘my parents’; it’s more filial.”
“Yes, but it’s so strange. I call them in my mind now all the time by their names. It seems as if I belonged to another family; that of Jesus, Mary and the Angels.”
“A child of the Kingdom, indeed! When thy parents are converted, the family tie will be revived. Thou dost feel the love of heaven; the great eternal family bond, as Christ when he said: ‘My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God and do it.’”
“But if I hope to bring my parents together I must go first to my father and persuade him. I know my mother will object to the journey. Can I disobey her and still please God?”
“Ask God. I have for thee, and already see thy way. I have already acted in this matter.”
“I can not forget the law in that I learn that ‘He that setteth lightly by his father or his mother is cursed.’ Among our noble ancients, the Maccabees, the disobedient child was even stoned to death.”
“But thy salvation puts thee under the Gospel, although, under the Law even parents had duties; they were forbidden to make their children walk through the idolatrous fires. What says Jesus to thee?”
“I do not know whether it be His spirit or not; yet all the time I hear a voice within me saying: ‘These twain shall be one.’”
“I see thy soul abhors this actual divorcement of thy parents. Oh, how some play hide and seek with their consciences around forms as these do; not comforting but hating each other; not bearing together their common burdens; wide seas between them, yet fancying they have violated no law of God, because they have not asked the law of man to do what it never can, truly, proclaim two, neither having committed the deadly sin, apart.”
“This separate living is their constant sin?”
“He that starts wrongly repeats the wrong anew each time that, by act or thought, he approves the wrong first done. Sin’s name is truly legion.”
“What an awful thing is sin!”
“True, daughter. It blinds its victims here, and its wages hereafter is death.”
“That’s why I fear to disobey my mother; what if it be sin to do so?”
“The command, my child, is ‘children obey your parents—in the Lord.”
“What does ‘in the Lord’ mean?”
“I’ll tell thee, my little catechumen; there comes a time to some youths, in pious life, when duty to God compels disobedience of parents; as it came to Jonathan, son of Saul. God is Father and mother to the righteous, and His law must be first. Mary left home and every thing, first and last, to follow Jesus. Her way was the Christian’s.”
“I thought once I was right in obeying my mother without question. Now I think I may be right in disobeying without question. The old and the new law are at war within me.”
“Amid these Bashan hills Paul, the Holy Saint, traveled, led of God from thinking that directly opposite to his former beliefs, the truth. Jesus met him then on the way to Damascus, in power and in glory; Paul had been for a long time a profound scholar, a Pharisee of thy people. On this journey, enlightened by the spirit, he asked and learned sincerely to ask, the question of questions in this life; ‘Lord what wilt thou have me to do?’ I beseech thee to ask it daughter, as thy hourly prayer.”
“Did God answer Paul?”
“Yea.”
“How?”
“The blessed apostle tells all! ‘When it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb to reveal His son in me, that I might preach among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, ... but I went into Arabia.’ Neither wife, friend, child, nor Ephesian Elders, clinging with tears, could hold him back from duty. Then he preached through this wild country.”
“But I’m not Paul, and only a woman.”
“‘Only a woman!’ She out of whom went seven devils, a woman, was the herald of the resurrection, and the church; God’s glory in the earth, is likened unto a woman. Oh, when a woman is clothed with the Sun, there is nothing more resplendent, and as for power, naught prevails against her. It seems to me if thou dost emulate her who said to God’s messenger: ‘Be it unto me according to thy word’ thou wilt go ere long to thy father; but thou must now return!”
“Return whither? This spot of all earth alone tolerates me!”
“No, that’s changed! Thou art the Child of a King. Go home; ay, rise to tell of the One that hath risen in thy heart.”
“Dare I? Must I?” Miriamne soon answered, by action, her own questions.
The young woman started homeward; at first with fearfulness. Then there came to her great calmness and courage, as she thought: “If I was wrong in going, I’m right in returning. My mother scared me from home into God’s arms. I can tell her that.” The new life had quickened within her the springs of affection. In all her life before she had not been so long apart from her mother. She said to herself, “I’ll just spring into her arms, when I meet her!” And she would have, if permitted.
The mother with a face like a stone, emotionless, saw her approach. When the latter stood by the threshold, the parent freezingly said: “Well; what dost thou want here?”
A dozen answers pressed for utterance. Some like those shaped by an angry or reckless girl; some such as might come to a politic woman, having recourse ever to cunning against the odds of power. The first thoughts were not of love, the last not of truth. In an instant Miriamne remembered her new personality. She was the missionary! She dared, being right, face any thing, even her mother’s wrath; but in her soul she dared not let bitterness rule. She knew as well that she dared not tell the truth so as to convey a false impression. She might have done so once; but not now. “Lord what wilt thou have me to do?” the golden prayer was on her lips and she had instant grace to say quietly: “I was doing no wrong.”
“Was where?”
How brave the girl had become. Her reply was calm and courageous. “I was, for a time praying to God; but safe, for God was with me in the Spirit and good Father Adolphus in the flesh.”
“The Old Clock Man!”
“Yea.”
“The wizard! I so suspected. Here is more of this bad work;” and Rizpah angrily thrust before Miriamne a scroll. “That fawning, heretic-priest came here and left this with mock piety saying: ‘I, being the mother, might read it!’ I had no humor to converse with him; but of thee I demand the full meaning. Now, no avoidance, girl; dost thou hear!” Miriamne was not only not abashed, but in her new-found courage took the letter, and without a quaver of the voice, read: