An uneventful year passed over the missioners, but it was followed quickly by eventful times.
Two messages came, one after the other, and not far apart, to Jerusalem, which moved all the Christian colony at the latter place, but especially Cornelius and his consort. The first was from Father Adolphus and as follows:
“Your parents, Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, have departed Bozrah. They went out together, and their end was peace. They compensated themselves for the needless miseries they had wrought in their younger days by keeping out of all shadows during their journey after their reconciliation by the tomb of their children, even until sunset. I could not summon you, for they passed away quickly, only a few days coming between their goings.”
Shortly after the foregoing, came the other message, and that accidentally, for the link between Jerusalem and Bozrah being broken by death, there was none left in the Giant City to send after or for comforting to the missioners. “Father Adolphus is dead.” That was the report brought by chance to the Christians at Zion. Hundreds in Jerusalem had heard of him, and hearing of his death sighed mildly. The missioners were his mourners—really, solely.
Ere long Dorothea left Jerusalem of Syria for the New Jerusalem, and this event not only brought sorrow but also perplexity. Miriamne realized that she could not now continue in the house of her betrothed, simply as his betrothed, even if it were possible for the household to continue, the head being absent. Whither should she go, orphan and kinless as she was? Love protested mightily against any thought of going far from her affianced, and then she felt profound pity for the man who mourned and felt a mother’s loss deeply, as did Cornelius. He entreated for a speedy wedding, and she, seeing then no alternative, consented thereto; but as she assumed love’s yoke, she believed that the ambition of her life was frustrated. She was not disconsolate, neither was she tearless. She thought she discerned the leadings of God and submitted promptly, making it thenceforth her duty cheerfully to engage in the, to her, seemingly commonplace works of a missionary pastor’s wife. Her husband was a “man of the people,” and found acceptance with the lowly. He was wont to call himself “a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” Said he anon to his flock: “Like that mysterious man who flits across your sacred histories am I! You of the Jews, self-elect, as God’s elect, though disgrafted, would put me, intending to do so or not, by the unknown and unheralded Melchisedec. You think me, without father, without mother, beginning of days, or end of life, because you do not find my name in the chronologies of your high families nor myself in the covenants of the Hebrews. You Christians doubt my authority because no ghostly ordaining hands have been laid upon my head. But I’m the child of a King, and a towel, such as my Master wore as He ministered, is robing enough for me!” Old people, women and children, gave the young man unquestioning love, and thus was well indorsed the choiceness of his ministerings. Miriamne beheld these manifestations with secret joy, for she knew that through the one she loved she was, in part, expressing her own thoughts and sympathies. Once wed, she was too honest, too tender-hearted, too noble to be less than all that wifehood implied, and yet she felt at times as if the ambitions and hopes of her life, nursed through many years, had not been compassed. She tried to settle down and humbly do the work of a missionary’s helpmate, and to overcome, through Divine grace, the ambition to do seemingly grander things than she was doing. Sometimes, smiling through tears, she would say to her husband as he sought to satisfy her heart’s yearnings with mention of the good work they were doing:
“Well, a man has come between me and the ‘grail.’ I’m following him, may he follow it, and God guide both.”
After a time Cornelius and Miriamne made a pilgrimage to Bozrah, drawn thither by a desire common to both to honor their loved ones departed. They found the Giant City all pervaded by the spirit of the moribund past. Even the Christian church, once a light, a joy and a promise of a better day, had fallen into decline at Bozrah. The edifice had become dilapidated, the congregation was depleted.
In name, Father Adolphus had a successor, younger, more learned, more eloquent in his way, than the saintly man now sleeping. But the infidels, the very ones who were wont to confess that they could not, if they would, make headway against the old priest’s godly life, now laughed to scorn the stately and scholarly arguments of the new leader. The converts under the new regime were few, the common people did not from him hear the word gladly; and the regular congregation was rent by schisms.
One chapel service sufficed both Miriamne and Cornelius. They found in it nothing but cold formality and the memory of what had been, but was now no more.
“Oh, Cornelius,” Miriamne cried, “reverently I say it, but is it not strange that our faith edges its way over the world so slowly, with such heralds?”
“Leastwise, you may say, you do not see your ‘Grail’ here, Miriamne?”
“Oh, now, I realize the worth of Von Gombard as I never did before.”
“Are you not sorrowed at his absence, Miriamne?”
“Sorrowed! Truly not; but unspeakably glad that he walks with the sons of God; a very king, I know, amid the greatest. Oh, how sad I’d be to see the poor, dear, tired old man with his overfull heart and trembling limbs now going about in painful ministries here! God was twice good; in leaving him so long, then in taking him. Ah, if there were more like that old saint, those that there are would not need to tarry till their twilight.”
“Shall we prolong our stay?”
“No! I’ve listened long enough to the lull of eternity here. Bozrah’s past has taught me its all. I’m ready to go home.”
“Home! When, to-morrow?” ardently questioned Cornelius, anxious himself to depart the Giant City.
“After to-morrow; the coming day, at my instance, the memorial of my parents is to be set up.”
The following morning, just before sunrise, the husband and wife repaired to the tomb of their loved ones, to witness, by pre-arrangement, the unveiling of a memorial. It consisted of two figures carved from whitest marble; a woman’s form with a face expressive of tenderness and beauty, marked with deepest grief, but not with hopelessness. Across her lap there lay the form of a young man, the rigors of death plainly marked on his face and limbs. There was no mistaking the representation, and Cornelius quickly exclaimed:
“I know the one that sits thus holding that crucified body! ’Tis real! Impressive! Awful!”
“It is fitting, think you?”
“I’m too much moved to judge, perhaps; though I do wonder that you have not had carved upon the pedestal the names of your dead, or some explanation.”
“Names? What matter, to the stranger passing, who lie beneath the stone? As for the meaning, let those who come and go question till it appear.”
“I’m the first questioner, Miriamne. The application?”
“Remember that my mother, in her almost solitary grief, held her dead children for a time against her broken heart, but it was a heart filled with a mother-love which never faltered. There is nothing in love surpassing such on earth. Then at last, when her life work was done, her cup full, my mother, as her final consolation, held to her heart the Son whose death gives life, as yon Madonna holds the Christ.”
“I bow to Miriamne’s judgment; the creation is appropriate; Glorious Madonna!”
“I have a hope that it may stand here in the Hauran an enduring sermon to the varied races who pass. They who come and go here, reminded that the Nephalim with all their arrogant might left little but their crumbling tombs; that Astarte, once the potent, dangerous goddess of the groves, here faded from the love of her fevered hosts, who themselves in turn faded from the face of the earth, may pause to question what the meaning and power of this last, new, fresh presentment! Perhaps they will hear from those made wise, and in time learn to tell one another, that these two figures speak of the Deathless Kingdom, its white loves, its wondrous rewards and its Spirit of might expressed by all who are in it through the power of an endless life, and through the agency of immortal influence.”
“Miriamne, I see thee a palpitating angel in the flesh! I can say no more!”
As the young missioner thus spoke he stretched out his arms toward the woman he loved as if he would restrain her. The motion came from his heart, which was anxiously saying within: “She is growing upward and away from her consort.” But he had neither courage nor words to voice the vague thought which brought admiration mixed with fears.
They turned toward their temporary home in the Giant City. As they went, the rising sun flooded the marble forms by the graves with a golden light, and the twain, beholding the glory of that morning benediction, felt an illumining in their hearts that some way made heaven seem very near.
“And now, darling, we’ll return to Jerusalem, and quietly pursue our work until we join those loved ones gone on before,” spoke the husband the day after the monument’s unveiling.
“I trust we shall work in future with better plans and grander results than we have had before.”
“Are you discontented with what we accomplish?”
“No, and yes,” was her measured reply.
Cornelius turned his eyes full upon her, lifting inquiringly his eyebrows.
She continued: “I’m satisfied, if God so will, to blend my work into my husband’s; I know this is my duty as a wife, but I long to echo nobler music. Can you make it?”
“Annata, the Assyrian goddess, was content to be the echo of her spouse, the mighty Ammon. I’d be an Ammon if I could to be worthy being echoed by Miriamne. But, little wife, your words sound almost Delphic; and yet you are no such ambiguous oracle. Is there any wish unmet?”
“I’ve a misgiving.”
“Why, wife of mine, see how strong you’ve been, each year adding health! See the shadows over our people. We are sent to chase these away with Gospel truth. We’ve hitherto only learned how to work efficiently, and in the future will do braver, greater things than ever. We’ll tarry, as Adolphus, ay, and by grace renew strength, turning back the dial pointer, as with prayer, did Hezekiah of old.”
“I’ll not go, I know, until my work is done. None go before such time.”
“Oh, but we must go together everywhere, even to death.”
“Ah, beloved, I know your meaning. It’s the lover, not the consecrated missionary, who speaks now.”
“I can’t help it! I’ll be useless without you. I’m useless now, except as you sustain me; as Abishag, the Shunnamite, the fairest young maiden of all Israel, brought heart to the bosom of David, old and shaken by years, so you put into me all the ambition I have. To my trembling heart you are what Deborah was to Barak’s.”
“God help you, Cornelius; I believe you, because I know your trusting nature and have joyed in the fullness of your lavish love, but let us bravely face this matter as it comes. For God, I know, I must quickly do my work and be gone.”
“Oh, say not so, if I’m to be left alone! That must not be! By your love for me I entreat you to stay; a thousand ties bind my life to thine; it will kill me by inches to have them severed!——
“Miriamne, my own, nearer to God by far than am I; plead with Him to spare us this agony!”
“In spirit, my loyal spouse, we shall ever be near each other, but I feel that in the body we shall not be together long. I shall finish my course and then——”
“No, not that,” vehemently exclaimed the husband. “Say not that! I’ll work for you, with you, for God. Help me to the end and let me so help you, beloved!”
“You may help me while I tarry.”
“I’ll joy to realize the prophet’s vision, who saw the hands of a man under the wings of an angel. Here are the hands and Miriamne is the angel.”
“But your imagination glows, kindled by the torch of a human heart almost idolatrous.”
“Nay, not idolatrous; for the fire rises to things holy. I only plead that God let me walk with Miriamne; I know she will walk nigh Him. Go where you will my feet will bear me thither, undertake what you may, my heart and hand will help; point out any goal of darling desire and thither I’ll carry you, if need be. For you I’ll gladly die, if, at the dying, I have the comforting assurance that soon my other self will join me in the overshadowed land of life.”
“How it would brighten the world, if all who take the holy vows of marriage on their souls were as truly wed in heart as we.” As the twain stood by the white marble figures at sunrise the next morning, equipped for departure, they made a striking picture. The living and the dead; the exemplars of the purest, deepest wedded love committed to serving their fellow man; they rose grandly above the ruins of the place builded by those mighty self-seeking devotees of Astarte.
Bozrah sat in desolation, knowing no hope and having a bitter past only and forever to contemplate; the youthful gospel heralds had all life, rising to new life—hope beyond hope, joy beyond joy, and then life, hope and joy in endless unfoldments, stretching way through measureless eternities, all before them. Miriamne was pensive; Cornelius was chastened by the remembrance of the words she had spoken the day before, and both subdued by the presence of the majestic monument before them.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE SISTERS OF BETHANY.
“In the day time He was teaching in the temple, and at night He went out and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives.”—Luke xxi., 37.
“Gethsemane on one side, Bethany on the other ... where He was wont to pray for His people and weep for a sinful world; where His feet stood on the eve of His ascension and where His wondering disciples received from white-robed angels the promise of His second advent. It will be admitted that above and beyond all places in Palestine Olivet witnessed ‘God manifest in the flesh.’”—Porter’s “Giants of Bashan.”
After Jesus had been driven from His native Nazareth, He found a home in the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, in the village of Bethany, on the eastern slope of Olivet. That was sweet, memorable Bethany of the Gospels; “the perfection of repose,” amid the palm and oak-covered slopes of Olivet; hidden by its quiet life, as well as its sequestering mountain, from Jerusalem, that great, throbbing heart of Palestine.
Thither, down the east steps of the Temple, through the “Golden Gate,” along camel paths that wound past Gethsemane and across fitful Kedron, the Son of Man often went when worn out by His love ministries, or harassed by the gainsayings of the great city. So, preaching His new kingdom, He exalted its cornerstone, the godly home, by electing one such, that of Lazarus and his sisters, as a rest and a refuge for Himself. Beyond this He proved His own humanity by seeking earthly friendships, at the same time exhibiting Himself, though the favored of heaven, the object of constant angelic regard, as needing, because He was human, that which humanity ever needs—congenial human fellowships.
The history of that ancient Bethany family, gathered from various sources, but chiefly from the simple and touching narrative of the Evangelist John, is full of interest. The mother of that home, to us nameless, was dead. Yet she was not fameless; that circle of children in their several relationships witnessed full well of a finest mother-culture, that had been theirs. The father of that family was worse than dead; he was a leper, buried alive in the Lazar keeps of the plague-stricken, and the husband of Martha, the elder sister, early had left his bride widowed.
That was a circle cut through its center; but affliction had knit together in deepened affection the few left. The fatherly brother, Lazarus, well fulfilled his double obligation, and wins admiration, as do ever those sons and brothers who faithfully take the place of dead fathers. That he was such a brother, the grief of his sisters when he died fully proclaimed.
With a few fine sentences John depicts those sisters. Martha, widowed in life’s morning, but surmounting all morbidness by giving herself to motherly ministries in her home; and then was Mary, a clinging, trusting, pious maiden; a poem of faith, a tear-bedewed rose-wreath. When Christ joined that circle there was presented the finest conceivable ideal of a home. They served and He blessed, and though their bereavements could never be forgotten, while His banner of love was over them, they were able to alleviate the poignancy of their griefs through the hope of a blessed resurrection and a final, eternal reunion.
The sacred associations gathering about the village of Olivet made it a place peculiarly attractive to Cornelius and Miriamne; for they, too, were bereaved; neither in all the world having a single living kinsman of whom they knew.
They determined, shortly after their final farewell to Bozrah, to take up their abode at the “House of Dates,” and were unmeasurably delighted in being able to secure for themselves a house reputed to have been the identical one occupied by Christ and His choice friends. If it were not the same, there seemed good reason to believe it was at least on the site of that ancient sacred domicile.
One day they conversed of their work, their hopes, and the needs of their field of labor.
“I’m led to think that we should establish a refuge for Magdalenes, Miriamne.”
“If we did attempt the founding of an asylum for outcasts we would not belie the memory of a noble woman, who was never a harlot, by applying to it her name. But my ‘grail’ does not lead me that way. I’d go mad working for the utterly lost only! No; no, our work must be more radical, by beginning back of the falling so as to prevent it.”
“Something must be done to educate the women of this country to better living and higher conceptions of womanhood. We need a school of some kind.”
“A school? Good, if it be of the right kind; but there have been schools and schools for men, such as they were, and they have effectually proven that education alone is not a savior. Learning does not transform the soul, else God would have given Moses the pattern of a college instead of that of a tabernacle. My mother used often to tell me that the devil is superbly educated. The more he knows the prouder and more dangerous he becomes. I do not despise learning, but since it is impotent to transform men, why try it as the savior of woman? She who takes counsel less of the intellect than of the conscience and affections! We must seek for those we aim to help something surpassing in direct efficacy any thing yet attempted;” so saying, Miriamne paused.
“Shall we organize a church, ‘fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?’”
“There have been churches and churches. It would be vain for me to attempt to prove to you, a theologian and a churchman, that this you call the ‘Bride of Christ’ is imperfect or lacking in any energy of reform; but, though I heartily confess ’tis the choicest institution this side of the stars, yet I see it professing to have heavenly charity, abounding light, and measureless joys, leaving the needy without hospitals, the heathen in ignorance, and most of the world, including many churchmen, famishing for happiness. The trouble is, it infolds too many wolves and repels too many lambs. Your flocks are too much given to atoning for lean living by fat believing; memorizing huge creeds instead of incarnating them; putting their faith-confessions into themselves rather than themselves into their faith professions. You churchmen shut your ears to friendly criticism, sneer at those that censure, and in branding such heretics proclaim yourselves infallible. I’d not be a vaporing railler, but I hear within your ecclesiastical bodies of warring factions, of ambitious and multitudinous leaders, a proof that they are of the church militant; though theirs is an internecine militating. I doubt if there has existed Christ’s ideal of a church since Pentecost. He gave a glimpse of its true outlines there, and it will yet come in its power and splendor; then, for the pæans!”
“You’d organize, perhaps, a Vestal Band?”
“Vestals?”
“Yes; an union of women of pure hearts, committed solely to such works as those performed in part by the holy sisters of our church fraternities.”
“I revere such as are thus engaged with all my heart; but, churchman, you are narrow in your plan; even Pagan Rome, which honored Vesta, the fire goddess, by having an altar to her in every community, held that the State was a great family, and placed Vesta, the goddess of virginal purity, near the Penates, or gods of the household and family.”
“I see nothing now in this juxtaposition.”
“They saw that there was ruin to all society if their girls were impure; hence buried alive a Vestal, if she fell from her vow of chastity. You have heard, Cornelius, how good Romans were wont to invoke, often, as their family guardians, the manes of their departed kin; and this very naturally; they held to the belief that the family tie, the finest, strongest known among men, outlived, by virtue of its heavenliness, the shock of death. Imperial Rome trusted much its all-conquering swords, for this life, but for the life to come it appealed to Jupiter omnipotent or Minerva, the all-wise. No, no, a ‘Vestal Society,’ such as you imply, would not suffice. I’ve a broader clientage and vaster scheme in mind, good churchman husband—”
“Shall I venture another guess?”
“It would be needless. Let me explain myself fully. Good Father Adolphus, founder of Bozrah’s ‘Balsam Band,’ which he sometimes called ‘nursing preachers,’ told me that in olden times there was in this country a fraternity of women, banded together to perform works of charity. They were remembered chiefly for their helpfulness to those that were in direst need and utterly friendless. They befriended criminals and social outcasts. He said that the women of Jerusalem who followed Christ weeping, were, probably, of that fraternity, since it was the custom of that pious company to offer their tears for those on the way to execution. More, these women were wont to furnish the pain-dulling herbs to victims dying condemned. You remember the Christ was offered such herbs? When I remember the spirit that actuated Martha and Mary, I readily believe they were members of that pious fraternity. More, when I remember how, for His own dear sake, they ministered to His human wants, there comes to my mind the possibility of a perpetual organization, for God’s sake, ministering to human want, taking the home as its palace, and to be known to the world by the expressive, winning title, ‘Sisters of Bethany.’”
“Miriamne, if you were not Miriamne, I’d call you Gabriel. I’m dazzled by these words. In truth, thy ‘grail’ is near, I believe.”
“That I seek to build up I’ve explained, and here in Bethany I’ll attempt it. We’ll have a fraternity of women, Christ-guided, with burning hearts, and in methods simple, direct and catholic, reaching after women.”
“Now for our pillow prayer, Miriamne. Then side by side, unto wondrous sleep land, side by side in heart and being at awakening.
“‘The sun of the millennium will rise from behind the family altar,’ Father Adolphus was wont to say. ’Twas well said; redeemed homes are the fruits of the restoration. Shall I read to-night?”
“Surely we need the Word to understand the throbbings of our own hearts when our prayers return, dove-like, with olive branches from heaven.”
“What shall I read?”
“What came after Pentecost!”
Then the husband opened to the Gospel Story, and remarking the ‘Ascension,’ read:
“He was taken up, after that He through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
“To whom also He shewed himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
“When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?
“And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put into His own power.
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
“And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
“And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
“Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”
“And His farewell happened at Bethany? It makes our home seem still more like the gate of heaven, when I remember this; ‘He’ll come so as He went;’ what if that meant His next advent is to be at this very place?”
“Or, what if it meant that He would appear the second time, in glory, at the homes of men; since He elected His home for the gateway of His earthly exit,” replied the husband. Then they sat for a little while in a blessed silence; that kind that falls upon souls bowing to a benediction, or moved by thoughts that are holy beyond expression.
The wife broke in on their reverie: “I wonder how His departure affected the disciples?”
“I have it all here, darling;” then he took one of his parchments and read:
“And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them.
“And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
“And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
“And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.
“And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.”
“I knew it was as I thought! If believers are as they say, enlisted soldiers, under the blood-stained banners, our Christ has not been true to His word, or there is universal treason in the camp! The world is not gospeled and the soldiers have not the miracle power. I tell you husband, there is need of a revolution, a revival of zeal, an improvement of methods! The Hospitaler was right. The Christian world needs to be led along the Via Dolorosa after Jesus and Mary, up to their measure of utter consecration, to their undying love, to their lofty, soul consuming zeal!”
And the young gospel herald was silent, for he could not gainsay her.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.
“The king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, ... and caused a seat to be set for the king-mother, and she sat at his right hand.”—1 Kings, 2, 19.
“Miriamne, the heavenly host we imagined to be in bivouac about our Bethany home, methinks were really present, and gave color and form to my dreams. I was in a grail-quest all night.”
“What a golden day is such a night! But tell me of the color and form of your visions, Cornelius.”
“We fell asleep last night conversing of the Ascension; my dreams carried me on to Pentecost.”
“And what have you brought from the dream-land to help in the stern and pressing waking hours?”
“A panting heart, as one having climbed mountain above mountain. I burn to know and feel the whole significance of Pentecost!
“I’ve determined to seek holy companionship and wise guiding by attendance at the next ‘Harvest Feast’ at Jerusalem. I think I’ll get peculiar help at the great city.”
“The Israelites will not welcome a Christian to their feast.”
“The one I aim to attend is that that will be observed by the Christian knights in an upper room, in the great city. They think they have possession of the identical apartment in which the disciples of our Lord met and witnessed the glories of Pentecost, after the Ascension.”
“In Joseph of Arimathæa’s house?”
“That is the accepted report. The Hospitaler, whom we believe to be a ‘Grail Knight’ of to-day, is quite earnest in so affirming.”
“Wondrous white-souled Arimathæa! Jewish and a priest, yet secretly a disciple of Jesus! I dare to liken myself unto that holy man, in a measure. He left an old faith for a new one, and followed the cup of the Passion, as I, my ideal.”
“A good man and a just,” says the Testament.
“We meet to-night in Arimathæa’s house,” said the Hospitaler to Cornelius, shortly after the arrival and welcome of the latter at Jerusalem.
“Can the uninitiated attend?” questioned Cornelius.
“Now, that’s the joy of it, they can; and more, we are to have a number of Jews present, among them some once priests; but now like that Joseph of blessed memory, seeing the true light.”
“And the meeting?”
“The exalting of the Word, that’s the need of the hour, world-wide. I tell thee, young man, set to teach; the needs are not more religions but more religion, not more revelators or prophets but surer interpreters. The world blooms with truth on every hand; who will pluck the blossoms?”
And the disciples were again, all with one accord, in the holy upper chamber.
The Hospitaler, with an abruptness of John the Baptist, merely throwing back his tunic and exposing the golden sign of knighthood for a moment to his companions, as he entered, at once began to address the assembly;
“Jews and Gentiles, all children by creation of a common Father—greeting! The fires of Pentecost are kindled everywhere in Jerusalem, but they are the old fires and cold enough; sacrifices smoke on the altars, but the day of such offerings is past.
“Methinks, the offered bulls, goats and lambs, if they could speak, would cry out against the priestly hands that shed their blood; ‘How long, how long the blood of our flocks has pointed to the lamb of God, the All-Savior, who died to save men from sin and beasts from the altar; and yet we die as if our work were not finished!’
“The beasts join in the wailings of humanity.
“For centuries God’s chosen people celebrated this feast of the harvest, the joy of Jewry; and now the world’s harvest advenes. Yet, for the most part, the multitudes see not the ripening. For years the first fruits were offered, and as yet, the people do not understand that first fruits mean chosen, choice fruits, the elect of God.
“For centuries, Israel offered the shoulder and heart of the lamb, and yet Israel waits under the overshadowing smokes of its burnt offering, not discerning the Lamb Priest, whose heart of eternal love and shoulder of power, are given for the salvation of the people.
“Israelites, hear me; out of the altar’s smoke emerges to view the kingdom of the house of David, refined, purified—the hope of the future. Ye have thought, hitherto, that David’s kingdom, whatsoever it might have been, is, in these ages, to be reckoned with the dynasties and forces of an antiquity, whose influences long ago ebbed away along the shores of the all-entombing past.
“Yet such conclusion is as fallacious as it is evidently superficial. The God who works in unbroken time cycles, though men remit their tasks at the beck of sleep or death, pushes forth His forceful, faultless projects with a tireless consistency that knows no cross purposes. A real and present kingdom is that with which this Pentecost we have to do. We are not, at that time when they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and spread them before the sun. David’s throne is a verity, though long incrusted with neglects; it is a symbol of power in a dynasty that is ordained to overspread the earth. I’d summon my witnesses; first the weeping Jeremiah. ‘Thus said the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.’ How bold! but amid the ruins about us, I cry never! never! Now call the God-nourished captive Daniel, who, sincere to the last, made all Babylon glow with his prayers and his visions. Saith Daniel:
“‘The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed.’ The dream is certain; the interpretation sure. He was proof against the alluring blandishments of his royal captors, and as pure to the last as a knight of San Grail.”
Cornelius saw a light on the Hospitaler’s face, and knew it was that that comes from a conscience clear before God. The latter went on with a voice suddenly become tenderer than it was before.
“Let us hear the reply of the converted pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Whose kingdom is from generation to generation!’
“Hearken to Isaiah, to whom the scroll of human history through a thousand generations then yet to come was present and lucid: ‘Unto us a child is born ... his name shall be called Wonderful ... The Prince of Peace.’ ‘Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and forever.’ Surely he must be of dull comprehension who saith this is only the spiritual, heavenly kingdom of the glorified.
“Let us stand for a little under the light of the blazing tongues of Pentecost, enswathed in imagination by the mighty, rushing tide of Spirit manifestation, fresh from the Being of the Almighty. Now listen to Peter, transfigured and illuminated within and without. Error here, with him, was impossible! Untruth at such a time would be a madness like that of the attempted steadying of the ark. Saith Peter: ‘David being a prophet knowing that God had sworn to him that He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.’ Peter at last, a rock of God, I bless thee! Call that archangel, who doth excel in strength, his name given him in heaven being Gabriel, the ‘Champion of God.’ He certified his mission to Mary in terms that can be made no finer: ‘I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of god and sent to show thee glad tidings. Thou shalt bring forth a son. And the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David.’ Of His Kingdom there shall be no end. These are ‘glad tidings,’ indeed, sung as such to the joy and wonder of heaven, as well as proclaimed as the sovereign comfort of earth’s inhabiters.
“The splendid, earthly Kingdom outlined so gloriously by the prophets has suffered no syncope, and David’s royal line has not found its end in sepulchral palaces. That Kingdom and that line survives; their zenith not yet attained.
“In that zenith day, Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
“So it was settled forever in heaven, for earth and to all eternity, that in the vocabulary of divine wisdom, ‘first-born’ means ‘choice-born.’ And he is choice-born no matter how ill his beginning, who is reborn by the all-uplifting, renewing Spirit of Grace! Jesus, in marked manner, even in this respect, parallels David in reäffirming in Himself this law of His refined, exalted kingdom. The line of the Christ from remotest generations is found to have deflected from the line of the first born. His descent must be traced through Seth, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, Solomon and Nathan, and still others, none of whom were first in their advent into the families to which they belonged. Again, the Christ and his progenitor, David, antagonized the barbarian tenet of all ages that a man was to be honored merely because of his gigantesque figure or prowess. In olden times men revered greatly the giantly. Among the primitives to be a weakling was to be pitiable, and to be huge to monstrosity was to be respected, if not actually worshiped. Indeed, paganism in its essence is but homage paid to the great, that is terrible. The princely David began his career in slaying wild beasts and monstrous giants, but we may cease admiring the prowess he had physically in greater admiration of the symbol that lies in his early exploits. He was to be the giant-slayer; evil giants and giant evils were to fall before him alike; and a shepherd’s little sling, in pious hands, was shown to be invincible. In Solomon’s time, there was more outward splendor, but less spirituality than in David’s time. The latter witnessed the gilded decline in its beginnings. Decay followed swiftly. The world sighed for a restoration; the heathen manufactured gods; the Fire Worshipers followed stars; in the groves, virgins were, after a sort, worshiped, as in the forest night-services of the old England of some of you, the Druids prayed to a mystical ‘virgin that was to bring forth.’ There was a common yearning for the coming of a Champion to lead and defend the races of man. The yearning felt its way blindly toward the wonder to be, that of a woman of the children of men, mothering One all human, all divine, a Prince fit to link together the parts of David’s kingdom, whether militant here or triumphant above. That full day has begun, but is only dimly seen by many. You Jews have been wont to keep a Pentecost of males only while Egypt deifies a woman as goddess of the harvest. One turns to brawn, the other to the bringer forth, and neither gets the truth, the royal truth, found in the faith that brings forth through all humanity!
“Would you see a real Pentecost? Now, look how the first was to the fathers. The holy ones, among Christ’s followers, believing His promises, assembled at Joseph of Arimathæa’s house, to await it. Hear the word:
“And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty.
“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.”
“Our holy Luke, said to have been an artist, artistically presents the scene. As we read his record, we behold the ‘Queen of the House of David,’ the representative woman; as she should be, in the company and honor of God’s people. Not there as a beautiful creature to be admired; but there to pray with those who prayed for the dawn and the glory. With the genius of an artist, and the insight of a prophet, Luke displays his ideal thus. The Scripture record closes, leaving the typical woman amid God’s people, on her knees, waiting in hopefulness for the full dawn; while for a little time over all falls the earnest of the promise in miraculous displays from above. There was a rushing of mighty sounds, the providences of God in motion, the movements of His spirits who minister, for a time made visible! The scene was one never to be forgotten, and the holy John, years after in the glowing visions of the Apocalypse, had brought to his mind its central figure the woman clothed with the sun; the transfigured woman, and she as woman in her highest estate; that is mothering a child! He saw her rising above all perils, all evils; but as she rose, she bore aloft her child, a Man Child! Look at the picture, men and brethren, ’till it possesses your souls! Behold the Woman! Behold the interlaced symbols! As a mother holds above peril her child, so the peerless woman held aloft her Divine Babe; as the church holds aloft its offspring, so also in the apotheosis of the ideal mother, comes the uplifting of man’s hopes, and the triumph of all that is best, all that is promised. We see to-day, but the smoke side of Pentecost, by and by we’ll see, as do those in heaven, its fire side.”
The speaker ceased his address, and all were filled with great and moving thoughts.