“In sorrow thou shalt bring forth.”—Gen. iii. 16.
“Thou shalt be saved in child-bearing.”—Tim. ii. 15.
Hundreds of willing hands, directed by Miriamne, were engaged in preparations for fitly celebrating the feast of the Nativity at Bethany. There was cheerful expectation everywhere in the village, and the Temple of Allegory was smiling and glowing by day and by night with flowers and lights.
“Miriamne, look forth! There approaches our domicile a company of singing maidens, wearing holly wreaths and bearing a kline! What can it mean?”
An instant of wonderment ready to echo the chaplain’s question possessed Miriamne, then with a glow of satisfaction on her pale face, she cried:
“I know it all! The maidens of our fraternity have been declaring for a month past they’d have me this Christmas at our Temple on the Hill, if they must needs carry me thither!”
“And they knew you were drooping? Who told them? Not I.”
“Love has quick eyes, and my sisters love indeed!
“But, Miriamne, you surely will not risk your life, so precious to all, by going forth to-day?”
“The holly, over-canopying the couch they bear, says to me: ‘Yea, go.’ I told them the secret of the holly, and how those ancient Romans, thinking their deities largely sylvan, cherished this shrub, so persistently evergreen, in the belief that it afforded a safe and certain abiding place for their gods in bitter, biting days of winter. The maidens remember their lesson.”
And shortly after, all went forth toward the temple, the physically weak but spiritually strong woman borne by her followers in a sort of triumph, and Cornelius leading; the latter, that day was one of the happiest, proudest men in all Syria. He rejoiced and exulted in being companion of a woman such as Miriamne was.
Miriamne entered the temple to find a vast congregation awaiting her. There was a ripple of excitement, a deep murmuring of satisfied voices almost reaching the proportion of a masculine outbreak of applause, as she appeared. Contentment was depicted on all faces, on many real happiness. Neither was it transitory; there was a throbbing of gladness running back and forth, rising higher and higher, until it finally broke out into an impromptu “Gloria in excelsis!” Then followed a scripture lesson:
“And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.
“And he read therein before the street that was before the water-gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of the people were attentive unto the book of the law.”
And now the attention of all was drawn to the sound of footsteps in the throbbings of a march, keeping time to the tones of the organ and the flourishings of cymbals. Nigh an hundred Syrian maidens, wearing girdles and crowns of evergreen, moved with graceful evolutions from the temple’s east entrance and quickly formed in a crescent nigh to Cornelius and Miriamne. They paused in their progress but still kept time with their feet and swinging cymbals. Then the crescent was broken; those in the center standing in lines that made a cross; those at either end grouping as stars.
“Sisters, we’d hear the fitting song of this day,” said Miriamne. Forthwith the gathered company of garlanded maidens began to retire, but in perfect order, the two star groups passing along as the company making the cross went, so preserving the form of the tableau, until the exits were reached. As the procession went forth the temple bell tolled solemnly, and the maidens sang, accompanied by organ-notes which died away finally like the sigh of tired waves on a beaten strand. Cornelius was silent, though his eyes were like the eyes of a child awakened from a dream of wonderland.
Miriamne penetrating his thoughts remarked:
“Is Cornelius weary of questioning?”
“I listen as to autumn winds in a scared flight through weeping forests, instead of to Christmas exultations!”
“The singers are of my ‘Miriamne Band,’ as they call themselves, in honor of the sister of Moses, Israel’s greatest law giver.”
“Methinks all here are mystics in thought and poets in expression!”
“Then so was God. We are but reproducing His lessons! Remember now how the Egyptian Pharaoh once commanded that all the male children of his Israelitish captives be put to death, to the intent that eventually all the females should become the prey of his people.”
“Miriamne journeys far from Bethlehem.”
“The mother and the sister watched the ark in which the infant Moses was given to the cruel mercies of the Nile.”
“I remember, but there come no carols from the bullrushes.”
“Yea, finer than from the reeds of Pan. Listen; the ark, emblem of God’s covenant, carried the law. The mother and sisters, by the ministries of a love which never faltered, frustrated wily Egypt, saved themselves, their male companions, and finally their whole race. When God embalms a history it is well to look into it for germs of mighty portent.”
“But thinking of this distant and bitter history, we are kept from Bethlehem, Miriamne.”
“So the Red Sea and the wilderness preceded the Promised Land. You remember there were fears and tears before Miriam and her mother saw their babe safely adopted at the palace; so there were pains and toils to Mary along the way from Bethlehem’s manger to Bethany’s mount of Ascension.”
The words of Miriamne were broken off by a strain of the organ that was very like a moan of the distressed.
“Look yonder!”
The chaplain did as bidden, following a motion of his wife’s hand, and saw the folds of a huge black curtain slowly rising from in front of one of the temple alcoves.
“Woman’s sorrow is tardily lifted!” exclaimed his wife; then there came to his ears words of human voices, which were joining in the almost human-like moanings of the organ;
“Rachel and funeral dirges seem still distant from the songs of the angels in Judea!”
“Rachel is here likened to Mary by the Apostle Matthew.”
“I liken Rachel to Miriamne: for the former Jacob served fourteen years which, for the love he bore her, seemed but a few days. Cornelius could have done as much for Miriamne.”
“My knightly spouse goes from Bethlehem himself toward Bethany. Go back now.”
“I listen; lead me.”
“At Rama, the site of the tomb of Mary’s son, the converted publican, St. Matthew, told how death began its cruel hunt of the Virgin’s loved Child at His very cradle. Sorrow envies joy; death battles life, and ever more woman’s love, the choicest rose of life, has been crossed by the destroyer of human happiness; that is human hatings.”
“But how is Rachel so like Mary?”
“A common agony and common needs make all women akin.”
“I accord great homage to the woman who taught one so selfish, gnarled and rugged of soul as Jacob was to love so deeply, as he was taught to love by her, and yet almost infinitely I separate her from our Rose and Queen.”
“Rachel died a martyr in maternity and therefore is worthy of place among the regal women of earth. She was one of that line of women who gave their lives for others. The line survives, and suffers through the years; all-worthy, but not fully honored. Saint Matthew touched an all-responsive chord when he voiced the Divine pity for all motherhood, by placing the sorrows of Rachel and of Mary side by side. The plain man unconsciously soars to the plane of the prophets and poets when he is moved by human need or Divine justice.”
“The lesson is irresistible, but still I’m waiting for the celestial melodies that awakened the shepherd the night of the Nativity!”
“My partner shall get by giving. Here is a parchment given me years ago to read for my mother’s consolation after the death of my brothers. Read it, thou, to the matrons and maidens when the chantings cease.”
After a time there was silence! the hush of expectation, for that gathering was wont at times to wait for words of blessing from the missioners, as the hart for the rivulet at the beginnings of the rain.
“Read!” whispered Miriamne, “but not as the tragedian! Read as a father and lover, both in one.” The young man complied, and these were the words of the parchment:
“There was a man named Jehoikim who, impressed of God thereto, offered a lamb in sacrifice. As he slew it his heart was touched with tenderness, and he would have staid his hand, but God gave him strength to perform the command. After this a daughter, called Mary, was born to him. Whenever he looked upon her gentle face he remembered the bleating lamb, and was certain that some way his child was to be a sacrifice to God. And it was so; for she bore a Son to whom she gave all the wealth of a mother’s love, but at last He was offered for man’s sin upon a felon’s cross, the agony He felt reaching the heart of his mother. As the Son gave Himself up for the world, so she gave herself up for her Son. She was sustained through it all by a conscience void of offense, and by the ministry of angels. Alone to the world, she had no solitude, for though her espousal to God had no human witness, even as Eve’s to Adam had none, and both were inexperienced, God was at her nuptials, as He is ever with those who purely give themselves to Him.”
Then the wife wept and was silent.
“My darling, what so moves you? I’ve never experienced such a Christmas. You make the feast as solemn as the holy supper.”
There came no answer; but ere the husband could turn to seek a reason it came in a cry from the audience, and a thronging from all directions toward where the missioners were.
“Miriamne has fallen!”
“’Tis a swoon?”
“No, ’tis death!” There were surgings back and forth, voices suggesting helps, voices filled with stifled sobs, and voices of fright in the trebles of hysteria.
The sick woman was borne by strong men to her domicile, and then began the tension of waiting. The young chaplain was entering the valley of poignant pains by sympathy’s pathway, bound by that mystic chain whose links are in the words: “These twain shall be one flesh.” Herein is a mystery often repeated; the man’s grief was supplemented by a consciousness of vague pains passing along unseen lines from the woman to himself. Slowly Miriamne recovered consciousness; but still she hovered on the confines of woman’s supreme hour, the hour when great fear haunts great hopes, great weakness yields to miraculous influxes of power, and great joy, in company with unutterable yearnings, moves along under the shadows and by the gulfs of greatest perils. About her gathered a group of matrons of her sisterhood, pressing to serve their beloved.
One whispered to another: “Her face is unearthly, like Mary’s as we saw it in the ‘Assumption’ to-day.”
The one that heard the words answered with a sob. The voice of pain called the drooping woman quickly from her semi-stupor to ministry, and opening her eyes she tenderly murmured to the woman that sobbed, “Remember what he said: ‘Women of Jerusalem, weep not for me; but weep for yourselves and children.’ If I go ’twill be all well; yes, by His grace, all well with me. Let all your pity follow the pilgrims of our sex who tarry to painfully journey through years of trial, unrequited.”
A little later Cornelius was hastily summoned by one that sought him, from the shadows of an arch of the roof, whither he had gone for a few moments’ solitude, in which to plead, as only can a man who writhes in the fear of having his life torn in two.
“Miriamne asks for her husband.” He heard the words and was by his consort’s side instantly. Her eyes were closed, but taking her pale hand tenderly in his he impressed a kiss on her brow. She opened her eyes full upon him, with a gaze of undying love.
“You kissed my brow, the first kiss as a lover. Then you said it was given in the spirit of reverential admiration. Has marriage ever changed the thought?”
“Never!”
“If I should leave you, do you think you could tell others how to love so?”
“Oh, I can, surely; if I can do any thing, alone!” And then came to him the silence of a dumb grief. She saw his agony and pitied him, yet serenely she spoke:
“Go onward, beloved, in the way of the prophet’s vision; the power of Christ be with you; the life of Mary is an open book; speak to, work for those most needing, then will you have your constant Pentecost with the ever present ‘Grail.’”
Cornelius pressed the hand he held tenderly; he could not speak.
“Repeat to me the beautiful words concerning the Harvest Feast which you heard out of Moses at the service that so blessed you at Jerusalem,” she continued again. Then, mastering his voice, he complied:
“And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill-offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee:
“And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place His name there.”
When he finished the words he hid his face in his hands.
“Thou art weary, my good master,” spoke a Jewish mother present. “Go now and rest. I’ll watch.”
Quickly, gently, firmly he waved her away, as one unwittingly trying to draw him from the gates of heaven.
“It is not usual,” she persisted, “for a man to serve this way; then thou hast other and more important duties, our holy missioner!”
He found voice to speak, and needed to restrain himself from indignant tone. It seemed as if it were impiety now, so great his love, to speak of any duty as higher than that he had toward this one woman, more to him than all the world beside. “No; if I were on the cross she would be there, another Mary; if I am now in torture I’d be no Christian if I did not emulate Him who, amid crucial agonies, between two worlds, cried as inmost thought of His heart, ‘Behold thy Mother!’”
He felt Miriamne’s hand pressing his, and drawing him closer to herself.
“Cornelius, I’m leaning now as never before upon my husband’s loyal heart!”
It seemed to the man as if she were nigh to crying: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” and as if to answer his own thought he exclaimed:
“He will be Father, I as a mother, Miriamne, my Miriamne!”
Grief had made him an interpreter. It was as he thought, the heart of the young woman, woman-like, had been groping about for mother-love. Memory had been busy, but had sent the heart of the woman back from groping amid the graves of Bozrah all weary, to nestle and rest on the breast of him that gave mother-love, and promised all else that loyal heart ere gave.
But all was not gloomful; the clouds were shot through and tinted by some light-rays.
“What if our forebodings prove untrue?”
Hope’s question was as a north wind to a desert noon.
Once the man bashfully questioned his spouse, with broken sentence that was half signs.
“Does Miriamne feel aught of reproach toward the great love, seemingly not far from utter selfishness, which enchanted to this peril?”
“Could Madonna reproach God when she felt the heart-piercing sword? To Him she submitted, no less do I in doing and suffering as He wills!”
It has been said a woman’s heart is complex, but this one’s was not now. It lay open, as a book, before her lover-husband. He saw no idol there but himself. Had there ever been hidden remembrance of some girlish love, some secret scar left by a romance, both burning and brief, it would have been opened or effaced now.
As she beheld her consort, this time more loved, if possible, than ever before, knightly, courtly and tender, alert and strong to help, lavish in caressing, she not only felt conquered, but filled with desire to surrender to the uttermost; for she joyed to place this man on the throne of her being next after God, supremely lord over all. So together they moved amid the flowers of Beulah-land, under the glorious lights of married love. She all compensated for the pangs the trying hour brought; he thrilled, as he ascended higher and higher from lover love to husband love, to that holy delight that comes to a man beginning to feel fatherhood, the gift of the woman his heart has enthroned. For a little time both were too happy to speak, so they let their thoughts wing their way upward to the eternities where hopes eternally blossom. She presently signaled him to draw close to her, then his clasped hands lay on her heart, and their lips met. She said nothing, yet by a sign-language well understood by each, plainly entreated him to tell her over and over, more and more, his inmost thought, that her heart knew full well already.
She heard his heart’s beatings, then she whispered: “Don’t be anxious; all is well, for all is as He that loves us wills.”
“Oh, Miriamne, I loved you never as now; God bless you! bless you! bless you!”
She interrupted him again. “The crisis is coming, and I thought perhaps I might not survive, Cornelius, but if I do not—”
Her words were silenced by an impassioned kiss.
She continued, “I dreamed, last night, that I saw the shadow of a cross, but on it a woman’s form.”
“Oh, beloved, do not think of it!”
“I do. I must! I understand it all.”
Pity now silenced her.
“Oh, Miriamne!” he cried anon, as he saw her descending into the vale of agony, from which he could not hold her back. He dare say no more. He feared to voice his thoughts, lest his fears become ponderous and huge, once they found escape in the garb of words.
Just past midnight the dispatched courier arrived, bringing twain of the most-skilled physicians of Jerusalem.
Cornelius watched them with an interest beyond words. His heart sank down and down again, as he saw them in serious consultation. Unable to restrain himself, he seized the elder, and drawing him hastily aside, demanded an opinion. The grave old man only shook his head, saying: “We may save one.”
“One? One!
“Which? What?”
“Young man, be quiet; do not let thy emotions disturb the patient or the nurses. Prepare for the worst.”
The husband seized the wrinkled hand of the aged practitioner, and then flung it from him, crying: “It must not be! It shall not be!” Instantly he rushed toward the couch, but the two men of healing intercepted him. Then the elder one said: “We must be obeyed, or else we will give no commands! Shall we go or stay?”
What a revulsion came! It seemed to Cornelius as if these two men of skill were angels, and flinging his arms about them, he hoarsely whispered: “Save, save! Stay and save! All I have I give you, only save her!”
Quietly they led him to the adjoining apartment; then charged him, as he hoped for any good to his wife, not to re-enter her chamber until sent for. Reluctantly he consented, not daring to do otherwise and yet believing in his very soul that in this hour of peril the bestowment of love’s caresses on the invalid would be better than any skill of the stranger. He withdrew to the arch on the roof, where unmolested he could pray. But his meditations were full of miserable sights. He thought of the Egyptians in their feats of Osiris, leading to sacrifice the heifer draped in black; then of Rizpah defending her relatives; then of the monument in Bozrah, with the mother holding her dead Son. He thought, amid the latter meditations, of himself creeping about that monument, in the night, until he came to another, on which he deciphered the name, “Miriamne.” The imagination gave him a shock, and he gave way to it exhausted. An hour or so after he was awakened from a sort of stupor by the younger of the physicians, who, standing by his side, addressed him:
“Sir Priest, thou mayst come now; but as thy profession teaches, nerve thyself to confront any fate, good or ill.”
“How’s my wife?” exclaimed the stricken man, leaping from his couch and approaching the speaker, that he might devour with his eyes the thought of the one he questioned.
The emotionless features of the man accustomed to confront human suffering softened a little to pity. The quick eye of the missioner discerned the change, then he cried:
“What, dead!”
“No; if thou wilt but control thyself, thou mayst see her for a little while; there’ll be a change soon.”
The man of healing had done and said his best, but that was bad enough. He had tried to comfort, but the exigencies were beyond human powers. “A change soon!”
Hard, mocking words. Apology for bad news! Stepping-stone to saying the worst is at hand; words so often used by the man of healing when his art is defeated! How like a funeral knell breaking the heart has come, again and again, to tingling ears those terrible sounds: “In—a—little—while—there’ll—be—a—change!” Cornelius felt all their stunning force, and was instantly by the side of Miriamne. What a change met his hungry eyes! The fever had died away; fever, that blast from the shores of Death’s ocean, had passed, because there was nothing longer for it to attack. The tide was ebbing. She lay silent, pale and haggard; motionless, except as to a feeble breathing. The husband would have encircled her with his arms. It was love’s impulse, but science, the men of healing, restrained him. There was a little wail just then, and he glanced around with a look of joy. The nurse had brought the babe close to him, turning away her own face to hide her tears, but holding the little one out as if trying to say: “This shall compensate.” Then again the grief-stricken man turned to the physicians and whispered, in a half-fierce, half-terrified way: “She’ll live—she’ll be better now.”
The aged man, slowly adjusting the paraphernalia of his profession preparatory to departure, replied: “Few survive the Cæsarean section. It was a dire necessity.”
“Lord, behold whom Thou lovest is sick,” moaned the young chaplain, as he knelt by the couch and buried his face in its disordered covering. So the tide of life ebbed at midnight, leaving a stranded wreck at Bethany, and the Christmas chimes turned to dirges.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE MOTHER OF SORROWS TRIUMPHANT AT LAST
Hundreds were assembled within the “Temple of Allegory,” and other hundreds, unable to effect an entrance, tarried around about it. The knell of Miriamne, the Angel of the Mount, had called the vast congregation together from Bethany, from the country round about and from the City of Jerusalem.
There were many signs of subdued sorrow, but the intensive expression of grief common in the East was absent; neither was there any of the paganish blackness, which sometimes characterizes Christians’ funerals, manifest. Though Miriamne was dead, her sweet, trustful, cheerful spirit still survived and still ruled.
The knights of Jerusalem, led by the Hospitaler, were present, the latter to direct the services, by request generally extended.
After a “grail” song by his companions, and at its last words, “I shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness,” the Hospitaler began discoursing.
“Men and women, death, the leveler, makes us all akin; therefore all of us feel impoverished by the departure of the angel who shone upon us here from the form that lies yonder. Miriamne Woelfkin, daughter of a knight, consort of a Gospel herald, devoted friend of womankind, disciple of Jesus, was gifted with almost prophetic insight and power of alluring unsurpassed in our day. Hers was the power of a burning heart entranced of a superb ideal, and therefore was it the power of immortal influence. She will live not more truly in the life she died to give than in the lives she lived to save. She was an unique woman, but only so because of her superior womanliness. Being dead, she reaches the reward generally denied the living, full appreciation. Her career was in part a parallel of her choice exemplar’s. You have heard how the Mother of our Lord sung her ‘Magnificat’ out of a heart as free as a girl’s, yet as proud as that of a woman’s glowing in the prospect of honoring maternity. But the last note of her rapture died on her lips full soon, and she never after in this life rose to such measure of joy. God permitted her life to pass through a series of suppressions and griefs, doubtless that she might exemplify the sad side of woman’s career. The histories of women, mostly written by men, are marred by the conceits of their writers, and are at best but obscure pictures. The man with the pen lacks insight as to the being, whose life is so largely an expression of heart and soul. The lordly writer clothes his heroes in the light of his fevered imagination, depicting with bold stroke the mighty deeds of stalwartness; but he sees few heroines in his horizon. Those he does see are beyond his power of analysis. He falls to actual worship of his masculine demi-gods, perhaps as a partial atonement for his failings toward the fine and noble characters whose traits are too spiritual for his thought-limits or vocabularies. The generality of those who discourse concerning women, do it in a patronizing way, and feel to praise themselves as paragons in doing justice in this, even by halves. The queenship of Mary is constantly disputed, and so her lot is more closely linked with that of her sex. As she received the royal gifts of the Magi, holding them as a sacred trust for Him to whom her life was utterly devoted, so woman, the bearer and nurse of the race, gives all that she has without stint to others. Her life is a suppression; all bestowing; her reward the joy she has in the lavishness of her bestowals. Hers is the joy of the fountain that sings because it flows.
“But recently ye saw the Jewish priests deposit on his mount, after a custom constant since Moses, the ashes of the red heifer. They burned their sacrifice with red wood. Red pointed to the blood that can only atone for sin. But underneath all lies a deep lesson. ’Twas the female instead of the male thus offered, and her ashes gave potency to the waters of purification. I read this hidden truth: the sacrifices of the gentler sex work out the purification of the race. As the moss in the heart of the stone, I see this truth lying in the heart of the ceremonial! As Christ’s cross precedes the cleansing of regeneration, so woman’s cross is the means by which the decays of life are offset by new created beings. By the bier of the wondrous comforter of others, I may surely appeal to those who hear me and loved her to seek with quickened ardor to offer the pain-assuaging myrrhs to those grand souls who go along the way to life’s crucial glories. I’d have such justice done as would cause all women to cease pitying themselves because they are such, and go about rejoicing that God gave them the superlative privileges of womanhood.”
There came forth a loud cry, with moanings, from the part of the temple, called the “Mother’s Pillow,” where the honored dead lay.
“Miriamne, oh, Miriamne, you brought me through Gethsemane to your Calvary!”
A silence almost oppressive fell on the assembly. It was the silence of a pity too deep for words.
Then spake the Hospitaler, in words as invigorating as a herald of God’s should be, and yet as soothing as a mother’s to her child in pain:
“Christ, who loved the young man who was very good and yet not perfect, loves thee, for He is unchanging in His mercy. Hear me, an old man, stricken with the years that have schooled, and one who has experienced the bitterness of widowerhood after loyal, full loving. God’s hand is on thee. He is schooling thee to carry on the work begun by thy wondrous consort now asleep.”
“Oh, Miriamne, Miriamne! alone in the dark, I move through Gethsemane toward thy Calvary!”
Again the silence of pity was broken by the voice of the knight.
“Remember how David of the White Kingdom was called and furnished for his kingship. ‘He chose David, also, His servant, and took him from the sheep folds, from following the ewes great with young. He brought him to feed Jacob, His people, and Israel, His inheritance.’
“Missioner-shepherd, God calls thee to a ministry of love, for those whose trials thou hast now been taught, in part, to measure. You have heard how Hadadrimmon, the fabled god of the harvest, ever comes, bearing sheaves, with tears.
“Thus speaks the prophet:
“‘In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon.
“‘And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart.’
“Young man, God is giving thee a crown in David’s royal line.
“Once more I turn to her who was thy Miriamne’s exemplar and queen. Let me tell you all of the last hours of Mary, that you may find instructive parallels. I’ll read from my treasured book of traditions:
“After the ascension of Jesus, our Mary dwelt in the house of John upon Mount of Olives, and she spent her last days in visiting places which had been hallowed by her Divine Son; not as seeking the living among the dead, but for consolation and for remembrance and that she might perform works of charity.
“In the twenty-second year after the ascension of the Lord, she was filled with an inexpressible longing to be with her Son; and, lo, an angel appearing with the salutation, ‘Hail, Mary, I bring thee a palm-branch, gathered in paradise; command that it be carried before thy bier, for thou shalt enter where thy son awaits thee.’ And Mary prayed that it be permitted that the apostles, now widely scattered under their great commission to gospel the world, be gathered about her dying couch; also that her soul be not affrighted in the passage through the pale realm of death. The angel departed; the palm-branch beside her shed light like stars from every leaf; the house was filled with splendor, and angel voices chanted the celestial canticles. The Holy Spirit caught up John as he was preaching at Ephesus, and Peter, offering sacrifice at Rome, and Paul, from his place of labor, Thomas, from India, while Matthew and James were summoned from afar. After these were called, Philip, Andrew, Luke, Simon, Mark and Bartholemew were awakened from their sleep of death. These holy ones were carried to the Virgin’s home on clouds bright as the morning, and angels and powers gathered round about in multitudes. There were Gabriel and Michael close beside her, fanning her with their wings, which never cease their loving motions. That night a supernal perfume of ravishing delightsomeness filled the house, and immediately Jesus, with an innumerable company of patriarchs and holy ones, the elect of God, approached the dying mother. And Jesus stretched out His hand in benediction as He did when ascending from the world, long before at Bethany. Then Mary tenderly took the hand and kissed it, saying: ‘I bow before the hand that made heaven and earth. Oh, Lord, take me to Thyself!’ Thereupon Christ said, ‘Arise, my beloved; come unto me.’ ‘My heart is ready,’ she replied; a few moments after: ‘Lord, unto thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Then having gently closed her eyes, the holy Virgin expired without a malady; simply of consuming love, permitted now by the loving Creator to melt the golden cord binding spirit to body. And triumphantly amid mourners who rejoiced exceedingly in spirit, the body of this Queen of the House of David was entombed amid the solemn cedars and olive trees of Gethsemane. Now, this happened upon the day that the true Ark of the Covenant was placed in the eternal temple of the new heavenly Jerusalem, as they say; and the saying is good, for surely, in her heart, this saintly woman kept the law; the divine manna as well. Even more, she was the fulfillment of God’s covenant that a woman should bear the masterers of sin.”
The speaker then knelt; all heads were bowed; he spread out his hands as in benediction, but spoke not. Yet all in the silence were blessed, for the manifestation of Christ was there. After the benediction the companion knights chanted an old grail psalm, repeating again and again the stately words:
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
As they sang their eyes were turned upward in a rapture as of men who saw a glorious appearing; and indeed they had a vision of splendor; but they saw it within, not without.
“There are angels hovering round,” reverently whispered Mahmood to his camel. He was too full to keep silent; too distrustful of his wisdom to confide his thoughts to a human being. But the thought of the old Druse was as exalted as that of the Hospitaler, for the latter exclaimed, as the congregation slowly moved out to the strains of the organ:
“Methinks I hear the beatings of mighty wings! Not far away is Gabriel, the ‘angel of mothers’ and of victories! Yea, verily, I believe that the spirits of Adolphus, Rizpah, Sir Charleroy and Ichabod are ministering nigh us!”
Many looked up through their tears fixedly, as if they felt what the knight had said in their souls.
Then they laid the body of Miriamne in a new-made tomb nigh the Garden of Olives, not far from the burial-place of Mary the mother of Jesus.
CHAPTER XLIII.
A COFFIN FULL OF FLOWERS AND A GIRDLE WITH
WINGS.
“Behold thy mother!”—Jesus to John.
Two travelers journeyed slowly along Mount Olivet, pausing anon to observe the flower-dells between them and Mount Zion, or to contemplate the wilder prospects where the wilderness of Judea edged close up to the hills they traversed. As the travelers passed, the natives looked after them with curiosity; for the garments of the former, though dust-covered, were those of personages above the ranks of the common people; also of a fashion that betokened them strangers in that vicinity.
One of these men was a youth, stalwart and comely; the other was gray-haired and bent as if by the weight of years, though a closer view suggested premature blasting, rather than senile decline.
“Winfred, before entering Bethany, we’ll to the ‘Hill of Solomon,’ the site of Chemosh, the black image of the Roman Saturn.”
Thereupon the twain turned away from the village and soon came upon a company of revelers, each wearing a crown of autumn fruits, and all gathered about a platform crowded with hilarious dancers.
“Saturnalia!” exclaimed the elder.
“The worship of Saturn ceased ages ago, did it not?”
“Of the image, yes; but the folly, little changed, continues.”
“This is strange enough; and yet it’s a relief to meet a few happy people in this land of solemn faces; even if those happy ones do joy like fools.”
“They celebrate the passing of summer-heat and the coming of the rains of autumn. Say not fools; they are trying to be glad about something good, somehow coming from some one somewhere above them. Perhaps God can resolve scraps of thanksgiving out of it all.”
“Theirs is the laughter of wine! the laughter of the goat-god, Pan, whose face scared his mother and whose voice scared the gods!”
“We’ve a persistent custom here, son; and men do not play the fool for generations after one manner, at least, without cause.
“These attempt to press into the court of Pleasure to cajole her; all men do that; these have chosen merely an old way. They cling to the myth of Saturn, the subduer of the Titan of fiction. They say that deity, dethroned in the god-world, fled to Italy, where he gave happiness and plenty through life, and the freedom of air and earth after death, which latter he made to be only a little sleep.”
“That was not more than a mock golden-age; it never came, I think.”
“But very alluring to those that long for it; they dance half-naked, typifying the primitive times when men had fewer cares, because fewer wants.”
“Can one laugh hard fates out of countenance, and make his troubles run with a guffaw?”
“The devotees of Saturn were wont to offer their children in his altar-fires, and so ever more it happens; he that bends to the materialistic solely, kindles altar-fires for his posterity.”
“After to-day what comes to these, peace?”
“Nay, a year all dark and colorless; then another spasm called a feast—a brief lightning-flash revealing the darkness.”
“And so the years come and go; one generation of madmen, then another; death the only variety?”
“Nay! I’d have you look upon pleasure of sense deified, taking its pleasures under the shadows of Chemosh, for a purpose. You remember we read together, under the palms at Babylon, how the holy Daniel saw in vision the four winds of heaven striving on the sea?”
“I remember the prophet’s reverie or revel.”
“The four winds and the sea! the meaning, opened, is conflict on every hand on earth! Out of the follies and turmoils David’s White Kingdom will emerge at last. Listen to the words of the inspired seer:
“‘Behold one like the Son of Man! There was given Him a dominion and a glory that all people should serve Him; an everlasting dominion!’
“It is coming; my poor faith, amid the conflicts and revels of man, hears the voice of God crying through the night, as in Eden’s dark hour: ‘Where art thou?’ My last lesson to my son awaits us at Bethany; let’s be going.”
Ere long Cornelius Woelfkin and his son Winfred stood silently, and with uncovered heads, before, but a little apart from, a stately marble shaft that rose up amid the olive trees of Gethsemane. It was night, and they were alone. The father motioned the son back, and alone glided under the shadowing trees, toward the pillar. There the elder one threw himself down on the earth, close beside the monument; the youth, deeply moved, but unwilling to intrude upon the scene of sacred, silent grief, stood aloof. In a small way, there was a repetition of the grief of the Man of Sorrows, who there, ages before, yearned in His humanity over a lost world, over those from whom His heart was soon to part for life. To be sure, the cross of Cornelius Woelfkin was infinitely less galling, less heavy than that borne by his Master; and yet it was as heavy as he could bear, and hence the pitifulness of his grief.
Who can lift the curtain from his thoughts? The years roll back and memory’s pictures pass through his brain, at first in joyful train. The lovers in London; the betrothal at sea; the wedding at Jerusalem; the ecstatic consummation in years of marriage. Then the painful, almost awful separation by death, that never to be forgotten Christmas time. And then, twenty years with leaden feet carrying the lone-hearted man so painfully slow toward death’s portals, for which he longed with unutterable yearning. “Oh, Miriamne, Miriamne, let me come,” he cried. The youth, hearing the agonized utterings, was instantly by his father’s side. But the old man, still oblivious to all but his sorrow and his memories, moaned on with deepening fervor.
“Father,” called out the son. The father rose to his feet and calmly said: “My boy, pity me. I’m weak. But oh, you never knew what it is to have your life sawn in twain and be compelled then to drag your half and lacerated being along the over-clouded vales of an undesired existence!”
“My mother’s tomb?”
“Yes. I promised, as my last service to you, to bring you to it. Its study shall be the finish of your schooling.”
Just then the clouds broke away and the moonlight fell full upon the monument. It was a shaft, terminating in a crucifix; by its side were two forms, one that of St. John, with face turned toward the figure of the dying Savior; the other that of a woman kneeling, her face buried in her hands. On the base of the cross was the brief sentence: “Behold thy mother.” As the youth gazed on the farewell charge of Jesus to John, when He commended to the care of that beloved disciple His sorrowing mother, he started. It seemed as if the words had grown out of the marble suddenly while he was gazing, and for himself only. He felt as if he could almost embrace the stone.
The two men were silent and heart full. After a long time, they simultaneously turned away toward Bethany. They came to a turn in the road that would shut out all view of the garden of sorrow, and the elder paused, loath to leave the place where his heart was buried.
Presently he spoke again, as if unconscious of any other being with him: “Oh, Miriamne, I failed to carry out the work thou left’st me! How could I, alone? I was but half a man without thee, my other self! Miriamne, Miriamne, I can be only nothing when I can not be with thee.” Then the old man lifted his hands as in benediction or embrace, and continued: “Farewell, a last farewell, sweet, white soul, until upon the tearless, healing shores of light I say good morning!”
There was a mighty pathos in the display of this old, ripe, strong grief, which lived on a love that could not die. The man was a study. He was of fine fibre, almost effeminate, never firm, except in his affection for that one woman. That was the one strong trend, the one anchorage of his life. He need not study the man far, who strove to know him, to discover that this tenacity was not natural to him always. It had been a growth under the influence of the peerless wife.
“Shall we go on?” after a little asked the son. With a shudder and a suppressed sob the elder moved on, but with laggard step, which soon paused. Just now, the moon being beclouded, it was very dark about them, and the father reached out his hand and drew the youth to his embrace. He whispered: “Winfred, son of Miriamne, you bear her image in your face, bear it ever in heart, as well. I’m glad you’re not so like me.” The son tried to speak, but the elder interrupted:
“You’ll ere long be fatherless as well as motherless, but take your mother for your guiding-star. You know what your birth cost her. By her death you obtained life, as by the Christ’s, immortality. She saved others, she could not save herself; but if you’re true to her memory she’ll have a mother’s immortality, that life that lives in the life of her child.”
Let us gather up the last threads of our story. After the death of Miriamne, the “Sisters of Bethany” soon ceased to congregate at the “House of Bethesda,” in the city on Olivet. Cornelius Woelfkin attempted for a time to carry forward the work of the mission, but, utterly miserable himself, he did not know how to bestow comfort on others; a man, without the intimate companionship of the woman who had been his inspirer, he had no discernment of the needs of woman, nor power to interpret the truths that were in the Book or in nature, those garners of manna.
The Hospitaler was sent for as an aid. He came but once, and then spoke as kindly as he could to the women of Bethany and Jerusalem, and took his farewell of them all, in closing words like these:
“The blessed Miriamne, child of Jesus, and emulator of Mary, has passed away, but Christ her Comforter and Savior may be such to each of you, that wills Mary’s example, as the inspiration of all women, can never die. The world has been a battle-ground, and each of you can here see over the whole field of conflict. Shall all pleasures be found under the leadership of Bacchus and Venus, or in Him that is the God of Joy? Shall woman echo the passions of man or the ‘Magnificat’ of Mary? Shall the strength that man seeks be that of the giants, brute force; the strength of woman be, in her youth the bewitchings of personal beauty, in old age the cunning of the witch-hag? Shall it not rather be in the girdle of her moral worth?
“The world needs to seek and find love, beauty and light. Some go after it, vainly, as did the Egyptian devotees of Phallic Khem; to whom, with pitiful incongruity, were offered rampant goats and bulls, decorated with most delicate flowers. They called Khem the ‘God of births,’ the ‘beautiful God,’ but we know to put mothers on the throne as the beautiful; their flowers, their jewels, their glories being their offspring!
“Women of Jerusalem, never forget the Savior’s own words to the women that envied His mother, crying that the one that bore Him and nursed Him was therefore peculiarly blessed! His reply was: ‘Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.’”
Then the Hospitaler, bending his eyes upon the pale-faced, widowed missioner, continued: “I’ll tell thee a tradition of our Lord’s mother. Doubting Thomas, laggard because doubting, came late to the burial-place of Mary. He begged to have her coffin opened, that once more he might gaze on the face of his Savior’s mother. It was done. But there seemed to be nothing in that coffin except lilies and roses, luxuriously blooming. Then, looking up, he saw the spirit of the woman ‘soaring heavenward in a glory of light.’ But as she soared, she threw down to him her girdle. Here is a beautiful parable. The graves of the holy are to memory full of the ever-blooming roses of love and the lilies of purity. If we may not have them we loved with us always, we may have the virtues with which they engirdled themselves, for our conflicts.”
The Hospitaler paused, cast a glance of yearning tenderness upon the assembled women and the heart-stricken Cornelius; then exclaimed:
“Long partings are painful. Farewell!” He glided away ere any could clasp his hand. Not long after this event the Sheik of Jerusalem, Azrael’s putative son, raided Bethany, razing the “Temple of Allegory” to the earth. He was maddened because, after the disappearance of the Hospitaler, there came to him no stipend to buy immunity for the “Bethesda House” of the “Sisters of Bethany.” He despoiled it, hoping to find a treasure therein, but though there was in and about the place a great wealth, it was all beyond his grasp or ken, for he knew naught of the worth or power of precious truths and precious memories. Cornelius, after this, taking his infant son, soon departed from Syria. His dream of evangelizing the world and the great designs of Miriamne faded from his hopes, as the vision of universal empire has faded often from the hopes of dying conquerors. For years he devoted himself to being father and mother to his child. At last we behold him, as in the foregoing pages, looking toward sunset. He stands finally in Bethany, his dismantled home and Miriamne’s ruined temple not far away, her tomb close at hand, himself like the fragment of a wreck; altogether presenting a sad, dramatic tableau. He stands there as the last of the new “Grail Knights,” the last of those who in his time were devoted to the new grail quest. It was Saturnalia-time, and it was night.