Part 7

It seems that Beltrezzor’s friend had sent one-half of the ransom by the robbers who passed me going down the ravine, promising the other half in two days after, on the delivery of Beltrezzor himself at Jerusalem. Barabbas had entrusted the Son of the Desert with that mission. The old man had been slow in his movements, and night with its black cloud had overtaken them before reaching the highway. Reflecting that the trumpets of the Roman soldiery had sounded the evening tattoo, Beltrezzor had luckily suggested that they should turn aside into Bethany, where he had a brother whom he had not seen for thirty years. They came close behind my own weary footsteps, and I have told the result.

The second day after these surprising events, Mary Magdalen disappeared suddenly to our great regret, leaving no clue by which she could be traced. She awoke from her artificial sleep about daylight, and the nurse supplied her with food, and told her the wonderful things which had happened. She went away, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the nurse.

“Tell them,” said she, “that I rejoice at their good fortune, and that I love them so much that I lift the shadow of my presence from the sunshine of their peace.”

Poor Magdalen!

My new and real uncle, Beltrezzor, had a bargain to make with Magistus and his young friend, the hypocrite Caiaphas. It was easily affected. We were in possession of facts which would have exposed them both to public infamy, and have cut short the ambitious career of the talented priest.

Silence on our part was purchased at the following price:

Beltrezzor was a pagan, and objections might be raised in the Jewish Sanhedrim to his taking possession of a Jewish estate and the charge of Jewish orphans. Magistus and Caiaphas were to obviate these objections, and to secure him the legal guardianship.

Ethopus was to be declared a freedman.

Beltrezzor, my sisters and myself were to be permitted to visit Ulema every Sabbath so long as she lived.

In addition to his liberty, Beltrezzor presented Ethopus with a precious stone of considerable value, upon which was engraved a mystic name. This gem had great reputation in the magical fraternity for releasing its possessor from the spell of the most powerful enchantment. Whether some change really came over his spirit, or whether his imagination did the work, Ethopus acted as if some great burden had been lifted from his soul. He entered at once into our service, and his gratitude seemed only equaled by his humility.

Beltrezzor took possession of my father’s estate, and to our great joy determined to reside at Bethany during our minority. Under his judicious and liberal management everything soon blossomed like the rose. He adorned our residence with all the chaste and beautiful treasures of architecture and art. He surrounded my charming sisters with every luxury that the most cultivated fancy could suggest. He devoted himself especially to our education, and our house became the favorite resort of all that was most learned and brilliant in Jewish society.

Thus several years passed happily away, overshadowed by no cloud. If a tear ever came into our eyes, it was consecrated to the memory of our dear father, and to the reflection that he had perished so sadly in the wilderness, without knowing the good fortune which was in store for his children.

VIII.

_BREAD ON THE WATERS._

The impression made upon our minds by these extraordinary events was ineffaceable. After three days and nights of perilous adventure and suffering, from a youth I became a man. From little girls, my sisters became women. There was ever afterward about us a pensiveness, a gravity of manner, a too early maturity of thought, which excited the pity of those who had known us during our father’s life, when a happy childhood broke forth into smiles and pleasures, like a genial spring blossoming out into perfumes and flowers.

Our six months of domestic life under the management of Magistus, with its gloom, its neglect, its suspicions, its want of love and liberty, stood in painful contrast with the merry sports, the delightful peace and the religious sunshine of our father’s household. It was night compared with day. But the unmasking of the characters of Caiaphas and Magistus was a rude shock to our tender spirits. We had revealed to us at one view the utmost depths of human depravity. We had stood consciously amid the hideous and revolting spheres of hypocrisy, sensuality, robbery and murder. There was a leprosy of the soul as well as of the body; there were wild beasts of the spirit; there was a wilderness of the mind; there was a death masquerading in the garments of life; and we had seen them all. We had looked into hell.

This early and deep insight into the fearful connection between evil spirits and wicked men, and their combined influence over the world, was in one sense salutary. The recoil from the bottomless abyss into which we had peeped, produced a rapid and unusual development of the moral nature. In my sisters it took a religious, in myself a philosophical turn.

Those young girls, constitutionally pious and full of gratitude to God, sought renewed strength and comfort in the exercises of faith and religious duty. They devoted themselves to prayer and the study of the Scriptures. With the womanly nature of the vine, which must cling to something of firmer texture and stronger growth, they attached themselves trustingly to the priests and scribes and doctors of the law, with a natural and pardonable feeling. But they avoided Caiaphas.

I do not remember that I ever felt any decided respect or love for the religious institutions of my country. I was born, I suppose, with the element of veneration for the past left out of my mental organization. I never could understand why men look back to the infancy and childhood of the race for the oracles of wisdom. It is rather the business of each century to scrutinize rigidly the inheritance it has received from the preceding century, and to reject everything which is worthless, unphilosophical and immature.

I was largely indebted to my father for my progressive temperament. He despised pretension and ceremony. He conformed his life rather to the spirit than to the letter of the law. His understanding sturdily revolted against the mysterious and improbable. We were not trained after the strict manner of the Pharisees, but with that freedom of action which does not crush the individuality of the child. The reformer, the innovator, the man of new ideas and life, is seldom born of the narrow-minded literalist and bigot of an old system. The father is generally an intermediate link between the old and the new; adhering loosely to the old himself, and prophesying, inarticulately perhaps, the emancipation of his son from the thraldom of the past.

When we get rid of the conventionalisms of an old and perishing system, we become peculiarly open and sensitive to the grand intuitions of natural religion. The gorgeous ceremonies of the temple made little impression even on my boyish fancy: they were tiresome and disgusting to my riper years. But I melted into tender admiration at the thought of John the Baptist, praying and toiling in the wilderness, unseen of men, trusting in God, and receiving to his loving bosom and care, the leper, the robber and the lost ones of the world.

One of the teachers provided me by my excellent uncle Beltrezzor, was a Greek; and the study of that wonderful language and literature led me still farther away from the influence of Judaism, corrupted and failing as it was. I was not slow to assert that the poetry of Æschylus and Homer charmed me more than that of David and Isaiah; and that the philosophy of Plato exceeded in value all the learning of the Scribes.

My heretical opinions, candidly avowed on proper occasions, but never obtruded, had a gradual effect in breaking the spell of enthusiasm which bound my sisters to the priesthood and the ritual. But the examples and conversations of Beltrezzor had a still greater influence in lifting their minds out of that narrow and exclusive circle of thought, in which the typical Jew is born, lives and dies.

Beltrezzor was a man of most beautiful and lovely character. Simple in his own tastes and dress, frugal in his own habits, but generous and even lavish to others; cheerful and polite; active and industrious; truthful and unselfish; full of liberal opinions and tender sympathies; he charmed all who knew him by the purity and nobleness of his mind and the suavity of his manners. One of the most opulent and honored men in his adopted country, and an inveterate traveler by habit, he had quietly settled down in the little village of Bethany to consecrate several years of his life to our education and happiness.

Yet the model man, the like of whom we had never seen in Priest or Scribe, was in our eyes a renegade and a pagan. He had abandoned the doctrines and precepts of Moses for those of Zoroaster. His religion, which appeared so sweetly in his life, was a puzzle to us, for we expected to discover its quality in its outward observances. The following manifestations of the religious spirit were all we ever detected: He sometimes looked from his window at the rising sun, and muttered something like a prayer with bowed head. He always spoke of Fire with a strange reverence, and said it was synonymous with Power and Beauty. He kissed his hand to the first star he saw in the evening. On the last day of every year, he had fruits, flowers, wine and rice brought into his chamber, as offerings to the spirits of his departed friends, who, he believed, visited him on that occasion.

Behold the simple ceremonial upon which was based so much goodness of heart and so much wisdom of thought!

“Who was Zoroaster?” asked Martha one day of her uncle.

“Zoroaster, my child, was the friend and companion of Abraham. They lived together in Haran until the Great Being, Ormuzd, the King of Light, called Jehovah by the Jews, summoned them both to leave their country and fill a sacred mission. Zoroaster went to the east and Abraham to the west. Zoroaster like Moses received the book of God on the top of a burning mountain, and gave laws to the people.”

“What kind of laws, uncle?”

“The essential moral teachings are as much like those of Moses as twin sisters are like each other.”

“Then you do not worship idols?”

“No—we detest them.”

“You do not worship any of the gods of the pagan nations?”

“No, my child! There is but one God, Ormuzd, King of Light. All religions come from him. Some are purer and more perfect than others. All true prophets and priests are his servants. False priests and magicians are in league with evil spirits. They are children of Ahrimanes.”

“If there is such fundamental identity, why then, uncle, do you prefer the religion of Zoroaster to that of Moses?”

“Because its ritual is more simple, beautiful and sublime; because its doctrines are more rational and philosophical; because the people who believe it and live it, are more liberal and loving and enlightened than the Jews; because it brings the soul nearer to the Power and Beauty of the sun.”

“Uncle,” said Mary, affectionately kissing his hand, “are all the worshipers of Ormuzd as good and pure and sweet-tempered as you are?”

The old man blushed: “The teachings of Zoroaster tend to make men far purer and better than I.”

The sisters sank into a deep reverie. They had a glimpse of that great world of moral light and beauty, which lay entirely outside of the limits of the Jewish faith. They gazed on it with wonder.

“But, uncle,” said Martha, “in the great day of judgment will not the unbelievers be sentenced to eternal punishment?”

“In the last day, my child, all the metals in the world will melt with heat, and all human souls, living and dead, will pass in judgment through the fiery element. To the good it will feel like a fragrant bath of warm milk; to the evil it will be a torrent of burning lava. It will consume, however, nothing but the wicked lusts of the heart. Evil will thus be destroyed; and all men, freely forgiven by Ormuzd, will unite in a universal chorus of love and praise.”

The sphere of our uncle’s life and character taught us charity for even renegades and pagans; and the beauty and rationality of his singular doctrines made me suspect that truth had temples elsewhere than in Judea. I became fairly emancipated from the Jewish Church, and looked for the regeneration of mankind to the ennobling and purifying influence of knowledge, which, I believed, would finally illumine the world with its waves of rosy light. Beautiful and illusive dream!

My sisters, disgusted as they soon became, with the fanatics, hypocrites and impostors who thronged the temple, were not ready to cut loose from the faith of Moses or the ceremonies of the law. They deplored the corruptions and deadness of the Church. They shrank from the ritualists who had no religion, and from the devotees who had no love in their hearts. They sought consolation by looking eagerly for the Messiah, who was to restore the sceptre to Israel and rekindle the embers of faith and piety in the church.

Martha and Mary pondered upon all they had ever heard or read on this wonderful subject. Born of a virgin, “the Prince of Peace, the Mighty Counselor, the Everlasting Father,” was coming in the flesh? They delighted to search the Scriptures for traces and predictions of his birth, his appearance and his mission. They loved to walk in the grove of olives which crowned the mount in rear of our house, whence they could see the marble colonnades of the temple and its vast roof all fretted with golden spikes, while they conversed arm in arm on their favorite theme.

Thus were we being secretly prepared by the experiences and circumstances of our life, for the reception of the new and strange religion of Christ. The thoughtful analysis of the past history of any human life, will reveal here and there the movings of the finger of God. We do not see the divine providence as an event approaches, but only after it has transpired. Jehovah showed his back, not his face to Moses.

Some may be surprised at the idea that certain minds were _prepared_ for the reception of the Christian religion by processes directed by divine providence. They suppose that every one who saw the miracles and heard the words of Christ, could have believed in him and followed him if he had chosen. It is a mistake. There were many noble and pious Jews, to whose minds the words and miracles of Christ had no weight whatever; who rejected him unhesitatingly as a dreamer or an impostor. They were not prepared to receive him.

There have been several revelations or dispensations of Divine Truth; and there will unquestionably be more. The new revelation is seldom or never received by the adherents of the old. The force of the decaying system is first broken by schism. After schism comes a spirit of free inquiry, and skepticism is developed. The old foundations are broken up; new ideas, new influences, new life start forth. Then comes the possibility of a renewed development, a reconsideration of principles, the evolution of higher and more spiritual truth.

This fact was illustrated in the early days of Christianity. The first disciples were not the leading spirits and great lights of the old dispensation, who regarded themselves as the special guardians of religious truth. That class misunderstood Christ and rejected him. The men and women who forsook all and followed him had no special reverence for the Jewish law and its ceremonies. Singularly enough, they were not persons of strong religious convictions, however holy their life became after receiving the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. They had outlived or spiritually outgrown the Jewish dispensation. They cared little or nothing for the opinions of priest or scribe. They stood aloof from the Jewish ceremonial with skeptical indifference, waiting for Providence to give them something radically new. They knew Christ by intuition; their spirits had been organically prepared for his reception.

Christ rejected the Jewish Church long before it rejected him. He neglected its ceremonies; he violated its laws; he disregarded its superstitions; he ignored its magnates; he chose his associates from the publicans and sinners of civil life, and his disciples from the publicans and sinners of the moral world. If he ever comes again, the same phenomena will recur; for the Divine laws repeat themselves, like the return of comets and the revolutions of the sun.

I was acquainted with most of the persons who organized the infant Church of Christ. There were within my knowledge but two exceptions to the general law, that those who acknowledged the Messiah first and most cordially, were outside of the orthodox pale. Thomas Didymus was a rigid Pharisee and ritualist. He believed nothing which he could not see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands. He was the least spiritual of all the disciples.

Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was a man of ardent imagination, intense faith and great genius. His mind, however, was cast in the antiquated mould; and he was a stickler for orthodox observances. No logic or rhetoric, however eloquent and convincing, could ever have shaken him from his Pharisaic attachments. The miraculous interposition of heaven was necessary to turn him from the service of the Jewish Sanhedrim.

Not without influence also in preparing us for the new era, was the character of John the Hermit, afterward known as John the Baptist. For several years we paid two annual visits to the tomb of our father, and to the cave of the extraordinary young man who had befriended him in his last illness. One of these visits was made when the angel of spring had touched the snow-wreaths of winter with her silver wand and turned them into flowers. The other was made when the forests of autumn clothed themselves in their festal robes of crimson and gold, to celebrate the approach of death with its prophecy of resurrection.

We chose one beautiful and cloudless morning, and making an early start, mounted upon sure-footed mules, and well provided against those demons of the desert—hunger and thirst—we crept slowly along over the brown hills and through the desolate hollows. Ethopus and two or three more stout domestics always attended us as a bodyguard. We made a picturesque party, encamping in the mouth of the sacred cavern, startling the silence of the wilderness with happy voices, and breaking its wild solitudes with the enchanting presence of beauty and love.

John always received us with a graceful suavity, which seemed strange in one so unaccustomed to society. We first paid our visit to our father’s grave, and offered our tribute of tears to the ashes and memory of the beloved. The prophet would improve the occasion to our spiritual advantage, by repeating with simple eloquence many appropriate verses of Scripture. We then returned to the cavern and conversed with the heavenly-minded recluse, startling the echoes of his lonely hermitage with incidents of life and travel and society, and with scraps of history, biography, poetry and philosophy, brought from the gay and busy circle in which we moved.

The prophet bore a quiet share in our animated talk, and partook sparingly of our ample repast. He was full of childlike earnestness and credulity, easily excited to smiles, easily moved to tears. The sphere of his thoughts and feelings was as different from that of the priests and scribes, as though he had been an angel descended from heaven,—full of love and wisdom, without creed, without doctrine, without forms, without ceremonies,—to mock with his sublime perfection the puny ritualist who imagined no religion possible without them all.

The young prophet seemed to enjoy these semi-annual disturbances of his thoughtful solitude. He always accompanied us on our return as far as the great highway. He was so fully convinced that he was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit of God, that we did not strive to allure him back to the haunts of men. I regarded him as a gentle and amiable fanatic. Martha pronounced him to be a young man of great promise, destined no doubt to be a prophet or leader in the Church. Mary’s criticism was limited to noting the extraordinary sweetness of his voice and the softness of his hazel eyes. Once also a tear trickled down her cheeks, when we spoke of his lonely days and nights in his self-inflicted solitude.

It was in the third year after Beltrezzor’s return, that, on approaching the cave of the hermit we saw a poor, emaciated creature, the skeleton, the shadow, of a man, seated on the stone at its mouth. It was long before we could recognize in this pitiable object, my generous deliverer, the Son of the Desert. On feeling the premonitory symptoms of a dangerous fever, he had left his band, which was then prowling about the Jordan, and had come to the cave of the young hermit.

“You nursed my wounded friend. Take care also of me. I am sick in soul and body. You are the only good man in the world. You alone make me believe in God.”

These were the words with which he threw himself down upon the pallet of skins. Long weeks of illness had passed away—and he was restored, standing now on the border of life like a phantom flitting from the tomb. His great, sad, earnest eyes seemed to say that he neither cared to live nor was afraid to die.

We took a deep interest in this forlorn robber, who seemed to act, think and feel so little like a robber. This proud, handsome man, without name, without friends, was an enigma to us. He had sternly declined all reward for his eminent services to us, and we felt under painful obligations to him. When we bade him adieu with ardent wishes for his speedy restoration, Martha, with great dignity and self-possession, took a ring from her finger and deliberately placed it upon his.

“Do not forget us,” said she. “Our fates may part us, but the invisible binds. On this ring is engraven the name of an angel. I give you my guardian-spirit as your own. May he lead you into peace.”

He bowed his head low upon her hand; and when he raised it, there were tears in his eyes.

I noticed after a while that these visits to the desert had a singular effect upon Mary. For some time preceding them, there was an exhilaration of spirits, a flush of expectation, a vivacity of manner, which added a new lustre to her charms, a new glow to her beauty. During the visit, however, she was timid, reticent and abstracted: and afterward for weeks there was an unusual quietness of demeanor, as well as a tearfulness of the eye and a pallor of the cheek.

“Lazarus,” said Martha to me one day, “had we not better bring our father’s remains to Bethany and bury them with our mother’s? It would spare us these long trips to the desert.”

Keen-sighted, motherly sister! But I—who had not then met with Helena and knew nothing of love—I answered:

“Oh no! these visits to John are the most delightful events of the year.”

On the fourth spring of these visits Mary took down a little flower-pot with a rose in it for John.

“I bring you a gem,” said she, “of nature’s light—a lamp, a star, to illumine the darkness of the desert.”

That evening when returning, Mary and John fell behind the rest of us, and when I turned to look after them, he was pointing out to her some rare beauty of the clouds about the setting sun; and her face, turned full upon him, was all aglow with a radiance not reflected from terrestrial skies.