CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MISERERE AND THE EASTER ANTHEM.

“Under the shade of His mighty wings, One by one Are His secrets told, One by one. Lit by the rays of each morning sun, Shall a new flower its petals unfold, With its mystery hid in its heart of gold.”

“But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away.”—II Cor., 3:15.

Midnight and moonlight were in Bozrah, and midnight and moonlight were in Miriamne’s heart as she wandered out into the city. She did not see her way further than to know it must be some direction other than toward her home. That place all her life hitherto the dearest spot on earth, was become her dread. As she moved away from it she did not look back. It seemed to her that there was an angry cloud enveloping it; a cloud holding a furious thunderbolt. As she went on, she rapidly passed through a series of painful feelings; those that naturally beset the runaway girl. First she felt very reckless, then, surprised at her recklessness, then very lonely as if every tie that bound her was broken, and then affrighted as she thought of confronting the great, strange, selfish world alone. A woman so young and so inexperienced; a bird with half-fledged wings, thrust out of the parent nest into a storm; altogether a pitiable creature. In the moonlight of her conscience, after a time, she dimly discerned a line of duty. It seemed to her that it were best for her to turn toward the church of Adolphus, and she resolutely turned thither. Before the resolution she had walked aimlessly; now with an aim and with some soul comfort. She did not have power to analyze her feelings; had she had such power she might have discerned the fact that she was turning toward something her reason told her was very good, therefore the soul comfort came as the harbinger of conversion. As yet the moonlight within, like that without, was not strong enough to resolve the shadows in and about her. She knew, and that alone, certainly, that she was miserable, wounded, bruised. So storm-beaten, in a flight from the ancient Rizpah and her counterpart, Rizpah of Bozrah, the maiden naturally turned toward the place where there seemed rest, escape; the haven known to all the troubled and sick of the Giant city. With a great throb of joy she at length drew nigh the Church of Adolphus. All was silent about it; but its up-pointing spire, emblem of eternal, aspiring hope, rest on a rock, stability—in grand contrast with the grim ruins God’s revenges had scattered in dire confusion all around, assured her. She remembered then that she had heard some say that they had been blessed beyond all telling, in hours of trouble, by the services of that sanctuary. She perceived that the church, from spire to portal, was flooded with silvering moonlight, while all beyond and around it was in shadows; then she wearily sank down by a small porch near the great entrance. As she sank she moaned a broken prayer: “Oh, God, take me!” Utterly overcome, she wished for a moment for death’s release; and death’s similitude, fainting, sometimes sent in mercy, came over her. How long she lay unconscious, she knew not. She was suddenly aroused by the stroke of a muffled bell; she opened her eyes and beheld forms gliding out of the darkness into the chapel. For a moment she felt a superstitious fear that chilled her. She vaguely remembered that that bell had been wont to toll thus solemnly when there was a funeral. Simultaneous with the thought she questioned, Was she herself dead? But she quickly collected her thoughts and then comprehended that there was to be a midnight service in the chapel. She remembered that Father Adolphus was wont to have such, at intervals. She longed to taste the joys within of which she had heard, and was at the same time restrained, lest by entering she should in some way part from her mother and the faith of her childhood forever. Conscience and desire waged war with each other, and the girl was too much excited to stand still or to reason clearly. She, therefore, mechanically moved through the open doors with the throng, out of the darkness into the light. Once within the place the grateful sense of peace and the splendors of the various appointments, beyond all she had ever before experienced, engrossed all her thoughts. The lofty arches, the well wrought pillars, the niches, in which were here and there saintly paintings, the lights, disposed so as to produce an impression of seriousness and rest, the hum of subdued voices, all came to her as balm. At the east she beheld a silver altar, velvet draped; on either side of it lofty columns with golden plinths and capitals; just back of the altar, in a light that made the face of the presentment more beautiful, she discerned the image of a woman, splendidly robed and jewel-crowned. For a moment she thought she was looking upon one living, for the crowned woman was so beautiful, so much a part of the place, and seemed so inviting. She contrasted her, in mind, with the terrible picture of Rizpah. Just then, with little persuasion, she could have run toward the woman, back of the altar, and plead for sympathy. The feeling was momentary. Little by little the truth dawned upon her, and she thought, “this represents the beautiful Mary of Father Von Gombard.” Then the moonlight within the maiden’s soul began to change into dawn. She gazed and gazed, and as she was so engaged, her thoughts took wing for heaven and her soul cried within itself as a babe for its mother. She knew not her way, but she knew she needed and yearned for a guide as pure as heaven and as serious as God. Her meditations were interrupted when she perceived the place growing darker about her, the forms of the congregation now becoming like so many moving shadows. All around her bowed their heads as in prayer, and, impressed by the solemnity of the place, she did likewise. There was a long silence. The hush of death was over the place, the only sign of life the stealthy movements of a tall, dark-robed personage, who glided about the chancel. The tower bell tolled again, once, twice, thrice; its muffled tones, as they died away, being prolonged, then caught up and borne onward with organ notes which filled the trembling air with entrancing melody. Then the organ tones softened and died away into subdued minors. “How like the sighings of autumn evening breezes, before a rain,” thought Miriamne. The place again was full of melody, the organ being reinforced by lutes and dulcimers, played by unseen hands. But the worshippers were silent; all bowed, apparently, in prayerful expectation. It was all new and exceedingly impressive to the maiden, and she was carried along by the spirit of the hour.

The draped figure passed down from behind the altar-lattice and moved, on tip-toe, from one to another of the worshipers. Miriamne was curious, yet frightened. “What if he came to me?” The question she asked herself made her tremble. If it were the priest, she was sure he would be very kind and yet how would she explain her absence at that hour from home? She was alert to hear the words he spoke to others near her, and when she did, she took courage. They seemed just such as she needed. She knew the voice; it was that of Father Adolphus, in the tenderness and triumph of one filled with unearthly hopes and heavenly sympathy. The cadence of his voice accorded with the plaintive tones of the organ. Miriamne’s heart fluttered like a caged bird, back and forth, from yearnings to fears, as the priest drew nearer and nearer to her. She yearned to hear spoken to herself his balm-like benedictions; she feared, lest recognizing her, he should reprove. He seemed about to pass, as if not perceiving her. Now more intensely she yearned and dreaded than before. She could not restrain herself, and so she sobbed aloud like a child in pain. The priest tenderly placed his hand on her head and softly said: “_If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse us from all iniquity._”

“Oh, Father Adolphus,” she sobbed, “is this for me?”

The priest started, but quickly recovered himself, and again spoke in the same tone as before, his voice rising in accord with a triumphant strain of the music: “_He died that we might live!_” Miriamne clasped and passionately kissed his hand.

The place had become darker, little by little; the organ tones meanwhile growing deeper and more solemn, while voices from an unseen choir blended with them. Miriamne, recognizing, from the words of the singers, the penitential Psalms, followed the worship with deepened interest from the fifty-first to the fifty-seventh of the sacred songs. They expressed the pains and tempests of her own soul as they voiced sublimely sin-beseeching pardon. The Christian and Jew were for the moment made akin. The man at the organ was a master of his art, and while handling the keys of his instrument, he also played on the hearts of his hearers. He was aiming to reproduce Calvary, its scenes, emotions and meanings, and he succeeded. The devout assembly, following the motive and movement of the composition, was led mentally to realize the journey from the Judgment Hall to the Crucifixion. There were measured, mournful, dragging tones; Jesus bearing his heavy cross; then followed discord and confused uproar, the voices of a mob. Later on there were dirges and silences, followed, as it were, by blows and ugly cries. The nailed hands, the uplifted cross and the sneers of those who passing wagged their heads, were all revived to the imagination. With these sounds, from the first, there ran along a sustained minor strain, sometimes nearly obliterated, at other times ruling. It was as mournful as the sigh of the autumn winds amid the dying leaves and night rains. In the color and movement of that minor there was feelingly expressed the deep, poignant, undemonstrative sorrow of the mother that followed the thorn-crowned and scourged Son to his martyrdom. Then came a long silence, broken only by the fleeting whispers here and there. The worshipers were in earnest prayer. They were at the cross, as the friends of Jesus, in earnest communings. Again the organ broke in on the silence; there was a rush of air as if some one passed in rapid, terrified flight, followed by a sound like swiftly departing footsteps; the fleeing disciples came to the minds of the worshipers. Then the organ tones deepened to the rumblings of approaching thunders—heralds of a climax of catastrophies, while above the rumblings a solitary, piercing voice, which ended in a thrilling, agonizing cry: “_My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!_” Following this came peal upon peal from the organ; louder and louder; discord and confusion; ending in mighty crashings. The rocking earth; the earthquake; the rent veil—all the tragedy of Cavalry—was presented in awful realism to the minds of the kneeling worshipers. Every light had been quenched, the temple within was as dark as a tomb, and not a sound could be heard but moans and penitential weepings. To one any way superstitious and not knowing the intent of the presentment, the whole would have seemed very like the realm of the lost, filled with damned souls, making pitiful last appeals to mercy; but to the worshipers there came a vision of a stark, dead form on a cross, standing out vividly against the darkness of Calvary around that cross the amazed, condemned crucifiers and a few disciples, the latter whispering about the burial. The realism was oppressive and some present cried out, as if by the bier of a loved one, while some fainted away. But the Healer was there. Father Adolphus, with a voice full of tears, with the pathos of Him that went down to preach hope to “the spirits in prison,” spoke to the penitents of peace, light and glory through faith. As the old Missioner went from one to another the lights of the chapel, one after another, reappeared. Presently the aged consoler stood by Miriamne: “Hast thou felt the power of the Cross, my child?”

“Oh, Father Adolphus, I do not know; I only know I’m very wretched!”

“‘Godly sorrow worketh repentance’; but thou wert as happy as a bird thou thoughtst and saidst a few days ago?”

“I was a bird—a girl then! I’m a woman now. I’ve lived years in hours.”

“Any sudden trouble?”

“Oh, yes, a tempest and tempests.”

“Possess me of all, daughter.”

“I can not. It’s every thing. I seem so useless and nobody loves me!”

“Thou art too young to be morbid and art greatly beloved by ONE.”

“Oh, I can not come to Him. I’m under His ban; I do not honor my parents. How can I? One, my father, I never knew. I’ve seen him through my mother’s eyes, and to despise. Now I am afraid of her, and my terror is poisoning the love I once felt for her. Oh, I’m miserable, lost! Father, Father, save me!” And the wretched girl flung her arms passionately about the old priest.

“Ah, girl, I can not; but there is One that can save.”

“Save, save me—one so lost?”

“He is a ‘Prince and a Saviour.’”

“I do not know Him. He can not love me, and one must love me to save me; I’m so needy and wicked.”

“Well said, and He is love. Only believe.”

“I don’t know how to believe.”

“Like a poor, sick babe, all need, thou, amid thy weaknesses, hast power at least to cry.”

“Cry? What shall I cry?”

“‘Help thou mine unbelief.’”

Slowly, by wisely simple gospel-counsels, the aged teacher lead the penitent girl Christward. As they communed the congregation departed, and an attendant lighted the lamps. Presently the music of the organ again broke forth; but now in cheerful and triumphant strains. Miriamne listened, and as she did, a change came over her countenance. Her dawn was coming.

“Art looking up, daughter?”

“This music is like spring morning melodies, and I’m singing to it, in soul, I think.”

“It is the morning song of souls; the angel’s greeting to Mary. Observe the words; first the ‘Hail Mary’ before the wondrous birth; then the serene assurance of the mourning mother at the grave, ‘He is not here, He has risen.’”

“Ah, Adolphus, how blessed are you Christians in a religion all mercy, all songs, all love, and all nearness to God!”

“‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.’”

“I would I could hear Him say as much to me; but I can not go, come, nor do any thing else; not even stay away; I’m a bit of wind-drifted down!”

“Come all ye heavy laden,” measuredly replied the priest.

“Oh, if there were some one to bear me onward; blind and weak as I am!”

“He carries the lambs in His bosom!”

“Alas, I feel myself cowering away from His Holiness, when I attempt to approach Him alone!”

“All to Him must go alone, in prayer as in death. He meets with a plenteous mercy the confiding ones who come by sorrows’ thorny path, as He will meet the needy in judgment who have only faith’s plea. Fear not to go alone; solitude has its benefits, and He is sole accuser or excuser. The terms of His rebuke are eternal secrets, as are the terms of His forgiveness. They lie alone, between the Blesser and the blessed.”

“Is the lovely woman there, your Mary?”

“Yes, child.”

“And she was the mother of this Saviour?”

“Yes.”

“And was He like her?”

“He is, eternal; the ‘I Am’—not was nor shall be—always.”

“Oh, yes; but is He like the woman?”

“In my soul I so believe, to my joy; for she was godly, therefore, God-like.”

“Then I can love Him, trust Him, and I’m sure He’ll pity me, at least.”

“Amen,” piously ejaculated Father Adolphus. Then he said: “Now child, rest; it’s too late to go home. My sister, yonder, will care for thee till morning, and then thou must hie to thy home. Thou yet mayst be its peace-maker and blesser.”

Easter-tide came. All nature was serene and seemed to recognize the memorial of holy, happy association. Father Adolphus was astir early to ply his industry of mercy for the suffering. “Poor, unhappy land, and unhappy because so blind! Oh, man, man, how thine eyes are holden, while fatlings, birds and flowers rejoice!”

“Ah, unbenumbed by sinning, they, like the cattle in Bethlehem’s stable, are first to see the Saviour born of woman. ‘Praise ye the Lord, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’” Thus soliloquized the old priest as he passed toward well-known haunts of misery in the Giant City.

Miriamne was called to a late breakfast by the kindly sister of Adolphus. The aged woman said little, but every act seemed freighted with motherly interest, and was like balm to the heart conscious chiefly of loneliness and wretchedness. The maiden longed to have the elder woman solicit her confidence, but the latter did not respond to the mute, though manifest desire. “It is better so. God’s work is best done in an hour like this, when He alone is left to searching and counsel.” So thought this aged minister. Experience under Father Adolphus had given her this wisdom.

The coming of evening brought to the little religious house its master all cheerful, yet well wearied by a day of ministering for God.

“Art here yet, daughter?” was his first greeting.

“Yes; where else should I be? I’m friendless, lost, unhappy; even to a vague longing for death; but I’m frightened at that longing, since it seems as if I was as friendless in Heaven as on earth. Oh, it’s awful to be a two-fold orphan!”

Just then the church-bell rang forth a merry peal.

Miriamne looked a question, and the old priest continued: “Hark, it’s the pæan of peace, declaring that the Day Spring from on high has visited all those in the shadow of death.”

“Another service?”

“Yes, the best of all. We cling to the hours of this day and battle night away in joy, thus declaring our hope in the resurrection, the end of all nights. Listen, that’s my organ, the one I myself made.”

Miriamne listened, and there was wafted to her an Easter anthem; at intervals containing the sentence: “Thou that takest away the sins of the world have mercy.”

As they passed into the chapel, the maiden remarked: “There are more women here than there were at the other service?”

“The other celebrated death; the chief pain-maker of woman’s life; for they live in love whose ties are constantly sundered by man’s last enemy. They are allured by the beautiful things, the joys, the hopes of our Easter service. It proclaims eternal victory over the destroyer.”

“How beautiful the woman’s form back of the altar, good Father, to-night.”

“Our moods within appear to us on objects without. So strangely the Kingdom of Heaven, beginning in the soul, spreads everywhere. It is natural, though to think that the resurrection time brought all joy to the childless mother: to this one as it did and does bring a thousand times to other mothers, like her bereaved.”

The Easter service went onward, a succession of joys; the march of a pilgrim army with the goals in view; the triumph of truth, the crowning of life, the final discomfiture of death. Miriamne brightened as the service advanced; then came a fullness of joy; then a reaction and she finally fell into a sleep akin to a trance. It was the resting of the wounded on the way of healing. There was a Divine overpouring and a babe-like sleep of perfect trust; from this the voice of the priest aroused her!

“Miriamne seems to rest.”

“Oh, such a dream! I followed the songs to the sky and wished my body had wings. God lifted me up and I slept, dreaming myself into His presence. I thought I was in heaven.”

“Thou art near it, child.”

“Oh, this wonderful calm! What makes me so happy?”

“Hast thou any token?”

“I do not know: I murmured as the people sang these words: ‘_I know that my Redeemer liveth_;’ as I murmured that, every thing, got brighter, and I felt no more under the yoke and load!”

“He is thy Vindicator. ’Tis well.”

Then tears coursed down the old man’s face.

And so the girl that fled out of her home, away from the phantom of Rizpah of the ancients, away from her mother; a pilgrim; all wants, all yearnings, in a few brief hours, had found a city of refuge, an everlasting hope and was in soul serenely resting.