CHAPTER XXXIV.

MEMORIALS AT BOZRAH.

“I’m footsore and very weary, But I travel to meet a Friend; The way is long and dreary, But I know it soon must end. He is traveling swiftly as whirlwinds, And though I creep slowly on, We are drawing nearer and nearer, And the journey is almost done. I know He will not fail me, So I count every hour a chime, Every throb of my heart’s beating That tells of the flight of TIME. I will not fear at His coming, Although I must meet Him alone, He will look in my eyes so gently And take my hand in His own.”

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.