CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.

“The harp the monarch minstrel swept, The king of men, the loved of heaven. ... It softened men of iron mold; No ear so dull, no soul so cold That felt not, fired not to the tone, Till David’s lyre grew mightier than the throne; Since then, though heard on earth no more, Devotion, and her daughter, love, Still bid the bursting spirit soar, To sounds that seem as from above, In dreams that day’s broad light can not remove.”—BYRON.

“The king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, ... and caused a seat to be set for the king-mother, and she sat at his right hand.”—1 KINGS, 2, 19.

“Miriamne, the heavenly host we imagined to be in bivouac about our Bethany home, methinks were really present, and gave color and form to my dreams. I was in a grail-quest all night.”

“What a golden day is such a night! But tell me of the color and form of your visions, Cornelius.”

“We fell asleep last night conversing of the Ascension; my dreams carried me on to Pentecost.”

“And what have you brought from the dream-land to help in the stern and pressing waking hours?”

“A panting heart, as one having climbed mountain above mountain. I burn to know and feel the whole significance of Pentecost!

“I’ve determined to seek holy companionship and wise guiding by attendance at the next ‘Harvest Feast’ at Jerusalem. I think I’ll get peculiar help at the great city.”

“The Israelites will not welcome a Christian to their feast.”

“The one I aim to attend is that that will be observed by the Christian knights in an upper room, in the great city. They think they have possession of the identical apartment in which the disciples of our Lord met and witnessed the glories of Pentecost, after the Ascension.”

“In Joseph of Arimathæa’s house?”

“That is the accepted report. The Hospitaler, whom we believe to be a ‘Grail Knight’ of to-day, is quite earnest in so affirming.”

“Wondrous white-souled Arimathæa! Jewish and a priest, yet secretly a disciple of Jesus! I dare to liken myself unto that holy man, in a measure. He left an old faith for a new one, and followed the cup of the Passion, as I, my ideal.”

“_A good man and a just_,” says the Testament.

* * * * *

“We meet to-night in Arimathæa’s house,” said the Hospitaler to Cornelius, shortly after the arrival and welcome of the latter at Jerusalem.

“Can the uninitiated attend?” questioned Cornelius.

“Now, that’s the joy of it, they can; and more, we are to have a number of Jews present, among them some once priests; but now like that Joseph of blessed memory, seeing the true light.”

“And the meeting?”

“The exalting of the Word, that’s the need of the hour, world-wide. I tell thee, young man, set to teach; the needs are not more religions but more religion, not more revelators or prophets but surer interpreters. The world blooms with truth on every hand; who will pluck the blossoms?”

And the disciples were again, all with one accord, in the holy upper chamber.

The Hospitaler, with an abruptness of John the Baptist, merely throwing back his tunic and exposing the golden sign of knighthood for a moment to his companions, as he entered, at once began to address the assembly;

“Jews and Gentiles, all children by creation of a common Father—greeting! The fires of Pentecost are kindled everywhere in Jerusalem, but they are the old fires and cold enough; sacrifices smoke on the altars, but the day of such offerings is past.

“Methinks, the offered bulls, goats and lambs, if they could speak, would cry out against the priestly hands that shed their blood; ‘How long, how long the blood of our flocks has pointed to the lamb of God, the All-Savior, who died to save men from sin and beasts from the altar; and yet we die as if our work were not finished!’

“The beasts join in the wailings of humanity.

“For centuries God’s chosen people celebrated this feast of the harvest, the joy of Jewry; and now the world’s harvest advenes. Yet, for the most part, the multitudes see not the ripening. For years the first fruits were offered, and as yet, the people do not understand that first fruits mean chosen, choice fruits, the elect of God.

“For centuries, Israel offered the shoulder and heart of the lamb, and yet Israel waits under the overshadowing smokes of its burnt offering, not discerning the Lamb Priest, whose heart of eternal love and shoulder of power, are given for the salvation of the people.

“Israelites, hear me; out of the altar’s smoke emerges to view the kingdom of the house of David, refined, purified—the hope of the future. Ye have thought, hitherto, that David’s kingdom, whatsoever it might have been, is, in these ages, to be reckoned with the dynasties and forces of an antiquity, whose influences long ago ebbed away along the shores of the all-entombing past.

“Yet such conclusion is as fallacious as it is evidently superficial. The God who works in unbroken time cycles, though men remit their tasks at the beck of sleep or death, pushes forth His forceful, faultless projects with a tireless consistency that knows no cross purposes. A real and present kingdom is that with which this Pentecost we have to do. We are not, _at that time_ when _they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and spread them before the sun_. David’s throne is a verity, though long incrusted with neglects; it is a symbol of power in a dynasty that is ordained to overspread the earth. I’d summon my witnesses; first the weeping Jeremiah. ‘Thus said the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.’ How bold! but amid the ruins about us, I cry never! never! Now call the God-nourished captive Daniel, who, sincere to the last, made all Babylon glow with his prayers and his visions. Saith Daniel:

“‘The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed.’ The dream is certain; the interpretation sure. He was proof against the alluring blandishments of his royal captors, and as pure to the last as a knight of San Grail.”

Cornelius saw a light on the Hospitaler’s face, and knew it was that that comes from a conscience clear before God. The latter went on with a voice suddenly become tenderer than it was before.

“Let us hear the reply of the converted pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar: ‘_Whose kingdom is from generation to generation!_’

“Hearken to Isaiah, to whom the scroll of human history through a thousand generations then yet to come was present and lucid: ‘Unto us a child is born ... his name shall be called Wonderful ... The Prince of Peace.’ ‘Of the _increase_ of His government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David to _establish_ it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and _forever_.’ Surely he must be of dull comprehension who saith this is only the spiritual, heavenly kingdom of the glorified.

“Let us stand for a little under the light of the blazing tongues of Pentecost, enswathed in imagination by the mighty, rushing tide of Spirit manifestation, fresh from the Being of the Almighty. Now listen to Peter, transfigured and illuminated within and without. Error here, with him, was impossible! Untruth at such a time would be a madness like that of the attempted steadying of the ark. Saith Peter: ‘_David being a prophet knowing that God had sworn to him that He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne._’ Peter at last, a rock of God, I bless thee! Call that archangel, who doth excel in strength, his name given him in heaven being Gabriel, the ‘Champion of God.’ He certified his mission to Mary in terms that can be made no finer: ‘_I am Gabriel, that STAND IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD and sent to show thee glad tidings. Thou shalt bring forth a son. And the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David._’ Of His Kingdom there shall be no end. These are ‘glad tidings,’ indeed, sung as such to the joy and wonder of heaven, as well as proclaimed as the sovereign comfort of earth’s inhabiters.

“The splendid, earthly Kingdom outlined so gloriously by the prophets has suffered no syncope, and David’s royal line has not found its end in sepulchral palaces. That Kingdom and that line survives; their zenith not yet attained.

“In that zenith day, _Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven_.

“So it was settled forever in heaven, for earth and to all eternity, that in the vocabulary of divine wisdom, ‘first-born’ means ‘choice-born.’ And he is choice-born no matter how ill his beginning, who is reborn by the all-uplifting, renewing Spirit of Grace! Jesus, in marked manner, even in this respect, parallels David in reäffirming in Himself this law of His refined, exalted kingdom. The line of the Christ from remotest generations is found to have deflected from the line of the first born. His descent must be traced through Seth, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, Solomon and Nathan, and still others, none of whom were first in their advent into the families to which they belonged. Again, the Christ and his progenitor, David, antagonized the barbarian tenet of all ages that a man was to be honored merely because of his gigantesque figure or prowess. In olden times men revered greatly the giantly. Among the primitives to be a weakling was to be pitiable, and to be huge to monstrosity was to be respected, if not actually worshiped. Indeed, paganism in its essence is but homage paid to the great, that is terrible. The princely David began his career in slaying wild beasts and monstrous giants, but we may cease admiring the prowess he had physically in greater admiration of the symbol that lies in his early exploits. He was to be the giant-slayer; evil giants and giant evils were to fall before him alike; and a shepherd’s little sling, in pious hands, was shown to be invincible. In Solomon’s time, there was more outward splendor, but less spirituality than in David’s time. The latter witnessed the gilded decline in its beginnings. Decay followed swiftly. The world sighed for a restoration; the heathen manufactured gods; the Fire Worshipers followed stars; in the groves, virgins were, after a sort, worshiped, as in the forest night-services of the old England of some of you, the Druids prayed to a mystical ‘virgin that was to bring forth.’ There was a common yearning for the coming of a Champion to lead and defend the races of man. The yearning felt its way blindly toward the wonder to be, that of a woman of the children of men, mothering One all human, all divine, a Prince fit to link together the parts of David’s kingdom, whether militant here or triumphant above. That full day has begun, but is only dimly seen by many. You Jews have been wont to keep a Pentecost of males only while Egypt deifies a woman as goddess of the harvest. One turns to brawn, the other to the bringer forth, and neither gets the truth, the royal truth, found in the faith that brings forth through all humanity!

“Would you see a real Pentecost? Now, look how the first was to the fathers. The holy ones, among Christ’s followers, believing His promises, assembled at Joseph of Arimathæa’s house, to await it. Hear the word:

“And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty.

“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.”

“Our holy Luke, said to have been an artist, artistically presents the scene. As we read his record, we behold the ‘Queen of the House of David,’ the representative woman; as she should be, in the company and honor of God’s people. Not there as a beautiful creature to be admired; but there to pray with those who prayed for the dawn and the glory. With the genius of an artist, and the insight of a prophet, Luke displays his ideal thus. The Scripture record closes, leaving the typical woman amid God’s people, on her knees, waiting in hopefulness for the full dawn; while for a little time over all falls the earnest of the promise in miraculous displays from above. There was a rushing of mighty sounds, the providences of God in motion, the movements of His spirits who minister, for a time made visible! The scene was one never to be forgotten, and the holy John, years after in the glowing visions of the Apocalypse, had brought to his mind its central figure the woman clothed with the sun; the transfigured woman, and she as woman in her highest estate; that is mothering a child! He saw her rising above all perils, all evils; but as she rose, she bore aloft her child, a Man Child! Look at the picture, men and brethren, ’till it possesses your souls! BEHOLD THE WOMAN! Behold the interlaced symbols! As a mother holds above peril her child, so the peerless woman held aloft her Divine Babe; as the church holds aloft its offspring, so also in the apotheosis of the ideal mother, comes the uplifting of man’s hopes, and the triumph of all that is best, all that is promised. We see to-day, but the smoke side of Pentecost, by and by we’ll see, as do those in heaven, its fire side.”

The speaker ceased his address, and all were filled with great and moving thoughts.