CHAPTER XXXIX.

CROWN JEWELS.

“The VIRGIN MARY unquestionably holds forever a peculiar position among all women in the history of redemption. Perfectly natural, yea, essential to a sound religious feeling, it is to associate with Mary, the fairest traits of maidenly and maternal character, and to revere her as the highest model of female love and power.”—PROF. PHILIP SCHAFF’S _Church History_.

“There’s a footman at the door; the good man that talks, I think; he would speak with Cornelius.”

With such words, at sunrise one morning a few weeks after the May-day service, the missioners of Bethany were aroused by an attendant. Quickly robing himself, the young chaplain went forth, and, sure enough, the Hospitaler stood before him.

“Selamet; but what haste brings our ever-welcome friend so early?”

“To relieve your minds! I’ve purchased immunity! The Mameluke sheik, at Jerusalem, has secured the Sultan’s revocation of the order of razing and banishment,” answered the knight. Cornelius gazed at the Hospitaler with anxiety, questioning within himself as to whether the knight had taken leave of his reason or not.

The abrupt soldier-priest perceiving the perplexity of his hearer broke forth: “Why the edict that the Temple on the hill be despoiled, and the ‘Angels of the Mount’ be summarily driven out of Syria, has been rescinded; the ‘Faithful,’ as those infidels style themselves, have been converted; seen a great light which came by mighty gold.”

“All Saints defend us! I did not hear of this. Tell me all!” exclaimed Cornelius.

“Not now; the peril is past. I knew it was impending sometime, and supposed ye did. I promised a reward, if time were given. I got money help from foreign knights. The vandals took it with a mighty thirst, and then with a great show of piety promised toleration.”

“I see, as usual with them, great gain with godliness is contentment; but what are we on the mount to do?”

“Go on; the Sultan isn’t God, nor his sheik the Devil.”

“The Hospitaler comforts. Now let us enter and breakfast together, that we may get wisdom by conferring.”

“I may not tarry longer; I staid all night without the city’s wall so as not to be delayed by awaiting the gate-opening. I must be with my companions by the time the Moslems have ended their first prayers, or my comrades will be alarmed. I’ll return to-morrow.”

Another dawn, another noon, and another sunset, came and went; but the knight did not reappear at Bethany. The chaplain vainly tried to suppress his anxiety. He feared some treachery on the sheik’s part. Again and again the former went to the house-top to look along the Jerusalem road. It was a hot June day; the watchings flushed the young man’s face but fears’ rigors in the heart paled it. He was a picture of misery. Darkness followed sunset; then came tidings:

“There’s a company with garlands and torches coming around the bend!”

The news was brought by a company of Sisters of Bethany. The missioner was excited, yet reasoned:

“Garlands and torches! Their bearers can not have baleful report nor evil designs.”

The visitants quickly arrived, and singing a roundelay, encircled the house of Cornelius and Miriamne. With delight the latter recognized the Hospitaler and his companion knights. With them were a number of the friends of the new movement at Bethany. They also observed, standing by his camel, a little aloof, a tall, gaunt man, garbed as a Druse; by him, an elderly woman, and also a maiden.

“’Tis Nourahmal and her grand-child!” whispered Miriamne, following her husband’s questioning eyes.

“The maiden wears the flower crown of a bride, and see, there is a young man by her side!”

The Hospitaler interrupted their converse:

“I’ve kept my promise to the ‘Angels of the Mount’ and to God. I’m here, and to celebrate a proper thanksgiving!”

“Welcome! Now command us,” exclaimed Miriamne. “Yea, welcome, though coming in mystery!”

“Another surprise, good chaplain? Well, ’tis fitting, since this one is cheering. There was need of offset to thy painful astonishment of yesterday. I’ve trapped a wolf for our festivities.”

“A wolf!” exclaimed Miriamne.

“Yes, even the sheik. He swore that he’d make all Bethany bald by fire and sword if it were attempted here to establish a Christian church. To him I explained that the work on the hill was festal. Praise God, it is to be such, to all eternity! And Miriamne’s disavowal of the title church, the use of the appellations ‘Pool of Bethesda,’ ‘House of Mercy,’ ‘Temple of Allegory,’ and the like, by your followers in the city, concerning your place of gathering, helped the righteous diversion. I finished the argument by parading with my cortege, as you see us now. Indeed I even asked the sheik to come to the wedding!”

“A wedding?”

“The cruel sheik invited?”

“Two questions and two questioners to be answered with more surprises. Nourahmal’s grand-daughter, Beulah, is to be joined to a Jewish convert! I asked the sheik to attend with us as one of her next akin; for I believe him to be a son of Azrael, though he denies that parentage, as well he may, since the ‘Angel of Death’ was strangled at Bagdad for treason. Be assured, Miriamne, the young Mohammedan will not be present at our ceremonies to-night!”

“Will wonders never cease?” spoke Cornelius, at a loss to know what to say.

“No. Let us be going now,” abruptly spoke the Hospitaler.

“Do you return to the city so soon?” queried Miriamne.

The question was answered indirectly:

“Let’s to the temple, or ‘House of Bethesda.’ I’ve taken the liberty to order its illumination. Come, we’ll see how its jasmines climb on its sturdy walls by the light of the torches kindled for hymen!”

So saying, the Hospitaler turned in the direction mentioned, and all, including the missioners, followed him. The scene was fairy-like. There were lights and flowers and songs. The feasters from Jerusalem were in holiday attire, and those of the villagers that joined in the concourse were hearty participants in the festivities.

Arriving at the temple, the Hospitaler led Beulah toward the speaker’s dais.

“Will not the camel-driver enter?” questioned the knight of a companion.

“No; he’s half way back to the city by this time.”

“Stand by thy other self,” said the knight to the Jewish groom.

The latter obeyed with alacrity; his zeal and his bashfulness precluding grace of action.

“Four hands clasped; crossed,” said the Hospitaler.

The twain did as commanded, the youth with avidity, the maid with a timorous, modest reserve. The touch of each, electric to the other, was recorded in their faces, over which passed rapidly a poem of emotion. The audience became silent, hushed by admiration akin to adoration. The old, old, yet ever new, ever-entrancing spectacle of love’s full crowning, brought to all minds the splendor and holiness of that royal gift which finds in earth its completest unfoldment in wedlock. Each of the auditors, conscious of admiration of the presentment, was also conscious of self-approving. There is a cleansing of conscience like that which follows prayer in the act of heartily approbating the thing which is good and beautiful. With the espoused for his inspiration and his background of light, the Hospitaler, with his usual abruptness, began addressing the assembly:

“You of the East hear best when your eyes are treated together with your ears, hence I speak at this time, most propitious, of themes pertinent. You have heard how the ancient Romans named this month, deemed by them favorable to marriage, Junonius, in honor of their chaste and prudent goddess of conjugal life. She was the _Hera_ of the Greeks, the only lawfully wedded goddess of all their mythologies. The myths prove that those pagans discerned the potency and beauty of holy wedlock. They polished jewels and wove girdles for its personifications, and to-night, in this temple dedicated to womanhood at her best, I’d take the girdle and crown and place them upon the Queen of Women, the peerless Virgin. For such a real woman the ancients were seeking when they had their dream of the myths. She was what they yearned for, and her exaltation as the representative of all that she truly did represent, will be found of lasting profit to all. Behold her, an orphan girl, yet by faith having an Eternal Father. As a girl, abhorring waywardness; as a woman, therefore, free from wantonness. Mark me, ye maidens, the wayward becomes the wanton. Coquetry brushes the down from the cheek of the peach, and she that frivolously plays with passion in the morning will be likely to seek the groves of Astarte at noon. Our ideal woman reached maidenhood’s roses all portionless, as world-help is counted, but with the inestimable affluence of prudence, constancy and purity. Thus she set the finest youths of all Jewry to striving for her heart and hand. What Juno was to Rome, Mary was to Israel. The Romans proclaimed their faith in the good wife as the producer and conserver of wealth by putting their mint in their temple of ‘_Juno-Moneta_.’ The carpenter of Nazareth, building up a clean, honest, though humble home, by the aid of his consort, built more enduringly, and presents a finer historical figure, than that once mighty, once wise Solomon; though the latter erected the wondrous Temple. The home and love of Joseph and Mary will be praised by the ages that abhor the ivory houses of pleasure of the great and fallen king. The story of that home life at Nazareth has not been written, and we must gather it from fragments and eloquent silence. Mary’s jewels as a wife were unostentatiously treasured within the four walls of her domicile. The devastating tornado leaves enduring, though hateful history; but the constant, man-blessing tides of the ocean come and go without having their recurring blessings recorded. So the constant, loyal, patient woman of Nazareth passed noiselessly by in her day. Her exclamation to the Angel of the Annunciation, ‘_Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word_,’ was the keynote of that life ever enhanced by the beauty of duty. There was submission to right because it was righteous. And this was not mere passiveness. You remember how she challenged her Son in His early youth, that time He was absent for a season from His parents, at first without explanation? The words Mary spoke that day burn like polished gems when considered aright: ‘_Why hast thou dealt thus with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee, sorrowing._’ She did not forget her Son’s divine origin, but exalted the rights of motherhood and fatherhood, confident that even Deity could not ignore them. She challenged the right of a son to cause parental sorrow without instant strong reason for so doing. She put her husband’s cause before her own, and made his honor her sacred wifely trust. There are in this history some very fine things expressed by implication. We know the woman was beautiful and much younger than her husband; the disparity of years did not hinder full affinity. She did not fall into the weakness of feeling self-sufficient and all-complacent because feeling pretty. All she was and all she had was centred in her consort as a commonwealth between him and her. That the sycophant and flatterer crossed her path there can be no doubt; but she who was not intoxicated by Bethlehem’s _gloria in excelsis_ could not be dazzled by the honeyed words of mortals. Wearing such a wife on his heart, Joseph was rich indeed. Silence is once more eloquent. We know that the mother of Jesus, having been widowed, never wed again. Her first love suffered no eclipse. That she was courted, after her spouse’s death, we must believe. The mother of a Son so famous as was hers, and the possessor of personal charms enshrining a soul that knew how to utilize sorrows until they became refinements, doubtless had many suitors in her widowhood days. And there was no law forbidding her a second marriage, except the unwritten law of fine sentiment; but to the Queen of the House of David the law of fine sentiment was all-controlling. All her heart was filled with love for her husband, her Son and her Savior. When her consort died, the niche in her heart that he occupied, the only part with room for conjugal love, became a shrine. Its door was sealed then until the final resurrection. Where such constancy exists there is certainty of pure homes. Sanctity, chastity and faithfulness were the lights of the temple, dedicated to the mythical Juno, within whose precincts no impure woman was suffered to enter. To-day I claim for the True Ideal all that was accorded the mythical one.”

When the speaker paused, some of the men present broke forth, as was the custom in the synagogue service, with an “Amen,” and some exclaimed “Rabbi, thine are good words for our women to hear!”

The Hospitaler’s black eyes flashed; a hint of retort of lightning-like directness to come. And it came, instantly:

“I shall fail of my duty if I give all to one-half. I shall fail of my intent if my words seem like railings at the sex most tender, most burdened. Since we are treating of the weeds of the mourners, let us question why it is that widowers more frequently seek remarriage than do widows. The bereaved man easily says: ‘Get me another wife.’ The bereaved woman more frequently says: ‘Let me hurry on heavenward after my only and ever beloved.’

“With the true woman marriage is a committal so utter that it is difficult for her, generally, to make it more than once. Again me thinks that marriage brings the graver, heavier loads to women. Once experienced, there is need of a mighty love to allure her to a second trial. The man rises by self-assertion, and wedlock does not hinder him. With the woman wedlock means self-denial; her name changes, her career is merged into that of her consort; her body is given, literally, to the new beings she bears. To woman marriage has no parallel, except death. Her only possible compensation is love, and that she should receive with measures knowing no stint. Oh, men, all fair to other men, all merciful to the beasts that toil, all prudent in keeping in motion, by day and by night, the water-wheels in your orange and mulberry groves, be fair and merciful to your consorts. Yea, and evermore water with love’s most grateful refreshments the bearing vines whose tendrils intwine your hearts, whose fruits enrich your homes. This is religion; what is less is heresy, and he who deals unkindly, cruelly or niggardly with his other self, can not face God. The prayers of such are hindered and like unto a tree whose leaves are storm-stripped. You know the race, by birth, comes forth in two sexes, of equal numbers, a hint of God’s plan to have mankind live as pairs; but the men are a constant majority. Why? I answer that, notwithstanding the perils falling upon the sterner sex, by exposure, by war, and all such things, the trials falling to woman’s lot work the greater havoc, keeping her sex in huge majority in the places of the dead. Now you praise me, because I’ve told your women to be like the glorious Mary? Praise me again for telling them, as I do this instant, to be like her in choice of consorts. If they can not find Josephs to begin with, God grant to make the men they have like the choice spouse who fell to Mary’s lot!”

The Hospitaler paused for a moment; there was a wave of excitement, very near to applause, running over the audience. The bride and the groom, together with all the women present, by their faces expressed their delight. The men who had exclaimed at the first, looked blank and kept silent now.

Abruptly, as before, again the knight spoke:

“I’ll touch now another pertinent theme—_Mary under the shadows of scandal!_ I’d exalt her as one having sounded the depths of woman’s misery, and yet preserving her integrity. I know that some here will think themselves offended, since it’s the fashion so to think when listening to discourse such as I now intend. Society, more prudish than sincere or wise, has demanded that the burning, scarlet, social wrong be spoken of only by scrupulous hint, half words and reserves, at least among decent and happy folks. For once, as God’s accredited ambassador, I’ll change all this, and by Purity’s earthly throne, the marriage altar, denounce the crime of crimes, the blasting curse of all mankind. Let him that’s conscious of his own impurity mince words. I’ll not! Jehovah might have brought forth the Christ without subjecting Nazareth’s Virgin to the painful necessity of being doubted. It was as He decreed and wisely ordered. The happening was not because Deity was frustrated, but because He knew that she whose example was to be woman’s inspiration, could be so more surely, if her career took her along all lines of woman’s needs. There was a time when almost all who knew Mary doubted her integrity; a time when her name was banded about by the roués of her native place; a time when even her betrothed was resolving to renounce, if not to denounce her. First I’d speak of how impurity is abhorred of God, and then of His wondrous effort to allure those lost by it, as evinced in sending out after them the two lambs—the Eternal Lamb and the lamb-like woman.

“To say that they whose trend is toward things unclean are abhorred of God is to re-echo the edicts of nature and history. They say whenever a sin is committed a devil is created to avenge it. What legions avenge this sin which, most of all, brutalizes man and turns all social relations into anarchy! Ask your men of science. They will tell you that all the evils flesh is heir to seem to get their seeds herein. Immortal revenge haunts it! You know, how in the Christian’s holy book, it is affirmed that many sicken and die because partaking of the cup of the holy communion unworthily. Presumptuous hypocrisy thus meets the wrath which paralyzed Uzzah and Jeroboam. But the cup of the passion was love’s highest gift, and the offense is not against the cup but against love in its sublimest display. Therefore forever death is the penalty that overhangs those who outrage this finest gem of angels and mortals. Treason to love is suicidal as well as murderous! They say that there is a demon whose touch causes hideous, coiling, stinging serpents to grow from the bodies of those he touches. I’ll tell you his name—Lasciviousness, and he works fatefully wherever man abides. But the pure home is an invincible bulwark against him, and hymen’s torch his blinding horror.”

There were some of the knight’s auditors, both men and women, who felt it their duty, because of custom, to affect disapproval of the free speaking they heard. Of these dissenters the women uttered no word, but their eyes glared, and the color went and came in their cheeks. The disapproving men exhibited faces as hard as marble, while their lips mumbled incoherently.

The knight was not slow to perceive the rising storm, but he was undaunted. He waxed more earnest and more eloquent; his words and theme inflamed him.

One favorable to his faithfulness remarked to a comrade:

“The Hospitaler seems to grow taller, as if filled and enlarged by an inspiration.”

His face shone as that of Moses when bearing the law, and some cowered as if they heard coming toward them, from afar, the rumblings of Sinai. Some white souls present wept, moved more by the truth in its beauty and power than they could have been by any play on their emotions. It was an hour of true oratory’s triumph; logic set on fire; a consecrated herald grappling awful sin with the power of omnipotence.

Presently, after the thunder and lightning, came “the still, small voice.” The man of God spoke with loving persuasiveness; he healed with words, the woundings truth had made. Then he carried his audience with him. Many bowed their heads to weep, as trees beaten by winds that carried rain!

“We can all entreat fallen men as to most sins, why not as to the chief sins? We speak to the fathers, brothers and sons faithfully, pleadingly; why not to the women who are elect to companion creation’s lords? Alas, the women have the greater need of helpful admonition, when they fall, for revilings and black despair fill up the cup of their remorse! You have heard of the Feast of Lanterns among the Chinese? Those pagans, once a year, go out with many-colored lights to symbolize Mercy seeking lost daughters. Shall God’s choicest people fall behind the pagan? Never, if true to the noble, tender, pure spirit that emanates from God’s own ideal of womanhood. No, no! let us vow with unwonted zeal, amid the lights, lessons and joys of this hour, to be knights of new order; knights of the white cross; sworn to denounce all impure practices on our own part, and on the other hand to strive to allure the fallen to that that is clean and white as the souls of the angels which do excel! Let us go to those whom sin has made drunk, in their despairing. Let us tell them that doubt castles are stormed! Let us proclaim the seed of the woman the serpent’s destroyer! Go, women to women, in woman’s name, remembering that pity in the soul makes him or her that hath it successful suppliant for all mercies at the throne on which forever the Interceding Son of the Virgin reigns! Go, fathers, making your fatherhood godlike in its just tenderness! Go, brothers, sons of women, as pure, strong brothers indeed! There is many a scarlet woman to-day with scalded eyes and ashen heart who is so because she believed men brothers and fathers and found some wolves and vultures. Go to those who have all days as nights, all joys as apples of Sodom. They were not always so, and need not so continue. Do not belittle their sin, yet seek to allure them by a noble presentment of purity and by all encouragement to attempt to win back their lost crowns. Tell them of the woman that stood serenely amid bitterest scorns, and say as did her Son to one like them: ‘_Go, and sin no more._’ Then teach those who have no such blot upon them to be kind and helpful. We can never judge any soul’s guilt until we at last know the measure of the temptation! God alone knows that.

“I could speak on this theme for hours; but this is enough! The story of Mary has somehow ever had peculiar efficacy with the blighted of her sex. They easily are led, when all men fail them, to dare to trust the One who had a mother so tender. Many a motherless outcast has found Christ in trying to find mother-love in Mary. After the phantasmagoria of illusive pleasure it is healing, through faith in God’s exemplified love, to dream of how it seems to have a real mother’s arms enfolding one. I hold that it is profitable to the impure man, sometimes looking within the Pantheon of memory, to find therein conceptions he treasured in his purer days; but with more determined assertion I find that it lifts up the soiled woman to come in contact with the girdle of power and crown jewels of that maiden and mother of Nazareth and Bethlehem. It was she that stood against imperial Rome, in the person of Herod; a chaste young Jewess against corsleted animality; a country maiden, heaven-endowed, against an old fox; the loyal mother-eagle against the python! But she that was simply good evaded, outran, soared above, and finally confounded the evil at its lowest dip, its highest power!”

Then the orator-knight, waving his hand to Cornelius to signify to him that the missioner was to conclude the ceremonial, abruptly closed his address and retired to one of the little alcove-chapels.

A simple espousal service followed, and then the company gathered dispersed, going to join in hastily-arranged festivities in the park by the temple. The Hospitaler and the missioners were auditors.

“Nourahmal, I can well believe, was a rare beauty; her grand-child has her features, and she’s a vision.”

“What time my friend here, the Hospitaler, did not engage me I was admiring the groom,” Miriamne responded to her husband.

“He hails from the Jabbock country,” remarked the knight.

“Jabbock? Faithful Ichabod’s native place?” exclaimed Miriamne.

“He was the groom’s uncle,” quoth the knight.

Then the trio were silent, the thoughts of each following back over the past years and along God’s providences. The way life’s lines were crossed, interwoven and entangled seemed to each very wonderful.