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MARY AND THE INFANT SAVIOl R.
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MARY:. ,
THE
QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID
AND
MOTHER OF JESUS.
THK STORY OK HKR
GABRIEL. "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women.
MARY. "All generations shall call me blessed."
BY
REV. A. SI EWART WALSH, D. D.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D.
ILLUSTRATED.
PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY
A. S. GRAY & CO.
SUCCESSORS TO
CENTRAL PUBLISHING HOUSE AND KEYSTONE PUBLISHING Co.
PITTSBURGH, PA.
1889.
COPYRIGHT BY H. S. ALLEN,
1886.
COPYRIGHT OWNED B
A S. GRAY.
ARGYLE PRLS3,
"RINTING ANO BOOKBINDING,
265 4 267 CHERRY ST., N. V.
CO WOMANKIND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
THIS
STORY OF A LIFE
BEAUTIFUL, BENEFICENT, AND INSPIRING
BY THE AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTION TO
THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.
BY REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D.
HAVE been asked to open the front door
of this book. But I must not keep you
standing too long on the threshold. The
picture-gallery, the banqueting hall and
the throne-room are inside. All the fascinations
of romance are, by the able author, thrown around
the facts of Mary s life. Much-abused tradition is
also called in for splendid service. The pen that
the author wields is experienced, graceful, capti
vating, and multipotent. As perhaps no other book
that was ever written, this one will show us woman as
standing at the head of the world. It demonstrates in
the life of Mary what woman was and what woman
may be. Woman s position in the world is higher
than man s ; and although she has often been deniad
the right of suffrage, she always does vote and always
will vote by her influence ; and her chief desire ought
to be that she should have grace rightly to rule in the
dominion which she has already won.
She has no equal as a comforter of the sick.
viii Introduction.
What land, whai street, what house has not felt the
smitings of disease ? Tens of thousands of sick bedsi
What shall we do with them ? Shall man, with his
rough hand, and heavy foot, and impatient bearing,
minister? No; he cannot soothe the pain. He can
not quiet the nerves. He knows not where to set the
light. His hand is not steady enough to pour out the
drops. He is not wakeful enough to be watcher. You
have known men who have despised women, but the
moment disease fell upon them, they did not send for
their friends at the bank or their wordly associates.
Their first cry was, "Take me to my wife." The dis
sipated young man at the college scoffs at the idea of
being under home influence ; but at the first blast
of typhoid fever on his cheek he says, " Where is
mother?" I think one of the most pathetic passages
in all the Bible is the description of the lad who went
out to the harvest fields of Shunem and got sunstruck ;
throwing his hands on his temples, and crying out,
" Oh, my head ! my head ! " and they said, " Carry
him to his mother. And the record is " He sat on
her knees till noon and then died."
In the war men cast the cannon, men fashioned the
muskets, men cried to the hosts " Forward, march ! "
men hurled their battalions on the sharp edges of
the enemy, crying " Charge ! charge ! " but woman
scraped the lint, woman administered the cordials,
woman watched by the dying couch, woman wrote
the last message to the home circle, woman wept
at the solitary burial, attended by herself and four
men with a spade. Men did their work with shot
and shell, and carbine and howitzer; women did their
Introduction. ix
work with socks and slippers, and bandages, and warm
drinks, and scripture texts, and gentle soothings of the
hot temples, and stories of that land where they
never have any pain. Men knelt down over the
wounded and said, " On which side did you fight ? "
Women knelt down over the wounded and said,
" Where are you hurt? What nice thing can I make
for you to eat ? What makes you cry?" To-night,
while we men are soundly asleep in our beds, there
will be a light in yonder loft ; there will be groaning
down that dark alley ; there will be cries of distress in
that cellar. Men will sleep and women will watch.
No one as well as a woman can handle the poor.
There are hundreds and thousands of them in all our
cities. There is a kind of work that men cannot do
for the destitute. Man sometimes gives his charity
in a rough way, and it falls like the fruit of a tree
in the East, which fruit comes down so heavily
that it breaks the skull of the man who is trying
to gather it. But woman glides so softly into the
house of want, and finds out all the sorrows of
the place, and puts so quietly the donation on the
table, that all the family come out on the front steps
as she departs, expecting that from under her shawl
she will thrust out two wings and go right up to
Heaven, from whence she seems to have come down.
O, Christian young woman, if you would make your
self happy and win the blessings of Christ, go out
among the poor! A loaf of bread or a bundle of
socks may make a homely load to carry, but the angels
of God will come out to watch, and the Lord Almighty
will give His messenger hosts a charge, saying, " Look
* Introduction.
after that woman , canopy her with your wings, and
shelter her from all harm." And while you are seated
in the house of destitution and suffering, the little
ones around the room will whisper, "Who is she? is
she not beautiful ? " and if you will listen right sharply,
you will hear dripping through the leaky roof, and
rolling over the broken stairs, the angel chant that
shook Bethlehem : " Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace and good will to man." Can you tell
why a Christian woman, going down among the haunts
of iniquity on a Christian errand, seldom meets with
any indignity ?
I stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the daugh
ter of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, in the most aban.
doned part of the city of Edinburg; and I said to her,
as I looked around upon the fearful surroundings of
that place, " Do you come here nights to hold a
service?" " Oh, yes," she said; "I take my lantern
and I go through all these haunts of sin, the darkest
and the worst ; and I ask all the men and women to
come to the chapel, and then I sing for them, and I
pray for them, and I talk to them." I said, " Can it be
possible that you never meet with an insult while per-
forming this Christian errand?" "Never," she said;
" never." That young woman, who has her father by
her side, walking down the street, and an armed police
man at each corner is not so well defended as that
Christian woman who goes forth on Gospel work into
the haunts of iniquity carrying the Bible and bread.
Some one said, " I dislike very much to see that
Christian woman teaching these bad boys in the
mission school. I am afraid to have her instruct
Introduction. xi
them." " So," said another man, " I am afraid too."
Said the first, " I am afraid they will use vile language
before they leave the place." " Ah," said the other
man, " I am not afraid of that ; what I am afraid of is,
that if any of those boys should use a bad word in her
presence, the other boys would tear him to pieces
killing him on the spot."
Woman is especially endowed to soothe disaster.
She is called the weaker vessel, but all profane as well
as sacred history attests that when the crisis comes she
is better prepared than man to meet the emergency.
How often have you seen a woman who seemed to be
a disciple of frivolity and indolence, who, under
one stroke of calamity, changed to be a heroine.
There was a crisis in your affairs, you struggled
bravely and long, but after a while there came a
day when you said, " Here I shall have to stop ; "
and you called in your partners, and you called
in the most prominent men in your employ, and
you said, "We have got to stop." You left the
store suddenly ; you could hardly make up your
mind to pass through the street and over on the
ferry-boat ; you felt everybody would be looking at you
and blaming you and denouncing you. You hastened
home ; you told your wife all about the affair. What
did she say ? Did she play the butterfly ; did she talk
about the silks and the ribbons and the fashions ? No ;
she came up to the emergency; she quailed not under
the stroke. She helped you to begin to plan right
away. She offered to go out of the comfortable house
into a smaller one, and wear the old cloak another
winter. She was one who understood your affairs
xif Introduction.
without blaming you. You looked upon what you
thought was a thin, weak woman s arm holding you
up ; but while you looked at that arm there came into
the feeble muscles of it the strength of the eternal
God. No chiding. No fretting. No telling you
about the beautiful house of her father, from which
you brought her, ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.
You said, " Well, this is the happiest day of my
life. I am glad I have got from under my burden.
My wife don t care I don t care." At the moment
you were utterly exhausted, God sent a Deborah
to meet the host of the Amalekites and scatter
them like chaff over the plain. There are scores
and hundreds of households to-day where as much
bravery and courage are demanded of woman as was
exhibited by Grace Darling or Marie Antoinette or
Joan of Arc.
Woman is further endowed to bring us into the
Kingdom of Heaven. It is easier for a woman to be a
Christian than for a man. Why? You say she is
weaker. No. Her heart is more responsive to the
pleadings of divine love. The fact that she can more
easily become a Christian, I prove by the statement
that three-fourths of the members of the churches in
all Christendom are women. So God appoints them
to be the chief agencies for bringing this world back to
God. The greatest sermons are not preached on
celebrated platforms ; they are preached with an audi
ence of two or three and in private home-life. A
patient, loving, Christian demeanor in the presence of
transgression, in the presence of hardness, in the pres
ence of obduracy and crime, is an argument from the
Introduction. xiii
throne of the Lord Almighjy ; and blessed is that
woman who can wield such an argument. A sailor
came slipping down the ratlin one night as though
something had happened, and the sailors cried,
What s the matter?" He said, "My mother s
prayers haunt me like a ghost."
In what a realm is every mother the queen. The
eagles of heaven can not fly across that dominion.
Horses, panting and with lathered flanks, are not swift
enough to run to the outpost of that realm, and
death itself will only be the annexation of heavenly
principalities. When you want your grandest idea
of a queen you do not think of Catherine of
Russia, or of Anne of England, or Maria Theresa
of Germany : but when you want to get your grand
est idea of a queen you think of the plain woman
who sat opposite your father at the table or walked
with him, arm in arm, down life s pathway ; some
times to the Thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to
the grave, but always together ; soothing your petty
griefs, correcting your childish waywardness, joining
in your infantile sports, listening to your evening
prayer, toiling for you with needle or at the spinning
wheel, and on cold nights wrapping you up snug and
warm ; and then, at last, on that day when she lay in
the back room dying, and you saw her take those thin
hands with which she had toiled for you so long, and
put them together in a dying prayer that commended
you to the God whom she had taught you to trust
oh, she was the queen ! The chariots of God came
down to fetch her, and as she went in, all heaven rose
up. You can not think of her now without a rush of
xiv Introduction.
tenderness that stirs the deep foundations of your
soul, and you feel as much a child again as when you
cried on her lap ; and if you could bring her back to
life again to speak, just once more, your name as ten
derly as she used to speak it, you would be willing to
throw yourself on the ground and kiss the sod that
covers her, crying, " Mother ! mother ! " Ah, she was
the queen !
Home influences are the mightiest of all influences
upon the soul. There are men who have maintained
their integrity, not because they were any better
naturally than some other people, but because there
were home influences praying for them all the time.
They got a good start. They were launched on the
world with the benedictions of a Christian mother.
They may track Siberian snows, they may plunge
into African jungles, they may fly to the earth s end,
they can not go so far and so fast but the prayer will
keep up with them. Oh, what a multitude of women
in heaven. Mary, Christ s mother, in heaven. Eliza
beth Fry in heaven. Charlotte Elizabeth in heaven.
The mother of Augustine in heaven. The Countess
of Huntingdon is in heaven who sold her splendid
jewels to build chapels in heaven ; while a great
many others who have never been heard of on
earth, or known but little of, have gone into the
rest and peace of heaven. What a rest. What a
change it was from the small room with no fire
and one window, the glass broken out, and the
aching side and worn out eyes, to the " house of many
mansions." Heaven for aching heads. Heaven for
broken hearts. Heaven for anguish-bitten frames.
Introduction. xv
No more sitting up until midnight for the coming
of staggering steps. No more rough blows on the
temples. No more sharp, keen, bitter curses.
Some of you will have no rest in this world ; it will
be toil and struggle all the way up. You will have to
stand at your door fighting back the wolf with your
own hand red with carnage. But God has a crown for
you. He is now making it, and whenever you weep a
tear, He sets another gem in that crown; whenever
you have a pang of body or soul, He puts another gem
in that crown, until after a while in all the tiara there
will be no room for another splendor; and God will
say to his angel, " The crown is done ; let her up that
she may wear it." And as the Lord of righteousness
puts the crown upon your brow, angel will cry to
angel, " Who is she ? " and Christ will say, " I will
tell you who she is ; she is the one that came up out
of great tribulation and had her robe washed and made
white in the blood of the Lamb." And then God will
spread a banquet, and He will invite all the principali
ties of heaven to sit at the feast, and the tables will
blush with the best clusters from the vineyards of God
and crimson with the twelve manner of fruits from the
tree of life, and water from the fountains of the rock
will flash from the golden tankards ; and the old
harpers of heaven will sit there, making music with
their harps, and Christ will point you out amid the
celebrities of heaven, saying, " She suffered with me
on earth, now we are going to be glorified together."
And the banquetters, no longer able to hold their
peace, will break forth with congratulation. "Hail!
hail !" And there will be A handwriting on the wall;
xvl Introduction*
not such as struck the Persian noblemen with horror,
but with fire-tipped fingers writing in blazing capitals
of light and love and victory : " God has wiped away
all tears from all faces."
And now I leave you in the hands of Dr. Walsh,
the author of this book. He will show you Mary, the
model of all womanly, wifely, motherly excellence
the Madonna hanging in the Louvre of admiration for
all Christendom, and for many millions in the higher
Vatican of their worship.
T. DE WITT TALMAGE,
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE QUEEN S PORTRAIT.
* A form beloved comes again " Inspired painters in I
voyage of discovery Tributes to Mary, honoring ali
womankind Guide s wish Madonnas of many climes.
Raphael s "Transfigured Woman " Savonarola s bon
fire St. Luke s picture of the Virgin The Vandal
spirit Page 29
CHAPTER II. THE PILGRIM, CRUSADER AND VIRGIN.
Life a pilgrimage Pilgrims of many faiths A struggle for
holy places between the Pilgrim-Crusaders and Mos
lem The harem and the home The rise of Chivalry
The Knights and " Our Lady " The results of the Cru
sades Page 36
CHAPTER III. ARMAGEDDON ! " THE KEY AND SICKLE."
" The wandering hermit wakes the storms of war " Acre
and Esdrselon, the "Armageddon " or " Mountain of the
Gospel " of the Scriptures The battle-field of nations
The City of Jeanne d Arc. The jewel in the sickle-haft
Prince Edward, the Crusade leader Sultan Kha-tel
The sacking of Acre Actors introduced. . Page 48
CHAPTER IV. SIR CHARLEROY ; THE SOLDIER OF FOR
TUNE AND KNIGHT OF SAINT MARY.
The flight from Acre to Nazareth The born-leader Life
estimates with Death holding the scales A prince
honors, a bishop blesses, and a mother loves An epit-
ome of paradoxes ... Page 53
x-viii The Queen of the House of David.
CHAPTER V. NAZARETH.
Nazareth, the place of Mary s nativity The choice of
a leader The coward king The Virgin s Fount
English songsters The Knights mountain Litany
Longings for home and mother Nain and Endor s
lessons. Page 61
CHAPTER VI. THE FUGITIVES.
A night bivouac amid sacred scenes The " Knight of the
Holy-Sepulcher " who fled on "a white charger with
black wings " The funeral at dawn Mary s palm-
bearing angel-guard The twelve knights separate into
two parties Will-makings and farewells By Endor
to oblivion Page 74
CHAPTER VII. ICHABOD.
Sir Charleroy s band approach Shunem, the City of Elijah
The surprise Sir Charleroy the captive of Azrael the
Mameluke The Mohammedan heaven depicted " A
hair, the bridge over hell " The odoriferous houris A
gorgeous charnel-house blasted The prodigal becomes
the herald of purity The Knight of Saint Mary and the
Jewish Spy Adversity makes the Knight and the Jew
friends The Knight instructing Ichabod " Till Shiloh
comes " " The true, refined and final Judaism" " The
east and the west embracing ; truth leading." An
honest doubt is a real prayer. ..... Page 82
CHAPTER VIII. FROM JERICHO TO JORDON.
The radiant proselyte Climbing to glory The ghostly
forms hovering over submerged Sodom Jordon s sweet
ening Siddim-angels among the willovrs and oleanders
by the Dead Sea Summonsed to fight for the Crescent
or go to the slave mart Nourahmal " The light of the
harem" becomes the disciple and friend of Ichabod
A debate concerning women A rarity and a wonder
" I told her women had souls ; she laughed like a
monkey " The flight from Jericho by night The
lightning God s torch " Canst thou dance rock*
Contents. xix
irto camels ? " A mummy s flight, and the burial of a
live man " Unclean " The solemn passage of Jor
dan Page 93
CHAPTER IX. THE FEAST OF THE ROSE.
\ breakfast of lentils and barley in the wilderness The
gloom of the Knight and the joy of the Jew Sermons on
fate and songs in flowers The poetry of Ichabod Celi
bacy a reward at Rome Kneph " The father of his
mother " The heathen and the Christian " Feast of
the Rose "-The summary of the events in Mary s life
and in the life of Jesus The Egyptian Rosary Neb-ta
the maiden sister The egg and the cross, ancient signs
of immortality The Copt priest The insights of the
Egyptians symbolized by the Sphinx. . . Page 113
CHAPTER X. AFTER EVE, ESTHER OR MARY ?
By Jabbock, in the native place of Ichabod Israelitish
maidens keeping the feast of Esther Religious love,
filial love and lover s love The poetic Jew s rhapsody
concerning affection God s voice in the Garden The
ideal women of the Old Testament and of the New The
Jew s cry for mother Vacillating Sir Charleroy
" Echo s Magic" Jewish customs. . . . Page 135
CHAPTER XI. THE FEAST OF PURIM.
A. night-scene by Jabbock Harrimai the priest, and his
daughter Rizpah The religious ceremonial and the
revel Sir Charleroy and Rizpah as " Ahasuerus and
Esther " The Knight s secret discovered Conquest of
a woman s heart through pity " Of what metals Jewish
maidens are." Page 152
CHAPTER XII. ASTARTE OR MARY?
The Knight of Saint Mary enslaved by a Hebrew beauty
The journey toward Bozrah The Mameluke attack
The hand to hand fight Sir Charleroy wounded and
Ichabod slain Rizpah s heroism in peril Espousal in
the face of death A wonderful vision. . . Page 170
xx Hie (jueen oj the fiousc of jJavict.
CHAPTER XIII. FROM RAMOTH GILEAD TO DAMAScua
Teacher and pupil become patient and nurse Perilous re
lations Delights, assurances, fears and clouds Harri-
mai s discovery and his malediction Love s debate and
decision Elopement by night the Knight and the
Jewess wedded at Damascus Page 182
CHAPTER XIV. THE THEATER OF THE GIANTS.
The death of Harrimai A honey-moon in the " Eye of the
East" To Bashan with the Mecca chaplet-seekers
Nature, art and desolation Lejah s black lava-sea The
frenzies of Gerash s passion-flower Reaction after ex
altation " A camel voyage in-sea" Rizpah s challenge
Jealous of Sir Charleroy s love for Mary " Illusion "
- The church of Saint George at Edrei Recrimination
Ridicule costly to pride Neither Christian, Jew nor
Pagan A woman with unsettled faith A babe poisoned
by its mother s passion The lamp and the palm-trees
The Knight s appeals Omens A beacon needed
Fleeing the Lejah To Bozrah Page 195
CHAPTER XV. THE REVELS OF MEN AND THE RITES OF
THEIR GODDESSES.
Kunawat at the City of Job The Shrine of Astarte The
Cyclopean image Questioning the Soul, Time and
God Hugeness, greatness ; littleness, caricature The
naked worshipers of the golden calf Sins exposed
Purity s vision Phallic mysteries Khem Female
deities Dualism Immortality by progeny and by re
generation The fire-worshiper s mystic number eight,
and the Jewish covenant number seven. . Page 212
CHAPTER XVI. A BATTLE OF GIANTS AT BOZRAH.
Houses forty centuries old The old stone-house of an
ancient giant becomes the home of the knight and his
wife How circumstances cluange people Recrimina
tions and reconciliation " The gall taken from animals
offered to Juno, goddess of marriage " Rizpah s temper
that seemed brilliant before wedlock, afterward seems to
Contents, xxi
Sir Charleroy very like that of a virago The charming
nonsense of those for the first time parents Shall she
be named Davidah, Angela, Marah or Mary ? The
Chrijtian and Jewish faith battle about the cradle The
separation of husband and wife, in anger The sick
child and the desolated, deserted wife Rizpah longs
for a mother, such as Mary of Bethlehem. . Page 224
CHAPTER XVII. RIZPAH THE ANCIENT MOTHER OF BOR
ROWS.
After many years, Rizpah dwells in Bozrah with her three
children Rizpah of Bozrah fascinated by Rizpah of
Gibeah Miriamne the daughter of Rizpah The
daughter appalled by her mother s mysterious hallucina
tions The wonders of mother-love The story of the
ancient, Jewish " Mother of Sorrows " The omen of
the bat and the parable of the stars. . . Page 245
CHAPTER XVIII. THE QUEEN PROCLAIMED IN THE GIANT
CITY.
The old and the young Jews The old Christian priest and
his Jewess proselyte Attacked by Mamelukes The
Old Clock Man " The Balsam Band Miriamne,
the Jewess proselyte, questions concerning the queen
of the old priest s heart The miraculous picture of
Mary at Damascus Silver hands and feet Crown
jewels Page 264
CHAPTER XIX. THE STORY OF MARY S CHILDHOOD.
Page 282
CHAPTER XX. THE WEDDING THE BIRTH AND THE
FLIGHT.
The birth of Jesus and the flight to Egypt Miriamne
reads to her mother a Christian account of Mary s
espousal Rizpah curious but doubtful. . Page 293
CHAPTER XXI. THE QUEEN AND HER FAMILY IN EGYPT.
Father Adolphus and Miriamne converse of the Holy
family s sojourn in Egypt Heliopolis and Ihe Temple
xxii The Queen of tJie House of David.
of the Sun Fire-worshipers At Memphis, the snrine
of Apis the sacred bull The red heifer of Israel The
Holy Family rescued in Egypt by a robber who after
ward died on the cross next to the Savior The legend
of a gipsy s prophecy concerning Jesus Zingarella
won by the Virgin Page 312
CHAPTER XXII. THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS.
Rizpah dreading heresy yet charmed by the story of the
" Girl Wife " "Behold my mother and brethren"
Christ s message to his widowed mother The " Church
of the Terror " Rizpah s vision of " Glad Tidings."
Rizpah of Bozrah allured from Rizpah of Gibeah A
hot-chase after an old love The sword that pierced
Mary The shadow of the cross horrifies Rizpah The
faith of the Nazarene denounced Miriamne driven
from home by her mother Page 322
CHAPTER XXIII. THE MISERERE AND THE EASTER AN
THEM.
Miriamne alone at night in the giant city A refuge at the
Christian priest s The midnight Miserere Penitents