every child of God. I saw it all then, but have been
unable since to find it. Oh, I burn with desire to have
the silver-tongued guide me to that pathway again. "
At the appointed time the twain sought the house
of Christian Phebe, and found it wrapped in gloom ; the
only sign of life without being a man garbed as a camel
500 The Queen of the House of David.
driver, standing guard at the door. Cornelius whispered
to Miriamne, " He s a knight-^-the warden." The young
man gave the watchman a secret signal ; the latter com
municated through a little gated window, with those
within, and quickly the door swung open, admitting
Woelfkin and his companion. Within were light and
cheerfulness contrasting with the gloom without. A
goodly company was already assembled, chiefly made
up of Crusaders, but now unharnessed. The faces of
the pilgrim soldiers betokened a change within. They
betokened spirits subdued, but not crushed ; hearts hav
ing surrendered ambition for devastating conquest, to
welcome a finer hope. There were few things about
the place suggestive of war, and many suggestive of
peace. At one end of the room stood a desk, in shape
much like an altar. It was draped with a Templar
banner, and to its side were fastened a sword, bent in
the shape of a sickle, and two spears forming a cross,
supporting a cup; the latter was in form the same as
the cup of the Passion.
"There is something about this place that recalls the
chapel of the Palestineans, in London, Cornelius."
" Well, you and I were there ; now we are here. In
that the two places have likeness," pleasantly responded
the maiden s escort.
Miriamne s eyes wandered from object to object, as
if seeking proof of her assertion, and her companion
followed her gaze with a glance about the place, which
finally rested, as his glances were wont, on the eyes of
Miriamne.
"Oh, the devoutness, the peace, the fellowship!"
she exclaimed.
Just then there was a movement ; a number of the
The Hospitaler s Oration. 501
men present arose ; a hailing sign, significant to the
initiated, was given by some, while simultaneously a
slight applause passed around the room :
" Tis he," whispered Miriamne.
"Your Hospitaler?"
"Yes."
The knights all stood and sang in subdued voices, a
psalm of hope. " The movement of the melody suggests
pilgrims climbing a hill." At least, so the maiden said
its movement seemed to her.
When the psalm was finished, the knights resumed
their seats and the Hospitaler, without preliminary,
at once addressed them :
" Knights of Christ, few and often in hiding, I would
remind ye that no plan of God is futile, and that His
cause has no backward movement.
" A dream of conquest, restoration and glory came
over all followers of the cross. The dream had
within it a hope of a holy land in Christian possession,
and all the children of earth getting from it the story
of the true faith. Then there was to come, we be
lieved, the golden age, in which all mankind in sweet
charity s glorious fellowship should go forward.
" Nature, man s mother, prays in a million mournful
voices for that golden day ; and God, man s eternal and
loving Father, works by countless invincible agencies to
cause its full dawning. We Crusaders gave our lives
by thousands for our faith, but we seemed to have done
little beside change the name of this land from Philis
tine to Palestine. One, to be sure, is softer to the ear
than the other, but to the heart both names bring the
same miserable thoughts. Yet there was more than
this attained. Ye remember how our cavalier soldiers
5O2 The Queen of the House of David.
expressed their chivalric impulses in honoring that
queen of women, Our Lady ? Like the rising of sun at
midnight, came the conviction to Christian Europe
when at its worst, socially, that reform must begin by
purifying the homes of the people, by exalting all home
life. To do this, the mothers who bare and nurture
the fruits of the home, as well as making them for weal
or for woe what they are, must needs be exalted by
right as well as by fitness to their queenship. Every
knight s praise of Mary was an avowal of faith ; his
faith that woman could be, should be, what his imagi
nation pictured Mary to have been.
" The knightly Christians were among the first to be
moved by the belief that that was a monstrous blight,
a heresy toward God and nature which regarded the
finer sex as necessities or luxuries. Impressed by rev
erence for Mary, the banded soldiers of the cross be
gan to feel their mission to be not only the recovery of
the dead, but also of the living from infidel dominion ;
hence, each Crusade banner came as a sunburst to
those, who, under the spell of gross passion, were en
slaving their natural co-partners.
"Men, while the harem ideal stands, while woman is
impotent because uncrowned, our lofty hopes can not
bear fruit nor will our labors be ended ! "
The speaker was interrupted by a murmur of ap
plause that ran around the circle of auditors.
Miriamne glowed with delight, and raised her hand
impressively and nodded toward Cornelius. He only
saw the motion and easily interpreted it as meaning,
"There, that s what I felt, but could not express/
The speaker continued : " God said it is not good
that the man should be alone: time that resolves all
The Hospitaler s Oration. 503
mysteries, and experience which transmutes to gold all
the rubbish of guess and experiment, has irrevocably
declared that man cannot be to his fullness, in a state
of solitary grandeur. He and the woman go up or
down together; and, whether a seraph or a serpent
leads her, the man by inclination or by force is sure to
follow her footsteps.
" We Crusaders had a glimpse of the truth, but lost it
to follow an ignis fatuus. Yet, in this land, we con
fronted the harem with the home ruled by one queenly
wife and mother. The world, beholding the contrast
begins to believe, as never before, in the supremacy,
over all institutions, of that one where, under Eden s
covenant charters, purity and mother-love mold the
race in the name of sole and pacient love. The Saracens
paraded their houris, their concubines, and their slaves
as the proofs of their prowess; but the Christians
challenged the array by the quality of their possessions,
commencing with their women of God s blood royal,
and ascending to each revered personage, from love s
companions, to Mary, to Jesus. He that nobly deals
with the one by his side will find her putting on a
glory that will brighten the luster of his kingliness,
and bringing forth to him those having the power to
grasp and mold the destinies of coming years. Lis
teners, mark me ; there is a lesson profound in the
record of the strugglings with each other of Rebecca s
twins before their birth. Indeed, each being begins
his career within the life that gives him life.
" Who will say, with assurance, that all of life lies
within the reach of any man of himself? Nay, be it
said, rather, that she who first carries, then leads, then
inspires, as she only can, her sons and daughters, is the
504 The Queen of the House of David.
one who lays her gentle hands, with resistless povve:,
upon the keys of all futures. It is the mother who
impresses the prophecy of what is to be on the heart
of the infant, before the event finds place upon the
deathless page which records deeds done."
Again applause interrupted.
The Hospitaler continued, as attention was given
anew :
" That profoundest of ancient teachers, Plato, enun
ciated at least a half-truth or truth s shadow, in his doc
trine of the preexistence of souls, though, as our church
understands it, it pronounces the teaching ^heretical.
Be that as it may, this much assuredly is true : if each
man has not been on earth before, his present existence
being the repetition of a prior one, his intuitions, vague
recollections out of a past forgotten in a former death,
surely there is none who is not the fruit of his parents.
He is largely what they made him, and of the twain
that beget, I affirm that the mother wields the ruling
influence in the life and character of the begotten. I
believe men perpetuate their worst traits through their
posterity, easily and more persistently than do women
theirs. In the giant of the human pair brawn and mus
cle predominate, and these, if depraved, feed every evil
passion, giving each power to run with virulence from
sire to son. The woman, formed by finer conceptions
to be an angel, may fall to sinning and let weakness
take the place of gentleness. So be it ; yet even then
her weaknesses and her sinnings, constantly repugnant
to her nature as God framed it, antagonistic to the re
finement that is native, ebb ?nd die along the shores of
her being s course. She more naturally and more
forcefully transmits her good than she does her evil, as
The Hospitaler s Oration. 505
a general rule. They have in fable-lore a tradition that
the mythical goddess of love, Venus, wore a resplen
dent girdle, the sight of which made every beholder
love the wearer. Let me give present force to the
legend by affirming that every true woman, girded
with the virtues that it is her duty and her privilege to
wear, is an object, among all earthly beings, superla
tively, entrancingly beautiful next after Christ, God s
best gift to man."
Cornelius now plucked the corner of Miriamne s
pepulum. It was a lover s restless, questioning act.
Being a man, trained as men, he was naturally inclined
to doubt the speaker and to join in secret ridicule, that
substitute for gainsaying when arguments are utterly
lacking ; but being a lover, he was so far doubtful as to
his old creeds concerning women, as to be ready to be
led. Miriamne turned toward her lover with a smile
lightened by eyes which glowed. Hers was not the
smile of a girl flatly complacent in an effort to be very
agreeable. She believed ; the love she had for the man
at her side was consecrated first to truth. Her will
was that of a blade of steel yielding, serviceable ; but
still elastic or firm, as need be and as its highest pur
poses required. She smiled, but the smile mounting
to her brightening eyes, left her fine forehead, a very
temple of thought, all placid. The smile and the
glance routed all doubts from the young man s mind.
She to him was a Venus, and more, a saint. She wore
the invisible girdle of which the knight had spoken,
and the youth felt its winning power. Another proof
that the best advocate of a woman is a woman ; and of
her worth, the best argument an example.
The orator knight proceeded without pause :
506 The Queen of the House of David.
" I know full well that some sneer and carp on wo
man s weakness, having recourse to Eden for argument.
To these I reply : The enemy assailed not the weaker,
but the stronger first, and exhibited masterly general
ship in seeking to overcome the citadel that would in
sure the greatest loss, the most complete victory. And
note how long and arduous his siege of Eve ; then re
member how quickly Adam fell. Crush the woman s
heart, ruin her faith, degrade her body, and then, with
this work completed, we are ready to ring down the
curtain over the end of the tragedy of a wrecked world.
When men hold women to their hearts, their manhood
is enlarged and their queens become their angels, bear
ing a grail that catches for both the choice things of
heaven. But when a man turns his strength against a
woman, she ceases to be his charming, alluring help
mate. He has brawn, and she, not having that, puts
on that cunning which is the natural arm of the weaker.
When the honey-suckle turns to poison-ivy, or the dove
to a fox, then weep ; but when woman lays aside the
entrancings of her moral beauty to enter a desperate
strife with armed cunning, let men go mad over their
queens become witches. I tell you, hearers, when men
become demons women will give themselves to sorcery.
I speak not of spiritual possession, but of human de
flowering. Shall our queens be uncrowned, disrobed,
degraded ? No, no, Satan alone could say yea.
When the burst of applause that had interrupted
him subsided, the Hospitaler continued:
" We knights revere the sign of the cross because the
world s Savior died thereon ; it will be well for us to
revere womankind because it was given to woman, not
to man, to cooperate with God in bringing that Savior
The Hospitaler s Oration. 57
LO the world. A woman bore him with crucial pains,
as each of us was borne, before He bore the cross.
And reverently I say it, companions, woman s cross is
ever set, and all the earth is her Calvary. I can not
but see, as must you who think, that all this pain to her
has in God s great plan some vicarious element, some
blessing for mankind. We Christians pray for the
second coming of Jesus, the Jews wait and weep for
the dawn of a day of salvation, the Mohammedans,
like hosts of the Pagans, in every clime, are longing
for some golden day ; better than the present. This
universal longing is a prophecy of good to come. I
can not believe that the All-Father would suffer this
universal and intuitive longing to end in disappoint
ment and mockery. He is too good for that. By this
longing I see standing out, less dimly, and yet dimly
enough to be by many unseen, some sublime, prophetic
hints. Read sacred Writ. Wherever therein you dis
cern a prophetic character, emblem of Christ, fore
runner of the golden age, you will find not far from
him, as his partner and help, fittingly a woman !
" From the first it was so. Adam the first appeared,
and a woman was his partner, helpmate and more.
He fell. A way of recovery was provided for him, but
it was the woman who was given to bring forth the
One whose heel was to crush the head of the author
of humanity s great catastrophe. Then came the
second Adam Immanuel. At his advent the chief
figure, next after God the chief instrument in His
bringing in, by His side along the years in all helpful
ministries, a woman, Mary, the beautiful, the perfect,
the ideal of women.
" Again and again we have puzzled over the records,
508 Tfc Queen of the House of David.
wondering why Matthew traced the genealogy of Jesus
along the male line only, through David and Jacob
to Abraham the father of the faithful, and that Luke
traced that genealogy through Mary and her father,
Heli. But there s method most wise in the records.
Matthew wrote for the Jews, Luke for the Gentiles.
The hint is herein given that when the Gentiles are
fully gathered in, woman will be recognized in the ul
timate religion, that knows neither race nor sex. As
in the royal line which gave man a Savior, as in a
queenly line having for man, society and home the
emblem of heaven expressed on earth blessing and
saving powers."
The knight closed with an appeal for the continu
ance of the revival of the chivalrous spirit toward
woman, saying:
" It matters little what becomes of the dust of the
pious dead ; the past is secure, and Deity guards till
the resurrection all tombs in His own unfrustrated
way, but it matters much how we treat the living !
That is a puerile piety which is ready to die to defend
from foes that can not harm inanimate ashes that
appeal for no favor, while suffering, willingly, living
bodies encompassing bleeding hearts, to continue amid
untold agonies, their whole existence one long appeal
for succor ! Christian knights, on with your new cru
sade, and may the golden age come grandly in, its fruits
love, joy, and peace in every clime, to every race, to
every man, woman, and child ! "
The speaker sat down ; there was a moment of deep
silence, followed by an outburst of approving acclama
tions.
Then ensued a hum of voices, the assembly breaking
The Hospitaler s Oration. 509
up into little groups, one and another attempting each
to prove his loyalty, his piety or his good sense to the
man next to him, by certifying his belief in the knight s
words.
Miriamne, half unconscious of her surroundings, ex
claimed :
" Oh, will not some one tell me how to begin ? "
"Can I aid my Miriamne ? " asked her lover.
"I don t know; perhaps. But that Grail Knight
with the silver tongue sees, in his soul, what I would
reach. When he speaks my feet take wings. I can
not tell you what or how it all is. He speaks and I
see, as Moses in the mount, the outline of the taber
nacle of God that is to be with men."
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 o\vn."
]N uneventful year passed over the mission-
ers, 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 Cor
nelius 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
Memorials at Bozrah. 511
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 house
hold 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 dis
consolate, 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 mis
sionary pastor s wife. Her husband was a " man of
5 1 2 The Queen of the House of David.
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 his
tories 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, begin
ning 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 Chris
tians 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 unquestion
ing love, and thus was well indorsed the choiceness of
his ministerings. Miriamne beheld these manifesta
tions 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.
Memorials at Bozrah. 5 1 3
I m following him, may he follow it, and God guide
both."
After a time Cornelius and Miriamne made a pil
grimage 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 di
lapidated, 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 congrega
tion was rent by schisms.
One chapel service sufficed both Miriamne and Cor
nelius. 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 1
never did before."
"Are you not sorrowed at his absence, Miriamne?"
" Sorrowed ! Truly not ; but unspeakably glad that
514 The Queen of the riousc of David.
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 trem
bling 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 eter
nity 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 hus
band 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 ped
estal the names of your dead, or some explanation."
"Names? What matter, to the stranger passing,
Memorials at Bozrah. 5 * !>
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 applica
tion ? "
" Remember that my mother, in her almost solitary
grief, held her dead children for a time against her bro
ken heart, but it was a heart filled with a mother-love
which never faltered. There is nothing in love sur