schooling."
Just then the clouds broke away and the moonlight
fell full upon the monument. It was a shaft, termi
nating in a crucifix ; by its side were two forms, one
that of St. John, with face turned toward the figure of
the dying Savior; the other that of a woman kneeling,
her face buried in her hands. On the base of the
cross was the brief sentence : " Behold thy mother."
As the youth gazed on the farewell charge of Jesus to
John, when He commended to the care of that beloved
disciple His sorrowing mother, he started. It seemed
as if the words had grown out of the marble suddenly
while he was gazing, and for himself only. He felt as
if he could almost embrace the stone.
The two men were silent and heart full. After a long
time, they simultaneously turned away toward Beth
any. They came to a turn in the road that would shut
out all view of the garden of sorrow, and the elder
paused, loath to leave the place where his heart was
buried.
Presently he spoke again, as if unconscious of any
other being with him : " Oh, Miriamne, I failed to
carry out the work thou left st me ! How could I,
alone? I was but half a man without thee, my other
self ! Miriamne, Miriamne, I can be only nothing when
I can not be with thee." Then the old man lifted his
A Cojfin Full of Flowers i etc. 623
hands as m benediction or embrace, and continued:
" Farewell, a last farewell, sweet, white soul, until upon
the tearless, healing shores of light I say good morn
ing !"
There was a mighty pathos in the display of this
old, ripe, strong grief, which lived on a love that could
not die. The man was a study. He was of fine fibre,
almost effeminate, never firm, except in his affection
for that one woman. That was the one strong trend,
the one anchorage of his life. He need not study the
man far, who strove to know him, to discover that this
tenacity was not natural to him always. It had been
a growth under the influence of the peerless wife.
" Shall we go on ? " after a little asked the son. With
a shudder and a suppressed sob the elder moved on,
but with laggard step, which soon paused. Just now,
the moon being beclouded, it was very dark about
them, and the father reached out his hand and drew
the youth to his embrace. He whispered: "Winfred,
son of Miriamne, you bear her image in your face, bear
it ever in heart, as well. I m glad you re not so like
me." The son tried to speak, but the elder interrupted :
" You ll ere long be fatherless as well as motherless,
but take your mother for your guiding-star. You
know what your birth cost her. By her death you
obtained life, as by the Christ s, immortality. She
saved others, she could not sav 2 herself ; but if you re
true to her memory she ll have a mother s immortality,
that life that lives in the life of her child."
*******
Let us gather up the last threads of our story. After
the death of Miriamne, the "Sisters of Bethany soon
ceased to congregate at the " House of Bethesda," in
624 The Queen of the House of David.
the city on Olivet. Cornelius Woelfkin attempted for
a time to carry forward the work of the mission, but,
utterly miserable himself, he did not know how tc
bestow comfort on others ; a man, without the intimate
companionship of the woman who had been his in-
spirer, he had no discernment of the needs of woman,
nor power to interpret the truths that were in the Book
or in nature, those garners of manna.
The Hospitaler was sent for as an aid. He came
but once, and then spoke as kindly as he could to the
women of Bethany and Jerusalem, and took his fare
well of them all, in closing words like these :
" The blessed Miriamne, child of Jesus, and emula
tor of Mary, has passed away, but Christ her Comforter
and Savior may be such to each of you, that will.
Mary s example, as the inspiration of all women, can
never die. The world has been a battle-ground, and
each of you can here see over the whole field of con
flict. Shall all pleasures be found under the leader
ship of Bacchus and Venus, or in Him that is the God
of Joy? Shall woman echo the passions of man or the
Magnificat of Mary? Shall the strength that man
seeks be that of the giants, brute force ; the strength
of woman be, in her youth the bewitchings of personal
beauty, in old age the cunning of the witch-hag? Shall
it not rather be in the girdle of her moral worth ?
"The world needs to seek and find love, beauty and
light. Some go after it, vainly, as did the Egyptian
devotees of Phallic Khem ; to whom, with pitiful incon
gruity, were offered rampant goats and bulls, decorated
with most delicate flowers. They called Khem the
*God of births/ the beautiful God, but we know to
A Coffin Full of Flowers, etc. 625
put mothers on the throne as the beautiful ; their
flowers, their jewels, their glories being their off spring !
Women of Jerusalem, never forget the Savior s own
words to the women that envied His mother, crying
that the one that bore Him and nursed Him was there
fore peculiarly blessed ! His reply was : YEA, RATHER
BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HEAR THE WORD OF GOD
AND KEEP IT.
Then the Hospitaler, bending his eyes upon the pale-
aced, widowed missioner, continued : " I ll tell thee a
tradition of our Lord s mother. Doubting Thomas,
laggard because doubting, came late to the burial-place
of Mary. He begged to have her coffin opened, that
once more he might gaze on the face of his Savior s
mother. It was done. But there seemed to be noth
ing in that coffin except lilies and roses, luxuriously
blooming. Then, looking up, he saw the spirit of the
woman soaring heavenward in a glory of light. But
as she soared, she threw down to him her girdle.
Here is a beautiful parable. The graves of the holy
are to memory full of the ever-blooming roses of love
and the lilies of purity. If we may not have them we
loved with us always, we may have the virtues with
which they engirdled themselves, for our conflicts."
The Hospitaler paused, cast a glance of yearning
tenderness upon the assembled women and the heart-
stricken Cornelius ; then exclaimed :
" Long partings are painful. Farewell!" He glided
away ere any could clasp his hand. Not long after this
event the Sheik of Jerusalem, Azrael s putative son,
raided Bethany, razing the " Temple of Allegory " to the
earth. He was maddened because, after the disappear
ance of the Hospitaler, there came to him no stipend to
626 The Queen of the House of David.
buy immunity for the " Bethesda House" of the "Sisters
of Bethany." He despoiled it, hoping to find a treas
ure therein, but though there was in and about the
place a great wealth, it was all beyond his grasp or ken,
for he knew naught of the worth or power of precious
truths and precious memories. Cornelius, after this,
taking his infant son, soon departed from Syria. His
dream of evangelizing the world and the great designs
) Miriamne faded from his hopes, as the vision of uni
versal emoire has faded often from the hopes of dying
Conquerors. For years he devoted himself to being
father and mother to his child. At last we behold him,
as in the foregoing pages, looking toward sunset.
He stands finally in Bethany, his dismantled home and
Miriamne s ruined temple not far away, her tomb close
at hand, himself like the fragment of a wreck; alto
gether presenting a sad, dramatic tableau. He stands
there as the last of the new " Grail Knights," the last of
those who in his time were devoted to the new grai 1
quest. It was Saturnalia-time, and it was night.
"VIRGIN AND MOTHER OF OUR DEAR REDEEMER
******
" IF OUR FAITH HAD GIVEN Us NOTHING MORI
THAN THIS EXAMPLE OF ALL WOMANHOOD,
1 So MILD, so STRONG, so GOOD,
So PATIENT, PEACEFUL, LOYAL, LOVING, PURE,
THIS WERE ENOUGH TO PROVE IT HIGHER AN/"
TRUER
1 THAN ALL THE CREEDS THE WORLD HAD KNOWN
BEFORE."
HENRY W, LONGFELLOW.
JUL 1 1985
DATE DUE
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