“Half-hearted, false-hearted! Heed we the warning! Only the whole can be perfectly true;
Bring the whole offering, all timid thought scorning,
True-hearted only if whole-hearted too.”
—Havergal.
 
Another Passover season was at hand, and the few Israelites in and about Bozrah, not being permitted to celebrate the feast, at Jerusalem were gathering for a “Little Passover” at the Giant City. There was sadness, murmurings and fears in the hearts of the people. Sadness in remembering the decadence of Israel; fears, for there were Mamelukes hovering threateningly in large numbers near the city; murmurings, because fault-findings, the last stage to indifference, flourish when religion is decaying. Faith and doubt waged their eternal battle; and at Bozrah, doubt appealing to present facts, had the easier part against faith, appealing to past providences or unseen hopes. There was clamor for a change, but the leaders of the people were purblind to any new light. They crushed their own secret doubts and continued to enforce what they believed, because they had believed it. They felt a sense of responsibility, and that made them very conservative. Before the sun had reached high-noon Bozrah[265] was all astir. There were but two principal streets in the city; these ran by the four great points of the compass and crossed at its center. Two companies of Jews of very different make-up, each moving along one of those streets, met, and, in passing, quite accidentally, the two processions formed a cross. One of the companies was made up of priests and serious old men, the true elders of the people. They tried to appear very wise and very pious, and succeeded. They tried as well to cheer and comfort all, and did not succeed very well. The other company was made up of young Israelitish men. They were going eastward; the old men walked northward, away from the sun, now a little more than southeast. By the side of the elders glided a row of shadows of their own making. But they were as unconscious of these as of the shadows their musty traditions flung over the people.
 
The youths felt like singing, so they sang. The sadness that was so general was not very deep with them. They would have liked to have sung a sort of convivial song; but, that being forbidden, they compromised with their consciences and the situation by singing the one hundred and twenty-second Psalm, with the vigor of a madrigal. They had a surplusage of vitality, and they let it flow out in the pious canticle. Certainly they conserved outward propriety; as to their inward feelings, they themselves hardly knew what they were; hence, it would be unjust, for one without, to pass judgment. The Psalm was appointed to be sung at this feast. They say the returning captives, coming from Babylon, centuries before, sang this song as they ascended to a sight of Jerusalem.
 
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Now, some of the elders had come to think it piety to morbidly nurse their sorrows. They were never happy except when they were miserable. One of these paused and addressed the young singers:
 
“Children, cease. Your time is too much like a dancer’s.”
 
Then all eyes turned toward the leader of the youths, a man with a Saul-like neck, large mouth, wet, thick lips, and burning eyes; all bespeaking a person who is never religious beyond the drawings of religious excitement, for excitement’s sake, and never self-restraining, except as checked by fear of a very material hell. Such an one, if he have any regularity in his piety, will have it because somebody opposes, or because, having swallowed, with one lazy gulp, a heavy creed, he thereafter goes about condoning by habit his petty vices, in trying to force others to be better than he himself ever expects to be. Such are never spiritual, and seldom martyrs; but they make good persecutors, and so do a work that compels others, by suffering, to be spiritual, and, may be, good martyrs. This leader made sharp retort, thrusting out his chin to enforce it:
 
“The Psalm is all right, and, if the old men sang more, they would have less time for moaning. Singing and moaning are much alike, only the former cheers men, the latter, devils!”
 
“Son,” replied the patriarch, “revile not the fathers. We do not condemn thy joy as sin; but yet it now seems inopportune. We are entering captivity, not liberation. Our holy and our beautiful temple is in ruins; our people like hunted quail.”
 
“But, this is feast time,” said the youth.
 
“What a feast! I remember it as it was when the[267] nation gathered at Jerusalem, to the number of nigh 3,000,000, and offered 250,000 lambs. Ah, now, a handful, in this grim old city surrounded by aliens!”
 
The elder, so speaking, bowed his head, threw his mantle over his eyes and wept; meanwhile his fellow-elders gathered about him, very reverently, and waved their hands rebuking toward the youths. Just then there drew near a beautiful Jewess, led by an aged man, the latter garbed partly as an Israelite, and partly as one of the Druses. He had a saintly mien, and fixed the attention of the elders; but, the young men, with one accord, youth-like, at once erected, in silent worship, an unseen altar of devotion to the new goddess. The grouping was striking and suggestive. The stranger was silent, and seemed to be intent on passing by so; but the elders felt their responsibility. It is the fate of the religious leader to be expected to explain every thing. He must talk to every body, and about every matter. He cannot, when he will, keep quiet and so get the credit for fullness of wisdom, as do some. He must express an opinion, for silence is deemed a greater sin in such than insincerity or words out of ignorance. The foremost of the elders felt called to act, and so confronting the two new comers, sternly addressed the maiden:
 
“I perceive that thou art of my people; wherefore comest thou here, and in this companionship? Knowest thou not that women are forbidden to be at the first of the feast?”
 
The young men were not in accord with the elder; they stood apart, and some whispered to others:
 
“It is Miriamne de Griffin.”
 
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The maiden shrank back a little; but the saintly man with her, advancing a step, replied:
 
“I am the maiden’s guardian to-day, fathers, and responsible for her act. Say on!”
 
The elder, though knowing full well who the speaker was, and also fully understanding the import of his challenge, pretended to have neither heard nor seen him. He looked past the speaker, who was championing the maiden, and continued:
 
“Do thy people at home know of these indiscreet acts?”
 
“Hold, Rabbi! no insinuations.” The saintly man’s voice was commanding, and compelled silence. He continued: “We go our way, ye yours. Ye can not help yourselves out of your miseries; then presume not to direct us.” He checked his rising anger, remembering that he was a religious teacher, and launched out in a wayside sermon. “Ye children of Abraham, hear me, though I came not to counsel. Ye have stopped my progress, now hear God’s truth! There are dangers without, but greater ones within; though your eyes, being veiled, ye perceive not these things. I noticed as I was coming this way that the tombs and grave-stones every where have been whitened recently. They tell me this was done so as to enable your people plainly to see them and so avoid them. Yet fleeing defilement of the dead, ye live in a grave, all of you. All your prefiguring feasts have ripened into a glowing present that treads out into a full day!”
 
The old men seemed puzzled and angry; the young men puzzled but glad. They welcomed any sermon if it came with novelty. They reasoned within themselves[269] that the old teachings were dead, and that a new creed could be no worse. If it were novel, it would have at least a temporary freshness.
 
The speaker proceeded, for the congregation before him, being divided in sentiment, invited him, so far, to proceed.
 
“Oh, nation, called to be the light of the world, ye bear but phantom torches. Ye move sorrowfully, surrounded by walls of cloud, but just beyond there lies a glorious firmament, aglow with suns of hope and a thousand golden-arched doors made of realized prophecies and promises ripened. Can ye make these ruined habitations of mighty men, now sleeping in the cliffs and valleys about us, again teem with their former life? No, no! yet less readily can ye make your dead, finished, vanishing types take new life. Ye are puzzled and partially angry, but hold in check the hot blood. I’ll soon depart; yet before I go, I’ll tell ye, all, this for your deepest thinking: Ye can never celebrate again the Passover! God shut ye from your Temple long ago to teach you this; these traveling ceremonials of yours are but mockeries. The last real passover was celebrated when your fathers slew the Nazarene——”
 
“Let us stone him!” vehemently cried the brawny leader of the youths, and the elders turned their backs, as if to give approval to the violence, but not incur liability by witnessing.
 
The brawny youth seized a boulder as if to begin; the saintly man did not move, and another youth seized the arm of the youth of brawn.
 
“Young men, I’ll show you an entrancing picture,” was the saintly man’s calm words. They were instantly[270] intent. “Look, you and your old men make the sign of the cross by your ranks. Look again, by the cross stands this damsel, simple, pure and loving; an ideal woman. Her name, Miriamne, or Mary. Do not delude yourselves into the belief that it will be safe or possible for you to silence truth by murdering me. I’d despise your attempt if I did not pity your thoughtless rage. Do not forget the picture of this hour. The Passover will be fully celebrated when the power of the cross and the presence of purity is universally felt in earth. Only your men attend this your sacrifice. It is well; and when men truly bear the burden of sacrifice, women will be at their feast. Now, then, take heed. Farewell, ancients!”
 
So saying the saintly man of strange garb suddenly turned away, drawing the Jewess with him. The elders were confounded; they could not find words at the moment for reply; they were stung by the pleased and approving glances that the young men gave the departing couple. The elders would have been pleased to have taken the Jewish maiden from her escort with violence, but the latter was a brawny man. The elders knew the youths would not aid; to attempt it themselves would be likely to be a failure, certainly undignified. They deemed it wise, in any event, to conserve their dignity, and being unable to do any thing more terrific, they hissed an orthodox malediction after the departing man and woman. That made the elders feel a little better. The two companies at the crossing of the streets fell to musing and conversing, but in different groups. The old men talked as old men, deploring the present and be-praising the past; the youths[271] deplored the present and be-praised the future; some of them trying to interpret the words of the saintly man. They all wanted to be very orthodox Jews, and yet they all felt that the stranger’s words were full of sweetness and good cheer. Some of the youths, like others of their age, had unconsciously sided with the strangers on account of the woman’s influence. They admired her, and the side she was on was charmingly invincible.
 
“The Arabs are coming!”
 
It was a cry starting up from all directions, and passed from lip to lip like the tidings of fire at night. The city was soon in confusion and panic; then mixed crowds surged toward the crossing of the streets like terrified sheep. They needed leaders or shepherds. But the elders so lavish in advice usually, were dumb with fright now. Yet every body looked toward them for direction. Suddenly, the saintly man and the Jewess reappeared; as suddenly transformed to a self-reliant leader, she cried out: “Youths of Israel, to the defense; the enemy come in by the wall toward the Sun Temple’s ruins!”
 
“Perhaps it’s the ‘Angel of Death,’” cried the thick-necked leader of the youths.
 
“The All-Father of the covenant forefend!” groaned some of the elders.
 
“Fathers,” cried the Jewess, “pray as you can, but we younger ones must fight as well as pray. Pray the men to go to a charge!”
 
“A Deborah!” shouted the thick-necked youth. “Now lead and we’ll follow!”
 
“Shame!” cried the saintly man. “Lead yourselves!”
 
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There was no need of argument; the thick-necked youth waved his hand to the other young men and they all dashed away toward the advance of the enemy; all of the city having a mind to fight, becoming instant volunteers. But the elders, with a piety enforced by prudence concluded to stay at the crossing and pray. Perhaps in their hearts they reasoned that if the enemy were repulsed they might claim the glory of having sustained the fighters, as Aarons and Hurs; if the youths and their followers were overcome, then they, the elders, might claim prescience and say at the end: “We knew it were vain to resist.”
 
Soon there were heard the shouts and clangor of conflict. The fight was on. Miriamne breathlessly carried the news to her mother.
 
The matron laid her hand on her bosom, not to still a fluttering heart, but affectionately to toy with the handle of her faithful dagger.
 
“Oh, mother, when will these troublous times end? what shall we do?”
 
“Daughter, fight! if need be.”
 
“But we are only women!”
 
“But this is woman’s time; remember Sisera!” Rizpah began dressing for departure.
 
“Oh, mother, wait! Let us send the boys for news into the city. Perhaps the worst has not come, when the mothers must take arms.”
 
Rizpah silently assented. The boys were sent, and in half an hour returned with hot and beaming faces. “The Mamelukes are all slung out of the city! Lots of them killed,” both exclaimed, between their pantings.
 
“How brothers: is it all over?”
 
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“Yes, all over! They’re gone! Oh, you ought to have seen how our young men and the Druses raced them,” interposed one.
 
“If it hadn’t been for the Druses we’d all been murdered!” cried the other. Then the brothers caught up the narrative in turn.
 
“And, Miriamne, some of the young soldier-like men, after the fight, went about shouting ‘cheers ............