“Seraph of heaven; too gentle to be human, Veiled beneath the radiant form of woman.
Sweet benediction of the eternal curse;
Veiled glory of the lampless universe!
Thou moon beyond the clouds, thou living form;
Thou wonder and thou Beauty——
Thou harmony of nature’s art.”
—Shelley.
 
“Take that one hour at Bethlehem out of human history, and eighteen centuries of hours are left but partially explained.”—Prof. Newman Smyth.
 
“What so engages thee, daughter?” questioned Rizpah, as they sat together at evening in the old stone house.
 
“I’m reading the story of a lovely orphan girl. I wish I were, in heart, as lovely as she.”
 
“Was she a white citadel, pure and strong?”
 
“Peerless, indeed; the very queen of women, I think.”
 
“Oh, then thou must be reading of glorious Rizpah? Now fill me with this matter! I thirst to hear.”
 
Miriamne, though fearful of further exposing her thoughts and study, obeyed, knowing full well that nothing would so stimulate her mother’s curiosity as attempted evasion.
 
“I’ve been reading of the orphan girl’s marriage. Shall I go back, or continue from that period? Her[294] name was Mary, and she was a Jewess; that’s the sum of the beginning.”
 
“Go forward,” sententiously replied the elder.
 
Miriamne complied:
 
“The guardians and relatives of Mary determined that she should early wed some proper person to be her protector, and so, according to Jewish custom, they went about the selection of a husband for her as soon as she had reached her fourteenth year. This selection was deemed a pious and serious duty by all the participants therein; therefore it was made by an appeal to the Lord with lots. Zacharias, the presiding priest, managed the proceeding, as follows: He first inquired God’s will in prayer. An angel brought reply, saying: ‘Go forth; call together all the widowers among the people, and let each bring his rod.’
 
“In truth here is refreshment! If all weddings were contrived under the wisdom of older heads, there would be fewer mad marriages.” Rizpah swayed back and forth as she spoke. She was remembering, now, the curse of Harrimai that day in Gerash, long years before. She thought him a monster then, but now she was enshrining him in mind by the Angel of the Lots.
 
“Shall I go on, mother?”
 
“Go on.”
 
“He to whom the Lord shall show a sign, let him be husband of Mary,” read Miriamne.
 
“Ah, the Lord would not trust the youths to draw! He knows that a man is like to harass the life out of one woman before he learns to care for another rightly. God was good to Mary in hedging her in to a widower if needs be that she must marry.”
 
Rizpah did not sway back and forth now; she sat erect and laughed bitterly.
 
By Raphael.
 
THE MARRIAGE OF MARY AND JOSEPH.
 
[295]
 
Miriamne continued:
 
“There were many splendid youths who rejoiced to be permitted to bring their wands.”
 
“Oh, ho! then they were suffered to draw for the girl? But what matter—the Angel of Lots presided! He’d not let the youths succeed!” Again Rizpah laughed, and as mockingly as before.
 
Miriamne again read:
 
“After prayer each deposited his almond tree with the aged Temple priest. In the early morning they anxiously sought the verdict. It was found that all the rods were dead, except that of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Mathan; but his blossomed as that which, ages before, confirmed miraculously the priesthood of Aaron’s sons. Then there appeared another miracle, for as Joseph reached forth his hand to take his blooming branch, there issued from among its luxurious blossoms, miraculously, a white dove, dazzling as snow. For a moment the dove gracefully suspended itself in the air, turning its eyes from one to another of the competitors; then it alighted on Joseph’s head. ‘Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgin and keep her for the Lord,’ said the priest, solemnly, to Joseph. All the rivals responded ‘Amen,’ and then the dove flew away toward heaven. Joseph was thirty-three years old, of pleasing countenance, very modest, graceful, and of comely figure, and a widower.
 
“When all was told to Mary she modestly replied: ‘I knew it, for the Lord has been with me.’ Zacharias told Mary that Joseph was a true, honest Jew, a carpenter by trade, and trained by a father who fully believed the adage of Rabbins, which said that ‘He who would not make his son a robber makes him a mechanic.’ ‘Besides this,’ said the Temple priest, ‘thy espoused one is like thyself, of the royal house of David. The blood of twenty kings mingle in the veins of you both. God grant that to that house of David there soon be born another, greater than all before, to deliver our holy nation from foreign masters.’ Mary made no reply, but as a blush of hopefulness passed over her face, she looked very earnestly toward heaven and[296] seemed to be repeating the prayer of the priest to the All Father. The formal betrothal then took place. Joseph presented his chosen bride a small token of silver, saying: ‘If thou consentest to be my bride, accept this.’ She took it, smiling affectionately, and then the witnesses signed the usual Jewish compact, which read as follows:
 
“‘I Joseph, said to Mary, daughter of Jehoikim, become my wife under the law of Moses and Israel. I promise to honor thee; to provide for thy support; thy food and thy clothing; according to the custom of Hebrew husbands, who honor their wives, as is befitting. I give thee at once thy dowry and promise thee besides nourishment, and clothing, and whatsoever shall be necessary for thee, also conjugal friendship, a thing common to all nations of the world. Mary consents to become the wife of Joseph,’ The two signed the document.”
 
“See Miriamne, the Jews were wise; they made the husbands do most of the promising. They knew that the wives would be all wifely without such pledging.” And Rizpah again bitterly laughed.
 
“Shall I proceed?”
 
“Yes, oh, proceed; it’s a Jewish poem.”
 
“Thereupon Joseph placed a jeweled ring upon Mary’s fourth finger, with a smile and a blush, saying, the ‘physicians say, my beloved, that a nerve and a vein, reaching the heart together, lay close to the surface of that finger.’ And she understood and was happy. A benediction was pronounced, and then the espoused pair were ready to depart to Joseph’s house. He was to be the guardian of the maiden from that hour forth. The hereditary servants of the families took up the line of march, bearing flaming torches; immediately after these followed a procession of women, richly garbed and wearing golden tiaras and pearl bedecked girdles. Behind these attendants of the virgin, followed a goodly company of dexterous musicians and singers, discoursing rapturously the significant canticles of Solomon. As the latter went on from time to time they broke out of the line of march and disported themselves in the eastern star-dance, saying as they did so, to one another, ‘the morning stars sang at creation; the dawn of a new home coming by[297] love, is next to creation the most joyous of all events.’ So the dancers went on, and as they rejoiced in poetic motions, they thought of the stars which yet tremble as if with the thrilling of that first delight they shouted. Of all, the sweet orphan girl now companioned was the center. She was bedecked with costly jewels, the glad tributes of those that loved her; over her was the significant veil, and, so beneath the wedding canopy, she entered Nazareth to be a wife. Her sky had become very bright, for hers was a heart that took exquisite joy from the honeyed petals of affection’s flower. No bride ever more fully entered into that supreme state, the all exalting, entrancing, expanding, thrilling period of new married life. She went forward in the proud consciousness that her weakness had overcome a giant, and that while she lead a royal captive, she was supremely happy in her utter bestowal of her all upon the one only man now became almost next to God in the temple of her soul.”
 
Miriamne paused, and Rizpah wept a little.
 
“Shall I go on or pause, mother?”
 
“Go on, dear.”
 
“But you weep, are you ill?”
 
“Oh, no, except in memory. This is sweet sorrow, that beats us back and forth; contrasting dark endings with bright beginnings; heaven high hopings with black disappointments, and happy lives with our own, all interwoven with miseries. I walked once in the sweet illusions of bridal days, but an utter widowhood came before death called. That’s the worst bereavement.”
 
“But some marriages are all happiness, are they not?” queried the daughter.
 
“Some, but not many. That’s the rule. Most of them begin well enough, but wedded mates are not as wisely tender as lovers; they too soon entomb all their joys in graves of selfishness and lust. So then the dove flies from the blossom of espousal never to return.”
 
[298]
 
“Perhaps, such as they did not love enough to begin with and so separated?”
 
“Some who would die for each other before marriage, would die to be quit of each other, after. Hence the brood of suicides, and that blackest crime of all, murder, which often raises its treacherous, cruel head within the marriage chamber.”
 
“How comes this error, trouble, horror?”
 
“In wedding bodies, without consents or courtings of the souls, if those, who, though mismated, happen to join lives, were only wise, they might yet be happy, growing together. But read more daughter.”
 
“In the fullness of time, the angel Gabriel, known amid the Seraphim as God’s champion, the chosen of Jehovah and His messenger of comfort and sympathy from heaven to man, was commissioned to carry the glorious news to earth. He spread his rainbow pinions, and with his own radiance to lighten his course, passed from the confines of the august court of the Divine Presence, the companionship of his fellow archangels, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, to go out across the planet-lightened realms of everlasting space. His course was watched with throbbing interest by the spirits of mercy appointed for ministering to man. Gabriel sped on, with sweeps of power which almost devoured distances, nor paused to bask for a moment in the many-colored lights of the golden and silvery shielded planets or constellations that he passed in his rapid flight. The wheeling suns and rushing worlds, marching and charging along the shoreless oceans of eternal space, had no splendors nor powers with which to challenge his high mission; though theirs was grand, his was grander. He traveled at love’s behest, on mercy’s work, to carry to this little earth, rolling along, mostly in shadows, the mandate of glory, the news of heaven’s great saving device. He bore proclamation in its substance and its realizations forever the manifold wisdom of God; the wonder of all who know to think or reason. And so that voyage passed into the pages of history and the records of eternity as well.
 
[299]
 
“Mary, whom Gabriel sought, was engaged in evening prayer as was her wont, with her face toward Jerusalem’s Temple.”
 
Miriamne paused; she perceived that she had arrived at a part of the manuscript which Father Adolphus had marked with a red line to remind her it was from his Christian Bible. She feared to read this portion to her mother.
 
“Read on, daughter, the words are precious; they are as songs in the night to my soul.”
 
Miriamne continued:
 
“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
 
“To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
 
“And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail! thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
 
“And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
 
“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God.
 
“And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.”
 
Miriamne read the last word “Joshua.”
 
She proceeded:
 
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
 
“And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
 
[300]
 
“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
 
“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
 
“Hold! hold!” cried Rizpah. “What is this? the faith of the Nazarene?”
 
Miriamne was awed. She feared she had proceeded too far; but quickly remembering an explanation of Father Adolphus, replied: “Be content, mother, I read but that that appears in our holy prophets, Isaiah, the poetic and vehement; his words you so much prize have here an echo.”
 
Rizpah gazed at her daughter, with a puzzled, questioning expression for a moment, and then sententiously said, “Read on.” She was alert, though severe. Her curiosity was ruling, but her prudence was conserved, at least in her own mind. The daughter was anxious, but could not retreat; she knew she must read further or make a futile effort to explain her reluctance. The two were a study; each afraid of the other: each anxious to aid the other to truth; both on guard, and, while professing to be all love for each other, attempting to move forward to a fuller fellowship by indirection. The outlines of the cross were appearing in that household, and never was there to be complete accord until there it ruled all hearts.
 
Miriamne continued to read, but confined herself chiefly to notes made by the old priest on the margin of her manuscript.
 
[301]
 
“Presently Joseph, the affianced husband of Mary, discovered that his beloved was to become a mother. At first the discovery was like a dagger in his heart, for as yet the marriage had not been consummated. It was a crisis of great import and trial to husband and wife. Joseph, though now a plain man and a mechanic, carried in his veins the noblest blood of his race, being descendant of the ancient kings and in the line of Solomon and David. Besides that, he had all the abhorrence of the better Jews for adultery, that their awful law of death as its penalty, implied.”
 
“Did he help the mob to stone her?” cried Rizpah.
 
Miriamne was startled by her mother’s angry earnestness.
 
“Oh! we’ll see.”
 
She continued reading:
 
“He met his affianced in the evening on her return from Hebron’s rosy hills, whither she had gone to visit her kinswoman, the mother of John, by name Elizabeth. The interview of those two noble women had prepared Mary to tell her betrothed all that troubled and rejoiced her. When her espoused met her privately and for the last time, as he intended, he found her sweetly, serenely singing, as was her wont, a Davidic psalm. He was at first astonished, not knowing how she could be so happy under such stigma as seemed to rest upon her. His patrician blood was roused, and for a moment he was ready to denounce her to the Sanhedrim as an adulteress. Then he looked at her, pitifully, questioningly. It could not be, he meditated, that one so young could be so depraved as to sing God praises, being a criminal. She must be insane! He tore himself from her presence, but instantly returned when she called out: ‘Joseph, God knows all; touch not His anointed.’
 
“‘Woman!’ he cried ‘explain! explain! Thy seeming sin hangs scorpions over my eyes, and turns my heart to ashes. Thy calmness is a wonderme............