“My good blade carves the casques of men; My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
Sometimes on lonely mountain meres;
I find a magic bark,
I leap on board, no helmsman steers,
I float ’till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light!
Three angels bear the Holy Grail,
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
So pass I hostel, hall and grange;
By hedge, and fort, by park and pale,
All armed I ride, what e’er betide,
Until I find the Holy Grail.”
—Tennyson.
 
“Moreover certain women of our company amazed us, having been early at the tomb.”
 
Another Easter, to some the brightest yet, smiled in Bozrah, and Miriamne was at the Christian Chapel.
 
Father Adolphus, after serious, tender greeting, questioned:
 
“I wonder thy father came not to-day?”
 
“Oh, he’s celebrating the resurrection of love, joy,[485] and peace, at home. You often told me these were the realities of Christ’s rising.”
 
“Thy joy in this must reach all fullness?”
 
“I don’t know, I’m in a strange way—very happy, yet very restless.”
 
“I have seen souls before at their noon; hast thou not observed how the air seems to tremble sometimes at midday? This is not fear but fullness.”
 
“Oh, my shepherd, I’m not at noon yet, only dawn. I’ve only begun my work.”
 
“Has our missionary Cupid other couples at odds to reunite?”
 
“Perhaps so; but whether God calls me to such work or not, this much I know, He has put a burden on me.”
 
“Will Miriamne confide it to me—or has the lover dethroned the priest?”
 
“There now, never say that again! None on earth can dethrone in my heart my constant friend and guide; yea under God, my savior! Had there been no Father Adolphus there would have been no lover; at least no Christian Cornelius, as my heart’s lord.”
 
“I fear Miriamne in her generous desire to cheer a tired old man flatters.”
 
“No; not flattery, but just award. As the ancient captives on their return to their own Israel gave their wealth to provide crowns for their priests, so do I to-day offer the finest gold of my heart to the man who piloted me with purity, patience, and wisdom, along and over perilous ways, to happiness beyond all words to express.”
 
The old missionary’s face expressed the wondrous comfort he felt in the words of his convert.
 
[486]
 
“And what is it that burdens thee, daughter?”
 
“I hope my pastor will not be offended, but I’m burdened by the slow dawning of religious day. Why does it take so long to convert the earth?”
 
“The zeal of the young convert fills thee!”
 
“Ah, but that trite answer, defense of the slow progress of true or false creed, after all does not answer. I feel those Easter services at times lifting me up, out of and beyond myself, out of all thought of my own final glory, and to anxiety for a lost Israel, a lost world! I think, at times, I comprehend what was meant by the descent to the grave, the captivity of death, the triumphal ascent, and then I wonder and doubt.”
 
“Wonder and doubt?”
 
“Yes; I wonder at the grandeur of all that the resurrection implies, and seeing it unrealized I doubt whether my interpretation of it be the right one. Worse than that, I’m pained by darker doubts. Forgive me, but my poor soul sometimes questions whether or not God has grown weary or failed to keep His promises. Oh, these doubts pain me to my heart’s core, but they will come! I see day by day on every hand such widespread gloom; not only that very few walk in the light, but how many shadows fall on those who profess to have entered the light of the Rising?”
 
“Alas, day drags wearily!” slowly responded the priest.
 
“Yes; the centuries since Calvary, filled with misery, ignorance, and sin, seem to me to have rebuke in them to all who saw, from time to time, the Gospel light, and imperious urgency for those who see it now.”
 
“But the church is doing its best to get onward, Miriamne.”
 
[487]
 
“That I doubt, though I’d fear to be heretical.”
 
“Again, I do not comprehend thee, girl.”
 
“That’s it; I do not comprehend myself, or what it is that I’m stirred to be or do. I think that there’s a reason for sadness at Easter time. It is the reminder of a great hope unfulfilled. Over twelve hundred years have passed away since Christ arose, typical of the rising of mankind by faith to all that was noble and blissful, and yet we are all in the dim twilight of the morning. Oh, my teacher, it seems to me as if a funeral chord went weeping through every Easter anthem.”
 
The old priest sat silently for a time, then bowed his head and wearily sighed; “I have done my best any way!”
 
“Oh, do not think I doubt that! No, no; I’d not hint a rebuke of my noble guide; but I can’t make you understand me! Nobody seems to grasp my meaning! Yet of this I’m certain, I want to do something differing from what has been; something great, revolutionary, for the world, for Christ.”
 
“All reforms are revolutionary; all consecration to noble work, noble.”
 
“I suppose I express myself as vaguely as other Christians, whose efforts are chiefly words. But why is it that there can not be a presentment of Divine truth in such a simple and attractive form as to make all hearing and seeing love it? Why is it that the followers of truth separate into armies, not only not sympathizing with, but opposing each other? Why do not all having a common Father and one Saviour, join as one loving family to bear aloft the banner of the Invincible?”
 
[488]
 
“That day will come in God’s good time.”
 
“Oh, again forgive me; but that trite apology for the delayed dawn seems to me to fling the blame on God in order to palliate man’s indifference.”
 
“Miriamne, thou art thoughtful beyond thy years, but what wouldst thou have?”
 
“Some one to show me how, and when, and where to proclaim a revolution! There is need that Israel believe; that one half the race, its women, be crowned with its full privileges and powers; that Christian humanity check war, banish poverty and bring in universal justice.”
 
“Revolutionist, indeed; though a blessed one art thou!”
 
“So I’m often told; but who will show me how to work for such ends!”
 
“Hast thou among thy knightly companionships heard of the Grail knights?”
 
“I’ve heard of them; but not a great deal. Why ask?”
 
“Thou art like them.”
 
“I’m glad to know whom I’m like; tell me of them that I may know myself.”
 
“They, as their life work, and with charming enthusiasm, sought an object pure and noble, but which none but they themselves could see.”
 
“Did they obtain their object and do much good?”
 
“They were a blessing to the world; but sometimes, like others seeking lofty ends, they failed. Eternity alone can estimate their work and worth.”
 
“Where are they now?”
 
“Their successors are like thee. That grail guild of old is now no more.”
 
[489]
 
“Tell me all about them and the Grail!”
 
“Listen. Joseph of Arimath?a, he that secretly followed the Lord in his lifetime, and openly, after he saw the glory of His crucifixion, is said to have caught the blood that flowed from the speared side in the paschal vessel or cup used at the last supper. There is a cathedral in Glastonbury, England, which once I saw, erected on the place where Joseph builded a little wicker oratory, when there as a missionary. At least they say he once was there. The aged Joseph died and the Grail or Passion cup passed into the custody of other holy men. Finally a custodian of it sinned, and thereupon it was caught away quickly to heaven. But there is a legend that it is brought, from time to time, to earth, only to be seen by those that are pure—virgin men and women. Then out of the yearnings for the cup’s presence (for it is said it gave unutterable joy as well as miraculous healings to any that came nigh to it), an order of knights sprung up, to seek it, everywhere in earth. They were sworn not to disclose their mission, and bound, as their only hope of success, to keep their hearts noble and pure.”
 
“But how am I like a ‘grail knight?’”
 
“Miriamne pursues a heavenly cure for human ills, a something she cannot see nor quite explain.”
 
“’Tis true and wonderful.”
 
“The ‘grail’ story is almost as old as man, being shaped out of other most ancient pilgrim quests. All noble hearts yearn for a healer and ideal.”
 
“Perhaps the time has come for a woman crusade, a new order of grail seekers?”
 
“Indeed, I think as much; and Miriamne, taking Mary as her model, may be the very one to proclaim it.”
 
[490]
 
“But being a woman, and so young, I might be ridiculed as an enthusiast, as brazen, perhaps, or worse, if I attempted such things.”
 
“If thou didst undertake any thing truly good, thou wouldst best know its goodness by the bitterness of its opposing. The cross is very bright on one side, on the other it casts shadows. Walking toward it we walk in those chastening shadows. But when we’ve passed the grave, which it ever guards, there is light, all light—not before.”
 
“Sometimes I think I’m a very womanish woman and not the stuff of which the heroine can be made.”
 
“To be a woman is to have within thee a wealth of power. To be queenly is to do in queenly spirit the work falling to thy lot. Behold the queenly women of the patriarchs! Rebecca watered the flocks, Rachel was a shepherdess. The daughter of Jethro, King of Midian, also kept the flocks; and Tamar baked bread. The Word of God records these things, methinks, to show in what a queenly way a queenly woman may perform a seemingly unimportant work. Doing humble works well, they had their honor in due time. Think of our Mary, Mother of Jesus, after her call, serving humbly as a good housewife to a carpenter.”
 
“Oh, if I could only catch the flavor of her life more fully!&............