“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 own.”
 
An uneventful year passed over the missioners, 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 Cornelius 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[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 household 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 disconsolate, 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 missionary pastor’s wife. Her husband was a “man of[512] 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 histories 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, beginning 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 Christians 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 unquestioning love, and thus was well indorsed the choiceness of his ministerings. Miriamne beheld these manifestations 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.’[513] I’m following him, may he follow it, and God guide both.”
 
After a time Cornelius and Miriamne made a pilgrimage 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 dilapidated, 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 congregation was rent by schisms.
 
One chapel service sufficed both Miriamne and Cornelius. 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 I never did before.”
 
“Are you not sorrowed at his absence, Miriamne?”
 
“Sorrowed! Truly not; but unspeakably glad that[514] 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 trembling 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 eternity 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 husband 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! &rsq............