“Behold thy mother!”—Jesus to John.  
Two travelers journeyed slowly along Mount Olivet, pausing anon to observe the flower-dells between them and Mount Zion, or to contemplate the wilder prospects where the wilderness of Judea edged close up to the hills they traversed. As the travelers passed, the natives looked after them with curiosity; for the garments of the former, though dust-covered, were those of personages above the ranks of the common people; also of a fashion that betokened them strangers in that vicinity.
 
One of these men was a youth, stalwart and comely; the other was gray-haired and bent as if by the weight of years, though a closer view suggested premature blasting, rather than senile decline.
 
“Winfred, before entering Bethany, we’ll to the ‘Hill of Solomon,’ the site of Chemosh, the black image of the Roman Saturn.”
 
Thereupon the twain turned away from the village and soon came upon a company of revelers, each wearing a crown of autumn fruits, and all gathered about a platform crowded with hilarious dancers.
 
[619]
 
“Saturnalia!” exclaimed the elder.
 
“The worship of Saturn ceased ages ago, did it not?”
 
“Of the image, yes; but the folly, little changed, continues.”
 
“This is strange enough; and yet it’s a relief to meet a few happy people in this land of solemn faces; even if those happy ones do joy like fools.”
 
“They celebrate the passing of summer-heat and the coming of the rains of autumn. Say not fools; they are trying to be glad about something good, somehow coming from some one somewhere above them. Perhaps God can resolve scraps of thanksgiving out of it all.”
 
“Theirs is the laughter of wine! the laughter of the goat-god, Pan, whose face scared his mother and whose voice scared the gods!”
 
“We’ve a persistent custom here, son; and men do not play the fool for generations after one manner, at least, without cause.
 
“These attempt to press into the court of Pleasure to cajole her; all men do that; these have chosen merely an old way. They cling to the myth of Saturn, the subduer of the Titan of fiction. They say that deity, dethroned in the god-world, fled to Italy, where he gave happiness and plenty through life, and the freedom of air and earth after death, which latter he made to be only a little sleep.”
 
“That was not more than a mock golden-age; it never came, I think.”
 
“But very alluring to those that long for it; they dance half-naked, typifying the primitive times when men had fewer cares, because fewer wants.”
 
[620]
 
“Can one laugh hard fates out of countenance, and make his troubles run with a guffaw?”
 
“The devotees of Saturn were wont to offer their children in his altar-fires, and so ever more it happens; he that bends to the materialistic solely, kindles altar-fires for his posterity.”
 
“After to-day what comes to these, peace?”
 
“Nay, a year all dark and colorless; then another spasm called a feast—a brief lightning-flash revealing the darkness.”
 
“And so the years come and go; one generation of madmen, then another; death the only variety?”
 
“Nay! I’d have you look upon pleasure of sense deified, taking its pleasures under the shadows of Chemosh, for a purpose. You remember we read together, under the palms at Babylon, how the holy Daniel saw in vision the four winds of heaven striving on the sea?”
 
“I remember the prophet’s reverie or revel.”
 
“The four winds and the sea! the meaning, opened, is conflict on every hand on earth! Out of the follies and turmoils David’s White Kingdom will emerge at last. Listen to the words of the inspired seer:
 
“‘Behold one like the Son of Man! There was given Him a dominion and a glory that all people should serve Him; an everlasting dominion!’
 
“It is coming; my poor faith, amid the conflicts and revels of man, hears the voice of God crying through the night, as in Eden’s dark hour: ‘Where art thou?’ My last lesson to my son awaits us at Bethany; let’s be going.”
 
Ere long Cornelius Woelfkin and his son Winfred stood silently, and with uncovered heads, before, but[621] a little apart from, a stately marble shaft that rose up amid the olive trees of Gethsemane. It was night, and they were alone. The father motioned the son back, and alone glided under the shadowing trees, toward the pillar. There the elder one threw himself down on the earth, close beside the monument; the youth, deeply moved, but unwilling to intrude upon the scene of sacred, silent grief, stood aloof. In a small way, there was a repetition of the grief of the Man of Sorrows, who there, ages before, yearned in His humanity over a lost world, over those from whom His heart was soon to part for life. To be sure, the cross of Cornelius Woelfkin was infinitely less galling, less heavy than that borne by his Master; and yet it was as heavy as he could bear, and hence the pitifulness of his grief.
 
Who can lift the curtain from his thoughts? The years roll back and memory’s pictures pass through his brain, at first in joyful train. The lovers in London; the betrothal at sea; the wedding at Jerusalem; the ecstatic consummation in years of marriage. Then the painful, almost awful separation by death, that never to be forgotten Christmas time. And then, twenty years with leaden feet carrying the lone-hearted man so painfully slow toward death’s portals, for which he longed with unutterable yearning. “Oh, Miriamne, Miriamne, let me come,” he cried. The youth, hearing the agonized utterings, was instantly by his father’s side. But the old man, still oblivious to all but his sorrow and his memories, moaned on with deepening fervor.
 
“Father,” called out the son. The father rose to his feet and calmly said: “My boy, pity me. I’m weak.[622] But oh, you never knew what it is to have your life sawn in twain and be compelled then to drag your half and lacerated being along the over-clouded vales of an undesired existence!”
 
“My mother’s tomb?”
 
“Yes. I promised, as my last service to you, to bring you to it. Its study shall be the finish of your schooling.”
 
Just then the clouds broke away and the moonlight fell full upon the monument. It was a shaft, terminating 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 co............