When Abishai re-entered the dwelling of Hadassah, he found her drawing forth, from a secret receptacle in the wall, a long roll of parchment, covered with writing in Hebrew characters within and without. The lady pressed it reverentially to her lips, and then resumed her seat, with the sacred roll laid across her knees. Abishai regarded with respect, almost amounting to awe, a woman to whom had been given the talent, wisdom, and courage to transcribe so large a portion of the oracles of God. He felt as Barak may have done towards Deborah, and stood leaning against the wall, listening with respectful attention to the words of this "Mother in Israel."
"These Scriptures, my son," said Hadassah, "have been my study by day, and my meditation by night; and most earnestly have I sought, with fasting and prayer, to penetrate some of their deep meaning in regard to Him that shall come. I am yet as a child in knowledge, but the All-wise may be pleased to reveal something even to a child. It has seemed to me of late that I have been permitted to trace one word, written as in gigantic shadows--now fainter--now deeper--on Nature, in History, on the Law, in the Prophets. That single word is SACRIFICE. Wherever I turn I see it; it seems to me as a law of being; yea, as the very essence of religion itself."
"I do not understand you," said Abishai; "how is the word Sacrifice written on Nature?"
"See we it not on all things around us?" replied Hadassah. "Does not the seed die that the corn may spring up; doth not the decaying leaf nourish the living plant; doth not one creature maintain its existence by the destruction of others? There is a mystery of suffering in this fair world, some stern necessity for what we call evil, though from it a merciful God is ever evolving good. These things distressed and perplexed me, till I could dimly trace that word Sacrifice as written by God's finger upon His works; death the parent of life, pain and sorrow--of joy!"
"The primeval curse is on Nature," observed the Hebrew.
"Linked with the primeval blessing," said Hadassah. "And now when I turn from natural objects to the history of our race, sacrifice and suffering are still ever before me. Isaac is devoted as a burnt-offering before he becomes the father of the chosen race; Joseph is sold for pieces of silver ere he can redeem his family from destruction; the storm is only stilled by Jonah's being cast out into the deep; Samson triumphs over the enemy by the sacrifice of his own life! All these historical facts seem to me as types, dim and shadowy indeed, yet legible to the eye of faith, and Sacrifice is the word which they form."
"Dim and shadowy," repeated Abishai, to whom Hadassah's views on the subject appeared somewhat fanciful and vague.
"If so in Nature and history," said the Hebrew lady, "the lines are clear and distinct enough in our holy law. Why have countless victims been offered, even from the time of the Fall? Why was the dying lamb of Abel more acceptable than the bloodless offering of Cain? Why have thousands of guiltless creatures been slain on the altar of God; nay, not upon His alone, even on altars of the heathen who have never heard of His name, as if there were a deep instinct implanted in the soul of man, to testify that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin? Think we that the All-merciful can take pleasure in the death of bulls or of goats? Yet hath He Himself ordained it. Sacrifice, suffering, substitution, one life accepted as ransom for another, this idea pervades the law given by inspiration to Moses; yea, long before the birth of Moses, to Abraham, to Noah, to Abel!"
"I grant it," Abishai replied. "As man is guilty in the sight of his Maker, there must be sacrifice for sin as long as the world shall last."
The light of inspiration seemed to glow in the uplifted eyes of Hadassah, and her lips to breathe words not her own as she spoke again. "What if all these sacrifices but point to one great Sacrifice; what if the deep mystery of suffering be resolved into some deeper mystery of love; what if God Himself should provide the substitute, and if on some altar blood be shed which shall suffice to atone for transgressions past, present, and to come, even to the end of all time? May it not be--must it not so be--if we read the Scriptures aright?"
"I cannot divine your meaning," said Abishai.
"What is written here of the coming Messiah?" asked Hadassah, laying her hand on the roll of prophecy, as she turned her earnest, searching gaze upon her companion.
"That He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel!" exclaimed Abishai with exultation; "is He not named Messiah the Prince?"
"Who shall be cut off, but not for Himself" (Dan. ix. 26), said Hadassah, in low thrilling tones that made Abishai start, and look at her with surprise. "You," she continued, "see the PRINCE in prophecy, written as in characters of light; I see the SACRIFICE, ever in letters of deepening shadow. Behold here,"--and as the widow spoke, she opened the roll till her finger could point to the Twenty-second Psalm,--"what means this cry of mysterious sorrow, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? "
"It is David's cry of anguish," said Abishai.
"Look farther on, my son, ponder the subject more deeply," cried Hadassah, and she proceeded to read aloud part of the inspired Word. "The assembly of the wicked have inclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet. I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me. They part My garments among them, and cast lots on My vesture (Ps. xxii. 16-18). These things never happened to David; the Psalmist speaks not here of himself."
"Of whom then could he be speaking," said Abishai, looking perplexed. "Not surely of the Messiah, not of the seed of the woman who shall bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15).
"Wherefore not?" asked Hadassah, "seeing that He Himself must be bruised in the conflict? If it be written, My Servant shall deal prudently, H............