[Illustration: By Frederick Goodall.
MARY AND THE INFANT SAVIOUR.]
MARY:
THE
QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID
AND
MOTHER OF JESUS.
THE STORY OF HER LIFE.
GABRIEL.—“Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee:
Blessed art thou among women.”
MARY.—“All generations shall call me blessed.”
BY
REV. A. STEWART WALSH, D.D.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D.
_ILLUSTRATED._
PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY BY
A. S. GRAY & CO.
SUCCESSORS TO
CENTRAL PUBLISHING HOUSE AND KEYSTONE PUBLISHING CO.
PITTSBURGH, PA.
1889.
COPYRIGHT BY H. S. ALLEN,
1886.
COPYRIGHT OWNED BY
A. S. GRAY.
1889.
ARGYLE PRESS,
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING,
265 & 267 CHERRY ST., N. Y.
TO WOMANKIND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
THIS
STORY OF A LIFE
MOST
BEAUTIFUL, BENEFICENT, AND INSPIRING
Is Dedicated
BY THE AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTION TO THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.
BY REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D.
I have been asked to open the front door of this book. But I must not
keep you standing too long on the threshold. The picture-gallery, the
banqueting hall and the throne-room are inside. All the fascinations
of romance are, by the able author, thrown around the facts of Mary’s
life. Much-abused tradition is also called in for splendid service. The
pen that the author wields is experienced, graceful, captivating, and
multipotent. As perhaps no other book that was ever written, this one
will show us woman as standing at the head of the world. It demonstrates
in the life of Mary what woman was and what woman may be. Woman’s
position in the world is higher than man’s; and although she has often
been denied the right of suffrage, she always does vote and always will
vote—by her influence; and her chief desire ought to be that she should
have grace rightly to rule in the dominion which she has already won.
She has no equal as a comforter of the sick. What land, what street,
what house has not felt the smitings of disease? Tens of thousands of
sick beds! What shall we do with them? Shall man, with his rough hand,
and heavy foot, and impatient bearing, minister? No; he cannot soothe the
pain. He can not quiet the nerves. He knows not where to set the light.
His hand is not steady enough to pour out the drops. He is not wakeful
enough to be watcher. You have known men who have despised women, but the
moment disease fell upon them, they did not send for their friends at
the bank or their worldly associates. Their first cry was, “Take me to
my wife.” The dissipated young man at the college scoffs at the idea of
being under home influence; but at the first blast of typhoid fever on
his cheek he says, “Where is mother?” I think one of the most pathetic
passages in all the Bible is the description of the lad who went out to
the harvest fields of Shunem and got sunstruck; throwing his hands on his
temples, and crying out, “Oh, my head! my head!” and they said, “Carry
him to his mother.” And the record is “He sat on her knees till noon and
then died.”
In the war men cast the cannon, men fashioned the muskets, men cried to
the hosts “Forward, march!” men hurled their battalions on the sharp
edges of the enemy, crying “Charge! charge!” but woman scraped the lint,
woman administered the cordials, woman watched by the dying couch, woman
wrote the last message to the home circle, woman wept at the solitary
burial, attended by herself and four men with a spade. Men did their work
with shot and shell, and carbine and howitzer; women did their work with
socks and slippers, and bandages, and warm drinks, and scripture texts,
and gentle soothings of the hot temples, and stories of that land where
they never have any pain. Men knelt down over the wounded and said, “On
which side did you fight?” Women knelt down over the wounded and said,
“Where are you hurt? What nice thing can I make for you to eat? What
makes you cry?” To-night, while we men are soundly asleep in our beds,
there will be a light in yonder loft; there will be groaning down that
dark alley; there will be cries of distress in that cellar. Men will
sleep and women will watch.
No one as well as a woman can handle the poor. There are hundreds and
thousands of them in all our cities. There is a kind of work that men
cannot do for the destitute. Man sometimes gives his charity in a rough
way, and it falls like the fruit of a tree in the East, which fruit comes
down so heavily that it breaks the skull of the man who is trying to
gather it. But woman glides so softly into the house of want, and finds
out all the sorrows of the place, and puts so quietly the donation on the
table, that all the family come out on the front steps as she departs,
expecting that from under her shawl she will thrust out two wings and go
right up to Heaven, from whence she seems to have come down. O, Christian
young woman, if you would make yourself happy and win the blessings of
Christ, go out among the poor! A loaf of bread or a bundle of socks may
make a homely load to carry, but the angels of God will come out to
watch, and the Lord Almighty will give His messenger hosts a charge,
saying, “Look after that woman, canopy her with your wings, and shelter
her from all harm.” And while you are seated in the house of destitution
and suffering, the little ones around the room will whisper, “Who is she?
is she not beautiful?” and if you will listen right sharply, you will
hear dripping through the leaky roof, and rolling over the broken stairs,
the angel chant that shook Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace and good will to man.” Can you tell why a Christian woman,
going down among the haunts of iniquity on a Christian errand, seldom
meets with any indignity?
I stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the daughter of the celebrated
Dr. Chalmers, in the most abandoned part of the city of Edinburg; and I
said to her, as I looked around upon the fearful surroundings of that
place, “Do you come here nights to hold a service?” “Oh, yes,” she said;
“I take my lantern and I go through all these haunts of sin, the darkest
and the worst; and I ask all the men and women to come to the chapel, and
then I sing for them, and I pray for them, and I talk to them.” I said,
“Can it be possible that you never meet with an insult while performing
this Christian errand?” “Never,” she said; “never.” That young woman,
who has her father by her side, walking down the street, and an armed
policeman at each corner is not so well defended as that Christian woman
who goes forth on Gospel work into the haunts of iniquity carrying the
Bible and bread.
Some one said, “I dislike very much to see that Christian woman teaching
these bad boys in the mission school. I am afraid to have her instruct
them.” “So,” said another man, “I am afraid too.” Said the first, “I am
afraid they will use vile language before they leave the place.” “Ah,”
said the other man, “I am not afraid of that; what I am afraid of is,
that if any of those boys should use a bad word in her presence, the
other boys would tear him to pieces—killing him on the spot.”
Woman is especially endowed to soothe disaster She is called the weaker
vessel, but all profane as well as sacred history attests that when the
crisis comes she is better prepared than man to meet the emergency. How
often have you seen a woman who seemed to be a disciple of frivolity and
indolence, who, under one stroke of calamity, changed to be a heroine.
There was a crisis in your affairs, you struggled bravely and long,
but after a while there came a day when you said, “Here I shall have
to stop;” and you called in your partners, and you called in the most
prominent men in your employ, and you said, “We have got to stop.” You
left the store suddenly; you could hardly make up your mind to pass
through the street and over on the ferry-boat; you felt everybody would
be looking at you and blaming you and denouncing you. You hastened home;
you told your wife all about the affair. What did she say? Did she
play the butterfly; did she talk about the silks and the ribbons and
the fashions? No; she came up to the emergency; she quailed not under
the stroke. She helped you to begin to plan right away. She offered to
go out of the comfortable house into a smaller one, and wear the old
cloak another winter. She was one who understood your affairs without
blaming you. You looked upon what you thought was a thin, weak woman’s
arm holding you up; but while you looked at that arm there came into the
feeble muscles of it the strength of the eternal God. No chiding. No
fretting. No telling you about the beautiful house of her father, from
which you brought her, ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. You said, “Well,
this is the happiest day of my life. I am glad I have got from under my
burden. My wife don’t care—I don’t care.” At the moment you were utterly
exhausted, God sent a Deborah to meet the host of the Amalekites and
scatter them like chaff over the plain. There are scores and hundreds of
households to-day where as much bravery and courage are demanded of woman
as was exhibited by Grace Darling or Marie Antoinette or Joan of Arc.
Woman is further endowed to bring us into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is
easier for a woman to be a Christian than for a man. Why? You say she
is weaker. No. Her heart is more responsive to the pleadings of divine
love. The fact that she can more easily become a Christian, I prove by
the statement that three-fourths of the members of the churches in all
Christendom are women. So God appoints them to be the chief agencies for
bringing this world back to God. The greatest sermons are not preached
on celebrated platforms; they are preached with an audience of two or
three and in private home-life. A patient, loving, Christian demeanor
in the presence of transgression, in the presence of hardness, in the
presence of obduracy and crime, is an argument from the throne of the
Lord Almighty; and blessed is that woman who can wield such an argument.
A sailor came slipping down the ratlin one night as though something
had happened, and the sailors cried, “What’s the matter?” He said, “My
mother’s prayers haunt me like a ghost.”
In what a realm is every mother the queen. The eagles of heaven can not
fly across that dominion. Horses, panting and with lathered flanks, are
not swift enough to run to the outpost of that realm, and death itself
will only be the annexation of heavenly principalities. When you want
your grandest idea of a queen you do not think of Catherine of Russia,
or of Anne of England, or Maria Theresa of Germany: but when you want to
get your grandest idea of a queen you think of the plain woman who sat
opposite your father at the table or walked with him, arm in arm, down
life’s pathway; sometimes to the Thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to the
grave, but always together; soothing your petty griefs, correcting your
childish waywardness, joining in your infantile sports, listening to your
evening prayer, toiling for you with needle or at the spinning wheel, and
on cold nights wrapping you up snug and warm; and then, at last, on that
day when she lay in the back room dying, and you saw her take those thin
hands with which she had toiled for you so long, and put them together
in a dying prayer that commended you to the God whom she had taught you
to trust—oh, she was the queen! The chariots of God came down to fetch
her, and as she went in, all heaven rose up. You can not think of her now
without a rush of tenderness that stirs the deep foundations of your
soul, and you feel as much a child again as when you cried on her lap;
and if you could bring her back to life again to speak, just once more,
your name as tenderly as she used to speak it, you would be willing to
throw yourself on the ground and kiss the sod that covers her, crying,
“Mother! mother!” Ah, she was the queen!
Home influences are the mightiest of all influences upon the soul. There
are men who have maintained their integrity, not because they were any
better naturally than some other people, but because there were home
influences praying for them all the time. They got a good start. They
were launched on the world with the benedictions of a Christian mother.
They may track Siberian snows, they may plunge into African jungles, they
may fly to the earth’s end, they can not go so far and so fast but the
prayer will keep up with them. Oh, what a multitude of women in heaven.
Mary, Christ’s mother, in heaven. Elizabeth Fry in heaven. Charlotte
Elizabeth in heaven. The mother of Augustine in heaven. The Countess of
Huntingdon is in heaven—who sold her splendid jewels to build chapels—in
heaven; while a great many others who have never been heard of on earth,
or known but little of, have gone into the rest and peace of heaven. What
a rest. What a change it was from the small room with no fire and one
window, the glass broken out, and the aching side and worn out eyes, to
the “house of many mansions.” Heaven for aching heads. Heaven for broken
hearts. Heaven for anguish-bitten frames. No more sitting up until
midnight for the coming of staggering steps. No more rough blows on the
temples. No more sharp, keen, bitter curses.
Some of you will have no rest in this world; it will be toil and struggle
all the way up. You will have to stand at your door fighting back the
wolf with your own hand red with carnage. But God has a crown for you.
He is now making it, and whenever you weep a tear, He sets another gem
in that crown; whenever you have a pang of body or soul, He puts another
gem in that crown, until after a while in all the tiara there will be no
room for another splendor; and God will say to his angel, “The crown is
done; let her up that she may wear it.” And as the Lord of righteousness
puts the crown upon your brow, angel will cry to angel, “Who is she?”
and Christ will say, “I will tell you who she is; she is the one that
came up out of great tribulation and had her robe washed and made white
in the blood of the Lamb.” And then God will spread a banquet, and He
will invite all the principalities of heaven to sit at the feast, and
the tables will blush with the best clusters from the vineyards of God
and crimson with the twelve manner of fruits from the tree of life, and
water from the fountains of the rock will flash from the golden tankards;
and the old harpers of heaven will sit there, making music with their
harps, and Christ will point you out amid the celebrities of heaven,
saying, “She suffered with me on earth, now we are going to be glorified
together.” And the banquetters, no longer able to hold their peace,
will break forth with congratulation. “Hail! hail!” And there will be a
handwriting on the wall; not such as struck the Persian noblemen with
horror, but with fire-tipped fingers writing in blazing capitals of light
and love and victory: “God has wiped away all tears from all faces.”
And now I leave you in the hands of Dr. Walsh, the author of this book.
He will show you Mary, the model of all womanly, wifely, motherly
excellence—the Madonna hanging in the Louvre of admiration for all
Christendom, and for many millions in the higher Vatican of their worship.
T. DE WITT TALMAGE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.—THE QUEEN’S PORTRAIT.
“A form beloved comes again”—Inspired painters in a voyage of
discovery—Tributes to Mary, honoring all womankind—Guido’s
wish—Madonnas of many climes. Raphael’s “Transfigured
Woman”—Savonarola’s bonfire—St. Luke’s picture of the
Virgin—The Vandal spirit. Page 29
CHAPTER II.—THE PILGRIM, CRUSADER AND VIRGIN.
Life a pilgrimage—Pilgrims of many faiths—A struggle for holy
places between the Pilgrim-Crusaders and Moslem—The harem and
the home—The rise of Chivalry—The Knights and “Our Lady”—The
results of the Crusades. Page 36
CHAPTER III.—ARMAGEDDON! “THE KEY AND SICKLE.”
“The wandering hermit wakes the storms of war”—Acre and
Esdrælon, the “Armageddon” or “Mountain of the Gospel” of the
Scriptures—The battle-field of nations—The City of Jeanne
d’Arc. The jewel in the sickle-haft—Prince Edward, the Crusade
leader—Sultan Kha-tel—The sacking of Acre—Actors introduced. Page 48
CHAPTER IV.—SIR CHARLEROY; THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE AND KNIGHT
OF SAINT MARY.
The flight from Acre to Nazareth—The born-leader—Life estimates
with Death holding the scales—A prince honors, a bishop
blesses, and a mother loves—An epitome of paradoxes. Page 53
CHAPTER V.—NAZARETH.
Nazareth, the place of Mary’s nativity—The choice of a
leader—The coward king—The Virgin’s Fount—English songsters—The
Knights’ mountain Litany—Longings for home and mother—Nain and
Endor’s lessons. Page 61
CHAPTER VI.—THE FUGITIVES.
A night bivouac amid sacred scenes—The “Knight of the
Holy-Sepulcher” who fled on “a white charger with black
wings”—The funeral at dawn—Mary’s palm-bearing angel-guard—The
twelve knights separate into two parties—Will-makings and
farewells—By Endor to oblivion. Page 74
CHAPTER VII.—ICHABOD.
Sir Charleroy’s band approach Shunem, the City of Elijah—The
surprise—Sir Charleroy the captive of Azrael the Mameluke—The
Mohammedan heaven depicted—“A hair, the bridge over hell”—The
odoriferous houris—A gorgeous charnel-house blasted—The
prodigal becomes the herald of purity—The Knight of Saint
Mary and the Jewish Spy—Adversity makes the Knight and the
Jew friends—The Knight instructing Ichabod—“’Till Shiloh
comes”—“The true, refined and final Judaism”—“The east and
the west embracing; truth leading.”—An honest doubt is a real
prayer. Page 82
CHAPTER VIII.—FROM JERICHO TO JORDAN.
The radiant proselyte—Climbing to glory—The ghostly forms
hovering over submerged Sodom—Jordan’s sweetening—Siddim-angels
among the willows and oleanders by the Dead Sea—Summonsed
to fight for the Crescent or go to the slave mart—Nourahmal
“The light of the harem” becomes the disciple and friend of
Ichabod—A debate concerning women—A rarity and a wonder—“I told
her women had souls; she laughed like a monkey”—The flight from
Jericho by night—The lightning—God’s torch—“Canst thou dance
rocks into camels?”—A mummy’s flight, and the burial of a live
man—“Unclean”—The solemn passage of Jordan. Page 93
CHAPTER IX.—THE FEAST OF THE ROSE.
A breakfast of lentils and barley in the wilderness—The gloom
of the Knight and the joy of the Jew—Sermons on fate and
songs in flowers—The poetry of Ichabod—Celibacy a reward at
Rome—Kneph “The father of his mother”—The heathen and the
Christian “Feast of the Rose”—The summary of the events in
Mary’s life and in the life of Jesus—The Egyptian Rosary—Neb-ta
the maiden sister—The egg and the cross, ancient signs of
immortality—The Copt priest—The insights of the Egyptians
symbolized by the Sphinx. Page 113
CHAPTER X.—AFTER EVE, ESTHER OR MARY?
By Jabbock, in the native place of Ichabod—Israelitish
maidens keeping the feast of Esther—Religious love, filial
love and lover’s love—The poetic Jew’s rhapsody concerning
affection—God’s voice in the Garden—The ideal women of the Old
Testament and of the New—The Jew’s cry for mother—Vacillating
Sir Charleroy—“Echo’s Magic”—Jewish customs. Page 135
CHAPTER XI.—THE FEAST OF PURIM.
A night-scene by Jabbock—Harrimai the priest, and his daughter
Rizpah—The religious ceremonial and the revel—Sir Charleroy
and Rizpah as “Ahasuerus and Esther”—The Knight’s secret
discovered—Conquest of a woman’s heart through pity—“Of what
metals Jewish maidens are.” Page 152
CHAPTER XII.—ASTARTE OR MARY?
The Knight of Saint Mary enslaved by a Hebrew beauty—The
journey toward Bozrah—The Mameluke attack—The hand to hand
fight—Sir Charleroy wounded and Ichabod slain—Rizpah’s heroism
in peril—Espousal in the face of death—A wonderful vision. Page 170
CHAPTER XIII.—FROM RAMOTH GILEAD TO DAMASCUS.
Teacher and pupil become patient and nurse—Perilous
relations—Delights, assurances, fears and clouds—Harrimai’s
discovery and his malediction—Love’s debate and
decision—Elopement by night—the Knight and the Jewess wedded at
Damascus. Page 182
CHAPTER XIV.—THE THEATER OF THE GIANTS.
The death of Harrimai—A honey-moon in the “Eye of the
East”—To Bashan with the Mecca chaplet-seekers—Nature,
art and desolation—Lejah’s black lava-sea—The frenzies of
Gerash’s passion-flower—Reaction after exaltation—“A camel
voyage in-sea”—Rizpah’s challenge—Jealous of Sir Charleroy’s
love for Mary—“Illusion”—The church of Saint George at
Edrei—Recrimination—Ridicule costly to pride—Neither Christian,
Jew nor Pagan—A woman with unsettled faith—A babe poisoned by
its mother’s passion—The lamp and the palm-trees—The Knight’s
appeals—Omens—A beacon needed—Fleeing the Lejah—To Bozrah. Page 195
CHAPTER XV.—THE REVELS OF MEN AND THE RITES OF THEIR GODDESSES.
Kunawat at the City of Job—The Shrine of Astarte—The Cyclopean
image—Questioning the Soul, Time and God—Hugeness, greatness;
littleness, caricature—The naked worshipers of the golden
calf—Sins exposed—Purity’s vision—Phallic mysteries—Khem—Female
deities—Dualism—Immortality by progeny and by regeneration—The
fire-worshiper’s mystic number eight, and the Jewish covenant
number seven. Page 212
CHAPTER XVI.—A BATTLE OF GIANTS AT BOZRAH.
Houses forty centuries old—The old stone-house of an
ancient giant becomes the home of the knight and his
wife—How circumstances change people—Recriminations and
reconciliation—“The gall taken from animals offered to Juno,
goddess of marriage”—Rizpah’s temper that seemed brilliant
before wedlock, afterward seems to Sir Charleroy very like
that of a virago—The charming nonsense of those for the
first time parents—Shall she be named Davidah, Angela, Marah
or Mary?—The Christian and Jewish faith battle about the
cradle—The separation of husband and wife, in anger—The sick
child and the desolated, deserted wife—Rizpah longs for a
mother, such as Mary of Bethlehem. Page 224
CHAPTER XVII.—RIZPAH THE ANCIENT MOTHER OF SORROWS.
After many years, Rizpah dwells in Bozrah with her
three children—Rizpah of Bozrah fascinated by Rizpah of
Gibeah—Miriamne the daughter of Rizpah—The daughter appalled
by her mother’s mysterious hallucinations—The wonders of
mother-love—The story of the ancient, Jewish “Mother of
Sorrows”—The omen of the bat and the parable of the stars. Page 245
CHAPTER XVIII.—THE QUEEN PROCLAIMED IN THE GIANT CITY.
The old and the young Jews—The old Christian priest and
his Jewess proselyte—Attacked by Mamelukes—The “Old Clock
Man”—The Balsam Band—Miriamne, the Jewess proselyte, questions
concerning the queen of the old priest’s heart—The miraculous
picture of Mary at Damascus—Silver hands and feet—Crown
jewels. Page 264
CHAPTER XIX.—THE STORY OF MARY’S CHILDHOOD. Page 282
CHAPTER XX.—THE WEDDING—THE BIRTH AND THE FLIGHT.
The birth of Jesus and the flight to Egypt—Miriamne reads
to her mother a Christian account of Mary’s espousal—Rizpah
curious but doubtful. Page 293
CHAPTER XXI.—THE QUEEN AND HER FAMILY IN EGYPT.
Father Adolphus and Miriamne converse of the Holy Family’s
sojourn in Egypt—Heliopolis and the Temple of the
Sun—Fire-worshipers—At Memphis, the shrine of Apis the
sacred bull—The red heifer of Israel—The Holy Family rescued
in Egypt by a robber who afterward died on the cross next
to the Savior—The legend of a gipsy’s prophecy concerning
Jesus—Zingarella won by the Virgin. Page 312
CHAPTER XXII.—THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS.
Rizpah dreading heresy yet charmed by the story of the “Girl
Wife”—“Behold my mother and brethren”—Christ’s message to his
widowed mother—The “Church of the Terror”—Rizpah’s vision
of “Glad Tidings.” Rizpah of Bozrah allured from Rizpah of
Gibeah—A hot-chase after an old love—The sword that pierced
Mary—The shadow of the cross horrifies Rizpah—The faith of the
Nazarene denounced—Miriamne driven from home by her mother.
Page 322
CHAPTER XXIII.—THE MISERERE AND THE EASTER ANTHEM.
Miriamne alone at night in the giant city—A refuge at the
Christian priest’s—The midnight Miserere—Penitents—Easter at
Bozrah—Finding the mother-love in God’s heart. Page 337
CHAPTER XXIV.—A HEROINE’S PILGRIMAGE.
The convert’s yearnings—“Go and tell”—When parents oppose each
other which shall the child follow?—A child of the kingdom
in a new family circle—Jesus, Mary and the elect—Miriamne’s
two great ambitions—Living apart may be as sinful as actual
divorcement—Father Adolphus encourages and Rizpah opposes
Miriamne—Rizpah recounts to Miriamne the story of her love for
Sir Charleroy, his madness and her own futile visit to London
in the effort to win him back—The curse of heredity—“I’ll
disown thee with tears in my voice and kisses in my heart.” Page 351
CHAPTER XXV.—CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM.
Miriamne’s welcome by the London Palestineans—The daughter
meets her father in a mad-house—Disappointment—The flight—The
search—The White Madonna of the Asylum Park—Love the remedy
of minds perturbed by hate—Pallas-Athene the virgin of the
heathen—Miriamne’s letter to her mother and its grim answer. Page 367
CHAPTER XXVI.—THE WEDDING AT CANA.
Sir Charleroy giving signs of recovery under Miriamne’s
Ministries—A remarkable service in the chapel of the
Palestineans—The knight interested in the story of Cana—The
address of Cornelius, on “Home” and “Marriage”—“Is this
London or Bozrah?”—Sir Charleroy’s sudden relapse—Miriamne’s
adroit ministries—Memories that awaken hopes—The clouds again
lifting—Mary’s life motto. Page 381
CHAPTER XXVII.—THE STAR OF THE SEA.
Sir Charleroy, partially restored, with Miriamne and Cornelius
journeying toward Syria—Passing Cyprus—Olympus—A storm rising
on the Mediterranean—Cornelius presses his love suit on
Miriamne—Miriamne pledges love, but pleads her mission as a
barrier to marriage—Conflicts below, tempests aloft—A dream;
Venus’s court and Mary’s triumph—Sir Charleroy in frenzy
defying the billows—An hour of peril—The “Lightning Song” of
the sailors—The twin stars—“Mary, Star of the Sea”—The victims
of fabricated consciences—Parting. Page 397
CHAPTER XXVIII.—THE QUEEN IN THE VALLEY OF SORROWS.
Father and daughter at Acre—The mysterious Hospitaler—From
Acre to Joppa—“The myths are as full of women as the
women are full of myths”—The wars of men about women—At
Jerusalem—The wonderful words of the Knight-Hospitaler, turned
preacher—The _Via Dolorosa_—The Valley of Jehosaphat—The
mountain outlook—“Soldiers Speed the Cross”—Mary, the sun
of women, rising in moral grandeur above the women of the
grove-shrines—The panorama of the ages, passing before Mary’s
mind. Page 419
CHAPTER XXIX.—TWO DEAD HEARTS UNITING TWO LIVING ONES.
From Jerusalem to Bozrah—The tomb of Ichabod—Sir Charleroy
argues against meeting Rizpah—Miriamne’s strong argument
in behalf of the lasting obligations of marriage—A husband
reaching the climax of revenges—Joseph by kindness kept Mary
in sweet mood and so blessed the unborn Christ—“Miriamne,
I am a bundle of contradictions!”—The news-rider—A plague
at Bozrah—De Griffin’s twins nigh death—Miriamne meets her
mother—Reconciliation—A strange funeral; only two women as
mourners and pall-bearers. Page 437
CHAPTER XXX.—THE “KNIGHT OF SAINT MARY” AND RIZPAH AT THE
GRAVE OF THEIR SONS.
Father Adolphus and Sir Charleroy—A ruined temple and a
ruined man—“A woman, a woman leading in religion!”—Jesus and
Magdalena—The twelve appearings of the lingering Christ—The
Savior’s love-letter from heaven to His mother—Lucifer’s
attempt at suicide—The kiss befouled by treason—The meeting
of Sir Charleroy and Rizpah—“The tomb of giant-love grown to
mad-hate.” Page 453
CHAPTER XXXI.—THE ROSE, QUEEN OF HEARTS IN BOZRAH.
A scene of domestic happiness—Love the vassal of the
will—Neb-ta in the “Judgment Hall of Truth”—The lambs that
are offered by sectarian hates—The Arcana of glorious wedded
love—Rizpah transformed—Miriamne’s public profession of
Christ—Cornelius Woelfkin again appeals for union in wedlock—An
inner and an outer Miriamne—The coronation of love—The solemn
espousal. Page 467
CHAPTER XXXII.—THE QUEEN AND THE GRAIL-SEEKERS.
“The gold of my heart to the man that piloted me to
happiness”—Miriamne yearns for a world in sin—Has the Church
or God failed?—A revolutionary reformer—The story of the
grail quest—The quest of a heavenly cure for human ills—The
triumphant Adam and Eve—The queenly women of patriarchal
times—The mother of the Savior as the wife of a carpenter—What
kept her young heart from breaking—Miriamne’s farewell to
Bozrah. Page 484
CHAPTER XXXIII.—THE HOSPITALER’S ORATION.
The secret meeting of the Knights at the house of Phebe—Swords
bent sickle-like and spears crossed—After war, social
victories—Sunrise at midnight—Each career determined by the
life that gives life—The girdle of Venus—Next after God, Mary
chiefly instrumental in giving the world a Savior. Page 498
CHAPTER XXXIV.—MEMORIALS AT BOZRAH.
The death of Dorothea—The priest of the wayside—The wedding of
Cornelius and Miriamne—A pilgrimage to the tombs of Adolphus,
Charleroy and Rizpah. Backlook, and outlooks. Page 510
CHAPTER XXXV.—THE SISTERS OF BETHANY.
The Missioners at Bethany—The site of the Home of
Jesus—Miriamne’s ideal society—The miracle age—A home, not a
throne, the place of Ascension—Will Jesus so return?—The angel
bivouac. Page 522
CHAPTER XXXVI.—THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.
The Knight’s Pentecost—In the upper room of Joseph of
Arimathæa—Mary’s title and realm—Luke, the word-painter—The
smoke side and the fire side of Pentecost. Page 529
CHAPTER XXXVII.—THE CORONATION OF THE QUEEN.
The Hospitaler deemed a prophet at Bethany. The legitimacy of
Jesus as the “son of David” assured through His mother—“The
reign of blood”—First born—Pagan Rome made sponsor for Mary’s
son—Doomsday books and royal charters. Page 538
CHAPTER XXXVIII.—THE “LIGHT OF THE HAREM” IN THE “TEMPLE OF
ALLEGORY.”
The old church at Bethany—A dedication—The wonders of
symbolism—Idolatry and Mariolatry. Page 548
CHAPTER XXXIX.—CROWN JEWELS.
The Hospitaler warns the Missioners of the Sheik of Jerusalem’s
designs—The son of Azrael—Immunity purchased—The wedding of
Beulah, Nourahmal’s grand-daughter to a Jewish convert—The
wedding address—Juno-Moneta—Crown jewels of maidens and
mothers—Mary sounding the depths of woman’s miseries—A
malediction for lust—“Knights of the White Cross”—The lost
woman dreaming of how it seems to have a mother’s arms
infolding her—The Virgin’s potent example. Page 568
CHAPTER XL.—THE QUEEN’S VISION OF THE AGE OF GOLD AND FIRE.
Nourahmal wed to the Druse camel-driver—the Druse converted—The
Hospitaler’s message—Ezekiel prophecies fulfilled at Olivet—The
“Mother’s pillow”—Gabriel, the “Angel of Mothers and of
Victories.” Page 581
CHAPTER XLI.—A CHIME AND A DIRGE AT CHRISTMAS-TIME.
“Motherhood priced”—“Thou shalt be saved in
child-bearing”—Sylvan gods of Rome—“The Miriamites,”—“In
Rama, weeping and great mourning”—Joachim’s bleating lamb
slain—Woman’s supreme hour—Maternity’s crucifixion—“The
Cæsarian Section”—The ebbing tide and the stranded wreck,
at midnight. Page 595
CHAPTER XLII.—THE MOTHER OF SORROWS TRIUMPHANT AT LAST.
The funeral of Miriamne—The Hospitaler tells the traditions of
Mary’s death and assumption—What the Druse convert said to his
camel—“The beatings of mighty wings”—The tomb of Miriamne in
Gethsemane. Page 611
CHAPTER XLIII.—A COFFIN FULL OF FLOWERS, AND A GIRDLE WITH
WINGS.
Cornelius and his son at Bethany—Changed scenes—Under the
lights and shadows of Chemosh—A widower’s grief—Azrael’s
putative son razes to the ground Miriamne’s home and temple—The
legend of Mary’s coffin and girdle—The last of the new
grail-knights—A sad and dramatic tableau. Page 618
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
I.
MARY AND THE INFANT JESUS, Frontispiece
(The original painted by GOODALL.)
PAGE
II.
THE BIRTH OF MARY 60
(The original painted by MURILLO.)
III.
RIZPAH DEFENDING THE DEAD BODIES OF HER RELATIONS, 250
(The original painted by BECKER.)
IV.
THE EDUCATION OF MARY, 282
(The original painted by CARL MULLER.)
V.
THE MARRIAGE OF MARY AND JOSEPH, 294
(The original painted by RAPHAEL.)
VI.
THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS, 332
(The original painted by MORRIS.)
VII.
JESUS AT THE AGE OF TWELVE WITH MARY AND JOSEPH ON THEIR WAY
TO JERUSALEM, 350
(The original painted by MENGELBURG.)
VIII.
THE YOUTH JESUS YIELDING TO THE WISHES OF HIS MOTHER, 366
(The original painted by W. HOLMAN HUNT.)
IX.
THE WEDDING AT CANA, 380
(The original painted by PAUL VERONESE.)
X.
MARY AND ST. JOHN, 433
(The original painted by PLOCKHORST.)
THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID
CHAPTER I.
THE QUEEN’S PORTRAIT.
“And breaking as from distant gloom,
A face comes painted on the air;
A presence walks the haunted room,
Or sits within the vacant chair.
And every object that I feel
Seems charged by some enchanter’s wand.
And keen the dizzy senses thrill,
As with the touch of spirit hand.
A form beloved comes again,
A voice beside me seems to start,
While eager fancies fill the brain,
And eager passions hold the heart.”
_Master, we would see a sign from Thee_, was the cunning challenge of
the Scribes and Pharisees. They were certain that, in this at least, the
hearts of the people would be with them. A sign, a scene, a symbol, were
the constant demand and quest of the olden times, as of all times. Even
Jehovah led forth to victory and trust, as necessity was upon Him in
leading human followers, “with an _outstretched arm_, and with _signs_
and with _wonders_.” The Jews, seemingly so doubtful and so querulous,
after all articulated the longings of the universal humanity. The longing
stimulated the effort to gratify it, and forthwith the artist became the
teacher of the people. Presentments of Mary, as she might have been, and
as she was imagined to have been by those most devout, were multiplied.
Piety sought to express its regard for her by making her more real to
faith through the instrumentality of the speaking canvas, but beyond this
there was the desire to embody certain charms and virtues of character
dear to all pure and devout ones. These were expressed by pictured faces,
ideally perfect. They called each such “Mary”; and if there had never
been a real Mary, still these handiworks would have had no small value.
Who can say that those consecrated artists were in no degree moved by
the Spirit which guided David when “he opened dark sayings on the harp,”
and rapturously extolled that other Beloved of God, the Church? Music
and painting—twin sisters—equal in merit, and both from Him who displays
form, color and harmony as among the chief rewards and glories of His
upper kingdom. These also meet a want in human nature as God created
it. The artists did not beget this desire for presentments through form
and color of the woman deemed most blessed; the desire rather begot the
artists. Stately theology has never ceased truly to proclaim from the day
Christ cried “_It is finished!_” that “_in Him all fullness dwells_;” but
no theology, has been able to silence the cry of woman’s heart in woman
and woman’s nature in man which pleads through the long years, “_Show us
the mother and it sufficeth us_.” It has happened sometimes that gross
minds have strayed from the ideal or spiritual imports of Mary’s life and
fallen into idolizing her effigies. That was their fault, and must not be
taken as full proof that nothing but evil came from the portrayings of
our queen. The facts are conclusively otherwise. The painters that made
glorious ideals shine forth from the canvas unconsciously painted the
shadows largely out of the conditions of all women. Before this second
advent of the Virgin, the paganish idea that women were the “weaker sex,”
the inferiors of men, at best only useful, handsome animals, prevailed.
The renaissance of Mary, as the ideal woman, was an event seeded with
the germs of revolutionary impulses socially. Like sunrise it began in
the East, at first dimly manifest, then it became effulgent and quickly
coursed westward along the pathways of Christianity’s conquests. Like
sweet, grateful light then there came to the hearts of men the braver
true persuasion, that the woman who not only bore the Christ but won His
reverent love must have been morally beautiful and great. In the track
of this persuasion, and as its sequence, there came the conviction that
the sex, of which Mary was one, had within it possibilities beyond what
its sturdier companions had dreamed. After this it came about that the
painters, often the interpreters of human feelings, began to represent
all goodness under the form of a Madonna. Not knowing the contour
of Mary’s face they began gathering here and there, from the women
they knew, features of beauty. They combined these in one harmonious
presentment. They set out to represent the ideal woman, but had to go
to women to find her parts. It became a tribute to womankind to do this.
It was like a voyage of discovery, and the artist voyagers depicted not
only the best things in womankind, but by putting these things together
illustrated what woman could be and should be at her best.
It was thus that Guido produced a picture of the Madonna which enravished
all that beheld it. Once he had said, “I wish I’d the wings of an angel
to behold the beatified spirits, which I might have copied.” After, here
and there, he picked out fragments of color and form on earth; then put
them into one ideal composition. It was a heart-expanding work; the work
of a prophet, since it told of what might be in woman wholly at her
best. Then he said, “the beautiful and pure idea must be in the head”
of the artist. It was a deep saying. Given the ideal, and the worker
will need only proper ambition to present a grand composition, whether
on canvas or in the patternings of the inner life. The presentments of
the Virgin rose in fineness when priests turned from their exegesis to
kneel and paint for men. The great Saint Augustine, held in high honor
by Christians of every name, redeemed from a youth of darkest sinning,
revered as his guiding star two lovely women, Monica, his mother, and
Mary, the mother of Jesus. He argues, in stalwart polemics, that through
the acknowledgment of Mary’s pre-eminence all womankind was elevated.
Her presentment, so as to be fully comprehended, was in the beginning a
blessing to every soul in being an inspiration to purer, sweeter living.
So far as such presentment now conserves the same results the work is
worthy and profitable. In all times the representations of the Virgin,
whether by the historian or the master of the studio, varied; but the
piety they awakened always seemed to be of one type, and that lofty.
Thus we have “the stern, awful quietude of the old Mosaics, the hard
lifelessness of the degenerate Greeks, the pensive sentiment of the
Siena, the stately elegance of the Florentine Madonnas, the intellectual
Milanese, with their large foreheads and thoughtful eyes, the tender,
refined mysticism of the Umbrian, the sumptuous loveliness of the
Venetian; the quaint, characteristic simplicity of the early German, so
stamped with their nationality that I never looked round me in a room
full of German girls without thinking of Albert Durer’s Virgins; the
intense, life-like feeling of the Spanish, the prosaic, portrait-like
nature of the Flemish schools, and so on.” Each time and place produced
its own ideal, but all tried to express the one thought uppermost; pious
regard for the Queen and model. All seemed to feel that in this devotion
there was somehow comfort and exaltation—and there generally were both.
The writer of the foregoing quotation, a woman of widest culture and
admirable good sense, attested the need that many feel by her own
rapturous description of the Madonna of Raphael in the Dresden Gallery.
“I have seen my own ideal once where Raphael—inspired, if ever painter
was inspired—projected on the space before him that wonderful creation.”
“There she stands, the transfigured woman; at once completely human and
completely divine, an abstraction of power, purity and love; poised on
the empurpled air, and requiring no other support; with melancholy,
loving mouth, her slightly dilated sibylline eyes looking out quite
through the universe to the end and consummation of all things; sad, as
if she beheld afar off the visionary sword that was to reach her heart
through HIM, now resting as enthroned on that heart; yet already exalted
through the homage of the redeemed generations who were to salute her
as blessed. Is it so indeed? Is she so divine? or does not rather the
imagination lend a grace that is not there? I have stood before it and
confessed that there is more in that form and face than I have ever
yet conceived. The _Madonna di San Sisto_ is an abstract of _all_ the
attributes of Mary.”
The foregoing representation marked a step forward in things spiritual.
Before Raphael, painters numberless, under the influence of the luxurious
and vicious Medici, had filled the churches of Florence with painted
presentments of the Virgin, characterized by an alluring beauty which
seemed next door to blasphemy. Then came that Luther of his times,
Savonarola. He thundered for purity, simplicity and reform; aiming his
blows at the depraving, sensuous conceptions of the grosser artists. He
made a bonfire in the Piazza of Florence, there consuming these false
madonnas. He was, for this, persecuted to death by the Borgia family.
They could not bear his trumpet call to Florentines, “Your sins make me
a prophet; I have been a Jonah warning Nineveh; I shall be a Jeremiah
weeping over the ruins; for God will renew His church and that will not
take place without blood—” Art heard his voice, the painters became
disgusted with their meaner handiwork, the rude, the obscene, the
mischievous was obliterated; finer, more spiritual and loftier concepts
of the Virgin appeared as proof of a reformation of morals. And Raphael,
later on, seeing these productions, felt the influence that begot them,
and then produced that masterpiece. Tradition says Saint Luke painted
a picture of the Virgin from life. The picture, reputed to have been
so painted, was found by the Turks in Constantinople when that city
fell into their conquering hands. They despoiled it of its princely
jewel-decorations, then tramped it contemptuously beneath their feet. The
latter act was typical, and the Turk still lives to trample in contempt
on honest efforts to portray with amplitude and finished details this
splendid character, whose outlines alone are presented by the Gospels.
But though the Vandal spirit survives, there survives also the strong
yearning for the representation of that woman beyond compare, and some
will still revel amid the ideals of painters, and some will be gladdened
still more by truth’s complete presentment which words alone can make.