THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.
“The harp the monarch minstrel swept,
The king of men, the loved of heaven.
...
It softened men of iron mold;
No ear so dull, no soul so cold
That felt not, fired not to the tone,
Till David’s lyre grew mightier than the throne;
Since then, though heard on earth no more,
Devotion, and her daughter, love,
Still bid the bursting spirit soar,
To sounds that seem as from above,
In dreams that day’s broad light can not remove.”—BYRON.
“The king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, ...
and caused a seat to be set for the king-mother, and she sat at
his right hand.”—1 KINGS, 2, 19.
“Miriamne, the heavenly host we imagined to be in bivouac about our
Bethany home, methinks were really present, and gave color and form to my
dreams. I was in a grail-quest all night.”
“What a golden day is such a night! But tell me of the color and form of
your visions, Cornelius.”
“We fell asleep last night conversing of the Ascension; my dreams carried
me on to Pentecost.”
“And what have you brought from the dream-land to help in the stern and
pressing waking hours?”
“A panting heart, as one having climbed mountain above mountain. I burn
to know and feel the whole significance of Pentecost!
“I’ve determined to seek holy companionship and wise guiding by
attendance at the next ‘Harvest Feast’ at Jerusalem. I think I’ll get
peculiar help at the great city.”
“The Israelites will not welcome a Christian to their feast.”
“The one I aim to attend is that that will be observed by the Christian
knights in an upper room, in the great city. They think they have
possession of the identical apartment in which the disciples of our Lord
met and witnessed the glories of Pentecost, after the Ascension.”
“In Joseph of Arimathæa’s house?”
“That is the accepted report. The Hospitaler, whom we believe to be a
‘Grail Knight’ of to-day, is quite earnest in so affirming.”
“Wondrous white-souled Arimathæa! Jewish and a priest, yet secretly
a disciple of Jesus! I dare to liken myself unto that holy man, in a
measure. He left an old faith for a new one, and followed the cup of the
Passion, as I, my ideal.”
“_A good man and a just_,” says the Testament.
* * * * *
“We meet to-night in Arimathæa’s house,” said the Hospitaler to
Cornelius, shortly after the arrival and welcome of the latter at
Jerusalem.
“Can the uninitiated attend?” questioned Cornelius.
“Now, that’s the joy of it, they can; and more, we are to have a number
of Jews present, among them some once priests; but now like that Joseph
of blessed memory, seeing the true light.”
“And the meeting?”
“The exalting of the Word, that’s the need of the hour, world-wide. I
tell thee, young man, set to teach; the needs are not more religions but
more religion, not more revelators or prophets but surer interpreters.
The world blooms with truth on every hand; who will pluck the blossoms?”
And the disciples were again, all with one accord, in the holy upper
chamber.
The Hospitaler, with an abruptness of John the Baptist, merely throwing
back his tunic and exposing the golden sign of knighthood for a moment to
his companions, as he entered, at once began to address the assembly;
“Jews and Gentiles, all children by creation of a common Father—greeting!
The fires of Pentecost are kindled everywhere in Jerusalem, but they are
the old fires and cold enough; sacrifices smoke on the altars, but the
day of such offerings is past.
“Methinks, the offered bulls, goats and lambs, if they could speak, would
cry out against the priestly hands that shed their blood; ‘How long,
how long the blood of our flocks has pointed to the lamb of God, the
All-Savior, who died to save men from sin and beasts from the altar; and
yet we die as if our work were not finished!’
“The beasts join in the wailings of humanity.
“For centuries God’s chosen people celebrated this feast of the harvest,
the joy of Jewry; and now the world’s harvest advenes. Yet, for the most
part, the multitudes see not the ripening. For years the first fruits
were offered, and as yet, the people do not understand that first fruits
mean chosen, choice fruits, the elect of God.
“For centuries, Israel offered the shoulder and heart of the lamb, and
yet Israel waits under the overshadowing smokes of its burnt offering,
not discerning the Lamb Priest, whose heart of eternal love and shoulder
of power, are given for the salvation of the people.
“Israelites, hear me; out of the altar’s smoke emerges to view the
kingdom of the house of David, refined, purified—the hope of the future.
Ye have thought, hitherto, that David’s kingdom, whatsoever it might have
been, is, in these ages, to be reckoned with the dynasties and forces of
an antiquity, whose influences long ago ebbed away along the shores of
the all-entombing past.
“Yet such conclusion is as fallacious as it is evidently superficial. The
God who works in unbroken time cycles, though men remit their tasks at
the beck of sleep or death, pushes forth His forceful, faultless projects
with a tireless consistency that knows no cross purposes. A real and
present kingdom is that with which this Pentecost we have to do. We are
not, _at that time_ when _they shall bring out the bones of the kings of
Judah and spread them before the sun_. David’s throne is a verity, though
long incrusted with neglects; it is a symbol of power in a dynasty that
is ordained to overspread the earth. I’d summon my witnesses; first the
weeping Jeremiah. ‘Thus said the Lord: David shall never lack a man to
sit on the throne of the house of Israel.’ How bold! but amid the ruins
about us, I cry never! never! Now call the God-nourished captive Daniel,
who, sincere to the last, made all Babylon glow with his prayers and his
visions. Saith Daniel:
“‘The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be
destroyed.’ The dream is certain; the interpretation sure. He was proof
against the alluring blandishments of his royal captors, and as pure to
the last as a knight of San Grail.”
Cornelius saw a light on the Hospitaler’s face, and knew it was that that
comes from a conscience clear before God. The latter went on with a voice
suddenly become tenderer than it was before.
“Let us hear the reply of the converted pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar:
‘_Whose kingdom is from generation to generation!_’
“Hearken to Isaiah, to whom the scroll of human history through a
thousand generations then yet to come was present and lucid: ‘Unto us
a child is born ... his name shall be called Wonderful ... The Prince
of Peace.’ ‘Of the _increase_ of His government and peace there shall
be no end upon the throne of David to _establish_ it with judgment and
with justice from henceforth and _forever_.’ Surely he must be of dull
comprehension who saith this is only the spiritual, heavenly kingdom of
the glorified.
“Let us stand for a little under the light of the blazing tongues of
Pentecost, enswathed in imagination by the mighty, rushing tide of Spirit
manifestation, fresh from the Being of the Almighty. Now listen to Peter,
transfigured and illuminated within and without. Error here, with him,
was impossible! Untruth at such a time would be a madness like that of
the attempted steadying of the ark. Saith Peter: ‘_David being a prophet
knowing that God had sworn to him that He would raise up Christ to sit
on his throne._’ Peter at last, a rock of God, I bless thee! Call that
archangel, who doth excel in strength, his name given him in heaven being
Gabriel, the ‘Champion of God.’ He certified his mission to Mary in terms
that can be made no finer: ‘_I am Gabriel, that STAND IN THE PRESENCE OF
GOD and sent to show thee glad tidings. Thou shalt bring forth a son. And
the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David._’ Of His
Kingdom there shall be no end. These are ‘glad tidings,’ indeed, sung
as such to the joy and wonder of heaven, as well as proclaimed as the
sovereign comfort of earth’s inhabiters.
“The splendid, earthly Kingdom outlined so gloriously by the prophets
has suffered no syncope, and David’s royal line has not found its end in
sepulchral palaces. That Kingdom and that line survives; their zenith not
yet attained.
“In that zenith day, _Truth shall spring out of the earth, and
righteousness shall look down from heaven_.
“So it was settled forever in heaven, for earth and to all eternity, that
in the vocabulary of divine wisdom, ‘first-born’ means ‘choice-born.’
And he is choice-born no matter how ill his beginning, who is reborn by
the all-uplifting, renewing Spirit of Grace! Jesus, in marked manner,
even in this respect, parallels David in reäffirming in Himself this law
of His refined, exalted kingdom. The line of the Christ from remotest
generations is found to have deflected from the line of the first born.
His descent must be traced through Seth, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Judah, David, Solomon and Nathan, and still others, none of whom were
first in their advent into the families to which they belonged. Again,
the Christ and his progenitor, David, antagonized the barbarian tenet of
all ages that a man was to be honored merely because of his gigantesque
figure or prowess. In olden times men revered greatly the giantly.
Among the primitives to be a weakling was to be pitiable, and to be
huge to monstrosity was to be respected, if not actually worshiped.
Indeed, paganism in its essence is but homage paid to the great, that
is terrible. The princely David began his career in slaying wild beasts
and monstrous giants, but we may cease admiring the prowess he had
physically in greater admiration of the symbol that lies in his early
exploits. He was to be the giant-slayer; evil giants and giant evils
were to fall before him alike; and a shepherd’s little sling, in pious
hands, was shown to be invincible. In Solomon’s time, there was more
outward splendor, but less spirituality than in David’s time. The latter
witnessed the gilded decline in its beginnings. Decay followed swiftly.
The world sighed for a restoration; the heathen manufactured gods; the
Fire Worshipers followed stars; in the groves, virgins were, after a
sort, worshiped, as in the forest night-services of the old England of
some of you, the Druids prayed to a mystical ‘virgin that was to bring
forth.’ There was a common yearning for the coming of a Champion to lead
and defend the races of man. The yearning felt its way blindly toward the
wonder to be, that of a woman of the children of men, mothering One all
human, all divine, a Prince fit to link together the parts of David’s
kingdom, whether militant here or triumphant above. That full day has
begun, but is only dimly seen by many. You Jews have been wont to keep a
Pentecost of males only while Egypt deifies a woman as goddess of the
harvest. One turns to brawn, the other to the bringer forth, and neither
gets the truth, the royal truth, found in the faith that brings forth
through all humanity!
“Would you see a real Pentecost? Now, look how the first was to the
fathers. The holy ones, among Christ’s followers, believing His promises,
assembled at Joseph of Arimathæa’s house, to await it. Hear the word:
“And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, the
number of names together were about a hundred and twenty.
“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the
women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.”
“Our holy Luke, said to have been an artist, artistically presents the
scene. As we read his record, we behold the ‘Queen of the House of
David,’ the representative woman; as she should be, in the company and
honor of God’s people. Not there as a beautiful creature to be admired;
but there to pray with those who prayed for the dawn and the glory. With
the genius of an artist, and the insight of a prophet, Luke displays his
ideal thus. The Scripture record closes, leaving the typical woman amid
God’s people, on her knees, waiting in hopefulness for the full dawn;
while for a little time over all falls the earnest of the promise in
miraculous displays from above. There was a rushing of mighty sounds, the
providences of God in motion, the movements of His spirits who minister,
for a time made visible! The scene was one never to be forgotten, and
the holy John, years after in the glowing visions of the Apocalypse, had
brought to his mind its central figure the woman clothed with the sun;
the transfigured woman, and she as woman in her highest estate; that is
mothering a child! He saw her rising above all perils, all evils; but as
she rose, she bore aloft her child, a Man Child! Look at the picture, men
and brethren, ’till it possesses your souls! BEHOLD THE WOMAN! Behold
the interlaced symbols! As a mother holds above peril her child, so the
peerless woman held aloft her Divine Babe; as the church holds aloft
its offspring, so also in the apotheosis of the ideal mother, comes the
uplifting of man’s hopes, and the triumph of all that is best, all that
is promised. We see to-day, but the smoke side of Pentecost, by and by
we’ll see, as do those in heaven, its fire side.”
The speaker ceased his address, and all were filled with great and moving
thoughts.