Salathiel, or Tarry Thou Till I Come!
George Croly, the author of "Salathiel," was born at Dublin
on August 17, 1780, and became a clergyman of the Church of
England. After a short time as curate in the north of Ireland
he came to London and devoted himself chiefly to literary
pursuits. In 1835 he was presented to the valuable living of
St. Stephen's, Walbrook, London, by Lord Brougham, where his
eloquent preaching attracted large congregations. It was a
saying among Americans of the period, "Be sure and hear
Croly!" Croly was a scholar, an orator, and a man of
incredible energy. Poems, biographies, dramas, sermons,
novels, satires, magazine articles, newspaper leaders, and
theological works were dashed off by his facile pen; and,
according to Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, he was great in
conversation. Croly's _chef d'oeuvre_ is "Salathiel," which,
published in 1829, created a prodigious sensation, Salathiel
being the character better known as the Wandering Jew. The
description of the fall of Jerusalem is a wonderful piece of
sustained eloquence, hardly to be squalled in romantic
writings. Croly died on November 24, 1860.
_I.--Immortality on Earth_
"_Tarry thou till I come_!" The words shot through me. I felt them like
an arrow in my heart. The troops, the priests, the populace, the world,
passed from before my senses like phantoms.
Every fibre of my frame quivers as I still hear the echo of the anathema
that sprang first from my furious lips, the self-pronounced ruin, the
words of desolation, "His blood be upon us, and our children!"
But in the moment of my exultation I was stricken. He who had refused an
hour of life to the victim was, in terrible retribution, condemned to
know the misery of life interminable. I heard through all the voices of
Jerusalem--I should have heard through all the thunders of heaven, the
calm, low voice, "Tarry thou till I come!"
I felt at once my fate. I sprang away through the shouting hosts as if
the avenging angel waved his sword above my head. I was never to know
the shelter of the grave! Immortality on earth! The perpetual compulsion
of existence in a world made for change! I was to survive my country.
Wife, child, friend, even to the last being with whom my heart could
imagine a human bond, were to perish in my sight. I was to know no limit
to the weight already crushing me. The guilt of life upon life, the
surges of an unfathomable ocean of crime were to roll in eternal
progress over my head. Immortality on earth!
Overwhelmed with despair, I rushed through Jerusalem, crowded with
millions come to the Passover, and made my way through the Gate of Zion
to the open country and the mountains that were before me, like a
barrier shutting out the living world. There, as I lay in an agony of
fear, my soul seemed to be whirled on the wind into the bosom of a
thundercloud. I felt the weight of the rolling vapours. I saw a blaze. I
was stunned by a roar that shook the firmament.
When I recovered it was to hear the trumpet which proclaims that the
first daily sacrifice is to be offered. I was a priest; this day's
service fell to me; I dared not shrink from the duty which appalled me!
Humanity drove me first to my home, where to my unspeakable relief I
found my wife and child happy and unharmed; then I went to the Temple,
and began my solemn duties. I was at the altar, the Levite at my side
holding the lamb, when suddenly in rushed the high priest, his face
buried in the folds of his cloak, and, grasping the head of the lamb, he
snatched the knife from the Levite, plunged it into the animal's throat,
and ran with bloody hands and echoing groans to the porch of the Holy
House. I hastened up the steps after him, and entered the sanctuary.
But--what I saw there I have no power to tell. Words were not made to
utter it. Before me moved things mightier than of mortal vision,
thronging shapes of terror, mysterious grandeur, essential power,
embodied prophecy. On the pavement lay the high priest, his lips
strained wide, his whole frame rigid and cold as a corpse. And the Veil
was rent in twain!
Fleeing from the Temple, I came into a world of black men. The sun,
which I had seen like a fiery buckler hanging over the city, was utterly
gone. As I looked into this unnatural night, the thought smote me that I
had brought this judgment on the Holy City, and I formed the
determination to fly from my priesthood, my kindred, and my country, and
to bear my doom in some barren wilderness.
I ran from the Temple, where priests clung together in pale terror,
found my wife and child, and bore them away through the panic-stricken
city. As we journeyed a yell of universal terror made me turn my eyes to
Jerusalem. A large sphere of fire shot through the heavens, casting a
pallid illumination on the myriads below. It stopped above the city, and
exploded in thunder, flashing over the whole horizon, but covering the
Temple with a blaze which gave it the aspect of metal glowing in a
furnace. Every pillar and pinnacle was seen with a lurid and terrible
distinctness. The light vanished. I heard the roar of earthquake; the
ground rose and heaved under my feet. I heard the crash of buildings,
the fall of fragments of the hills and, louder than both, the groans of
the multitude. The next moment the earth gave way, and I was caught up
in a whirlwind of dust and ashes.
_II.--The Son of Misfortune_
It was in Samaria I woke. Miriam, my wife, was at my side. A troop of
our kinsmen, returning from the city, where terror suffered few to
remain, had discovered us, and brought us with them on their journey.
On this pilgrimage to Naphtali, my native home, my absence from prayer
and my sadness struck all our kinsmen; and Eleazer, brother of Miriam,
questioned me thereon. In my bitterness I said to him that I had
renounced my career among the rulers of Israel. Instead of anger or
surprise, his face expressed joy. He pointed out to me the tomb of
Isaiah, to which we were approaching. "There lies," said he, "the heart
which neither the desert nor the dungeon, nor the teeth of the lion, nor
the saw of Manasseh could tame--the denouncer of our crimes, the scourge
of our apostasy, the prophet of that desolation which was to bow the
grandeur of Judah to the grave."
He drew a copy of the Scriptures from his bosom, and read the famous
Haphtorah. "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as
a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we
shall see him, there is no beauty, that we should desire him. He is
despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows!" He stopped, laid his
hand upon my arm, and asked, "Of whom hath the prophet spoken? Him that
_is to come_, still _to come?_" Then he left me.
Some years passed away; the burden remained upon my soul. One day, as I
dwelt among my kinsmen in Naphtali, I was watching a great storm, when
suddenly there stood before me a spirit, accursed and evil, Epiphanes,
one of those spirits of the evil dead who are allowed from time to time
to reappear on earth.
"Power you shall have, and hate it," he announced; "wealth and life, and
hate them. You shall be the worm among a nation of worms--you shall be
steeped in poverty to the lips--you shall undergo the bitterness of
death, until----Come," he cried suddenly, "son of misfortune, emblem
of the nation, that living shall die, and dying shall live; that,
trampled by all, shall trample on all; that, bleeding from a thousand
wounds, shall be unhurt; that, beggared, shall wield the wealth of
nations; that, without a name, shall sway the council of kings; that,
without a city, shall inhabit in all the kingdoms; that, scattered like
the dust, shall be bound together like the rock; that, perishing by the
sword, chain, famine, and fire, shall be imperishable, unnumbered,
glorious as the stars of heaven."
I was caught up and swept towards Jerusalem. It was the twilight of a
summer evening. Town and wall lay bathed in a sea of purple; the Temple
rose from its centre like an island of light; the host of Heaven came
riding up the blue fields alone; all was the sweetness, calm, and
splendour of a painted vision. As the night deepened, a murmur from the
city caught my ear; it grew loud, various, wild; it was soon mixed with
the clash of arms; trumpets rang, torches blazed along battlements and
turrets; the roar of battle rose, deepened into cries of agony, swelled
into furious exultation. "Behold," said the possessed, "these are but
the beginnings of evil!" I looked up; the spirit was gone. In another
minute I was plunging into the valley, and rushing forward to the
battle.
From that moment I became a chieftain of Israel, and as Prince of
Naphtali led my people against the legions of Rome. I came to be a
priest, I became a captain. I was ever in the midst of battle; I was
cast into dungeons; brought to the cross; cast among lions; shipwrecked,
driven out to sea on a blazing trireme; accused before Nero and Titus;
exposed a thousand times to death; and yet ever at the extreme moment
some mysterious hand interfered between my life and its destruction. I
could not die.
_III.--The Abomination of Desolation_
And through all these awful years of incessant warfare I was now lifted
up on a wave of victory to heights of dazzling glory, and now plunged
down into the abysm of defeat. I saw my wife and children torn from me;
restored, only to be dragged away again. I saw Rome driven from the Holy
City, only to see her return in triumph. And all through these maddening
vicissitudes, suspected by my own people, and knowing my own infamy, I
heard the voice, "Tarry thou till I come!"
The fall of our illustrious and unhappy city was supernatural. During
the latter days of the siege, a hostility, to which that of man was as
the grain of sand to the tempest that drives it on, overpowered our
strength and senses. Fearful shapes and voices in the air; visions
startling us from our short and troubled sleep; lunacy in its most
hideous forms; sudden death in the midst of vigour; the fury of the
elements let loose upon our unsheltered heads; we had every evil and
terror that could beset human nature, but pestilence, the most probable
of all in a city crowded with the famishing, the diseased, the wounded,
and the dead. Yet, though the streets were covered with the unburied;
though every wall and trench was teeming; though six hundred thousand
corpses lay flung over the ramparts, and naked to the sun--pestilence
came not. But the abomination of desolation, the pagan standard, was
fixed; where it was to remain until the plough passed over the ruins of
Jerusalem.
On this fatal night no man laid his head upon his pillow. Heaven and
earth were in conflict. Meteors burned above us; the ground shook under
our feet; the volcano blazed; the wind burst forth in irresistible
blasts, and swept the living and the dead in whirlwinds far off into the
desert. Thunder pealed from every quarter of the heavens. Lightning, in
immense sheets, withering eye and soul, burned from the zenith to the
ground, and marked its track by forests on flame, and the shattered
summits of hills.
Defence was unthought of; for the mortal enemy had passed from the mind.
Our hearts quaked from fear, but it was to see the powers of heaven
shaken. All cast away the shield and the spear, and crouched before the
descending judgment. Our cries of remorse, anguish, and horror were
heard through the uproar of the storm. We howled to the caverns to hide
us; we plunged into the sepulchres, to escape the wrath that consumed
the living.
I knew the cause, the unspeakable cause; knew that the last hour of
crime was at hand. A few fugitives, astonished to see one man not sunk
into the lowest feebleness of fear, besought me to lead them into
safety. I said they were to die, and pointed them to the hallowed ground
of the Temple. More, I led them towards it myself. But advance was
checked. Piles of cloud, whose darkness was palpable even in the
midnight, covered the holy hill. I attempted to pass through it, and was
swept downward by a gust that tore the rocks in a flinty shower around
me.
While I lay helpless, I heard the whirlwind roar through the cloudy
hill; and the vapours began to revolve. A pale light, like that of the
rising moon, quivered on their edges; and the clouds rose, and rapidly
shaped themselves into the forms of battlements and towers. Voices were
heard within, low and distant, yet strangely sweet. Still the lustre
brightened, and the airy building rose, tower on tower, and battlement
on battlement. In awe we knelt and gazed upon this more than mortal
architecture. It stood full to earth and heaven, the colossal image of
the first Temple. All Jerusalem saw the image; and the shout that, in
the midst of their despair, ascended from its thousands and tens of
thousands told what proud remembrances were there. But a hymn was heard,
that might have hushed the world. Never fell on mortal ear sound so
majestic and subduing, so full of melancholy and grandeur and command.
The vast portal opened, and from it marched a host such as man had never
seen before, such as man shall never see but once again; the guardian
angels of the city of David! They came forth glorious, but with woe in
their steps, tears flowing down their celestial beauty. "Let us go
hence," was their song of sorrow. "Let us go hence," was announced by
the echoes of the mountains.
The procession lingered on the summit. The thunder pealed, and they rose
at the command, diffusing waves of light over the expanse of heaven.
Then the thunder roared again; the cloudy temple was scattered on the
winds; and darkness, the omen of her grave, settled upon Jerusalem.
_IV.--The Hour of Doom_
I was roused by the voice of a man. "What!" said he, "poring over the
faces of dead men, when you should be foremost among the living? All
Jerusalem in arms, and yet you scorn your time to gain laurels?" I
sprang up, and drew my scimitar, for the man was--Roman.
"You should know me," he said calmly; "it is some years since we met,
but we have not been often asunder."
"Are you not a Roman?" I exclaimed. He denied that nationality, and
offered me his Roman trappings, cuirass and falchion, saying they would
help me to money, riot, violence, and vice in the doomed city; "and,"
said he, "what else do nine-tenths of mankind ask for in their souls?"
He tore his helmet from his forehead, and, with a start of inward pain,
flung it to a measureless distance in the air. I beheld--Epiphanes! "I
told you," he said, "that this day would come. One grand hope was given
to your countrymen; they cast it from them! Ages on ages shall pass
before they learn the loftiness of that hope, or fulfill the punishment
of that rejection. Yet, in the fullness of time, light shall break upon
their darkness. They shall ask: Why are barbarians and civilised alike
our oppressors? Why do contending faiths join in crushing us alone? Why
do realms, distant as the ends of the earth, unite in scorn of us?"
"Man of terrible knowledge," I demanded, "tell me for what crime this
judgment comes?"
"There is no name for it," he said, with solemn fear.
"Is there no hope?" said I, trembling.
"Look to that mountain," was the answer, as he pointed to Moriah. "It is
now covered with war and slaughter. But upon that mountain shall yet be
enthroned a Sovereign, before whom the sun shall hide his head. From
that mountain shall light flow to the ends of the universe, and the
government shall be of the everlasting."
In a few minutes he had carried me to the city, placed me on a
battlement, and had disappeared.
Below me war raged in its boundless fury. The Romans had forced their
way; the Jews were fighting like wild beasts. When the lance was broke,
the knife was the weapon; when the knife failed, they tore with their
hands and teeth. But the Romans advanced against all. They advanced till
they were near the inner temple. A scream of wrath and agony at the
possible profanation of the Holy of Holies rose from the multitude. I
leaped from the battlement, called upon Israel to follow me, and drove
the Romans back.
But Jerusalem was marked for ruin. A madman, prophesying the succour of
heaven, prevented Israel from surrendering, and thus saving the Temple.
Infuriated by his words, the populace kept up the strife, and the Temple
burst into flames. The fire sprang through the roof, and the whole of
its defenders, to the number of thousands, sank into the conflagration.
In another minute the inner temple was on fire. I rushed forward, and
took my post before the veil of the portico, to guard the entrance with
my blood.
But the legions rushed onward, crying that "they were led by the Fates,"
and that "the God of the Jews had given his people and city into their
hands." The torrent was irresistible. Titus rushed in at its head,
exclaiming that "the Divinity alone could have given the stronghold into
his power, for it was beyond the hope and strength of man." My
companions were torn down. I was forced back to the veil of the Holy of
Holies. I longed to die! I fought, I taunted, covered from head to foot
in gore. I remained without a wound.
Then came a new enemy--fire. I heard its roar round the sanctuary. The
Romans fled to the portal. A wall of fire stood before them. They rushed
back, tore down the veil, and the Holy of Holies stood open.
The blaze melted the plates of the roof in a golden shower above me. It
calcined the marble floor; it dissipated in vapour the inestimable gems
that studded the walls. All who entered lay turned to ashes. But on the
sacred Ark the flame had no power. It whirled and swept in a red orb
round the untouched symbol of the throne of thrones. Still I lived; but
I felt my strength giving way--the heat withered my sinews, the flame
extinguished my sight. I sank upon the threshold, rejoicing that death
was inevitable. Then, once again, I heard the words of terror. "Tarry
thou till I come!" The world disappeared before me.
_V.--The Pilgrim of Time_
Here I pause. I had undergone that portion of my career which was to be
passed among my people. My life as father, husband, citizen, was at an
end. Thenceforth I was to be a solitary man. I was to make my couch with
the savage, the outcast, and the slave. I was to see the ruin of the
mighty and the overthrow of empires. Yet, in the tumult that changed the
face of the world, I was still to live and be unchanged.
In revenge for the fall of Jerusalem, I traversed the globe to seek out
an enemy of Rome. I found in the northern snows a man of blood; I
stirred up the soul of Alaric, and led him to the sack of Rome. In
revenge for the insults heaped upon the Jew by the dotards and dastards
of the city of Constantine, I sought out an instrument of compendious
ruin. I found him in the Arabian sands, and poured ambition into the
soul of Mecca. In revenge for the pollution of the ruins of the Temple,
I roused the iron tribes of the West, and at the head of the Crusaders
expelled the Saracens. I fed full on revenge, and fed the misery of
revenge.
A passion for human fame seized me. I drew my sword for Italy;
triumphed, was a king, and learned to curse the hour when I first
dreamed of fame. A passion for gold seized me. Wealth came to my wish,
and to my torment. Days and nights of misery were the gift of avarice.
In my passion I longed for regions where the hand of man had never
rifled the mine. I found a bold Genoese, and led him to the discovering
of a new world. With its metals I inundated the old; and to my misery
added the misery of two hemispheres.
Yet the circle of passion was not to surround my fated steps for ever.
Noble aspirations rose in my melancholy heart. I had seen the birth of
true science, true liberty, and true wisdom. I had lived with Petrarch,
stood enraptured beside the easel of Angelo and Raphael. I had stood at
Maintz, beside the wonder-working machine that makes knowledge
imperishable, and sends it with winged speed through the earth. At the
pulpit of the mighty man of Wittenberg I had knelt; Israelite as I was,
and am, I did involuntary homage to the mind of Luther.
At this hour I see the dawn of things to whose glory the glory of the
past is but a dream. But I must close these thoughts, wandering as the
steps of my pilgrimage. I have more to tell--strange, magnificent, and
sad. But I must await the impulse of my heart.
* * * * *