Grandmothers are more lenient with their children’s children than they
were with their own.
At forty years of age, if discipline be necessary, chastisement is used;
but at seventy, the grandmother, looking upon the misbehavior of the
grandchild, is apologetic and disposed to substitute confectionery for
whip.
There is nothing more beautiful than this mellowing of old age toward
childhood. Grandmother takes out her pocket handkerchief and wipes
her spectacles and puts them on, and looks down into the face of her
mischievous and rebellious descendant, and says:
“I don’t think he meant to do it; let him off this time; I’ll be
responsible for his behavior in the future.”
My mother, with the second generation around her--a boisterous crew--said
one day: “I suppose they ought to be disciplined, but I can not do it.
Grandmothers are not fit to bring up grandchildren.”
But here we have a grandmother of a different hue.
I have been at Jerusalem, where the occurrence that I shall describe took
place, and the whole scene came vividly before me while I was going over
the site of the ancient Temple and climbing the towers of the king’s
palace.
Here is old Athaliah, the queenly murderess.
She ought to have been honorable. Her father was a king. Her husband
was a king. Her son was a king. And yet we find her plotting for the
extermination of the entire royal family, including her own grandchildren.
The executioner’s knives are sharpened; the palace is red with the blood
of princes and princesses. On all sides are shrieks, and hands thrown up,
and struggle and death groan. No mercy! Kill! Kill!
But while the ivory floors of the palace run with carnage and the whole
land is under the shadow of a great horror, a fleet-footed woman--a
clergyman’s wife, Jehosheba by name--stealthily approaches the imperial
nursery, seizes upon the grandchild that had, somehow, as yet escaped
massacre, wraps it up tenderly but in haste, snuggles it against her,
flies down the palace stairs--her heart in her throat, lest she be
discovered in this Christian abduction.
Get her out of the way as quickly as you can, for she carries a precious
burden--even a young king.
With this youthful prize she presses into the room of the ancient Temple,
the church of olden time, unwraps the young king and puts him down, sound
asleep as he is, and unconscious of the peril that has been threatened;
and there for six years he is kept secreted in that church apartment.
Meanwhile, old Athaliah smacks her lips with satisfaction and thinks that
all the royal family are dead.
But the six years expire, and it is now time for the young Joash to come
forth and take the throne, and to push back into disgrace and death old
Athaliah.
The arrangements are all made for political revolution. The military come
and take full possession of the Temple, swear loyalty to the boy Joash,
and then stand around for his defense. See the sharpened swords and
burnished shields! Every thing is ready.
Now Joash, half affrighted at the armed tramp of his defenders, scared at
the vociferation of his admirers, is brought forth in full regalia. The
scroll of authority is put into his hands, the coronet of government is
put on his brow, and the glad people clap and wave, huzza and trumpet.
Athaliah is aroused, and asks:
“What is that? What is that sound over there in the Temple?”
She hurries out to see, and on the way they meet her and say:
“Why, haven’t you heard? You thought you had slain all the royal family,
but Joash has come to light.”
Then the queenly murderess, frantic with rage, laid hold on her mantle
and tore it to tatters, and cried out until she foamed at the mouth:
“You have no right to crown my grandson. You have no right to take the
government from my shoulders. Treason! Treason!”
While she stood there, making this cry, the military started for her
arrest, and she took a short cut through a back door of the Temple and
ran through the royal stables; but the battle-axes of the military fell
on her in the barn-yard, and for many a day, when the horses were being
unloosed from the chariot after drawing out young Joash, the fiery steeds
would snort and rear while passing the place, as they smelt the taint.
The first thought which I hand you from this subject is that the
extermination of righteousness is an impossibility.
When a woman is good she is apt to be very good, and when she is bad she
is apt to be very bad; and this Athaliah was one of the latter sort.
She would exterminate the last scion of the house of David, through
whom Jesus was to come. There was plenty of work for embalmers and
undertakers. She would clear the land of all God-fearing and God-loving
people. She would put an end to every thing that could in any wise
interfere with her imperial criminality.
Athaliah folds her hands and says: “The work is done; it is completely
done.”
Is it?
In the swaddling clothes of that church apartment are wrapped the cause
of God and the cause of good government.
That is the scion of the house of David; it is Joash, the Christian
reformer; it is Joash, the friend of God; it is Joash, the demolisher of
Baalitish idolatry. Rock him tenderly; nurse him gently.
Athaliah, you may kill all the other children, but you can not kill him.
Eternal defenses are thrown all around him, and this clergyman’s wife,
Jehosheba, will snatch him up from the palace nursery, and will run up
and down with him into the house of the Lord, and there she will hide him
for six years, and at the end of that time he will come forth for your
dethronement and utter obliteration.