PASSOVER!
Cohen, the Jew, blew out the candle, and set the stand aside. The knees
of his trousers were pressed and dusty. He had just been over the whole
house, lighted candle in hand, and had searched every nook and crannie,
every cupboard, every shelf, under the edge of every carpet, looking
for the faintest sign of leaven in the form of bread, cake, or biscuit
crumb. He had found nothing, and went to his room to bathe and change his
clothing.
“What of you, Zillah?” he had asked the lovely girl, earlier in the day.
“With your newly-espoused faith in the Nazarene, shall you partake of the
lamb with us?”
“Certainly, I will,” she replied, “_only_ I shall take the meal more in
the spirit of the Lord’s Supper, of the Christian Church. And Abraham——”
Her eyes, as they were lifted to his, swam with tender, pitying tears, as
she added:
“All the time I shall be praying that you may meet the Christ of
God, Jesus of Nazareth; and while you seek to remember our people’s
deliverance from the land of Bondage, I shall be praying that you, dear
Abram, may be delivered from the bondage of the legalism of our race.”
* * * * *
The Passover table was spread in Cohen’s house. The arrangement of that
table was a curious mixture of Mosaic and Rabbinical command. In the
case of all but really very pious Jews of this day, the real and actual
Passover is not kept.
Passover—(_chag Appesach_ of the Jews) _must_ have a lamb roasted to make
it the _real_ feast, the ordinary Jew to-day, contents himself with an
egg, and a burnt shank-bone of mutton, and unleavened cakes.
Cohen’s Passover Feast always included a small lamb. Still, Rabbinical
lore and Bible command were curiously mixed in the Cohen celebration.
The table, to-night, had an egg according to Rabbinical order, but there
was a tiny roast lamb as well. There was the glass dish of bitter herbs;
the salt water, typifying the tears of Israelitish misery in Egypt; a
dish of almonds, apples, and other fruit, chopped and mixed, represented
the lime and mortar of the Brick-making in the Land of Bondage.
Chervil and parsley were there, and lettuce. A large pile of unleavened
cakes, a big coloured glass ewer with unfermented wine and water, and
many other items considered to be the orthodox thing at the Feast.
All the Cohen household was there. Zillah, radiant with the glow of the
new life in Christ that had come to her.
Rachel, her sister, was red-eyed and sullen. Zillah had been pleading
with her to open her mind, and her heart to the Christian teaching of
the Messiah who had come, and who had atoned for _all_ the race, Jew and
Gentile alike.
Angry and sullen, the wife had said hard things of Zillah. Her frivolous,
irresponsible nature was more than satisfied with the barest _form_ of
the faith of her race.
The two children were full of suppressed excitement, the elder—the
boy—especially.
Cohen, the head of the house, was singularly quiet and grave. His eyes
had a far-away look in them. He looked like a man moving in a trance.
Presently the boy, (he had been carefully coached) asked, according to
the usual formula:
“What mean ye, father, by this Service?”
Cohen’s eyes stared over the head of his son, and in a voice very unlike
its usual tones, replied:—
“_It is the Sacrifice of Jehovah’s Passover, who halted by the
blood-sprinkled houses of our fathers in Egypt, that the destroying angel
should come not nigh, when He smote the Egyptians, but preserved our
fathers._”
“Will our people _ever_ do this, father?” queried the boy.
“Till Messiah come, they will, dear son.” The strained gaze of Cohen, as
he answered, was as though he was trying to pierce Time’s veil, and see
the coming Messiah approaching.
“_When_ will Messiah come, father?” continued the boy.
“_To-night_, perhaps, my son. Set His chair! Open the door!”
Swiftly, but with remarkable quietude, for a child, the boy placed a
chair at the table, then, stepping briskly, silently to the door, he set
it wide open, and left it thus, and returned to his place by the table.
Rachel took the ewer and poured out a little wine and water into each
glass. In her sullenness, as she came to Zillah’s glass, she slopped the
wine over the edge. The children glanced curiously from the spilled wine
to the face of their aunt, then at their father’s face.
Zillah’s face flushed; Cohen’s grew pale, and set in a sharp spasm of
pain. No word was said, each took up their glass, and drank the _first_
cup of blessing.
There was a moment’s pause, then Cohen spread his hands, bowed his head,
and repeated “The Blessing:—”
“_The Lord bless us and keep us; the Lord make His face shine upon us and
be gracious unto us. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon
us and give us peace._”
Under her breath, yet distinctly heard by Cohen, in the solemn hush that
followed the Blessing, Zillah murmured:—
“_But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off, are made nigh
by the blood of Christ._ FOR HE IS OUR PEACE.”
Cohen glanced quietly at her. She met the glance with one of intense
yearning. He translated it rightly, as meaning “If _only_ you could see
this truth?”
There were two bowls of water set on a side-board. Cohen and his wife
rinsed their hands in one bowl, Zillah and the two children in the other.
Addressing himself to his son, more than to the others, Cohen, when they
had returned to the table, as the head of the house was instructed to do,
explained why they sat at the Feast:—
“Our Fathers, when they took the Feast for the _first_ time in Egypt, my
son, took it _standing_, with their loins girt, and their staff in hand,
for _they_ were starting on that great journey that eventually lasted
forty years. But we, their descendants, eat the feast to-day, _sitting_
at our ease, as a symbol that our people have been delivered from the
cruel bondage.”
Then the _first_ Hallel was repeated.—Psalms 113, and 114. The _second_
cup of Blessing was taken by each. Then Cohen asked a Blessing on _each_
kind of food on the table. Then he carved a portion of lamb for each one,
they took their seats, and the meal began.
The children were excused from eating the stinging bitter herbs. But
Cohen, Rachel, and Zillah, each took a little with their lamb and
unleavened bread.
Conversation became fairly general over the meal, except that Rachel’s
sullen anger increased, and she kept silent.
At the conclusion of the meal, the _third_ cup of Blessing was drunk, and
Cohen repeated the 115, 116, 117, 118, Psalm. At the close of the Hallel,
the _fourth_, and last cup of Blessing was taken. The Feast was over.
A sudden silence fell upon them all. No one moved, no one spoke, for a
moment. Suddenly Zillah broke the dead silence. She had a glorious voice,
and she let it ring out in that wondrous song:—
“Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away our stain.”
No one interrupted. Cohen _could_ not, for the thrall of some strange,
new power was upon him. His wife was furious—but kept her fury bottled
up. The children were delighted, they loved to hear their aunt sing, and
to the amaze of their father and mother—they joined in the singing, for,
with other children, they had often of late been to the evening meeting
for Jewish children. And Zillah, who had talked with them, believed that
they loved the Christ.
Without a break, the three voices sang on:
“But Christ the Heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name,
And richer Blood than they.
“My faith would lay her hand
On that meek head of Thine,
While as a penitent I stand,
And here confess my sin.
“My soul looks back to see
The burden Thou didst bear
When hanging on the accursed tree,
And knows her guilt was there.
“Believing we rejoice
To feel the curse remove;
We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,
And trust His bleeding love.”
Again, for full thirty seconds, as the glorious song finished, there was
an absolute silence, save for the ricketting of Rachel’s chair, as she
moved in pettish anger on her seat.
Zillah had kept her eyes fixed upon Cohen’s face all the time she was
singing, and had seen a strangely wondrous light slowly gather in his
eyes. She had known, for days, that he was very, very near to the point
of acceptance of Christ. Even as they had gathered at the table of the
Passover, she was not sure, but that in all but profession and testimony,
he was a Christian.
Now he suddenly broke the silence.
“Sing the last two verses again, Zillah” he said.
“_My_ soul looks back to see
The burden Thou didst bear
When hanging on the accursed tree,
And knows her guilt was there.”
Zillah’s glorious voice rang out. And now, even to _her_ wonder, Cohen’s
deeper tones joined hers. Her heart leaped as she noted the emphasis he
put upon the “_My_ soul.”
She sang on. His voice sang on too. Then came the last verse, and in a
perfect burst of triumph, his voice rang out:—
“Believing _I_ rejoice
To feel the curse remove;
_I_ bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,
And trust His bleeding love!”
It was a strangely ecstatic moment for Zillah. Tears flooded her eyes,
she tried to speak, but her emotion choked her.
Cohen stood up. His face was ablaze with the wonder of the revelation
that had come to him. He spread his hands upward, and his eyes were
lifted in the same direction, as he cried:—
“Thou loving Christ! Thou Precious Jesus! I am _Thine_—THINE—THINE—!”
Then he remembered his wife.
“Rachael, dear heart,” he cried, as he moved to her side. “Machael, wife
of my heart. Jesus _is_ the Messiah!”
“Bah!” she cried. With a thrust of her hand and foot, she kept him from
her. Then in tones of withering scorn and disgust, she cried:
“Mehusmed!”
He bent over her very tenderly, stooping to meet her eyes, and trying to
take her hand.
The two children clung to Zillah, and the boy suddenly began to pipe out,
in his clear treble, the hymn so beloved of Jewish children who attend
the mission meetings.
“Come to the Saviour, Make no delay,”
Rachael shot a fiercely angry glance in the boy’s direction, then without
looking at her husband, she thrust at him, to prevent his taking her
hand, as she cried:—
“Accursed! Mehusmed! Don’t touch _me_!”
“But, Rachael!” he began tenderly.
She flung herself sharply round upon him and spat full in his face. Then
she turned sharply from him again.
A full half minute went by. The room grew so eerily still that it
startled her. She turned to gaze where the quartette had been.
The room was empty save for herself!
With a cry she started to her feet. They could not have gone out of the
door for her chair had all the time stood right in the way. What was this
then that had happened?
Her breath came hot and laboured. Her eye-balls bulged horribly! A
reeling sickness began to steal over her. She dropped back, terrified, in
her chair, gasping:—
“Zillah said this morning “The Christ will come _soon, suddenly_, then
those who are His, will be taken, unseen, unheard, from the world!”
With a sharp, anguished cry, she let her bulging, terror-filled eyes
sweep the room again as she cried:—
“And my _children_, too!”
Her eyes were tearless, but dry, hard sobs shook all her frame.
The next moment a kind of frenzy seized her. She rushed to the front
door, and into the street. She would find out if any one else was missing.
A little crowd was on the pavement. A hansom cab stood by the curb. The
fare was standing on the front board. He was a minister of some kind. He
wore a M.B. waistcoat, a clerical collar, a soft, wide-brimmed, black
felt hat. He glanced up at the driver’s seat, as he cried:—
“But _some_ one, _surely_, must have seen what became of him. If he fell
off his box in a fit, where is his body?”
“I seed him one hinstant,” cried a voice from the crowd, “I wur lookin
straight at ’im, ’cos I sed to myself, taint often as yer see a kebby
wear a white ’at, now-a-days. Then, while I wur starin’ at ’im, he sort
o’ disappeared, the reins fell on the roof o’ the keb, the ’oss stopped,
an—”
“He’s gone!” shrieked a woman’s voice.
It was Rachael. Bare-headed, dressed in all her festal finery, she had
just rushed down the steps of the house, and heard the question and
answer as to the disappearance of the hansom driver. The crowd turned and
faced her, her shrill tones had startled them.
“He’s gone to Jehovah!” she screamed again. “My husband, my sister, my
two children—we were at Passover—we——”
With a piercing shriek she flung up her arms, laughed hideously and fell
in a huddled heap on the bottom step of the flight.