THE END.
The two slaves, Onesimus and Syrus, bear their torture with
constancy, refusing to testify otherwise than in grateful praise of
Paul. The emperor, at Seneca's prompting, has secretly overheard
their testimony, and, obeying a caprice of justice and of pity, he
follows a further hint from Seneca to let Paul go free under bond to
appear again when formal accusation shall be laid against him from
Jerusalem. Paul thus released sends home to Holy Land the friends
that had thence accompanied him to Rome, and accomplishes his last
missionary tours, with Luke only for companion.
Meantime Drusilla, in a desperate hope revived by the rumored fall
from imperial favor of Poppæa, sends Simon once more to secure for
his mistress the long-postponed meeting with Nero. Simon plays
Drusilla false and pretends to the emperor that she had indulgently
sent him, Simon, to sue on his own behalf for the privilege of
practising his art in the palace. Nero agrees that he may do this on
condition that he shall first have secured from his mistress fresh
consent to receive an imperial visit in her house. Simon, stung by
the emperor's scorn of him, had wrought himself up to the temerity
of attempting to play on Nero's guilty conscience by an exhibition
that should bring up before the tyrant a dreadful recollection of
one of his own most heinous crimes. The result proves suddenly fatal
to Simon.
Paul, brought back in due time for trial, becomes the victim not
only of enmity openly working under legal forms against him, but
of secret intrigue for unholy personal purposes on the emperor's
part. Condemned to die, after having been permitted first to speak
in his own defence, the apostle is led to a suburb of Rome, and
there beheaded. Luke, enjoined thereto by Paul, gives to his kindred
and friends in Palestine an account of the end, of which he was
eye-witness.
THE END.
Onesimus and Syrus had been seized
To make them swear a dreadful perjury;
It was persuasion from Drusilla wrought
With Tigellinus to commit this deed
Of outrage against ruth and righteousness:
Those bondmen should be brought, by utmost pangs
Wreaked on them in the anguish of the rack,
To charge Paul with the poisoning of her spouse.
Drusilla first had vainly sought to bribe
Poor Syrus to that lie and perfidy.
Smiles, blandishments, entreaties, promises,
Failing--she next, with scourgings from her tongue,
Threats, thrusts from female weapons in her hands,
Had striven to warp him to her wish--in vain.
At last she, giving him up for torture, yet
Bade him remember he need only swear,
Therein supported by Onesimus,
That from Paul's hand he had a dust received--
Impalpable, so fine--of unknown power
To work unknown effect upon a man,
And had by Paul instructed been to sift
This secretly into some draught his lord
Would drink, and watch how it would gladden him--
That he had only to protest that lie,
Confessing then that, in all innocence
Of childish curiosity to see,
He did it when his mistress sent by him
A sleeping-draught to Felix in his bath--
Only just this, and straight for both of them,
Onesimus with Syrus, the sharp pains
And rending of the question should be stayed.
Syrus said sadly to Onesimus:
"O, would that Paul were here to give us heart!"
"Jesus is here, and He will give us heart,"
Onesimus replied; "let us trust Him."
"I fear I shall be broken to their will,"
Said Syrus, "and swear whatever they desire;
I am so in terror of the frightful pain!"
This was while they were binding the poor slaves
Upon the rack. His comrade spoke in cheer:
"'Lo, I am with you alway,' Jesus said;
He will not let us suffer overmuch.
I shall not wonder if He take away
The pain, almost--or altogether even.
For He abideth faithful--so Paul says,
And Paul has proved it over and over again.
At any rate, the promise Jesus made
To Paul once, when his need was very sore,
Will be as good to us in this our stead;
His grace will be sufficient for us still.
The dread is heavier than the pain will be."
And it was so; for after the first wrench,
Which well-nigh solved the jointings of their limbs,
The spirit rose the sovereign of the flesh
And bore those helpless victims of the rack
Triumphant as in painless ecstasy.
Their mortal frames became as instruments
Of music underneath the player's hand;
For every quivering nerve within them strung
Responded to the running torture's touch
In bursts of exclamation like the notes
Of a song sung to some pathetic tune
Wherein the pathos still keeps triumphing:
"Lord Jesus, this for Thee!" "And this!" "O, joy
That we are counted worthy thus to suffer!"
"It is not suffering, since for Thee we suffer!"
Meanwhile to every challenge touching Paul,
Though thrills of anguish broke their speech to cries,
They said, and would forever only say:
"He taught us nothing but to reverence
Our masters with all good fidelity
Of service rendered them out of true hearts
As to the Lord in heaven and not to men."
By secret orders from the emperor
The torture-room was cunningly contrived
To be a sort of whispering gallery,
An ear of Dionysius, to resound
Whatever might be uttered from the rack
Wrung out of victims put to question there--
Words, cries, sighs, groans, or moans of agony--
And carry them to distance where above,
If one should listen, they might all be heard.
Here Nero laid a listening ear that day--
Seneca's prompting, who was present too--
And heard Onesimus and Syrus bear
Their steadfast witness on behalf of Paul,
With adjuration mingled of a Name.
The not yet utterly extinguished spark
Of human in that indurated breast
(Perhaps therewith effect of fear infused--
Divinely--at such adjuration heard)
Responded in a transitory glow
Of something gentle that resembled ruth
Toward those poor sufferers faithful against pain;
Of something that resembled justice too
Toward Paul so stoutly witnessed for by them.
He forthwith bade release the witnesses;
And hearkened to a counsel touching Paul.
For Seneca adventured this to him--
A farewell flicker of his influence,
Ere Tigellinus overbore him quite--:
"Shouldst thou think well it might indeed be well,
To loose this Jewish prisoner from his thrall--
He giving surety under ample bond
To answer with his person at the bar
Of Cæsar upon summons, to be tried
Whenever shall appear accusers sent
Accredited from Jerusalem to Rome."
So out of darkness there sprang up a light
To Paul, and for that present he went free.
Soon at a meeting of thanksgiving held
To celebrate with praises to the Lord
His unexpected riddance out of thrall
Paul to his brethren and his kindred said:
"My life reprieved from threatened death in shame,
I dedicate anew to Christ the Lord.
I go hence, parting from you all with tears
Of joyful love, and thanks for love again
Mine in full measure from so many hearts
That have not here my bonds in Christ despised--
I go hence, in the Spirit bound, to bear
Far as I may abroad in all the world
The glorious gospel of the blesséd God.
Pray for me that I may be sped in peace,
And that before me doors of utterance may
Swing open wide wherever I am led.
The time is short for all of us; for me
Shorter, it may be, than our present joy
Buoys us to hope. Perhaps the Lord will come
And find me waking still--and not asleep--
To welcome Him descending in the air.
Amen! So may it be! Lord Jesus, come!
"And yet, belovéd, though these words I speak,
A more prevailing prescience in my heart
Forewarns me I shall witness with my blood
For Him who suffered unto blood for me.
If so it be, amen! Lord Jesus, yea,
Thy will for me is my will for myself;
I spring to it with joy, or far or near--
Unknown to me--enough that it is Thine!
"So, farewell, ye. Watch and remember, all,
That by the space of two full years in chains
I have not ceased to warn you night and day,
Each one, with tears. And now, behold, I know
That some of you to whom I have fulfilled
This ministry shall see my face no more.
O, brethren, I commend you unto God!
Be perfect, be of brave and hopeful cheer,
Be of one mind, abide in peace, and He,
The God of love and peace, shall with you be.
O, how my heart is large toward you! The love
Of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
And the communion of the Holy Ghost
Be with you and abound--ever! Amen!"
Therewith Paul kneeled and prayed a breaking prayer;
And they all wept, and he wept with them all,
They falling on his neck and kissing him
In love and sorrow. Each one with himself
'Among them, I?' asked, and so sorrowed most
Of all for that word which he spoke, "I know
That some of you shall see my face no more."
Paul sent his kindred and his lovers--those
Who for his sake had sailed with him to Rome--
Back to find home again in Holy Land,
While he, with Luke for his companion sole,
Should run his rounds of mission through the world.
"But what ye can," he said, "before ye go,
Comfort Onesimus and Syrus, sick
With wounding for Christ's sake and mine; I have
Already bathed Onesimus with tears
Of love, and bidden him in Christ be strong:
Ye will not leave him till his health be whole
At least enough to take the journey back
To our Philemon, bearing thanks from me.
"Those here in Rome that love me I shall trust
To speed both you and him with needful aid--
Even as I trust them not to let me lack.
Onesimus no doubt will find a way
That ye could not, nor I, to carry help
To Syrus in his far more wretched case--
Beset with household craft and cruelty.
Pray ye for him; and lade Onesimus
In seeking Syrus deep with love from me.
Christ will not fail him, if he fail not Christ;
'It is but for a moment, all the pain,'
Charge it upon Onesimus to say,
'But for eternal ages is the joy!'
"Now unto such as can receive it I,
Under this present imminence of woe
Forerunning the return of Christ the Lord,
Give counsel not to marry but abide
In undistracted waiting for the Day.
Yet for our Stephen and Eunicé here,
Already long betrothed and lovers true,
My will is as their will is; let them wed.
Stephen as husband to Eunicé can
In journeying better fend both her and Ruth
Her mother; he as well can fend his own,
Rachel, the only--sister of my heart!"
Paul's voice a little failed him, ending thus;
And all took knowledge how his kindred love
Broke over him, a wave of tenderness!
So Stephen and Eunicé wedded were,
Paul each in turn adjuring solemnly:
"Thou, O Eunicé, wilt as wife be true,
That know I well, to whom thou thus hast wed.
Submit thyself to him in loyal love,
And as in pledged obedience to the Lord--
Less to his will so yielding than to Christ's.
For God ordains it that the husband be
Head to the wife, as to the church is Christ.
But thou, O Stephen, judge what sanction so
Is on the husband laid, to be how pure,
Above self-will and selfishness how high,
How full of ministration and of help,
How ready ever to self-sacrifice
For the wife's sake, how gentle and how kind!
Thou, therefore, Stephen, love thy wife, even so
As the Lord Jesus loved the church, His bride,
And for her gave Himself. Be happy, ye,
Belovéd, in a love so sanctified."
Paul blessed them, and they felt that they were blessed.
When soon from Rome they took their homeward way--
Ruth, Rachel, and the newly-wedded pair--
They wept that they had looked their last on Paul;
Wept with rejoicing that, a little while,
And the Lord coming would make all things glad.
Now Sergius Paulus chose it for his part
To fill Paul's purse, speeding him on his way;
But Krishna was of mind himself to go
With those who would return to Holy Land.
He longed with his own eyes to see the scenes
Amid which Jesus lived His life on earth
And to glean up from the tradition found
Haply there current in the mouths of men
Concerning Him, both what He taught and what
He was: the Indian's thought was he would then,
Full-laden with such treasures of the West,
To his own native East return and there
Dispense them to enrich his countrymen.
Paul bade him prosper in his wish, and go.
Acquitted thus of all his natural cares,
And joyful in the sense of his reprieve,
And springing toward the work that he would do,
And for that work renewed in strength by hope
And faith and love and zeal unquenchable
And passion for the saving of the souls
Of men, his fellows, perishing in sin--
Much more, by the almighty hand of God
Upon him stayed in an immortal youth--
That spent old man, refusing to be spent
Though spending daily like the river of God,
Set forward, Luke alone companion now,
To send with torch in hand a running fire
Of gospel conflagration round the world.
Go, Paul, forgetful of thyself, make speed!
Thou shalt not be forgotten of thy God!
Go, with that treasure for thy fellows fraught!
Go, with the future of the world in trust!
Nowhere in utmost islands of the sea,
Never till time shall be no more, shall men
Not owe thee debt for blessings manifold--
Crowning the life that now is, frail and fleet,
Crowning the nobler life that is to be--
Blessings theirs but because thou wouldst not shrink
From whatsoever hardship, peril, harm,
Loss, toil, self-sacrifice to martyrdom.
So thou mightst scatter far and wide for us
The deathless seeds of that which we enjoy
In harvest of all good, civility
Of morals and of manners, science, art,
Fair order, freedom, progress, light and life,
And, overvaulting all, the hope of heaven!
While Paul his circuits was accomplishing,
Paul's enemies (and ours) were not remiss,
Whether in Rome or in Jerusalem.
Drusilla, disappointed of her hopes
With Nero to ensnare his heart and be
Assumed to sit beside him on his throne,
Even cheated for the moment of the glut
She thought she had purchased at such cost to pride
Of extreme vengeance visited on Paul,
Was sullenly but more than ever bent
Not to fail yet of at least that desire.
She saw Octavia, sent to exile, way
Make for Poppæa's spousals; heard the shout
Of shallow hollow popular acclaim
That hailed her hated rival conqueror,
Bearing her as on billows of applause
To the high seat herself had hoped for once!
Envy and hatred ulcerous ate her heart--
But not despair; despair was not for her:
Malignity was fuel still to hope.
She despatched Simon to Jerusalem
To blow the embers smouldering there to flame
Of deadly accusation against Paul:
Simon was Shimei risen from the dead,
Shimei in all his pristine force unspent.
The elders of the Jews commissioned him,
With others to whom he was heart and head,
To press at Rome for Paul the doom of death.
Meantime the mouth of common fame began
To whisper that Poppæa, though a wife
To Nero now--perhaps because a wife
And mother of a daughter, Claudia, born
To him--no longer charmed him as of old.
Unholy hope flared up a flicker of flame
Delusive in Drusilla's breast once more.
Octavia, when her husband tired of her,
Went into exile and then went to death
To give Poppæa room; Poppæa's turn
Perhaps was nearing to make room for her,
Drusilla!
'Up, O heart!' she inly cried.
The emperor had indeed with fickle whim,
Dazed by some intercepting lure more nigh,
Forgotten quite his thought of tryst with her--
As her conditions too he had not met.
But her conditions now were well in train,
She trusted, to fulfill themselves on Paul;
And if before, some trace of conscience left
In Nero interfered to make him pause,
Such scruple would no longer be a let
To his desire, should his desire revive,
Of meeting her upon the terms she fixed
To satisfy at once her hate, her pride.
Simon then, from Jerusalem returned
Blithe with his prosperous mission and with hope,
Should go once more to Nero for her cause.
And Simon went, but went not for her cause.
He had a purpose of his own to serve--
Purpose malignant, fatuous--which, fulfilled,
Would swift recoil in ruin on himself.
No worship to Poppæa's setting sun
Paid by him now to win his way at court,
He boldly in Drusilla's name besought
Access to the imperial ear: that name
Procured him instant audience. Discomposed
A little by the sudden way he made
Simon stood faltering, and before his wit
Was ready with apt words the emperor spoke:
"What will thy mistress? She perhaps has thought
The emperor was a trifle slow to claim
His privilege at her court? Bid her take heart;
Things now begin to shape themselves aright."
By this time Simon had recovered himself;
He said: "My mistress is indulgent, Sire.
Knowing my fondness for my art, and wish
That I might entertain the emperor,
She begs thou wilt appoint a time for me--"
"O, aye," the emperor said; "return to her,
And if thou canst bring promptly back to me
Assurance of her grace that she forgives
My tardiness in the past, and will receive
Me yet upon the terms she fixed before--
Somewhat abated, aye, but in the main
Whole; for although the rabble rest she named
Are scattered and not worth regathering, Paul
Is under hand again, duly accused,
And freely may be dealt with to our wish--
Bring, I say, word to me that she consents,
And thou shalt exercise for me thine art
At pleasure here within my palace halls.
Go, and good speed, ambassador of love!"
The sarcasm and the irony took effect
To quicken in the sorcerer his resolve:
For Simon his own doom was teeming now.
He was infatuate with the vain conceit
That he the secret in his art possessed
Of a mock-supernatural power to play
Upon the conscience of the emperor
And fill his conscious breast with guilty fears:
So once he saw Paul play on Felix's,
Making him shudder on his judgment-throne;
Aye, and so he himself in sequel played
On the same kingly culprit with his spells.
Beyond all, Simon was beside himself
With suffocated hatred seeking breath
In freak of demonstration on the man
Who in the wantonness of despotic pride
Had so despised and mocked and flouted him.
Mad thus--judicially, and doubly--he,
Having brought back the word the emperor wished,
And had the promised day appointed him,
Dared an audacious and a fatal thing.
A series of phantasmagories shown
By him, he closed with a presentment, clear
In outline cast upon the palace wall
In shapes of shadow moving like grim life,
Of the dread scene of Agrippina's death:
There hung the vessel on a glassy sea;
The coping timbers causelessly fell down,
But missed the empress-mother figured there;
There followed then the ghastly after-act
Of mother-murder done in pantomime--
More ghastly, that it passed in silence all.
Simon mistook--it was his last mistake!
He had overweened both of the power his own,
And of the emperor's openness to fear.
Nero sat gazing on the spectacle
With heed moveless, and mute, and ominous,
Till the device was acted to the end.
Then still no sign he gave--save summons sent
Bidding two household soldiers straight come in.
To these he coldly, curtly, only said:
"Crucify me this Jew; do it at once!
Be gentle with him; make him last for days,
And every day bring me report of him."
Simon bethought him as he shuddering went
Hustled and hurried to that sudden doom,
Of his gold hoarded long for utmost need:
He offered it in ransom for his life.
The soldiers took it, share and share alike
Between them, but it did not buy his life!
Simon died miserably upon the cross.
'I have abolished _him_!' the emperor thought--
'The adamantine front of impudence!
Whimsical way of paying a lady court,
To crucify her conjurer out of hand!
I hope she did not greatly care for him!
Happily if she did I can repair
The loss to her by putting Paul to death.
Strange, they should hate that blameless man so much!
But reasons of state are strong--and reasons of love;
I must propitiate with a sacrifice.
Jove is compelled by fate mightier than he!'
The tetrarch Herod, to content the whim
And hatred of his wife Herodias,
Once at petition of her daughter fair--
Whose dancing measures beat at festival
Before him had, forsooth, the monarch pleased!--
Sent to behead John Baptist in his prison:
So Nero now in mind delivered Paul
To death--an unconsidered pledge and pawn
Of complaisance to a base woman paid.
As were a star by some avulsive force
Malignant sheer from out her pathway torn
Where she went singing her celestial way
Happy but to fulfill His high decree
Who orbed her and who sped her on her course
(Thenceforth to be abolished from a heaven
Lighted no longer with her lucent beams!);
So Paul was in his heavenly circuits stayed
And wrenched thence by the hand of violent power.
Rome had already round him flung the loop
Of her long lasso irresistible,
And drawn him home to Cæsar to be judged.
No little damped because their head was gone,
But more because he so had disappeared,
The Jews commissioned from Jerusalem
Pressed fierce their suit against their fellow-Jew.
Nero's assessors sat without their chief;
For Nero was grown indolent and lax,
And he deputed his judicial powers.
Yet oft deigned he to give his deputies
Hint of what judgment he desired from them;
And they now knew the doom required for Paul.
Paul was left lonely of all men save Luke;
But Luke the faithful chose with him his part.
Paul longed for Timothy, and wrote to him
Bidding him haste and bring John Mark to Rome.
But the end hasted more than these could haste,
And Timothy was never in the flesh
To greet again that father of his soul
Who, for the son's sake more than for his own,
Yearned toward the son to fix in him his faith
Seen nigh to falter in the face of things
Such as now fronted Paul. John Mark though once
In haste of spirit sundered from Paul's part,
Had long before been won again--to bide
Thenceforward ever fast in loyalty;
But as not Timothy, so neither he
Would comfort Paul in this his last assay.
So much the more Paul's lonely fortitude
In witness amid storms of obloquy
And under the impending threat of doom,
Then against doom itself upon him fallen,
Should at need brace them both to martyrdom.
Most exquisitely human-hearted, Paul
Could not but feel full sore his loneliness--
Loneliness more for sense of being forsaken.
"Demas," to Timothy he sighed, "has loved
This present world, and has forsaken me.
All men forsook me the first time I stood
To make my answer at the judgment-bar;
I pray it be not laid to their account!"
Nobly repined!--yet for a moment only;
Then cheerly added, this, and thankfully:
"Of men not one stood with me; but the Lord,
He with me stood, and cheered and strengthened me,
That all the gentiles might the gospel hear;
And for that time from out the lion's mouth
I was delivered. Yea, and betide what may,
Still the Lord Jesus will deliver me
From every machination of ill men,
And to His heavenly kingdom bring me safe.
To whom be glory evermore! Amen!"
Enjoined thereto by Paul, Luke bore from Rome
To Rachel and the rest in Holy Land--
That dear companionship of kindred hearts--
The tidings how all ended with his death;
Yet how, before he died, and when he died,
He conquered gloriously. Luke said to them:
"He was not taken at all at unawares;
Nothing surprised and nothing daunted him.
Nay, he rejoiced in spirit that all was now
Finished for him on earth; that he might lay
His warrior's harness off and take his crown.
He said this to his judges with such calm
Clear consciousness of speaking simple truth,
Such sober confidence devoid of vaunt,
That something like conviction seized on them
Listening; while on the listening multitude--
For the basilica was thronged--I felt
Fall a great hush and a pathetic awe.
'I know well whom I have believed,' he said,
'And my persuasion is complete that He
Is able to keep that which I have given
In trust to Him against the coming day.
Yea, ye will surely send me hence to die;
The time of my departure ye have set;
So much is in your power to do to me;
But there is more, far more, beyond your power.
Life ye can take, but not the good of life.
The good of life is lodged where it is safe,
And life indeed no power can take from me;
That is committed to almighty hands,
Almighty, and all-faithful, and all-wise:
There it is mine, inalienably mine.
So there is that in me which bides secure
From any terror men can threat me with.
A witness in my heart attests that I
Have fought the good fight, fought it to the end;
That I have run my race and touched the goal;
Through all temptation, I have kept the faith.
I strain my eyes before me and I see,
Shining, a crown, the crown of righteousness,
Held in the hand once pierced and pierced for me
Of the arisen Lord and glorified,
The righteous Judge who will award the prize.
That prize he holds for me'--"Hereon," Luke said,
"Paul turned toward where I stood--O, how I wished
There had been many others with me then
To hear what I heard, and to take his look,
That kindling look of large vicarious hope!--
Paul turned toward me his heaven-illumined face,
And added: 'Yea, for me holds--nor for me
Alone, but with me all men also who
Have loved the bright appearing of the Lord.
'I have been bound, but not the word of God;
That has run freely, sped around the world.
I am to die, but the quick word of God,
So much incapable of dying, lives
Forever an invulnerable life.
This Roman empire, like those empires old,
Will crumble into dust and pass away;
The temples and the palaces of Rome
Will vanish like a vision from men's eyes;
But the majestic kingdom of my God
Will stand forever and forever grow.
Within its walls, I have not built in vain;
For I have founded on a corner-stone
That never will be moved. The earth we tread
Will tremble and be moved out of its place;
The heavens above us, sun and moon and star,
Will yet be rolled together like a scroll,
Or folded like a vestment laid aside;
But what on Jesus Christ for corner-stone
I, with much prayer and many tears, in faith
Have builded to the glory of His grace,
Will still in ever-during beauty shine.
'But though I speak thus of the vanishing
Of all this fabric of a mighty state,
All this imperial pomp and power of Rome,
And the succeeding of an order new,
A heavenly kingdom with a heavenly King,
Yet know, O judges, that in all good faith,
I ever everywhere have taught and shown
Loyal submission to the powers that be.
By letter, ere I came myself to Rome,
I charged this duty on my brethren here;
I told them they could not in any wise
Obedient be to God, and not obey
The powers by Him set over them to rule:
Ask my disciples, make them witnesses,
They all will testify I taught them thus.
Not that my life is such a prize to me;
But I would have the holy name of Him
Who bought me with His blood, and made of me
A herald of His glorious grace to men--
Yea, I would have that ever-blesséd Name
Pure of reproach through me before you all.
'I thank my judges that at least I may
Thus freely speak once more before I die.
A cloud of witnesses around me here
Hangs in my eye; I might behold, beyond
These and above, innumerably bright,
Thick ranks of hovering angels beckoning me;
But I stretch out my hands in suit to these,
My fellows, and beseech them one and all,
And you, my judges, I beseech--and would
I might beseech the whole world with my voice
Now speaking for its last time in men's ears!--
Be reconciled through Jesus Christ to God.
With me it is a light thing to be judged
Of men; albeit obeisance due I pay
To this tribunal as ordained of God.
But I look forward to be judged of One
Before whose eyes the secrets of men's hearts
Lie open like the pages of a book.
And ye too all who judge me, and all these
Who see me judged--yea, and himself, your head,
The emperor, with his counsellors, and all
That under earth slumber or in the sea,
The living generations and the dead,
One congregation and assembly called
At last together whencesoever found,
Shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.
O, I adjure you and entreat you, hear
Betimes my message sent from God to you.
One advocate alone, none other, can
Plead to the Father with effect for you.
But He can, for it is the Judge Himself
Will be your advocate, if but you will
Now choose Him to be such, and He will speak
For you with a resistless eloquence
Of wounds shown in His hands and feet and side,
Signs of His suffering borne in the behalf
Of all those who will come to God by Him.
'I have a vision of that judgment-scene:
These wide-embracing walls I see expand
To the horizon's utmost rim around;
This roof is lifted to the top of heaven;
This multitude is multiplied to count
Beyond all count; yon judgment-throne becomes
Dazzling beyond the splendors of the sun
With an exceeding whiteness, such as eye
Of man nor angel can abide to see;
And He that sits thereon, and makes it dark
By the excess of brightness in His face,
Speaks, and His voice to hear is as the sound
Of many waters rolling down in flood.
I heard that voice once speaking from the sky
Amid a blaze of light falling around
Me at midnoon that blanched the Syrian sun
Burning from his meridian height on me.
O men, my brethren, it was a dread voice;
But I obeyed it, and I therefore lived.
Obey it ye, heard speaking through my lips
And bidding, Come! O, sweet and dreadful voice,
Both sweet and dreadful, uttering now that word!
Dreadful, not sweet, it then will sound to those
Who hearing thus the invitation, Come,
Harden their hearts to disobey. For then
In changed tones it will speak a different word.
'Hence, curséd of my Father!' it will say,
And drive the disobedient as with sword
Of flame forth issuing and pursuing them,
Pursuing and devouring, while they fly
In vain forever and forever far
Before it, and no refuge anywhere
In all the boundless universe of God
Find from the fiery fangs of that fierce sword!'
"I never saw," said Luke, "such pity cast
Such pathos over such solemnity,
Such faithfulness to God, to man, as then,
While he in that hushed audience spoke these things,
Lived in Paul's looks and tuned his prophet tones.
No one that listened and beheld escaped
The power of God; and some perhaps believed.
"But they condemned the guiltless man to die;
And, like his Lord, he died without the gates.
They led him to a chosen spot not far
Beyond the city walls--he all the way
Seen walking like one meekly triumphing;
For a train followed and attended him,
Before whom he was as a conqueror.
Where gushed a fountain in a pine-tree shade
Suburban, there they made their prisoner stay.
Here they beheaded him; Christ suffered it--
What matter to His servant how he died?
The pain was short, if sharp; perhaps indeed
There was no pain at all, but only swift
Transition to a state of perfect rest
From pain, from weariness, from every ill,
Forever in the presence of the Lord.
The dear dissevered head we joined again
To the worn-weary body as we could:
We comforted ourselves to see the peace
That the white-shining countenance expressed,
And stanched our tears and eased our aching hearts
To think that all his toil was over now,
And all the contradiction he so long
Had suffered from his thankless fellow-men;
And that he had aspired triumphantly
At last to be at home with Christ in heaven,
There to behold the glory that He had,
Ere the beginning of the world, with God
His Father.
"So we buried him in hope
There on the selfsame spot where he had fallen;
And said to one another the great words,
Heroic, heartening, full of heavenly truth,
Himself with streaming tears once spoke to us--
You will remember--then when Mary died,
And when we buried her that sunset hour
There on that holy hill in Melita."
With such a gentle cadence to his tale,
Luke ended; and those sat in silence long,
Remembering with sweet heart-ache what had been.
Then, having knelt together first in prayer,
And having lifted a pathetical
High hymn of triumph over death, they rose
Calm and addressed themselves anew to life:
A little patience and the Lord would come.
* * * * *
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE EPIC OF SAUL
A COMPANION TO "THE EPIC OF PAUL"
Saul of Tarsus, brought up at Jerusalem, a pupil of Gamaliel, the
most celebrated Rabbi of his time, from setting out as eager but
pacific controversialist in public dispute against the preachers
of the Gospel, changes into a virulent, bloody persecutor of
Christians, and ends by abruptly becoming himself a Christian and a
teacher of Christianity. THE EPIC OF SAUL tells the story of this.
"It is the great success of the poem," says Prof. John A. Paine,
"to put the reader in the place of those who opposed the rising
and rapidly spreading faith in Jesus, and to unfold a marvellous
insight into the reasonings, motives, intrigues, and action of those
actually engaged in trying to suppress the new movement; and thus,
it helps to form a remarkably vivid conception of the crisis, and to
gain a deeper understanding of the conflict."
"Saul in the Council Stephen's face saw shine
As it had been an angel's, but his heart
To the august theophany was blind--
Blinded by hatred of the fervent saint,
And hatred of the Lord who in him shone,
What blindfold hatred such could work of ill
In nature meant for utter nobleness,
Then how the hatred could to love be turned,
The proud wrong will to lowly right be brought,
And Paul the 'servant' spring from rebel Saul--
This, ye who love in man the good and fair,
And joy to hail retrieved the good and fair--
From the unfair and evil, hearken all
And speed me with your wishes while I sing."--
--_From the Proem._
_APPRECIATIVE CRITICISMS._
"Decidedly impressive and attractive.... One never wants to lay
the book down, and reads it through with increasing, rather than
flagging interest."--THE SPECTATOR, London.
"Dr. Wilkinson's Epic of Saul is daring in conception, subtle
in analysis, exquisite in delineation, stately in movement,
dramatic in unfolding, rythmical in expression, reverent in
tone, uplifting in tendency. The Poem of Saul is as truly an
epic as Milton's Paradise Lost."
--REV. GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D.
_8vo, Cloth, Gilt top, 386 pp. Price, $1.50, post-free._
_"Epic of Saul," and "Epic of Paul" together, $3.00._
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, New York
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
The ad page has been moved from the beginning to the end of the book.
Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed.
Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where
the missing quote should be placed.
The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the
transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Epic of Paul, by William Cleaver Wilkinson