_WHAT REMAINS?_
[Illustration: Initial]
I purchased some new clothes, and wandered all day about the streets of
Antioch, astonished at my liberty. I dined at an eating-house where
several languages were spoken by the different guests, and where every one
stared at the long-bearded, long-haired old man, with the new robes and
the rough, brown hands. Toward dark I began to feel very lonely and
miserable, and at last returned to the prison like a dog to his kennel,
and begged the favor of a night’s lodging in my old cell.
Free! Free like a plant whose roots are dead, and which, with no
attachment to the earth, trembles at the mercy of the wind!
I met next day with some of the Christians of Antioch. They seemed glad
that I had been released and spoke kindly to me, but remembered the visit
of Paul and his belief that I was insane. If my opinions had been
orthodox, what a cordial reception they would have given to the man whom
Christ raised from the dead! As I had learned the divine philosophy of
silence, I said nothing to them on spiritual subjects.
I was sixty-five years old and everything was new and strange. The pages
of history during my long incarceration had been written in blood and
tears. Vespasian occupied the throne of the Roman empire, assisted by his
son Titus, who had besieged and taken Jerusalem. The holy temple was
reduced to ashes and the city of David was a pile of ruins. The judgment
in the world of spirits had descended upon the earth.
I was shocked by the horrible details of the persecution which the
Christian world had suffered from the detestable Nero; and of the
crucifixion of Peter, the murder of Paul and the martyrdom of many
prominent disciples. What Lelius had begun at the private instigation of a
sorcerer on the little stage of Antioch, too insignificant for historical
notice, had been repeated by the butcher of Rome on the theatre of the
world.
During this terrible persecution my sisters had been driven from
Marseilles. Flying for their lives, they reached the bleak and distant
shores of Britain. There they planted the gospel banner and preached
Christ to the pagan natives. There they were still living at the last
accounts, lights in the darkness, warmth in the coldness around them.
Mary Magdalen had refused to fly from the Roman tyrants. Roused to a wild
pitch of religious enthusiasm by the atrocities perpetrated upon her
fellow-Christians, she rushed defiantly into the presence of the heathen
officers and demanded the pleasure and the glory of dying for the name of
Christ. Seeking martyrdom, she escaped it. Astounded at this eloquent and
brave woman with disheveled hair and face flashing a wild spiritual light,
the persecutors pronounced her mad, and refused to put her to death.
She retired to a mountain in Spain and occupied a cave overlooking the
sea. There she lived in solitude and prayer, wearing out soul and body in
contrition for the sins of her early youth. Her sanctity and power of
healing were so great, that many pilgrims came from remote places to
receive her benediction or be healed by her touch.
Helena, the beautiful syren from whom my soul had so narrowly escaped,
deserted Simon for Lelius, and Lelius for some Roman general, and this
last for a low favorite of Caligula. She was finally swallowed up in that
hideous whirlpool of Roman life, which was kept in motion by the unbridled
passions of male and female monsters, such as the world has rarely seen.
Simon Magus had been driven from Antioch at the instigation of Helena, who
had unbounded control over the Roman legate. He retired into Samaria,
where he acquired great power and fame by his magic and sorceries.
Thousands of people in that rude country admitted his claim to divine
power. It was there that he came into contact with the disciples of
Christ.
Simon had discovered by his acute genius that a great change had taken
place in the relations between the spiritual and natural worlds since the
death and ascension of Jesus. The old demons who had governed the world of
spirits had been cast into hell. No spells of incantation could recall
Ja-bol-he-moth or any of the great spirits to his consultations. The
magical formulas had lost their power. The pagan oracles were becoming
silent. The influence formerly exercised by magicians over men and Nature
was evidently waning. Simon became sad, suspicious, fearful. The ground
was sinking under him.
He did not attribute these singular changes to the right cause. He
believed that Jesus was only a magician more powerful than any or all
others—one who, by some mysterious method had monopolized the subtle
forces of spirit over matter. He therefore came to the disciples of Jesus,
and was baptized into the Church. When he thought he had sufficiently
ingratiated himself with the apostles, he offered them a large sum of
money for the magical secret by which they healed the sick and raised the
dead.
Peter answered him indignantly:
“Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of
God may be purchased with money!”
After that exposure he went to Rome, where his magical powers seemed to
revive in the infernal atmosphere of that wicked city. His conduct became
more and more eccentric, insolent and presumptuous. He was clearly
obsessed by devils. He manifested great aversion to the name of Christ,
and professed to repeat all of his miracles with the greatest ease. He
announced in the height of his madness, that he would ascend to heaven
with a chariot and horses on a certain day. The amphitheatre was crowded
to suffocation. It was said that he rose about forty feet in the air, when
his chariot and horses fell back into the arena and crushed him to death.
Thus perished a man whose character and actions will seem impossible to
future generations, but who was one of the typical products of a corrupt
and doomed civilization.
I had never known the earthly heaven of home and wife and child. I had no
country; no resting place; for little Bethany also was laid in ashes. My
old friends and my old enemies were dead. The little church to which I
belonged in heart, was the feeblest of all religious powers; and even that
would have repudiated and expelled me on a full declaration of my faith.
The most advanced man in the world, I was the most desolate.
My face, my thoughts, my heart turned fondly to Britain. The last time I
beheld my sisters was on that eventful night in Bethany, when they gave
the supper to Jesus, and when Mary unwittingly anointed him for his
burial. I must see them again! It was a long, dangerous, desolate journey
for a poor old man to make alone. But my sisters called to me at evening
from the golden shadows of the west, and beckoned to me in the night
through the twinkling of the northern stars.
I sailed from Antioch to Rome. Not a Christian cared enough for the old
man with heretical opinions, to pay a friendly visit or give a kindly
farewell to him whom Christ had raised from the dead. As the ship passed
close to one of the great piers, some old convicts who were working upon
it recognized me and waved me a hearty good-bye. With tears in my eyes I
kissed my hand to my only friends in the world.
On reaching Rome I was delighted to find the apostle John who had
extricated Mary and Martha from the toils of Magistus, and who gave me a
most cordial reception. This unexpected warmth of friendship and sympathy
infused new life into me and almost made me happy again.
To my great surprise and pleasure, this disciple whom Jesus loved, and to
whose care he committed his mother, agreed with almost everything I had to
say. He broke the seal I had imposed upon my lips; for he had a sacred
thirst for spiritual knowledge which I felt constrained to gratify. He
received my doctrines of the resurrection of the spiritual instead of the
natural body, of judgments in the spiritual and not in the natural world,
and the grand central truth of all truths—the supreme divinity and
absolute fatherhood of Jesus Christ.
John regretted deeply the dissensions which had already distressed the
little Church, and foresaw the errors which would probably arise from
certain dubious phrases and unwarranted doctrines which had crept into its
theology. My whole story, he said, was so beautiful that it ought to be
true; and if true, it certainly ought to be beautiful.
Thus John endorsed the very teachings for which Paul thought me insane!
Just as I was starting for Britain, news was brought from that cold region
which rendered my journey unnecessary.
My sisters were dead!
Martha, when traversing one dark night a desolate moor to relieve a person
in deep distress, was lost and perished in the snow. When the corpse was
discovered and laid out in the little chapel of their convent, and Mary
approached it, this new sorrow, added to the multiplied cares and labors
of her life, was too much for the overburdened heart. The silver cord was
gently broken, and she stretched her own body, like a funeral pall, upon
that of her sister.
Conjoined in their lives! united in their death!
Beautiful spirits, clad always in virgin white! Brides of Christ!
Twin-stars of heaven! Farewell!—until this old body also shall drop into
the dust, and the strong bond of spiritual affinity shall draw us together
again, and bind us, to each other for ever!
John, the beloved disciple, was only visiting Rome. He lived at Ephesus.
He now entreated me to accompany him home and spend the remnant of my days
in the peaceful shade of his humble cottage. I thanked him warmly, but
declined his invitation. There was one more person upon earth whom I felt
a strong desire to see. That person was Mary Magdalen, the last link which
connected me with the past. The hunger of an old man’s heart for home and
friends, for sympathy and love, was reduced to this. It was all that was
left me.
My feelings toward Mary Magdalen had become clearly defined in the last
ten years of my captivity. The sad things of the past were buried and
forgotten. I had outlived, outgrown the self-righteous conceit that I was
better than she. Yea, I had discovered that she was far better than I. I
was thoroughly ashamed of the neglect, almost amounting to scorn, with
which I had treated her in my youth. Her grand devotion to the cause of
Christ, her fiery zeal, her contrition, her penances, her humility, her
self-sacrifice, her solitude, haunted my imagination. The martyrdom of her
life was continually before me.
I resolved to make a pilgrimage to her shrine; for I now regarded her as
the saint and myself as the repentant sinner. I would not mention love to
a heart so sorely stricken with the wounds of conscience and the sorrows
of life. I would tell her nothing. I would leave all that to the revealing
light of the spiritual world, which was now so near us both.
I would merely see her and weep with her over the old, sweet memories of
Jesus and Martha and Mary. I would live near her. I would work for her,
without her knowledge. I would make her comfortable without her seeing
whence it came. I would visit her in sickness. I would close her eyes in
death. All the rest should be buried deep, deep in the recesses of a heart
which had not grown old.
I reached Marseilles and surveyed with silent grief the ashes of the
convent my sisters had built. I employed a snug little boat and coasted
along, west and south-west, until we reached the shores of Spain, where
the spurs of the Pyrenees jut out into the Great Sea.
Landing at a little village, I was directed to a considerable mountain
near by. I made the ascent before the heat of the day. The path made a
sudden turn from a crag which stood a thousand feet above the water; and I
found myself at the dark mouth of a cave. Near the entrance, on the right,
was a wooden cross planted in a little bed of violets, wildly overgrown.
The sky was clear and beautiful. A perfect silence reigned around. My
heart throbbed as I approached the last earthly home of the friend of my
sisters.
I looked into the cave and started back. A fearful sense of awe came over
my soul. My pilgrimage was in vain. I stood in the presence of the dead!
In that dim and damp and empty cavern, lay a human body, stretched upon a
couch of stone. It was clad in rusty black, with a black veil thrown over
the face. She had been long, long dead; for the feet which protruded from
her robe were bones and not feet. A scourge of leather thongs had fallen
from her hands. Engraven deeply in the moist rock of the wall, just above
her prostrate figure, was the single word,