“Thou living wonder of Jehovah’s word!
Thou, that without a priest or sacrifice,
Ephod or temple, lone ’mid human kind,
Cleav’st to thy statutes with unswerving mind,
As though enthroned upon His mercy-seat,
The spreading of the cherubim between,
Jehovah yet were seen!
Hebrew, come forth! dread not the light of day,
Dread not the insulter’s cry;
The arch that rose o’er thy captivity
No more shall turn thee from thy destined way.”
SOTHEBY.
In the dear society of Lucia the hours of pain and languor glided gently
away. It was her beloved hand that wiped away the tears Adonijah shed
for the young Lucius, the sweet blossom that had entwined itself about
his desolate heart. It was her voice that soothed his remorse, her soft
eyes that told him she forgave his former perfidy. She mourned with him
over the calamities of his captive people, while her faith bade him look
beyond ages of bondage in anticipation of that glorious hour when the
Lord who scattered the tribes abroad shall gather them again.
In her face the Hebrew still traced the love that had formerly gilded
his chains, and made his bondage sweet. All indeed that a pious
Christian could feel for one of differing faith, Lucia felt for
Adonijah. He had first won her from idolatry and darkness to worship
Jehovah, and, though no human passion could beguile her heart from Him,
its tender affections were still placed upon the captive Jew. For his
conversion she prayed unceasingly, and every conversation she held with
him had the same noble object in view.
A deep sense of his own unworthiness, a sensibility to sin never
experienced before, was felt by the half-convinced Pharisee. He reviewed
his past life, and internally owned that he had come short of that
perfection demanded by a holy God.
He was ready to acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, as “a teacher sent from
God,” for had not his prophetic words respecting Jerusalem been
fulfilled in his own day? This was much for a Jew to acknowledge, but it
is and has been acknowledged by many who have died like their
forefathers, strangers to the salvation wrought by Christ.
“Search the Scriptures,” said our Lord to the Jews of His day, “for in
them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of
me.” “Search thou the Scriptures, who art an heir of the promises made
to Abraham,” said Linus to the doubting Hebrew, “and thou wilt see that
we have not followed ‘cunningly devised fables.’”
Adonijah examined those sacred records daily and perseveringly, praying
the Lord Jehovah to enlighten his mind respecting Him whom the
Christians affirmed to be the Messiah of the Jews. He found every type
and shadow complete, every prophecy fulfilled in that wondrous Person
whom the Jews had rejected and slain. His heart was softened, nay, it
was pierced through with a view of his sins and his sinless Saviour’s
sufferings.
At first the Divinity of Jesus Christ was to him, as to the Jews of this
day, “a stumbling-block and rock of offence;” but the New Testament,
which declares Him “to be the Son of God with power,” only confirms the
previous testimony borne by the Old. The evidence of both is in perfect
and beautiful harmony with each other. Adonijah compared them together,
and found the chain complete, till like Thomas he said of Jesus, “My
Lord and my God.”
The life and doctrines of Jesus alone would declare his Divinity, even
if it had not been confirmed by miracles or foreshown by prophecy. Human
nature fallen and degenerate could never have produced fruits like
these. Compare his brightest saints with the Son of God, and they only
shine with beams reflected from his surpassing glory.
Deeply mourning over Him whom his sins had pierced, Adonijah found
pardon and peace with the Great Shepherd of Israel, at whose cross he
for ever laid down his pharisaic pride and self-idolatry, receiving the
Son of David not only as his Prophet, Priest, and King, but as his
atoning sacrifice, his righteousness, the Lord his God, the
long-promised Messiah of his people.
Julius Claudius, that brand plucked from the burning, was destined to
become a light in the Church, and to preach the faith he once laboured
to destroy. He intended to devote himself to the ministry of the word as
soon as he had been admitted into the Christian fold by baptism. He
wished to repair the wrongs of Adonijah by uniting him to his sister,
upon whom he bestowed an ample portion, but the residue of his fortune
he gave to the Church, for the support of the Christian community, that
still required from the wealthy those gifts which we find recorded in
the Acts of the Apostles. The dowry of Lucia Claudia was already
destined by her to aid the funds of the impoverished Jewish Church,
which then held the pre-eminence over every other, as having been
planted by the Lord himself.