“Why, wife, that means ‘bitterness.’”
“Bitterness, since I believe that somewhere, somehow, there is bitterness enough in store for her—and me with her.”
“I’d prefer ‘Mary,’ my wife; surely this little angel is to be all like that blessed one.”
Then there was more strife, but of a rather patient kind, which ended in a compromise, they calling the child Miriamne, each in mind meaning different from the other; the one Marah, the other Mary. But on the heels of this came soon the graver problem, How should the babe be reared, in Jewish faith or Christian? It was the old, old story of a difficulty seemingly easily adjusted to all, except to those who have actually met it, and in this case, as usual, the two parties fanatically opposed each other. In the name of sweet religion they loyally served the devil for a time. The highest achievement of a creed or faith is the soothing and elevation of a home here, or the exalting of it heavenward for hereafter. That is a travesty of piety which wrecks the substance of joy for the shell of a dogma. This stricture is easily written and may pass without dissent, the reader immediately falling into the error denounced. Of course, as usual, these two parents began the discussion of the subject. At intervals they cautiously pressed their arguments, but each unwaveringly moved toward his or her point. They were like advancing armies, firing occasional shots, but surely approaching a mighty issue. They pretended to argue the matter by times, but it was a farce, for each in mind irrevocably had predetermined the conclusion. Time sped on a year or more, then the conflict fully came.
“Rizpah, we were wed by a Christian, let us take the fruit of that compact to Christian baptism.”
“The first act was an error; we shall not atone for it by repetitions in kind! The child is mine; I decline.”
“And mine, so I request.”
“A mother imperils her whole life for her child, and unreservedly gives to it part of herself; justice, humanity, should give the child to the mother, so far as may be.”
“But even under thy faith, I, the father, am the head of the house.”
“Under my faith the nurture and training of children belong chiefly to the mother, and my faith has been the finest society-builder of the world in the past. Thou hast often recounted to me the deeds of that golden, heroic time of my people, when the great Maccabean family led us and inspired us. Well, then, the mothers had exclusive control of the daughters until they were wed, and so they had grand daughters among the Maccabees.”