“It pains thee. Thou must go on now, though thou shouldst fall fainting, as Saul at Endor. Read.”
The daughter complied, and with quickly revived interest, for she came to the name “Rizpah” the second time, but before she had not noticed it in reading.
“And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.
“And it was told David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.
“And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Jabesh-gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan.
“And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
“And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the sepulcher of Kish, his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was entreated for the land.”
When the last clause was finished, Miriamne cast a glance at the huge painting on the wall.
“I understand in part; that is Rizpah and her crucified children?”
“It is well, daughter. Behold her; this is motherhood of strongest type! Humanity is no where perfect, but of all the erring ones of life, I most believe in those, who, among many perversions of judgment and blemishes of character, have some one or more of lofty virtues. Methinks a soul may be drenched by many sins, and yet, if within its very core it carry sincerely and sacred as its life some noble, dominating passion, like the holy love of parent for a child, that soul will ever have thereby a gate open to the Holy Spirit, a handle for the grasp of saving angels, and, while life lasts, an ever-flying signal lifted toward heaven. Such prayer unspoken is a beseeching, not vainly for the interceding love of Him that weighs the spirits.”