“And are loving mothers never unchaste?”
“The Jews hated swine and the monster deities of Chaldeans, because both destroyed their young, and our holy Talmudists declare that Mary of the Christians, not being as pure as the Nazarene’s followers affirm, is doomed to bide even in lowest Hades with the bar of hell’s gate through her ear. No, I, as a Jewish woman, believe that one of my sex being a mother and impure is neither loving, nor a woman!”
“How I revere the noble sentiments of Rizpah of Bozrah!”
“For all I am, after God, praise that ancient, fervent beacon, Rizpah of Gibeah!”
“I am in part reconciled to her, but yet I wish, in frightened agony often, that you would renounce this historic Rizpah; lioness-like in her devotion to her offspring, but full of murderous fury toward any that crossed her love. Our holy book must have sweeter, nobler ideals for our inspiration.”
“I judge this Hebrew heroine mother by her influence upon me, and that has been for good. The hypocrite or romancer may call the passer-by to prayer and have no more soul in it than the Moslem trumpet. Only those who have some God-like saintliness of character, can win effectually, unceasingly. There is mighty power in the unspoken sermons of such a life. I cherish Rizpah, whose touch of moral power, coming where and when I was weak to callowness, girded me with purpose for wavering and thews of steel for rosy softness. I was once like thee, a fragile flower, but the example of that patient woman’s heroism, ever before me, has fitted me to meet my awful trials and worthily inhabit this giant-built house. Thou dost remember, Miriamne, at last Passover time they wish, as thou didst read to me of Jacob, that even now a ladder with communicating angels might be set up from earth to heaven?”
“Ah, that would be a feast; angels in burning bushes, or by fountains as in Hagar’s time! I often worship in the thicket and pray for heaven’s messengers from Paradise to fan the flames of our devotion, as Gabriel did the orisons of Daniel. But I’d be afraid to meet an angel like your Rizpah.”
“Not so with me, Marah. Indeed, I often think of Rizpah and Jacob together. Thou rememberest how, not far away, at Mahanaim, Jacob of old met a host of angels? They came to cheer him in an hour of sad depression, the saddest kind indeed; for in that hour he remembered amid his repentings that he was soon to face the brother whom long years before he had wronged. Well, when Rizpah, by the death of Saul, was released from that domineering madman-king, she made her home at Mahanaim, the place near which Jacob counseled with the angels. Methinks she there also communed with the spirits that do excel in strength. She may have been weak before, but in that angel school she outgrew her master. Ay, my child, it is marvelous how a woman rises under the impulses of a noble love, holy companionship and plenty of sorrow. Many a male brute has flattered himself he was crushing into fawning servitude by his imperious, selfish will, his weaker child-burdened mate, only some day to find the victim asserting her individuality with power unearthly. The partridge skulks, terrified amid lowly grasses from the hunter, little by little gathering courage for her pinions, then she suddenly departs to return no more, meanwhile luring the hunter from her treasures.”
“That is, an abused wife should run away?”
“Oh, perhaps not; but she may rise above her tyrant.”