“And things have been worse; now are bettering?”
“Assuredly so. Believe there is a God, and thou’lt rest in hope. Go back a little in history to when Cæsar Augustus, of awful pagan Rome, ruled the world, having won dominion through desolating wars. The most educated Romans then believed in no hereafter, and sought openly, without restraint, the grossest pleasures. The ignorant believed in fabled monstrosities. Rome set the fashions of all the world. The Jews, thy people, God’s people, were lower, morally, then, than ever they had been before. They were divided into warring families and sects, holding a few forms and traditions, but having little heart in religion. The rest of mankind was barbarous. Thou hast heard how the Roman Titus overthrew Jerusalem, slaughtering thy people by thousands, defiling their holy Temple and seeming to blot out nearly the whole of thy race. That time of Titus was midnight; since that the day has been slowly advancing. Before that awful culmination of sorrows, the Divine Trinity held august council, and, as say the traditions of my church, determined to bring a holy sunrise to the earth’s midnight. The trouble of all creation was that man had fallen. The Divine Council decreed to confound the devil, who broke up the first home and ruined the first pure pair by causing to emerge from another home, another pair. They came, this time mother and Son, to be the moral patterns for the race, the beginning of a new, sin-conquering dispensation. The fathers hand down these sayings: ‘The august, regal Triune Council thus decreed: “Let us make a pure creature, dearer to us than all others.”’ They say she was begotten upon the Sabbath, the birth-day of the angels, whose queen she was to be. Then one thousand of the ministering spirits were commissioned to defend her; while Gabriel was sent to announce the glad tidings of the birth of a Saviour’s mother, in Hades. Her angels appeared as young men, of majestic mien, of marvelous beauty and pure as crystals. Their garments were like gold, richly colored, and could not be touched any more than could be the light of the sun.”
“How charming! But is this all true?” exclaimed the maiden.
Without reply, the priest continued: “They were crowned with diadems, exhaling celestial perfumes; in their hands they bore interwoven palms; on their arms and breasts were crosses and military devices. They were swift of flight, some of them six-winged, like the angels of Isaiah’s vision.”
“How dazzling! But is this all true?” Miriamne persisted.
“Well, it’s not in thy sacred books nor in mine so written.”
“Then you are giving me your imaginings?”
“Oh, no; but after the manner I have spoken, it is recorded in revered traditions of my church, and none can very well disprove the sayings.”
“I wonder if such honors made Mary proud?”
“A strange query.”