The dreamer, looking about, beheld in her vision, her ideal, Rizpah; but the latter was wonderfully changed. Her eyes were dim and sunken; her form dwarfed, bowed and age-shriveled. Suddenly the whole vision faded into thin air, and Rizpah, of Bozrah, awakened filled with condemnation. Before she fully realized that she had been dreaming, she cried out:
“Rizpah, oh, Rizpah, tarry a moment!”
Silence was her sole reply. Little by little, as she collected her thoughts, she comprehended that her vision, while sleeping, expressed the facts of her life while waking. The heroine girl-wife of Nazareth, the newer, finer, surer, truer ideal of womanhood, was demolishing in the mind of the woman of Bozrah her former idol, the lioness of Gibeah’s hill. She knew this, for she found herself contrasting the two ideals, and in mind lingering by preference and with the greater delight about conceptions of the younger. Then began the struggles of the giants in her conscience; clean truth against hoar prejudices; sweet mercy against bitter revenge; Mary of Bethlehem against Rizpah of Gibeah. The matron of Bozrah, usually hitherto so self-sufficient, was changing. She felt that yearning inevitable in the career of most women for a confidant. She could not sleep; she could not now go down to get inspiration by standing before the grim Rizpah-painting, in the lower room; she was miserable, lonely and restless.
Mechanically, she moved toward her daughter’s chamber, some way feeling that even a sleeper would be company to one so lonely as herself. Rizpah, alone, at night, in the grim, giant house, groping her way toward Miriamne’s sleeping place, was unconsciously illustrating her soul’s quest. She was in heart seeking alone, and in the dark, some one to take the place of her demolished ideal. Had the queen of women been there, in person, Rizpah, then, would have welcomed her. She groped her way to the maiden’s couch, feeling that, as she believed, her daughter was pure and good and loving. Could the matron have analyzed her own feelings, she would have found that she was in part led toward Miriamne because the latter some way seemed like, or near to, the girl-wife who was supplanting in the heart of Rizpah of Bozrah, the wild Rizpah of Gibeah. A cloud passing let a flood of silvering moonlight full on the sleeper’s couch, and Rizpah, feasting her eyes, murmured: “I wonder if that woman of Bethlehem were not very like this maiden?” As the mother gazed on her offspring she presently began noting features in the sleeper’s face that reminded her of the absent father and husband. She recalled him as he appeared under the palms that night at Purim, and as he was that day he lay pale and bleeding in her all-giving arms. The whole past, that was delightful, came trooping up, and with it there came the full light of an old love revived; a renaissance of that she had supposed buried forever. Soon the aged woman, all youthful again within, was mentally in hot chase after the pleasure she had parted from so hastily long years before. She was glad of her thoughts, for they were rejoicing; glad she was alone, for the thoughts seemed sacred. It was no use, had she willed, to resist; so she just gave up to the impulse, and with a half-suppressed cry, passionately twined her arms about the sleeping girl, and covered the face of the latter with burning kisses.
The maiden started up in affright, breaking the spell that swayed her mother, but only in part at first. Rizpah was almost angered by the awakening, which caused the vision her soul was embracing to take swift flight. Her first glance seemed to say to the now awakened girl: “Begone, intruder! Leave me for a time alone with—” but she recovered herself, and was silent. Yet her mind ran on after the vision. She had not been embracing the girl, but the girl’s father, in heart. Had he happened there then, he would have been all-forgiven, all-welcome. So wonderful the heart of one capable of deep loving as well as deep hating; so wonderful the nature of such a woman as Rizpah, when her emotions, aroused, spread their throbbing pinions to soar at the behest of revived affection. “Human passion,” sneeringly some may say, and truly. But human passion is a gift of grace. When it travels along right lines, it quickens the one enriched by it to the noblest deeds. He whose name is Love came to earth through the Incarnation to show the splendor of human affection, working at its best in the kingdom of its finest displays—the home circle. The fate of Eden made men believe a lie, but Bethlehem refuted that lie for all time. Rizpah turned bitterly from the fiery, disappointing love she had experienced to stamp all loving, except parent love, a mockery. She had nursed her false creed, and suppressed her rebel heart by adoration of the wintry ideal of Gibeah. Now she was touched by a new influence, and it was to her as the touch of spring to winter-prisoned nature. For a few moments daughter and mother contemplated each other; the one as if dreaming, the other full of wilderment. Then the former quietly said: “I’ve been very nervous to-night. I’m quieter now, and will go to rest. Sweet dreams follow thee, daughter.”
The maiden composed herself to sleep, and the elder woman passed out of the room. The latter, in going, perceived on the floor-slab a parchment, and bore it away with her. She said within herself as she did so: “It is best for Miriamne that I know of her reading.” But, after all, she was very curious to know all about the new matter, of which she had recently heard a part, on her own account. The writing, that of a masculine hand, ran as follows:
“Miriamne:—As I promised, I have herein recorded, for the help of thy memory, further facts about the Bethlehem Mother, Mary. Keeping constantly in heart the wonderful words of the angel Gabriel, she followed with constancy the wanderings of her Son as He went forth to heal and preach. She heard with pride and joy that a Dove of Peace from heaven overshadowed Him at His baptism in Jordan; but immediately she was plunged into anxiety, for he disappeared from the haunts of men in a prolonged absence. This was during the time of His temptation in the wilderness. He returned to gladden her, but immediately set forth to new trials, labors and dangers. The young Miracle-Worker was denounced and driven from among the people of His youth. Tradition points to the very place where his mother fell fainting, when she saw the people of Nazareth dragging her Son to a precipice by the city, with intent to cast Him down to death. At that place of the mother’s overcoming the Empress Helena builded the sanctuary called the ‘Church of the Terror.’ But that loyal mother never wavered in her allegiance to her Son, but, shortly after these things formally, publicly, bravely, received baptism at His hands in Jordan, at Bethabara. Indeed, this act on her part evinced not only the faith of a disciple, but the zeal of motherhood; her Son’s cause seemed to be failing, and she espoused it to strengthen it in its most trying hour. She was willing to dare all things to win for her Beloved a possible gain, however small.
“The gathering storm grew darker about the Carpenter’s Son, and the leaders of the people were planning His destruction; but He pursued his work of healing and teaching serenely; His mother constantly hovering near him to encourage Him. She heard that John the Baptist, son of Elizabeth, the herald of her own Child, had been slain because he had been true to God. The harlots of the Court of Herod had procured John’s death, because that holy man had rebuked their vices. But even this shocking event did not overawe the mother of the Founder of the New Kingdom. She stood in splendid contrast with the murderers of the prophet. It was purity, almost single-handed, against lust corseleted by the nation; two phalanxes; one of few, the other of many; but, as common in this world, each led by a woman. Mary, like a parent bird fluttering over her nestling, sought by the fowler, hovered around her offspring. She exemplified the finest, fullest utterance of faith, ‘Jesus only,’ by determining to break up the home in Nazareth, in order that all the family might keep near the beloved One in His journeys. So it happened that when He was near Capernaum, working Himself nigh unto death, they visited Him to persuade Him to rest. Of this it is written:
‘While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him.
‘Then one said unto Him, Behold, thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee.