As they passed into the chapel, the maiden remarked: “There are more women here than there were at the other service?”
“The other celebrated death; the chief pain-maker of woman’s life; for they live in love whose ties are constantly sundered by man’s last enemy. They are allured by the beautiful things, the joys, the hopes of our Easter service. It proclaims eternal victory over the destroyer.”
“How beautiful the woman’s form back of the altar, good Father, to-night.”
“Our moods within appear to us on objects without. So strangely the Kingdom of Heaven, beginning in the soul, spreads everywhere. It is natural, though to think that the resurrection time brought all joy to the childless mother: to this one as it did and does bring a thousand times to other mothers, like her bereaved.”
The Easter service went onward, a succession of joys; the march of a pilgrim army with the goals in view; the triumph of truth, the crowning of life, the final discomfiture of death. Miriamne brightened as the service advanced; then came a fullness of joy; then a reaction and she finally fell into a sleep akin to a trance. It was the resting of the wounded on the way of healing. There was a Divine overpouring and a babe-like sleep of perfect trust; from this the voice of the priest aroused her!
“Miriamne seems to rest.”
“Oh, such a dream! I followed the songs to the sky and wished my body had wings. God lifted me up and I slept, dreaming myself into His presence. I thought I was in heaven.”
“Thou art near it, child.”
“Oh, this wonderful calm! What makes me so happy?”