“How?”
“The blessed apostle tells all! ‘When it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb to reveal His son in me, that I might preach among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, ... but I went into Arabia.’ Neither wife, friend, child, nor Ephesian Elders, clinging with tears, could hold him back from duty. Then he preached through this wild country.”
“But I’m not Paul, and only a woman.”
“‘Only a woman!’ She out of whom went seven devils, a woman, was the herald of the resurrection, and the church; God’s glory in the earth, is likened unto a woman. Oh, when a woman is clothed with the Sun, there is nothing more resplendent, and as for power, naught prevails against her. It seems to me if thou dost emulate her who said to God’s messenger: ‘Be it unto me according to thy word’ thou wilt go ere long to thy father; but thou must now return!”
“Return whither? This spot of all earth alone tolerates me!”
“No, that’s changed! Thou art the Child of a King. Go home; ay, rise to tell of the One that hath risen in thy heart.”
“Dare I? Must I?” Miriamne soon answered, by action, her own questions.
The young woman started homeward; at first with fearfulness. Then there came to her great calmness and courage, as she thought: “If I was wrong in going, I’m right in returning. My mother scared me from home into God’s arms. I can tell her that.” The new life had quickened within her the springs of affection. In all her life before she had not been so long apart from her mother. She said to herself, “I’ll just spring into her arms, when I meet her!” And she would have, if permitted.
The mother with a face like a stone, emotionless, saw her approach. When the latter stood by the threshold, the parent freezingly said: “Well; what dost thou want here?”
A dozen answers pressed for utterance. Some like those shaped by an angry or reckless girl; some such as might come to a politic woman, having recourse ever to cunning against the odds of power. The first thoughts were not of love, the last not of truth. In an instant Miriamne remembered her new personality. She was the missionary! She dared, being right, face any thing, even her mother’s wrath; but in her soul she dared not let bitterness rule. She knew as well that she dared not tell the truth so as to convey a false impression. She might have done so once; but not now. “Lord what wilt thou have me to do?” the golden prayer was on her lips and she had instant grace to say quietly: “I was doing no wrong.”