“‘So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain.
“‘Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.’”
Then the Hospitaler closed his eyes, turned his face upward as in prayer, and began speaking like unto one in a rapture or trance:
“When souls would measure themselves for judgment, they must stand by the scenes wrought out by Him that died for men; just hereabouts, when the last judgment comes, the multitudes of earth, tried by the measure of the God-man, will be brought face to face with God’s standard of moral grandeur, sublimely once displayed here. Before its splendor the stars, the finest of men, shall wax dim; human philosophy, the sun of the world, go out, and human religion, ever the child of human desire, shall fade as the setting, waning moon, that emblem of the concupiscent. Then Charity, that never fails, shall come to her throne, the last implement of war be beaten into services of love, while the weak, no more dominated by giant brutality, shall rise to the pre-eminence of moral strength. Adam and Eve, the fallen pair, passed through the valley of sorrow and sin, downward; Christ and Madonna, the new ideals, passed through the valley of sorrow and salvation, upward.”
“Oh, Rhodes, the whirl of my brain is as if touched by the swellings of an anthem. I’ll come right yet, if thou dost enravish me so!” cried Sir Charleroy.
And Miriamne’s face shone as if the sun were on it, but it was not. She was looking away, in soul, to the future. The Hospitaler continued:
“Truly, all heads, as well as hearts, are righted here, where the touch of the Cross makes the dry bones live. Here get I my schooling; this place of the Cross, where the depths of sin, the heights of love, are manifest; from which radiates all holiest tenets, to which and from which flow the streams of Scriptural truth. If only we could get all men to stand sincerely on this lofty hill of vision, overlooking all times to come, all histories past, all mysteries would be explained, all prophecies become clear, and there never would be need on earth again for wars of faith or the burning of heretics. Pilate spake welcome words to the ages when he cried: ‘Miles, expedi Crucem’—‘Soldiers, speed the Cross.’ Its speed is light’s speed.”
As they conversed, the three had slowly journeyed along the Via Dolorosa—the road to the Cross.
“Here,” said the Hospitaler, “it is reported that Jesus yearningly looking back to the weeping women that followed him Cross-ward, cried: ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and children.’”
“The woman again in religion!” exclaimed Sir Charleroy.