“Immanuel spoke to the world, then. When truth goes to crucifixion, women and children—the weaker—may well weep. It’s the Giant’s hour. So children and women ever have been the chief followers of Jesus. No wonder that children brought palms of peace to Him and shouted His praises, while women anointed Him with tears. They knew, by an holy intuition, that somehow He was the King of Love, the defender of weakness.”
“I begin to think, Sir Knight Hospitaler, that the sun of this country has wrapped its gold about thy brain.”
“Oh, father, don’t prevent; these words of his are balm to my soul,” quoth Miriamne.
“Speak on, for the girl’s sake, knight. Speak on; I’ll be silent.”
The Hospitaler continued:
“Daughter, thou dost follow the story as those holy women followed Jesus, afar off; but with tenderness. As they found later unutterable nearness, so shalt thou; God willing.”
“The woman in religion! It’s so. I, a man; this Miriamne, a woman, a girl, my daughter. I’m like a pupil to her, yet I professed this cross-faith more than a score of years before she was born. I’d need a millennium to overtake her, in glory, if we both died now. I’m like poor old David, who fled from his rebellious son, Absalom, over the hills that skirt Kidron. I’m dethroned.”
“Remember, rather, that He who glorified Kidron was ‘obedient unto death.’ Mother and son, together all loving, all loyal in that dread hour, here attested that in David’s kingdom, at the last, at its best, there will be no trampling on the family ties, Sir Charleroy.”
“Wonderful! I never thought of this before, after this manner. But still, the woman leads the world in religion!”
“The woman! Yes, but only when she takes her place, as did Mary, as a follower of Jesus to Calvary.”