“But how, now, about Astarte, Diana, Baaltis?”
“They had their day; rude, gross phantoms; conceived in the hot souls of low and lecherous men; but I told thee, here we might overlook the world. In this valley Athaliah, daughter of cruel Jezebel, Queen of Ahab, and, like her mother, an Astarte-socialist, worshiped the lewd ideal, Baaltis. Death, in shocking form, took off that heathen queen of Israel. God’s revenge, this was.
“And now, I remember that the queen mother of Asa, here, in Kidron, set up the worship of Ashera with its Phallic mysteries; but Asa, the youth, pure of mind and led of God, not only tore down, root and branch the groves and woven booths of licentiousness, but dethroned the woman who had set them up. Just here, in finest contrasts, I remember the Virgin Mary, the pure mother, the ideal woman, who, in this valley of decision, rose for all time the exemplification of truest womanhood—a wife, a mother. Mary has broken forever the idols of Baaltis. While Mary’s memory lasts, part of the enduring, sacred history, toward which all Christian eyes turn, Astarte can never rise under any name or form for long toleration. She is forever broken, and her creed of lust fated to reprobation.
“Wherever this gospel story, eternal and eternally new, is told, there will come to the minds of the hearers a vision of those associated in the last dread hours of the Divine Martyr, in a fellowship of sympathy and sorrow. Among these will stand pre-eminent the women. Simon, the Cyrenian, compelled by the soldiers, aided the trembling sorrow-burdened Christ to bear the cross. And it is easy to believe that the wife of that Simon, who appears later, for a moment, in the praiseful salutations of Paul, as the parent of Christian sons, she reverently called by the great apostle mother, was among the women that were most sorrowful and nearest the dying Saviour. Then there were Mary, the mother of James, Salome, Mary Magdalene, and possibly Claudia the wife of Pilate—that brave woman who advocated Christ’s cause before the proud, implacable Sanhedrim, the howling mob and Imperial Rome’s representatives. What fitting mourners in that touching, yet august funeral march!
“Women are fully capable by nature, through their finest, tenderest chords, ever responsive in woe, to express the whole of grief, however deep! The sex which loves most, loves longest, mourns most easily as well as most sincerely, and has made sorrow sacred by the lavish bestowals of it, whene’er its founts were touched.
“There is an holy, perfumed anointing in their tears. This crucifixion-time was woman’s hour supremely. Mary with magnificent self-possession, heart-broken, yet strong in faith; weeping in eye and soul, but intruding no wild howlings amid those who wept for custom’s sake; tearful, yet retiring in her grief, here passes before our minds at once the most fascinating, winsome, yet pity-begetting woman known to man.”
“Father,” cried Miriamne, restraining but little her own tears: “Are you listening?”
“Yes, yes; oh, yes. The glory of Eden’s noon has fallen on the tongue and brain of Rhodes, and yet I cannot gainsay him; nor would I try to dispel his wise and honored sayings. I can only wonder and wonder how it is that woman rises at the very front when any grand advance is made.”
“Good Rhodes, go on,” spoke Miriamne.
