“No; perhaps ’tis well so. I’ve had a work in helping those who were wed unhappily, to peace; forgetting, in serving their need, my own joy.”
“Then thou hast no idea of what it is to deal with a Rizpah as a wife.”
“I know she’s a woman; a marvel in her fidelity to her children. She may have infirmities, but there was a woman, bowed grievously for eighteen years, fully restored by one kind touch of the man, Jesus, ever all-pitiful and tender toward women.”
“But that one was willing to be healed.”
“No; she was trying to hide, but the Savior called her out, just to heal her.”
“Now, then, let me cross swords at close quarters, since thou dost press me. I ask thee, as a Christian priest, wouldst thou have me tolerate the sins of heresy in my own home? Remember, Jezebel, she beguiled Ahab, her daughter, Athaliah, and her husband, Jehoram, also, into gravest transgressions. So God’s people were led, little by little, to the groves of Astarte. I think I’ve a good parallel: Jezebel was the daughter of a priest, so this Rizpah of Bozrah. With her hot temper, pride of exalted birth, and a mouthful of arguments; a man meets such a woman as a pigmy, to crouch, or as a knight, to resist.”
“The name Jezebel means ‘chaste.’ Her pious namers must have respected chastity once. Her practices were all loyalty to Ahab and her children, though her theories may have been odious. All that is recorded of them, which engenders hate for her memory, is the hatefulness of the way she pressed her creeds upon others, the Jews. Which the more like Jezebel—Sir Charleroy or Rizpah?”
“But Rizpah was ardent to lay our love, and our children on her altar. Like the women who brought their jewels to Aaron to be transmuted into the golden calf! I could only protest, and I did.”
“Did not the men of Egypt and Israel first proclaim the worship of Apis? Were not the women merely following their lords? There are many women who defile their jewels because, with contempts that turn their hearts to ashes, their lords do not, as they should, wear both the wives and the jewels on strong and loyal hearts.”
“Oh, I perceive! Rizpah has been parading to thee her family troubles. A true woman would have rather given herself to nest-hiding.”