“Oh, my fathers!” was her pitying but not pitiable exclamation. Sir Charleroy, standing on the hillock, by the camel, on which his daughter was mounted, drew the hand he held close to his heart, then his arm tenderly encircled its owner. The maiden’s head rested upon the breast that had often borne her since babyhood, her lips met in unfeigned tenderness those of the man who not only loved her as a daughter, but as his good angel, almost savior. It was a scene for a painter; the past and the present, sunset and morning; the one looking back in a confessed ineffectiveness of a life nearly spent, in contrast with a fresh, young, hopeful life, before which lay a world to be conquered. Miriamne, the called leader in a new crusade for women, for humanity, was bidding farewell to the ruins of giant land, and to a representative of the last of the sworded-crusaders.
Her staff fell on the side of the beast that bore her and it moved away quickly after the departing troop.
The parting was over, and yet the two old men silently lingered at the place of the farewell. Once or twice the maiden looked back to them, as she was borne forward, to wave an adieu. The lone watchers followed her with their eyes, until her white camel appeared but a speck moving along at the skirt of a column of dust. The eyes of the watchers dimmed by years, now supplemented by tears, presently could discern only dust. She was buried from their view forever. Then they silently returned to the city, each busy with his own thoughts. Thereafter there was a heavy loneliness on all hearts in that Bozrah circle. The priest moved about his chapel, and the parents about their home as though an angel of light had gone from their midst, or as if the angel of death had come among them.
“It seems strange like,” said the Sacrist’s sister, “to let a girl go away to that far-off city, among strangers, and about such meaningless purposes.”
“Never mind; never mind, sister, God’s lambs are ever safe. Her mission is clear to her, at least, and she’ll not be among strangers. The knights who secretly abide in the city of God have a charge concerning her in letters I’ve sent them. As well, Cornelius, her betrothed, is there. Pure love will be her wall of fire.” Thus ended all arguments and misgivings.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE HOSPITALER’S ORATION.
“I do not say that a social cyclone is impending; but the signs of the times certainly admonish us that if Christianity is to avert a revolution of the most gigantic proportions, and the most ruinous results, we have not an hour to lose in assuring the restless masses that they have no better friends than are the professed disciples of Him whose glory it was to preach the gospel to the poor, and to lift up their crushing burdens.”—Rev. Dr. A. J. F. Behrend’s “Socialism and Christianity.”
“My soul doth magnify the Lord.... He hath put down princes from their thrones, and exalted them of low degree.”—Mary.