“For centuries God’s chosen people celebrated this feast of the harvest, the joy of Jewry; and now the world’s harvest advenes. Yet, for the most part, the multitudes see not the ripening. For years the first fruits were offered, and as yet, the people do not understand that first fruits mean chosen, choice fruits, the elect of God.
“For centuries, Israel offered the shoulder and heart of the lamb, and yet Israel waits under the overshadowing smokes of its burnt offering, not discerning the Lamb Priest, whose heart of eternal love and shoulder of power, are given for the salvation of the people.
“Israelites, hear me; out of the altar’s smoke emerges to view the kingdom of the house of David, refined, purified—the hope of the future. Ye have thought, hitherto, that David’s kingdom, whatsoever it might have been, is, in these ages, to be reckoned with the dynasties and forces of an antiquity, whose influences long ago ebbed away along the shores of the all-entombing past.
“Yet such conclusion is as fallacious as it is evidently superficial. The God who works in unbroken time cycles, though men remit their tasks at the beck of sleep or death, pushes forth His forceful, faultless projects with a tireless consistency that knows no cross purposes. A real and present kingdom is that with which this Pentecost we have to do. We are not, at that time when they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and spread them before the sun. David’s throne is a verity, though long incrusted with neglects; it is a symbol of power in a dynasty that is ordained to overspread the earth. I’d summon my witnesses; first the weeping Jeremiah. ‘Thus said the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.’ How bold! but amid the ruins about us, I cry never! never! Now call the God-nourished captive Daniel, who, sincere to the last, made all Babylon glow with his prayers and his visions. Saith Daniel:
“‘The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed.’ The dream is certain; the interpretation sure. He was proof against the alluring blandishments of his royal captors, and as pure to the last as a knight of San Grail.”
Cornelius saw a light on the Hospitaler’s face, and knew it was that that comes from a conscience clear before God. The latter went on with a voice suddenly become tenderer than it was before.
“Let us hear the reply of the converted pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Whose kingdom is from generation to generation!’
“Hearken to Isaiah, to whom the scroll of human history through a thousand generations then yet to come was present and lucid: ‘Unto us a child is born ... his name shall be called Wonderful ... The Prince of Peace.’ ‘Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and forever.’ Surely he must be of dull comprehension who saith this is only the spiritual, heavenly kingdom of the glorified.
“Let us stand for a little under the light of the blazing tongues of Pentecost, enswathed in imagination by the mighty, rushing tide of Spirit manifestation, fresh from the Being of the Almighty. Now listen to Peter, transfigured and illuminated within and without. Error here, with him, was impossible! Untruth at such a time would be a madness like that of the attempted steadying of the ark. Saith Peter: ‘David being a prophet knowing that God had sworn to him that He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.’ Peter at last, a rock of God, I bless thee! Call that archangel, who doth excel in strength, his name given him in heaven being Gabriel, the ‘Champion of God.’ He certified his mission to Mary in terms that can be made no finer: ‘I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of god and sent to show thee glad tidings. Thou shalt bring forth a son. And the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David.’ Of His Kingdom there shall be no end. These are ‘glad tidings,’ indeed, sung as such to the joy and wonder of heaven, as well as proclaimed as the sovereign comfort of earth’s inhabiters.
“The splendid, earthly Kingdom outlined so gloriously by the prophets has suffered no syncope, and David’s royal line has not found its end in sepulchral palaces. That Kingdom and that line survives; their zenith not yet attained.