Turks, meanwhile, were rushing up the gallery stairs, seizing the younger women and girls, and carrying them out. A Turk forced his way between Jack and Hanum Selferian, "Do you know me?" he asked her. "I killed your husband yesterday because I want to marry you. Come with me, and I will save you and your children."
He seized her zeboun, but with an effort she freed herself from his grasp. Jack helping her, and the children keeping close to her, they pushed on to the front of the gallery, and looked down. A sea of fire was beneath them; its hot breath scorched their faces. The Turk was following them. Then the Armenian mother lifted her youngest child, a boy of eight, in her arms, and looked at the three little girls clinging to her side. "Children," she said, "will you go with that man and be Moslems, or will you die for Christ with me?"
"Mother, we will die with you," said the little voices, speaking all at once.
She could do for them one thing yet. They should not suffer. In another moment they should be with Christ. Twenty feet down, right into the heart of the hottest fire, she flung her youngest child. Then followed the little girls; and then, just as the Turk's hand touched her shoulder, her own rest was won.
That was the last thing Jack saw in the burning church.
Oh, Christ, who that day didst keep silence in Thy Heaven, help us to remember that other day, when around Thy Cross the mocking voices sounded, "If Thou be the Christ, save Thyself,"—and Thou wert silent too. Help us to hold fast by that faith in Thee that lies between us and madness. Make us understand that these Thy people are indeed "members incorporate in Thy mystical Body." Not with them alone through sympathy, but in them through vital organic union Thou sufferest still. In them Thou art "in Thine agony until the end of the world"; until the last member is complete, the last sheaf of the great Harvest gathered in. Thou lovest them too much for the mockery of Thy foes, or even for the passionate prayer of Thy friends, to move Thee to come down from the Cross until the work of the Cross is finished, and the earnest expectation of Thy suffering creatures changed into the joy unspeakable of the manifestation of the sons of God.
Chapter XX BY ABRAHAM'S POOL, AND ELSEWHERE
"But thou hadst gone—gone from the dreary land,