Thus encouraged, she resumed her reading. Almost immediately a change appeared on her face. Her eyes opened widely with a new wonder, and beamed with a new light. As she went on the shadows thinned away as fast as they had thickened; the light and sweetness grew apace as does the fairest morning; and at last the sun rose on every lovely feature as she finished the manuscript and exclaimed, God be praised—there is indeed a brighter side!
She turned to Aleph, “You are right again. Jesus lives. He has passed through death to his throne.”
“I do not think,” said he, “that you are now able to read to us the whole wonderful account as your mother has written it. But perhaps you can give us a briefer account in your own words—suiting the length to your strength, and passing lightly over details that have tried you most.”
“I will try. But I think that I could not even do this were it not for the strength and courage which this last reading has given me.”
After a moment she proceeded: “From the time of the resurrection of Lazarus the chief men at Jerusalem, with two exceptions, have been bent on the death of Jesus. On the night before the Passover, they sent an armed force to Gethsemane, where he was praying, arrested him, took him to the palace of the high-priest, went through a form of trying him for blasphemy, condemned him (two only objecting), then hurried him to Pilate the governor; and so importuned and worried and threatened the reluctant Roman that he at last consented, but not until they had taken on themselves and their children the whole guilt of the deed, to condemn him to the cross. Then followed mocking, and buffeting and scourging. Then in the early morning, accompanied by many weeping and wailing friends and a mob of howling and exulting enemies, the soldiers took him to Calvary and there crucified him between two robbers. Oh, the cruel, cruel spikes! Oh, the more cruel jeers and mockings and tauntings and railings of the soldiers—and even of his fellow sufferers! They evidently were suffering far less than he. Those familiar with crucifixions had never before seen such agony. All the signs of an inexpressible anguish were in both face and form. And once he uttered a cry so terrible that Nicodemus, who heard it, said that it would haunt him to his dying day. He had never heard the like before: never could bear to hear the like again. He is fully persuaded that the sun in all his circuits had never looked down on such mortal agony, because it was the agony of Him on whom ‘God laid the iniquities of us all.’ In fact, the sun refused at length to look on the awful scene any longer. He had climbed over the eastern hills, and up to the zenith, with undimmed face, when, all at once, he disappeared. For three hours the darkness of God was over the whole land. Men could hardly see one another. But the darkness of men was still greater than the darkness of God. They still continued to cast at Jesus through the lurid dimness the stones of their derision and insult until the end. At the ninth hour the great Victim died—praying for his enemies. Then the earth quaked mightily. Ancient rocks that had defied men and time broke in pieces before the silent cross. The veil of the temple was rent in twain by unseen hands. Even dead men came from their graves, to meet Jesus as he descended into his. ‘Truly,’ said the centurion who had the crucifixion in charge, ‘truly this was the Son of God!’
“When all was over, the disciples smote their breasts and returned to the city, filled with horror and almost despair. Who could have thought it! Is there really no humanity on earth, and no divinity in Heaven! Is this the end of their hopes—this the end of their long and fondly expected kingdom of God! From the towering summits of faith to the depths of doubt and misery—what a fall! My mother was not able to see the more immediate disciples for two or three days; for she was crushed in both body and heart: but Nicodemus kept her informed as to everything. Besides, she knew how they were feeling from knowing how she felt herself. She was prostrated before the awful mystery. She was dazed and almost incapable of thought under the mighty shock. And yet she had at the bottom of her heart a feeling that this could not be the end. God cannot be so defeated by man.
“So much for the tragedy. Had this been all that my mother wrote I could never have smiled again. Her account filled me with shame and horror and wrath. It seemed to me that God would have been just if he had at once smitten those murderers into the lowest Tophet. God forgive me! but I almost felt as if I could do it myself. I felt as if I belonged to an accursed and doomed race. Yes, I felt as if I could never smile again. But you see that I can (and her face wet with tears shone out upon him, with bewildering radiance); and it is because the tragedy has a triumph for its sequel.
“On the third day after the crucifixion Nicodemus came home in great excitement, saying that the Roman guard which Pilate, at the solicitation of the Jewish chiefs, had set about the tomb where the body of Jesus had been placed, came into the city early in the morning and reported to the chiefs with scared faces and trembling lips that One with a form bright as the lightning had flashed down from the sky in their sight, rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat upon it. They fell to the earth, and became as dead men. When they came to themselves they found the angel gone and the tomb open and empty. Great was the perplexity of the leaders on hearing this; but they finally resolved, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea protesting, to fortify one crime by another, and gave a large sum of money to the soldiers to say that the body was stolen while they slept. This recalled vividly to my mother’s mind what Jesus had once said, but which, in common with the other disciples, she had taken as having some figurative meaning, ‘And the third day I will rise again.’
“Soon after, one of the maids of the house, who also was a disciple and had been out at the market, came hastily home, saying that some of the apostles and others had seen angels at the sepulchre who told them that Jesus had risen—had even seen Jesus himself and spoken with him. My mother could no longer restrain herself, but hurried away to a place where the disciples were wont to gather; and found many assembled. The room was in a fever of restless pacings to and fro, of eager questionings and answerings. Seen him? Spoken with him? Sure there is no mistake? Peter and certain women were in great request, for they could say Yes to all such questions. The joy of assured conviction shone in some faces; a hope that still feared in others. It seemed too good to be true. Thomas, one of the Twelve, declared it could not be true: there must be some delusion in it—either of the senses, or the nerves, or the imagination. He would not believe without the concurrent witness of at least three senses. He had scarcely said this, when, though the doors were closed, they saw Jesus himself standing among them with the well-known form and features and voice; and he said to Thomas, ‘Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless but believing.’ Thomas broke down at once. Doubt was impossible. Not a ray of hesitation remained with any. None understood the sublime march of events; none knew what prodigies were yet to come, whether his enemies would now be swept away and a visible Divine Kingdom set up, or not; but of this all were sure that he who had died on the cross was again alive among them. And they rejoiced with exceeding great joy—though the joy yet felt the swell and tossing of the just departed storm.
“Since then my mother has seen the Messiah several times. But he never shows himself to the people at large. It is now understood among the disciples that in a short time, after meeting them in Galilee, he will return to Heaven—leaving his disciples to preach in his name forgiveness of sins to all nations who will repent and believe.”