"There," he said, "if your sect asserts the sentiments of this sermon, you are entitled to this rich image. I am repaid for its possession by a son of Gentile parentage whose obedience has been the delight of my old years, and for the gift God has given me in him, I tender you this counterfeit of Jesus nailed on the Roman scaffold."
The congregation gazed a minute at the golden cross. Ireful laughter broke forth, followed by rage.
"The pagan! The papist! The Turk! The idolater!" they exclaimed. "He mocks the memory of our Saviour on Christmas morning! Out with him!"
The Jew recovered the crucifix and put it beneath his mantle. He vouchsafed no reply except a scornful "Ha! ha! ha!" and with this he strode out of the Methodist meeting, rejoined his boatmen, and returned to the island of Chincoteague.
Years passed, and the Jew grew very feeble. He had lasted his fourscore and ten years, and prosperity had attended him through all, and children loved him; but, true to his first and only fondness, his heart was ever across the sea, where gentle Abraham, studiously intent amongst the Rabbis, communicated with his father by every mail and raised the old man's mind to a height of serious appreciation which greed and commerce had never given him. Although hungering for his boy, Issachar forebore to disturb young Abraham's studies until a bitter illness came to him, and in his gloom and solitude his great want burst from his lips, and he said aloud:
"Almighty Father! What will it avail to these old bones if the Temple be rebuilded, and I die without placing my hands on the eyelids of my boy and blessing him in Thy name? I will pluck from this Christian image the last jewel and dispose of it, that he may return and place his hands in mine, and receive my benediction, and gladden me with his gratitude."
The image was therefore wholly separated from the cross. Nothing remained but the figure in gold of that bloody Pillory on which He died on whom two hundred millions of human beings rely for intercession with their Creator and Destiny.
The days seemed months to the Jew of Chincoteague. The negroes gathered round his cabin to be of assistance if he should require it; for they also looked for young Abraham as the Shiloh of their race, and would have died for old Issachar, unredeemed as they thought him, except by his goodness to their prince and favorite.
A high tide, following a series of dreadful storms, arose on the coast of the peninsula, as if the Gulf Stream, like a vast ploughshare, had thrown the Atlantic up from its furrow and tossed it over the beach of Assateague.
The sturdy ponies were all drowned. The sea was undivided from the bay. Pungy boats and canoes drifted helplessly along the coast, and the Eli alone was out of danger in the harbor of New York, waiting to receive young Abraham. At last the freshet crept over the house-tops, and nothing remained but the cottage of the Jew, planted on piles, which lifting it higher than the surrounding houses, yet threatened it the more if the water should float it from its pedestal and send it to sea. Every effort was made to induce the Jew to abandon it, but he was obdurate.