“Do we, indeed, know that God whom we profess to believe in?” she asked herself. “Have I not as ‘ignorantly worshiped’ him as did the Athenians of St. Paul’s time? Oh, if I find him not to-night, I shall die!”
Passing up a side aisle, she paused before the picture of a tiger there, which stood in a strong light, and stared at the Throne. She lifted her hand to pat his head, and whispered, half smiling, “Have you found the secret, brother?” Then she went on and knelt again before the tribune, questioning:—
“Who, then, have I come here to seek, and what? A glorious and triumphant Deity? Something more, indeed! I seek one who knows sorrow, poverty, and betrayal. Where is he? Where is the compassion, the power, the voice of him? I must find him, meet him! Where is he?”
She set herself to call up some image of him as human creatures had seen him face to face in their need. She recalled other vigils of knight, crusader, mourner, and sinner. Above all was the supreme vigil of Mary Magdalen. Ah, what a night of anguish! Ah, what a rapturous morn! To hear him speak her name as he uttered that “Mary!” on the first Easter morning would be better than a thousand princes of her blood ruling through ten thousand years, would be better than to have Dylar look at her with love’s delight.
She evoked that scene out of the past,—the chill, dewy garden, the lonely sepulchre, the dull hour before dawn. The present faded from her view. Gleam of gold and sparkle of jewel, she set them aside. Blotting out the glow of lamps and the glimmer of marble, it came. She was in the garden with Mary Magdalen. The stone was rolled away, she heard the woman’s bitter outcry: They have taken my Lord away, and I know not where they have laid him!
Darkness, sorrow, and desolation reigned. Even the Magdalen, weeping bitterly, departed. She was alone before an empty sepulchre.
Said faith: “He is here even as he was there, the same. He is invisibly here in this place, even as he was there. If he be God, he is here. Hush, my soul! He is here! He is here!”
A Presence grew in the place, felt by her whole being, a sense of life, gentle and potent. Seen by her soul, Christ stood there looking at her, and waiting to hear what she might say.
She stretched her hands out to him with a wild burst of tears. “What shall I do?” she sobbed.
And, oh, wonder of wonders! A voice “still and small,”—the voice that was heard by Elijah,—a voice more distinct to her soul and her senses than her own sobbing question had been, answered her!