Looking Back: An Autobiography

by Merrick Abner Richardson

"Tornado, nothing! Why, her folks lived near us before she came over here, and I do not believe she ever told a lie in her life, but she has an interesting way of enforcing her opinion. There! There! she has the floor now! Listen!"

"You, Judas Iscariot," she began, "virtually admit that you have faith in Jesus as to his sanity and that he is the Christ which was to come into the world, and still, for fear of apparent consequences, you advise abandonment. All lives and careers undergo encouraging and discouraging events, today the world enfolds you in her loving arms, tomorrow the cruel cold shoulder is turned, and experience teaches that the rebuff sometimes falls on the worthy, for the world often goes agog. Truly, the multitude is disappearing, thousands will return home on account of this 'Bread-of-life' sermon today, for they do not understand that evolution requires time; that large bodies move slowly. They may be blameless, but you—you, Judas Iscariot—you who have been with him more than two years, are you yet befogged, or are you a coward? Did you today think that Jesus intended to convey the idea that God was a baker and had sent a loaf of bread down to Capernaum, and that he, Jesus, was the loaf? I know you did not. I hope I do not understand you. I hope you are true. I cannot imagine a traitor among us. Oh, how my heart aches. See how low the lights burn tonight! All seems so far away."

At this juncture she scowled and looked downwards as though collecting her thoughts, and then continued: "You know that the priests at Jerusalem dread Jesus, thinking that his teachings, if not impeded, will revolutionize the religious world and for this reason they favor a ransom to have him out of the way. Inasmuch as you are aware of this, you can imagine my surprise when today I overheard you with the others say to Jesus, 'Depart then and go into Judaea.'" As she quoted his words she hesitated, biting her lip nervously, then as though a thought struck her, she raised her head smilingly and continued, as she turned from Judas to the audience:

"In the upper corner of our garden nearby, one can see an old cactus. Some one sowed the seed from which it sprang before any one of us was born. I used to try to twist and break it when I first came here, for it seemed to cast no blossoms and bear no fruit. Other plants and shrubs blossomed, yielded their fruit, but the old cactus seemed just to live and that was all. One day, as some of you know, Ruth was here and we discovered a bud on it, called the gardener, who decided it was a century plant which might blossom soon, but it did not. Evening after evening all the neighbors came to behold the wonderful blossom which was expected to come forth from the seed sown nearly one hundred years ago. It was so slow that we became discouraged, but at last one evening, when we all stood around, the gardener applied warm water to the roots and in a few moments the largest and most beautiful blossom known to the Orient came forth, and think of it, dear friends, more than fifty years after the one who sowed the seed had gone to his long home.

"Today the seed of life is being sown in the hilly land of Old Canaan, the buds are promise, blossoms peace and fruit everlasting life. As through summer and winter, sunshine and rain, the old cactus came forth, so through joy and sadness, bitterness and despair, the tree of life may put forth. When we think of the thorny path over which good souls before us have traveled, we ought to trust in providence, for God is with us and knows it all.

"God's mysterious guide oft leads us where we would not go, but never where we cannot stay. He plans our course, he knows it all and some bright morn he will reveal. Abraham did not know, when he was called from home to spend his years among these hills, that when the frost of time had turned him pale, the angels would appear. Hagar, wandering in the wilds of Beersheba, did not think that God knew all of her troubles, and would not let her perish with her child. Moses did not know when he fled across the desert wilds oft looking back in fear, that his fair Zipporah would meet him at the well. When Ruth looked, for the last time, on the scenes of her childhood, and turned from the hills of Moab, to follow Naomi in the plain path of duty, she did not know that God had called her to become the mother of the most illustrious family in the world. All these, my friends, were blessings in disguise.

"Neither does the seed sown mature so quickly. The seed here sown in Galilee these days may bear little fruit in our generation, even for hundreds or thousands of years, but some sweet day, when the storms of life are over, and the followers of our Lord join hands to spread the gospel of the "Bread-of-life" as we have heard today, like the sleepy cactus, it will blossom forth in all lands."

At this point Jesus and James stepped in, unobserved by her, while she continued: "The storm is upon us now. I hear the distant billows roar. This night to you who hesitate may be the turn of the tide throughout an endless Eternity, so bare your bosoms to the storm and look only to the beacon lights, if dimly you may discern them.

"Earth life is but a fleeting shadow, soon past. I know my name will never appear on the records of this great struggle, no one will ever weep at the tomb of Mary Magdalene, but what for aye the morrow. Can you all meet me there?