"What, then, is left you?" she exclaimed.
He smiled slightly. "I expect and long for the redemption of mankind by the spirit of God, and I believe that truth and charity will prevail, though they may not descend from heaven to become incarnate in one form. The Jerusalem my people will return to is the spiritual city of the children of God. Is it not nobler than the pretty myths which have been wasting our energies and dividing the brotherhood of men into petty clans, all hating each other even while they professed that love was their prime virtue?"
"But sacrifice," she said, "what did you mean by that?"
"We had truth and error mingled. The sacrifice was merely a remnant of heathen customs. Peoples who knew nothing of Judaism nor of Christianity had their offerings and sacrifices. The Jews were the chosen people, finer and more spiritual than any other; and to the souls of the chosen among them the Creator revealed his truths. They renounced all heathenish doctrines, and into the few ceremonies and customs they retained they infused a spiritual significance. As the race deteriorated, this spiritual meaning was misinterpreted, and became more and more literal and gross. The people fell into sin, and for this the Creator punished them by taking away their power and pre-eminence, and by scattering them over the face of the earth."
Honora listened intently; and when he had finished, she uttered but one word. Clasping her hands and lifting her eyes, her heart seemed to burst upward like a fountain, tossing that one word into air, "Emmanuel!"
Not the primeval Creator alone, distant and awful, but God with us! Into this vast and terrible void which had been spread out before her, she invoked with passion the incarnate, the lowly, the pitiful, the suffering God.
"We hold that sacrifice is a practice of divine institution retained from our first parents, not an originally heathen custom," she added after a moment, regaining her composure. "You are, however, obliged to give up your belief in it, or be inconsistent. I can see now that if you hold to the sacrifice, you must hold to the Redeemer; if to the Redeemer, then you must believe in Christ, since the time is gone by for expectation; and if you accept the Christ, you must be a Roman Catholic."
"Precisely!" said the Jew. He had felt a momentary electric shock at the passion of her first exclamation, and had seen with emotion the flush and fire in her countenance. Now he smiled at her concise statement of the case.
Miss Pembroke rose, for the last of the procession was passing. The children were called back to their seats in the same order in which they had left them, and a few simple exercises were gone through with at the request of their visitor. All was well calculated to unfold and inform their young minds, but nothing was for show.
Mr. Schöninger blushed for the mistake he had made in fancying that any occupation on earth could be more refined and noble than Miss Pembroke's, when it was conducted in Miss Pembroke's manner. It seemed an occupation for angels. She possessed, evidently, in a preeminent degree, the power to understand and interest children, and she used that power to perfect ends. There was none of that personal familiarity which he had dreaded to see, that promiscuous fondness and caressing by which some women fancy they please children, when, in fact, the finer sort of children are oftener than not displeased with it. A kind touch of her fingers was to them an immense favor, and a kiss would have been remembered for ever. But while they treated her with profound respect, they approached her with perfect confidence and delight. They gathered about her, and gazed into her sympathetic face, bright and transparent with love from a bountiful woman's heart. They looked at her as a sky full of little stars may look into a smooth lake, and each saw its own reflection there, and was happy. In her soul all innocent infantile thoughts and fancies were condensed, as cloud and spray are condensed into water, and not only could she remember the process, but she could reverse it at will, could evaporate a thought or truth too strong for childish intellects, and give it in the form of rosy clouds to wide, grasping, childish imaginations.