It was the first prayer he had uttered since the night of his arrest, except those outcries which were more the expression of anger and a devouring impatience than of petition. Having uttered it, he lay down again, and tried to sleep. He dreaded the thronging thoughts and tormenting pains of the day, and there was a tender sweetness in this new mood which he would fain have kept and carried off into sleep. To keep it by him, he called up that story suggested by what he had just seen, the star in the east and the Christ. He did not believe it, but he found it soothing. It came to him like David's song to Saul, and, though but a mythical story, as that was but a song, it kept down the tigers of anger and despair which threatened to rise and tear him.
It was his own Judæa, which he had never seen, indeed, but which was to him what the fountain is to the stream—the source of his being. How fair and peaceful was that silent night that overhung, unbarred by iron bolts, free from horizon to horizon! The holy city was sleeping, and by its side slept Bethlehem. Within a stable a fair young matron had just laid her newly-born child on its bed of straw, while Joseph, his Jewish brother, ministered to both, feeling sad and troubled, it must be, that those so dear to him were so illy cared for at such a time. The ox and the ass looked on with large, mild eyes, and warmed the air with their breath. It was poor, but how peaceful, how tender, how free! The open door and windows of that poor stable were to him more beautiful than the barred and guarded portal of a Herod or a Cæsar.
Yet with what a blaze of glory the Christian church had surrounded this simple human picture! The poor man who had been able to give his family no better shelter than a stable was held by them more honored than Herod or Cæsar; and cherubim, bright and warm from heaven, like coals just from a fire, drew near to gaze with him, and burned with a still white light above his head. They called this matron a miraculous mother, they showered titles over her like flowers and gems, they placed the moon beneath her feet, and wreathed the stars of heaven into a garland for her head.
How terrible and how beautiful was this Christian legend! The Jew had abhorred it as a blasphemy, and his blood chilled as he suffered his thought to touch one instant the awful centre of this strange group—the Babe to whose small hand these idolaters gave the power to crush the universe, on whose tiny head they placed the crown of omnipotence. It was useless to try to sleep. The soothing human picture had blazed out with such an awakening supernatural glory that he could not even lie still. He rose again, and stood at the door of his cell. The star had melted from sight, the peaceful, [pg 249] cloudless morning was spreading over the sky, and where the feet of the Christ stood on the hill-top the beams of the sun were sparkling. Beautiful upon the mountains were the feet of Him who brought good tidings.
“A Christian would call it miraculous,” he muttered, looking at that light; and he shuddered as he spoke. But that shudder did not come from the depths of his soul, where a new light and peace were brooding. It was like the clamor and confusion outside the doors of the temple when the Lord had driven forth the money-changers, and was less an expression of abhorrence than a casting out of abhorrence.
The Jew did not know that, however, nor guess nor inquire what had happened in his soul. He scarcely thought at all, but stood there and let the light steep him through. Some dim sense of harmony stole over him, as if he heard a smooth and noble strain of music, and for the first time since his imprisonment he remembered his loved profession, and longed to feel the keys of a piano or an organ beneath his hand. His fingers unconsciously played on the iron bars, and he hummed a tune lowly to himself, without knowing what it was.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!”
Then, catching himself idle and dreaming, he turned away from the grating, took a book from the table, and began to read.
This book had been to Mr. Schöninger an intellectual substitute for that spiritual consolation which he had not. Finding early in his imprisonment that his mind was working itself into a frenzy over the horrors of his position, and injuring him physically more even than confinement did, he had begun the study of a language with which he was entirely unacquainted, and, whenever he found his thoughts accomplishing nothing profitable, he turned them resolutely to this study, and bent them, with the whole force of his will, to learning dry rules and regulations. The discipline had saved him much, but it had not prevented his growing thin and haggard, and loathing food, and almost forgetting how to sleep.
But on this morning study did not seem so much a refuge as a task. The prisoner lifted his eyes now and then from the book, and looked outward to the sky, and then dropped them again, still in a dream, and wondering at himself. So might the sea have wondered when its waves sank to rest beneath the divine feet of the Lord passing over.