Rachel, with other women of the Way
Like-minded with herself, pathetic group!
Drew timorous nigh the ragged rushing rim
Of that confusion pouring toward the gate
Which northward opened on Damascus road.
The self-same path it was whereby had walked
A little while before, bearing His cross,
The Saviour of mankind toward Calvary.
Stephen remembered, and, remembering, went
Both meekly more, and more triumphantly,
To suffer like his Lord without the gate.
He said within himself, 'I follow Him;
I feel His footprints underneath my feet.'
Those women watched the martyr every step,
And with hands waved signalled him sympathy.
Such helpless help was help the more to him—
Who had no need, but gave them back again
Their sympathy in looks of strength and cheer
Which bade them too be faithful unto death,
As they saw him that day. The peace of God,
Lodged in his heart—a trust from Christ, Whose word
Was, "Peace I leave with you, My peace to you
I give; not as the world gives give I you:
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let
It be afraid"—that peace steadfast he bore
Amid the tumult round him, the one thing
Not shaken in a shaken universe,
Like the earth's axle sleeping and the earth
Whirling from centre to circumference!
Not yet the rout had reached the city gate,
When, lo! a sudden halt, a sudden hush,
Arrested and becalmed the multitude.
A file of Roman soldiers from the fort,
With swift, straight, sure lock-step, steel-clad, that clanged,
Flowed like a rill of flowing mercury,
Heavy yet nimble, through a street that crossed
The course of that mad progress, and, athwart
Its head abutting, stayed; the clang of pause
Rang sharper than the clang of the advance.
The leader, a centurion, sternly spoke:
"What means this uproar? Seek ye to provoke
Your rulers? Love ye, then, your yoke so well
Ye fain would feel it heavier on your necks?
Sedition into insurrection grows
Full easily, and this sedition seems.
Speak, who can tell, and say, What would ye?"
Prompt,
Then, Shimei, of the foremost, stepping forth
Said;
"This is no sedition as might seem;
A crushing of sedition rather. We,
The Sanhedrim"—wherewith a smirk and bow
From Shimei, with wave of hand swept round
Upon his colleagues in their sorry plight
Dishevelled, seemed, in sneering cynic sort,
To introduce them with mock dignity—
"We Sanhedrim this fellow caught employed
In stirring up sedition, and our zeal
For peace and order under Roman rule
Inflamed us, following our forefathers' way,
To visit death on him without the gate.
We beg you will allow us to proceed
And put to proof of act our loyalty"—
Hot breath, half hiss, from Mattathias here—
"This script perhaps will help determine you."
And Shimei handed up a tablet writ.
The Roman read:
"Let this disorder pass;
It may be useful. Watch it well."
The seal
Once more with care examined, parley had
With Shimei, whose crafty answers meet
Each wary scruple of the officer,
And sign is given to let the rout proceed.
Meantime a different scene has quietly
Been passing unperceived. That company
Of ministering women Rachel found,
Salomé, and the Marys, blessed name!
With others who had followed and bewailed
When Jesus suffered—these, joined now by those
From Bethany, with Lazarus, prevailed
To edge their way ungrudged through the close ranks
Of idle gazers round not undisposed
Themselves to sympathize, until they stood
Nigh Stephen, and in undertones could speak
With him, and hear his words.
"Weep not for me,"
He said, "ye blesséd! I am well content.
I think how short the way is, not how sharp,
To Jesus where just now I saw Him. There
He stood in heaven on the right hand of God.
He seemed to lean toward me with arms outstretched
As if at once to take me to Himself!
I spring toward Him with joy unutterable.
I shall not feel the pain, which will but speed
Me thither. He hath overcome the world.
Be of good cheer, belovéd, ye who wait
A little longer to behold His face.
For you too He hath overcome the world.
Be strong, be faithful, be obedient,
A little while—and we shall meet again
Safe, happy, in the New Jerusalem,
Forever and forever with the Lord.
"But Ruth, my wife, yet unbelieving—care
For her and for my children! God will give
All to our prayers. And Husband He will be
To her, and Father to the fatherless."
Rachel to Lazarus whispered:
"Tell him I,
Rachel, Saul's sister, would do something. Ask
What I may do for Ruth, to testify
A sister's sorrow for a brother's fault.
And let him not think hardly, not too hardly,
Of Saul who wrongs him so!"
And Lazarus
Told Stephen, who, with look benign addressed
To Rachel, said:
"Thou, Rachel, thou thyself,
No other, shalt to Ruth my wife convey
Her husband's very last farewell; good-night
Call it, and bid her meet me there to say
Good-morning. Comfort her with words. To Saul
Say—when the time comes he will hear, not now—
That all is well, is wholly well. I go—
And that is well—perhaps in part through him,
Which seems not well, but is, by grace of Christ,
Who thus, in part through me—and surely that
Likewise is well—erelong will make of Saul,
In Stephen's room, a more than Stephen both
To preach and suffer for His name. This hope
Be thine, Rachel, and God be with thee, child!"
Martha, her hand as ready as her heart,
Had other cheer provided than of words.
'The willing spirit, if the flesh be weak,
May faint,' she thought, 'and angels strengthening Him
Brought Jesus succor in Gethsemane.
May I not be his angel, Stephen's, now,
And his flesh brace to bear his agony?'
She said to Stephen:
"I have brought thee here
A cake of barley and a honeycomb.
I pray thee eat and cheer therewith thy heart."
"God bless thee, Martha, for thy loving thought!"
Said Stephen; and he took the food from her
And ate it, giving thanks before them all.
And all with him gave thanks, for nothing else
Could so have cheered them in their sad estate
As thus to see their friend at such an hour
Cheering himself with food, his appetite
Not troubled by least trouble of the mind,
And he approved superior to his lot,
Not by a strain of high heroic pride,
Not by access of transient ecstasy,
But simply by the sober confidence,
Well-grounded, of the soul enduring all
As seeing Him Who is invisible.
Besides, had any deemed that Martha erred,
Inopportunely ministering to the flesh,
When spirit unsupported by the flesh
As well had conquered, and more gloriously,
Haply, too, letting this their thought escape,
Unmeant, in look or gesture, to her pain—
Such might, in Stephen's gracious act, have heard
As if a silent echo of those words—
Ineffably persuasive sweet reproof
At once and soft assuagement of unease—
"Why trouble ye the woman? She hath wrought
A good work for Me."
But the Sanhedrim,
Permitted by the Roman to resume
Their way with Stephen, now to him once more
Their notice turned. Within their heart enraged,
First, to have met with such a check, and then,
Scarce less, so to have had the check removed—
Both this and that their sense of bondage chafed—
Ill brooked it they to see what now they saw,
Their prisoner in calm converse with his friends.
"Begone!" to these they cried. "For shame to show
Untimely softness thus to whom ye see
Your rulers judge worthy of death. Begone!"