BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE EPIC OF PAUL

A SEQUEL TO "THE EPIC OF SAUL"

The action of The Epic of Paul begins with that conspiracy formed at Jerusalem against the life of the apostle, which in the sequel led to a prolonged suspension of his free missionary career. It embraces the incidents of his removal from Jerusalem to Cæsarea, of his imprisonment at the latter place, of his journey to Rome for trial before Cæsar, and of his final martyrdom. The design of the poem as a whole is to present through conduct on Paul's part and through speech from him, a living portrait of the man that he was, together with a reflex of his most central and most characteristic teaching. Its descriptions are vivid, and it brings the reader's mind into close touch with the great spirit of Paul. It is a poem in which dignity, beauty, and power are commingled with a rare charm.

"Paul, the new man, retrieved from perished Saul,
Unequaled good and fair, from such unfair,
Such evil, orient miracle unguessed!—
Both what himself he was and what he taught—
This marvel in meet words to fashion forth
And make it live an image to the mind
Forever, blooming in celestial youth."—From the Proem.

AN APPRECIATIVE CRITICISM.

"Noble as was Dr. Wilkinson's 'Epic of Saul,' his 'Epic of Paul' is even nobler. The kingliness of its range; the majesty of its principal figure; the fascination of its subordinate figures; the subtlety of its characterizations; the pathos of its interviews; the intricate consistency of its plot; the conscientiousness of its exegesis and allusions; the splendor of its imaginations; the nobility of its ethics; the stateliness of its rhythm; the grandeur of its evolution—these are some of the characteristics which make 'The Epic of Paul' another necessary volume in the library of every clergyman, philosopher, and litterateur."

—Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D.

—————

8vo, Cloth, Gilt top, 722 pp. Price, $2.00, post-free.
Both books together, $3.00.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, New York

The Epic of Saul

BY

WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON

Author of "The Epic of Paul"

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
New York and London
1898

Copyright, 1891,
By FUNK & WAGNALLS;
1898,
By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY.
[Registered at Stationers' Hall, London, Eng.]
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

CONTENTS.

THE EPIC OF SAUL.

Saul of Tarsus, brought up at Jerusalem a pupil of Gamaliel, the most celebrated Rabbi of his time, from setting out as eager but pacific controversialist in public dispute against the preachers of the Gospel, changes into a virulent, bloody persecutor of Christians, and ends by abruptly becoming himself a Christian and a teacher of Christianity. The Epic of Saul tells the story of this.

PROEM.

Saul saw the prophet face of Stephen shine
As it had been an angel's, but his heart
To the august theophany was blind—
Blinded by hatred of the fervent saint,
And hatred of the Lord who in him shone.
What blindfold hatred such could work of ill
In nature meant for utter nobleness,
Then, how the hatred could to love be turned,
The proud wrong will to lowly right be brought,
And Paul the "servant" spring from rebel Saul—
This, ye who love in man the good and fair,
And joy to hail retrieved the good and fair
From the unfair and evil, hearken all
And speed me with your wishes, while I sing.

BOOK I.

SAUL AND GAMALIEL.

Saul visits Gamaliel to submit a forming purpose conceived by him of entering into public dispute with the Christian preachers. Gamaliel disapproves; informing Saul that the Jewish rulers are about to apply against those preachers the penalties of the law. These men accordingly arrested and arraigned, the Sanhedrim hold a council on their case, at which Caiaphas advises accusing them to the Romans as seditious; Mattathias urges stoning them out of hand; Shimei recommends pursuing against them a policy of guile.

THE EPIC OF SAUL.

SAUL AND GAMALIEL.

Gamaliel sat at evening on his roof
And deeply mused the meaning of the law.
The holy city round about him lay
Magnificent, encircled with her hills.
Beyond the torrent Kedron, sunken deep
Within his winding valley, Olivet
Leaned long his shaded ridge against the east,
Distinct in every olive to the sun.
Nearer, amid the city, chief to see,
The glory of the temple of the Lord!
The seat was noble for a noble pile:
The summit of Moriah, levelled large,
Spread larger yet, outbuilt on masonry
Cyclopean, or more huge, pillar and arch
Fast-founded like the basis of a world.
A world of architecture rested there—
Temple, and court, and long-drawn colonnade
On terrace above terrace ranged around,
Cloister, and porch, and pendent gallery,
Height, depth, length, space, and splendor, without end,
Glittering its stones of lustre purest white,
And stately portals rich with gems and gold:
The setting sun now smote it that it blazed.
The sight was torment to Gamaliel's pride,
Torment with pleasure mixed, but torment more,
As there he sat upon his roof alone.

Tall, and erect in port, unbent his form
With all that weight of venerable years,
His head with almond-blossom glory-crowned,
And bosom overstreamed with silver beard,
Gamaliel stood before his countrymen
Their stay, their solace, and their ornament,
One upright pillar in a fallen state.
Fallen, for Rome had pushed her foaming wave
Of conquest far into the East, and laid
Judæa under deluge, quiet now,
But deep, of domination absolute—
A weight as of the sea upon her breast.
Jerusalem was glorious to behold,
Girdled with guardian mountains round about,
And sunlit with her temple in the midst.
Alas, but more her glory, more her shame!
For all her glory was the Roman's now,
The queen a vassal at a tyrant's feet,
She Cæsar serving who should serve but God.
And, worse disgrace than heathen servitude,
There recreant Jews were found, and more and more,
Who their hearts sold to their captivity,
And abjectly gave up the ancient hope
And promise, dawning-star of prophecy,
That yet to captive Israel should arise
Messiah, King of kings and Lord of lords,
To break the yoke from off His people's neck
And gift them with the empire of the earth—
This crown of Israel's hope gave up, to choose,
Instead, for captain and deliverer, one
Base-born, from Galilee, consorting friend
With publicans and sinners, hung at last
Convicted malefactor on the cross!

Such thoughts and tortures exercised the mind
Of grave Gamaliel on his roof that eve.
He felt the burden of his name and fame
Weigh heavy, his renown of sanctity,
With wisdom, rife so wide, and holy zeal.
His head declined upon his bosom, there
Amid the evening cool unheeded, he,
Gray reverend teacher of the law, sat mute,
Rapt over the writ parchment on his knees,
And read, or thought, or thought and read, and prayed.
The veil was on the old man's heart; he saw
Unseeing, for the sense from him was sealed.

In words like these his prayer and plaint he poured:
"Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Will
Jehovah cast us off forevermore?
We groan, O Lord, Thy people groan, beneath
The yoke of the oppressor. It is time,
Lo, bow Thy heavens and come avenging down!
Appear Thou for Thy people! Visit us!
Not only the uncircumcised are come,
And heathen, into Thine inheritance,
But of Thy chosen seed are risen up
False children unto Abraham, to vex
Our nation's peace and shame us to our foes.
The son of Joseph suffered his desert,
Accurséd, on the tree, pretender vile,
Who out of Nazareth came forth to claim
Messiahship, the gift of David's line,
And trailed a glorious banner in the dust,
The banner of the hope of Israel.
That day, too long expected, yet shall dawn
And true Messiah, girded on His thigh
His sword athirst for alien blood, shall ride
Conquering and to conquer over all
The necks of these His enemies and ours.
How long, Lord God of Sabaoth, how long?
For now that hated false Messiah's name
Is preached, the dead for re-arisen to life,
The crucified for glorified, to men,
And Ichabod is written everywhere
On all that was the boast of Israel.
O Thou that overthrewest the harrying horde
Of Pharaoh whelmed beneath the entombing sea,
Rise, overwhelm Thine enemies, restore
The glory and the kingdom to Thine own!"

Gamaliel prayed, and knew not that his prayer
Found voice and smote at least an earthly ear.
"Amen!" Gamaliel started as he heard
The voice of Saul responding fervently.
Saul had been pupil to Gamaliel,
Loyal and loving, and he now was friend
Familiar, whom, as guest, unbidden oft
And unannounced, that famous Pharisee
Welcomed to share his most seclusive hours.
"My son!" "Rabboni!" mutually they said.

The younger to the elder now had come,
A thought to purpose quickening in his breast.
He too was Hebrew patriot, and he yearned
With anguish like his master's, yet at once
Sharper than his, and more accessible
To hope, as well his livelier youth became
And native blood more nimble in his veins—
Saul also, with Gamaliel, yearned and burned,
Beholding prone his country in the dust,
Under the grinding heel of Roman power—
And Messianic glory turned to shame!
Saul's first wish was to bring his brethren back
Stung to their pristine, proud, prophetic hope
Of a Messiah born to regal robes,
Swaying a sceptre, seated on a throne,
Crowned with a crown of myriad diadems,
Symbol of lordship that should myriad tribes
Mass in one mighty empire of mankind.
He felt the soul of eloquence astir
Within him, and he longed to be at war,
In words that flamed like lightning and that smote
Like thunder-stones, against those grovelling men
Who Israel taught to grovel at the feet
Of Galilæan Jesus crucified,
Accepted for the Christ, forsooth, of God!
Such wish, becoming purpose, Saul has brought
This evening to Gamaliel, with high hope,
Hope high, but vain, to disappointment doomed,
Of grateful gratulant words to hearten him,
Approving and applauding his desire,
Won from the wisest in Jerusalem.

Thus minded, Saul, blithe, eager, sanguine, bold,
With yet a grace of filial in his mien,
As toward a master had in love and fear,
Said:
"Teacher, what I came to learn from thee,
Already, having marked thy prayer, I know.
God hear thee out of Zion in thy prayer!
God bring to naught the counsels of His foes!
Now know I, and rejoice to know, that thou,
My teacher in the blessed law, wilt say,
'God speed thee, son,' in what I seek to do.
For, lo, I seek to serve the suffering cause
Of truth wounded and bleeding in the street.
Love of my country burns me as with flame
Imprisoned and living in my very bones—
My country, and my countrymen. This land
To me is lovely like a bride beloved—
Beloved the more, unutterably wronged!
Her trodden dust is dear to me. Not I,
As do my brethren on her bosom born,
Equably love her with composed and calm
Affection sweet. That homesick longing bred
With boyhood in Cilicia haunts me yet,
To heighten love with anguish, and more dear
Make the dear soil of this my fatherland.
A passion, not a fondness, is my love;
And for my countrymen to die, were sweet—
Such blind abandonment of love usurps
My being for my kinsmen in the flesh.
Would God I might in very deed pour out
This blood, no vain oblation, to redeem
My bondmen brethren and to purge this land!"

In speech no farther—though in passionate tears
The strong man vented still his else choked heart.
Gamaliel, with wise senior sympathy,
Sat silent, waiting till that burst were past.
Then gravely:
"Yea, my son, I know thy zeal,
And praise it. Such as thou, in number more,
Might somewhat; such as thou, alas, are few."

His master's praise Saul took as check and chill,
Uttered with that insinuated sense
Of sage discountenance to his youthful zeal.
He shrank, but braced himself, and gently said:
"But, father, not by many or by few
Is our God bound to working. Many or few
To Him is one. Nay, were there none save me,
Were I alone among my brethren, I,
Alone among my brethren, yet would dare."

Against the vernal aspiration warm
Of Saul's young blood and tropic temperament
Gamaliel's aged, wise, sententious phlegm,
And magisterial manner though benign,
Abode unmoved, inert, insensible;
Like an ice-Alp that freezes on its cheek
A breath of spring soft blowing from the south.
With viscid slow demur the old man spoke,
And downcast heavily shook his hoary head:
"To dare is cheap and common with our race,
We are few dastards; did not Judas dare?
And Theudas? But their daring came to naught.
Wisdom with daring, fortitude to wait,
We need, son Saul; the daring that must do,
And cannot wait, has wrought us sumless ill."

Damped, but remonstrant, Saul still plied his plea:
"And yet but now, 'How long,' I heard thee cry,
'How long, Lord God of Sabaoth, how long?'"

"Yea," said Gamaliel, "that I daily cry."

"Thy counsel and thy praying how agree?"

"Men I bid wait; wait not, I pray my God."

"Were this not well, O master calmly wise,
In trust that God will rouse him at my cry,
To rouse myself and strongly side with God?
I cannot rest in peace; I hear the woe
Denounced for such as safely sit at ease
In Zion. Let me do as well as pray."

Saul's rising zeal once more the master checked:
"Praying is doing, likewise waiting works;
But what, son Saul, is in thine heart to do?
I cherished better dreams, my son, for thee,
Than to behold thee leading to their doom
One helpless, hopeless, hapless company more,
Insurgent out of season against Rome,
Confederate sons of folly and of crime!"

Rebuke like this Saul brooked it ill to hear;
With filial sweet resentment he replied:
"And cherish other dreams, I pray thee, father!
No man-at-arms am I to challenge Rome;
Though not even Rome should daunt me, called of God
To front her with but pebble from the brook,
Like David, in her plenitude of power.
Rome rules us, and I grieve, but I rejoice:
I grieve that we are such as must be ruled,
And cannot rule ourselves; but I rejoice,
Since such we are, that we are ruled by Rome.
The strongest and the wisest is the best
To serve, if one must serve. Alas, my country!
Her face is in the dust because her heart
Grovels, and therefore on her neck the heel.
So, not to rid us of the Roman, I
Labor with this desire, but to erect
The dustward spirit of my countrymen.
This people knowing not the law are cursed!"

By instinct wise of policy unmeant,
Saul, in his last half-maledictory words
Of vehement passion edged with bitterness,
Had struck a chord that answered in the breast
Of the habitual teacher of the law.
"Yea," said Gamaliel, "now art thou true son
And utterest wisdom. Make them know the law.
With both my hands I bless thee speaking thus.
The law shall save them, if they know the law."

Saul knew it was Gamaliel's wont that spoke,
His life-long wont of reverence for the law
And trust in its omnipotence to serve
Whatever need befell his nation—this,
Rather than any fresh, fair-springing sense
Of hope in him auxiliar to his own.
Yet, in despair of better heartening now,
And self-impelled to ease his laboring mind,
He, fixed and faltering both, with courteous phrase
Premised of teachable assent sincere
To smooth somewhat thereto his doubtful way,
Frankly a hearing for his counsel sought:
"I ever heard thee, father, teaching that,
And I believe it wholly, mind and heart;
But something now I did not learn from thee,
Hearken, I pray, and weigh if it be wise."

But less like one who hearkened as to weigh
A counsel shown, Gamaliel now to Saul
Seemed, than like one who sat behind a shield
In opposition, a broad shield of brow
Immobile, placid, large circumference,
And orb of diamond proof, between them hung
There on the housetop still in dim twilight,
Ready to quench in darkness any ray
Of word or sign from him that should aspire
To reach an understanding guarded so—
Such to Saul seemed Gamaliel now, while yet,
Despite, repressed but irrepressible,
That strenuous strong spirit thus went on:
"Deeply I have desired to know my time
And not to waste my strength beating the air.
Are not men's needs other with other times?
No more perhaps in peaceful shelters now
Sacred to sacred studies, synagogue
Retirements, where our doctors of the law
Propose in turn their sage conclusions, heard
By questioning disciples—here perhaps
No more is truth most truly taught to men.
Some, it may be, might well go forth to stand
Even at the corners of the streets and cry.
Folly amain preaches to gaping crowds,
And shall not wisdom cry? My heart is hot,
Amid the multitude they make their prey,
To meet these false proclaimers to their face,
And stop their mouths, with Moses and with all
The prophets and the Psalms, from uttering lies."

Gamaliel heard, and like a lion stood,
That shakes his dewy mane from slumber roused;
The old man loomed in action nobly tall,
As thus, with weighty gesture, in a voice
Solid with will, he gently, sternly spoke:
"Nay, Saul, my son, thy zeal misguides thee now—
Thy zeal, and peradventure some conceit
Of wisdom wiser than thine elders. Thou,
Consenting thus to parley with the fool
According to his folly, like becomest.
This is a time to answer otherwise
Than with the wind of words against their words
Of wind, as equal against equal matched.
Those wresters of the law must feel the law
Smiting their mouths shut with the heavy hand.
With blows, not words, vain fools like these are taught.
Go thou thy way, to-morrow shalt thou see
Hap other far than that thou hast devised
Befall those evil men of Galilee.
Our chiefly prudent, watchful for our weal,
Will stop their mouths profane and make an end."

Saul chode his tongue to silence, but his heart
Set stern in resolution touched with pride,
As, after decent pause, he took farewell.

The master and the pupil parted thus,
And both were blind to that which was to be;
For both would change, but change in converse ways
Gamaliel gentle grow, and Saul grow hard.

That morrow, Peter with his brethren all,
Apostle preachers of the Gospel, felt
The heavy hand Gamaliel shadowed fall
Indeed upon them into dungeon thrown.
But thence by night the angel of the Lord,
Opening the doors, delivered them, and bade
Boldly into the temple take their way
And there preach Christ to all the worshippers.
With the first flush of morning, their swift feet
Shod with the sandals of obedience,
They hasten to fulfil the angelic word.
Meanwhile the Sanhedrim for counsel met
Concerning those their prisoners, and the state,
The vexed state, of the Hebrew commonwealth,
Sent pursuivants to fetch them from their cells
And station them in presence to be judged.
But those despatched to bring them came and said,
"We found, indeed, the prison safely shut
And all the keepers keeping watch and ward
Without before the doors; but entering in
To find our prisoners, prisoner found we none."

The captain of the temple, the high-priest,
And all that council mused in maze and doubt—
Gamaliel most, guessing the finger of God.

But now comes one who brings a fresh report,
"Behold," said he, "the men ye put in bond
Are standing in the temple teaching there."
Forthwith the captain of the temple goes,
His band attending, and, no violence shown—
For fear was on them of the people, lest
They stone them—leads the Galilæans in.

Robed venerably each in rich array
Of purple, and fine linen, glistering white
And broidered fair, their flowing garments fringed
With large expanse of border and with cords
Of blue adorned, broad their phylacteries,
The council of the seventy sat severe
Within their council-hall in solemn state.
A semi-orb they sat, or crescent-wise,
And in the midst, between the horns, were placed,
Under their beetling frown, the prisoners.
Awful these felt the presence of the place,
And, while the high-priest of their nation, throned
Middle and chief among the councillors,
Denouncing asked: "Did we not straitly bid
Forbear to teach in this accurséd name?
And, lo, ye fill Jerusalem with bruit,
And seek to bring on us this person's blood!"—
While thus, sternly, he spoke, those simple men
Felt the heart fail within them and the tongue
Cleave to the mouth's dry roof. He ceasing, back
Their spirit came, and Spirit not their own,
The Holy Ghost of God, flooded their souls,
As when into a bay the ocean pours.
Then Peter and his brethren boldly spoke:
"Fathers and brethren, hearken to our words:
God needs must we, rather than men, obey.
That Jesus whom ye crucified and slew,
Him did the Lord God of our sires raise up,
And at His own right hand exalt to be
Both prince and saviour, to bestow on us
Repentance and forgiveness of our sins.
Of these things all we stand here witnesses;
Nor we alone, for with us witnesseth
God's Spirit bestowed on whoso Him obeys."

Something not earthly in those prisoners' mien
A tone of more than human in their words,
A majesty, as of omnipotence
Patient within them, ready to break forth,
But patient still, to brook how much was need—
So much, no more!—this awed one watchful heart
Prepared amid that council now to heed;
Gamaliel inly pondered, 'Is it God?'
The clear simplicity, the perfect faith,
The steady, prompt obedience, the serene
Courage that dared, without defying, all
The terrors brandished by the Sanhedrim—
This spirit, strange in those despiséd men,
As with a soft and subtle atmosphere
Enfolding and suffusing him, subdued
The solid temper of his mind, the strong
Set of his resolution grim relaxed,
Undid the hard contortions of his nerves,
And supple made the will so firm before.
His steadfast poise of confidence perturbed,
Gamaliel trembled with uncertainty.

Otherwise Saul; he, merged in different thought,
Eluded quite that penetrative spell.
Unconscious of the Holy Ghost, he strove
Blindly against Him, like the rest, though not
Yet, like the rest, with zeal of violence
To do the prisoners harm or shed their blood;
With such zeal not, but with ambitious pride
Of wisdom unawares puffed up to show
His prowess in the Scriptures, and to earn
A high degree surpassing all his peers.
His fellow-councillors concerting how
To quench this propagandist fire in blood,
Saul said within his heart:
'Nay, nay, instead,
Might I but once these bold presumers face
Amid the idling crowds they feed with lies,
How, from the law itself, whereof, untaught
Therein, they prate, would I, in open test
Of argument, confute them to their teeth!
Their own ill-wielded weapons from their hands
Seen wrenched and turned against them, surely then
Not only would these brawlers cease, but all
Would laud and magnify the glorious Word
Of God, thus shown, well wielded, capable
Of wreaking its own vengeance on its foes.'

These twain such counsel in their secret breast
Held diverse, while that strife of words went on.

Not what, in present need, behooved to do—
A full and fell accord conjoined them there!—
Was doubt or question to the Sanhedrim;
But in what chosen way their chosen goal,
The doom of death for those accurséd men,
With safe sure speed, most prudently, to reach—
This doubt embroiled a vehement debate.

One argued thus his sentence and advice—
Caiaphas he, high-priest that lately was,
Reputed statesman politic and wise:
"We are a subject nation; government
Is for this present slipped from out our hands.
Chafe how we may, how will it otherwise,
Ours is a state of vassalage to Rome.
Death in our hearts and death upon our tongues,
Denounced amain against our enemies,
Is futile—thunder bare of thunderbolt.
We make ourselves a laughter—unless we
Warp toward our end with wisdom; who is weak
Well needs be wise, to win—wisdom is power.
To kill and keep alive, by process due
Of law, no longer appertains to us,
That right being forfeit to our conqueror; this
Must we not let our honorable pride,
Justly indignant, and our holy zeal
Incensed for God, bribe us to blink. But slave,
If wise, may make a foolish master serve.
Break we proud Rome to do our task for us.
True triumph, when we wield the tyrant power
Itself of domination over us
A weapon in our hands to work our will!

"I counsel that we seek and find firm ground
Of mortal accusation, before those
Who rule us, against these audacious men,
As teachers of seditious doctrine meant
To undermine allegiance, and at length
Prompt insurrection and a state of war.
Rome then will stamp our troublers out of life,
And we, well rid of them without annoy,
Besides shall safely reap from her the praise,
Ill-merited, of fealty to her right—
Praise that sometime hereafter may be gain
Of vantage, if sometime hereafter come
Fit season to fling off her hated yoke."

Such words of weight spoke Caiaphas, and ceased
Those words, not idle, fell as falls the steel
Smiting the flint; a sparkle keen of fire
Flew forth, found tinder ready, and flashed up
In instant flame. A patriot malcontent,
Fiercely, irreconcilably, a Jew,
Was Mattathias; Mattathias said:
"Yoke by whom hated? Surely not by him
Who tamely brooks to talk of earning praise
For loyalty from Rome! Nor more by those
Who patient sit to hear such counsel broached!
Nay, men my brethren, that I did not hear!
Sure, son of Abraham never have I heard
Own himself slave, and meekly speak of Rome,
As of a master! This I will not hear!
I could not hear it! Speech of such a strain
Were like a river of molten metal poured
Red-hot into my ear to quench the sense!
Stone-deaf am I to craven treachery
From one of my own fellow-councillors here!
I only heard my brother say, 'Let us
Arise and stand for God!' Lo, I arise
And stand, with him, with all! There is a law,
Ancient and unrepealed, wholesome and good,
To stone for blasphemy. Blasphemers these,
What wait we? We have hands, and there are stones,
Let us this instant forth and stone them, stone
Unto the death!"
The clenched hands, and the fierce
Menace of husky tones, half-choked, and teeth
Gnashing, and brow braided with swollen knots,
Were more than words to speak the murderous will.

The prisoners listened with suspended breath;
They deemed a dreadful doom indeed was nigh.
Instinctive instant fear, forestalling faith,
With sudden loud alarum startled them,
And for one moment violently shook,
In them, all save the basis of the soul—
One moment—then they sped themselves with prayer,
Ran to the shelter of the promises,
And were at peace! In that secure retreat
Withdrawn, the secret place of the Most High,
The angel of the Lord encamping round,
Composédly at leisure they looked out
And saw the wicked plot against the just,
Vainly, and gnash upon him with his teeth!
Within their hearts they knew his day would come.

The speaker still stood leaning imminent,
His posture instigation, while a hiss
Of hot adhesion ran increasing round—
But skipped Gamaliel, skipped the musing Saul
With one beside, scarce daring to be dumb—
When, in his place, slowly, by soft degrees,
With furtive look and gesture, to his feet
Stealing, half stood, half crouched, a speaker new.
This was one Shimei, an abject man,
Abject in spirit, though in wit not dull,
And capable of long malevolence
Fed on resentments such as abjects feel.
Saul listened, but Gamaliel bowed in prayer,
As Shimei thus, obliquely, sneering, spoke:
"Stoning is pleasant, doubtless, when, as now,
One's sense of righteousness is much engaged.
The reflex satisfaction to be had
From accurately casting a choice stone
To break the teeth of the ungodly, is
Superlative, perhaps the very highest
Relish attainable to mortals here.
The consciousness of sympathy with God
Always exhilarates delightfully;
But in particular if the sympathy
Be exercised in such a case as this,
Where the most glorious of God's attributes,
His justice, is involved. Borne far above
Pity, or any weakness of the sense,
You only feel a rapture of divine
Approval of the law you execute.
So subtly strong and sweet possesses you
The instinct to indulge your appetite
For righteousness, you might almost mistake
Your pleasure for the pleasure of revenge.

"But let revenge be for the heathen, who
Know not Jehovah and His law contemn.
Jehovah's chosen we, our sentiment
Purged of all personal bias of mere hate,
We simply wash our feet in wicked blood
With pleasure—pleasure naturally enhanced,
If we have spilled said wicked blood ourselves.

"Yea, stoning gratifies the pious mind
Profoundly—grant the stoning be by you;
By you, not to you; being stoned, I judge,
Is less satisfactory. On this point who doubt
Or differ, have their opportunity
To clear their minds by prompt experiment—
They need but act upon the last advice;
For—grant our gracious masters smiled and pleased
To let us play a prank of self-misrule,
This once, wilful, but harmless, in their view,
Which might even turn out comedy for them—
Yet, stoning these, we should ourselves get stoned,
With expedition—past all chance of doubt.
Our friend, the vehement adviser here,
Might peradventure go himself as blithe
To be stoned by the people, as to stone
These pestilent fellows—for the glory of God.
But, then, more clearly how the glory of God
Would be subserved thereby, the rest of us,
Colder in heart perhaps, but certainly
Cooler in head, would wish to be advised,
Before we take our lives into our hands
To wreak the righteous judgment of the law
On favorites of a fierce and fickle mob
Whose palms, unless I much misread the signs,
Already itch for stones to throw at us,
While we sit here and talk of throwing stones
At whom they love and honor.
"Give them line
This wild Jerusalem mob, and they will change
Their mood. Remember how it chanced but late
With Jesus Nazarene. Hailed yesterday
Messiah, King of kings and Lord of lords,
Ovation of hosannas greeting him
From thousand times a thousand throats—to-day,
A malefactor hooted through the streets,
With 'Crucify him! Crucify him!' cried
In multitudinous chorus like one voice—
The mouths to-day and yesterday the same.
Their second tune indeed we set for them
And sang precentors—but how well they joined!
In due time pitch them the like tune again,
And doubt not they will sing it with full breath.

"Not that I hence advise to wait remiss;
My counsel is no less from sloth removed
Than hostile to crude, hasty violence.
Only, shun public note; with proper quest,
Ways may be found, ways pregnant too, that make
No noise. The nail that went so shrewdly through
Sisera's temples made no noise. It sped
Softly, but sped surely, and found the quick
Secret of life. Are there not Jaels yet?
You have guessed what I advise. The end you seek
Is holy; holy hold whatever means
Shall lead thereto. Let us commit this thing
To those the wisest found among us, few
Better than many, charging them to choose
Some suitable silent means of silencing
These praters, without stir or scandal made,
Likest the ways of nature, hint, perhaps,
Conveyed of overruling providence
At work through nature for revenging crime.

"For me, I seek no honor at your hands:
I do not court responsibility;
I am least wise among you; yet a trust
Imposed were duty sacred in mine eyes."

As, should along a living bosom warm
With youthful life-blood coursing joyously,
A deadly serpent, with protracted, cold
Belly incumbent, glide, beneath that touch
And creep the conscious flesh would creeping shrink,
And all the genial current in the veins
Curdle; so now, at Shimei's words, much more
At signs in him that spoke beyond his words,
The accent of the voice, the look, the port
Of figure, sinister suggestion couched
In action or grimace, there came a chill,
A shudder, of reaction and collapse
Over the council late with zeal aglow.
Even Mattathias, who, in attitude
Of menace, after Shimei arose,
Some space still stood—he, too, while Shimei
Was speaking, felt the evil spell and sank
Into his seat. With one accord they all,
When Shimei ceased, a gloomy silence kept.
Gamaliel did not lift his head, but groaned
Audibly now, though gently, in his prayer.

From such a source such sound made seem yet more
Ominous the spell which hushed that council-hall.

BOOK II.

SAUL AND THE SANHEDRIM.

The Sanhedrim still in session on the apostles' case, Saul speaks; first scornfully repudiating for himself Shimei's proposal of guile, and then impressively announcing his own purpose, now fully mature, to controvert the Christian preachers in open argument before the people. After a pause following Saul's speech, Gamaliel speaks in favor of letting the prisoners go free. Other councillors express their sentiments. A scourging of the utmost severity being proposed, Nicodemus, with bated breath, deprecates first a cruel infliction, and then any infliction at all. Release after scourging is finally resolved upon.

SAUL AND THE SANHEDRIM.

Dumb-struck and stirless long the Sanhedrim—
Instinctively abhorrent from the part
Of that base councillor—at last there rose
A new assessor in the midst to speak.

A young man he, who, in the general thought,
Wherever moving, round about him wore
A golden halo of uncertain hope
And prophecy of bright futures. Aspect clear
And pure; straight stature; foothold firm and free;
The bloom of youth just ripening to the hue
Of perfect manhood upon cheek and brow;
Lip mobile, but not lax—capacity
Expressed of exquisite emotion, will
Elastic and resilient, tempered true
To bend, not break, and ultimately strong;
Glances of lightning latent in the eye,
But lightning liable to be quenched in tears;
The pride of every Hebrew, such was Saul.

A stir of expectation broke the hush
Of that strange silence, ere his opening words:
"That I, the youngest of this order, thus
Should rise for speech—and that beloved gray head
Before me bowed, unready yet—might seem
Unseemly. But to speak after he speaks,
My own reveréd guide, the guide of all,
Would be, should I then speak to differ, more
Unseemly still. And what I have to say,
Being my thought, burns in me to be said,
Approve, condemn, who will; God bids me speak."

Gamaliel raised his head and looked at Saul.
Saul felt the look, and hardened his will, but not
His heart, to meet it. Turning so, he saw,
Not what he inly braced himself to bear,
Warning, rebuke, anger to overawe,
Reproach, appeal, dissuasion, pain confessed
At filial separation, grasp of will
At old authority elapsed—of these,
Naught; only a pathos of perplexity,
A broken, anguished, groping childlikeness,
Desire of any help, and hope of none—
Saul will hereafter understand it all;
He simply marks it now compassionately
In wonder, pausing not, and thus, with loth
Allusion to the last advice, proceeds:
"But other speech my lips refuse, until
I purge my conscience by protesting here,
For me, I spurn, scorn, hate, loathe utterly
The devil and devilish lies. I have no qualms
At blood, but I love truth, and qualms I own
At falsehood, practised in whatever name;
Damnable ever, then thrice damnable,
Damning a holy cause it feigns to serve!"

A flush of warm revival in the breasts
Of some that listened answered to such words.
But one there was, that vile adviser, felt
A gripe of mortal hatred at his heart.
He, by Gamaliel's eye not unobserved,
Behind a black malignant scowl which, like
That murk emission of the cuttle-fish,
Flushed from his heart his face to overspread
And hide his thought, sat fostering the wound
Of Saul's disdainful noble words—a wound
To rankle long in the obscene recess
Of that bad bosom, and therein to breed
At last an issue foul of fell revenge;
In purpose fell, though in fulfilment foiled.

But Saul, magnanimously heedless, deigned
Nor glance at him nor thought of consequence.
Elate with the elixir of his youth,
And buoyed with confidence exultant now
By the rebound of his beginning, buoyed
Besides with sympathy, he passed along,
Yet, master he, not mastered, of his mood,
Curbed strongly his strong passion and delight
Of power, and, calm with self-possessing will,
Force in him to have sped a thunderbolt
Stayed back from sudden waste, to be sent on
In fine diffusive throb—as farther thus:
"Enough of that; I did but purify
My soul with words. I feared some inward stain
From only listening, if I listened only,
And did not speak, when base was proffered me.

"Hear now what I propose. What I propose
Is not advice; advice I neither give
Nor ask. I do not ask it, for my heart
Is fixed; duress of conscience presses me,
With flesh and blood forbidding to confer.
I must do what I shall, in man's or devil's
Despite. I trust I speak not thus in pride.
Not therefore that the census of your yeas
Or nays may guide me, but that ye may weigh
What force my purpose now unfolded owns
To sway your present counsels, hear and judge.

"Ye know, and all Jerusalem, that Saul
Has counted nothing worthy to be prized
Beside the learning of the law of God.
For this, a boy, from yon Cilician lands
I came; for this, I have consumed my youth.
What envied gains of knowledge I have made,
Sitting a student at Gamaliel's feet,
Befits me not to vaunt; these, small or large,
Belong to God and to my nation, being mine
Only to use for Him and them. I see
Plainly how I must use my trust from God.
Wherefore are we assembled? Wherefore, save
Because these sciolists pervert the law,
Deceived perhaps, deceiving certainly?"

Scarce waved a careless hand in sign at them—
Toward the apostles, still in presence there,
Saul deigned not to divert his scornful eyes:
"Shame is it if I, knowing the law indeed,
Am less than match for these untutored minds,
Amid the flocking fools they lead astray,
To controvert their hateful heresies.
Herewith then I proclaim my ripe resolve
To undertake, against the preaching liars,
On their own terms, a warfare for the truth.
Let it be seen which cause, in open list,
Is stronger, truth from heaven or lie from hell!

"Brethren and fathers, as ye will, consult;
The youngest has his purpose thus divulged."

As when a palm diversely blown upon
In a strong tempest of opponent winds,
Now this way, and now that, obedient
To each prevailing present urgency,
Leans to all quarters of the firmament
By turns, but quickly, let a lull succeed,
Upright again, shows every leaf composed;
So now the council, long enough between
Opinion and opinion buffeted,
While Saul was speaking took a little ease,
No new advice proposed, to breathe again,
Steady itself, and come to equipoise.

Some thought that Saul had spoken proudly; some,
That pride became his worth; some held that he
Would make his vaunting good; some feared his plan
Savored of youth and rashness; others deemed
Public dispute mistaken precedent
Teeming with various mischief—sure to breed
Insufferable pretensions in the crowd,
So taught to count themselves fit arbiters
On Scriptural or traditional points of moot,
And, by close consequence, a serious breach
Endanger in their own authority;
Yet others felt, whatever fruit beside
Was borne of Saul's proposed experiment,
Two things at least were safe to reckon on—
In its own dignity, the Sanhedrim
Must needs incur immedicable hurt,
So plainly scandalous a spectacle
Exhibiting, a councillor enrolled
Of their own number stooping to debate
On equal terms with ignorant fishermen;
Then, on their side, those flattered fishermen,
Far from indulging proper gratitude
For being publicly confounded quite
At such illustrious hands, would be instead
Inflated out of measure, nigh to burst,
With added pride at complaisance so new
From their superiors, while the common herd
Would give them greater heed accordingly.

Such things diverse they thought, and silence kept,
Saul's colleagues in the Sanhedrim; they all
Together felt that Saul in any wise
Would go Saul's way; they therefore silence kept.

One man alone, by age and gravity,
And reverence his in ample revenue,
Was easy master of the Sanhedrim:
On him the council rested and revolved,
As on a fixéd centre and support.
And now 'Gamaliel! let us hear at last
Gamaliel's word' was suddenly the sole,
The simultaneous, silent thought to all.
The eyes of all concentred instantly
Upon Gamaliel found that saint esteemed
And sage already stirring as to rise.
Their readiness to hear, with his to speak,
Timed so in perfect reciprocity
And exquisite accord responsive, marked
That fleet meet moment for the orator,
Which, conscious half, but half unconscious, he,
Gamaliel, wielded by the Holy Ghost,
Was now to seize and use for God so well.

The hoary head, the mien of majesty,
The associative power of ancient fame,
His habit and tradition of command,
Their instinct, grown inveterate, to obey,
Always, wherever he arose to speak
Among his brethren, won Gamaliel heed.
But now, a certain gentle winsomeness,
Born of a certain wavering wistfulness,
Qualified so a new solemnity
Of manner, like a prophet's, felt in him,
That awe came on his hearers as from God.
Gamaliel first bade put the prisoners forth,
In keeping, out of audience, and then said:
"My brethren: Saul my brother—son no more
I name him, since he parts himself from me
In counsel—yet I love him not the less—"

A tremor of sensation fluttered through
The council, with these words, and at Saul's heart
Pausing, infixed, then healed, a subtle pang
Of sweet remorse and gracious tenderness—
"Yea, not the less for this love I my son,
My brother, while I honor him the more.
Yea, and not wholly does he part himself
From me; in deepest counsel we are one.
Saul seeks to honor God obeying Him,
The same seek I; are we not deeply one?
And ever I have taught obedience
To God as the prime thing and paramount;
Disciple therefore still to me, and son,
Is Saul, even in this act and article
Of his secession from his master's part;
Saul and Gamaliel both, and all of us,
I pray my God to save from self-deceit!
I shudder while I pray, 'Deliver me,
O Lord, deliver, from the secret sin
Of false supposed obedience masking pride!'

"Late, I was sure, as Saul is sure to-day.
I thought, and doubted not, we ought to do
Even what ye now are bent to bring to pass.
My way was not Saul's way, but rather yours;
To me it seemed plainly, as seems to you,
Wiser to save the body by some loss,
If loss were need, of limb. Unfalteringly,
The knife would I myself with mine own hand
Have wielded to cut off these members, judged
Unsound and harmful to the general health,
Forever from the congregation. Now,
I feel less sure, Gamaliel feels less sure.
I wish—brethren, I think I wish—to be
Obedient; though deceitful is the heart
Above all things and wicked desperately—
What man can know it?—yet I think I will
Obedience. That was a pure word—the mouth
However far from pure that uttered it—
'To God rather than men must we obey.'
Saul was true son of mine to turn from me
To God—if haply he to God indeed
Have turned from me, and not from me to Saul,
Not knowing! Might I also turn, even I,
Gamaliel from Gamaliel, unto God!
I dread to trust myself, lest I, myself
Obeying, misdeem myself obeying God.

"Hearken, my children. These accuséd men
Unlikely, most unlikely, choice of Heaven
To be His prophets, seemed, and seem, to me.
I look at them and find no prophet mien;
I listen and their Galilæan speech
Offends me; and far more the scandal is
To think what message they propound to us.
Their person and their message I reject—
Reject, or if reject not, not receive.
And yet, my brethren, yet, I counsel you,
Beware! What ye intend, accomplished once,
Were once for all accomplished, not to be
Undone forever. Ye consult to slay,
And find your purpose hard to come by. How,
If, having slain, to your repentance, ye
Consulted to bring back to life again?
Were that not harder yet? Wherefore take heed,
Ye men of Israel. Remember how,
A generation gone, Theudas arose,
Proud boaster and asserter of himself,
Who drew his hundreds to his standard; he
Was slain, and all his followers came to naught.
Some space thereafter, out of Galilee
Judas arose and mustered to his side
Many adherents; but he perished too,
And all that clave to him were far dispersed.

"This therefore as to these is my advice:
Refrain your hands from them; let them alone.
Know, if their deed and counsel be of men,
Its doom is certain, it will come to naught;
But if it be of God, strive how ye may,
Ye cannot overthrow it. Well take heed,
Lest haply ye be found to fight against
God. For myself, when close upon the heels
Of what was wrought mysterious in the escape
Of these our prisoners from that warded keep
Fast-barred, I heard their answer to our sharp
Inquest and blame, I felt as felt of old
That prophet chanting his majestic strain,
'The Lord is in His holy temple, let
The earth, let the whole earth, before Him keep
Silence.' My soul kept silence and still keeps.
And silence keep, all ye, before the Lord!
For the Lord cometh, lo, He cometh swift
To judge the earth! And who of us shall bide
The day of His approach? Not surely he
Then found in arms against God and His Christ!"

Gamaliel spoke and ceased; but, while he spoke,
His speaking was like silence audible,
Rather than sound of voice; and when he ceased,
His silence was as eloquence prolonged.

Awhile the council sat as in a trance,
Unable or unwilling to bestir
Themselves for speech or motion. But not all
Are capable of awe. Some present there,
Either through sad defect of nature proof,
Or through long worldly habit seared and sealed,
Against the access of heavenly influence,
Bode unaware of anything divine
Descended near them—carnal minds, immersed
In sense, from shocks of spirit insulate,
Calm, discomposure none from things unseen,
The faculty for such experience lost,
Pitiably self-possessed! and God Himself
So nigh to have possessed them!
These a space
Waited to let the power a little pass,
Wrought by Gamaliel on the council; then
With tentative preamble, one of them
Said that Gamaliel's words were words of weight,
Weight well derived from character like his—
Whereat the speaker paused, with crafty eye
Cast round from countenance to countenance,
To read how much he safely might detract,
By open difference or by sly demur,
From the just value and authority
Of mild Gamaliel's sentence. But small sign
Saw he to hearten him in hope of ebb
To the strong tide still standing at full flood
That set in favor of the prisoners.
He feebly closed with wish expressed—and wish
It was, not hope—of hope no grounds he saw—
That some means might be found to save the shocked
And staggering dignity—a dignity
Ancient and sacred—of the Sanhedrim
From sheer shipwreck.
Some slight responsive stir
Under such spur to pride emboldened one
To trust they should at least sharply rebuke
The prisoners, and take bond of word from them
Not further to disturb the city's peace.
Another following said, that had been tried
Already once, with what result accrued
Was plain to see. And now the Sanhedrim,
Through various such suggestion commonplace,
Relaxed somewhat from their late mood so tense,
Grew readier to approve his voice who said:
"The first offence we deemed condignly met
With reprimand from us, and interdict.
Those gentle means the prisoners once have scorned,
And to our face assure us they will scorn.
Now let such contumacious insolence
Toward just authority too meek, be met,
If not with death deserved, at least with stripes
So heavy they shall wish it had been death."

Such truculence renewed provoked a new
Reaction. This, that councillor less stern
Noted—who, with Gamaliel and with Saul,
Refrained, when all the others hissed applause
To Mattathias—noted, and with thrift
Converted into opportunity.

A wary spirit Nicodemus was,
With impulses toward good, but weak in will,
And selfish as the timid are. His heart
Was a divided empire in his breast,
Half firm for God, but half to self seduced.
His fellows trusted him accordingly;
Hate him they could not, but they did not love.
Some guessed him guilty of discipleship
To Jesus, secretly indulged through fear.
This their suspicion the suspect in turn
Suspected, and the uneasy consciousness
Made him more curious than his wont to move
By indirection toward his present aim.
What he wished was, to serve the prisoners
And not disserve himself—a double end,
Rendering his counsels double; but as such
Could speak, now Nicodemus rising spoke.
With sinuous slow approach winning his way
Devious whither he wished to go, like those
Creatures that backward facing forward creep
And seem retiring still while they advance,
So Nicodemus wound him toward his goal,
Well-chosen, as he said:
"Let us be wise;
Beyond our purpose were not well to go,
Were foolish. Cruelty is not, I trust,
Our spirit; God is just, but cruel not.
Let us, God's sons, be just indeed, like God,
But then, like God, also not cruel. Stripes
Are heavy, howsoever lightly laid
On freeborn men. The shame is punishment;
A wounded spirit who can bear? Through flesh
You smite the smarting spirit, every blow.
Remember too that lacerated flesh
Has lips to plead with, makes its mute appeal
To pity—eloquence incapable
Of being answered, charging cruelty;
Whereas the bleeding spirit, bleeding hid,
No cruelty imputes, reports no pain,
But, pith of self-respect clean gone from one,
Glazes the eye, dejects the countenance,
Changes the voice to hollow, takes the spring
Out of the step, and leaves the man a wretch
To suffer on an object of contempt
More than compassion—hopelessly bereft
Of power to captivate the public ear,
Which ever itches to be caught the prey
Of orator full-blooded, iron lungs,
Brass front, a lusty human animal.
Such make of men, through shame of public stripes,
Transformed to eunuchs—this, sure, were enough;
Nay, for our purpose, more than more would be.
And even so much as this, yea, lightest stripe,
Drawing a sequel such as I have said—
Brethren, for me, my soul revolts from it;
I feel it cruel, fear it impious.
Behooves we ponder well Gamaliel's word;
And, if to slay were haply against God
To be found fighting, why not, then, to scourge?"

"Such fine-spun sentiment," another now,
Concurring, though sarcastically, said,
"In pity of the victim of the scourge
For suffering inwardly endured through shame,
Supposes that your victim is endowed
With some small faculty for feeling shame,
Which in the present case asks evidence.

"Still, I too take the clement part, and say,
If only for Saul's sake, let these go free
Of any but the lightest punishment.
Saul will desire for foemen hearts as strong
As may be, to call out that strength in him
Which we well know, for their discomfiture.
Even thus, he may prefer some other foe
Than men disparaged by the brand of blows
Upon their backs, some fairer, fresher fame,
His gage of battle to take up, and be
By him immortalized through overthrow
Experienced, such as never yet was worse."

Divergent so in view or motive, they
Agreed at last to let the prisoners go
With stripes inflicted, and a charge severe
Imposed to speak in Jesus' name no more.
These so released departed thence with joy,
Rejoicing to have been accounted meet
For Jesus' sake to suffer shame. Nor ceased
Those faithful men to preach and teach as erst,
Both in the temple and from house to house,
Daily still sounding forth Jesus as Christ.

But Saul withdrew deep pondering in his mind
How he might best his plan divulged fulfill.

BOOK III.

SAUL AGAINST STEPHEN.

Stephen, as a Christian preacher of brilliant genius and of growing fame, is selected by Saul to be his antagonist in the controversy resolved upon by him. To a vast concourse of people assembled in expectation of hearing Stephen preach, Saul takes the opportunity to address an impassioned and elaborate appeal, with argument, against Stephen's doctrine. His hearers are powerfully affected; among them, he not knowing it, Saul's own beloved sister Rachel.

SAUL AGAINST STEPHEN.

Like a wise soldier on some task intent
Of moment and of hazard, who, at heart
Secure of prospering, yet no caution counts,
No pains, unworthy, but with wary feet
Explores his ground about him every rood,
All elements of chance forecalculates,
Draws to his part each doubtful circumstance;
Never too much provided, point by point
Equips himself superfluously strong,
That he prevailing may with might prevail,
And overcome with bounteous victory;
So Saul, firm in resolve and confident,
And inly stung with conscience and with zeal
Not to postpone his weighty work proposed,
Would not be hasty found, nor rash, to fail
Of any circumspection that his sure
Triumph might make more sure, or wider stretch
Its margin, certain to be wide.
Some days
After the council, he, with forecast sage
And prudence to prepare, refrained himself
From word or deed in public; while, at home,
Not moody, but not genial as his use,
His gracious use, was, self-absorbed, retired
In deep and absent muse, he nigh might seem
A stranger to his sister well-beloved,
Wont to be sharer of his inmost mind.

Inmost, save one reserve. He never yet
Had shown to any, scarce himself had seen,
The true deep master motive of his soul,
That fountain darkling in the depths of self
Whence into light all streams of being flowed.
Saul daily, nightly, waking, sleeping, dreamed
Of a new nation, his belovéd own,
Resurgent from the dust consummate fair,
And, for chief corner-stone, with shoutings reared
To station in the stately edifice—
Whom but himself? Who worthier than Saul?

This beckoning image bright of things to be—
Audacious-lovelier far than might be shown
To any, yea, than he himself dared look,
With his own eyes, steadfast and frank upon—
Was interblent so closely in his mind
With what should be the fortune and effect
Of his intended controversy nigh,
That, though his settled purpose to dispute
He had for public reasons publicly
Declared, he yet in private, of that strife,
Still future, everywhere to speak abstained,
Abiding even unto his sister dumb.

Rachel from Tarsus to Jerusalem
Had borne her brother company, her heart
One heart with his to cheer him toward the goal
Of his high purpose, which she knew, to be
Beyond his equals master in the law.
Alone they dwelt together, their abode
Between Gamaliel's and the synagogue
Of the Cilicians. Beautiful and bright
His home she made to him, with housewife ways
Neat-handed, and with fair companionship.

The sister, with that quick intelligence
The woman's, first divined, for secret cause
Of this her brother's travailing silentness,
That he some pregnant enterprise revolved;
Then, having, with the woman's wit, found means
To advise herself what enterprise it was,
She, with the woman's tact of sympathy,
In watchful quiet reverent of his mood,
Strove with him and strove for him, in her thought,
Her wish, her hope, her prayer; nor failed sometimes
A word to drop, unconsciously as seemed,
By lucky chance, that might perhaps convey
A timely help of apt suggestion wise
To Saul her brother for his purpose, he
All undisturbed to guess that aught was meant.

At home, abroad, reserved, Saul not the less
All places of men's frequence and resort
Still visited, and mixed with crowds to catch
The whisper of the people; active not,
But not supine, observing unobserved
As if alone amid the multitude.
The brave apostles of the Nazarene
He heard proclaim their master Lord and Christ,
And marked their method in the Scriptures; not
With open mind obedient toward the truth,
But ever only with shut heart and hard,
Intent on knowing how to contradict.

Meanwhile the novel doctrines spread, and found
New converts day by day, and day by day
Proclaimers new. Of these more eminent
Was none than Stephen, flaming prophet he,
Quenchless in spirit, full of faith and power.
Him oft Saul heard, to listening throngs that hung
Upon the herald's lips with eager ear,
The claim of Jesus to Messiahship
Assert, and from the psalms and prophets prove.

In guise a seraph rapt, with love aflame
And all aflame with knowledge, like the bush
That burned with God in Horeb unconsumed,
The fervent pure apostle Stephen stood,
In ardors from celestial altars caught
Kindling to incandescence—stood and forged,
With ringing blow on blow, his argument,
A vivid weapon edged and tempered so,
And in those hands so wielded, that its stroke
No mortal might abide and bide upright.
Stephen is such as Saul erelong will be
Risen from the baptism of the Holy Ghost!

Saul felt the breath of human power that blew
Round Stephen like a morning wind, he felt
The light that lifted and transfigured him
And glorified, that bright auroral ray
Of genius which forever makes the brow
It strikes on from its fountain far in God
Shine like the sunrise-smitten mountain peak—
Saul felt these things in Stephen by his tie
With Stephen in the fellowship of power;
Kindred to kindred answered and rejoiced.
But that in Stephen which was more and higher
Than Stephen at his native most and highest,
The inhabitation of the Holy Ghost—
This, Saul had yet no sense to apprehend.
The Spirit of God, only the Spirit of God
Can know; the natural man to Him is deaf
And blind. Saul, therefore, seeing did not see,
And hearing heard not. But no less his heart,
In seeing and in hearing Stephen speak,
Leapt up with recognition of a peer
In power to be his meet antagonist
And task him to his uttermost to foil.
Beyond Saul's uttermost it was to be,
That task! though this of Stephen not, but God.

Still goaded day by day with such desire
As nobler spirits know, to feel the strain
And wrestle of antagonistic thews
Tempting his might and stirring up his mind,
Saul felt, besides, the motion and ferment
And great dilation of a patriot soul,
Magnanimous, laboring for his country's cause.
He thought the doctrines of the Nazarene
Pernicious to the Jewish commonwealth,
Not less than was his person base, his life
Unseemly, and opprobrious his death.
He saw, or deemed he saw, in what was taught
From Jesus, only deep disparagement
Disloyally implied of everything
Nearest and dearest to the Hebrew heart.
The gospel was high treason in Saul's eyes;
Suppose it but established in success,
The temple then would be no more what erst
It was, the daily sacrifice would cease,
The holy places would with heathen feet
Be trodden and profaned, the middle wall
Of old partition between Jew and Greek
Would topple undermined, the ritual law
Of Moses would be obsolete and void,
Common would be the oracles of God,
To all divulged, peculiar once to Jews—
Of Jewish name and nation what were left?
Such thoughts, that seemed of liberal scope, were Saul's,
Commingled, he not knowing, with some thoughts,
Less noble, of his own aggrandizement.

It came at length to pass that on a day
The spacious temple-court is thronged with those
Come from all quarters to Jerusalem,
Or dwellers of the city, fain to hear
Once more the preacher suddenly so famed.
Present is Saul, but not as heretofore
To hearken only and observe; the hour
Has struck when his own voice he must uplift,
To make it heard abroad.
He dreamed it not,
But Rachel too was there, his sister. She
Had, from sure signs observed, aright surmised
That the ripe time to speak was come to Saul.
In her glad loyalty, she doubted not
That he, that day, would, out of a full mind,
Pressed overfull with affluence from the heart,
Pour forth a stream of generous eloquence—
Stream, nay, slope torrent, steep sheer cataract,
Of reason and of passion intermixed—
For such she proudly felt her brother's power—
Which down should rush upon his adversaries
And carry them away as with a flood,
Astonished, overwhelmed, and whirled afar;
Rescued at least the ruins of the state!
So glorying in her high vicarious hope
For Saul her brother, Rachel came that morn
Betimes and chose her out a safe recess
For easy audience, nigh, and yet retired,
Between the pillars of a stately porch,
Where she might see and not by him be seen.

Thence Rachel watched all eagerly; when now
The multitude, expecting Stephen, saw
A different man stand forth with beckoning hand
As if to speak. The act and attitude
Commanded audience, for a king of men
Stood there, and a great silence fell on all.
Some knew the face of the young Pharisee,
These whispered round his name; Saul's name and fame
To all were known, and, ere the speaker spoke,
Won him a deepening heed.
Rachel the hush
Felt with a secret sympathetic awe,
And for one breath her beating heart stood still;
It leapt again to hear her brother's voice
Pealing out bold in joyous sense of power.
That noble voice, redounding like a surge
Pushed by the tide, on swept before the wind,
And all the ocean shouldering at its back,
Which seeks out every inlet of the shore
To brim it flush and level from the brine—
Such Saul's voice swelled, as from a plenteous sea,
And, wave on wave of pure elastic tone,
Rejoicing ran through every gallery,
And every echoing endless colonnade,
And every far-retreating least recess
Of building round about that temple-court,
And filled the temple-court with silver sound—
As thus, with haughty summons, he began:
"Ye men of Israel, sojourners from far
Or dwellers in Jerusalem, give heed.
The lines are fallen to us in evil times:
Opinions run abroad perverse and strange,
Divergent from the faith our fathers held.
A day is come, brethren, and fallen on us—
On us, this living generation, big
With promise, or with threat, of mighty doom.
Which will ye have it? Threat, or promise, which?
Yours is the choosing—choose ye may, ye must.

"Abolish Moses, if ye will; destroy
The great traditions of your fathers; say
Abraham was naught, naught Isaac, Jacob, all
The patriarchs, heroes, martyrs, prophets, kings;
That Seed of Abraham naught, our nation's Hope,
Foretold to be an universal King;
Make one wide blank and void, an emptied page,
Of all the awful glories of our past—
Deliverance out of Egypt, miracle
On miracle wrought dreadfully for us
Against our foes, path cloven through the sea,
Jehovah in the pillar of cloud and fire,
And host of Pharaoh mightily overthrown;
The law proclaimed on Sinai amid sound
And light insufferable and angels nigh
Attending; manna in the wilderness;
The rock that lived and moved and followed them,
Our fathers, flowing water in the waste—
Obliterate at a stroke whatever sets
The seal of God upon you as His own,
And marks you different from the heathen round—
Shekinah fixed between the cherubim,
The vacant Holy of Holies filled with God,
The morning and the evening sacrifice,
Priest, altar, incense, choral hymn and psalm,
Confused melodious noise of instruments
Together sounding the high praise of God;
All this, with more I will not stay to tell,
This temple itself with its magnificence,
The hope of Him foreshown, the Messenger
Of that eternal covenant wherein
Your souls delight themselves, Who suddenly
One day shall come unto His temple—blot,
Expunge, erase, efface, consent to be
No more a people, mix and merge yourselves
With aliens, blood that in your veins flows pure
All the long way one stream continuous down
From Abraham called the friend of God—such blood
Adulterate in the idolatrous, corrupt
Pool of the Gentiles—men of Israel!
Or are ye men? and are ye Israel?
I stand in doubt of you—I stand in doubt
Of kinsmen mine supposed that bide to hear
Such things as seems that ye with pleasure hear!

"Say, know ye not they mean to take away
Your place and name? Are ye so blind? Or are
Ye only base poor creatures caring not
Though knowing well? Oft have ye seen the fat
Of lambs upon the flaming altar fume
One instant and in fume consume away;
So swiftly and so utterly shall pass,
In vapor of smoke, the glorious excellency,
The pomp, the pride, nay, but the being itself,
Of this our nation from beneath the sun,
Let once the hideous doctrine of a Christ
Condemned and crucified usurp the place
In Hebrew hearts of that undying hope
We cherish of Messiah yet to reign
In power and glory more than Solomon's,
From sunrise round to sunrise without end,
And tread the Gentiles underneath our feet."

Indignant patriot spirit in the breast
Of Rachel mixed itself with kindred pride
And gladness for her brother gleaming so
Before her in a kind of fulgurous scorn
Which made his hearers quail while they admired;
She could not stay a sudden gush of tears.

But Saul's voice now took on a winning change,
As, deprecating gently, thus he spoke:
"Forgive, my brethren, I have used hot words
Freely and frankly, as great love may speak.
But that I love you, trust you, hope of you
The best, the noblest, when once more you are
Yourselves, and feel the spirit of your past
Come back, I had not cared to speak at all.
I simply should have hung my head in shame,
Worn sackcloth, gone with ashes on my brow,
And sealed my hand upon my lips for you
Forever. Love does not despair, but hopes
Forever. And I love you far too well
To dream despair of you. Bethink yourselves,
My brethren! Me, as if I were the voice
Of your own ancient aspiration, hear.
Bear with me, let me chide, say not that love
Lured me to over-confidence of you.

"Be patient now, my brethren, while I go,
So briefly as I may, through argument
That well might ask the leisure of long hours,
To show from Scripture, from authority,
From reason and from nature too not less,
Why we should hold to our ancestral faith,
And not the low fanatic creed admit
Of such as preach for Christ one crucified.
Be patient—I myself must patient be,
Tutoring down my heart to let my tongue
Speak calmly, as in doubtful argument,
Where I am fixed and confident to scorn."

As when Gennesaret, in his circling hills,
By wing of wind down swooping suddenly
Is into tempest wrought that, to his depths
Astir, he rouses, and on high his waves
Uplifts like mountains snowy-capped with foam;
So, smitten with the vehement impact
And passion of Saul's rash, abrupt
Beginning, that mercurial multitude
Had answered with commotion such as seemed
Menace of instant act of violence:
But, as when haply there succeeds a lull
To tempest, then the waves of Galilee
Sink from their swelling and smooth down to plane
Yet deep will roll awhile from shore to shore
That long slow undulation following storm;
So, when, with wise self-recollection, Saul,
In mid-career of passionate appeal,
Stayed, and those gusts of stormy eloquence
Impetuous poured no longer on the sea
Of audience underneath him, but, instead,
Proposed a sober task of argument,
The surging throng surceased its turbulence,
And settled from commotion into calm;
Yet so as still to feel the rock and sway
Of central agitation at its heart,
While thus that master of its moods went on:
"What said Jehovah to the serpent vile
Which tempted Eve? Did he not speak of One,
Offspring to her seduced, Who should arise
To crush the offending head? No hint, I trow,
Of meekness and obedience unto death
Found there at least, death on the shameful tree,
Forsooth, to be the character and doom
Of that foretokened Champion of his kind,
That haughty Trampler upon Satan's head!

"To Abraham our father was of God
Foretold, 'In thee shall all the families
Of the earth be blessed.' What blessing, pray, could come
Abroad upon mankind through Abraham's seed,
Messiah, should Messiah, Abraham's seed,
Prove to be such as now is preached to you,
A shame, a jest, a byword, a reproach,
A hissing and a wagging of the head,
A gazing-stock and mark for tongues shot out—
Burlesque and travesty of our brave hopes
And of our vaunts, shown vain, rife everywhere
Among the nations, that erelong a prince
Should from the stem of Jesse spring, to sway
An universal sceptre through the world?

"Did God mock Abraham? Did He mean, perchance,
That all the families of the earth should find
Peculiar blessedness in triumphing
Over that puissant nation promised him,
His progeny, to match the stars of heaven
For multitude, and be as on the shore
The sands, innumerable? Was such the sense
Of promise and of prophecy? Behooves,
Then, we be glad and thankful, we, on whom
The fullness of the time now falls, to be
This blessing to the Gentiles. But ye halt,
Beloved. Slack and slow seem ye to greet
The honor fixed on you. Why, hearken! Ye,
Ye, out of all the generations, ye
Fallen on the times of Jesus crucified,
May count yourselves elect and called of God
To bless the Gentiles, in affording them
Unquenchable amusement to behold
Your wretched plight and broken pride! Now clap
Your hands, ye chosen! Let your mouth be filled
With laughter, and your tongue with singing filled!

"Nay, sons of Abraham, nay. No mocking words
Spake He who cannot lie, Lord God of truth
And grace. He meant that Abraham's race should reign
From sea to sea while sun and moon endure.
And ever a blessing true it is to men
To bend the neck beneath an equal yoke
Of ruler strong and wise and just to rule.
Then will at last the Gentiles blesséd be
In Abraham, when, from Abraham's loins derived
Through David, God's Anointed shall begin,
In David's city, His long government
Of the wide world, and every heathen name
Shall kiss the rod and own Messiah king.

"Our father Jacob, touched with prophecy,
Spake of a sceptre that should not depart
From Judah until Shiloh came, to Whom
The obedience of the peoples was to be;
A sceptre, symbol of authority
And rule, law-giving attribute, resort
Of subject nations speeding to a yoke—
Such ever everywhere in Holy Writ
The image and the character impressed
On God's Messiah, hope of Israel.

"What need I more? Wherefore to ears like yours,
Well used to hear them in the temple chants
Resounded with responsive voice to voice,
Rehearse those triumphs and antiphonies
Wherein Jehovah Father to His Son
Messiah speaks: 'Ask Thou of Me, and I
To Thee the heathen for inheritance
Will give, and for possession the extreme
Parts of the earth. Thou shalt with rod of iron
Break them, yea, shatter them shalt Thou in shards,
Like a clay vessel from the potters hand.
Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings, be ye
Instructed, judges of the earth. Kiss ye
The Son, lest He be angry, and His wrath,
Full soon to be enkindled, you devour.'
Tell me, which mood of prophecy is that,
The meek or the heroic? Craven he,
Or king, to whom Jehovah deigns such speech,
Concerning whom such counsel recommends?

"'Gird Thou upon Thy thigh Thy sword, O Thou
Most Mighty,'—so once more the psalmist, rapt
Prophetical as to a martial rage,
Breaks forth, Jehovah to Messiah speaking—
'Gird on Thy glory and Thy majesty;
And in Thy majesty ride prosperously,
And Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.
Sharp in the heart of the king's enemies
Thine arrows are, whereby the peoples fall
Beneath Thee.' Such Messiah is, a man
Of war and captain of the host of God.
Nay, now it mounts to a deific strain,
The prophet exultation of the psalm:
'Thy throne, O God' it sings—advancing Him,
Messiah, to the unequalled dignity
And lonely glory of the ONE I AM,
Audacious figure—close on blasphemy,
Were it not God who speaks—to represent
The dazzling splendors of Messiahship.

"Let us erect our spirits from the dust,
My brethren, and, as sons of God, nay, gods
Pronounced—unless we grovel and below
Our birthright due, unfilial and unfit,
Sink self-depressed—let us, I pray you, rise,
Buoyed upward from within by sense of worth
Incapable to be extinguished, rise,
Found equal to the will of God for us,
And know the true Messiah when He comes.
Be sure that when He comes, His high degree
Will shine illustrious, like the sun in heaven,
Not feebly flicker for your fishermen
From Galilee to point it out to you
With their illiterate 'Lo, here!' 'Lo, there!'"

At this increasing burst of scorn from Saul,
Exultant like the pæan and the cry
That rises through the palpitating air
When storming warriors take the citadel,
Once more from Rachel's fixéd eyes the tears
Of sympathetic exultation flowed—
The sister with the brother, as in strife
Before the battle striving equally,
Now equally in triumph triumphing.

But Saul, his triumph, felt to be secure,
Securer still will make with new appeal:
"If so, as we have seen, the Scriptures trend,
Not less the current of tradition too—
No counter-current, eddy none—one stress,
Steady and full, from Adam down to you,
Runs strong the self-same way. Out of the past
What voice is heard in contradiction? None.

"Turn round and ask the present; you shall hear
One answer still the same from every mouth
Of scribe or master versed in Holy Writ.
Tradition and authority in this
Agree with Scripture, teaching to await
For our deliverer an anointed king.
What ruler of our people has believed
In Jesus, him of Nazareth, Joseph's son,
As Christ of God? If any, then some soul
Self-judged unworthy of his rulership,
Secret disciple, shunning to avow
His faith, and justly therefore counted naught—
Ruler in name, in nature rather slave.

"And now I bid you look within your breast
And answer, Does not your own heart rebel
Against the gospel of the Nazarene?
'Gospel,' forsooth! Has God, who made your heart,
Provided you for gospel what your heart
Rejects with loathing? Likely seems it, pray,
Becoming, fit, that He Who, on the mount
Of Sinai once the law promulging, there
Displayed His glory more than mortal eye
Could bear to look upon or ear to hear—
Who in the temple hid behind the veil
Shekinah blazed between the cherubim—
Nay, tell me, seems it tolerable even
To you, that your Jehovah God should choose,
Lover of splendor as He is, and power,
To represent Himself among mankind
Not merely naked of magnificence,
But outright squalid in the mean estate
And person of a carpenter, to die
At last apparent felon crucified?
Reason and nature outraged cry aloud,
'For shame! For shame!' at blasphemy like this."

A strange ungentle impulse moved the heart
Of Rachel to a mood like mutiny,
And almost she "For shame!" herself cried out
In echo to her brother's vehemence;
While murmur as of wind rousing to storm
Ran through the assembly at such words from Saul,
The passion of the speaker so prevailed
To stir responsive passion in their breasts.
This Saul perceiving said, in scornful pride,
Fallaciously foretasting triumph won:
"Ye men of Israel, gladly I perceive
Some embers of the ancient fire remain,
If smouldering, not extinguished, in your breasts.
I will not further chafe your noble rage.
You are, if I mistake not, now prepared
To hear more safely, if less patiently,
The eloquence I keep you from too long.
Let me bespeak for Stephen your best heed."

And Saul, as if in gesture of surcease,
A pace retiring, waved around his hand
Toward Stephen, opposite not far, the while
His nostril he dispread, and mobile lip
Curled, in the height of contumelious scorn;
And Rachel, where she stood, unconsciously,
The transport of her sympathy was such,
Repeated with her features what she saw.

BOOK IV.

STEPHEN AGAINST SAUL.

Stephen, following Saul, turns the tide of feeling overwhelmingly in the opposite direction. Saul, however, but he almost alone—for even his sister Rachel has been converted—stands out defiant against the manifest power of God. Shimei appears as an auditor watching with sinister motive the course of the controversy.

STEPHEN AGAINST SAUL.

The tumult grew a tempest when Saul ceased:
No single voice of mortal man might hope,
Though clear like clarion and like trumpet loud,
To live in that possessed demoniac sea
Of vast vociferation whelming all,
Or ride the surges of the wild uproar.
What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thy mad mind
So suddenly was soothed? Did 'Peace, be still!'
Dropping, an unction from the Holy One,
Softly as erst on stormy Galilee,
Wide overspread the summits of the waves
And sway their swelling down to glassy calm?
Stephen stood forth to speak, and all was still.

Before he spoke, already Rachel felt
A different power of silence there, and sense,
Within, other than sympathetic awe;
This felt she, though she knew it not, nor dreamed
It was the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven!

"Brethren"—so Stephen spoke, beyond his wont
Now, under awe of grave occasion, calmed
From God with power—"God's thoughts are not our thoughts,
Neither our ways His ways; for as the heavens
Are than the earth more high, so than our ways
More high are His, and His thoughts than our thoughts.
Our valued wisdom folly is to God
Full oft; then most, when folly seems to us
God's wisdom. Have ye yet to learn that God
Rejoices to confound the vain conceit
Of man? The Scriptures, then, search ye with eyes
Blinded so thick? It is Isaiah's word:
'Jehovah, yea, hath poured upon you all
The spirit of deep sleep, and hath your eyes,
Those prophets of the soul that might be, closed,
Also your heads, meant to be seers, hath veiled;
And vision all is now to you become
Even as the words of a shut book and sealed.
Therefore Jehovah saith, For that this people
Draw nigh to Me in worship with their mouth,
But have their heart removed from Me afar,
While all their fear of Me is empty form
Enjoined of men, and idly learned by rote—
Behold, a thing of wonder will I do
Among this people, wonder passing thought,
And perish shall the wisdom of their wise
And prudence of their prudent come to nought!'

"Brethren, that was man's wisdom which just now
Ye heard, and were well pleased to hear, from Saul.
Hearken again, and hear what God will speak."

At the first word that fell from Stephen's lips,
An overshadowing of the Holy Ghost
Hung like a heaven above the multitude;
With every word that followed, slow and full,
That awful cope seemed ever hovering down
Impendent nearer, as when, fold to fold,
Droops lower and lower a dark and thunderous sky.
The speaker used no arts of oratory;
Only a still small voice, not wholly his,
Nor wholly human, issuing from his lips,
Only a voice, but eloquence was shamed.
And Stephen thus his theme premised pursues:
"Rightly and wrongly, both at once, have ye
This day been taught of God's Messiah; King
He is, as Saul has said, but in a sense,
And with a highth and depth and length and breadth
And reach immense of meaning, that nor Saul,
Nor ye, nor any by the Holy Ghost
Untaught, have yet conceived. Not of this world
His kingdom is. The pageant and the pomp,
State visible, and splendor to the eye,
Are of this world that vanishes away,
And of the princes of this world that come
To naught. His glory whose the kingdom is
Whereof I speak, no eye hath seen, no eye
Can see. That vision is for naked soul.

"The lordship and authority which craves
Obeisance of the knee, the lip, the hand,
And the neck breaks to an unwelcome yoke,
But traitor leaves the hidden heart within,
Rebel the will insurgent, infidel
The mind, the critic reason dissident,
And violated conscience enemy—
Such rule is but the hollow show of rule,
A husk of vain pretence, the kernel gone.

"No earthly kingdom such, Messiah's is,
Of nations hating and yet serving Him—
Trampled into the dust beneath His feet,
And either cringing or else gnashing rage.
A kingdom here on earth of heaven to found,
From heaven to earth God's true Messiah comes;
A kingdom built of meek and lowly hearts
By Monarch meek and lowly to be ruled;
A world-wide kingdom and a time-long reign.
This kingdom new of heaven on earth commenced
Will gather Jew and Gentile both in one,
Whereso, of high or low, of rich or poor,
Heart ready to receive it shall be found,
In time or clime however hence afar.
For hear Him speak, the High and Lofty One
Who maketh His abode eternity:
'Lo, in the high and holy place dwell I,
Likewise with him of meek and contrite mind.'

"In those words were foreshown the things which are,
Brethren, and kingdom which we preach to you,
Messiah here indeed, His reign begun,
Invisible but glorious, on the earth.
He that hath ears to hear, lo, let him hear,
And hail the one right Ruler come at last;
Who rules not nations, masses of mankind
Only, with indiscriminate wide sway
Imperfect though to view magnificent,
By many an individual will unfelt;
But seeks His subjects singly, soul by soul,
And over each, through all within him, reigns.
Jew must with Gentile, heart by heart, submit
To own Messiah thus his Lord and King,
Throning Him sovereign in the realm of self,
The empire of a humble, contrite mind.

"No other rule is real than rule like this,
The true Messiah's rule, which well within
The flying scouts and outposts of the man,
Wins to the midmost seat and citadel
Of being, where the soul itself resides,
And tames the master captive to its thrall.
Then sings the soul unto herself and says,
'Bless thou, Jehovah, O my soul, and all
That is within me, bless His holy name!'
Filled is the hidden part with melody.
For joyfully the reason then consents,
The mind is full of light to see, and says
'Amen!' the will resolves the opposite
Of its old self, won by the heart, which, more
Than mere obedience, loves; conscience the while
Delightedly infusing all delight,
And Holy Spirit breathing benison.

"Such subjugation is a state of peace;
But peace, stagnation not, nor death. You live
And move and have your being evermore
Fresher and deeper, purer and more full,
Drawn in an ether and an element
Instinct and vivid with God. The appetites
Are subject servitors to will, the will
Hearkens to reason and regards its voice—
Reason which is the will of Him who reigns,
Your reason and His will insensibly
Blending to grow incorporate in one.
Such is the kingdom of the Christ of God.
You easily miss it—for it cometh not
With observation; you must look within
To find it—pray that you may find it so."

A mien of something more than majesty
In Stephen as he spoke, transfiguring him;
Conscious authority loftier than pride;
Deep calm which made intensity seem weak;
Slow weight more insupportable than speed;
Passion so pure that its effect was peace,
Beatifying his face; betokened power
Beneath him that supported him, behind
Him that impelled, above him and within
That steadied him immovable, supplied
As from a fountain of omnipotence;
An air breathed round him of prophetic rapt
Solemnity oppressive beyond words
And dread communication from the throne,
Moved near, of the Most High, which only not
Thundered and lightened, as from the touched top
Of Sinai once in witness of the law—
Such might, not Stephen's, wrought with Stephen there
And laid his hearers subject at his feet.

Saul saw the grasp secure that he had laid
Upon his brethren's minds and hearts—to hold,
He proudly, confidently deemed, against
Whatever counter force of eloquence—
This tenure his he saw relaxed, dissolved,
Evanishéd, as it had never been.
Perplexed, astonished, but impenetrable,
Though dashed and damped in spirit and in hope,
Angry he stood, recoiled upon himself.

But Rachel had a different history.
She felt her inmost conscience searched and known;
Sharper than any sword of double edge,
The Word of God through Stephen pierced her heart,
And there asunder clove her self and self.
She heeded Stephen's warning words; she looked
Within, she pressed her hand upon her heart
And prayed, "O God, my God, my fathers' God,
Thy kingdom—grant that I may find it here!"
So praying she listened while farther Stephen spoke:
"That such a Ruler should be such as He
Whom we proclaim, the Man of Nazareth,
The Carpenter, the Man of Calvary,
Affronts your reason, tempts to disbelief—
Doubtless; but all the more shown absolute
His sovereignty, transcendent, passing quite
Limit of precedent or parallel,
As nothing in Him outwardly appears
To soothe your pride in yielding to His claim.
Always the more offended pride rebels,
Is proved his triumph greater who subdues.
Deep is our human heart, and versatile
Exceedingly, ingenious past our ken,
Inventive of contrivances to save
Fond pride from hurt. But here is no escape;
Pride must be hurt and bleed, unsalved her wounds.
She may not conquer crouching, she must crouch
Conquered; nor only so, she must be glad
To be the conquered, not the conqueror;
Thus deeply must the heart abjure itself,
Thus deeply own the mastership of Christ.
Christ will not practise on your self-conceit
And lure you to obey illusively.
Obedience is not obedience
Save as, obeying, you love, loving, obey—
The chief of all obediences, love."

Such serene counter to his own superb
Disdain of Jesus wrought on Saul effect
Diverse from that meanwhile in Rachel wrought.
She yielded to exchange her standing-ground,
And ceased to hold her centre in herself.
Centred in God, she all things new beheld
Translated by the mighty parallax.
Open she threw the portals of her soul
And gave the keys up to her new-found King.

But Saul more stubbornly than ever clamped
His feet to keep them standing where they stood.
Haughty, erect, rebuffing—he alone—
He still stared on at Stephen, who Saul's scorn
Felt subtly like a fierce oppugnant force
Resistlessly attractive to his aim,
As, suddenly soon borne into a swift
Involuntary swerving of his speech—
Himself, with Saul, surprising—he went on:
"Such lord, requiring such obedience,
In Him of Nazareth, a man approved
Of God by many mighty works through Him
Among you done, this day I preach to you,
My brethren all—my brother Saul, to thee!"

Therewith full round on Saul the speaker turned;
That self-same instant, the seraphic sheen
Brightened to dazzling upon Stephen's face;
Saul standing there, transfixed to listen, blenched,
As if a lightning-flash had blinded him.
Then, prophet-wise, like Nathan come before
King David sinner, Stephen, his right hand
And fixed forefinger flickering forth at Saul,
An intense moment centred upon him,
Sole, the converging ardors of his speech—
As who, with lens of cunning convex, draws
Into one focus all the solar rays
Collected to engender burning heat.

Rachel, who saw Saul blench, and full well knew
What pangs on pangs his pride could force him bear—
He smiling blithely while he inly bled—
Watched, with a heart divided in sore pain
Between the sister's pity of his case
And sympathy against him for his sake,
As Stephen thus his speech to Saul addressed:
"Yea, to thee, Saul my brother, in thy flush
And prime of youth and youthful hope, thy joy,
Thy pride, of all-accomplished intellect,
And sense of self-sufficing righteousness—
To thee, thou pupil of Gamaliel, thee,
Thou Hebrew of the Hebrews, Pharisee,
Against the gust and fury of thy zeal,
And in the teeth of thy repellent scorn,
Jesus the crucified I preach thy lord.
Blindly with bitter hate thou ragest now
Against Him; but hereafter, and not long
Hereafter, thou, despite, shalt lie prostrate
Before Him and beneath Him in the dust,
Astonished with His glory sudden shown
Beyond thy power with open eye to see.
Lo, by the Holy Spirit bidden, I
This day plant pricks for thee to kick against.
Cruel shall be the torture in thy breast,
And unto cruel deeds thou didst not dream
The torture in thy breast will madden thee—
The anguish of a mind at strife with good,
A will self-blinded not to cease from sin.
Nevertheless at length I see thee mild—
Broken thy pride, thy wisdom brought to naught,
To thyself hateful thy self righteousness,
Worshipping at His feet whom late thou didst
Persecute in His members, persecute
In me. Lo, with an everlasting love
I long for thee, O Saul, and draw thee, love
Born of that love wherewith the Lord loved me
And gave Himself for me to bitter death."

Rachel her prayer and love and longing joins,
With tears, to Stephen's, for her brother, who,
Conscious of many eyes upon him fixed,
Far other thought, the while, and feeling, broods.

As captain, on the foremost imminent edge
Of battle, leading there a storming van
Of soldiers in some perilous attack,
Pregnant with fate to empire, if he feel
Pierce to a vital part within his frame
Wound of invisible missile from the foe,
Will hide his deadly hurt with mask of smile,
That he damp not his followers' gallant cheer;
Thus, though with motive other, chiefly pride,
Saul, rallying sharply from that first surprise,
Sternly shut up within his secret breast
A poignant pang conceived from Stephen's words,
Resentment fated to bear bitter fruit,
But melt at last in gracious shame and tears.

With fixéd look impassible, he gazed
At Stephen, while, in altered phase, that pure
Effulgence of apostleship burned on:
"Nor, brethren, let this word of mine become
Scandal before your feet to stumble you
Headlong to ruin—'gave Himself for me
To bitter death'—implying it the Christ's
To suffer death in sacrifice for sin.
This is that thing of wonder prophesied,
Confounding to the wisdom of the wise;
A suffering Saviour, a Messiah shamed,
Monarch arrayed in purple robes of scorn,
With diadem of thorns pressed on His brow,
And in His hand for sceptre thrust a reed—
The Lord of life and glory crucified!

"Dim saw perhaps our father Abraham this,
Through symbol and through prophecy contained
In smoking furnace and in blazing torch
Beheld, that evening, when the sun went down
And it was dark. The smoking furnace meant
The mystery of the Messiah's shame
To go before His glory typified
In the clear shining of the torch ablaze.

"Of the same mystery of agony
In sorrow, shame, and death, forerunning dark
The bright and brightening sequel without end
Of the Messiah's work, Isaiah spake,
When he foresaw His coming day from far.
The eagle vision of that seer was dimmed
With tears, like Jeremiah's, to behold
What he beheld—Messiah's visage so
Marred more than any man's, and so His form
More than befell the sons of men. He read,
Within the mirror of his prophecy,
Astonishment depicted in the eyes
Of many—in the eyes of which of you,
My brethren?—at a spectacle so strange.
The melancholy prophet saw a gloom
Of unbelief darken the world. 'What soul,'
Wails he, 'is found to credit our report?
To whom has been revealed Jehovah's arm
In such a wise outstretched to save?' Heart-sick
At what, too clearly for his peace, he sees,
Isaiah, turning from his vision, cries
In pain—consider, brethren, whether ye
Unwittingly fulfil what he portrays!—
'He was despised, rejected was of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted well
With grief; as one from whom men hide their face,
Despised was He, and we esteemed Him not.'

"Now our own gospel hear Isaiah preach,
The good news that such sufferings borne by Him,
Messiah, were for you, for us, for all:
'Surely our griefs they were Messiah bore,
He carried sorrows that were due to us.
Yet we, alas, of Him as stricken thought,
Smitten of God, and for affliction marked!'

"Would God, my brethren, ye who hear these things,
This day, were minded as the prophet was
Who thus from God reported them to you!
He but foresaw them, and he saw them; ye
Saw them, and did not see! And yet, even yet,
Look back, as forward he; lo, touch your eyes
With eyesalve that ye be not blind, but see!
See, with Isaiah, how Messiah was
'Wounded for your transgressions, bruised so sore
For your iniquities, how chastisement
On Him was laid that peace should bring to you,
How stripes whereby He bled to you were health.'

"Meekly and thankfully Isaiah sinks
Himself, one drop, into the human sea,
And says 'we,' 'our,' and 'us'—do ye the same.
O brethren, if this day ye hear His voice,
A whisper only in your ear from heaven,
I pray you, harden not your heart. Confess
Your fault, and say with your own prophet, 'We,
All we, like sheep, have gone astray, astray,
And God on Him hath laid the sin of all.'"

At such expostulation and appeal
Ineffable, found hidden in the words
Of prophecy, Rachel her heart felt fail
Into a pathos of repentance sweet
With love and soft sense of forgiveness, bought
For her at cost so dear!—and she dissolved
In sobs and tears of sorrow exquisite,
Better than joy, and uncontrollable.
The mastership of Jesus now to her
Merged in the sweetness of His saviorship;
The duty of obedience to a Lord
All taken up, transfigured, glorified,
In the transcendent privilege of love.
Never such grief in joy, such joy in grief,
Was hers before—for self was wholly slain
And her whole life grew love unutterable.

Yet longed she, with a hope that half was pain,
For Saul, while Stephen brokenly went on:
"O ye to whom for the last time I speak,
My heart is large for you, it breaks for you,
And melts to tears within me while I plead.
I pray you, I beseech you, in Christ's stead,
Be reconciled to God. Hearken this once
And answer, Were it set your task, in choice
Few words to frame the image and the lot
Of Jesus whom ye slew, how otherwise
More fitly could ye do it than was done
Aforetime by Isaiah when he wrote
Prophetically thus of Christ to be:
'Oppressed He was, yet He abased Himself
And opened not His mouth; even as a lamb
Led to the slaughter, as a sheep before
Her shearers speechless, so He opened not
His mouth. His grave they with the wicked made,
And with the rich they laid Him in His death.'
Say, brethren, was not Jesus very Christ?

"But, that ye err not, Messianic woe
Is not the end; a glorious change succeeds.
Isaiah chanted it in sequel glad
And contrast of the sorrow-laden strain
That mourned Messiah's sufferings; hear the song:
'When thou, Jehovah, shalt His soul have made
An offering for sin, Messiah then
The endless issue of His pain shall see;
Still on and on He shall His days prolong,
And in His hand the pleasure of the Lord
Shall prosper; of the travail of His soul
He shall see fruit and shall be satisfied.'
So, with rejoicing too serenely full
For exultation, sang Isaiah then
Of Messianic glory following shame.

"And now, concerning Jesus whom ye slew,
Know, brethren, that He burst the bands of death,
Which could not hold the Lord of life in thrall.
Know that He, having risen, rose again,
Ascending far above all height, and led
Captive captivity; attended so
With retinue of deliverance numberless,
He entered heaven a Conqueror and a King;
Before Him lifted up their heads the gates,
The everlasting doors admitted Him.
There sits He now associate by the side
Of His Almighty Father, Lord of all.
For to Him every knee shall bow, in heaven,
On earth, and every tongue confess that He,
Jesus, is Lord; Jehovah wills it so.

"Fall, brethren, I adjure you, haste to fall
Betimes upon this stone and bruise your pride;
Wait but too long, this stone will fall on you:
Not then your pride, but you, not bruised will be,
But ground to undistinguishable dust."

So Stephen spoke; and ceased, as loth to cease.

The moments of his speaking had been like
A slow and dreadful imminence of storm.
With those august and awful opening words
Of his, which were not his, but God's, it was
As when an altered elemental mood
Usurps the atmosphere; the winds are laid,
Clouds gather, mass to mass, anon perchance
Roll back, disclosing spaces of clear sky,
But close again, deeper and darker, full
Of thunder, silent yet, of lightning, leashed
From leaping forth, but watchful for its prey.
Such had been Stephen's speaking, boded storm;
His ceasing was the tempest burst at last—
A silent tempest, silent and unseen,
Rending the elements of the world of soul!

Meanwhile the angels in attendance there,
Watching with eyes that see the invisible
Things of the spirit of man within his breast,
The posture and behavior of the mind,
Had seen exhibited amidst that late
Motionless multitude of souls suspense
With supernatural awe, a spectacle
Of consternation and precipitate flight
To covert, such as sometimes is beheld
In nature, when a mighty tempest lowers,
And man, beast, bird, each conscious living thing,
Shuddering, hies to hiding from the wrack.
With wild inaudible outcry heard in heaven,
That shattered congregation, soul by soul,
Each soul its several way, fled, to find shroud
From spiritual tempest hurtling on the head,
Intolerably, hailstones and coals of fire.

But one excepted spirit stood aloof,
Scorning to join the fellowship of flight.
Like a tall pine by whirlwind lonely left
Upon his mountain, forest abject round,
This man dared lift, though sole, a helmless brow
Of stubborn hardihood to take the storm.
Others, dismayed, might flee to refuge; Saul,
Not undismayed, fronted the wrath of God.

Shimei alone there neither stood nor fell;
By habit grovelling, on his belly prone,
Already prostrate he had thither come.
Incapable of awe from good inspired,
He, abject, but without humility,
Ever, by force of reptile nature, crawled;
And now had crawled, as, dusty demon's-heart
And vitreous eye of basilisk, he still—
With equal, though with different, enmity,
Devising death for Stephen in his mind,
And studying slow prolonged revenge for Saul—
Watched all, whatever chanced to either there;
But most, malignantly delighted, watched
Deepen the settled shadow on Saul's face
Cast from the darkness of his inner mood.

BOOK V.

SAUL AND SHIMEI.

Saul, sullen, gloomy, and chagrined, over his discomfiture recently experienced, is visited, in his self-imposed seclusion at home, by Shimei, who, always by nature antipathetic to Saul, hates him virulently now for the affront from him received publicly in the late council. Shimei exasperates Saul with sneering, pretended sympathy for him over his defeat at Stephen's hands; at the same time disclosing the plot he has himself concocted, involving subornation of perjury, with alleged connivance on the part of the Sanhedrim in general, for the stoning of Stephen. Shimei gone, Saul, in the open court of his dwelling, sits solitary, brooding in the depths of dejection over the fallen state of his fortunes.

SAUL AND SHIMEI.

As if one, from some poise of prospect high,
Should overlook below a plain outspread
And see a bright embattled host, in close
Array of antique chivalry, supposed
Invincible, advancing, panoplied,
Horseman and horse, in steel, and with delight
Of battle pricked to speed, he—while that host,
Swift, like one man, across the field of war,
With pennons gay astream upon the wind,
And arms and armor flashing in the sun,
Moved to the sound of martial music brave—
Might ask, "What strength set counter could withstand
The multiplied momentum of such blow?"
And yet, as, let a rock-built citadel
Upspring before them in their conquering way,
And, through embrasures in the frowning wall,
Let enginery of carnage new and strange,
Vomiting smoke and flame from hellish mouths—
Let cannon, with their noise like thunder, belch,
Volleying, their bolts like thunderbolts amain
Among those gallant columns, then would be
Amazement seen, and ruinous overthrow;
So, late, to Saul's superbly confident
Assay of onset all seemed nigh to yield,
Till that the wisdom of the Holy Ghost,
Through Stephen speaking, made the utmost might
Of eloquence ridiculous and vain,
So was the duel all unequal, joined
By Saul with Stephen on that fateful day.
Though not ill matched the champions' native force
And spirit, and not far from even their skill,
Equipment disparate of weaponry—
Human against Divine, infinite odds!—
Made the conclusion of the strife foregone.
Had mortal prowess against prowess been
Between those twain the naked issue tried,
Saul, with his sanguine dash of onset, might
Perchance have won the day—through sheer surprise
Of sudden and impetuous movement swift
Beyond the other's readiness to oppose
An instantaneous rally of quick thought
And lightning-like alertness of stanch will
Mustering and mastering his collected might.
But the event and fortune of that hour
Resolved no doubt which combatant excelled
In wit or will or strength or exercise.
Stephen was fortressed round impregnably,
Saul stood in open field obvious to wound;
Saul wielded weapons of the present world,
Celestial weapons furnished Stephen—nay,
Weapon himself, the Almighty wielded him.

Saul knew himself defeated, overwhelmed.
By how much he had purposed in his heart,
And buoyantly expected, beyond doubt
Or possible peradventure, to prevail,
More than prevail, triumph, abound, redound,
And overflow, with ample surplusage
Of prosperous fortune far transcending all
Public conjecture of his hoped success;
By so much now he found himself instead
Buried beneath discomfiture immense
And boundless inundation of defeat.
For multitudes of new believers won
To Stephen's side from Saul's thronged to the Way,
Storming the kingdom of heaven with violence.
It was a nation hastening to be born,
Like Israel out of Egypt, in a day.
As Israel out of Egypt were baptized
To Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
So Israel out of Israel Saul now saw
Baptized obedient into Jesus' name.
Dissolving round about him seemed to Saul
The earth itself with its inhabitants,
And, to bear up the pillars of it, he
A broken reed that could not stand alone!

But, while thus worsted Saul forlornly felt
Himself, he by whom worsted missed to know.
His challenge was to Stephen; how should he
Guess that in Stephen God would answer him?
Unconsciously with God at enmity,
But with God's servant Stephen consciously,
Saul chafed and raged in proud and blindfold hate;
Half yet, the while, despising too himself,
Detected hating thus, by his own heart
Detected hating, his antagonist,
For the sole blame of visiting on him
The fortune he had purposed to inflict.

Saul in such mood of rancor and remorse
Commingled—both unhappy sentiments
Still mutually exasperating each
The other—Shimei came to him.
Now Saul
And Shimei were two opposites intense
In nature, never toward each other drawn,
But violently ever sent asunder;
Yet chiefly by repulsion lodged in Saul,
Spurning off Shimei, as the good the evil;
For Saul instinctively was noble, frank,
And true, as Shimei instinctively
Was false, profound in guile, to base inclined.
But strangely, since that council wherein Saul
Fulmined his shame on Shimei's proffer vile,
Shimei had felt the other's scorn of him
A force importunate to tempt him nigh—
Perverse attraction in repulsion found!—
As evil ever struggles toward the good,
Not to be leavened with virtue issuing thence,
But leaven instead to likeness with itself.
So Shimei came to Saul, as knowing Saul
Spurned him avaunt with loathing; in degree
Attracted as he was intensely spurned.
He fain would feast his malice on the pride,
Seen writhing, fain would make it writhe the more,
Of Saul in his discomfiture.
With mien
Demure of hypocritic sympathy,
The nauseating vehicle of sneer,
Malignly studied to exacerbate
The galled and angry feeling in Saul's mind,
He thus addressed that haughty Pharisee:
"The outcome of your effort, brother Saul,
To vindicate the cause of truth and God—
And therewithal justly advance somewhat
Your individual profit and esteem
As rising bulwark of the Jewish state,
Whereby so much the better you might hope
Hereafter to promote the general weal—
This spirited attempt, I say, of yours
Has in its issue disappointed you,
You, and your friends no less, who, all of us,
Together with yourself, refused to dream
Aught but the most felicitous event
To enterprise with so much stateliness
Of dignity impressively announced
By you, and show of lofty confidence.
By the way, Saul, the grand air suits your style
Astonishingly well; I should advise
Your cultivation of it. Why, at times,
When you display that absolutely frank
And unaffected lack of modesty
Which marks you, really, now, the effect on me,
Even me, is almost irresistible;
I find myself well-nigh imposed upon
To call it an effect of majesty.

"But, to sustain the impression, Saul, it needs,
Quite needs, that you somehow contrive to shun
These awkward misadventures; the grand air
Is less impressive in a man well known
To have made a bad miscarriage, such as yours.
For in fact you—with sincere pain I say it—
But served to Stephen as a sort of foil
To set his talent off and heighten it.
You must yourself feel this to be the case;
For never since that windy Pentecost
In which we thought we saw the top and turn
To this delirium of delusion touched,
Never, I say, till now were seen so many
New perverts to the Nazarene as seems
You two, between you, you and Stephen, Saul,
Managed, that memorable day, to make.
It is a pity, and I grieve with you.
Still, Saul, let us consider that your case,
Undoubtedly unfortunate, presents
This one alleviating circumstance,
At least, that your defeat demonstrates past
Gainsaying what an arduous attempt
Yours was, and thereby glorifies the more
That admirable headiness of yours
Which egged you on to venture unadvised.
For my own part, I like prodigiously
To see your young man overflow with spirit;
Age will bring wisdom fast enough; but spirit,
Like yours, Saul, comes, when come it does at all,
Born with the man. Never regret that you
Dared nobly; rather hug yourself for that
With pride; pride greater, since, through proof, aware
You really dared more nobly than you knew.

"Some increment too of wisdom you have won
From your experience; not to be despised,
Though ornament rather of age than youth.
I may presume you now less indisposed
Than late you were, to reinforce, support,
And supplement mere obstinacy—fine,
Of course, as I have said, yet attribute
Common to man with beast—by counsel ripe
And scheme of well-considered policy,
Adapted to secure your end with ease.
Economy of effort well befits
Man, the express image and counterpart
Of God, who always works with parsimony,
Compassing greatest ends with smallest means,
To waste no particle of omnipotence.

"Count now that you have rendered plain enough
What single-eyed, straightforward stubbornness
Can, and cannot, effect in this behalf;
So much is gained; now be our conscience clear
To cast about and find some other means,
Than mere main strength in public controversy,
Of dealing with these raw recalcitrants.
They lacked the grace to be discomfited
In honorable combat fairly joined,
Let them now look to it how much their gross
Effrontery in overthrowing you
Shall profit them at last. I have a scheme"—

"Your scheme,"—so, from the depths of his chagrin
And anguish at the contact of the man,
Spoke Saul, unwilling longer to endure
The friction and abrasion of his words—
"Your scheme, whatever it may be, cannot
Concern my knowing; nothing you should plan
Were likely to conciliate in me
Either my judgment, or my taste, or please
My sense of what becoming is and right.
I pray you spare yourself the pains to unfold
Further to me your thought; your work were waste."

But Shimei, naught abashed, nay, rather more
Set on, imagining that he touched in Saul
The quick of suffering sensibility
Replied:
"Yea, brother Saul, I did not fail
In our late session to observe what you
Hinted of your unreadiness to accord
Your valuable support to my advice,
Advanced on that occasion loyally
However far outrunning what the most
Were then prepared frankly to act upon.
We weaker, Saul, who may not hope to be
Athletes like you, whose sole resource must lie
In studying more profoundly than the rest,
Are liable to be misunderstood
Not seldom, when, through meditation deep
And painful, we arrive to see somewhat
Beyond the common, and propound advice
Startling, because some stages in advance
Of the conclusions less laborious minds
Reach and stop at contented—for a while,
But which mere halting-places on the road
Prove in the end, and not the final goal.
You probably remember, when I told
The council that some good judicious guile
Was what was needed, not one voice spoke up
To second my suggestion. Very well,
The lagging rear of wisdom has since then
Moved bravely up to step with me, and now
We walk along abreast harmoniously
Upon the very road I pointed out;
'Guile' is the word with all the Sanhedrim.

"But stay, you may perhaps not be apprised
Exactly of the current state of things—
You have kept yourself, you know, a bit retired
These few days past, a natural thing to do,
Under the circumstances, all admit—
Well, we have made some progress; I myself,
To imitate your lack of modesty
And don the egotistic, I myself
Have not been idle; all in fact is now
Adjusted on a plan of compromise,
My own invention, everybody pleased.
We shall dispose of Stephen for you, Saul:
Council; Stephen arrested and arraigned;
Production of effective testimony;
A hearing of the accused; commotion raised,
While he is speaking, to help on his zeal;
Then, at the proper point, some heated phrase
Of his let slip, a sudden rush of all
Upon him with a cry of 'Blasphemy!'—
Impulse of passionate enthusiasm,
You know, premeditated with much care—
And he is stoned; which makes an end of him.
Such is the outline; not precisely what
I could have wished, a little too much noise,
The Mattathias tinge in it too strong—
Still, everything considered, fairly good.
The moment favors; for the very fume
And fury of the popular caprice
Has put it out of breath; nay, for the nonce,
The wind sits, such at least my hope is, veered
And shifted points enough about to bear
A touch of generous violence from us;
Then, as for those our rulers, they connive.

"You see I have been open to admit
Ideas the very opposite of my own.
I am not one to haggle for a point
Simply because it happened to be mine.
The end, the end, is what we seek; the means
Signifies nothing to the wise. 'Let us
Be wise,' as our friend Nicodemus said,
That day, with so much gnomic wisdom couched
In affable cohortative, as who
Should say encouragingly, 'Go to, good friends,
Let us be gods'; wisdom and godship come,
As everybody knows, with equal ease
Indifferently, through simple conative,
'Let us,' and so forth, and the thing is done."

This voluble and festive cynicism,
Taking fresh head again and yet again,
At intervals, to flow an endless stream,
From Shimei's mouth, of bitter pleasantry;
His vulgarly-presumed familiar airs
And leer of mutual understanding, felt
Rather than seen, upon his countenance;
The gurgling glee of self-complacency
That purred, one long susurrus, through his talk;
The insufferable assumption tacitly
Implied that human virtue was a jest
At which the wise between themselves might grin
Nor hide their grin with a decorous veil;
These things in his unwelcome guest, traits all
Inseparably adhering to the man,
Or fibre of his nature, Saul recoiled
From, and revolted at, habitually:
They rendered Shimei's very neighborhood
An insupportable disgust to him.
Still did some fascination Shimei owned,
Perhaps a show of wit in mockery,
Playing upon a momentary mood
Of uncharacteristic helplessness in Saul
(A humor too of wilfulness and spite
Against himself displacent with himself
That made him hold his sore and quivering pride
Hard to the goad that hurt it) keep him mute,
If listless, while thus Shimei streamed on:

"Well, as I said, friend Saul, I had no pride
To carry an opinion of my own;
The scheme I brooded was a compromise.
I plume myself upon a certain skill
I have, knack I should call it, in this line.
I like a pretty piece of joinery
In plot, such match of motley odds and ends
As tickles you with sense of happy hit,
And here you have it. See, I take a bit
Of magisterial statesmanship to start
With—go to Rome, as Caiaphas advised,
Though not quite on his errand; Rome agrees
To wink, while we indulge ourselves in what
To us will be self-rule resumed, to her,
A spasm of our Judæan savagery.
Thus is the way made eligibly clear
For brother Mattathias with those stones
He raves about on all occasions—rubbed
Smooth, they must be, as David's from the brook,
With constant wear in Mattathias' hands!
Was it not grim to hear him talk that day?
His dream of Maccabæan blood aboil
Within his veins has been too much for him,
Made him a monomaniac on this point;
He sees before him visionary stones,
Imponderable stones torment his hands;
Give him his chance, have him at last let fly
A real stone, a hard one, at somebody,
Who knows? it might bring Mattathias round.
Stephen at any rate shall be his man,
His corpus vile, as our masters say—
Fair game of turn and turn about for him,
Dog, to have handled you so roughly, Saul!
Trick of Beelzebub, no manner of doubt.

"But here I loiter, while you burn of course
To hear what figure you yourself may cut
In my brave patchwork scheme of compromise.
I modestly adjoin myself to Saul,
And so we two go in together, paired—
A little of your logic let into
A little of my guile, and a fine fit."

Shimei had counted for a master stroke
Of disagreeable humor sure to tell
On Saul, the piecing of himself on him
In plan, conscious of Saul's antipathy.
But Shimei still misapprehended Saul,
Lacking the standard in himself wherewith
To measure or assay the sentiment
Of such as Saul for such as Shimei.
Saul simply and serenely so despised
Shimei, that nothing he should do or say
Could change Saul's sentiment to more, or less,
Or other, than it constantly abode,
The absolute zero of indifference.
Half absently, through fits of alien thought,
And half with unconfessed concern to know
What passed among his fellow-councillors
Abroad, a little curious too withal
Wondering how any artifice of fraud
Could Saul with Shimei combine, to make
Such twain seem partners of one policy—
So minded, Saul gave ear, while Shimei thus
The acrid juices of his humor spilled:

"Here is the method of the joinery.
You know you put it strongly that the end
Of that pretended gospel which they preach,
Would be to overturn the Jewish state,
Abolishing Moses, and extinguishing
The glory of the temple, and all that—
Really sonorous rhetoric it was,
That passage, Saul, and it deserved to win;
But who can win against Beelzebub?
Logic turned rhetoric is my idea
Of eloquence, and my idea you
Realized; but Stephen, without eloquence,
Bore off from you the fruit of eloquence:
Never mind, Saul, it was Beelzebub.
Let rhetoric now go back to logic; you
Demonstrated so inexpugnably
The necessary inference contained
In Stephen's doctrine, hardly were it guile—
Though doubtless you will call it such, you have
Your sublimated notions on these points—
To say outright that Stephen taught the things
You proved implicit in the things he taught;
At all events, guile or no guile—in fact,
Guile and no guile it is, if closely scanned—
Here is the scheme:—We find some blunderheads,
Who, primed with method for their blundering,
Will misremember and transfer from you
To Stephen what you stated on this point.
These worthies then shall roundly testify
Before our honorable body met
To give the fellow his fair hearing ere
His sentence—said fair hearing not of course
Eventually to affect said sentence due—
Shall, I say, swear that they distinctly heard
Stephen set forth that Jesus Nazarene
Was going to destroy this place and change
The customs Moses gave us; bring about
In brief precisely what, with so much force,
You showed would surely happen"—
"Shimei"—
Saul interrupted Shimei again,
Surprised into expression by the shock
To hear himself mixed up in any way,
Of indirection even, in fraud like this—
"Shimei, I thought that nothing you could say
Would further tempt me into speech to you;
But you have broken my bond of self-restraint.
Suborning perjury! That well accords
With what you slanted at in council once,
And what I trusted I had then and there
Made clear my scorn of. Shimei, hear—I set
My heel upon this thing and once for all
Grind it into the dust."
"In figure, of course,"
Promptly leered Shimei, interrupting Saul;
"The thing goes forward just the same; you set
It under foot—in your rhetorical way;
I, in my practical way, set it on foot;
No mutual interference, each well pleased.

"But, seriously, Saul, you overwork
The idea of conscience. What is conscience? Mere
Self-will assuming virtuous airs. A term
Cajoles you into making it a point
Of moral obligation to be stiff.
Limber up, Saul, and be adjustable.
Capacity of taking several points
Of view at will is good. For instance, now,
Probably Stephen may, at various times,
Himself have stated quite explicitly
What your rhetorical logic showed to be
Inextricably held as inference
In his harangues. Take it so, Saul, if so
Render your conscience easier; I myself
Highly enjoy my easy conscience. Still,
Nothing could be more natural than that some,
Hearers non-critical, you know, should mix
What you said with what Stephen said, and so
Quite honestly swear falsely—to the gain
Of truth. And to whose loss? Stephen's, perhaps,
But other's, none. So, salve your conscience, Saul—
Which somehow you must learn, and soon, to do;
Unless you mean to play obstructionist,
Instead of coadjutor, in the work
You, with good motive, but with scurvy luck,
Set about doing late so lustily.
Conscience itself is to be sacrificed,
At need, to serve the cause of righteousness.
What is it but egregious egotism
To obtrude, forsooth, a point of conscience, when
You jeopard general interests thereby?
One's conscience is a private matter; let
Your conscience wince a little, if need be,
In order that the public good be served.
That is true generosity. 'Let us
Be just,' said Nicodemus; good, say I,
But in this matter of our consciences,
Let us go further and be generous."

As one who turns a stopcock and arrests
A flow of water that need never cease,
So Shimei left off speaking, not less full
Of matter than at first that might be speech.
With indescribable smirk, and cynic sneer
Conveyed, sirocco breath of blight to faith
In virtue and in good, he went away,
Cheering himself that he had somewhat chilled
Within the breast of that young Pharisee
The ardor of conviction, and of hope
Fed by conviction,—but still more that he
Had probed and hurt the festering wounds of pride.

Saul's first relief to be alone again,
Rid of that nauseous presence, presently
Was followed by depression and relapse
From his instinctive tension to resist
The unnerving spell of Shimei's influence.
Saul found that in the teeth of his contempt
For Shimei, absolute in measure, nay,
By reason of that contempt, he had conceived
Shame and chagrin beyond his strength to bear.
That Shimei, such as Shimei, should have dared
To visit Saul, and drill and drill his ears,
With indefatigable screw of tongue
Sinking a shaft through which to drench and drown
His soul with spew from out a source so vile—
This argued fall indeed for him from what
He lately was, from what he hoped to be,
Far more, in popular repute. The sting
That Shimei purposed subtly to infix,
With that malicious irony and taunt
Recurrent, the intentional affront,
All of it, failed, blunted and turned in point
Against the safe impenetrable mail
Of Saul's contempt for Shimei. But that
Which Shimei meant not, nor dreamed, but was,
Went through and through Saul's double panoply,
Found permeable now, of pride and scorn,
And wilted him with self-disparagement.

He marvelled at himself how he had not,
At first forthputting of that impudence,
Stormed the wretch dumb, with hurricane outburst
Of passionate scorn; a quick revulsion then,
And Saul was chafing that he had so far
Grace of rebuff vouchsafed, and honest heat,
To creature lacking natural sense to feel
Repudiation. Comfort none he found,
No refuge from the persecuting though
Of his own fall. He tried to brace himself
With thinking, "If I failed, I failed at least
Not for myself, but God; I strove for God."
But, ceaselessly, the image of himself,
Humiliated, swam between to blur
His vision of God. He could not cease to see
Saul ever, in the mirror of his mind,
And ever Stephen shadowing Saul's fair fame.

BOOK VI.

SAUL AND RACHEL.

To Saul, wrapt in his gloomy contemplations, Rachel unobtrusively presents herself. Conversation ensues between them, and Saul confides to his sister his own most secret purposes and hopes, dashed now so cruelly. The fact, however, at length comes out that Rachel was herself converted to Christianity as a result of Stephen's reply to Saul. Saul instantly hereon experiences a violent revulsion of feeling. He breaks away from Rachel, spurning her, and breathing out threatening and slaughter against the Christian church.

SAUL AND RACHEL.

Saul thus forlorn, a voice smote on his ear,
Voice other than of Shimei, clear and sweet;
The very sound was balsam to his pain.
Rachel's the voice was, who, with deep distaste,
As jealous for her brother, had perceived
The entering in to Saul of his late guest
Ill-favored, and through all his stay had still,
Impatiently awaiting, wished him sped.
He now some moments gone, she issued forth
From out her curtained chamber glimpsing gay
Behind her, through the hangings, as she passed,
With color—stuff of scarlet, linen fine
Embroidered, weft of purple tapestry,
Her handiwork—and sending after her
Sweet scent of herb and flower, her husbandry—
Forth issued, and across the inner court
Open to heaven—small close of paradise,
A tall palm by a fountain, bloomy shrubs,
And vines that clad with green the enclosing walls—
Stepped lightly to Saul's side. Saul sat beneath
A tent-cloth canopy outspread, his own
Tent-making skill—the high noon of the sun
To fend, if place perchance one then might wish
In which free air to breathe safe from the heat—
There sat relapsed, deep brooding gloomy thoughts,
When now his sister pausing stood by him.
A lovely vision! Moving, or at rest,
Ever a rapture Rachel seemed of grace
Which but that moment that felicity
Of posture or of gesture had attained,
By accident, yet kept it, through all change,
Inalienably hers, by right divine
Of inward rhythm that swayed her heart in tune.

The sister had, with love's observance, watched
Some days the phases of her brother's mood,
Biding her time to speak; and now she spoke.
"Brother," she murmured softly, "thou art sad.
Thy brow is written over like a scroll
With lines of trouble that I try to read.
Unbind thy heart, I pray, to me, who grieve
To see thee grieve, and fain at least would share
Such brother's sorrow as I may not soothe."

This suave appeal of sister's sympathy
Won upon Saul to wean him from himself—
A moment, and that moment he partook
Comfort of love, nepenthe to his pain,
While thus he answered Rachel:
"Nay, but thou,
My sister, thou thyself art to me rest
And solace. Sit thee down, I pray, beside
Thy brother. But to have thee nigh as now
Refreshes like the dew. I bathe my heart
In thee as in a fountain. Ask me not
To ease its aching otherwise than so.
Pillow me on thy love and let me rest
In silence from the sound of my own voice.
I hate myself, Rachel."
"But I love thee,
My own dear, noble brother," Rachel said;
"I love thee, and I will not let thee hate
Thyself. Brother and sister should be one
In love and hate. Hate what I hate, and what
I love, love thou—that is true brotherhood."

"Safe law of brotherhood indeed for me,
With thee for sister, Rachel," Saul replied,
With fondness and self-pity, as he kissed
The pure young brow upturned toward him; "but me,
Thou dost not know me as I know myself."

"O nay, but better, brother," Rachel said;
"Right hate is good, as good as love. So, hate,
But not thyself, Saul. Shall I tell thee one
To hate? I hate him, and I counsel thee,
Hate, Saul, that evil man I saw but now
Steal from his too long privilege at thine ear."

"Him, Rachel," Saul replied, "I cannot hate;
Hatred is made impossible by scorn."

"Thou scornest him," she said, "but not too much
To have been disturbed by him. The cloudy brow,
So unlike my brother—I have brought it back,
I see, dear Saul, by only mentioning him.
Hate him well, Saul, and be at peace again.
To hate is safer, better, than to scorn.
We scorn with pride, we must with conscience hate,
Such hating as I mean. Thou art too proud, Saul."

Saul answered, "For my pride I hate myself."

But she: "Were it not wiselier done to hate
One's pride, than for one's pride to hate one's self?
Whoever hates himself for his own pride
Still keeps the pride for which he hates himself.
Hate and abjure thy pride, and love thyself."

"Easy to say, O Rachel, hard to do,"
Sighed Saul,—"at least for such as I, who am
Too proud, too proud! Thou seest that after all
Thou and myself know Saul alike, too proud,
Albeit the too proud man we treat unlike,
Thou loving and I hating him."

"O Saul,"
Thus spoke she, gazing steadfastly at him,
But sudden-starting tears swam in her eyes,
"O Saul, Saul, Saul, my brother, whence is this?
Thou wert not wont to talk thus. Changed art thou
Since when I heard thee speak in that dispute
With Stephen—"

"Thou heard'st me?" asked Saul.

"Yea, Saul,"
Rachel replied, "I heard both thee and him."
(Saul proudly hid an answering hurt of pride.)
"I heard thee, brother, and was proud for thee;
I never knew more masterful high speech
Fall from thy lips. My heart leaped up for joy
To listen. When those men of Israel
Shouted, I shouted with them, silently,
Louder than all. God heard the secret noise,
Like thunder, of the beating of my heart
In sister's pride for brother's victory.
I crowned thee, I anointed thee my king,
So glorious wast thou in thy conquering might!
And that effulgent pride upon thy brow!"

"But when," said Saul, forestalling ruefully
The expected and the dreaded change and fall
From such a chanted pæan to his praise—
"But when"—

"But when, O Saul," she said, "when he,
Stephen, stood forth to answer thee, there was—
Didst thou not feel it?—"

"Sister, yea, I felt,
More than my sister even could feel, that I
Was baffled, put to shame."

"Nay, nay," she said;
"Not that, O Saul, dear Saul, it was not that."

"What, then? For I felt nothing else," said Saul;
"That feeling filled me, as sometimes the sound
And stir of whirlwind fill the firmament.
My mind was one mad vortex swallowing up
All other thought than this, 'Saul, thou art shamed!'"

"Why, Saul," cried she, "what canst thou mean? Thou shamed?
How shamed?"

"Rachel, I lost, and Stephen won."

"What didst thou lose?" said Rachel, wonderingly;
"And what did Stephen win, that also thou
Won'st not? I cannot understand thee, Saul."

Such crystal clearness of simplicity
Became a mirror, wherein gazing, Saul
Beheld himself a double-minded man.
How should he deal with questioner like this?

"Why, Rachel, canst thou then not understand,"
He said, "how I should wish to conquer?"

"Yea,"
Said she, "for truth's sake, Saul. And still, if truth
Conquered, though not by thee, thou wouldst be glad,
Wouldst thou not, Saul? Here sad I see thee now,
As if truth's cause were fallen—which could not be,
Since truth is God's—and yet thou sayest not that,
But, 'Saul is shamed!' and, 'Saul has lost!' Not truth,
But Saul. I cannot understand. Thou hadst
Perhaps, unknown to me, some other end
Than only truth, which also thou wouldst gain?"

It was his sister's single-heartedness
That helped her see so true and aim so fair.
Saul was too noble not to meet her trust
In him with trust in her as absolute.

"Rachel," he said, his reverence almost awe,
"Never did burnished metal give me back
Myself more truly, outer face and form,
Than the pure tranquil mirror of thy soul
Shows me the image of my inner self.
The truth I see by thee is justly thine,
And thou likewise shalt see it all in all.

"The law of God was ever my delight,
As thou knowest, sister, who hast seen me pore
Daily from boyhood on the sacred scroll
Of Scripture, eager to transfer it whole
Unto the living tablets of my heart.
And I have sought, how earnestly thou knowest
To make my life a copy of the law.
No jot or tittle of it was too small
For me to heed with scruple and obey.
With all my heart was I a Pharisee,
Born such, bred such, and such by deep belief.

"But more, my sister. Musing on the world,
I saw one nation among nations, one
Alone, no fellow, worshipper of God,
The True, the Only, and by Him elect
To be His people and receive His law;
That nation was my nation. My heart burned,
Beholding in the visions of my head,
The glory that should be, and was not, ours.
Think of it, sister, God Himself our King,
And bondmen we of the uncircumcised!
I brooded on the shame and mystery
With anguish in the silences of night.
I saw the image of a mighty state
Loom possible before me. Her august
And beautiful proportions, builded tall
And noble, rested on foundation-stones
Of sapphire, and in colors fair they rose;
Her pinnacles were rubies, and her gates
Carbuncles—I beheld Jerusalem,
The city of Isaiah's prophecy;
Her borders round about were pleasant stones.
She sat the queen and empress of the earth;
The tributary nations, of their store,
Poured wealth into her lap, and vassal kings
Hasted in long procession to her feet.
The throne and majesty of God in her
Held capital seat, or his vicegerent Christ
Reigned with reflected splendor scarce less bright.
Such, sister, was the dream in which I lived,
Dream call it, but it is the will of God,
More solid than the pillared firmament.

"Was it a fault of foolish pride in me,
Did I aspire audaciously, to hope
That I, by doing and by daring much,
Beyond my equals, might beyond them share
Fulfilments such as these? I heard a voice
Saying, 'Prepare the Lord His way.' I thought
The Lord was near, and what I could, I would
Do to make wide and smooth and straight His way
Before Him, ere He came. I trusted Him
That, when He came, He in His hands would bring
Large recompense for servants faithful found,
And not forget even Saul, should haply Saul
Not utterly in vain prove to have striven,
Removing from the path of His approach
The stone of stumbling.
"Sister, these are thoughts
Such as men have, but cherish secretly,
Even from themselves, and never speak aloud
To any; I have now not spoken these
To thee; thou hast but heard a few heart-beats
Rendered articulate breath by grace of right
Thine own to know the truth, who hast the truth
Revealed to me.
"O other conscience mine,
Wherein have I gone wrong? I felt the power,
Asleep within me, stirring half awake,
To take possession of the minds of men
And sway their wills; the world was not too wide
To be the empire I could rule aright,
As chiefest minister, were such His will,
Of God's Messiah. Some one needs must sit
At His right hand to hear and execute
His pleasure—why not Saul? Who worthier?
But now, alas! less worthy who, or who
Less likely? I am fallen, am shamed—past hope,
Past hope! I who aspired to greatest things
Am to least things by proof unequal found!
How shall I not hate Stephen, who has wrought
On me this great despite—besides what he
Wrought on the suffering cause of truth divine?"

Rachel's heart heaved, but in what words to speak
She did not find. Saul into his dark mood
Retired, and sat in silence for a while.
Returning, then, for torture of himself,
To that which Rachel brokenly began
To say, and left unsaid, Saul asked of her:
"What was it, sister, thou beganst to tell,
When, not thy brother, but thy brother's spleen,
Broke thy words off with interruption rude?
Something it seemed of how, at Stephen's words,
A change fell on thee, from thy first applause
Of me—"

"O Saul! A chasm of difference,"
So to her brother, Rachel sad burst forth,
"Yawns betwixt thee and me this day, how wide,
How wide! I feel the bond of sisterhood,
Stretching across, not strained to break—for that
Shall never, never be, in any world,
O brother, truest, noblest, best beloved!—
But strained to draw thee to me where I am
From where thou art, far off, albeit so near!"

"A tragic riddle which I fail to read,
Rachel," said Saul, perplexed; "solve thou it me."

"Brother, I fear I cannot," Rachel said;
"But loyally I will try. When Stephen stood
To answer thee that day, a power not he
Oppressed my spirit with a sense of weight,
Gentle but insupportable, which grew
Instantly greater and greater, until it seemed
Ready to crush, unless I yielded; Saul,
I yielded, and that weight became as might
Which passed to underneath me and upbore."

"Rachel, be simpler," Saul severely said;
"My soul refuses to be teased with words.
Meanest thou this, that Stephen mastered thee?"

"Nay, Saul, my brother," meekly Rachel said,
Meekly and firmly; "Stephen not, but God.
No man could master me away from Saul.
Proudly I was thy vassal sister, Saul,
Until God summoned me with voice that I
Might not resist; God's vassal am I now,
But sister still to thee, and loyal, Saul,
Beyond all measure of that loyalty
I held before, which made me proud of thee,
And glad of thee, and spurred me on to praise
My brother as the paragon of men.
O Saul—"

"Nay, Rachel," Saul said, with a tone
Repressive more than the repressive words,
"I will not hear thee further in this vein.
Thou art a woman, and I must not blame
Thy weakness; sister too to me thou art,
And I will not misdoubt thy love; but thou
Hast added the last drop of bitterness
To the crowned cup of grief and shame poured out
For me to drink. Go, Rachel, muse on this:
A brother leaned an aching, aching heart
Upon a sister's bosom to be eased,
And that one pillow out of all the world
To me, that trusted downy softness, hid
The cruelest subtle unsuspected thorn.
Saul's sister a disciple and a dupe
Of those that preach the son of Joseph, Christ!
And this, forsooth, the fruit that was to be
Of Saul's aspiring trust to strike the stroke
That in one day should crush the wretched creed!
Rachel, methinks thou mightst have spared me this!
But nay, my sister, better is it so.
Haply no barb less keen had stung me back
To my old self and made me Saul again—
The weakling that I was, to pule and weep,
As if the cause were lost and all were lost!
I thank thee, sister, thou hast done me good,
Like medicine—like bitter medicine!
Tell me true, Rachel, thou didst feign me this,
To rouse me from my late unmanly swoon.
That is past now; I rise refreshed and strong,
I see my path before me, stretching straight,
I enter it to tread it to the end.
Doubt not but I shall feel the wholesome hurt
Of the shrewd spur my sister, with wise heart
Of hardness, plunged full deep into my side
Betimes, when I was drooping nigh to sink.
Peace to thee, sister, cheer thee with this thought,
'I saved my brother from the last disgrace
By a disgrace next to the last—it was
A hard way, but the only, and it sped!'"

Such cruel irony from her brother cut
The tender heart of Rachel like a knife.
But more for Saul she grieved than for herself;
She knew that naught but anguish of chagrin
The sharpest could have tortured out from him,
So noble and so gentle, any taunt.
From sheer compassion of his misery,
She wept, and said:

"O Saul, Saul, Saul—"

But he:
"Rachel, no more; already deep enough,
I judge, for present use, the iron has gone;
I shall not falter; thou mayst safely spare
To drive it deeper now—it rankles home.
And surely, if hereafter I should feel,
At some weak woman's moment, any touch
Of foolish tenderness to make me pause
Relaxing and relenting from my course—
A sad course, Rachel, traced in blood and tears!—
Should ever such a softness steal on me,
Surely I should but need remember thee,
Thou younger playmate of my boyhood! thee,
Mirror, that was, of saintly sisterhood!
Loveliest among the daughters of thy race
Once, to thy brother! fountain flowing free
Of gladness, never sadness, unto him!—
Never of sadness until now, but now—
O Rachel, Rachel, sister, changed this day
From all thou wert to what I will not name—
Surely I shall but need bring back this hour,
And let the image of my sister pass—
O broken image of all loveliness,
Distained and broken!—pass before my eyes,
As here I see her, separate from me
Forever, and outcast from God—that thought,
That image, shall make brass the heart of Saul,
And his nerve iron, to smite and smite again,
Until no wily Stephen shall remain
For any silly Rachel to obey!"

Fierce so outbreathing threat and slaughter, Saul
In bitterness of spirit broke away.

BOOK VII.

STEPHEN AND RUTH.

Rachel in dismay soliloquizes. She at length resolves on conveying to Stephen, through Ruth, his wife, a warning of his danger. Ruth, not a Christian, expostulates with her husband, attempting to dissuade him from his course—a course certain, she says, to end fatally for him. After a gentle, long, anguished effort on his part to bring Ruth to sympathy with himself in his Christian faith, Stephen parts from her with presentiment that it is never to return. Under the power of the Holy Spirit, he takes his way from Bethany, where his home is, to Jerusalem. His friends. Martha and Mary, with their brother Lazarus, see him going, and follow.

STEPHEN AND RUTH.

Rudely thus parted from his sister, Saul
Straightway sought certain of his synagogue—
The synagogue of the Cilicians—men
Less alien from himself than Shimei was
In spirit, while compatriot too by birth
As was not Shimei, an Asian he—
And these made privy to his changed resolve.
They, glad of such adhesion, opened free
Their counsel to him, telling, with grimace
Added, and shrug of shoulder, to attest
Their scorn of Shimei, Shimei's scheme, which they
Sourly, as from compulsion, now took up.
Saul, swallowing a great throe of innermost
Revolt that well-nigh mastered him, subscribed
Himself, by silence, partner of their deed.

Rachel, spurned from him by her brother, sat
Moveless a while, the image of dismay,
Her two ears caves of roaring sound, her mind
A whirling void of sheer astonishment.
When presently the storm a little calmed
Within her, and she knew herself once more,
She cleared her thought by settling it in words—
Words which through fluent mood and mood changed swift
From passionate soliloquy to prayer,
And from prayer back to soft soliloquy:
"My brother shall not excommunicate
His sister! While I love him he is mine,
And I shall not be 'separate' from him
'Forever'—let him hate me as he will,
Who hates himself, and otherwise amiss
Hates liberally. Why did I let him go?
I should have held him, should have told him I
Am of one blood with him, as high as he
In spirit; though a 'woman,' not to be
Put down; he gave me right, with speech like that,
To equal him in stinging word for word.
I could have done it. Woman am I? Yea,
And Deborah was a woman, Miriam too.
I feel my blood a-tingle in my veins
With lust to have him back, and make him know
The lion with the lamb lies down in me
Together; and I showed him but the lamb!
The lion rouses late, occasion gone!
Did he cow me? So tamely I endured
His contumely! Anger none till now,
Nor shame not to be angry at such speech
From him; but now—anger with burning shame
Turns inward and incenses me like fire.
I scorn myself for that, reed-like, my head
I bowed before the tempest of his scorn,
When blast for blast I should have blown him back
His tempest."

Rachel's indignation so
Like a sea wrought and was tempestuous.
But the recoil of her own violent speech
First gave her pause, then pierced her with remorse.
Daily, from when she, hearing Stephen speak,
Heard God through Stephen speaking, and obeyed,
Rachel, first having in baptism testified
Her death to sin, her birth to righteousness—
Never her absent brother dreaming it—
Gladsome had broken bread of fellowship
With the disciples of the Lord, and learned,
Both from their lips and from their lives beheld,
Deep lessons in the lore of Jesus, apt
By the tuition of the Holy Ghost.
The better spirit, for a moment lost,
So lately made her own, came back to her.
Sadly she mused, recalling her hot words
Of passion:
"'Tempest'? Tempest sure just now
Hummed in me. 'Scorn myself'? What word was that?
Rachel forsooth forbade Saul saying, 'I hate
Myself'—and scorn herself does she, yea, here
Sit impotently brooding scorn for scorn
To rival him? Surely I missed my way.
'Scorn,' 'hate,' one spirit both these speak, such scorn
Such hate, in him, in me. One spirit both,
And that the spirit of this world, not His,
Not Christ's, no spirit of Thine, O Crucified,
Thou meek and lowly holy Lamb of God!
Forgive, forgive me, from Thy cross of shame
And passion, O Thou suffering Son of God!
Once prayedst Thou thence for those that murdered Thee,
'Father, forgive them, for they know not what
They do.' I knew not what I did when so
I crucified Thee afresh through shameful pride.
My heart breaks with my sorrow for my sin,
A broken and a contrite heart, O Lord,
Thou never wilt despise.
"And now yet more
My heart breaks with forgiveness poured on me.
O sweet and blessed flood, pour on me still!
Deliciously I tremble and rejoice.
To be thus broken is bliss more to me
Than to be whole. I love to lie dissolved,
Dissolving, under this soft fall of peace
Distilled like dew from out Thy bleeding heart!
Lo, here I wholly, wholly, wholly yield
To Thee, O Christ, am fluid utterly,
To take whatever shape Thee best may please.
Remake me after Thine own image, Lord!

"I pray Thee for my brother. Suffer not
That he act out his purposed madness. Save,
O save him from that dreadful sin he means
Against Thee and against Thy holy cause.
I cannot bear it, that my brother rage
Against Thee like the heathen. Thou art strong,
O Christ! I pray Thee—Thee I pray, O Christ,
Thee only, for none other can—meet Thou
And master Saul! His sister pleads with Thee;
I plead for his sake, he being dear to me,
But more for Thine own name and glory's sake,
And for Thy suffering cause!
I thank Thee, Lord,
With joyful tears, I thank Thee, gracious Lord,
That Thou restrainedst me dumb with silence then
When Saul spake evil of me—for Thy sake.
Through Thee, Who, when reviled, reviledst not
Again, through Thee, through Thee, I, also I,
Proud foolish Rachel, then refrained from words!
No taunt retorted, no reproach, no blame,
Stung him from me to sin; I thank Thee, Lord,
For that!
"Now is there naught that I may do?
May I not warn that prophet Stephen? Saul
Wildly foreshadowed harm himself might wreak
On him; and what meant Shimei's visit here?
Mischief, no doubt of that; collusion strange,
Incredible, impossible, such twain,
That Shimei and my brother! I will go
And talk with Stephen's wife, her, what I can,
Without disloyalty to Saul, stir up
To fear for Stephen's safety; he need not,
Surely, dauntless high prophet of the Lord
Although he be, still ready-girt to die,
Rush blindfold into danger unforewarned."

So to the house of Stephen Rachel went
With haste, and there, in darkened words to Ruth,
Perturbed her woman's breast with vague alarms:
'Her husband must of stratagem beware,
And even of violence, aimed against his life.'
Stephen, by Ruth his wife, of all advised,
Armed him his heart to face what must befall.

Ruth shook him to the centre of his soul
With storms of wife's complaints and love and tears:
"Nay, Stephen, many a time, bear witness thou,
My heart before she came misgave me sore;
But now, since Rachel's words, no peace I find
Concerning thee, in this thy wilful way
Wherein thou goest—whither, I know not, whence,
Too well I know, for from a home thou goest
Once happy, ere this madness came on thee!"
Sharply so Stephen's wife upbraided him.
Gravely and gently he admonished her:
"Name it not madness, woman, lest thereby
Thou sin that sin against the Holy Ghost.
No madness is it when the soul of man
Is sovereignly usurped by the Most High
To be the organ of Almighty Will.
I yield myself, nay, Ruth, I join myself,
To God—no blind unsharing instrument,
But joyful partner of His purposes."

Solemnly chided so, Ruth quick replied:
"And what if of His purposes one be
To let thee plunge, as headstrong, so headlong,
Thy way to bloody death, thou stiff-necked man?
Thou hearest what Rachel brings us, doubtful hint
Indeed, but therefore in itself to me
Only more fearful; and how fearful joined
To what thyself confessest thou of late,
With thine own ears, hast, from the public mouth,
Heard—instigated whisper, Shimei's brew,
Accusing thee of treason to the hope
Of Israel, and purpose to destroy
The temple, and the customs do away
Which Moses left us! Stephen, all these signs
Singly, much more together, point one way—
They threaten death to thee, if thou persist
To preach things hateful to the wise and good."

Ruth intermitted, and her husband said:
"The danger, Ruth, I know, but I must not,
For danger, slack obedience to my Lord."

Then Ruth said:
"But I only ask that thou
Now, for a little, prudently abide
In hiding till this storm be overpast."

He, with a glance of irony, replied:
"And always run to covert at the first
Bluster of opposition? Yea, to some
That is permitted; but to other some,
Whereof am I, only to stand foursquare
And take the buffet of whatever storm.
And the best prudence is obeying, Ruth."

High answered Stephen thus, but Ruth rejoined:
"Stephen, thou ever wert a stubborn will,
And overweening of the wisdom thine,
Hard-hearted and unloving never yet,
Never, till now. How canst thou bide thus calm,
And I, thine erst loved wife, beheld by thee
So tossed with tempest and not comforted?"

Wherewith self-pity broke her words to sobs:
She fell on Stephen's neck and wept aloud.
With both his arms he folded her about,
While his heart, hugely swelling in his breast,
Forced to his eye the slow, large, rounding tear.
It was as if a cloud that wished to rain
Strongly held back its drooping weight of shower.
His melting voice at last he fixed in words:
"What meanest thou to weep and break my heart,
O thou, mine own, most loving and most loved
Of women? Flesh cries out to flesh in me
Against the purpose of my spirit set
To crucify the flesh with its desires!"

Ruth caught her sobs and held them while she spoke:
"Flesh of thy flesh am I; thou slayest me
In slaying thyself; I will not have it so.
Not ready yet am I to die in thee;
And thee God surely needs alive, not dead:
The dead cannot praise God nor serve His cause.
Who will so preach that gospel that thou lovest
When thou art gone? Who then will silence Saul?
I tell thee, Stephen, this is Satan's guile—
To get thee slain—and overmatch mightst thou
The arch-deceiver, easily, if thou wouldst,
So easily—only live."

Conclusive seemed
Her argument to Ruth and stanched her tears.
She gently disengaged the fond embrace
That held her to her husband's heart, and, drawn
A little backward from his face her face,
She smiled on him like sunshine after rain.
Smiling pathetically back, he kissed,
With kisses that she felt like sacraments,
Then, and forever after till she died,
His wife's brow beautiful with hope, and said:
"Ruth, thou hast said; it is, be sure, his guile,
Satan's, whereby I presently shall die;
If so to die indeed be mine, who feel
Too young still, and too strong, too full of hope,
Too full of—shall I name it, Ruth?—too full
Of God Himself, the Holy Ghost, to die!
For He within me lives such life and power,
Death seems impossible, all weakness seems
Far off, an alien thing, and not for me;
I am immortal and omnipotent.
That, Ruth, is when I stand to speak for God,
Preaching to men the gospel of His Son.

"But when, as now, I sit with thee and talk,
Or when my children cluster round my knees,
And I hear husband, father, from fond lips
Pressed to these lips so oft, and with such joy,
When all the dearness that is meant by home,
And all the drawing lodged in kindred blood,
And all that sense, unutterably deep,
Of oneness, soul in soul, with those we love—
O Ruth!—but, Ruth, our tears commingled flow,
'Tis our hearts flow together in those tears!
O wife and life, when all that I have said,
And that far more which never tongue could say,
Surges upon me, surge on surge of thought
And feeling, like an overflowing flood,
Belovéd, then, how weak I am, how frail,
How low and like to die! I lean toward thee,
As if the oak should lean upon his vine."

Ruth took his word from him and made reply:
"So lean on me, my love, and be at rest;
Lean, and make proof how vines at need are strong.
In me no faltering purpose weakens will.
Thou speakest of flesh within thee crying out
To flesh against the spirit—warfare strange
Of elements that dwell in me at one.
My nature moves straightforward all one way.
Rebellion none, no mutiny, I find
Only resolve to thwart thy mad resolve,
Thy half resolve, say rather, half and mad—
So proved by these compunctious visitings
Thou hast, these gracious sweet remorses wise,
Relentings toward thy children and toward me;
Divine presages, Stephen, scorn them not,
Sent to forewarn thee ere it be too late!

"Bethink thee, Stephen, when didst thou before,
Ever, thus will and straight unwill, thus halt,
Thus parley with thyself, thus stand in doubt
Like a reed shaken with the wind, as now
I see thee here? Thou art not like thyself;
Not like that Stephen, ready, combative,
Thy stature still elastically tall
To tower and overtop and overfrown
Whatever front of menace challenged thee.
By thy changed state, I pray thee, be advised.
God teaches thee hereby. He does not wish
Thy will with thy desire to be at war.
Give up thy heady will, and let desire,
Divinely wise, the wisdom of the heart,
Guide thee; her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace."

Again well pleased
With her own argument, Ruth tearful smiled
A smile that, tenfold tender through those tears,
Was argument to Stephen more than words.
From deep within he heaved a sigh and said:
"Oh! Woman! Woman! Ruth, thou teachest me
How Adam could, by Eve's enticement drawn,
Be even beguiled to die. And now, to live,
Not die, my Eve entices me. O Ruth,
I feel, I feel, doubt not but that I feel,
The sweet, the subtly sweet, dissolving spell
Of wish infused by thee, with thee to live,
With thee and for thee, nay, in thee, as thou
In me—this twain one life, how dear, how dear!
O wife, what is there that I could not bear
And dare of hard and high, wert thou, with smiles
And tears and love, for Christ but eloquent,
As all too well I feel thee eloquent
For our sweet selves?"

Ruth's heart sank, but she said:
"O Stephen, for our children!" Then she threw
Her head upon his bosom, there in tears,
With passionate sobs and throbs, poured out her heart.

He mightily a mighty swell that yearned
To be a storm within him, ruled, and said:
"Nay, Ruth, but we forget. Life beyond life
Remains to us and to our children. We,
Forgetfully, desire and hope and fear
As if death bounded all. A little while
And Christ will come again. Then they that sleep
In Him will wake to Him, and they that still
Wake when He comes, but love Him, will, with those
Late sleeping in Him now awake, ascend
To meet the Lord descending, in the air:
Thenceforward all that love Him, loved of Him,
Will be forever with Him where He is,
Beholding there His glory. Blessed state!
No tears, no fears, no hearts that break, no hearts
That will not break, although they ache the more,
Perhaps, God knows, not breaking—naught of these,
And naught of any ill, but only peace,
Joy, love, security of peace and joy
And love, and fellowship in peace and joy
And love, forever, perfect, more and more,
With vision beatific still of Him
Who washed us in His blood and made us kings
And priests to God. Ruth, here is hope indeed
For us that will not make ashamed."