Chapter XVII: Experiments of More Kinds Than One (2)

"The main issues, then, as regards the faith and policy in Israel of
that glorious revolt of Modin, w the elevation of a fighting sect to
power; the general adoption of separative principles; the
substitution of an explanatory law for the Covenant; a change in the
divine succession of high priests, and a lawless union of the
spiritual and secular forces."

The Idyls of Bethlehem form a most interesting chapter: the death of Rachel, the idyl of Ruth, the episode of Saul, the house of Chimham, the idyl of Jeremiah, and the birth of our Saviour, are all sketched in a manner which tends to impress these well-known scenes upon the mind indelibly. A chapter on Syrian Khans, which throws much light upon the incident of the birth of Christ, we would like to extract did not the exigencies of space forbid. The reader will find in the chapters, The Inn of Bethlehem, The Province of Galilee, Herod the Great, John the Baptist, and Jewish Parties, an admirable introduction to those scenes of the life and wanderings of our blessed Lord which are contained in the second part of the book, and to which we wish to devote the remainder of this paper.

When speaking of the early life of Jesus, Mr. Dixon takes up the question of the obscurity of his origin, that favorite point with the sceptics of all ages, from the "Is not this the carpenter's son?" of the Jews, down to puerile objections of the German Strauss. He has shown that it was the custom to teach the youth of all classes some useful art; and the best born and greatest men in Jewish history had been instructed in such trades as weaving, tent-making etc. Beside, certain trades were held in honor. We cannot understand this if we think of carpentering by the contemptuous estimate of modern life. That contempt for hand-labor was unknown in the early ages of Scripture history. Adam dressed the garden, Abel was a keeper of sheep, Cain a tiller of the ground. Tubal Cain a smith; and so, among the Jews, it was a reproach to any man if he had not been taught one of the useful mechanical arts. It was dignified by the Almighty himself, who, we are told--

"Called by name Bezaleel, . . . and he hath filled him with the
spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in
all manner of workmanship, and to devise curious works, to work in
gold and in silver and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set
them, and in carving of wood to make any manner of cunning work. And
he hath put it in his heart that he may teach." Exod. xxxv. 30-34.

This reverence was cherished by the Jews; carpentering was always looked upon as a noble occupation; the fact that the carpenter might have to go into the temple to labor would have rescued that occupation from contempt. This is a striking peculiarity of eastern life; and elsewhere the objection of the sceptic to the humble origin of Jesus has been well answered:

"The princes of Turkey in Egypt are still instructed in the
mechanical arts, one being made a brazier, another a carpenter, a
third a good weaver, and so on. Said Pasha was a good mechanic,
Ishmael Pasha is not inferior to his brother. Much of the domestic
life of Israel has been lost to us, but still we know something of
the crafts in which many of the most famous rabbis and doctors had
been taught to excel. We know that Hillel practised a trade. St.
Paul was a tent-maker, Rabbi Ishmael was a needle-maker, Rabbi
Jonathan a cobbler. Rabbi Jose was a tanner. Rabbi Simon was a
weaver. Among the Talmudists there was a celebrated Rabbi Joseph who
was a carpenter. What then becomes of Strauss's inference that
Joseph must have been a man of low birth--not of the stock of
David--because he followed a mechanical trade?" [Footnote 153]

[Footnote 153: Athenaeum, 27th Jan., 1866.]

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We may conclude this point by adding that among the Jews the only trades which could prevent a man from attaining to the dignity of high priest were weavers, barbers, fullers, perfumers, cuppers, and tanners.

But to return to the life and work of Jesus. His fame was gradually spreading, and he went about the small towns and hamlets:

"Capernaum, Chorazin Magdala, Bethsaida, Dalmanutha Gerasa,
preaching in the synagogues, visiting the fishing-boats and
threshing-floors, healing the sick, and comforting the poor; gentle
in his aspect and in his life; wise as a sage and simple as a child;
winning people to his views by the charm of his manner and the
beauty of his sayings."

His first aim was to win the Jews from the Oral Law, to convince them of its emptiness; it is the key to the following scenes graphically depicted by Mr. Dixon. Christ had gone to Jerusalem for the feast of Purim, and was walking by the Pool of Bethesda in the sheet market, a spot he had to pass daily. On the thanks of this pool were crowds of sick, the halt, aged, and blind, a spectacle sure to attract the eye of Jesus:

"It was the Sabbath day.

"In the temple hard by, these wretches could hear the groaning of
bulls under the mace, the bleating of lambs under the sacrificial
knife, the shouting of dealers as they sold doves and shekels.
Bakers were hurrying through with bread. The captain of the temple
was on duty with his guards. Priests were marching in procession,
and crowds of worshippers standing about the holy place. Tongues of
flame leaped faintly from the altars on which the priests were
sprinkling blood . . . but the wretches who lay around (the pool) on
their quilts and rugs, the blind, the leprous, and the aged poor,
drew no compassion from the busy priests. One man, the weakest of
the weak, had been helpless no less than thirty-eight years. Over
this man Jesus paused and said:

"'Wilt thou be made whole?'

"'Rabbi, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into
the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me."

The Compassionate answered him:

"'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'

"At once the life leaped quickly into the poor man's limbs. Rising
from the ground he folded up his quilt, taking it on his arm to go
away; but some of the Pharisees seeing him get up and roll his bed
into a coil, run toward him crying: 'It is the Sabbath day; it is
not lawful for thee two carry thy bed.' It was certainly an offense
against the Oral Law."

The Jews had turned the blessing of the Sabbath into a curse.

"From the moment of hearing the ram's horn, a sacred trumpet, called
the shofa, blown from the temple wall, announcing that the seventh
had commenced, he was not allowed to tight a fire or make a bed, to
boil him a pot; he could not pool his ass from a ditch, nor raise
and arms in defense of his life . . . A Jew could not quit his camp,
his village, or his city on the day of rest. He might not begin a
journey; if going along a road, he must rest from sundown till the
same event of the coming day. He might not carry a pencil, a
kerchief a shekel in his belt; if he required a handkerchief for
use, he had to tie it round his leg. If he offended against one of
these rules, he was held to deserve the doom awarded to the vilest
of sinners. Some rabbins held that a man ought not to change his
position, but that, whether he was standing or sitting when the
shofa sounded, _he should stand or sit immovable as a stone until
the Sabbath had passed away_."

Jesus broke the Oral Law that he might bring his followers to a sense of its degrading spirit, and announced the new truth that "_The Sabbath is made for man; not and for the Sabbath_." After two very interesting chapters upon Antipas Herod and Herodias, we have once upon the Synagogue. Some writers have striven to claim the remotest antiquity for this institution, but in all probability it might be dated from the captivity. There would be a natural desire to meet together away from the pagans, by whom they were surrounded, to pray to their God, to sing their psalms, and to read the law. This gave rise to the synagogue, which means no more then a "meeting together;" but after the Maccabaean insurrection it became a popular institution, and every little village had its synagogue. Now, as much of the work of Christ was done in the synagogue, as he loved to go into them and to take part {509} in their services, it is desirable that we should have a clear notion of what a synagogue was:

"A house of unhewn stones taken up from the hillside; squat and
square of the ancient Hebrew style, having a level roof, but neither
spire nor tower, neither dome nor minaret to enchant the eye; such
was the simple synagogue of the Jews in which Jesus taught. . .
Inside a Syrian synagogue is like one of our parish schools with
seats for the men, rough sofas of wood half covered with rushes and
straw; a higher seat stands in the centre like that of a mosque, for
the elders of the town, a desk for the reader of the day; at the
south end a closet, concealed by a hanging veil, in which the torah,
a written copy of the Pentateuch, is kept in the sacred ark. A
silver lamp is always kept burning, a candlestick with eight arms, a
pulpit, a reading-desk, are the chief articles of furniture in the
room. . . . . In olden times women were allowed to enter with the
men, though they were even then parted from father and son by a
wooden screen. . . . Before entering a synagogue a man is expected
to dip his hands into water. . . . Ten persons are necessary to form
a meeting; every town or city having a synagogue appointed ten men
called batlanim (men of leisure), who were bound to appear at the
hour of prayer. . . Higher in office was the chazzan, who took
charge of the house and scroll. . . The meturgeman was an
interpreter of the law, whose duty it was to stand near the reader
for the day, and translate the sacred verses, one by one, from the
Hebrew into the vulgar tongue. Above him were the elders. . . . When
the people came in they first bowed to the ark; the elders took
their places on the raised platform; the rich went up to high seats
near the ark; the poor sat on wooden sofas, matted with straw. . . .
A prayer was said, one of the Psalms of David sung. The chazzan
walked up to the veil, which he drew aside with reverence, lifted
the ark from its niche, took out the torah, carried the roll round
the benches, every one striving either to kiss or touch it with his
palm; the sheliach read the lesson for the day; at its close the
elder expounded the text in a sort of sermon, when the torah was
carried back, the prayers began. . . . Every hearer had in those
times a right to express his opinion of the sacred text, and of what
it meant."

Our Lord availed himself of this right, which every Jew possessed, of speaking in the synagogue upon the text which had been read; and Mr. Dixon has worked up two scenes well known in the career of our Lord, with all the surrounding incidents and scenery, so graphically and so accurately that no one could read these descriptions without rising from them with a clearer and more complete understanding of the simple statement of the gospel. The gospels were not written as historical sketches, but as vehicles for the vital truth they contain; consequently anything that resuscitates the scene and reproduces the incidents as they took place, with all their peculiar surroundings, must be of great value in assisting us to comprehend more readily, and to retain in our minds more vividly the events of our Lord's career. We think this is more preeminently the characteristic aim and achievement of this work than of the many others we have read upon the subject, and we shall instance one, the scene in the synagogue of Capernaum. The first alluded to was the declaration of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth; but as many of the incidents are included in this of Capernaum, we content ourselves with giving it somewhat in detail, as an illustration of the peculiarity we have already mentioned. Let the reader first peruse the simple statement in the gospel of St. John, vi. ch., 25 v., to the end, and then the following; or better still the whole of chapter xvii. in the second volume of Mr. Dixon's work, called The Bread of Life, and he will rise from it with a much more vivid conception of one of the most trying scenes in our Lord's history. On the steps of the synagogue a motley crowd had collected, eager, excited, and curious, for it was just after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, and they were full of it; they had heard of it in all its stupendous power; it was the miracle of all miracles most likely to overpower the Jewish mind; it recalled to them the words of Jehovah:

"At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled
with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God."

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And this man, this son of Joseph the carpenter, had fed 5,000 people on fire barley loaves and two small fishes. They saw the little boat on the beach in which Jesus had come; they had heard of his walking on the water that very night; and now the crowd was increasing, for the country was aroused, and people came flocking from all parts to see this man who did such marvellous things.

"Jesus sat in the synagogue in his usual place. The Jews poured in,
each man and woman making lonely reverence toward the ark. . . , The
service began with the prayer of sweet incense, after which the
congregation, the batlanim leading, sang Psalms of David; when these
were sung, the chazzan, going up to the ark, drew aside the veil and
took out the sacred roll, which he carried round the aisles to the
reader of the day, who raised it in his hands, so that all who were
present could see the sacred text. Then the whole congregation rose.
. . . Opening the scroll, the reader read out the section or chapter
for the day. . . . When the lesson was finished the chazzan took the
scroll from the reader and carried it back to its place behind the
veil. Then when the roll was restored to the ark, they sang other
psalms, after which the elder delivered the midrash, an exposition
of the text which had been read. The time now being come to question
and be question, all eyes turned on the Teacher who had fed the
5,000 men. . . . Their questions were Sharp and loud:

"'Rabbi, when camest thou hither?'

"'Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye ask me not because ye saw the
miracles, but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled. Labor
not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth
unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for
him hath God the Father sealed."

"Then they asked him:

"'What must we do that we may work the works of God?'

"To which he answered, with a second public declaration, that he was
Christ the Son of God:

"'This is the word of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath
sent.'

"'What sign showest thou that we may see and believe thee! What dost
thou work?'

"Full of the great act which many witnesses declared that they had
seen in the desert beyond the lake, they wished to have it repeated
before their eyes; so they said to him:

"'Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he
gave them bread from heaven to eat.'

"Jesus took up their thought.

"'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the
bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life
unto the world.'

"'Rabbi, evermore give us this bread.'

"Jesus answered them:

"' I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger,
and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. . . . . . For I am
come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him
that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. '. . .

"The elders, the batlanim, the chazzan gazed into each other's
faces, and began to murmur against him, just as the men of Nazareth
had murmured against him.

"'Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we
know? How is it, then, that he saith, I am come down from heaven?"

"Jesus spoke to them again:

"Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the
Father which sent me draw him; and I will raise him up the last. . . .
I am the bread of life. . . . . I am the living bread which came
down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live
forever; yea, and the bread that I will give you is my flesh, which
I will give for the life of the world.'

"Strange doctrines for Jews to weigh. Then leapt hot words among
them, and some of those who had meant to believe in him drew back.
If he were the Christ, the Son of David, the King of Israel, why was
he not marching on Jerusalem, why not driving out the Romans, why
not assuming a kingly crown? 'How can this Man give us his flesh to
eat?'

"The Lord spoke again, still more to their discontent and chagrin,
seeing that they wanted an earthly Christ:

"'Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,
ye have no life in you.'

"This was too much for many, even for some who had been brought to
the door of belief. . . . . The service of the synagogue ended, the
elders came down from the platform, the chazzan put away the sacred
vessels, the congregation came out into the sun, angry in word and
mocking spirit. They wanted facts; he had given them truth. They
hungered for miraculous bread, for a new shower of manna; he had
offered them symbolically his flesh and blood. They had set their
hearts on finding a captain who would march against the Romans, who
would would cause Judas of Gamala to be forgotten, who would put the
glories of Herod the Great to shame. They had asked him for earth,
and he had answered them with heaven."

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But the scene was drawing to a close; Jesus went on with his work after this tumult in the synagogue, opposing himself to the senseless rites of the Pharisees, defying the oral law, healing the sick, and preaching to the people. Passing through the country from Galilee a Syro-Phenecian woman who had heard of him, and perhaps seen him, ran after him in the road, and besought him to heal her daughter who was a lunatic. The disciples urged him to send her away, for his life would not have been safe if he had another conflict with the Jews in that quarter, and to heal this Gentile woman's child would be sure to bring them on his track. Turning to the woman, Jesus told her he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel; but she persisted, crying, "Lord, help me!" an evidence of faith which was quite sufficient, and Jesus turned to her and said, "Great is thy faith, O woman, be it unto thee as thou wilt." This was a fatal blow to the Jewish exclusiveness, a Gentile had been called into the church, and the pride of the Jew humbled forever. On the last Sabbath day which Jesus spent on earth, he struck another blow at the ceremonial law, by taking his disciples to dine at the house of one Simon a leper. He had reached Bethany, and taken up his abode in the house of Martha and Mary, among the outcast and the poor, for that last seven days now called in the church the holy week. The scene was an impressive one. The city, as far as the eye could reach, was one vast encampment, caravans were arriving from every direction, bringing thousands of Jews to the feast, who, selecting their ground, drove four stakes into the earth, drew long reeds round them, and covered them with leaves, making a sort of bower; others brought small tents with them; the whole city, Mount Gibeon, the plain of Rephaim, the valley of Gihon, the hill of Olivet, were all studded with tense, and crowded with busy people hastening to finish their preparations before the shofa should sound at sunset, and the Sabbath begin, when no man could work. In the temple, the priests, the doctors, the money-changers, the bakers of shew-bread, were all at work, and the last panorama in the life of Christ commenced.

On the first day in Holy Week, now known as Palm _Sunday_, Jesus entered Jerusalem on an ass's colt, a prominent figure in the festivities, for the crowds rushed up see him, with their palms, and marched with him singing psalms; they had come out from Jerusalem to meet him, and they escorted him into the city. At night he returned to Bethany.

On the _Monday_ and _Tuesday_ he went early to the temple, mixing among the people, restoring sight to the blind, and preaching to the poor. As his life began with a series of temptations, so it was the will of his Father that he should be persecuted with them at its close--a lesson we may all do well to dwell upon. Up to the last days of his life Jesus was subjected to temptations. On the Tuesday some emissaries of the Sanhedrim came to the court where he was preaching to question him, and gather evidence against him. They found him amongst a crowd of Baptists, and demanded his authority for teaching. Christ retorted by putting them to the dilemma of stating whether John's baptism was of heaven or not; they were too much afraid of the people to say it was of men, and if they said of heaven, Jesus would have reproached them for their want of faith; they confessed their ignorance. Then each party tried to entrap him.

The _Pharisees_ brought him a woman taken in adultery. By the Mosaic law this offence would have been punished with death. But the Roman government would have executed any Jew who would venture to carry out such a law, and therefore the question seemed to compel Jesus to speak either against Moses or the Romans. He quietly turned to the witnesses, and told the man who was {512} innocent among them to cast the first stone at her.

The _Herodians_ tempted him on a point of tribute. They had two taxes, one to God and one to Caesar, both were disputed, and they consulted him in order to involve him with God or Caesar; but he foiled them by confirming both:

"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the
things that are God's."

They began to be astonished.

The _Sadducees_ tempted him with their dogma of the non-resurrection. They told him sneeringly of a woman who had married seven husbands, and they wanted to know whose she would be in the life to come. Jesus replied calmly:

"In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but are as the angels in heaven."

And the Sadducees with their philosophy, their learning, and their unbelief, retired in confusion.

On the _Wednesday_ he remained in Bethany in seclusion, while Judas was arranging for his safe betrayal to Annas and the nobles.

_Thursday_ Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover, and at sunset that day he and the twelve sat down to the last supper; Judas left to see Annas, and after singing a hymn, the other disciples rose from the table, passed through the sheep-gate into the Cedron valley, and came to Gethsemane. Here Jesus withdrew, and while his disciples were sleeping, he watched and prayed until the betrayers came, and the kiss of Judas revealed him to them. The Sanhedrim was summoned in the dead of the night, and when the members arrived they found Annas examining witnesses, but with no avail, they could not substantiate any charge against him that the Roman government would allow them to punish with death. Annas told him to speak for himself, but he would not. The high priest then said, "Art thou the Christ?" he said, "I am." Then Annas asked him who were his disciples, and Jesus replied: "I spake openly to the world, I taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews resort, in secret I have said nothing; ask them which heard me, they know what I have said." The officer of the temple smote him, and Annas ordered him to be bound with cords, and when it was day they went in a body to the palace of Caiaphas. Here Jesus was questioned again, and answered that he was the Christ, the high priest rent his clothes, in sign that it was blasphemy and worthy of death. The Sanhedrim pronounced him guilty, and the officers carried him to the Praetorian gates and delivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards. The vacillation of Pilate and the last scene in our Lord's career are known to all. Mr. Dixon leaves them with the observation, "They form a divine episode in the history of man, and must be left to the writers who could not err."

A good book is its own best eulogy, and we may safely leave this of Mr. Dixon's to itself; but we cannot refrain from testifying our appreciation of such a valuable addition to the records of eastern travel. It is superfluous to say that it is excellently written, as it emanates from the 10, not of a tyro, but of a master-craftsman, whose style is too well known to need eulogy, a style graphic, pointed, and impressive, the result of clear vision and accurate delineation, strengthened by a sort of Frith-like power of grouping as witness the description of the street life of Jaffa, which, as an exquisite piece of word-painting, is perfect.

The reader is led through the sacred scenes of the Holy Land by an artist as well as a scholar, who as he journeys on revives the life of the past; we see the patriarchal life, the tents, the flocks grazing on the hills, the ready-writer with his and lingering and the city gate. We here David's minstrelsy and the tramp of Maccabaean soldierly; we peer into the depths of {513} one of those ancient wells build by the patriarchs, and listen to the conversation of the Samaritan woman with that wonderful stranger; we linger at the wayside Khan, and see how natural is the tale of the gospel. As we near Jerusalem the grander figures of the panorama pass over the scene, the Herods in their luxury and pride, in their humiliation and their sins, the grim towers of Macherus and the dark deed behind its walls when the head of the messenger of God fell to please a wanton woman, and terror was struck into the heart of the tyrant; the splendid ceremonial service of the temple, with its altars, its sacrifices, and its robed priests; the Sadducees luxuriating in their palaces, with servants, carriages, gardens, living their voluptuous, godless lives; the Pharisees with their demure aspect, broad and multiplied phylacteries; the elements of Roman soldiery, the imperial eagles hovering over the scene as the Jews past by scowling at the pagan rulers of the holy city; and then that marvellous god-like figure wandering about the streets followed by crowds of people, now entering the temple courts to preach to them, and now stopping on his way to heal some lame man or leper; his wanderings' along the wearying roads of Galilee; his mingling with the people in the synagogues, the popular gathering-place; his taking part in the service and reading the Scriptures; his final coming up to the holy city, the betrayal, this scenes of his trial, the frantic eagerness of the Jews, the vacillation of Pilate, the terrible suspense and the ultimate triumph of his foes, all these and many more incidents of biblical and gospel history are revived and enacted, as it were, amid the very scenes and in the very places where they once took place. We repeat again, that this work is an excellent commentary and illustration of the gospel narrative; and though pen of its author has been nobly wielded in the controversial defence of that gospel, yet perhaps even greater good may be done by this exhibition and illustration of the life and work of Christ. To hold him up to the eyes of men is the best antidote to scepticism; and whatever tends to do that, to plant the image of Christ in the hearts of men, is a good work; the illustration of his individuality, standing out as he did in his times, and as he does in every time, distinct from all men and things. We take up the great work of any age, its characteristic achievement, and we find the impress of the age stamped indelibly upon it; it smacks of the time and the scenes. Homer is pervaded with the valor of a mythic heroism, bloodshed and victory. Dante is the very best reflection of mediaevalism--its deep, superstitious piety, its weird dreams, and its peculiar theology. Shakespeare, though he has written with spotless purity, yet bears traces of the tolerated licentiousness of the Elizabethan age. But Christ and his gospel stand out distinct, totally distinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel could not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to it; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony, and licentious unbelief; paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the ancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and Rabbinical fantasies, when, rising up in the midst of all this debasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his gospel, pure among rottenness, gentle in the midst of violence, holy among flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the preaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world, not from oriental barbarism, not from western paganism, not from Jewish corruption; it could then have come from no other place than heaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon what was compressed in that three years' labor, and compare it with systems which have occupied men's lives to sketch out merely, and taken {514} ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system, which has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its own truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every principle defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and an impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it advancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of every disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality, its superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the mind. Therefore we think, in conclusion. that the best thing for Christians still to do in this world is, to lift up Christ before the eyes of men, no matter how, so that he be listed up boldly and faithfully, be it by the voice, the pencil, or the pen (as in this instance before us), or, better still by the more impressive exhibition of Christ in a Christian life. If we wish to save men, let us display him always and everywhere in the confidence that he will fulfil his own divine promise--"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

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ORIGINAL.

ON THE APPARITION OF OUR LORD TO THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS.

"Whilst he was at table with them,
he took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew him."

DISCIPLE.

"Lord! grant to thy servant this singular grace,
To gaze but for once on thy beautiful face."

JESUS.

"Most easily may'st thou this blessing secure:
Who gives unto mine, unto me gives instead.
Of thy loaf give a part to my suffering poor,
And thy Lord thou shalt see at the breaking of bread."

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ORIGINAL.

LITTLE SUNBEAM'S CHRISTMAS STORY.

God bless you, kind gentlemen, for your merry Christmas, and thank you kindly for these nice things; but you must not be angry if I say I'm almost sorry it is Christmas day, for you see it makes me think about last Christmas and the Christmas before.

I am Mr. Willsup's little girl--Mr. Willsup that is dead, you know. I suppose you think I ought to wear black; and so I would, but mother says we are too poor, and we must only mourn in our hearts. I do mourn in my heart, oh! so much, I can't tell you. I don't like to acknowledge it, and it gives me an ugly pain and a dreadful sinking about my heart when I think of it, but it was on a Christmas night that we lost poor father, and I'm afraid he wasn't right, you understand, at the time.

There was a time when father was such a nice, good man, and when we weren't poor, as we are now. We didn't always live up in this cold, bare garret. We used to live in a fine, large house, all to ourselves; and we had a nice garden in front, full of pretty flowers, and a long back porch with a buying running over it; and we had a beautiful parlor where we talked to the visitors only--not to sleep in and cook in as we do here, when we have any fire; and I had the cosiest little bedroom you ever saw, with a little altar in the corner, and on it a statue of the Blessed Virgin, white as snow; and Chip, that's a canary-bird, hung in his cage in the window when it was fine weather, and cat sugar like a good fellow; and then we had silver forks and spoons; and Zephyr, that's the horse, and Dash, our dog, and Pussy, and oh! so many nice things, I never could tell you all in a long time. But we haven't got any of them now, for we are poor, and father's dead, and we must only mourn in our hearts.

I hardly know how to tell you all about it, for though I am little I've seen a good deal; so much bad and trouble that my mind goes quite round and round sometimes thinking over it. If you ever saw poor father after we got to be poor, that wouldn't tell you how he looked as I recollect him. Oh! he was so much changed! I used to be so proud of him, and delighted to go out to walk with him in the street or across the fields; and I used to love him so much--not that I didn't always love him just as much as ever, only I didn't get so much chance to love him, you understand, when he got to stay away from home and be--oh! my heart, how it aches!

Father was a handsome-looking man once, and so smart. Everybody bowed to him in the street. But he got rough and careless, I know, and it made me feel sorry to see him go out without brushing his hat, or asking me to do it for him, as he used to do. And then his face turned to such a different look from old times. It got puffed up and red, and his eyes that I remember were so bright and so deep, for I used to climb up on his knee often, and look 'way down into them, and then he would laugh and ask me if I could see his thoughts, and I almost fancied I could sometimes, and give me a sweet kiss, and call me his darling Susy; but when he changed, you know, his eyes seemed to be, how shall I say it? so flat and soft, and he never seemed to be looking anywhere in particular half the time.

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You see it was business and appointments that changed him. When I wished him to stay home and we would all enjoy ourselves--for we had the pleasantest times together, father, mother, and me, and baby, that's dead; and perhaps Dash and Pussy too sometimes, you know--then he would be obliged to excuse himself on account of business and appointments, which I fear were not always with the best of people, for when he said he was going out mother would sigh _so_ deep and _so_ long; and then when he came home late at night I often woke up and heard mother coaxing him and soothing him, and I am sure frequently crying and sobbing, and that would make me cry too, all alone by myself; and so the time went on, till father began to take less and less notice of either mother or of me. As for dear little baby, even when she sickened and died, I don't think he seemed to understand it, and he stood by the grave and looked at the little coffin being let down as if he were dreaming.

It was not long before father left off doing almost any business in the daytime, and only went out at night. I noticed then that we began to sell some of our nice furniture, and our silver forks and spoons. I suppose, as we scarcely ever had any visitors now, we did not need them; but the house began to look bare and desolate and strange, as if it wasn't our house; and the servant quarrelled with mother and left us, and we didn't get another, but mother did the work herself, and it made her sick, for she wasn't used to it. Sam, our man, went away, because after the horse and carriage was sold he had nothing to do. I recollect hearing him say to mother:

"I'd stand by you and Susy, miss, as I've always stood by you, and it's not wages, but times is changed, and I know you ain't able to have me." And then he pulled his hat down over his eyes so far that he had to lift it up again before he could see his way out of the front door; and then ran across the garden and down the street, as if he were running away from somebody. I cried a good deal when mother told me he was not going to come back, for I loved Sam very much, and I'm not I ashamed of if either, though Pinkey Silver said I ought to be, for he was just like a brother to me, and a better brother than Pinkey Silver's brother ever was.

Once, on a Christmas eve, I was going to hang up my stocking, as I had always done, for good Santa Claus to put something in it, when mother burst out into such a violent fit of crying that I was afraid she would die. When she could speak to me she wanted me to let Santa Claus go to some other children this year; but I determined to give him a chance to leave me, say, a doll, if he happened to have one left over, and so I slipped down-stairs in my night-gown, after mother had gone to her room, and hung my stocking up in the old place. Just as I had done it, father came staggering in. He was very bad, and fell over several things. The noise brought mother down-stairs, and father looking at me said so savagely that it sent all the blood to my heart:

"What devilish nonsense is the girl about?"

"Oh! don't blame the child," said mother, turning pale and getting between him and me. "You know it is Christmas eve, John."

Then he swore many awful oaths, and said he didn't care for Christmas, and that he was not going to be taunted with his poverty by his own children, and went stamping around the room in a furious passion. Mother went up to him to coax him, and put her arms around his neck; but he threw her off and knocked her down and, though you mayn't believe it, he actually lifted up his foot and stamped upon her face. That is why mother looks so bad now, with those great scars, but she was very beautiful before that, as everybody knows. When mother fell, Dash sprang up from the hearth where he lay curled up, and barked at father.

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"They've all turned against me," said he, "even the dog. But I'll brain _you_", says he to Dash.

When I saw mother trying to get up, with the blood all streaming down her dress from her face and mouth, I got faint, and don't recollect any more until I woke up, it must have been noon next day, with a dreadful headache. I crept out of bed and went into the hall, and there I heard people talking down in the parlor. It was mother, Mrs. Thrifty, our next-door neighbor, and the doctor. The doctor and Mrs. Thrifty were trying to persuade mother to do something, but she kept saying, "Never! I couldn't--poor John!" and words like that.

Such terrible things had taken place and put my mind so astray that I quite forgot I shouldn't listen; but I soon remembered it, and went away. I wondered where father was, and thought I would look in his room to see if he was there. In the old times, before father changed, I used to be let come in, bright and early, to his room, and climb up on a chair and kiss him before he got up; and he used to call me his "Little Sunbeam" that came creeping in to say it was day. There he was now, lying on the bed without taking off his clothes or muddy boots, in a deep, heavy sleep. I did so want to love him, but I was afraid to wake him up to tell him so, he looked so frightful, gnashing his teeth in his dreams. But I thought I might be "Little Sunbeam" once more, even if he didn't know it, and I got a chair and climbed up and reached my arm over round his neck and gave him a kiss. It did not seem like father's face, but I suppose I had forgotten, it was so long since I kissed him before. Poor father! I began to mourn in my heart for him then, as mother says we must do now. I was afraid to stay there, but before I went away I knelt down beside the bed and prayed the Blessed Virgin to ask God to make him a good man again, and make him give up drinking, and make mother well, and let me be his "Little Sunbeam" as before. Then I slipped back to my room and dressed myself, and mother came up-stairs with her face all bandaged up, and she told me not to say anything to anybody about the last night.

That Christmas day wasn't like any Christmas day I can ever recollect. I didn't find any toys from Santa Claus in my stocking. We didn't go to mass, nor to see the little Jesus in the Crib, nor to hear the children sing around it. Nor we didn't have any plum pudding; and when I went out on the back porch--oh! dear, how my heart does ache--there lay poor old Dash, with his head split open, and quite dead.

You see I had so many things happen that I don't recollect how things turned out, except that mother and I left our house one day, because we got poor, mother said, and then we came here, and she says we are never to go back because our house is sold to strangers, to whom father was in debt. Pinkey Silver told me that the man who keeps the grog-shop where poor father was stabbed owns it now. And I must tell you about that.

It was the next Christmas day after the last one I told you about. We had nothing to eat all day. Toward evening mother told me to go to Mrs. Thrifty's and ask her to please lend us a loaf of bread. Mrs. Thrifty was gone to a party, and so I had to wait until near nine o'clock, when George Thrifty, that's Mrs. Thrifty's son, came in laughing and singing:

"Hie for merry Christmas!
Ho for merry Christmas!
Hurrah! for Christmas day!"

As soon as I told him what I wanted he ran and got a loaf of bread and a pie and some cakes, and gave it all to me; and then he put his hand in his pocket and turned it inside out, but there wasn't anything in it, and says he:

"Oh! little one, I'm as sorry as if I'd lost my grandmother; but I
wish I hadn't spent all my Christmas, for I'd like to give you some
money."

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I thanked him very much and came away. As I was coming home I passed the grog-shop I spoke to you about. I heard loud, angry quarrelling and scuffling going on, and father's voice was among the rest. I was afraid to go away, for I did not like to leave father there to get hurt, and thought I had better go in and persuade him to come home with me. I had no sooner put my head in the door than the then who keeps the store told me to "be off, that he didn't want any beggars around his place."

"I don't want to beg," said I, "I want father," and just as I said that I saw a knife flash in the gaslight, and then--O my poor, mourning heart!--poor father staggered and reeled toward me, and as he saw me he cried out:

"Why, is it you, Little Sunbeam! O my God!" and then he fell down across the sill of the door, at my feet, dead.

You see, dear, good gentlemen, you must not be angry if I'm almost sorry it is Christmas. I know everybody ought to be happy when Christmas comes; and I saw a good many little boys and girls to-day as happy as I used to be, for I've been watching them through a little peep hole I scratched on the frosty window-pane, and it didn't seem real that they should be down there so happy, wishing each other "Merry Christmas," and I up here all alone, mourning in my heart. But you see what has done it all.

Do you think, dear, good gentlemen, that there are any other "Little Sunbeams" like me? Do you think there are any fathers that are changing like mine? Oh! please do run and tell them quick to stop and change back again, or they will get poor like mother and me, and have to live up in a cold, bare garret, and Santa Claus won't come down the chimney on Christmas eve, because their children won't have any stockings to hang up, and they will feel so hungry and so cold in the night. Oh! I could tell them, and mother could tell them, as she tells me, that drink brings a black curse on a family, and that God is angry when he hears the drunkard's children crying for bread. I don't like to cry when I think of that, but I couldn't help it this morning because it is Christmas day.

It's all over now, I do so wish that mother was here to say thank ye for all those nice things, but she won't be home till night, for she's gone over to Mrs. Nabob's to work, where they are to have a great party. But when she comes back I'll tell her all about it, and when we say our prayers to-night we'll ask God to bless the good, kind gentleman who thought about coming here to wish us a Merry Christmas.

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ORIGINAL.

CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

"As long as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me."

There is a secret chamber in my breast
Of which my Jesus hath sole custody
But if my neighbor willeth there to rest,
Then Jesus kindly lendeth him the key.

------

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ORIGINAL.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

XI.

THE ORIGINAL STATE OF THE FIRST PARENTS OF MANKIND--THE RELATION OF ADAM TO HIS POSTERITY--THE FALL OF MAN--ORIGINAL SIN.

The grand theatre of probation is this earth, and its chief subject the human race. The probation of the angels was completed almost instantaneously, and their transit to an immutable state followed almost immediately on their creation. The probation of the human race is long and complicated, diversified and extensive; and by it the most magnificent exhibition is made of the principle of merit. It has also this peculiarity that mankind were created, not merely as individuals, each with his distinct probation, but also as a race; and that the whole race had a probation at its origin, in the person of its progenitor. It is our present task to unfold the Catholic doctrine concerning the nature and results of this original probation of the collective human race in the first epoch of its creation.

The Catholic doctrine teaches, in the first place, that the entire human race, at present inhabiting the globe, is one; not merely in being conformed to one archetype, but also in being descended by generation from one common progenitor, that is, from Adam.

That this is distinctly affirmed in the book of Genesis, which the Catholic Church receives as a portion of the inspired Scripture, according to the obvious and literal sense of the words, is not questioned by any one. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that this obvious and literal sense is proposed by the authority of the Catholic Church as the true sense. That is, that it is an essential portion of Catholic doctrine, that God created at first one pair of human beings, Adam and Eve, from whom all mankind are descended.

It seems evident enough that the archaic records, in which the history of the creation of man is contained, were understood in this sense by those who transmitted them from the beginning of human history, and who first committed them to writing; and by Moses, who incorporated them into the book of Genesis. This was the traditional sense universally received among the Jews, as is manifest from all the monuments of tradition. It is also the sense which is reaffirmed in the other sacred and canonical books which follow those of Moses, wherever they allude to the subject. For instance: "Who knoweth if the spirit of the _children of Adam_ ascend upward." [Footnote 154] "Seth and Sem obtained glory among men: _and above every soul, Adam in the beginning_," [Footnote 155]

[Footnote 154: Eccles. iii. 21.]

[Footnote 155: Eccles. xlix. 19.]