I.N.R.I Part 16

"Master," exclaimed Simon, loudly, "I will go with you."

Others who had followed Him along the bank heard the decision. They marvelled at the words that had pa.s.sed, and the erring woman whom He had protected would not leave Him.

In the distance the clamour could still be heard, but gradually the crowd dispersed. Jesus then sought lodging for Himself and His disciples.

CHAPTER XV

A short time after, some of those who had formed the crowd at Magdala were gathered together in the house of the Rabbi Jairus. They were watching the dead. For in the centre of the room, on a table, lay the body of the Rabbi's daughter shrouded in white linen. Her father was so cast down with grief that his friends knew not how to console him.

Then someone suggested calling in Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had just seen resting with His followers under the cedars of Hirah. They narrated the miracles that He had lately worked. On the road leading to Capernaum a man was lying side by side with his little son, into whom had entered the spirit of epilepsy. The child had fallen down and foamed at the mouth, and his teeth and hands were so locked together that his father, in his despair, all but strangled him. He had already taken the child to the disciples of Jesus, but they had not been able to help him. Then he sought the Master and exclaimed angrily: "If you can do anything, help him!" "Take heed that we do not all suffer because of him," the prophet said, and then made the child whole. And they told yet more. On the other side of the lake He had made a deaf-mute to speak, and at Bethsaida had made a blind man to see. But, above all, every one knew how at Nain He had brought back a young man to life who had already been carried out of the house in his coffin! A wine-presser was there who told something about an old woman who had vehemently prayed the prophet to cure her sickness. Thereupon Jesus said: "You are old and yet you wish to live! What makes this earth so pleasing to you?" and she replied: "Nothing is pleasing to me on this earth. But I do not want to die until the Saviour comes, who will open the gates of Heaven for me." And He: "Since your faith is so strong, woman, you shall live to see the Saviour." Thereupon she rose up and went her way. These were the things He did, but He did not like them to be talked about.

Such was the talk among the people gathered round the little girl's corpse. Among the company was an old man who was of those who liked to display their wisdom on every possible occasion. He declared that faith and love, nothing else, produced such miracles. No miracle-worker could help an unbeliever; but a man whom the people loved could easily work miracles. "They forget all his failures, and remember and magnify all his successes. That's all there is in it."

A man answered him: "It is important that he should be loved, but the love is compelled by some mysterious power. No one can make himself beloved of his own accord, it must be given him."

They determined, thanks to all this talk--a mingling of truth and error--to invite the prophet to the house.

When Jesus entered it, He saw the mourning a.s.sembly, and the Rabbi, who pulled at his gown until he tore it. He saw the child lying on the table ready for burial, and asked: "Why have you summoned Me? Where is the dead girl?"

The Rabbi undid the shroud so that the girl lay exposed to view. Jesus looked at her, took hold of her hand, felt it, and laid it gently down again. "The child is not dead," He said, "she only sleepeth."

Some began to laugh. They knew the difference between death and life!

He stepped up to them, and said: "Why did you summon Me if you do not believe in Me? If you have a.s.sembled here to watch the dead, there's nothing for you to do."

They crept away in annoyance. He turned to the father and mother: "Be comforted. Prepare some food for your daughter." Then He took hold of the child's cold hand, and whispered: "Little girl! Little girl! wake up, it is morning."

The mother uttered a cry of joy, for the child opened her eyes. He stood by, and they seemed to hear Him say: "Arise, my child. You are too young to have gained heaven yet. The Father must be long sought so that He may be the more beloved. Go your way and seek Him."

When the girl, who was twelve years old, stood on her feet, and walked across the floor, the parents almost fell on Jesus in order to express their thanks. He put them aside. "I understand your grat.i.tude. You will do what I do not wish. You will go to the street corners and exclaim: 'He raised our child from the dead'; and the people will come and ask Me to heal their bodies, while I am come to heal their souls.

And they will desire Me to raise the dead, while I am here to lead their spirits to eternal life."

"Lord, how are we to understand you?"

"When in good time you shall have learned how little the mortal body and earthly life signify, then you will understand. If, as you say, I have raised your child from the dead, what thanks do you owe Me? Do you recognise what he who calls back a creature from happiness to misery does?

"You said yourself, Master, that the child was too young to gain heaven yet."

"She has not gained it; she possessed it in her innocent heart. She will become a maiden, and a wife, and an old woman. She will lose heaven and seek it in agony. It will be well for her if then she comes to the Saviour and begs: 'My soul is dead within me, Lord; wake it to eternal life.' But if she comes not--then it would be better that she had not waked to-day."

The mother said in all humility: "Whatsoever Thou doest, Master, that is surely right."

He went to the table where the child was comfortably eating her food, laid His hand on her head, and said: "You have come to earth from heaven, now give up earth for heaven; what is earned is greater that what is given."

So the wife of Rabbi Jairus heard as Jesus went out of the door.

They remained His adherents until near the days of the persecution.

CHAPTER XVI

About the same time things began to go ill with Levi, the tax-gatherer, who lived on the road to Tiberias. One morning his fellow-residents prepared a discordant serenade for him. They pointed out to Levi with animation, from the roof of his house, in what honour he was held, by means of the rattling of trays and clashing of pans, since he had accepted service with the heathen as toll-keeper and demanded money even on the Sabbath.

The lean tax-gatherer sat in a corner of his room and saw the dust fly from the ceiling, which seemed to shake beneath the clatter. He saw, too, how the morning sun shining in at the window threw a band of light across the room, in which danced particles of dust like little stars.

He listened, and saw, and was silent. When they had had enough of dancing on the roof they jumped to the ground, made grimaces at the window, and departed.

A little, bustling woman came out of the next room, stole up to the man, and said: "Levi, it serves you right!"

"Yes, I know, Judith," he answered, and stood up. He was so tall that he had to bend his head in order not to strike it against the ceiling.

His beard hung down in thin strands; it was not yet grey, despite his pale, tired face.

"They will stone you, Levi, if you continue to serve the Romans,"

exclaimed the woman.

"They hated me even when I did not serve the Romans," said the man.

"Since that Feast of Tabernacles at Tiberias when I said that Mammon and desire of luxury had estranged the G.o.d of Abraham from the chosen people, and subjected them to Jupiter, they have hated me."

"But you yourself follow Mammon," she returned.

"Because since they hate me I must create a power for myself which will support me, if all are against me. It is the power with which the contemned man conquers his bitterest enemies. You don't understand me?

Look there!" He bent down in a dark corner of the chamber, lifted an old cloth, and displayed to view a stone vessel like a mortar. "Real Romans," he said, grinning; "soon a small army of them. And directly it is big enough, the neighbours won't climb on to the roof and sing praises to Levi with pots and pans, but with harps and cymbals."

"Levi, shall I tell you what you are?" exclaimed the woman, the muscles of her red face working.

"I am a publican, as I well know," he returned calmly, carefully covering his money chest with the cloth. "A despised publican who takes money from his own people to give to the stranger, who demands toll-money of the Jews although they themselves made the roads. Such a one am I, my Judith! And why did I become a Roman publican? Because I wished to gain money so as to support myself among those who hate me."

"Levi, you are a miser," she said. "You bury your money in a hole instead of buying me a Greek mantle like what Rebecca and Amala wear."

"Then I shall remain a miser," he replied, "for I shall not buy you a Greek mantle. Foreign garments will plunge the Jews into deeper ruin than my Roman office and Roman coins. It is not the receipt of custom, my dear wife, that is idolatry, but desire of dress, pleasure, and luxury. Street turnpikes are not bad at a time when our people begin to be fugitives in their own land, and with all their trade and barter to export the good and import the evil. Since the law of Moses respecting agriculture there has been no better tax than the Roman turnpike toll. What have the Jews to do on the road?"

"You will soon see," said Judith. "If I don't have the Greek mantle in two days from now, you'll see me on the road, but from behind."

"You don't look bad from behind," mischievously returned Levi.

The knocker sounded without. The tax-gatherer looked through the window, and bade his wife undo the barrier. She went out and raised a piercing cry, but did not unclose the barrier. Several men had come along the road, and were standing there; the woman demanded the toll.

A little man with a bald head stepped forward. It was the fisherman from Bethsaida. He confessed that they had no money. Thereupon the woman was very angry, for it was her secret intention thenceforth to keep the toll money herself in order to buy the Greek purple stuff like that worn by Rebecca and Amala.

When Levi heard her cry, he went out and said: "Let them pa.s.s, Judith.

You see they are not traders. They won't do the road much damage. Why they've scarcely soles to their feet."

Then Judith was quiet, but she took a stolen glance at one of the men who stood tall and straight in his blue mantle, his hair falling over his shoulders, his pale face turned towards her with an earnest look.

"What a man? Is something the matter with me? Perhaps he misses the Greek mantle that he sees other women wear?"

"How far have you come?" the toll-keeper asked the men.