Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

SHE now arose from the ground, and turning aside from the path where this mental vision had arrested her thoughts, ascended higher up the mountain, absorbed in the insufficiency and instability of earthly happiness, and again beginning to gain some glimmering view of that unsorrowing world from which her sight had so long been averted.

She had wandered on some way, and had just heard the keepers of the city give the third watch of the night, when her attention was surprised by the sound of many voices rising in praise to their Creator. No music had ever so touched her; her mind became expanded by devotion, and there was one voice that reached her soul, and filled her with a comfort she had never known till then. She advanced nearer and nearer, cautiously concealing herself from observation, and walking under the shadow of the

mountain, till she got close to the person from whose lips those heavenly consolations fell. The moon was shining full upon him with a radiance scarcely less mild than that which beamed from his heavenly countenance. He was a man of stature, somewhat tall and comely, with a very reverend aspect, such as the beholders might both fear and love. His hair was parted after the manner of the Nazarites, and hung waving about his shoulders; his look was innocent, his eye awful yet courteous, and beaming with the mercy it was uplifted to implore. A man for his beauty surpassing the children of men. Many others were gathered round him, who looked like the disciples of such a master.

Sephora knew not who these could be, but she felt their prayer enter into her soul, and was for a time so completely raised above her earthly sorrows, that she thought they would never again have power to distress her.

These exalted feelings were not, however, of any long continuance, for when she de

scended from Mount Hermon, and on entering again the gates of the stately mansion, heard the minstrel's too familiar sounds of woe, nature had its turn and wept abundantly. She flew to the chamber of death to look once more on her child, but he was not there, and she was directed to the banqueting room, where Keroob had had his body removed to surround it with all those pompous mockeries which reveal that pride they should hide from man. With faltering and disordered steps she entered the spacious chamber. It was filled with mourners sitting low on the ground, and in the centre lay the youthful Zina, extended on his costly bier. Like a frail blossom struck untimely to the earth by the burning wind of the desert, thus, "blasted by death the beauteous ruin. lay." Many a fair and mournful flower was strewed around him, but none so fair, so mournful as himself. As she bent over this piteous scene, all the ways of his childhood passed before her, his first uncertain steps, his lisping tongue, his still expanding mind, his filial love,his confidence in heaven. Her labour

ing heart could bear no more, but clasping his vacant form, "Oh, my son, would to God I had died for thee, Oh, Zina, my son, my son!" The mourners rose up to comfort her, and the most honourable of the city, seeing that her grief would only gather strength by indulgence, approached the bier and raising it up moved slowly forward. Sephora followed, bare-headed and weeping, yet feeling who it was that required her child, and while she could not but remember "such things were that were most dear to her," she said, "it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good."

The burying ground lay in a garden beyond the gates, and as the mournful procession passed through the city, many hundreds joined it, and all sorrowed for the disconsolate Sephora. But of what avail was their sorrow, it could not lessen hers, neither was she conscious of the sympathy she excited, her tearful eyes were bent to the ground, and she felt that every step was bringing her nearer to that insatiable and gloomy sepulchre that was triumphantly calling

for its last and fairest prey. She was now within a few paces of those gates through which she had followed her beloved Caphtor. She entered, and passed the melancholy portals, a solemn dread ran through her soul-when next she should pass them, even the outward form of her child would be hidden from her view, and she solitary as the wanderer in the wilderness. Her labouring heart heaved with the agonizing thought when she heard a voice saying to her "weep not." She raised her eyes, it was that heavenly stranger whose accents had before reached her soul. If divine compassion ever shone complete in human form she beheld it now. All were awed by his gracious presence. He laid his hand on the bier, and they that bear it stood still. Then turning to the corpse of Zina, he said in a voice of gentle majesty, "Young man, I say unto thee arise." Scarce were the words pronounced ere the rigid features all relaxed with life-the mantling blood flew to the livid lip and palid cheek, light to the motion

« PreviousContinue »