Read Ebook: Mary: The Queen of the House of David and Mother of Jesus The Story of Her Life by Walsh A Stewart Alexander Stewart Talmage T De Witt Thomas De Witt Author Of Introduction Etc

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THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID

THE QUEEN'S PORTRAIT.

"And breaking as from distant gloom, A face comes painted on the air; A presence walks the haunted room, Or sits within the vacant chair. And every object that I feel Seems charged by some enchanter's wand. And keen the dizzy senses thrill, As with the touch of spirit hand. A form beloved comes again, A voice beside me seems to start, While eager fancies fill the brain, And eager passions hold the heart."

It was thus that Guido produced a picture of the Madonna which enravished all that beheld it. Once he had said, "I wish I'd the wings of an angel to behold the beatified spirits, which I might have copied." After, here and there, he picked out fragments of color and form on earth; then put them into one ideal composition. It was a heart-expanding work; the work of a prophet, since it told of what might be in woman wholly at her best. Then he said, "the beautiful and pure idea must be in the head" of the artist. It was a deep saying. Given the ideal, and the worker will need only proper ambition to present a grand composition, whether on canvas or in the patternings of the inner life. The presentments of the Virgin rose in fineness when priests turned from their exegesis to kneel and paint for men. The great Saint Augustine, held in high honor by Christians of every name, redeemed from a youth of darkest sinning, revered as his guiding star two lovely women, Monica, his mother, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. He argues, in stalwart polemics, that through the acknowledgment of Mary's pre-eminence all womankind was elevated. Her presentment, so as to be fully comprehended, was in the beginning a blessing to every soul in being an inspiration to purer, sweeter living. So far as such presentment now conserves the same results the work is worthy and profitable. In all times the representations of the Virgin, whether by the historian or the master of the studio, varied; but the piety they awakened always seemed to be of one type, and that lofty. Thus we have "the stern, awful quietude of the old Mosaics, the hard lifelessness of the degenerate Greeks, the pensive sentiment of the Siena, the stately elegance of the Florentine Madonnas, the intellectual Milanese, with their large foreheads and thoughtful eyes, the tender, refined mysticism of the Umbrian, the sumptuous loveliness of the Venetian; the quaint, characteristic simplicity of the early German, so stamped with their nationality that I never looked round me in a room full of German girls without thinking of Albert Durer's Virgins; the intense, life-like feeling of the Spanish, the prosaic, portrait-like nature of the Flemish schools, and so on." Each time and place produced its own ideal, but all tried to express the one thought uppermost; pious regard for the Queen and model. All seemed to feel that in this devotion there was somehow comfort and exaltation--and there generally were both.

The foregoing representation marked a step forward in things spiritual. Before Raphael, painters numberless, under the influence of the luxurious and vicious Medici, had filled the churches of Florence with painted presentments of the Virgin, characterized by an alluring beauty which seemed next door to blasphemy. Then came that Luther of his times, Savonarola. He thundered for purity, simplicity and reform; aiming his blows at the depraving, sensuous conceptions of the grosser artists. He made a bonfire in the Piazza of Florence, there consuming these false madonnas. He was, for this, persecuted to death by the Borgia family. They could not bear his trumpet call to Florentines, "Your sins make me a prophet; I have been a Jonah warning Nineveh; I shall be a Jeremiah weeping over the ruins; for God will renew His church and that will not take place without blood--" Art heard his voice, the painters became disgusted with their meaner handiwork, the rude, the obscene, the mischievous was obliterated; finer, more spiritual and loftier concepts of the Virgin appeared as proof of a reformation of morals. And Raphael, later on, seeing these productions, felt the influence that begot them, and then produced that masterpiece. Tradition says Saint Luke painted a picture of the Virgin from life. The picture, reputed to have been so painted, was found by the Turks in Constantinople when that city fell into their conquering hands. They despoiled it of its princely jewel-decorations, then tramped it contemptuously beneath their feet. The latter act was typical, and the Turk still lives to trample in contempt on honest efforts to portray with amplitude and finished details this splendid character, whose outlines alone are presented by the Gospels. But though the Vandal spirit survives, there survives also the strong yearning for the representation of that woman beyond compare, and some will still revel amid the ideals of painters, and some will be gladdened still more by truth's complete presentment which words alone can make.

THE PILGRIM, CRUSADER AND VIRGIN.

ARMAGEDDON; THE KEY AND SICKLE.

"From the moist regions of the western star, The wandering hermits wake the storm of war; Their limbs all iron, their souls all flame; A countless host the Red Cross warriors came."--REGINALD HEBER.

As a traveler climbs the mountain to see the sunrise, so he that would overlook the past or present must needs clamber to some lofty point of vision in a significant era or historic location. There are two plains in Syria; one lying along the Mediterranean, the other jutting out from the base of the former toward Jordan; the two together, in shape very like a sickle, have witnessed events wonderfully instructive and determinate to the student of the philosophy of time's course. These two plains are known respectively as Esdraelon and Acre. The sea and the mountains give these plains their sickle shape, and the geographical outlines are constantly suggestively before the mind as one remembers these plateaus not only as the highways but the battle-fields of the ancient nations. For while, as one says, "the face of nature smiles"--"no spot on earth more fertile," he also says "no field on earth was so fattened by the blood of the slain." There the Philistines, the Ptolemys, Antiochus, the Maccabees, Herod, Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, Salah-ed-din, Coeur-de-Lion, Melek-Seruf and Napoleon, each in turn, put their ambitions and their beliefs to the stern arbitrament of swords. There the kingdom of the House of David struggled for life; there the splendid dream of the Crusaders ended as a nightmare.

As a jewel in the haft of the sickle, at the northerly end of the plain by the sea, sits the city of Acre. This city compels the attention of the preacher and student of history and gives theme to him who blends symbol into song. Acre gave its name to its adjacent country round about, and though both city and plain witnessed many a change of master in the past, those changing masters, to gratify their whims or strengthen their policies from time to time, giving the places various names. The Knights of Saint John made it their elect city, honoring it as Saint Jean de Acre, the martyr maid of France. From the city itself one may look out over the sea-highway of nations; from the drear and lofty mountains of its surrounding country one may look over many memorable places. Acre was often called the "Key of Palestine" by the soldier strategists and by the chroniclers of events. To their testimony is added that of the inspired writers and prophets who made it their key and mountain of outlook frequently.

These plains, dotted all about by sacred places, memorable for two great victories; Barak over the Canaanites and Gideon over the Midianites; and two great disasters, the death of Saul and the death of Josiah, became to the Jews the symbol of the conflict of right and wrong. Prophetically, and in the serene hope that righteousness at last would prevail, the plain was called Armageddon, "the Mountain of the Gospel." We hear the rapt Zechariah thus descanting: "The Lord also shall save the glory of the house of David and the house of David shall be as God." "And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born."

The prophet looked forth to the Pentecostal day of salvation and the assured victories of David's great successor. Following this ancient seer, John the beloved, in the Visions of the Apocalypse repeats, these oracles. During the wars of the Crusaders, Acre was sometimes in their possession and sometimes held by their Turkish foes. In the year 1191 Richard the Lion Heart wrested it from the infidel leader Salah-ed-din. The Christians held it firmly until 1291, the time when the last wave of the Crusader advance ebbed, in bloody defeat, from the shores of the Holy Land. For two hundred years the believer of the West and the Moslem grappled with each other in deadly conflict; war's fortunes often changing, but the awful price in human misery and human blood was inexorably exacted at every stage of the conflict. Acre was the focus toward which the eddying tides ever and anon moved; therefore it saw not only the end but the worst of the Crusades.

Our story begins A. D. 1291 at Acre, the Key of Palestine, in Armageddon, "the mountain of the Gospel." The situation may be briefly depicted: Acre was filled with a mixed and un-homogeneous population. There were the ubiquitous Galilean traders, without politics; shrewd to the last degree in traffic and courtly as a Parisian; there some secret, sullen, silent enemies of the Christian invaders, awaiting the coming end; there hundreds of those camp-following nondescript "good lord and good devil" characters, and there the remnants of the Crusader armies. The latter were not only diminished as to numbers but greatly degraded in moral tone. Their warfare had been belittled to a defense and a retreat. The adventurers were uppermost; courts-martial, intrigues and fanfaronade were their occupation daily. Prince Edward, the Christian leader, had made a sworn treaty with the Moslems long before this time; but his pious followers had quickly, wickedly violated it. Thereupon the Sultan, Kha-tel, had made an irrevocable treaty with himself, sealed with the most awful oath he could register, that he would never tire until he had exterminated the last of the Western invaders now circumscribed and besieged in Acre. With 200,000 dusky followers the Sultan besieged the last stronghold of the Crusaders. The hearts of the defenders sank within them, and scores sought safety in homeward flight, loading down every vessel bound for Europe. Among the first fugitives was the chief leader, Hugh de Lusignan, who wore the phantom title, "King of Jerusalem." He preferred the safety of distant Cyprus to the doubtful regality which was overshadowed with nearing death. Only 12,000 were left to represent the Crusade cause which once mustered millions. May 18, 1291, the devoted city was stormed by the Turks; an entrance was effected and a murderous carnage, heaping the streets with the dead, and redding the foam of the moaning sea, followed. But there was no easy victory to the Moslem, for the steady, vigorous, brilliant, desperate fighting of the knights, laying low piles of their foes for every one of themselves that fell, compelled the respect of the Sultan's host. The Turks attempted to gain a surrender by offering bribes; these failing, terms were offered. The latter, which included permission for the Crusade remnant to depart the country in peace, were accepted. But the Sultan, taught, if he needed the lesson, by the perfidy of Prince Edward's Christian truce-breakers, quickly broke his promise of safe conduct. Though the retreating band was in no way party to the wrong he sought to avenge, they were mercilessly ambuscaded. There followed another struggle to the death, a handful against a host and but few succeeded in cutting their way through the cordon of death. History has often recounted the preceding events up to the point; from this point it is proposed to lead the reader along the career of a fragment tossed out of the foregoing whirlpool of disaster.

SIR CHARLEROY; THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE AND KNIGHT OF SAINT MARY.

"'Tis quickly seen, Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had been; That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last, And spoke of passion but of passion past."

...

NAZARETH.

The avenging Turks easily persuaded themselves that they could serve God better by participating in the sacking of fallen Acre than by pursuing the conquered, fleeing Christian knights; so they let the latter escape inland, while they themselves returned to the pillage. Ere long, by stealth, good fortune and Providential leading, the fugitives arrived unmolested at the top of a hill, overlooking the little city of Nazareth, forever memorable as having been once the earthly abiding place of Jesus and Mary. On the way thither scarcely a sentence had been spoken, for each felt that murmuring would be harmful, mirth inopportune. They chose their course indifferently, all following Sir Charleroy de Griffin because he rode bravely and onward. The fugitives paused, partly sequestered by the shrubbed hillock, forgetting for a time all else in admiration of the outspreading panorama in view. Heaven and earth were smiling at each other; thousands of leagues of sky were filled with the raptured songs of larks, while as echo and challenge of the songs from above, the thrush and robin of the grass knoll and thicket responded. From the plains of El Battaf on the north to Esdraelon on the south Nature, God's flower queen, had decked the earth everywhere with blossoms of pinks, tulips and marigolds.

"Those dusky cowards," spoke Sir Charleroy, "though numbering ten to one, will not seek us here; they'll wait an opportunity to ambuscade us."

"We've broken our knight's pledge, never to flee more than the distance of four French acres from a foe, and yet methinks we've made them respect our swords; that's something to say, though we've not made them respect our creed." It was a Knight of the Golden Cross that spoke.

Sir Charleroy continued, while his eyes turned toward the city: "I thirst for the waters of a fount in Nazareth as did David once for one in Bethlehem."

"For all of our getting at it, Nazareth's water might as well be in Ethiopia," spoke a Hospitaler.

"I've a yearning that comes near to sending me on a charge into the city."

"That would be a hot pursuit of death surely."

"A fair one, then, since death has been long pursuing us." After a moment's pause Sir Charleroy continued:

"Ah, death! None can escape, none overtake him; see we are his prisoners now, yet he tantalizes us by a show of immunity. As a sarcophagus is let down by suspending ropes in tedious stages, with jogglings and pauses, into the grave, so passes each through perils and sickenings from life to death. No, no, an undue fear of death intoxicates us until phantasmagoria possess the brain. We call these hopes; they are delusive! But will any of you follow for a charge down to the Virgin's fountain? We can not more than die; that we must soon, in any event. I think I could die more complacently, having cooled my thirst where she was wont to cool hers."

"We may have plenty of miserable fancies, if we only court such; for me, Templar, I prefer to comfort myself by cheerier thoughts; while I drank there, I'd think of the coolings of death's streams; of her, that at this fountain slaked her body's thirst and from the chalice of death drank serenely at last. My sword, the gift of my king, after having shed torrents of blood, hangs uselessly at my side. It seems cruel as powerless; ay, 'tis hateful! My mother gave me, on my departure, better gifts by far; tears, kisses, undying love, and the charge to call on Mary if ever evil befell me. The latter I know not how to do; but still my weak faith, methinks, would be helped to cry 'Mother' to God, if I could only stand where that mother stood who won the first love of the infant Jesus, the last anxious thoughts of the God man."

"We are in our present plight because we have won heaven's neglect through having more vices than graces, probably."

"Whatever the cause, the mocking disappointment is apparent. It is nigh thirteen hundred years since the Holy son and His mother began proclaiming and exemplifying the White Kingdom here. Now in all this land of theirs, we thirteen, fateful number, alone are left of those who openly own His cause. Yea, and the city where He grew in favor, these nature-blessed plains whose flowers gave Him picture sermons, are all filled with burrowing monsters eternally at war with Him and His."

"Faith will rest until assured that the Promiser is dead, and that can never be, Sir Knight."

"My faith staggers at the sights of Nazareth. Chief, look yonder."

The knights all now called Sir Charleroy chief, when addressing him.

"At what?"

"The ruins!"

"Ah, all that's left of our Crusader church. They say it was built on the very spot where Mary fell fainting, when she saw the Nazarenes in wrath dragging her son away to cast him down from the precipice to death. But He escaped, though the church since built did not!"

"True; therefore it seems to me that the hand on time's dial turns backward. This city is filled with creatures having hearts as hard as the limestone walls of the cave-like houses they fittingly inhabit. If Christ and His Mother were again on earth as before, mercy's ministers, the present inhabitants of Nazareth would surpass His ancient persecutors in the zeal with which they would drag not only Him but His mother to the cliffs."

"Over the door of yon ruined church, some hand of faith carved the word 'Victory!' The word is there yet, and though the hand that carved it is dead, the faith which prompted it hath victory assured it."

"'Victory,' in ruins! A meaningless boast, as it seems to me, Sir Charleroy. Such victory as ours; shadowy and very distant!"

At that moment one of the Templars, who had been secretly praying behind a cactus hedge, drew near and the Hospitaler addressed him:

"Brother, any token?"

"Praise Jehovah! yes, of peace."

"How came it?"

"In my communings, God brought to my mind how the wondrous Deborah, not far from here, pushed the pusillanimous Barak from his refuge among the pistacas and oaks, from waverings to courage and to glorious victory over God's foes."

"A happy thought; 'the stars on their course fought against Sisera!'"

"Barak was called the 'thunderbolt,' but Deborah was the 'lightning.' The lightning gave force to the bolt and God to the lightning."

Sir Charleroy, catching the last sentence, joined in the debate:

"Gentlemen, there is another lesson on the brow of that history; it is, that women, having more trust, cleave closer to God in peril than do men. Men are in a panic when their devices fail; women have fewer devices to fail, hence are less easily confounded. For that reason God sent out our race in pairs."

"Hermon's breast holds the last ray of the setting sun," remarked the Golden Cross.

"And the Transfiguration of Christ is recalled! I think some angel of God is holding the sunlight there for our instruction, now," exclaimed the chief.

"Our instruction?" queried the Templar. "I do not discern its meaning; campaigning I fear has dulled my brain."

"The Son of Mary, on yon mount, met Elijah, representative of the prophets, Moses, representative of the law; both called from the deathless land to proclaim the fulfillment of all prophecy and law through His coming passion."

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