The Christian Part 102

"True, but still----"

"If that is coming to a bad end I shall have to believe that my father, who was a missionary, came to a bad end too when he was killed by the fevers of Africa. Every martyr comes to a bad end if that is a bad ending. And so does everybody who is brave and true and does good to humanity and is willing to die for it. But it isn't bad. It's glorious!

I would rather be the daughter of a man who died like that than be the daughter of an earl, and if I could have been the wife of one who was torn and trampled down, in the streets by the very people----"

But her face, which had been aflame, broke into tears again and her voice failed her. The old man could not speak, and there was silence for a moment. Then she recovered herself and said quietly:

"I came to ask you if you could do something for me."

"What is it?"

"You may have heard that John wished me to marry him?"

"Would to G.o.d you had done so!"

"That was when everybody was praising him."

"Well?"

"Everybody is abusing him now, and railing at him and insulting him."

"Well?"

"I want to marry him at last if there is a way--if you think it is possible and can be managed."

"But you say he is a dying man!"

"That's why! When he comes to himself he will be thinking as you think, that his life has been a failure, and I want somebody to be there and say: 'It isn't, it is only beginning, it is the grain of mustard seed that _must_ die, but it will live in the heart of humanity for ages and ages to come; and I would rather take up your name, injured and insulted as it is, than win all the glory the world has in it.'"

The tears were coursing down the old man's face, and for some minutes he did not attempt to speak. Then he said:

"What you propose is quite possible. It will be a canonical marriage, but it will take some little time to arrange. I must send across to Lambeth Palace. Toward evening I can go down to where he lies and take the license with me. Meantime speak to a clergyman and have everything in readiness."

He walked with Glory down the long corridor to the door, and there he kissed her on the forehead and said:

"I've long known that a woman can be brave, but meeting you this morning has taught me something else, my child. Time and again I thought John's love of you was near to madness. He was ready to give up everything for it--everything! And he was right! Love like yours is the pearl of pearls, and he who wins it is a prince of princes!"

Later the same day, when the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his room, a member of his cabinet brought him an evening paper containing an article which was making a deep impression in London. It was understood to be written by a journalist of Jewish extraction:

"'HIS BLOOD BE ON US AND ON OUR CHILDREN.'

"This prediction has been for eighteen hundred years the expression of an historical truth. That the whole Jewish nation, and not Pilate or the rabble of Jerusalem, killed Jesus is a fact which every Jew has been made to feel down to the present day. But let the Christian nation that is without sin toward the Founder of Christianity first cast a stone at the Jews. If it is true, as Jesus himself said, that he who offers a cup of cold water to the least of his little ones offers it to him, then it is also true that he who inflicts torture and death on his followers crucifies him afresh. The unhappy man who has been miserably murdered in the slums of Westminster was a follower of Jesus if ever there lived one, and whosoever the actual persons may be who are guilty of his death, the true culprit is the Christian nation which has inflicted mockeries and insults on everybody who has dared to stand alone under the ensign of Christ.

"Let us not be led away by sneers. This man, whatever his errors, his weaknesses, his self-delusions, and his many human failings, was a Christian. He was the prophet of woman in relation to humanity as hardly any one since Jesus has ever been. And he is hounded out of life. Thus, after nineteen centuries, Christianity presents the same characteristics of frightful tyranny which disfigured the old Jewish law. 'We have a law, and by our law he ought to die.' Such is the sentence still p.r.o.nounced on reformers in a country where civil and religious laws are confounded. G.o.d grant the other half of that doom may not also come true--'His blood be on us and on our children!'"

XV.

There was a crowd of people of all sorts outside the tenement house when Glory returned to Brown's Square, and even the stairs were thronged with them. "The nurse!" they whispered as Glory appeared, and they made a way for her. Aggie was on the landing, wiping her eyes and answering the questions of strangers, being half afraid of the notoriety her poor room was achieving and half proud of it.

"The laidy 'as came, Miss Gloria, and she sent me to tell you to wyte 'ere for 'er a minute."

Then putting her head in at the open doer she beckoned and Mrs.

Callender came out.

"Hus.h.!.+ He's coming to. The poor laddie! He's been calling for ye, and calling and calling. But he thinks ye're in heaven together, seemingly, so ye must no say anything to shock him. Come your ways in now, and tak'

care, la.s.sie."

John was still wandering, and the light of another world was in his eyes, but he was smiling, and he appeared to see.

"Where is she?" he said in the toneless voice of one who talks in his sleep.

"She's here now. Look! She's close beside ye."

Glory advanced a step and stood beside the bed, struggling with herself not to fall upon his breast. He looked at her with a smile, but without any surprise, and said:

"I knew that you would come to meet me, Glory! How happy you look! We shall both be happy now."

Then his eyes wandered about the poor, ill-furnished apartment, and he said:

"How beautiful it is here! And how lightsome the air is! Look! The golden gates! And the seven golden candlesticks! And the sea of gla.s.s like unto crystal! And all the innumerable company of the angels!"

Aggie, who had returned to the room, was crying audibly.

"Are you crying. Glory? Foolish child to cry! But I know--I understand!

Put your dear hand in mine, my child, and we will go together to G.o.d's throne and say: 'Father, you must forgive us two. We were but man and woman, and we could not help but love each other, though it was a fault, and for one of us it was a sin.' And G.o.d will forgive us, because he made us so, and because G.o.d is the G.o.d of love."

Glory could bear no more. "John!" she whispered.

He raised himself on his elbow and held his head aslant, like one who listens to a sound that comes from a distance.

"John!"

"That's Glory's voice."

"It _is_ Glory, dearest."'

The serenity in his face gave way to a look of bewilderment.

"But Glory is dead."

"No, dear, she is alive, and she will never leave you again."

"What place is this?"