CHAPTER XVII.
IT was so much later than he had intended, when Joel awoke next morning,that without stopping for anything to eat, he hurried out of the city,and took the road by which the Master had made such a triumphal entry afew days before.
Faded branches of palms still lay scattered by the wayside, thicklycovered with dust.
All unconscious of what had happened the night before, and what was evenat that very moment taking place, Joel trudged on to Bethany at a rapidpace, light-hearted and happy.
For six days he had been among enthusiastic Galileans who firmlybelieved that before the end of Passover week they should see theoverthrow of Rome, and all nations lying at the feet of a Jewish king.How long they had dreamed of this hour!
He turned to look back at the city. The white and gold of the Templedazzled his eyes, as it threw back the rays of the morning sun. Hethought of himself as he had stood that day on the roof of thecarpenter's house, stretching out longing arms to this holy place, andcalling down curses on the head of his enemy, Rehum.
Could he be the same boy? It seemed to him now that that poor, crippledbody, that bitter hatred, that burning thirst for revenge, must havebelonged to some one else, he felt so well, so strong, so full of loveto God and all mankind.
A little broken-winged sparrow fluttered feebly under a hedgerow. Hestopped to gather a handful of ripe berries for it, and even retracedhis steps to a tiny spring he had noticed farther back, to bring itwater in the hollow of a smooth stone.
He did not find Rehum at the place where Buz had told him to inquire.His father had taken him to his home, somewhere in Samaria.
Joel turned back, tired and disappointed. He was glad to lie down, whenhe reached Bethany again, and rest awhile. A peculiar darkness began tosettle down over the earth. Joel was perplexed and frightened; he knewit could not be an eclipse, for it was the time of the full moon.Finally he started back to Jerusalem, although it was like travelling inthe night, for the darkness had deepened and deepened for nearly threehours, and the mysterious gloom made him long to be with his friends.
His first thought was to find the Master, and he naturally turned towardthe Temple. Just as he started across the Porch of Solomon, the darknesswas lifted, and everything seemed to dance before his eyes. He had neverexperienced an earthquake shock before, but he felt sure that this wasone.
He braced himself against one of the pillars. How the massive columnsquivered! How the hot air throbbed! The darkness had been awful, butthis was doubly terrifying.
The earth had scarcely stopped trembling, when an old white-beardedpriest ran across the Court of the Gentiles; his wrinkled hands, raisedabove his head, shook as with palsy. The scream that he uttered seemedto transfix Joel with horror.
"_The veil of the Temple is rent in twain!_" he cried,--"_The veil ofthe Temple is rent in twain!_"
Then with a convulsive shudder he fell forward on his face. Joel's kneesshook. The darkness, the earthquake, and now this mighty force that hadlaid bare the Holy of Holies, filled him with an undefined dread.
He ran past the prostrate priest into the inner court, and saw forhimself. There hung the heavy curtain of Babylonian tapestry, in all itsglory of hyacinth and scarlet and purple, torn asunder from top tobottom. No earthquake shock could have made that ragged gash. The wrathof God must have come down and laid mighty fingers upon it.
He ran out of the Temple, and towards the house where he had slept thenight before.
The earthquake seemed to have shaken all Jerusalem into the streets.Strange words were afloat. A question overheard in passing one excitedgroup, an exclamation in another, made him run the faster.
At Reuben's shop he found Jesse and Ruth both crying from fright. Theattendant who had them in charge told him that his friends had been gonenearly all day.
"Where?" demanded Joel.
"I do not know exactly. They went out with one of the greatestmultitudes that ever passed through the gates of the city. Not onlyJews, but Greeks and Romans and Egyptians. You should have seen thecamels and the chariots, the chairs and the litters!" exclaimed the man.
A sudden fear fell upon the boy that this was the day that the One heloved best had been made king, and he had missed it,--had missed thegreatest opportunity of his life.
"Was it to follow Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth?" he demanded eagerly.
The man nodded.
"To crown Him?" was the next breathless question.
"No; to crucify Him."
The unexpected answer was almost a death-thrust. Joel stood a moment,dumb with horror. The blood seemed to stand still in his veins; therewas a roaring in his ears; then everything grew black before him. Heclutched blindly at the air, then staggered back against the wall.
"No, _no_, _no_, NO!" he cried; each word was louder than the last. "Iwill not believe it! You do not speak truth!"
He ran madly from the shop, down the street, and through the city gate.Out on the highway he met the returning multitude, most of them in asgreat haste as he.
Everything he saw seemed to confirm the truth of what he had just heard,but he could not believe it.
"No, no, no!" he gasped, in a breathless whisper, as he ran. "No, no,no! It cannot be! He is the Christ! The Son of God! They could not beable to do it, no matter how much they hated Him!"
But even as he ran he saw the hill where three crosses rose. He turnedsick and cold, and so weak he could scarcely stand. Still he stumbledresolutely on, but with his face turned away from the sight he dared notlook upon, lest seeing should be knowing what he feared.
At last he reached the place, and, shrinking back as if from an expectedblow, he slowly raised his eyes till they rested on the face of the deadbody hanging there.
The agonized shriek on his lips died half uttered, as he fellunconscious at the foot of the cross.
A long time after, one of the soldiers happening to notice him, turnedhim over with his foot, and prodded him sharply with his spear. Itpartially aroused him, and in a few moments he sat up. Then he looked upagain into the white face above him; but this time the bowed head awedhim into a deep calm.
The veil of the Temple was rent indeed, and through this pierced bodythere shone out from its Holy of Holies the Shekinah of God's love for adying world. It uplifted Joel, and drew him, and drew him, till heseemed to catch a faint glimpse of the Father's face; to feel himselffolded in boundless pardon, in pity so deep, and a love so unfathomed,that the lowest sinner could find a share. But while he gazed and gazedinto the white face, so glorified in its marble stillness, Joseph ofArimathea stood between him and the cross, giving directions, in a lowtone, for the removal of the body.
It seemed to waken Joel out of his trance; and when the bloodstainedform was stretched gently on the ground, he forgot his glimpse ofheavenly mysteries, he saw no longer the uplifted Christ. He sawinstead, the tortured body of the man he loved; the friend for whom hewould gladly have given his life.
Almost blinded by the rush of tears, he groped his way on his kneestoward it. A mantle of fine white linen had been laid over the lifelessbody; but one hand lay stretched out beside Him with a great bloodynail-hole through the palm,--it was the hand that had healed him; thehand that had fed the hungry multitudes; the hand that had been laid inblessing on the heads of little children, waiting by the roadside! Withthe thought of all it had done for him, with the thought of all it haddone for all the countless ones its warm, loving touch had comforted,came the remembrance of the torture it had just suffered. Joel lay downbeside it with a heart-broken moan.
Men came and lifted the body in its spotless covering. Joel did not lookup to see who bore it away.
The lifeless hand still hung down uncovered at His side. With his eyesfixed on that, Joel followed, longing to press it to his lips withburning kisses; but he dared not so much as touch it with tremblingfingers,--a sense of his unworthiness forbade.
As the silent procession went onward, Joel found himself walking besideAbigail. She had pushed her
veil aside that she might better see thestill form borne before them; she had stood near by through all thosehours of suffering. Her wan face and swollen eyes showed how the forceof her sympathy and grief had worn upon her.
Joel glanced around for Phineas. He was one of those who walked beforewith the motionless burden, his strong brown hands tenderly supportingthe Master's pierced feet; his face was as rigid as stone, and seemed toJoel to have grown years older since the night before.
Another swift rush of tears blinded Joel, as he looked at the set,despairing face, and then at what he carried.
O friend of Phineas! O feet that often ran to meet him on the grassyhillsides of Nazareth, that walked beside him at his daily toil, and ledhim to a nobler living!--Thou hast climbed the mountain of Beatitudes!Thou hast walked the wind-swept waters of the Galilee! But not of thisis he thinking now. It is of Thy life's unselfish pilgrimage; of thedust and travel stains of the feet he bears; of the many steps, takennever for self, always for others; of the cure and the comfort they havedaily carried; of the great love that hath made their very passing by tobe a benediction.
It seemed strange to Joel that, in the midst of such overpoweringsorrow, trivial little things could claim his attention. Years afterwardhe remembered just how the long streaks of yellow sunshine stole underthe trees of the garden; he could hear the whirr of grasshoppers,jumping up in the path ahead of them; he could smell the heavy odor oflilies growing beside an old tomb.
The sorrowful little group wound its way to a part of the garden where anew tomb had been hewn out of the rock; here Joseph of Arimatheamotioned them to stop. They laid the open bier gently on the ground, andJoel watched them with dry eyes but trembling lips, as they noiselesslyprepared the body for its hurried burial.
From time to time as they wound the bands of white linen, powdered withmyrrh and aloes, they glanced up nervously at the sinking sun. TheSabbath eve was almost upon them, and the old slavish fear of the Lawmade them hasten. A low stifled moaning rose from the lips of the women,as the One they had followed so long was lifted up, and borne foreverout of their sight, through the low doorway of the tomb.
Strong hands rolled the massive stone in place that barred the narrowopening. Then all was over; there was nothing more that could be done.
The desolate mourners sat down on the grass outside the tomb, to watchand weep and wait over a dead hope and a lost cause.
A deep stillness settled over the garden as they lingered there in thegathering twilight. They grew calm after awhile, and began to talk inlow tones of the awful events of the day just dying.
Gradually, Joel learned all that had taken place. As he heard the storyof the shame and abuse and torture that had been heaped upon the One heloved better than all the world, his face grew white with horror andindignation.
"Oh, wasn't there _one_ to stand up for Him?" he cried, with claspedhands and streaming eyes. "Wasn't there _one_ to speak a word in Hisdefence? O my Beloved!" he moaned. "Out of all the thousands Thou didstheal, out of all the multitudes Thou didst bless, not one to bearwitness!"
He rocked himself to and fro on his knees, wringing his hands as if thethought brought him unspeakable anguish.
"Oh, if I had only been there!" he moaned. "If I could only have stoodup beside Him and told what He had done for me! O my God! My God! Howcan I bear it? To think He went to His death without a friend andwithout a follower, when I loved Him so! All alone! Not one to speak forHim, not one!"
Groping with tear-blinded eyes towards the tomb, the boy stretched hisarms lovingly around the great stone that stopped its entrance; thensuddenly realizing that he could never go any closer to the One inside,never see Him again, he leaned his head hopelessly against the rock, andgave way to his feeling of utter loneliness and despair.
How long he stood there, he did not know. When he looked up again, thewomen had gone, and it was nearly dark. Phineas and several other menlingered in the black shadows of the trees, and Joel joined them.
Roman guards came presently. A stout cord was stretched across thestone, its ends firmly fastened, and sealed with the seal of Caesar. Awatch-fire was kindled near by; then the Roman sentinels began theirsteady tramp! tramp! as they paced back and forth.
High overhead the stars began to set their countless watch-fires in theheavens; then the white full moon of the Passover looked down, and allnight long kept its silent vigil over the forsaken tomb of the sleepingChrist.
* * * * *
Abigail had found shelter for the night with friends, in a tent justoutside the city; but Joel and Phineas took their way back to Bethany.
Little was said as they trudged along in the moonlight. Joel thoughtonly of one thing,--his great loss, the love of which he had beenbereft. But to Phineas this death meant much more than the separationfrom the best of friends; it meant the death of a cause on which he hadstaked his all. He must go back to Galilee to be the laughing-stock ofhis old neighbors. He who they trusted would have saved Israel had beenput to death as a felon,--crucified between two thieves! The cause waslost; he was left to face an utter failure.
When the moon went down that morning over the hills of Judea, there weremany hearts that mourned the Man of Nazareth, but not a soul in all theuniverse believed on Him as the Son of God.
Hope lay dead in the tomb of Joseph, with a great stone forever wallingit in.