Charles Kingsley

“ And so, indeed, he had; for he was sleeping sweetly, with open lack- lustre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the ceiling; while the negress, with her head fallen on her chest, seemed equally unconscious of their presence.
'We'll see,' quoth Miriam; and taking up the lamp, she held the flame unceremoniously to the arm of each of them; but neither winced nor stirred.
'Surely your wine is not drugged?' said Philammon, in trepidation.
'Why not? What has made them beasts, may make us angels. You seem none the less lively for it! ”

“ Consecrated by the cross, this flesh shall not only rest in hope but work in power. Approach, and be healed! Approach, and see the glory of the saints, the glory of the poor. Approach, and learn that that which man despises, God hath highly esteemed; that that which man rejects, God accepts; that that which man punishes, God rewards. Approach, and see how God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things of this world to confound the strong. Man abhors the cross: The Son of God condescended to endure it! ”

“ And she drained another cup, and then went on, half talking to herself—
'Ay, it is poison; and music is poison; and woman is poison, according to the new creed, Pagan and Christian; and wine will be poison, and meat will be poison, some day; and we shall have a world full of mad Nebuchadnezzars, eating grass like oxen. It is poisonous, and brutal, and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and an eunuch, and a dry branch. You are all in the same lie, Christians and philosophers, Cyril and Hypatia! ”

“ Man curses the publican, while he employs him to fill his coffers with the plunder of the poor: The Son of God calls him from the receipt of custom to be an apostle, higher than the kings of the earth. Man casts away the harlot like a faded flower, when he has tempted her to become the slave of sin for a season: and the Son of God calls her, the defiled, the despised, the forsaken, to Himself, accepts her tears, blesses her offering, and declares that her sins are forgiven, for she hath loved much; while to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little. . . .'
Philammon heard no more. ”

“ Look at it there, creaming and curdling, the darling! purring like a cat at the very thought of touching human lips! As sweet as honey, as strong as fire, as clear as amber! Drink, ye children of Gehenna; and make good use of the little time that is left you between this and the unquenchable fire!'
And tossing a cup of it down her own throat, as if it had been water, she watched her companions with a meaning look, as they drank.
The little porter followed her example gallantly. Philammon looked, and longed, and sipped blushingly and bashfully, and tried to fancy that he did not care for it ”

“ You do not admire simple woman? You must have something more learned and intellectual and spiritual, and so forth. I wonder whether Eve, when she came to Adam in the garden, brought with her a certificate of proficiency in the seven sciences? Well, well—like must after like. Perhaps we shall be able to suit you after all. Vanish, daughters of Midian!'
The girls vanished accordingly, whispering and laughing; and Philammon found himself alone. ”

“ Our prophets were not afraid of calling for music, when they wished to prophesy, and letting it soften and raise their souls, and open and quicken them till they saw into the inner harmony of things, and beheld the future in the present; for they knew who made the melody and harmony, and made them the outward symbols of the inward song which runs through sun and stars, storm and tempest, fulfilling his word— in that these sham philosophers the heathen are wiser than those Christian monks. ”

“ But as he, the porter, and his negro wife were sitting silently and sadly enough together, Miriam came in, apparently in high good humour, and lingered a moment on her way to her own apartments upstairs.
'Eh? At supper? And nothing but lentils and water-melons, when the flesh-pots of Egypt have been famous any time these two thousand years. Ah! but times are changed since then! . . . . You have worn out the old Hebrew hints, you miserable Gentiles, you, and got a Caesar instead of a Joseph! Hist, you hussies!' cried she to the girls upstairs, clapping her hands loudly. ”

“ XXVI. Miriam's Plot He who has worshipped a woman, even against his will and conscience, knows well how storm may follow storm, and earthquake earthquake, before his idol be utterly overthrown. And so Philammon found that evening, as he sat pondering over the strange chances of the day; for, as he pondered, his old feelings towards Hypatia began, in spite of the struggles of his conscience and reason, to revive within him. ”

“ Nay, such are in kings' palaces, and in the palaces of prefects who would needs be emperors, and cast away the Lord's bonds from them— of whom it is written, that He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth them to scorn, and taketh the wicked in their own snare, and maketh the devices of princes of none effect. Ay, in king's palaces, and in theatres too, where the rich of this world, poor in faith, deny their covenant, and defile their baptismal robes that they may do honour to the devourers of the earth. Woe to them who think that they may partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. ”

“ Man tramples on the poor: The Son of God hath not where to lay His head. Man passes by the sick as useless: The Son of God chooses them to be partakers of His sufferings, that the glory of God may be made manifest in them. ”

“ Not only pure love of her great loveliness, the righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty, whether in man or woman, as something of real worth—divine, heavenly, ay, though we know not how, in a most deep sense eternal; which makes our reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of moralists about 'the fleeting hues of this our painted clay'; telling men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures tell them, that physical beauty is the deepest of all spiritual symbols ”

“ Ah, you'll smart for it some day—you'll smart for it some day, you daughters of Adam's first wife!'
Down came, by the hands of one of the Syrian slave-girls, the fowl and the wine.
'There, now; we'll all sup together. Wine, that maketh glad the heart of man!—Youth, you were a monk once, so you have read all about that, eh? and about the best wine which goes down sweetly, causing the lips of them that are asleep to speak. And rare wine it was, I warrant, which the blessed Solomon had in his little country cellar up there in Lebanon. ”

“ What can follow, but that one so honoured in the flesh should also be honoured in the life which he now lives, and that from the virtue of these thrice-holy limbs the leper should be cleansed, the dumb should speak, the very dead be raised? ”