William Cleaver Wilkinson

“ All other thought than this, 'Saul, thou art shamed!'"
"Why, Saul," cried she, "what canst thou mean? Thou shamed?
How shamed?"
"Rachel, I lost, and Stephen won."
"What didst thou lose?" said Rachel, wonderingly;
"And what did Stephen win, that also thou
Won'st not? I cannot understand thee, Saul."
Such crystal clearness of simplicity
Became a mirror, wherein gazing, Saul
Beheld himself a double-minded man.
How should he deal with questioner like this?
"Why, Rachel, canst thou then not understand,"
He said, "how I should wish to conquer?" ”

“ And downcast heavily shook his hoary head:
"To dare is cheap and common with our race,
We are few dastards; did not Judas dare?
And Theudas? But their daring came to naught.
Wisdom with daring, fortitude to wait,
We need, son Saul; the daring that must do,
And cannot wait, has wrought us sumless ill."
Damped, but remonstrant, Saul still plied his plea:
"And yet but now, 'How long,' I heard thee cry,
'How long, Lord God of Sabaoth, how long?'"
"Yea," said Gamaliel, "that I daily cry."
"Thy counsel and thy praying how agree?"
"Men I bid wait; wait not, I pray my God." ”

“ Jerusalem!" he fervently bursts forth.
"Peace be within thy walls, prosperity
Within thy palaces! Yea, yet again,
Now for my brethren and companions' sakes,
Say I, 'Within thee, peace!' Lo, my vow hear:
For that the temple of the Lord my God
Is in thee, I henceforth thy good will seek.
And Thou, Jehovah in the heavens! behold,
Saul for himself that ancient promise claims:
'Prosper shall he Jerusalem who loves.'
For love not I Jerusalem, with love
To anguish, for her anguish and her tears?
Take pleasure in her stones, favor her dust,
O God, my God! Is not the set time come? ”

“ Rachel, methinks thou mightst have spared me this!
But nay, my sister, better is it so.
Haply no barb less keen had stung me back
To my old self and made me Saul again—
The weakling that I was, to pule and weep,
As if the cause were lost and all were lost!
I thank thee, sister, thou hast done me good,
Like medicine—like bitter medicine!
Tell me true, Rachel, thou didst feign me this,
To rouse me from my late unmanly swoon.
That is past now; I rise refreshed and strong,
I see my path before me, stretching straight,
I enter it to tread it to the end. ”

“ To thee; thou hast but heard a few heart-beats
Rendered articulate breath by grace of right
Thine own to know the truth, who hast the truth
Revealed to me.
"O other conscience mine,
Wherein have I gone wrong? I felt the power,
Asleep within me, stirring half awake,
To take possession of the minds of men
And sway their wills; the world was not too wide
To be the empire I could rule aright,
As chiefest minister, were such His will,
Of God's Messiah. Some one needs must sit
At His right hand to hear and execute
His pleasure—why not Saul? Who worthier? ”

“ But sister still to thee, and loyal, Saul,
Beyond all measure of that loyalty
I held before, which made me proud of thee,
And glad of thee, and spurred me on to praise
My brother as the paragon of men.
O Saul—"
"Nay, Rachel," Saul said, with a tone
Repressive more than the repressive words,
"I will not hear thee further in this vein.
Thou art a woman, and I must not blame
Thy weakness; sister too to me thou art,
And I will not misdoubt thy love; but thou
Hast added the last drop of bitterness
To the crowned cup of grief and shame poured out
For me to drink. ”

“ Ruth gushed in gracious tears, she veiled herself
With weeping, as sometimes a precipice
Veils itself dim with mist of cataract.
And Rachel wept with Ruth, until Ruth said:
"But where is Stephen, Rachel? It might be
They, meaning death, yet did not compass death.
Such things have been; haste, let us go and see.
Monstrous it were, if he should need me—I
The while here sitting weeping idle tears!"
"Come," Rachel said, and took her by the hand.
So hand in hand they went to Mary's house,
The elder guided as the younger led,
And neither speaking, stilled with solemn thought. ”

“ While Saul to Sergius so discoursing spoke,
Over their right the sun, long since uprisen,
Climbed the steep slope of morning in the sky.
And now the summit of a ridge those twain
Reach, whence, straightforward looking, they behold,
In light so bright, through air so fair, a scene
Of the most choice the eye can rest upon.
A wide and long champaign of fruitful green,
On either side hemmed in with skirting hill,
Stretches before them to the bounding sky,
Where Hermon, scarce descried through distance dim,
Silvers with frost each morn his crown of snows. ”

“ And shall not wisdom cry? My heart is hot,
Amid the multitude they make their prey,
To meet these false proclaimers to their face,
And stop their mouths, with Moses and with all
The prophets and the Psalms, from uttering lies."
Gamaliel heard, and like a lion stood,
That shakes his dewy mane from slumber roused;
The old man loomed in action nobly tall,
As thus, with weighty gesture, in a voice
Solid with will, he gently, sternly spoke:
"Nay, Saul, my son, thy zeal misguides thee now—
Thy zeal, and peradventure some conceit
Of wisdom wiser than thine elders. ”

“ But when at length the utterance of Ruth's thought
From converse passed into soliloquy
And the deep secret of her soul revealed,
Then Rachel caught a welcome gleam of hope.
A sign of grace she saw or seemed to see
At work for Ruth within her heart of grief,
Transmuting human sorrow to divine
Repentance, and for pain preparing peace.
"Let us go in together," Rachel said,
For they by this were nigh to Ruth's abode,
"Let us go in where we may be withdrawn
From note of such as here might mark our speech
Or action; I have word from him to thee." ”

“ A young man he, who, in the general thought,
Wherever moving, round about him wore
A golden halo of uncertain hope
And prophecy of bright futures. Aspect clear
And pure; straight stature; foothold firm and free;
The bloom of youth just ripening to the hue
Of perfect manhood upon cheek and brow;
Lip mobile, but not lax—capacity
Expressed of exquisite emotion, will
Elastic and resilient, tempered true
To bend, not break, and ultimately strong;
Glances of lightning latent in the eye,
But lightning liable to be quenched in tears;
The pride of every Hebrew, such was Saul. ”

“ The claim of Jesus to Messiahship
Assert, and from the psalms and prophets prove.
In guise a seraph rapt, with love aflame
And all aflame with knowledge, like the bush
That burned with God in Horeb unconsumed,
The fervent pure apostle Stephen stood,
In ardors from celestial altars caught
Kindling to incandescence—stood and forged,
With ringing blow on blow, his argument,
A vivid weapon edged and tempered so,
And in those hands so wielded, that its stroke
No mortal might abide and bide upright.
Stephen is such as Saul erelong will be
Risen from the baptism of the Holy Ghost! ”

“ The cloudy brow,
So unlike my brother—I have brought it back,
I see, dear Saul, by only mentioning him.
Hate him well, Saul, and be at peace again.
To hate is safer, better, than to scorn.
We scorn with pride, we must with conscience hate,
Such hating as I mean. Thou art too proud, Saul."
Saul answered, "For my pride I hate myself."
[145] But she: "Were it not wiselier done to hate
One's pride, than for one's pride to hate one's self?
Whoever hates himself for his own pride
Still keeps the pride for which he hates himself. ”

“ Because, forsooth, the meddling Shimei
Pointed it out to him offensively,
Saul moved at once to go to Bethany.
Seven servitors he chose, strong men whom use
Had, hand and heart, seasoned to such employ—
With these a guide—and started on his way.
Again the moon shone, as the yesternight,
And flooded heaven and earth with glory mild.
But her mild glory now was a rebuke
To human passion, not a balm to pain. ”

“ Said Saul; "Cilicia keeps his memory green
For virtues long in Roman rulers rare.
His too a sounding, stately eloquence,
And copious; but Greek Demosthenes
Pleases me better, with that stormy stress
Of passion in him, reason on fire with love
Or hatred, that indignant vehemence
[330] Which overwhelms us like a torrent flood,
Or, like a torrent flood, upon its breast
Lifts us, and tosses us, and bears us on!
He is more like our Hebrew prophets rapt
Above themselves in sympathy with God." ”

“ Shall yield his person to the Sanhedrim,
Doubtless to suffer but the heavier doom
For what is doing, unless they refrain.
Hirani had adjured them by the name
Of Jesus, but those heady men, that name,
That mastership, owned not, Jews only still,
Still in the changed new spirit all unschooled.
So by their own mad motion ever mad
Growing, they hurtle Saul along the way—
He the while musing, with mind strangely clear,
How like to Stephen's lot his own is now!—
Till chance unlooked-for their wild turbulence stays.
All had been teemed from Shimei's fruitful brain. ”

“ Ruth caught her sobs and held them while she spoke:
"Flesh of thy flesh am I; thou slayest me
In slaying thyself; I will not have it so.
Not ready yet am I to die in thee;
And thee God surely needs alive, not dead:
The dead cannot praise God nor serve His cause.
Who will so preach that gospel that thou lovest
When thou art gone? Who then will silence Saul?
I tell thee, Stephen, this is Satan's guile—
[171] To get thee slain—and overmatch mightst thou
The arch-deceiver, easily, if thou wouldst,
So easily—only live."
Conclusive seemed
Her argument to Ruth and stanched her tears. ”

“ With her own argument, Ruth tearful smiled
A smile that, tenfold tender through those tears,
Was argument to Stephen more than words.
From deep within he heaved a sigh and said:
"Oh! Woman! Woman! Ruth, thou teachest me
How Adam could, by Eve's enticement drawn,
Be even beguiled to die. And now, to live,
Not die, my Eve entices me. O Ruth,
I feel, I feel, doubt not but that I feel,
The sweet, the subtly sweet, dissolving spell
Of wish infused by thee, with thee to live,
With thee and for thee, nay, in thee, as thou
In me—this twain one life, how dear, how dear! ”

“ His wife's brow beautiful with hope, and said:
"Ruth, thou hast said; it is, be sure, his guile,
Satan's, whereby I presently shall die;
If so to die indeed be mine, who feel
Too young still, and too strong, too full of hope,
Too full of—shall I name it, Ruth?—too full
Of God Himself, the Holy Ghost, to die!
For He within me lives such life and power,
Death seems impossible, all weakness seems
Far off, an alien thing, and not for me;
I am immortal and omnipotent.
[172] That, Ruth, is when I stand to speak for God,
Preaching to men the gospel of His Son. ”

“ By the sole sun usurped his tabernacle
Whence sovran virtue beaming into all—
Sweet voice of singing-bird, sweet smile of flower,
Sweet breath exhaled from tender-fruited vine,
Joy, a full feast, through every flooded sense—
And, heightening all, that billowy onward sway
Of motion without effort on their steeds,
Made, to those lord possessors of the world,
Their talking like the coursing of their blood,
Self-moved, or like the running of a brook
[328] That laughs and sparkles on its downward way,
As ceasing never from its hope to drain
The fountain, brimming ever, whence it flows. ”

“ In opposition, a broad shield of brow
Immobile, placid, large circumference,
And orb of diamond proof, between them hung
There on the housetop still in dim twilight,
Ready to quench in darkness any ray
Of word or sign from him that should aspire
To reach an understanding guarded so—
Such to Saul seemed Gamaliel now, while yet,
Despite, repressed but irrepressible,
That strenuous strong spirit thus went on:
"Deeply I have desired to know my time
And not to waste my strength beating the air.
Are not men's needs other with other times? ”

“ Suddenly Shimei, the spell to break
He feared those simple, solemn, holy words
Again might cast upon the Sanhedrim.
The chance for heaven precarious is on earth
Ever, and now the heavenly chance was lost,
Such counter breath unable to withstand.
Those half-rapt souls reverted to themselves,
And brooked to listen—nay, assent gave they,
Even Saul too gave assent wrung out!—when, next,
"Stripes for his back!" sharply shrilled Shimei;
"Good forty stripes less one may save his soul! ”

“ Sergius applies his interpretation of the occurrence, and Saul finishes his journey on foot, blind, led by the hand into Damascus.
SAUL AND JESUS.
Without the limits of this earthly sphere,
Immeasurable distances beyond
The region of the utmost fixéd stars,
Nay, high above all height, transcending space,
Transcending time, subsists a different world,
Invisible, inapprehensible
To whatsoever power of human sense,
All unimaginable even—so far
Removed from aught that ever we on earth
Have seen, or heard, or felt, or known, or guessed. ”