Ebonite

“ But in truth I could never have paused to ask what in such a case oath or law permitted, "Listen, Eunané," I said, "and be calm. Not only Eveena, not only I, but hundreds, thousands, of the best and kindliest men and women of your world hold this faith as fast as we do. You feel what Eveena is. What she is and what others are not, she owes to this trust:—to the assurance of a Power unseen, that rules our lives and fortunes and watches our conduct, that will exact an account thereof, that holds us as His children, and will never part with us. ”

“ Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the sunset
Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambrosial meadows.
Ah! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen,
And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial ascended,—
Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and patience!
Then, all-forgetful of self, she wandered into the village,
Cheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts of the women,
As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they departed,
Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their children. ”

“ Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her lover.
“Patience!” the priest would say; “have faith, and thy prayer will be answered!
Look at this delicate flower that lifts its head from the meadow,
See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the magnet;
It is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has suspended
Here on its fragile stalk, to direct the traveller's journey
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert.
Such in the soul of man is faith. ”

“ Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them,
Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking under their shadow,
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision.
Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids,
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his bedside.
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue would have spoken.
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. ”

“ You talk as though our abbess were almost a hundred years old, like Father Bonaik—she who rides like a warrior, who hunts with falcons, and whose upper lip is shaded by a slight reddish moustache neither more nor less than that of a youth of eighteen! ”

“ Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and repeated
Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent,
All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and reverses.
Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that another
Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been disappointed.
Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's compassion,
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was near her,
She in turn related her love and all its disasters. ”

“ The immediate successors of the "congregation at Jerusalem"—to which Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers belonged—were, as we have seen, the Ebionites. Eusebius, the first ecclesiastical historian (born A. D. 264) , speaking of the Ebionites (i. e. "poor men") , tell us that they believed Jesus to be "a simple and common man," born as other men, "of Mary and her husband." [134:2]
The views held by the Ebionites of Jesus were, it is said, derived from the Gospel of Matthew, and what they learned direct from the Apostles. ”

“ Nothing more can happen to me. No excommunication, no punishment, can make my present suffering harder to bear, but if you harm the doctor, I shall curse the hour I invited you to cross my threshold."
The monk looked at the other in surprise and answered in a more gentle tone: "You have always walked in your own way, Adam; but whither are you going now? Has the Jew bewitched you, or what binds you to him, that you look, on his account, as if a thunderbolt had struck you? No one shall have cause to curse the hour he invited Benedict to be his guest. ”

“ Sweet Eponine has given us so many proofs of intelligence, kindly disposition, and sociability that she has been promoted, by common consent, to the dignity of a person, for it is plain that a higher order of reason than instinct guides her actions. This dignity entails the right of eating at table like a person, and not from a saucer in a corner, like an animal. So Eponine’s chair is placed beside mine at lunch and dinner, and on [313] account of her size she is allowed to rest her fore paws upon the edge of the table. She has her own place set, without fork or spoon, but with her glass. ”

“ This distinction of Origen’s between those Ebionites who accepted and those who denied the supernatural birth of Christ is drawn also by Eusebius (see below, §3) . Epiphanius (Hær. XXIX. sqq.) is the first to make two distinct heretical sects—the Ebionites and the Nazarenes. It has been the custom of historians to carry this distinction back into apostolic times, and to trace down to the time of Epiphanius the continuous existence of a milder party—the Nazarenes—and of a stricter party—the Ebionites; but this distinction Nitzsch (Dogmengesch. p. 37 sqq.) has shown to be entirely groundless. ”

“ At least, the real Eugenia would certainly have preferred to become a nun. For how in the world can a monk's cowl and living among seventy monks be a merit and salvation for any woman, even the most learned and pious? No, I still hold to my opinion that you are a smooth-faced beardless fellow of an impostor, whom I don't trust in the slightest! Besides, Eugenia has been proclaimed as deified and dwelling among the stars; her image stands where it was dedicated in the temple, and it will go hard enough with you if you persist in your slanderous assertion. ”

“ And when this Saint Epiphanius heard that Abba John, Bishop of the city of Jerusalem, was a man without pity, he made an excuse, and borrowed from him the gold and silver vessels which he used at his table and out of which he ate, and Abba John gave them to him, and Saint Epiphanius sold them, and gave [the price of] them to the poor and needy. And when Abba John asked him for them and he would not give back any of them, he seized Saint Epiphanius by the hem of his garment, in the Church of the Sepulcher of our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ Some judges, however, consider that the real Ebony-tree is the Diospyrus Ebenus, a native of Jamaica.——In ancient times it was much more in use and esteem. Pluto, the sovereign of the infernal regions, is represented as seated on a throne of Ebony; the statues of the Egyptian gods were wrought in Ebony. According to Pausanias, the statue of the Pythian Apollo was formed of this wood; and that writer recounts that a Cyprian, well versed in plant lore, had told him that the true and veritable Ebony was a plant that produced neither leaf, flower, nor fruit ”

“ Too weak now to reason, or to resist the impression enforced upon her mind by minds always far more powerful than her own in its brightest hours, she turned instinctively from the thought of blackness, senselessness eternal, to that of a Father whose hand could uphold, of the wings that can leap the grave. Her left hand clasped in mine, her right in Eveena's,— looking most in my face, because weakness leant on strength even more than love appealed to love—Eunané spent the remaining hours of that night in calm contentment and peace. ”

“ They also that were called Ebionites, who had once had much power in the Church so that they had persuaded many, began now to be lightly esteemed; and whereas in former times they alone seemed to be the Church, and the rest heretics; now the contrary came to pass, and the Ebionites themselves came to be thought heretics—insomuch that the name Ebionites became a reproach among the faithful—and the doctrine of Paulus the Apostle was considered to be the doctrine of all the Churches. ”

“ And he beheld a maiden, with yellow curling hair, and a frontlet of gold upon her head; and she was clad in a dress of yellow satin, and on her feet were shoes of variegated leather. And she approached the gate, and desired that it should be opened. "Heaven knows, Lady," said Owain, "it is no more possible for me to open to thee from hence, than it is for thee to set me free." "Truly," said the damsel, "it is very sad that thou canst not be released, and every woman ought to succour thee, for I never saw one more faithful in the service of ladies than thou. ”

“ I have heard enough about the Jew and the slaves!" and wishing to put an end to a conversation that was painful to him, he touched the flanks of his horse with his spurs to join his Frankish companions whom he hailed from afar. "Friends, good news! Our abbey is rich, well stocked with cattle, and fertile; and we are to succeed an abbess; whether she be young or old, handsome or ugly, I do not yet know. We shall see her within an hour and shall be able to judge."
"Long live Charles Martel!" cried one of the warriors. "There's no abbess without nuns.... We shall have a good laugh with the nuns!" ”

“ The fact, that some even of the Ebionites believed the miraculous conception, speaks infinitely more in favour of the genuineness of that part of the Gospel, and of the truth of the doctrine itself, than can be inferred on the contrary side from those who denied the doctrine, and mutilated the Gospel. Those other Ebionites appear in this respect to have agreed with the first Socinians, and to have held that Jesus was born of a virgin, though they did not believe in his preëxistence or divinity. ”

“ And when Brother Benedict read the first part of the letter he laughed hastily, and said, "The abbot hath no such lily." But when he had finished it, he said, "God rid my soul of self-seeking! The common children shall have them, and not I."
And, seizing the plants and a spade, he ran out [237] beyond the bounds of the monastery, and down into a little copse where the earth was kept damp by the waters of the stream which never failed. And there he planted the roots, and as he turned to go away he said, "The blessing of our Maker rest on thee! ”

“ I beheld alternately my mother and the Abbess. They looked at me with a severe and reproving aspect. Euphemia, too, habited in luxurious splendour, came floating and rustling up, as if to salute me. But her visage was deadly pale, and I liked not the gleam of her darkly-glaring eyes. I shrunk, therefore, from her proffered embrace, whereupon she lifted up her hands, in a threatening attitude, against me. "They are steeped in blood," cried I, "that drops reeking to the earth. ”

“ What a man labors for he must love, if he be made in the image of his Maker; for He rejoices in the works of His hands."
So Brother Benedict returned, and his conscience was at ease till the Autumn, when a certain abbot, who spent much care and pains upon his garden, was on a journey, and rested at the Monastery of the Green Valley. And it appeared that he had more things in his garden than Brother Benedict, for the abbey was very rich, and he had collected far and near. And Brother Benedict was jealous for the garden of the monastery, and then he was wrath with himself for his jealousy ”

“ Pompeius Magnus displayed ebony on the occasion of his triumph over Mithridates. Fabianus declares, that this wood will give out no flame; it burns, however, with a very agreeable smell. There are two kinds452 of ebony; the rarest kind is the best, and is produced from a tree that is singularly free from knots. The wood is black and shining, and pleasing to the eye, without any adventitious aid from art. The other kind of ebony is the produce of a shrub which resembles the cytisus, and is to be found scattered over the whole of India. ”

“ This holy man renounced the world and all the pleasure and delight thereof, and went up to the desert of Scete, and became a monk; he was the disciple of Abba ‘Eblo, and he continued to minister unto him for five and twenty years. And he fought so strenuous a fight that at length his whole body dried up, but he retained possession of all his faculties. And he remained quiet (or, silent) at the times of prayer and the consecration of the Offering, and he stood timidly [in the church] with his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent; and he wept until the Office of the Offering was ended. ”

“ Thanks to her good training, she was able to answer the abbot's searching questions so cleverly that he received all three, whom he could not help taking for refined and distinguished persons, into the convent, and permitted them to assume the monastic habit.
Eugenia made a beautiful, almost angelic, monk, and was called Brother Eugenius, while the two Hyacinths found themselves transformed for better or worse into monks; for they were never even consulted, and they had long been accustomed only to live according to the will of their female paragon. ”

“ Abbâ Epiphanius used to say, “Whensoever a thought cometh and filleth thy breast, that is to say, thy heart, with vainglory or pride, say thou unto it, ‘Old man, behold thy fornication.’ ”
338. And he also said, “O monk, take thou the greatest possible care that thou sin not, lest thou disgrace God Who dwelleth in thee, and thou drive Him out of thy soul.”
339. The old men said, “Let no monk do anything whatsoever without first of all trying his heart [to see] that what he is about to do will be [done] for God’s sake.” ”