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XVII.

THE END OF PROPHECY.

F Cineas had sought an interview with Paul, it might perhaps have produced some change in his feelings. As it was, he remained unchanged. The manuscript had deeply impressed him, but he remained unconvinced. His keen, subtle, and speculative mind led him to scrutinize everything carefully and ask why?

Helena did not try to convince him, for she knew the attempt would be useless. She contented herself with talking of the happiness which she found in her belief. It had removed her old fears, and given a charm to the future. Now, at last, she knew how to pray, and how to praise. Unconsciously, while refraining from argument, she was exhibiting to her brother something that was more efficacious than all arguments, the sight of one who actually felt love for God. For as Cineas looked at her, and thought of the change that had taken place in her heart, and compared her present peace with her former despondency, he felt that she had gained something which he did not possess. She had, in fact, gained that very thing for which he sought, - firm faith, sure faith, absolute knowledge of God and love for him. And he wished that he could be like her.

Yet the intellectual belief of a philosopher could not readily obey the mere wish of the heart, and so Cineas desired to draw near to Christ, but evermore his reason interposed, and raised obstacles, and pushed him back.

He found an unfading charm in the manuscript of the

Christians, and as he read it he owned to himself at last, that that there was more in this little volume than he had found in all the works of Plato. It was direct. It spoke to the heart. He found himself gradually thinking the thoughts that arose out of this book, and appropriating the phraseology. He talked with Helena about the Kingdom of Heaven; about God the Father of all, and about Holiness.

Of that holiness there entered into his mind a pure and perfect ideal, more elevated and more divine than all the conceptions of philosophy, and he found that his ideal assumed the form of that mysterious Being of whom this book spoke. Socrates, with his irony, departed from his mind, and in his place there came Christ, with his love and his tears. began to see in him, that for which all the good and wise among the philosophers had sought so long; and the search for which they had transmitted down through so many ages the perfect Good, and perfect Fair. All this seemed to him to live in Christ.

He

But, after all, he was not yet so near the actual adoption of the Christian faith as might be supposed. All these thoughts were intellectual. His taste was affected. Christianity appeared in an æsthetic light. His heart was moved by the sorrows of the great Sufferer, but it was not at all moved by any emotion of repentance or contrition. He had no belief in his own sin. The self-complacency which he had always felt still remained. Why should he repent? What had he to repent of? What confession could he make? He could pray to God for enlightenment, but not for pardon.

One thing he did believe most firmly, and that was that if the sacred writings of the Jews had any lofty meaning, then all that meaning must be sought for in Christ. To accept Christ as the result of the Jewish scriptures, was to him almost to make those scriptures divine. Besides such an interpretation as this, the theories of Isaac were puerile and vulgar. In a spiritual interpretation he saw the truest and the sublimest philosophy.

He hinted this once to Isaac.

a Teacher

"Cannot your Messiah," he asked, "of whom you speak so much, be, after all, as I have suggested before, a holy Prophet one who will try to make your people purer in heart, and better in life? This I think would be an act more worthy of God, than to send a king or a general who would only shed the blood of men."

"Never,” cried Isaac, vehemently, and with all the fervid passion which invariably showed itself when such a thing was hinted at. "Never. No, no, a thousand times no. The promises of God are true and righteous, and they will be fulfilled. They are literal or they are nothing. He will not thus mock those who for ages have put their trust in him. He has promised us this thing as we understand it, in the most direct and unmistakable language; for ages we have waited, and believed, and hoped. Prophet after prophet has come, and each succeeding one has spoken in the same language, and confirmed our hope for the DELIVERER. As he is faithful and true, so will he not deceive his own people.

"He has promised before, many and many a time, both for good and evil, and every promise has been fulfilled. He promised to our fathers, when they were slaves in the land of Egypt, that he would lead them to a fair and fertile land; and he did so. They wandered for years, amid suffering and calamity, but, nevertheless, they reached the Promised Land at last. He promised victory over many enemies at different times; and the victory always came. He threatened division of the kingdom; and the kingdom was divided. He threatened subjugation by an enemy, and long captivity; and the subjugation and the captivity came. He promised deliverance from this captivity; and the deliverance came.

"All these were unmistakable promises, not intended to refer to some dark, spiritual fulfilment, but to a direct literal one, and that direct literal fulfilment every one of them met with.

"And now,

when I look at the great promise that stands

supreme among all promises, through all ages, coming down from our first father, Abraham, what is that I see? Can I see anything else than this, that if anything be literal, this must be so more than any other? Will He who led his people on through such sorrows, and so afflicted them, thus trifle with them, and show that thus through all their history he has amused them with an empty shadow - a vain hope an idle tale? What to us, in our slavery, is a mere prophet worth? We have had prophets. We want no more. We want Him, of whom all the prophets spake; to whom they pointed and whom they promised. We want Him to come and sit upon the throne of David in Jerusalem, not to teach, but to reign. We are weary with waiting, and praying, and hoping, and longing. We are weary and broken-hearted. Oh thou long-expected One! come quickly. Take thy throne. Reign till all enemies are put under thy feet.

"But why do I fear? I tell you," cried Isaac, with startling emphasis, "that He will come, and begin his reign. The time is at hand. All things denote his approach. You yourself will live to see him, and that very soon."

Cineas expressed his surprise at this, and asked Isaac to explain.

"In our prophecies," said Isaac, "the great One is not only promised, but the time of his coming is also told. For ages our priests have calculated the time of that appearance, and naturally enough, they at first made it come at an earlier period than was said. Each generation loved to think that the prophecy was to be fulfilled in its own day. For the last thirty or forty years the people have expected his appearance every day. False Messiahs have appeared, basing their pretensions on this prophecy, and sometimes they have gained many followers. But they were all wrong. In their fond expectation they put a forced construction on the words of our sacred writings. This is the reason why they have been so often disappointed.

"But now the time is at hand in literal truth. The mistake which our fathers made need not be made now. We have the record of the holy prophets, and the plain statement of the time of his appearance, from which any one who can calculate may see for himself that this is the hour. These calculations I have made over and over, jealous of error, jealous of my own wishes, lest they should lead me astray, and I have come to this conclusion, that this is the very latest possible period at which he can arrive. He must come now or never. If he does not come now within five, or perhaps ten years, then he will never come, or the prophecy will be all wrong, all deceit, all mockery of the worst and most cruel kind. But as God cannot deceive, so

must this word of his be all fulfilled."

Cineas listened quietly. He had no curiosity to examine the calculations of Isaac, for he was more than ever convinced that it was all a mistake. He had no sympathy with the narrow prejudice of the Jew, and could only wonder at the death-like tenacity with which Isaac clung to his idea.

"All the land feels the power of his presence," continued Isaac. "The people know that he is near. They rise to meet him; they are sure that he will come. A mighty movement is beginning, and all the land trembles beneath the deep hum of preparation."

"How are they preparing?" asked Cineas.

"With arms, and for war," cried Isaac, fiercely. "For they are slaves, and they feel that if they would meet the Deliverer in a fitting manner, they must be free, and must themselves strike the first blow. And any one who has lived in Judea knows this, that of all men the Jews are those who will dare the most, and achieve the most. War must come. It is inevitable. The oppression of the Romans has become unendurable. If the Jews were a more patient race, even then they might have cause to rise for mere revenge. But they are of all men least patient, and they mean to rise, not for revenge, but for freedom, and for whatever else that freedom