Jerusalem—Third Morning after the Crucifixion.

My Dear Father:

As I resume my pen by the faint light of the dawn, to continue the particulars of the crucifixion of the unhappy son of Mary, who, widowed and childless, still remains with us, mourning over her dead son, my heart involuntarily shrinks from the painful subject and bleeds afresh. But there is a fascination associated with all that concerns him, even now that he is dead and has proved himself as weak a mortal as other men, which urges me to write of him and which fills my thoughts only with him.

I have just alluded to his grief-smitten mother. Alas, there is no consolation for her! Her loss is not like that of other mothers. Her son has not only been taken from her by death, but has died ignominiously on a Roman cross, executed between two vile malefactors, as if he himself were the greatest criminal of the three; and not only this, but executed as a false prophet—as a deceiver of Israel.

Yet her love for her son—that deathless, maternal love, which seems immortal in its nature—is not buried with him. She, with dearest Mary and Martha, has just gone out secretly, before the Jews are astir, to pay the last duties to his dead body, ere we all depart for an asylum in Bethany. Until they return from this sad mission of love I will continue my subject—the crucifixion.

When the centurion to whom was committed by Pilate the charge of conducting the crucifixion of Jesus, gave orders to bind him also to the cross, which lay upon the ground like an altar awaiting its victim, the four Parthian soldiers, his brutal crucifiers, laid hold upon him and began to strip him of his garments, for his enemies had put again on him his own clothes when they led him out of the hall of Pilate. He wore a mantle woven without seam by Mary and Martha, and which had been a present to him by the sisters, as a token of their gratitude, for raising from the dead their brother Lazarus.

His mother, supported by John, could no longer gaze upon her son, and was borne afar off, crying thrillingly:

"Oh, let me not hear the crashing of the nails into his feet and hands! My son! My son! Oh, that thou wouldst now prove to thy mother that thou art a true Prophet!"

"What means this wailing?" cried the fierce Abner. "Who is this woman?"

"The mother of Jesus," I answered, indignantly.

"The mother of the blasphemer! Let her be accursed!" he cried, in a savage tone. "Thou seest, woman, what is the end of bringing up an impostor, to blaspheme Jehovah and the Temple. Thy hopes and his, O wretched woman, have this day miserably perished! So die all false Christs and false prophets!"

Mary buried her face in her hands and wept on my shoulder. I could not look towards the place where Jesus stood. I dreaded to hear the first blow upon the dreadful nails, and as she stopped her ears I would have closed mine also, but that my hands supported her. I could hear the awful preparations—the rattling of the hard cord, as they bound him to the cross, and the low, eager voices of the four busy Parthians, and then the ringing of the spikes, and then silence like that of the grave! Suddenly a blow of a hammer broke the moment of suspense! A shriek burst from the soul of the mother that echoed far and wide among the tombs of Golgotha!

I could see, hear no more!

John having left the stricken mother with me, he and Lazarus had gone back to where they were unrobing the Prophet in order to bind him to the wood. They caught the eyes of their Master, said Lazarus, who gazed upon them calmly and affectionately. They said they had never beheld him appear so majestic and great. He looked, as the centurion afterwards said, "Like a god surrendering himself to death for the safety of his universe!"

"Nothing but the ferocious madness of the chief priests and Jews," added John, "could have prevented them from being awed by the majesty of his presence. And, besides, there sat upon his brow heroic courage, with a certain divine humility and resignation. Not the rough hands of the barbaric soldiers, nor the indignity of being stripped before the eyes of thousands, not the sight of the cross, nor of the thieves, nailed and writhing on theirs, moved him to depart, by look or bearing, from that celestial dignity which, through all, had never left him.

"He made no resistance," continued John, who told me what follows, "when bound upon the cross, but resigned himself passively into the hands of his executioners, like a lamb receiving its death. 'Father,' he said, raising his holy eyes to heaven, 'forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

"Great drops of sweat, when they nailed his feet to the wood, stood upon his forehead," added John, who remained near to see his Master die, and to comfort and strengthen him; "and when the four men raised him and the cross together from the earth and let the end into a hole a foot deep, the shock, bringing his whole weight upon the nails in his hands, tore and lacerated them, nearly dislocating the shoulders at the same time, while every sinew and muscle of his arms and chest was drawn out like cords to sustain this unwonted weight upon them. The first thief fainted from pain, at the shock caused by the setting of his own cross; and the second, cool and defiant as he had been, uttered a loud outcry of agony. But Jesus made no moan, though the unearthly pallor of his countenance showed how inexpressible was his torture."

Ah, my dear father, I would draw a veil over this scene—for it is too painful for me to dwell upon. To the last John believed his Master would not die—that he would not suffer! But when he saw how that pain and anguish seized heavily upon him, and how that he suffered like other men, without power to prevent it, he greatly wondered, and began to believe that all the miracles that he had seen him perform must have been illusions. He could not reconcile the calmness and dignity, the heroic composure and air of innocence with which he came to the cross, with imposture; yet his death would assuredly seal as imposture all his previous career.

With his mother we all drew as near the cross as we were permitted to come. Jesus then turned his head towards his mother, and, looking down with the profoundest tenderness and love upon her, committed her to the filial care of the weeping John, who stood supporting her.

There we waited, in expectation of seeing him do some mighty miracle from the cross and descend unharmed, showing to the world thereby his title to be the Messias of God.

The centurion, having placed a guard about the crosses, to keep the friends of the crucified from attempting their rescue, stood watching them. The soldiers who had nailed Jesus to the tree now began to divide, with noisy oaths, his garments among themselves, as well as those of the two thieves, these being by the Roman law the fee of the executioner. This division being made after some time, but not without high talking and drawing of their long Syrian knives upon each other, they were at a loss what to do with the large mantle without seam, which the sisters of Lazarus had woven for the friend of their once dead brother. A group of the Roman guard being seated near, astride upon the four arms of a fallen cross, playing at dice, suggested that the Parthians should decide by lot whose it should be. This the latter consented to and, taking the dice-box in their bloody hands, each of them threw the dice. The highest number fell to the most ferocious of the four fellows, who proposed to sell the cloak, which John joyfully purchased of him at a great price, by means of the jewels of several of the women, who gladly took rings from their ears and bracelets from their arms, I giving, dear father, the emerald which you bought for me at Cairo. But I could not see the robe which Jesus had worn thus desecrated.

After Jesus had hung about an hour upon the cross, Æmilius came from Pilate, and bore the inscription, which it is usual to place above the heads of malefactors, showing their name, and the crime for which they are crucified.

Above the head of Jesus, by means of a small ladder, was placed this inscription, in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew:

THIS IS JESUS,
THE KING OF THE JEWS.

When the wicked Abner read this, he turned angrily to the centurion, and to Æmilius, who stood sadly near the cross.

"Write not, O Roman, that he is 'King of the Jews,' but that he said he was King of the Jews!"

"I have placed above him what Pilate has ordered to be written," answered the centurion.

Abner, upon this, mounted a mule and hastened into the city to the Procurator, and laid his complaint before him.

"What I have written, I have written, sir priest," we have heard that the Procurator coldly answered.

"But you, then, have crucified this man for being our king, which we deny!" retorted Abner.

"I will take his word, before that of all the Jews in CÆsar's empire!" answered Pilate angrily. "He said he was a king; and if ever a king stood before a human tribunal, I have had a true and very king before me to-day—and I have signed the warrant for his execution. But his blood be on your heads! Leave my presence, Jew!"

Abner left his presence abashed, and returned to the place of crucifixion. The Jews, in the meanwhile, mocked Jesus, and wagged their heads at him, and reminded him of his former miracles and prophecies.

"Thou that raisedst Lazarus, save thyself from death!" said a Pharisee.

"If thou art the Son of God, prove it by coming down from the cross!" cried the leader of the Sadducees, Eli.

"Thou who saidst if a man kept thy sayings he should never see death—let us see if thou canst avoid death thyself!" said Iddo, the chief of the Essenes.

"He saved others—himself he cannot save!" mocked Ezekias, one of the chief priests.

Æmilius, finding it impossible to save the Prophet from crucifixion, had come out to guard him from the usual insults of the rabble, while he was dying. He had now lost faith in Jesus as a Jewish Prophet, but he loved him still as a man, and pitied him for his sufferings. He talked with him, and earnestly prayed him, as he hung, if he were indeed a god, to show his power! Jesus at first made no reply; but he shortly said, in a faint voice:

"I thirst."

The generous knight ran and filled a sponge with the preparation of sour wine and hyssop, usually given to malefactors, after they have suffered awhile, in order to stupefy them, and render them insensible to their sufferings. While Æmilius was affixing a sponge, dipped in this vessel of vinegar, upon a reed, split at the end to hold it firmly, Ishmerai, the robber, who all the while, as he hung, had uttered execrations upon his crucifiers, and upon Pilate, called, howling fiercely, to Jesus:

"If thou be the Son of God, save thyself and us! If thou didst raise a man once from the dead, thou canst surely keep us from dying! Thou art a vile wretch if thou hast power as a prophet, and will not use it for me, when thou seest how heavy I am of body, and how my great weight tortures me, with infernal racking and rending of every joint."

But Omri, rebuking his fellow, said:

"Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? We suffer justly for our crimes, and to-day do receive the due reward of our transgressions; but this young man hath done nothing amiss, save to preach against the wickedness of the priests, and for being holier than they. Lord, I believe that thou art the Son of God! None but the Christ could do the works that thou hast done, or suffer patiently as thou art doing. Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."

Jesus turned his bleeding head towards him, and, with a smile of ineffable glory radiating his pale face, said:

"Verily, I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in Paradise."

Omri, upon this, looked inexpressibly happy, and seemed to rise superior to his sufferings. The other cursed the Prophet aloud, and gnashed at him with his teeth, with looks of demoniacal hatred.

At this moment Æmilius came near with his dripping sponge, and presented the reed upwards to the parched lips of the suffering Jesus. When he tasted it, he would not drink, for he perceived it was the opiate which was usually administered in compassion, to shorten the anguish of the crucified.

The robber, Ishmerai, now eagerly cried for the oblivious sponge, and the Prefect giving the reed to a soldier, the latter placed it to the mouth of the robber, whose swollen tongue protruded! He drank of it with a sort of mad thirst. The other man, also, gladly assuaged his burning fever with it, and soon afterwards both of them sunk into insensibility.

All at once, just as the sixth hour was sounded from the Temple, by the trumpets of the Levites, the cloud which, formed by the smoke of the numerous sacrifices, had hung all day above the Temple, was seen to become suddenly of inky blackness, and to advance towards Calvary, spreading and expanding in the most appalling manner, as it approached us; and in a few minutes, not only all Jerusalem, but Calvary, the Valley of Kedron, the Mount of Olives, and all the country, were involved in its fearful darkness. The sun, which had before been shining with noonday brilliancy, became black as sackcloth of hair, and a dreadful, unearthly, indescribable night overshadowed the world! Out of the center of the cloud, above the crosses, shot forth angry lightnings in every direction. But there was no thunder attending it—only a dead, sepulchral, suffocating silence!

Of the thousands who had been gazing upon the crucifixion, every one was now fallen prostrate upon the earth in terror! Jerusalem was blotted out from our view; only an angry spot of fire-red light, as it were the terrible eye of God itself, was visible above the Temple, over the place of the Holy of Holies. The crosses were no longer visible, save by the fearful shine of the lightnings, flashing fiercely from the dread and silent cloud. The form of Jesus, amid the universal gloom, shone as if divinely transfigured, and a soft halo of celestial light encircled his brow like a crown of glory; while the dark bodies of the two robbers could scarcely be discerned, save by the faint radiance emanating from his own.

Men talked to each other in whispers. An indefinable dread was upon each mind; for the sudden overspreading of the darkness was as unaccountable as it was frightful. Mary, his mother, and Lazarus, exclaimed with awe, both speaking together:

"This is his power. He has produced this miracle!"

"And we shall behold him next descend from the cross," cried Rabbi Amos. "Let us take courage!"

Three hours—three long and awful hours, this supernatural light continued—and all that while the vast multitude remained fixed, and moaning, waiting they knew not what! At length the cloud parted above the cross, with a loud peal of thunder, while a shower of terrible lightning fell, like lances of fire, all around the form of Jesus, which immediately lost its halo and its translucent radiance, His face, at the same time, became expressive of the most intense sorrow of soul.

A hundred voices exclaimed, with horror:

"See! he is deserted, and punished by the Almighty!"

We ourselves were amazed and appalled. Our rising hopes were blasted by the livid lightnings, which seemed to blast him! Heaven, as well as man, seemed to war against him! His mother gave utterance to a groan of agony, and sank upon the ground, satisfied that her son was truly accursed of God. At this moment, as if to confirm all our fears, he cried, in the Hebrew tongue:

"Eloi! Eloi! My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Upon this, some, pitying his sufferings, ran to give him wine and hyssop, to deaden them.

"Nay, let him live—let us see if Elias will save him!" answered Abner. "He calleth for Elisha the prophet!"

Suddenly the darkness, which had filled all the air, seemed now to concentrate and gather about the cross, so that he who hanged thereon, became invisible. From the midst of it his thrilling voice was once more heard, as clear and strong as it rang over the waters of Galilee when he preached from a boat to the thousands thronging the shore:

"It is finished! Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!"

As he uttered these words, a supernatural glory shone around him, and, with a deep sigh, he bowed his head upon his breast and gave up the ghost!

The general exclamation of surprise that followed these clear trumpet-tones, was suddenly checked by a terrible trembling of the earth beneath our feet, so that vast numbers of people were cast down; the rocks of Calvary were rent, and thrown upwards, while the whole city shook with the convulsive throes of an earthquake. The Temple seemed on fire, and above its pinnacle appeared a flaming sword, which seemed to us to cleave the walls to their foundations; and while we looked, the sword changed into the shape of a cross of dazzling light, standing high in the air, over the altar; and from its golden beams poured rays so bright, that all Jerusalem, and the hill country for a wide extent, became as light as noon-day. The ground still continued to rock, and the sepulchres of the kings, with the tombs of ancient prophets, were riven by vast chasms, and the green earth was strewn with the bones and bodies of the dead. The dark cloud, which had begun to form first with the smoke of the sacrifices of the Temple, was now dissipated by the light of the fiery cross, and the sun reappeared. Before it the glorious vision over the Temple gradually faded out and disappeared. The natural order of things gradually returned; and men, smiting their breasts, began to move towards the city, filled with awe and dread at what they had witnessed. The centurion, who stood watching these fearful things, said, aloud, to Æmilius:

"This man spake the truth. He was a god!"

"Truly," responded Æmilius, "this was none other than the Son of God—the very Christ of the Jewish Prophets. All things in the air and on the earth sympathize with his death, as if the God of nature had expired."

Sad and weeping, we left the dismal scene, hanging our heads in despondency; having, even while wondering at these mighty events connected with his crucifixion, abandoned, forever, all hope that this was he who should have redeemed our nation and restored the royal splendor of Judah and the throne of the house of David.

I am, my dear father, your loving daughter,

Adina.