The Scapegoat [24]
seasons when no winds were stirring, and blank peace and a doleful silence haunted the air, that Naomi would seem to fall into a sick longing from causes that were beyond Israel's power to fathom. Then her sweet face would sadden, and her beautiful blind eyes would fill, and her pretty laughter would echo no more through the house. And sometimes, in the dead of the night, she would rise from her bed and go through the dark corridors, for darkness and light were as one to her, until she came to Israel's room, and he would awake from his sleep to find her, like a little white vision, standing by his bedside. What she wanted there he could never know, for neither had he power to ask nor she to answer, whether she were sick or in pain, or whether in her sleep she had seen a face from the invisible world, and heard a voice that called her away, or whether her mother's arms had seemed to be about her once again and then to be torn from her afresh, and she had come to him on awakening in her trouble, not knowing what it is to dream, but thinking all evil dreams to be true fact and new sorrow. So, with a sigh, he would arise and light his lamp and lead her back to her bed, and more scalding than the tears that would be standing in Naomi's eyes would be the hot drops that would gush into his own.
"My poor darling," he would say, "can you not tell me your trouble, that I may comfort you? No, no, she cannot tell me, and I cannot comfort her. My darling, my darling."
Most of all when such things befell would Israel long for some miracle out of heaven to find a way to the little maiden's mind that she might ask and answer and know, yet he dared not to pray for it, for still greater than his pity for the child was his fear of the wrath of God. And out of this fear there came to him at length an awful and terrible thought: though so severed on earth, his child and he, yet before the bar of judgment they would one day be brought together, and then how should it stand with her soul?
Naomi knew nothing of God, having no way of speech with man. Would God condemn her for that, and cast her out for ever? No, no, no! God would not ask her for good works in the land of silence, and for labour in the land of night. She had no eyes to see God's beautiful world, and no ears to hear His holy word. God had created her so, and He would not destroy what He had made. Far rather would He look with love and pity on His little one, so long and sorely tried on earth, and send her at last to be a blessed saint in heaven.
Israel tried to comfort himself so, but the effort was vain. He was a Jew to the inmost fibre of his being, and he answered himself out of his own mouth that it was his own sinful wish, and not God's will, that had sent Naomi into the world as she was. Then, on the day of the great account, how should he answer to her for her soul?
Visions stood up before him of endless retribution for the soul that knew not God. These were the most awful terrors of his sleepless nights, but at length peace came to him, for he saw his path of duty. It was his duty to Naomi that he should tell her of God and reveal the word of the Lord to her! What matter if she could not hear? Though she had senses as the sands of the seashore, yet in the way of light the Lord alone could lead her. What matter though she could not see? The soul was the eye that saw God, and with bodily eyes had no man seen Him.
So every day thereafter at sunset Israel took Naomi by the hand and led her to an upper room, the same wherein her mother died, and, fetching from a cupboard of the wall the Book of the Law, he read to her of the commandments of the Lord by Moses, and of the Prophets, and of the Kings. And while he read Naomi sat in silence at his feet, with his one free hand in both of her hands, clasped close against her cheek.
What the little maid in her darkness thought of this custom, what mystery it was to her and wherefore, only the eye that looks into darkness could see; but it was so at length that as soon as the sun had set--for she knew when
"My poor darling," he would say, "can you not tell me your trouble, that I may comfort you? No, no, she cannot tell me, and I cannot comfort her. My darling, my darling."
Most of all when such things befell would Israel long for some miracle out of heaven to find a way to the little maiden's mind that she might ask and answer and know, yet he dared not to pray for it, for still greater than his pity for the child was his fear of the wrath of God. And out of this fear there came to him at length an awful and terrible thought: though so severed on earth, his child and he, yet before the bar of judgment they would one day be brought together, and then how should it stand with her soul?
Naomi knew nothing of God, having no way of speech with man. Would God condemn her for that, and cast her out for ever? No, no, no! God would not ask her for good works in the land of silence, and for labour in the land of night. She had no eyes to see God's beautiful world, and no ears to hear His holy word. God had created her so, and He would not destroy what He had made. Far rather would He look with love and pity on His little one, so long and sorely tried on earth, and send her at last to be a blessed saint in heaven.
Israel tried to comfort himself so, but the effort was vain. He was a Jew to the inmost fibre of his being, and he answered himself out of his own mouth that it was his own sinful wish, and not God's will, that had sent Naomi into the world as she was. Then, on the day of the great account, how should he answer to her for her soul?
Visions stood up before him of endless retribution for the soul that knew not God. These were the most awful terrors of his sleepless nights, but at length peace came to him, for he saw his path of duty. It was his duty to Naomi that he should tell her of God and reveal the word of the Lord to her! What matter if she could not hear? Though she had senses as the sands of the seashore, yet in the way of light the Lord alone could lead her. What matter though she could not see? The soul was the eye that saw God, and with bodily eyes had no man seen Him.
So every day thereafter at sunset Israel took Naomi by the hand and led her to an upper room, the same wherein her mother died, and, fetching from a cupboard of the wall the Book of the Law, he read to her of the commandments of the Lord by Moses, and of the Prophets, and of the Kings. And while he read Naomi sat in silence at his feet, with his one free hand in both of her hands, clasped close against her cheek.
What the little maid in her darkness thought of this custom, what mystery it was to her and wherefore, only the eye that looks into darkness could see; but it was so at length that as soon as the sun had set--for she knew when