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T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
May 1932
Mary was white to the lips. She stood back now with clenched hands down at her sides, the full light of the flick ering, spent little wick flaring upon her face and lighting it with a glow of righteous wrath. “ You mean,” and she caught her breath to make her voice more clear, “ you mean that I should lie to save my Holy One from death? You mean that I should make His own words lies?” “ If it is a lie,” sneered the man. “ Yes, a little lie like that to save a life. It is nothing !” “ It is everything!” proclaimed Mary, her voice sud denly rising in a kind of exultant throb. “ It is His very life and being, the purpose for which He was sent into the world. It would mean discrediting the word of angels, and the message from God Himself. It would mean denying the power of the Most High. Destroy His heavenly parent age, and you destroy the Saviour of the world, and make Him a liar and a criminal— or crazy !” “ Call it crazy!” laughed the man, “ I—have-sometimes —wondered— if—He wasn’t !” “ A h !” said Mary looking at him piercingly, “ and yet they said that you believed on Him ! Well, listen, now, you traitor ! You have said that I was the only one who knew, and could tell the truth about His heavenly origin. Yes, that is true. It was to me the angel came and told me what high honor Heaven was sending to me, a humble maiden. I have kept all His words in my heart. It is I who know how the power of the Most High carnè upon me. It is I who have pondered these great things all His wonder ful life, and watched to see my Jesus grow up' for His great mission. Yes, I know ! And never will I soil my Holy One by denying the truth about Him ! God knows that I would give this heart of mine and let it be torn asunder and laid bare to the world to set Him free from His enemies. But never will I dishonor my God by telling cheap lies to save my Son for any man-planned kingdom. If God wills that He should go to His death that He may fulfill His plan for Him, so be it, but I will never deny the truth. Go, Judas, self-steeped soul, enemy of Jesus the Son of God! Traitor! Satan! Thinking to outwit God ! Go! No word of mine shall deny the holy power of the Most High, nor thus undo the mischief that thy traitor kiss has wrought !” Mary turned her back upon him and walked from the room, closing the door with finality. Judas, darkly frown ing, baffled, slid from thè door and was gone into the night ; and the morning of that saddest day of all the world crept softly into the sky, like one who knew its brightness was soon to be hushed and darkened by the sin of the world. Then, crept Salome softly to the door of her guest’s room and quietly knelt beside her as she wept upon her bed. “ Mary, dear,” she whispered with a sympathetic arm about her friend, “ I couldn’t help hearing what he said. O f course, I feel the same way you do about Judas. I never did like him. And now, I can understand that you were angry ; but—wasn’t there reason this time in what he said ? It is true, isn’t it, that the charge they have made against Him is that He claims to be King of the Jews, the long ex pected Messiah, the Holy One that is to come, born mirac ulously? And wasn’t Judas right in saying that if that could be denied, He might be set free? Mary, at a time of stress like this, and for so good a cause, surely there would be no harm in your saying that it is not true—that— Joseph— or somebody else—was His father. What harm could there be? Why won’t you do it, dear?” “ Because it is not true!” said Mary lifting her tear- stained face to look earnestly at her friend in the dim light of dawn. “ Because it is according to the angel’s message, [Continued on page 229]
“ N o ! I do not trust you ! Can one trust a traitor ?” She asked it haughtily. “ You will not feel so when I have told you what I have come to suggest,” answered the man suavely. ' “ Listen! The time grows short. Even now Pilate may be on the point o f ordering the soldiers to bring Him forth for trial. The morning is about to dawn. Because of the feast, they will hurry this business through. He will be tried perhaps at daybreak—early, they said, and I hurried straightway to tell you. For, Mary, Mother of Jesus, you, you are the only one who can save Him now ! He might have saved Himself if He had chosen, but now He has showed that He cannot save Himself as I had hoped He would. There must be found another way. And I have -found it. There is still hope for Him if you will do one thing. Would you let your Son go to His death because you would not listen ?” ary caught her breath in a quick convulsive sob, her eyes aflame with anguish, as she watched her tor mentor. “ O h ! You!” she cried desperately, “ you goad me with your words till I cannot refuse, though I feel in my heart you are His enemy. Well, say on ! What have you to pro pose ? I will not have it said that I blindly refused. Speak quickly! What is there that I can do ?” “ Sit down!” said the man trying to put.a gentler note into his cold voice, “ you are worn and weary and can lis ten better, s o !” “ I stand!” said Mary firmly. “ Well, then, it is this. You know that the whole trouble centers about His assertion of deity. If that were denied, the whole matter would be dropped, and the Jews would be appeased. He is arrested because He claims to come from God, to be the expected Messiah. Take that claim from Him, and it would be as easy to get Him re leased as any common criminal, like Barabbas for in stance.” A long shiver of horror went through Mary as he spoke, but she controlled herself and flashed him a quick scornful word. “ And what has that to do with me?” she asked. “ Everything!” he answered with a kind of satisfaction in his voice. “ Because it happens that you- are the only one who can take that from Him. This tradition of holiness with which you have surrounded Him, the hint that He is not Joseph’s child, makes all the difference in the world. You have only to deny that He is of heavenly parentage, and the trouble will all drop away. And then it will be easy, when He is released, to spirit Him away into the hills for a time, for rest and recuperation from a nervous break down, you know, until all be forgotten. Then we can pre pare an army secretly, when the trouble has quieted down and the Sanhedrin is not suspecting it, to put Him upon the throne, and all will yet be well.” “ You mean— ?” asked the mother with slow, awe stricken utterance, and white, horrified lips. “ I mean,” went on the assured voice of the man, “ that you are to come forward as His mother and say that He is really Joseph’s child after the flesh; that all this talk about His being the Messiah is a mistake; that you never meant people to understand that He was of miraculous birth. Peo ple will believe you. You are well respected here. And you are the only one in the whole world who rightly knows His parentage. If you are unwilling to have Joseph stand as His natural father, then say who is His father. A little blight upon your own honor will not matter to you, I know, against the possibility o f His death. And when He sits upon His throne, it will not matter that you have borne dishon or for a few days.”
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