of Ashtaroth, the
invective at Bethsaida, the transfiguration on the mountain height, the
cure of lepers, and the presence that coerced. Yet through them all
certain things remained immutable, and of these, primarily her contact
with the Christ.

To her, Jesus was not the Son of man alone, he was the light of this
world, the usher of the next. When he spoke, there came to her a sense of
frightened joy so acute that the hypostatical union which left even the
disciples perplexed was by her realized and understood. She had the faith
of a little child. And on the hills and through the intervales over which
they journeyed, in the glare of the eager sun or beneath the wattled
boughs, the emanations of the Divine filled her with transports so
contagious that they affected even Thomas, who was skeptical by birth; and
when, after the descent from Hermon, two or three of the disciples mused
together over the spectacle which they had seen, the rhyme of her lips
parted ineffably. She too had seen him aureoled with the sun, dazzling as
the snow-fields on the heights. To her it was ever in that aspect he
appeared, with a radiance so intense even that there had been moments in
which she had veiled her eyes as from a light that only eagles could
support. To her, marvels were as natural as the escape of night. At
Beth-Sean she had heard him speak to dumb beasts, and never doubted but
that they answered him. At Dan she had seen a short-eared hare rush to him
for refuge, and follow him afterwards as a dog might do. At Kinnereth he
had called to a lark that from a tree-top was pouring its heart out to the
morning, and the lark had fluttered down and nestled in his hand. At
Gadara he had tamed wild doves, and a swarm of bees had stopped and
glistened in his hair. At Caesarea, when he began to speak, the thrushes
that had been singing ceased; and when the parables were delivered, began
anew, louder, more jubilant than before, and continued to sing until he
blessed them, when they mounted in one long ascending line straight to the
zenith above. At his approach the little gold-bellied fish of the Leontes
had leaped from the stream. In the suburbs of Sidon the jackals had fawned
at his feet. The underbrush had parted to let him pass, and where he
passed white roses came and the tenderness of anemones. At times he seemed
to her immaterial as a shadow in a dream, at others appalling as the
desert; and once when, in prayer, she entered with him int