the deep mystery of suffering be resolved into some deeper mystery of
love; what if God Himself should provide the substitute, and if on some
altar blood be shed which shall suffice to atone for transgressions
past, present, and to come, even to the end of all time? May it not
be--must it not so be--if we read the Scriptures aright?"

"I cannot divine your meaning," said Abishai.

"What is written here of the coming Messiah?" asked Hadassah, laying
her hand on the roll of prophecy, as she turned her earnest, searching
gaze upon her companion.

"That He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron, and break them in
pieces like a potter's vessel!" exclaimed Abishai with exultation; "is
He not named Messiah the Prince?"

"Who shall be _cut off, but not for Himself_" (Dan. ix. 26), said
Hadassah, in low thrilling tones that made Abishai start, and look at
her with surprise. "You," she continued, "see the PRINCE in prophecy,
written as in characters of light; I see the SACRIFICE, ever in letters
of deepening shadow. Behold here,"--and as the widow spoke, she opened
the roll till her finger could point to the Twenty-second Psalm,--"what
means this cry of mysterious sorrow, _My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?_"

"It is David's cry of anguish," said Abishai.

"Look farther on, my son, ponder the subject more deeply," cried
Hadassah, and she proceeded to read aloud part of the inspired Word.
"_The assembly of the wicked have inclosed Me: they pierced My hands
and My feet. I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me.
They part My garments among them, and cast lots on My vesture_ (Ps.
xxii. 16-18). These things never happened to David; the Psalmist
speaks not here of himself."

"Of whom then could he be speaking," said Abishai, looking perplexed.
"Not surely of the Messiah, not of the seed of the woman who shall
bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15).

"Wherefore not?" asked Hadassah, "seeing that He Himself must be
bruised in the conflict? If it be written, _My Servant shall deal
prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high_, the
shadow lies close under the brightness, it is also written, _His visage
was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of
men, and why? because so shall He sprinkle many nations_ (Isa. lii.
13-15), it may be--with His own blood!"

"Yours are strange thoughts," muttered the son of Nathan.

"They are not my thoughts," replied Hadassah