Properties
- end_line
- 1238
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-26T19:09:30.216Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1202
- text
- 841 # MARY IN THE GARDEN
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845 ONG ago, very long ago, as the old story runs, a woman went out of a garden with a broken heart. Because of sin she lost her Eden. She looked with pleasure and longing upon what the King had forbidden. Awaking from a dream, she saw herself as she had never seen herself before. The sating of her desire had opened her eyes. She did not even then fully know all the ills that her vain coveting had brought upon her and upon those who were to come after her. Or if she knew, it was quite too late to mend matters. With bitter tears she bowed before the gate her sin had closed. She had forever forfeited the peace and bliss of Eden.
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847 “Must I thus leave thee, l’aradise?”
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849 An evil spirit had allured, deceived, and
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854 possessed her. On herself, her husband, and the generations to follow, a shadow had fallen. It was the shadow of a great cloud, with its blackness of darkness. And the darkness was weighted with wrath. The gate was closed and bolted. And the closed gate was guarded by cherubim with flaming swords.
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856 The passing years have numbered centuries, and again we see a woman bowing low before the gate of a grave in a garden. The gate is open. The guard has fled. This time the cherubim, with flashing eyes and glorious raiment, are within. The woman may enter if she will, but the One she seeks is not beyond the portal with the waiting angels. In truth, He is nearer than she knows; and while she weeps, He waits. The surprise and joy which attend faithful love make an old story in this world, and a charming story it is.
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858 When man knows in part, he is eager to know in full. He is sure to make effort
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861 to know. His mind works from the known towards the unknown by varied processes. He reasons. He traces analogies. He imagines. He adds surmises to his certainties. And after a while one is puzzled to know how much of his story is dream-stuff, and how much the substance out of which true history is made.
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863 But thus it has always been. Homer's poems are to such a degree the product of his own fertile and splendid fancy, and of the myths which he found afloat in the air of the old world he lived in, that people forgot how much reality had place in the works of his genius. When Schliemann began to unearth the facts of marble, bronze, and gold long buried in Greece and Asia Minor, everybody was surprised to find so much in the Iliad and the Odyssey that may be called history.
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865 Sir Walter Scott has put his own dream power into the ancient times of which he wrote. One who reads him needs a well-schooled critic and interpreter at hand to distinguish between the historical facts
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868 and the creations of fancy which the “Wizard of the North” has so bewitchingly blended.
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870 Who Mary Magdalene was we do not certainly know. There were several Marys who belonged to the New Testament times. There was the Mary of Bethlehem, mother of Jesus; and Mary of Bethany, whose brother Lazarus we know; and Mary, the mother of James the Less and Joses; and Mary Magdalene, whose name has gone into history and painting and poetry. And her “name is written in heaven.” We do not know whether the word “Magdalene” is from the name of the place of her birth and residence, or a title descriptive of her appearance or personal character. When I looked from a sail-boat on the Sea of Galilee to the ruined little village El-Mejdel on its western shore, it was pleasant to connect with it the name of this Mary of the Gospels, Mary of Mejdel, who loved her Lord for a good reason, and loved Him with all her heart.
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