No More Learning

And Thou wilt gather all the righteous souls
Around Thee, that they, face to face, may see
Thy glory and behold Thee as Thou art. "

Now the Messiah from the crimsoned dust
Rose victor, and the heavens sang aloud--
The third heaven, of the great Messiah's most
Transcendent sufferings which brought endless life
To precious souls, as now gone over Him.
So sang the heavens.


_IV. --Pilate's Wife Bewails the Saviour's Sufferings_

The Messiah is seized and bound. The assembled priests are seized
with consternation, but their fears are removed by the arrival of
successive messengers. Jesus being taken before Annas, Philo goes
thither and brings Him to Caiaphas. Portia, Pilate's wife, comes to
see Jesus. She approaches from the Procurator's palace near the hall
of assembly, by an arcade lit by lamps.

Impelled by curiosity at last
The great and wondrous Prophet to behold,
She to the high-priest's palace came in haste,
Only few attendants being with her.
And Portia saw Him Who awoke the dead,
And Who serenely bore the hellish rage
And malice of indignant priests, and now,
With wondrous magnanimity stood forth
Resolved to act with greatness, unadmired,
To beings so degenerate still unknown.
With fervid expectation and with joy
She stood and gazed upon the Holy Man,
And saw how He, sublime with dignified
Serenity, His base accusers faced.

On false evidence of suborned witnesses Jesus is condemned. Eloah and
Gabriel discourse on the Saviour's sufferings.

GABRIEL: Eloah!
He at whose command the dead
Of the renewed creation shall arise,
The tempest of the resurrection shaking
The earth around, that she with bearing throes
Will yield the dust at His almighty call.
He then with thunders and attendant hosts
Of angels and in terrors clad, that stars
Before Him sink, will judge that sinful world.

ELOAH: He said, Let there be light! And there was light.
Thou, Gabriel, sawest how at His command
Effulgent beams rushed forth! With thought profound
He still advanced: and lo, at His right hand
Ten thousand times ten thousand beings bright
Collected, and an animating storm
Advanced before Him. Then the suns
Rolled in their orbits! Then the harmony
Of morning spheres resounded round the poles.
And then the heavens appeared!

GABRIEL: And at His word
Eternal night sank far below the heavens!
Thou sawest, Eloah, how He stood on high
O'er the Profound. He spake again, and, lo,
A hideous mass inanimate appeared
And lay before Him, seeming ruins vast
Of broken suns, or of a hundred worlds
To chaos crushed. He summoned then the flame,
And the nocturnal blaze rushed in the fields
Of everlasting death. Then misery
Existed, which from the depths ascended
In cries of anguish and despondency.
Then was created the infernal gulf!

Thus they communed.