Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/226

 as Peter had suspected, were now watching in prayer within this house. The noise of a visitant at this unseasonable hour of the night, immediately brought to the door a lively damsel, named Rhoda; who, according to the Jewish custom of employing females in this capacity, acted as portress of the mansion of Mary. Prudently requiring some account of the person who made this late call, before she opened the door of the persecuted Christians to an unknown and perhaps an ill-disposed character, she was struck with almost frantic joy at hearing the well-known voice of the much mourned Peter, craving admittance. In the highth of her thoughtless gladness, she ran off at once to make known the delightful fact to the disciples in the house, without even seeming to think of the desirableness of admitting the apostle, perhaps because she very naturally wanted to tell such pleasant news first herself. Bursting into the room where the disciples were at prayer for their lamented leader, whom they supposed to be then fast bound for death in the dungeon of Antonia, she communicated the joyful fact, that "Peter was before the gate." A declaration so extravagantly improbable, at once suggested the idea of her having lost her wits through her affectionate sorrow for the sufferings and anticipated death of the great apostle, and they therefore replied, "Thou art crazy." Rhoda, somewhat excited by such a provoking expression of incredulity, loudly repeated her slighted piece of good news, and so gravely maintained the truth of it, that some of the more superstitious at last began to think there must be something in it, and seriously suggested, that it must be a supernatural messenger come to give them notice of his certain doom,—"It is his guardian angel." Peter, however, was all this while standing outside during this grave debate about his real entity, and shivering with the cold of a chilly March night, grew quite impatient at the girl's inconsiderate folly, and knocked away with might and main, making a noise of most unspiritual character, till at last the disciples determined to cut short the debate by an actual observation; so opening the door to the shivering apostle, the light brought his material existence to a certainty beyond all doubt. Their amazement and joy was bursting forth with a vivacity which quite made up for their previous incredulity; when the apostle, making a hushing sign with his hand,—and with a reasonable fear, too, no doubt, that their obstreperous congratulations might be heard in other houses around, so as to alarm the neighbors and bring out some spiteful