She looked at the sides of the river: it was an endless plain. She became frightened upon beholding its boundless limits. Having sighed over the great length of the coming journey, she put her head on a stone near the source of the river and fell asleep.
In a dream there appeared to her a man of middle height with flying hair, and handed her a written roll, which ran as follows: “Carry this in all haste to the idolatrous Tsar of Mtzkhet!” Saint Nina cried bitterly and began to implore and pray: “O Lord! I am a woman, an adventurer, uneducated, I am unable to say much; now how in the world am I to go into a strange land to heathen nations—to a mighty Tsar?”
Then the shining man unfolded the roll in which were written ten commandments as on the tablets of Moses, and gave them to St. Nina to read. She awoke with the roll in her hands. The following were the contents of the roll:
I: Amen—I say unto ye, go on then, for this testament will be proclaimed all over the world, will go from mouth to mouth, and hardly will it be known when documents will appear to commemorate the event.
II: Make no difference between men or women. III: As thou goest, instruct all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. IV: The world is the language of enlightenment and thy glory, O Israel! V: This good deed of heaven will be practised the world over. VI: He who accepts you, accepts Me and he who accepts Me accepts Him who glorified Me. VII: Mary loved the Lord exceedingly, for she always obeyed his commandments. VIII: Not cutting off the bodies of the murderers, the souls of those who are powerful shall not linger. IX: The speech of Jesus to Mary Magdalen: “Go, O woman, and announce my fraternity!” X: “Teach them to promptly and rigidly observe all these commandments and then I shall be with you, in all times and to the end of the world—Amen!”
Having read the roll, Saint Nina became convinced that this apparition came directly from the Lord. She ardently prayed that the Lord might soothe her, and committing herself to his will, she immediately followed the course of the river. At first it flowed towards the West through wild and sterile countries. The journey became still more terrible through the number of wild animals filling these deserts with their fearful roaring, but not one of them attempted to approach and touch the protégé of God. Only when the river turned to the East did they begin little by little to disappear. Driven on by fear she forgot exhaustion and went rapidly ahead, hardly stopping a minute to catch breath. Soon after the turn of the river Saint Nina overtook some travellers going to Ourbishi or Ouriat-Oubani (which means “Street of the Hebrews”), and joyfully followed them, but at Ourbishi a disappointment awaited her; instead of believers of the real God she found people who bowed down and adored fire, wood, and stone; her heart burned with indignation, but the Lord comforted her by instructing some Jews to give her a hospitable reception, which she made use of for about one month, when the following spectacle aroused her feelings:
She beheld a great crowd of people going towards Mtzkhet, and as she heard from her host that there were Hebrews there, she followed the people in the distance and thus happened to reach her point of destination upon the fête of Armaz. Before reaching the bridge near Mogontka this large crowd stopped like one man to bow down to the fire, and Saint Nina cried bitterly at the loss of such a large, large number of human souls, ransomed by the most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. On the sixth of August, 324 A. D., on the day of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Saint Nina, according to tradition, accomplished her first wonder. Upon that day appointed for the fêting of the idol Armaz, it was the duty of the Tsar and Tsaritsa to take part in the ceremonies. From early in the morning numberless crowds of people, like flowers in the field, filled the streets, shouting and hurrying, each one trying to excel his neighbor in ornamenting their respective houses with carpets, fine shawls and other such articles, all along the road by which the royal cortège was to pass. First there arrived the Tsaritsa Nana, surrounded by the wives and daughters of the aristocracy. She was followed by the Tsar with a numerous suite. Songs of praises and blessings were heard among the crowd of the nation. With great pomp the procession ascended the mountain to adore their god, who was cast of clean gold, while at his side there stood two inferior gods of silver, who wore gold cuirasses and in their aquamarine eyes had artificially made rolling emerald pupils. These last idols were of human proportions and inside of them a mechanism was hidden, through which their hands (in which there were sharp swords) cut down all those who dared to approach the chief god without making a sacrifice, or all those who adored other and foreign gods instead. On the Roman bridge, Saint Nina joined the procession.
“What in the world does all this mean?” she asked of a Jewess.
“This is the god of gods—Armaz, who calls the people to do him homage. No other idol can compare with him, because each of us puts on his best garment to-day and holds a flag in his hand as a sign of joyousness.”
In the meantime the procession had reached its destination. The Tsar bowed down to the ground, surrounded by whole clouds of incense. The sacrificers offered their victims. The Tsaritsa, the nobility, innumerable hordes of people followed the example of their ruler to the greatest displeasure of the Saint, who with all her heart prayed to Him, who had made her glorious and lo! a short-breathed West wind came up, at first softly, then always stronger and stronger, and finally turned into an oragan.