“Where have you been with the great Apollos, these long long years, my Onesimus?” she dreamily asked.
“To Babylonia and Assyria aiding the greatest apostle of all—Peter,” he answered.
“He, who lied and denied his leader and cut the High Priest’s servant’s ear off at the trial long years ago, as I have heard the Queen Herodias tell?” she asked.
“Say rather, Princess, he who learned in sin his own weakness, and whose great heart grew tender for all who fall in slippery places. He learned not to trust his own strength even in love, but—God’s.”
She pondered that absently plucking the cyclamens; and her hands were slender as the lily stems. The silver clouds rolled from below and the translucent water lay a painted sea.
“What does your Master Apollos teach? How differs he from the others?”
“I’ll answer that as Paul answered years ago in Rome, when Ephesus and Corinth wrote to know whether they should follow Paul, or Apollos. Paul followed the Nazarene. Apollos professed John, the Baptist; and when the followers would have wrangled one against another, and so missed the news of the Glad Kingdom in strife, Paul wrote back—’twas but a few years before Nero slew him—Paul plants; Apollos waters; God gives the increase!”
“You speak as a gardener.”
“I am, dear Princess— We are all gardeners, gardeners in the field of flowers which the Persians call ‘Ardath’—the Garden of God called Paradise.”
“I like that. I can understand that better than an Unknown Kingdom not made with hands! That Garden kind of Kingdom would be Glad News to me, Onesimus! I could wander through that kind of Garden, forever, if I had hold of your hand! Sit at my feet, dear playmate of the long ago, and tell me of your Garden—no, sit by my side, I would hold your hand now!”