“Here,” the doctor Luke was pointing to the zodiac, “here is the Scorpion, that Lucifer who fell from heaven from vaunting pride and set out to lead man astray to fill his kingdom. Here is Taurus the Bull, worshiped by Egypt and Chaldea which Abraham fled. Here are the Sun worshipers, when Israel burnt her sons upon the walls. Here is the Virgin, Mother of a Child in flesh to reveal God in form to man. Here is Pisces the Fisher, and when our Christians fled from Nero’s sword in Rome they used the Fisher sign to know one another. Christ said, ‘I make you fishers of men,’ and we knew not what he meant. The fall of Jerusalem is the fulfilment of our age. After our age, when the sword shall give place to sunburst comes the Age of Air and water and freedom with much going to and fro beyond the Isles of the Sea to nations not yet born.”
“Read from our own prophets and not from the astrologers of Chaldea and Egypt,” requested the aged Matthew. “Why have these evils fallen on the City of Zion?”
Mark, the youngest of the three, took up a cylinder of brass. From it he drew a parchment scroll written in Hebrew and rolled round a rod. “Here, Luke, you are a doctor of learning. You read the Hebrew. We Hebrews have not spoken our tongue since captive days in Babylon.”
Luke took the scroll and went to the window to see the clearer in the dimming light.
“Thus saith Jeremy,” he said, slowly translating in a patois of Aramaic and tradesman Greek. “Behold—our—reproach—our inheritance is turned to strangers—our house to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless. . . . Servants have ruled over us. . . . There is none that doth deliver out of their hand. . . . We get our bread by the peril of our lives because of the sword . . . our skin is black because of the famine . . . they ravish the women of Zion and the maids in the cities . . . princes are hanged by their hands . . . the Mountain of Zion is desolate. . . .”
“That of this Age,” broke in Matthew. “We shall see the fulfilment of that to-night; but what of the ages when the Time of the Sword has passed? Read Ezekiel, Brother Luke—what says he of the nations of the North beyond the Isles of the Sea? What says he of the Age of Freedom? What says he of the Age of the Air when the Sword has given place to Sunburst? What meant our Lord when He said greater miracles than He worked should the world see before the end of Time? What signs will foreshadow a New Heaven and a New Earth?”
Luke turned the spool of the scroll and ran his finger from right to left— “Is this the Age of Air?” he asked, then he read:
“A whirlwind came out of the North, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness . . . and out of the midst of the fire the color of amber . . . and this was the likeness . . . a man . . . every one had four wings . . . their feet were straight and sparkled like burnished brass . . . the hands of men were under the wings on the four sides . . . they had faces and wings . . . the wings were joined one to another and turned not when they traveled . . . they went straight forward with unmoving wings . . . the signs of the nation a lion, an ox, and an eagle . . . two wings they had joined each to other on each side . . . straight forward they went whither the spirit wished to go . . . with burning coals of fires and lamps in front . . . up and down in the air . . . up and down in the air . . . and their fire went forth as lightning . . . but upon the earth they used wheels . . . there were whirling rings in front . . . dreadful to see . . . but when the wings were lifted the wheels were lifted . . . and in the firmament their likeness was a terrible crystal . . . and the noise of the wings was the rush of many waters . . . when they stood, they let down their wings. . . .”
“What means that?” demanded Mark.
But the bent figure of the Apostle’s mother had risen with outstretched hands and in her eye was the light of ancient prophetess. It was as if she saw a Light with eyes of spirit, which eyes of flesh could not see—adown long, long Ages mid races of beings not yet guessed, nor born in thought. Her whole figure seemed aflame in vesture of unearthly shining Light. Mystic was she, prophetess, seeress, with eyes boring into the Far Future like stars piercing midnight dark. It was as if a flash of lightning suddenly tore through the impenetrable veil of Life concealed; as if an invisible Torch Bearer threw a flashlight on the Far Future. “When the Age of the Sword shall pass for the Sunburst of the Prince of Peace, there shall come dominion over the princes of the powers of the air,” she slowly uttered, as one in trance of vision. “Greater things than these shall ye do, and the Old Things are passing away for the New; and Jerusalem must needs be destroyed to give place. . . .”