The little white stone hut stood on the wave-fretted rocks facing the burst of sunrise over the green isles of Greece in the blue morning sea. While the sailors loaded freight, the Bishop wandered up to the prison hut of the last of the Disciples. It was such a prison hut as Paul had occupied at Rome—but in a quieter cleaner haven, where the dawn came over sea and peak in a Jacob’s Ladder to sleeping and waking dreams, up and down which the Angels might pass from Heaven to men’s souls. Blue and primrose were the skies above. Emerald and white were the seas below. Yellow and gold were the spears of the sun, and opal were the peaks of far mountains swimming between heaven and earth.
The cave was a haven for a seer to dream or commune with God for the wind played the harp in the gaunt trees growing from the bare rocks; and the voice of many waters sounded day and night without ceasing, where wave fret beat in the hollow resounding caverns of rock and landlocked inlet; and the trickle of receding tides through the fine sands was as the tinkling of myriad little bells.
Onesimus drew from his traveler’s case a parchment; and here is what he read, as in a trance between life and death:
“And the sea gave up the dead, which were in it . . . and death and the grave delivered up the dead, which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works . . . and I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away . . . and I heard a great voice out of the heavens saying— Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them and be their God . . . and shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. . . . Behold I make all things new. . . . Write; for these words are true and faithful . . . I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely . . . and there shall be no night . . . for the Lord God giveth light . . . and the Spirit and the bride say—come; And let him that heareth say come! And let him that is athirst come! And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. . . .” When he had finished reading, the Bishop was no longer in trance. He was in ecstasy. It was as if the golden light of day dawn had photographed the last message of the Last Disciple in letters of celestial fire across the firmament of heaven and earth to all time in a rainbow of eternal hope.
What matter whether his resurrection were a physical body, a soul body, a spiritual body? Paul, himself, had said, when wrapped away in vision to a Third Heaven not made of hands, that he knew not whether he was in “terrestrial” or “celestial” body. Onesimus now knew that neither matter nor spirit could perish—but only change, and He who had created both would govern what form they must take in the New Heaven and the New Earth; and Christ would give that cup of forgetfulness of sin from the Book of Remembrance, which the pagan Greeks promised from drink of their sacred spring. Then suddenly, as if in a glimpse of cosmic consciousness, he knew the veil was very thin—thinner in every cycle of ages—as the Old crashed down, the New grew up in its place—till the New became a New Heaven and a New Earth, a New Heaven on Earth; and he heard the voice of many waters, “not only as the rite of baptism for the turning from sin,” but as a river of living waters flowing from the throne of God, to carry mankind to the destiny of the Sons of God. He knew the crucifixion of his Master had marked the end of a cycle, and all His followers were the Torch Bearers of the Glad News to future ages.
The ship anchored at Ephesus too late for the Bishop to get carriage up from the water front to the city square. As far as one can judge from the configuration of sands and ruins, the distance was six or seven miles. Accompanied by the Greek seaman, and the redeemed Temple vestal, he walked the distance from tide water to city square, where his own little church and dwelling stood across from the Great Temple to Diana Artemis. Opposite the pagan Temple, the three left him to rouse the little beggar boy, who commonly slept under the marble steps. The Bishop’s intention was to prepare a cloister for these travelers on the way to Thecla’s hospice to sleep; then snatch a few moments of sleep, himself, before presenting himself at his own home where the aged John would be housed and resting.
The silver colossus of the Goddess stood an unearthly wraith in the pale dawn of the city square. The morning mist came in a long ghostly beam across his own church into the cloisters on the garden side. Some bird awakened in the garden and stabbed the morning silence with a threnody of unutterable beauty. The fountain in the garden fell with the tinkle of tiny bells as though the flowers rang out their morning hymn, besides which was no sound but the padded footfall of his own sandals across the misty church.
He stooped, steadying his hand on a stone bench and loosed the sandals from his own feet, nor quite knew why he had done it, when a spear of sunlight struck through the beam of mist aslant his church; and there on the cot in his own prayer cell lay the figure of the aged Disciple, John, in a deep sleep motionless and peaceful as death.
Then Onesimus started back in an amaze that was neither fear nor horror. It was as if his own doubts lay before him slain; for the figure of the woman, clad all in black, was on her knees, bent over the feet of the Disciple, sobbing. The air was heavy with the spring hyacinth odor for the dead, and the weeping woman was breaking and pouring an alabaster jar of perfumed ointment over the feet of the Beloved and wiping them with her fallen hair. As she caught glimpse of the Bishop standing in the half dark of the cell arch, she rose and whispered—
“He is not dead. He only sleeps. There is no Death.”