The black ship: with other allegories and parables

by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

In the night, a heavenly visitant descended; and with human words, in a language she had not spoken for years, but every word of which melted her heart like the accents of her mother-tongue, he touched her chains, and they fell off.

He spoke, and the wild beasts fled, howling; he touched her broken harp, and it was restrung and tuned; he touched the dry and choked up channel of the sacred spring, and it welled forth pure and fresh from beneath the altar; he touched the idol on the shrine, and it fell, and in its stead shone that wondrous Radiance which she had seen in her dream. Then he poured on her head the fragrant oil of consecration, and clothed her in a white vestal priestly garment, and placed the restrung harp in her hand, and rose again to heaven.

At first her joy knew no measure. She gazed on the sacred shrine, and in its glory at times she perceived the lineaments of the form of Him who had done all this for her. She touched her harp, and the sweet strings responded as if they knew her hand; she sang holy songs in that old, long-forgotten, yet familiar tongue, so heavenly and happy that the wild beasts would not venture near, and the morning-birds were silent to listen. She bathed in the newly-opened fountain and drank of it, and as she drank, her strength and her youth came back.

For a time her joy was without cloud or measure; but as the daylight returned, the desolation or the ruined temple struck sadly on her heart. It was indeed a sacred place once more, and she its consecrated priestess; but was this ruin never to be repaired?

She began to cleanse the sacred vessels and to sweep the earth of all the refuse and dry bones which had been gathered there. And then, with her renewed strength, she set herself to collect the broken fragments of the columns, and tried to piece together the shattered tracery and the delicate carvings of flower and foliage. But it was in vain. She could indeed bring the shattered fragments together and see what they had been, but she could not join them, or replace one prostrate shaft or capital.

And as she sat down mournfully before her shrine, tears dimmed her eyes, so that she could scarcely see the Radiance there, and, falling on her harp-strings, would have rusted them and marred their sweetness; whilst in the silence, a voice, too long and bitterly familiar, was heard at the door. Turning round, she perceived the form of the Enemy there, whilst behind him glared fierce and hungry eyes, and in her terror, the harp almost fell from her hands.

But she threw herself on her knees before the altar, pressed the harp convulsively to her heart, and cried, "Will these ruins never be repaired, these doors never closed against my enemy and thine?"

The pressure of her trembling fingers drew forth some plaintive strains, like the wind on Æolian strings; but low and plaintive as they were, the enemy disappeared, and the wild beasts fled howling from them.

Then she began to perceive the power of her harp, and drew from it a song of joy and triumph. And as she still gazed on the radiant shrine, a veil seemed to be withdrawn from it, and she perceived that it was a window, so that the light streamed through it, not from it.

Wondering, she gazed, until, penetrating further and further through the light, she saw in the depths of heaven a Temple like her own, only perfect, glorious beyond comparison, and full;—full of worshippers robed and singing like herself, and full of that wondrous radiance which streamed from the heavenly form she had seen.