For now a voice such as he had never heard—a sound unearthly and unaccountable—seemed not only to strike his ears but to grasp his very heart. It was awful in its range, its tone, its modulations, its startling, penetrating, appalling power; and although he was unable to understand its utterance, it seemed to convey the loftiest eloquence of religious transport, thrilling with rapture and conviction. And, in a moment or two, other voices joined it. The words they spoke were exalted, intense, impassioned, full of mystic significance. They did not speak in their ordinary familiar tongue, but in what seemed to be as it were the essence and idea of all languages, though none could tell whether it was Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or Persian. It resembled now one and now the other, as some overpowering and unconscious impulse of the moment might direct. The burden of the thoughts of the speakers seemed to be the ejaculation of ecstasy, of amazement, of thanksgiving, of supplication, of passionate dithyramb or psalm. They spoke not to each other, or to the congregation, but seemed to be addressing their inspired soliloquy to God. And among these strange sounds of many voices, all raised in sweet accord of entranced devotion, there were some which no one could rightly interpret. The other voices seemed to interpret themselves. They needed no translation into significant language, but spontaneously awoke in the hearts of the hearers the echo of the impulse from which they sprang. There were others which rang on the air more sharply, more tumultuously, like the clang of a cymbal or the booming of hollow brass, and they conveyed no meaning to any but the speakers, who, in producing these barbarous tones, felt carried out of themselves. But there was no disorderly tumult in the various voices. They were reverberations of one and the same supernatural ecstasy—echoes awakened in different consciousnesses by one and the same intense emotion.
Britannicus had heard the Glossolalia—the gift of the tongue. He had been a witness of the Pentecostal marvel, a phenomenon which heathendom had never known.
Nor had he only heard it, or witnessed it. For as the voices began to grow fainter, as the whole assembly sat listening in the hush of awful expectation, the young prince himself felt as if a spirit passed before him, and the hair of his flesh stood up; he felt as if a Power and a Presence stronger than his own dominated his being; annihilated his inmost self; dealt with him as a player does who sweeps the strings of an instrument into concord or discord at his will. He felt ashamed of the impulse; he felt terrified by it; but it breathed all over and around and through him, like the mighty wind; it filled his soul as with ethereal fire; it seemed to inspire, to uplift, to dilate his very soul; and finally it swept him onward as with numberless rushings of congregated wings. The passion within him was burning into irresistible utterance, and, in another moment, through that humble throng of Christians would have rung in impassioned music the young voice of the last of the Claudii pouring forth things unutterable, had not the struggle ended by his uttering one cry, and then sinking into a faint. Before that unwonted cry from the voice of a boy the assembly sank into silence, and after two or three moments the impulse left him. Panting, unconscious, not knowing where he was, or whether he had spoken or not, or how to explain or account for the heart-shaking inspiration which had seemed to carry him out of himself beyond all mountain barriers and over unfathomable seas, the boy sank back into the arms of Pudens, who, alarmed and amazed and half ashamed, had sprung forward to catch him as he fell.
As he seemed to be in a swoon, one of the young acolytes came to him, and gently bathed his face with cold water. And meanwhile as the hour was late, and they all had to get home in safety through the dark streets and lanes through which they had come—some of them from considerable distances—Linus rose, and with uplifted hand dismissed the congregation with the words of blessing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Pudens and Nereus carried back the still half-unconscious boy into the house of Pomponia, where his sister awaited him. Octavia was alarmed at the wildness of his look, but the fresh air had already revived him. ‘I am quite well,’ he said, as the Empress bent anxiously over him, ‘but I am tired, and should like to be silent. Let us go home, Octavia.’
‘The escort is waiting,’ said Pudens.
So they bade farewell to Pomponia, and the soldiers saw them safely to the Palace.
When they had started, Claudia said: ‘Oh, Pomponia, while he was at the gathering the Power came upon him; he seemed scarcely able to resist it; but for his fainting I believe that he would have spoken with the tongue!’
Pomponia clasped her hands, and bowed her head in silent prayer.