The Love That Prevailed

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Enough light remained in the room to allow those watchers to see when consciousness returned to the man's eyes: he was facing the window. But before the expression of death changed to that of life, his arm, that was still stiffly outstretched, and seeming all the more awkward since he had ceased to be on his feet, fell with a startling thud upon the edge of the table. It was as if a dead man had made a movement. Then his eyes turned upon each in the room in turn. He drew a long breath.

“You are among friends, Dick; how feel you, my man?” said Jake Pullsford, laying his hand upon Pritchard's that had fallen upon the table.

“I saw it again—clear—quite clear, Jake,” said Pritchard.

“What saw ye, friend Dick?” asked Jake.

“The vision—the Vision of Patmos. The heavens rolled together like a scroll—blackness at first—no mind o' man ever conceived of such blackness—the plague of Egypt was snow-white to compare. And then 'twas all flame—flame—flame. The smith's furnace hath but a single red eye of fire, but its sharp brightness stings like a wasp. But this—oh, millions upon millions of furnace eyes, and every eye accusing the world beneath. Who can live with everlasting burning?—that was what the Voice cried—I know not if it was the strong angel, or him that rode upon the White Horse, but I heard it, and all the world heard it, and the most dreadful and most unusuallest thing of all was the sight of that White Horse, plunging and pawing with all the fiery flames around it and above and below! And the Voice said, 'There shall be no more sea,' and forthwith all the tide that had been flowing in hillocks into Porthawn and teasing the pebbles where the shallows be, and lapping the Dog's Teeth reef, wimpling around the spikes—all that tide of water, I say, began to move out so that every eye could see it move, and the spikes o' the reef began to grow as the water fell, till the bases of the rocks appeared with monstrous weeds, thick as coiled snakes, and crawling shells, monstrous mighty that a man might live in; and then I saw the slime of the deep, thick as pitch and boiling and bubbling with the heat below, even as pitch boils over the brazier when the boats lie bottom up on the beach. And then I saw a mighty ship lying in the ooze—a ship that had become a wreck, maybe a hundred years agone, half the timbers rotted from the bends so that she was like some monster o' the deep with its long ridges of ribs showing fleshless as a skeleton. And then the Voice cried, 'The Sea gave up its Dead.'... You shall see it for yourselves on Monday—ay, all that came before mine eyes.'Twas Mr. Wesley preached on the great moving among the dry bones—they were dry in that valley, but in the dread secret depths where the sea had been these were damp with the slime of ages, and they crawled together, bone unto bone, throwing off the bright green seaweeds that overlaid them like shrouds of thin silk. They stood up together all in the flesh, and I noted that their skin was the yellow pale skin of the drowned, like the cheeks of a female who holds a candle in her hands and shades the flame with one of her palms. Flame—I saw them all by the light of the flaming sky, and some of them put up their saffron hands between their faces and the flame, but the light shone through their flesh as you have seen the sun shine through a sere leaf of chestnut in the autumn.”

He stopped suddenly and drew a long breath. For some moments he breathed heavily. No one in the room spoke. A boy went past the door outside whistling.

When the man spoke again it was in a whisper. He turned to Wesley.

“Mr. Wesley, I knew not that I had the gift until I heard you preach,” he said. “I only suspected now and again when I felt the twitchings of the twig between my hands when I was finding the water, that I was not as other men; but when I heard you preach and saw how you carried all who listened away upon your words as though they were not words, but a wave of the sea, and the natural people the flotsam of the waste, I felt my heart swell within me by reason of the knowledge that I had been chosen to proclaim something great beyond even all that you could teach. And now 'tis left for you to stand by my side and tell all that have ears to hear to prepare for the Great Day. It is coming—Monday. I would that we had a longer space, Sir, for, were it so, my name would go forth through all the world as yours has done—nay, with more honour, for a prophet is ahead of the mere preacher. But you will do your best for the world in the time allowed to us, will you not, Mr. Wesley?”

He laid his hand on one of Wesley's, firmly and kindly.

“My poor brother!” said Wesley gently. “God forgive me if I have been the means of causing hurt to even the weakest of my brethren. Let us live, dear brother, as if our days in the world were not to be longer than this week, giving our thoughts not to ourselves, but to God; seeking for no glory to attach to our poor names, but only to the Name at which every knee must bow. Humility—let us strive after humility. What are we but dust?”