When he had finished speaking to Black, Joseph turned to the old verger. "Come, my brother," he said, "and let us kneel by the bedside of the one who is sick, praying that the Holy Spirit may come down upon us and heal him."
Then Eric Black, standing against the opposite wall of the little room, saw the two men kneel down, and saw also the marvel which it was to be his privilege to give to the knowledge of the whole world, and which was to utterly change his own life from that moment until its end.
There was a long silence, and then suddenly the journalist began to be aware that, in some way or other, the whole aspect of the room was altered.
It was incredibly, wonderfully altered, and yet materially it was just the same.
The young man had known nothing like it in all his life experience, though he was to know it again many times, when in the future he should kneel at the Eucharist.
Neither then, nor at any other time, was Black able to explain his sensations and impressions at that supreme moment. With all his brilliant and graphic power, to the end of his days the power of describing the awe and reverence, the absolute certainty of the Divine Presence which he experienced at the Mass, was denied him. Celebrated as he became as a writer, his attempts to give the world his own testimony to the Truth in a convincing way always failed. It was the great sorrow of his career. He would have counted it as his highest privilege. But he bore his cross meekly till the end, knowing that it was sent him for a wise purpose, and that perhaps it was his punishment for his long days of hard-heartedness and blindness.
He began to tremble a little, and then he saw that Joseph's hands were placed lightly upon the temples of the sleeping man, just touching them with the long, nervous finger-tips.
The Teacher may have remained motionless in this position for five or ten minutes—the journalist never knew—and all the time the power and unseen influence grew and grew in the silence, until the very walls of the little room seemed to melt and dissolve beyond the bounds of sense, and the brain, mind, and soul of the watcher to grow and dissolve with them in one overpowering ecstasy of reverence and awe.
And then the next thing that Eric Black knew was that the tall thin figure which had lain upon the bed was standing in the middle of the room, robed in its long, grey flannel gown, and that the old man had leaped at his son with loud cries of joy and wonder, and that the two men, locked in each other's embrace, were weeping and calling out in gratitude upon God.
Joseph took the journalist by the arm, and led him, unresisting, from that awful and sacred scene.