The first speaker aroused himself a little, and seemed to gather new strength at the prospect. His pale face, dark sunken eyes, trembling nerves, and evident weakness of body and limb, spoke eloquently of extreme feebleness. Yet, as he gazed forward, a new light came into his eyes, as if a strong soul would spur on its frame, and command it to live. It was Saulus![9] He was mounted upon a well-laden camel, while his companion walked by his side. Hardly able to keep his hold against the swaying motion of the animal, he clung as with the grasp of desperation.
A shallow stream may easily be turned in a new direction, but to change the course of one whose flashing current is deep and swift is a herculean transaction. It must tear away much material—rock, soil, vegetation, and even trees by the roots, transforming them into washed and swept débris—before it can adjust itself to new banks, and scour another channel. So a great soul [pg 262]of vehement force is an impetuous psychological river, the reversal of which, if it be sudden, produces a spiritual cataclysm.
If an eagle of powerful and sweeping wing be met in his swift course, and drenched and battered by an opposing storm of irresistible force, he must needs alight a while upon solid ground, and through some quiet recuperation plume his spent and drooping pinions before again soaring aloft.
The world has witnessed few greater transactions than the transformation of Saulus. No material conquest, and no physical change in the face of nature, can be compared with the reversal and resurrection of a great mind. Well may it be called a “miracle,” if the old illogical but common definition of the term be superseded by one that is orderly and rational. Miracles are lawful, not lawless. They are circles, of which an important arc is above the limited range of the ordinary observer. They are supernatural, in the sense of being above the material and sensuous comprehension, but not violations or suspensions of the universal Divine Order. The Author of all things is never disorderly in his methods.
In the psychological realm, as in the physical, while there is a conservation of energy, there are also alternations of action and reaction. When a great soul has “passed through fire and water,” a condition of passivity and silence naturally follows. When the black clouds that have been rolled together by a great tempest have dissolved, the torrents ceased, and the thunder died away, then is sunlit nature unwontedly calm and peace[pg 263]ful, even though the marks and scars of the storm remain.
Saulus, sick at heart and wrenched in body, yearned for solitude. It was an imperative necessity. As a stricken deer by positive instinct leaves the herd, so he must step out from the surrounding human current. Rest, quiet, stillness! at any sacrifice! He was like a tree which had been pulled up by the roots. His wounds must have time to heal, and the torn fibres and tendrils be soothed, refreshed, and readjusted. If the foundations of a lifetime have been swept away, there must be new excavation and bed-rock replacement. The life of Saulus had been a tempestuous current of destruction to the “Nazarenes.” Now he was a “Nazarene”!
He, who had been so exceeding jealous for the doctrine of Moses, would now be counted as the enemy of Mosaism. But Moses, to his view, was transformed. No longer the man of doctrine and ceremony, he was now the man of God.
Saulus was tossed and buffeted by restless waves, though he now discerned solid land before him. He must grasp the Immovable! He would discover God! As Moses had been impelled to retire to the “land of Midian,” where the bush glowed with a flame that did not consume, and where he had communings with the Most High, so Saulus must follow the same path.
During the process of the evolution of the human individual, every one, sooner or later, must go to his “land of Midian.” When the foundations of time and sense begin to totter, the smaller unit must discover its place in the Greater! Man will never find real contentment [pg 264]in a far-away or theoretical Deity, but he must grasp the Living God. He is most readily known and felt, not among the busy haunts of men, but in the wild solitudes of nature. Amid such an environment, light may stream forth, mysteries be resolved, wounds healed, shelter found, and nourishment assimilated. In the SILENCE is the fitting place for the human to bathe and refresh itself in the Divine. At such seasons man may,—
“Sit on the desert stone