The early morning sun again gilded the brown and deep-red peaks of Sinai, and Amoz was up betimes to prepare the simple morning meal, and make ready for the remaining short journey.
The high ground upon which they had encamped afforded a wide view to the eastward, and the sweet and moist morning air and dewy freshness made the broad expanse seem like a newly discovered paradise. In the distance the broad blue Gulf of Akaba reflected the golden beams of the rising orb of day, gleaming like a great opalescent sea of pearl, while in the dim purple distance beyond arose the misty Arabian peaks which skirt its farther shore. The morning was a benediction, and the world seemed peaceful and good. Nature glowed with life and cheer, and the early lights and shadows capriciously chased each other up and down the mountain-slopes in unending procession. The cloud-forms which gracefully floated over the grim summits seemed to correspond, in their fleeting evanescence, to the passing generations of men which these silent rock-ribbed witnesses had looked down upon, as if they had been a slow-moving but endless caravan.
Is anything in the universe fixed and enduring? Yea, the immortal life of man! He whose material existence is like the flitting cloud-shadows possesses a real selfhood that will expand and develop when yonder solid peaks shall have dissolved to dust and found their lowest level.
Saulus felt new strength and inspiration from the breath and fragrance of Nature that smiled upon him. The beautiful surroundings, or rather the great exuberant Life which pulsated through them, seemed to warm his soul, and cause a bursting forth of the inmost springs of his nature. The hard, formal religiosity, which like an unyielding shell had long encased him, was beginning to soften and gradually disintegrate before the force of the new spiritual current in his soul.
After the morning meal was finished, and the camel had been fed, groomed, and harnessed, the light tent was struck, and it, with the other paraphernalia, loaded upon him, they started, Saulus riding in his place, and Amoz walking, as was his wont. Two or three hours more and they would be at the foot of Horeb,—their journey’s end. Why were they going there? Amoz had often put this question to Saulus, but no response had been offered. He did not refuse to answer from any unwillingness, but was unable to divine any definite plan even to himself. Something seemed to draw him. Was it blind fate? Nay! he was guided by a spiritual instinct, strong but gentle, soft though unerring. He could not fathom it.
From the time of leaving Damascus, through all the weary days in the terrible desert, there had been no wavering nor uncertainty. Unseen guidance shaped the pilgrimage in every detail, mysterious even to its chief actor. A path opened before him, and he felt drawn to follow its devious winding. While he had a general purpose, he felt that its definite unfoldment was provided for by that which was superior to himself. [pg 273]He desired to go for a season beyond the haunts of men, and to breathe the pure air of heaven, but the particulars were plainly none of his. Could it be a divine guidance? He had always believed that the orderings of Jehovah came through outward signs, thunderings and miracles. An earthquake or a tempest might have been interpreted. But what of this still, gentle influence within him? What could move a soul which had been the noisy arena of warring forces and tumults? But this seemed to well up from the very depths of his being. Could it be God?
Had a line been stretched all the way from Damascus for him to follow he would have gone no more unerringly, but yet, mystery though it were, he felt subject to no pressure.
How many souls have vainly sought the world over to find the Infinite,—the Universal Good,—and have finally discovered him in their inmost nature! They have delved through history, roamed over continents, visited holy places, searched through creeds, scanned philosophies, sounded the depths of ecclesiasticism, traversed the circumference of systems and institutions, and bowed to the authority of priest and ritual, only to discover at last the divinity of the real selfhood,—that inner light which is set for the teaching of “every man, coming into the world.” How many have looked high and low, and cried, “Lo here” and “Lo there,” who needed only thorough self-interpretation! How many inmost and potential “sons of God,” through the misdirection of the imaging or creative faculty of soul, have unwittingly cast their own shadows as sons of [pg 274]Belial, and thereby accepted the dominance of evil! How many, through the glamour of a formal and institutional plan of salvation, have unconsciously covered the hidden and normal divinity of humanity! How many, through an artificial and abnormal humility, have rated themselves as “poor miserable sinners,” and as a natural consequence been subtly drawn, through a moral pessimism, toward the outline of their own specification!
Two hours of early morning travel brought Saulus and Amoz to the rock-ribbed base of Mount Horeb. The cooling shade of trees and shrubs, the fresh fragrant air, and the grand outlook as they came upon the still more elevated ground at the foot of the great cliff, gave Saulus a strange sense of detachment from the earth. He felt an unwonted spiritual upliftment and exhilaration which was a revelation. The surrounding sweetness, the silence, broken only by the song and twitter of an occasional bird, descended like a healing balm upon the stained and scarred soul of the erstwhile inquisitor.
“No tears