“Peace and greetings to our father and mother!
“Saulus.”
The days that followed passed serenely with the two inmates of the cave. Saulus steadily gained in strength of body, and his vigor of soul also increased day by day. Often during the morning hours, with Amoz and the camel, he made short journeys in the adjacent region, generally returning by the sixth hour of the day to their wonted solitude.
Amoz felt a growing concern touching the experiences and plans of Saulus, whom he learned to love with a deep devotion, and to whose teaching he listened with gladness and profit. One evening an unwonted long silence succeeded the period of Saulus’s weakness, and Amoz was moved to inquire concerning the nature of his self-communing.
“O my dear friend and teacher, I would know the secret of thy meditations! Behold, when thou art silent with thine eyes closed, thy face almost seemeth to shine with joy! Tell me of thy thoughts! When I fain would rest my mind, it is full of troubled waves, and I find no peace.”
“Thy inquiry concerneth a great truth to which the eyes of the world are yet holden. It hath been made known to me through the working of my great tribulation. A little while aforetime my former bitterness and persecutions stood out before my soul by day and night. The thoughts of my innumerable transgressions scourged me without measure, and I knew of no escape. Vainly I strove to put them to flight, but their hellish faces of reproach gathered thick, and stared at me in season and out of season. Wherever I turned, my tormentors followed, and my soul was affrighted. But a new and higher way hath been revealed unto me. I fasten my meditation upon God,—the Omnipresent Good,—and upon everything that is true and beautiful and of good report, and behold the former things flee because they have no place!”
“Behold that is a path to freedom that I have not understood! My former life hath not been given to persecutions, but even those things that appear much smaller greatly disquiet me. Slumber forsaketh mine eyelids by reason of many things that seem against me. My soul is filled with manifold fears that have taken up their habitation in me and will not be removed. But thou hast given me much light, and filled me with hope. I thought it wise to hide these things from thee, but now [pg 338]rejoice that I have invited thy counsel. I will fasten my thoughts upon the Good and not the evil. But the way seemeth not easy, for the strong who possess a fortress will not be put out except by a stronger.”
“Thou judgest rightly. It is not a light thing, but patience will accomplish her perfect work and in due season be rewarded. Because all things rest in the bosom of God, Good is stronger than all else, yea, it is all! Behold we ignorantly magnify evil by our mistaken thoughts until it covereth everything! To the pure eye and the right thought adverse appearances become friendly. All things were created good, but man formeth them anew for himself by his thought. God is too pure to behold iniquity, because only he who hath in himself some measure of evil hath the perverted vision to recognize it.”
“Behold, O Saulus! thy wisdom leadeth into the light, and thou hast planted my feet upon a rock! I bless the day upon which I turned my steps into the wilderness with thee! By thy interpretation it well nigh appeareth that every man, through his own thoughts, shapeth to himself the whole world in which he dwelleth!”
“Thou speakest a hidden truth, which in the fulness of time will become plain, and thereby the kingdom of Heaven will be set up in all the earth! The world groaneth and travaileth through the fear of things that it hath recreated through its own vain imagining. As to unseemly fears, they abide not only with thee, but with all men. Because our fathers have feared God instead of loving and seeking him, they have filled the earth with trembling and weakness. Fear hath torment, and [pg 339]bringeth forth an all-prevailing harvest of pain and sorrow, and also sickness of mind and body! Our fathers at this very mountain did quake and tremble because they thought God, like a fretful man, was angry, and therefore sent a tempest of thunderings and lightnings. To give our souls to the dominion of things that are seen also bringeth us into subjection to evil. They are but outward appearances, while unseen verities abide forever.”