Thus speaking, in a voice that thrilled every bosom with emotions indescribable, he extended his hands above their heads and blessed them, while we all fell upon our faces to the ground also, to receive his blessing.
He then lifted up his eyes to the calm blue depths of heaven, and said in the same words he had spoken on the night of the Passover, as John had told me:
"And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was!"
As he spoke, we raised our faces from the ground, to behold him leaving the earth, rising from the hilltop into the air, with a slow and majestic ascension, his hands outspread over us who were beneath, as if shedding down blessings upon us all. The loud burst of surprise which rose from five hundred voices at seeing him soar away into the atmosphere, was followed by a profound and awful silence, as we watched him rise and still rise, ascending and still ascending, into the upper air, his whole form growing brighter and brighter, as the distance widened between his feet and the earth!
Upon our knees, in speechless wonder, we followed his ascent with our amazed eyes, not a word being spoken by any soul; nay, hearts might have been heard beating in the intense expectation of the moment!
Lo! in the far-off height of heaven, we beheld suddenly appear a bright cloud, no larger than a man's hand, but each instant it expanded and grew broader and brighter, and, swift as the winged lightning, descended through the firmament downward, until we beheld it evolve itself into a glittering host of angels, which no man could number, countless as the stars of heaven. As these shining legions descended, they parted into two bands, and sweeping along the air, met the ascending Son of God in mid-sky! The rushing of their ten thousand times ten thousand wings, was heard as the sound of many waters. Surrounding Jesus, like a shining cloud, they received him into their midst, and hid him from our eyes amid the glories of their celestial splendor!
Now came to our ears the sounds of heavenly song, a sublimer chorus than earth ever heard before. From the squadrons of Seraphim and Cherubim encircling with their linked wings the Son of God, came, like the unearthly music one hears in the dreams of night, these words, receding, as they mounted upward with the Conqueror of Death and Hell:
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates!
And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors;
And the King of Glory shall come in!"
This chorus seemed to be answered from the inmost heavens, as if an archangel were standing at its portals, keeping watchful guard over the entrance facing the earth.