We again took our way to the seat upon the mountain,—the gloom in my own mind making every thing around me more gloomy. Forgetting my hypocrisy in my feelings, I, at once, avowed to him all the doubts and fears which my study of the morning had awakened.
“Thou art yet, my son,” he answered, “but on the threshold of our faith. Thou hast seen but the first rudiments of the Divine plan;—its full and consummate perfection hath not yet opened upon thee. However glorious that manifestation of Divinity on Mount Sinai, it was but the [pg 270]forerunner of another, still more glorious, that, in the fulness of time, was to burst upon the world; when all, that had seemed dim and incomplete, was to be perfected, and the promises, shadowed out by the ‘spirit of prophecy,’ realized;—when the silence, that lay, as a seal, on the future, was to be broken, and the glad tidings of life and immortality proclaimed to the world!”
Observing my features brighten at these words, the pious man continued. Anticipating some of the holy knowledge that was in store for me, he traced, through all its wonders and mercies, the great work of Redemption, dwelling on every miraculous circumstance connected with it;—the exalted nature of the Being, by whose ministry it was accomplished, the noblest and first created of the Sons of God, inferior only to the one, self-existent Father;—the mysterious incarnation of this heavenly messenger;—the miracles that authenticated his divine mission;—[pg 271]the example of obedience to God and love to man, which he set, as a shining light, before the world for ever;—and, lastly and chiefly, his death and resurrection, by which the covenant of mercy was sealed, and “life and immortality brought to light.”
“Such,” continued the Hermit, “was the Mediator, promised through all time, to ‘make reconciliation for iniquity,’ to change death into life, and bring ‘healing on his wings’ to a darkened world. Such was the last crowning dispensation of that God of benevolence, in whose hands sin and death are but instruments of everlasting good, and who, through apparent evil and temporary retribution, bringing all things ‘out of darkness into his marvellous light,’ proceeds watchfully and unchangingly to the great, final object of his providence,—the restoration of the whole human race to purity and happiness!”
With a mind astonished, if not touched, [pg 272]by these discourses, I returned to my cave; and found the lamp, as before, ready lighted to receive me. The volume which I had been reading was replaced by another, which lay open upon the table, with a branch of fresh palm between its leaves. Though I could not have a doubt to whose gentle hand I was indebted for this invisible superintendence over my studies, there was yet a something in it, so like spiritual interposition, that it awed me;—and never more than at this moment, when, on approaching the volume, I saw, as the light glistened over its silver letters, that it was the very Book of Life of which the Hermit had spoken!
The orison of the Christians had sounded through the valley, before I raised my eyes from that sacred volume; and the second hour of the sun found me again over its pages.
CHAP. XVIII.
In this mode of existence did I pass some days;—my mornings devoted to reading, my nights to listening, under the canopy of heaven, to the holy eloquence of Melanius. The perseverance with which I enquired, and the quickness with which I learned, soon succeeded in deceiving my benevolent instructor, who mistook curiosity for zeal and knowledge for belief. Alas! cold, and barren, and earthly was that knowledge,—the word, without the spirit, the shape, without the life. Even when, as a relief from hypocrisy, I persuaded myself that I believed, it was but a brief delusion, a faith, whose hope crumbled at the touch,—like the fruit of the desert-shrub, shining and empty!