I looked into the cave and started back. A fearful [pg 386]sense of awe came over my soul. My pilgrimage was in vain. I stood in the presence of the dead!
In that dim and damp and empty cavern, lay a human body, stretched upon a couch of stone. It was clad in rusty black, with a black veil thrown over the face. She had been long, long dead; for the feet which protruded from her robe were bones and not feet. A scourge of leather thongs had fallen from her hands. Engraven deeply in the moist rock of the wall, just above her prostrate figure, was the single word,
Magdalen.
I advanced no nearer. I knelt in prayer. I did not weep. He who has lived in both worlds, cannot be greatly stirred by the mutations of this. I turned away, thinking of our beautiful house in the heavens, and sighing to myself,
“It is well! It is well!”
My heart now turned to John. I sailed from Marseilles, bound for Alexandria, where I expected to take ship for Ephesus. We never reached Alexandria. After we passed the island of Sicily a series of terrible storms commenced, and our little vessel was driven about like a feather on the sea. Our hardships were great, and our labor in vain. After many days our vessel sprang a leak, and we were compelled to abandon her, or go to the bottom with her. Our boat stood bravely for the shore, where some lofty mountains loomed up through the night air. We were capsized, and I lost consciousness. When I recovered my senses it was daylight. The little boat was beached quite near me. My companions were all drowned. I was utterly alone.
I was wrecked at the foot of the western range of Mount Lebanon, on the coast of Phenicia. I found a large and dry cave half-way up the first great spur that overlooks the sea. I have made this my home. I turned fisherman for a living—for I had lost all with the ship—and the little boat was serviceable for that. I exchanged my fish with the people a little way from the coast, for other articles more needed.
Thus I have lived for several years. Here I have written this manuscript. I have chosen the Greek language for its composition, because I am familiar with it, and because I believe the words of Eschylus and Homer will be more durable than the marbles of Athens.
One more page and it will be finished. Its inspiration withdrawn from me, my life will be more desolate than ever. I shall seal it up carefully, and conceal it in some safe place for the eyes and ears of a future generation wiser and better than this. I shall then turn to Death and say, “I salute thee.”
I shall not wait long. After I left my prison in Antioch and mingled with the turbulent tide of human life, my spiritual visions left me, my spiritual senses were closed. They are opening again. I have the old, beautiful dreams. I hear the same heavenly music. I see the same auroral and rainbow flashes of light. These now are prophecies of death—nay, rather of life, of heaven. The gates stand ajar.