“God’s love is a wind that blows hitherward and hence. Speak, and thou shalt hear.”
Colum spake. “O Murtagh my brother, tell me in what way it is that I still keep God crucified upon the Cross.”
There was a sound in the cell as of the morning-laughter of children, of the singing of birds, of the sunlight streaming through the blue fields of Heaven.
Then Murtagh’s voice came out of Paradise, sweet with the sweetness: honey-sweet it was, and clothed with deep awe because of the glory.
“Colum, servant of Christ, arise!”
Colum rose, and was as a leaf there, a leaf that is in the wind.
“Colum, thine hour is not yet come. I see it, bathing in the white light which is the Pool of Eternal Life, that is in the abyss where deep-rooted are the Gates of Heaven.”
“And my sin, O Murtagh, my sin?”
“God is weary because thou hast not repented.”
“O my God and my God! Sure, Murtagh, if that is so, it is so, but it is not for knowledge to me. Sure, O God, it is a blessing I have put on man and woman, on beast and bird and fish, on creeping things and flying things, on the green grass and the brown earth and the flowing wave, on the wind that cometh and goeth, and on the mystery of the flame! Sure, O God, I have sorrowed for all my sins: there is not one I have not fasted and prayed for. Sorrow upon me!—Is it accursed I am, or what is the evil that holdeth me by the hand?”