HOW SEVEN YEARS AFTER THE MYSTIC YEAR ST. FRIEND AND AVANEL READ FROM A
COPY OF THE GOLDEN BOOK AND HOW HE TELLS HIS VISION THAT CAME THE DAY
THE BOOK FIRST APPEARED. ON OTHER DAYS THE LADY AVANEL SOWS THE THISTLE
OF DREAMS AND THE APPLE AMARANTH SEEDS AND THE ACORNS OF EZEKIEL AND THE
SEEDS OF THE GOLDEN RAIN TREE AND THEREBY COME NEW VISIONS AND TEACHINGS
AND MAGIC WORKS.
Of the Singapore adventure, there is a song to be sung, some day, but we
cannot, by taking thought, sing of battles. The song of battle comes
when we least expect it, long after or long before the event that is so
moving to the heart.
But Singapore is indeed overthrown and for two seasons the young men and
maidens have been back from the Asiatic war front. To some of them, to
many, The Golden Book came before they left Springfield. To others it
appeared after the last battle, hovering above the trenches at midnight
and there were songs in the air calling them home. Or they found it
suddenly in their hands in camp shelters, and long litanies and
proclamations of the New Springfield and the New Earth flashed upon
their souls and burned eternal record there.
It is a gorgeous first of March afternoon and the wind has abated for a
few hours, and a few buds are out in Washington Park and we are hoping
that frost will not nip them in this exceedingly premature spring. The
lotus pond is still empty and leaden. It flowers only in the height of
July but we look to it in hope and with remembrance of other lotus days.
Avanel and I and St. Friend are in the Washington Park Pavilion. The
precocious spring is in the blood of the ancient saint. He is the
youngest of us, the gayest. Avanel is speaking of that morning in front
of the blacksmith shop when the great Book fluttered into her arms. “In
the fire flaming from the words of that book, I found power to go out
and fight for the International Flag, and make that the vengeance for
the death of my father.”
Now I draw from my coat pocket a tiny duplicate of the book, such as is
now in the hands of practically every Springfield citizen, printed by
Josephine Windom and Horace Andrews. As we three loaf in the pavilion:
St. Friend, Avanel and myself, and look at the leaden lotus pond, St.
Friend reads aloud the familiar opening sentences of St. Scribe of the
Shrines, who wrote the book in Heaven:—
“I have been long in the jungles of the Celestial Zion, speculating on
how the ruined mansions here, and how the earth itself, might be
rebuilt. Yet the true Heaven lies in a single flower, and more and more
my speculations turn on how my own city, Springfield, may be rebuilt.”
Then St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, at our urging, reads on and on. The
volume tells, for instance, how Heaven became a jungle within the
lifetime of an ordinary man. The book contains a sermon, which our saint
reads to us, on: “Your great great grandson’s neighbors.” It is a volume
no more consecutive than the Koran. Each dream is written down once for
all as it came to the tranced soul of St. Scribe, as he bent over the
page, with his terrible pen in his hand.
With endless reiteration the book denounces the diabolical works of the
Singaporian sect and their conspiring against world peace. It pronounces
a blessing on the predestined victorious armies of the World Government
and prophecies the triumph of their splendid flag.
Moreover, St. Friend reads, not only many of these things, but the
sermon on “The Rhythm of the Heart,” and the homily upon “The Good and
Evil of Beauty.” He reads the exhortation for “The Young Musician who
has not learned to Pray,” and the one for “The Young Politician who has
not learned to Pray,” and like discourses for many other occupations.
And then Avanel and I take turns reading on and on to him through the
specific directions for the founding of the schools of the Young
Prophets, and the discourse on the horror of the angels at all the World
Wars, and the tale of how the angels went out to redeem the stars from
war by surrendering themselves to crucifixion on millions of crosses on
millions of suns and stars and planets, and thus within the lifetime of
the generation now on earth, Heaven was left a jungle. This is followed
by an exhortation to make Springfield a city “worthy of the blood of the
crucified poured down upon it.”
But its powers are not directly in its interminable discourses. Always
it seems to be a person, not a book, and so, on this afternoon.
April 10, 2025:—Again it is a goodly afternoon, and we are still hopeful
for these precocious buds. As we sit in the sun in the Washington Park
Pavilion, Saint Friend, the Giver of Bread, tells us of the visions that
came seven years ago.
“I remember the Halloween of 2018, and the next few days, as no other
period in my life. I was in the Cathedral all the night, praying before
the Image of St. Scribe of the Shrines. And toward morning it took on
the appearance of breathing human flesh, but was Hunter Kelly of long
ago, in the hunter’s cap and deerskin dress, such as he wore when he
came to Illinois two centuries ago.”
And so Hunter Kelly, St. Scribe of the Shrines, made me forget all else,
telling me stories of the tomorrow of Illinois and giving clear
prophecies of the tomorrow of the Cathedral, in the city and the nation
and the world. He spoke of saints of the pattern of Abraham Lincoln, and
Johnny Appleseed, foreordained to live and breathe beneath our Cathedral
roof, before the ever living presence on the altar. Then he gave me the
joy of confession, and seemed to be St. Scribe, the master of my youth.
Then all was darkness and sleep.
“In the early morning I woke from my trance and found myself lying on
the floor of the Cathedral. The Image of Hunter Kelly-St. Scribe was
gone from the niche.
“In the late morning, when I found myself reading his Golden Book to the
people, it seemed as though I had known its every word for infinite
years.
“I read on and on. When I closed the book and dismissed the people, they
went out singing through the streets ‘Springfield Awake, Springfield
Aflame.’
“As I stood alone in the church, a vision of the war came to me.
“The angel of the Cathedral came down from the carved niche near the
roof. By many signs she was, indeed, the angel of Illinois. The stone
was transformed into a presence, delicate as the milkweed silk, ruddy as
the sunrise. Her hair was the hue of red corn. Her wind blown mantle was
the color of ripe wheat. Her wings were like those of the white eagle.
Her eyes were dark as the deep-digged mine. Her smile was the beginning
of visions.
“Circling her temple was an opalescent crown, twenty white stars, with
the twenty-first over the forehead, with the red blood of Hunter Kelly
in the heart’s core of it.
“Above her head appeared a great hand, swinging a censer through the
roof and walls of the building. The Angel of the Cathedral said to me,
as she stood beside me:—‘This is the Censer of Change. A great change is
coming to Illinois and the Capital of Illinois.’
“The smoke poured out and filled the streets. It penetrated every grove
of Springfield. It beat in the blood of every living creature.
“The Angel of Illinois said:—‘This is the Incense of Civic Genius. The
city shall be barren no longer but bring forth.’
“Then through the roof, as though there were a censer higher than the
first, clouds of many colors descended. These became gorgeous
cloud-winged children in wonderful, gleaming silks, flying through the
walls. And in the same stream Gothic grotesques walked and crawled down
the aisles and out into the streets, all singing: ‘Springfield Awake,
Springfield Aflame.’
“The angel of the Cathedral said: ‘These are the children of the New
Time and their playmates, the beasts of Innocent Fancy.’
“Then the dusty stone cherubim and seraphim that stood by the pillars of
the church, with their dusty cold trumpets, took on life. They blew a
long awakening cry. Every note was a delicate and heart-shaking
surprise. Then from above the high altar, from a fire which burned round
the Host on the altar, there came soldiers of Heaven, in very ancient
armor, but with newly pierced hands.
“The Angel of the Cathedral, the Angel of Illinois, said: ‘These are
they who shall live invisibly by every hearth and table throughout the
Capital.’
“There burst from the pavement smoke and dust and stones, and from there
arose the great glass image of the cocaine Buddha. Immobile as any other
stone, he was yet carried by invisible hands. He and his company rushed
with a great whistling like the hissing of serpents. They went out
through the walls into the streets as though the walls were nothing.
They had many kinds of monsters with them, and strangely singing birds
of paradise, and lions with poison quills.
“The Angel of Illinois said to me: ‘This glass image will turn to dust.’
Yet for every angel at a hearth of the city there will be a demon, a
quilled lion, and a singing bird of paradise. These will eat invisibly
at your tables and hearths, feeding upon the words and thoughts of the
household. They will breathe hell’s breath into the faces of the
children. But the Angel Soldiers of Heaven who have marched from out the
High Altar will be with the people also.
“These powers will be in perpetual truce and perpetual war in every
house in the Capital. But open war between nations and races of men will
soon be ended forever.
“These lions have crept and ramped through the dark valleys of Heaven
and they have the seeds of sweet flowers clinging to their feet and
these singing birds of paradise have flown through the dark trees of
heaven, and have the seeds of rare trees clinging to their pinions.
“These censers that have swung over the raw capital, will swing over
many another this day, and the angel soldiers will appear in many
another city around the world, and by many a far off hearthstone and
family and tribal table, with their demon foes beside them, in perpetual
truce, and perpetual war.”
May 15:—The premature, precocious buds and green twigs of the year are
surviving this perilous spring. There are showers and carpets of every
kind of blossom. It seems more like June fifteenth than May fifteenth.
Beautiful people, mothers and children, boys and girls, in the lightest
and whitest of summer masquerading costumes are walking and dancing over
the whitest, cleanest streets our city has ever known. But the Lady
Avanel and I confess to one another, as of old, that these days are not
the millennium, however gay they seem to be.
And yet my lady, this evening, becomes a thing not quite of this earth,
a spirit, yet a sower in earthly fields.
I whisper: “Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, while the star chimes are
ringing another new tune, what are you sowing from your close-woven
willow basket so full of seed?” The lady speaks with the voice of the
wind:—“I am sowing the torturing thistle of dreams. Some men do not see
this city as it is, because they have walked in easy and stupid ways.
They have never walked, as we do this evening, while the Thistle of
Dreams comes up. We see it springing from the ground in an instant. It
will go in an hour. But if we touch it we are blessed and tormented
forever by newer and newer dreams. And at last our eyes will see this
city as it is, a weed patch indeed, but of fancies. And more than a weed
patch of fancies,—a forest, but of gigantic dreams.
“The men who can see the dreams build the patterns into visible forms,
and then we have the Sunset Towers, and the Truth Tower, and the Street
of Past History, and the rest.
“Then I walk past these buildings and sow new thistle-down and thistles,
and they penetrate the very concrete of the sidewalk, splitting it for
their roots. Then younger men and women are stung with new visions, that
make the Sunset Towers seem commonplace, and all but the Springfield
Flag, the Star Spangled Banner, and the World Flag, dim things.”
The Thistle of Dreams is growing around Avanel as she speaks. It looks
like a gigantic fleur de lis, but from it comes endless silk as though
from the pods of the milkweed. She says of that silk: “It is full of
thorns sharper than Cupid’s arrows, more transforming than any drug from
Asia. They work their way to many a heart and brain. When the young
citizens are tormented by these they will build things greater than
Springfield has yet looked upon, people’s palaces, as yet without a
name.”
“And who are you, Lady Avanel, and by what authority do you speak?”
“I am only the breath of the prairie, I am only the West-going Heart,
and by that authority I speak to you, and by that authority I sow the
thistle.”
“Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, while the star chimes are ringing another
new tune, what are you sowing from your close woven willow basket, so
full of seed?”
“I am sowing the appleseeds of Johnny Appleseed and Hunter Kelly and the
Acorns of Rabbi Terence Ezekiel and the seeds of the Golden Rain Tree of
New Harmony. But they are now breathed on by the winds of chaos and
their glory comes suddenly.”
At once in her path appear saplings, then they become full grown trees.
And there are many earthquakes, as the boughs begin, this very midnight,
to bear flowers and fruit. Then come up from the roots explosive scraps
of earth and volcano coals. Treasure sacks of strange jewels, neither
scorched nor smoked, are tossed to the surface of the ground. These
sacks are full of coins of celestial gold, stamped with a picture of
Hunter Kelly, as though he were a President or an Emperor of some
strange dominion.
From each heap of celestial gold come two or three bright spirits with
wreaths of tiny leaves or flowers round their baby foreheads, weeping
angels, an hour old, little boys, most sturdy and kicking.
And now angels will come to bear them to the houses of the laughing
people. Citizens who are not at home will find them later on the table,
and in the wood box and in the waste-basket, strange little visitors and
sons.
“Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, what of these children from the sod?”
The lady answers: “These are the laughter of earth and heaven.
“These children will grow in stature and beauty for twenty years. And
then these little sons of God will see the daughters of men, that they
are fair, as it was in the book of Genesis, at the very beginning of
time. The next generation of men in Springfield, born of the loves of
these angels and daughters of the city, will be giants like Nimrod.
These giants will drive out the former institutions with their own
swords, forged for this special war. That generation will build many
mansions of divine beauty, sheltering men and near-angels alike. And the
houses of magical or heavenly aspect will mix with the plain, grimy or
earthen houses:—for the generations of Springfield will be forever a
mixed breed.”