"I will come."
But with the morning light, how bitter was the sight which burst on her
aching eyes! All had been as desolate long before; but she had never
seen it as she saw it now. Noisome beasts, which prowled fearlessly
around her; skulls and ghastly skeletons of their murdered prey strewn
about; on the ground the broken, rusted harp; on her hands the heavy
chain; and, worse than all, the door she had opened to the Enemy ever
open, and inviting his approach.
Too surely he came. He mocked her hope until it appeared baseless as
a dream; and nothing seemed real, but the ruin to which he scornfully
directed her gaze, and the chain which now, for the first time without
concealment, he held up triumphantly, dragging her by it to every
corner of the polluted and ruined temple, to show her how complete and
hopeless the ruin was. Then drawing the links tighter than before, so
that they galled and wounded her wrists, he led her to the image of
herself, which he had adorned, and painted, and so often flattered. He
dragged off the tinsel ornaments, and effaced the delusive colouring,
and left her, at last, face to face with the defaced and broken idol,
saying—
"This is the worship you yourself have chosen. Pursue it still. There
is no other for you."
She could not bear to gaze on it; and as he went, she fell prostrate on
the altar steps, and hid her face on the stones. Yet still, though with
but a feeble hope, she sobbed out—
"If thou art good—if thou canst help me, come,—oh, come, and set me
free!"
Weariness at last brought sleep, and in her dreams she saw a lovely
vision of the temple as it once had been. White columns gleamed, sweet
and solemn music sounded, and she herself ministered in white robes at
the altar, before a Radiant Form, on which she could scarcely for a
moment gaze.
The awaking from this dream to the desolation around her was more
terrible than all she had felt before. It must have bereft her of
reason, but for the echo of three cheering words, which seemed to have
awakened her—
"I will come."
The next day, with the light of that radiant vision on her heart, she
dragged her fettered limbs to the altar, and strove with her feeble and
trembling hands to tear that marred image from the shrine. But in vain.
It was too firmly imbedded there; and she could only turn her face from
it, and weep, and cry for help.
And before the next morning's dawn, help came.
In the night, a heavenly visitant descended; and with human words, in a
language she had not spoken for years, but every word of which melted
her heart like the accents of her mother-tongue, he touched her chains,
and they fell off.
He spoke, and the wild beasts fled, howling; he touched her broken
harp, and it was restrung and tuned; he touched the dry and choked up
channel of the sacred spring, and it welled forth pure and fresh from
beneath the altar; he touched the idol on the shrine, and it fell, and
in its stead shone that wondrous Radiance which she had seen in her
dream. Then he poured on her head the fragrant oil of consecration, and
clothed her in a white vestal priestly garment, and placed the restrung
harp in her hand, and rose again to heaven.
At first her joy knew no measure. She gazed on the sacred shrine, and
in its glory at times she perceived the lineaments of the form of Him
who had done all this for her. She touched her harp, and the sweet
strings responded as if they knew her hand; she sang holy songs in that
old, long-forgotten, yet familiar tongue, so heavenly and happy that
the wild beasts would not venture near, and the morning-birds were
silent to listen. She bathed in the newly-opened fountain and drank of
it, and as she drank, her strength and her youth came back.
For a time her joy was without cloud or measure; but as the daylight
returned, the desolation or the ruined temple struck sadly on her
heart. It was indeed a sacred place once more, and she its consecrated
priestess; but was this ruin never to be repaired?
She began to cleanse the sacred vessels and to sweep the earth of all
the refuse and dry bones which had been gathered there. And then, with
her renewed strength, she set herself to collect the broken fragments
of the columns, and tried to piece together the shattered tracery and
the delicate carvings of flower and foliage. But it was in vain. She
could indeed bring the shattered fragments together and see what they
had been, but she could not join them, or replace one prostrate shaft
or capital.
And as she sat down mournfully before her shrine, tears dimmed her
eyes, so that she could scarcely see the Radiance there, and, falling
on her harp-strings, would have rusted them and marred their sweetness;
whilst in the silence, a voice, too long and bitterly familiar, was
heard at the door. Turning round, she perceived the form of the Enemy
there, whilst behind him glared fierce and hungry eyes, and in her
terror, the harp almost fell from her hands.
But she threw herself on her knees before the altar, pressed the harp
convulsively to her heart, and cried, "Will these ruins never be
repaired, these doors never closed against my enemy and thine?"
The pressure of her trembling fingers drew forth some plaintive
strains, like the wind on Æolian strings; but low and plaintive as they
were, the enemy disappeared, and the wild beasts fled howling from them.
Then she began to perceive the power of her harp, and drew from it a
song of joy and triumph. And as she still gazed on the radiant shrine,
a veil seemed to be withdrawn from it, and she perceived that it was a
window, so that the light streamed through it, not from it.
Wondering, she gazed, until, penetrating further and further through
the light, she saw in the depths of heaven a Temple like her own, only
perfect, glorious beyond comparison, and full;—full of worshippers
robed and singing like herself, and full of that wondrous radiance
which streamed from the heavenly form she had seen.
She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to her surprise the strings
began to quiver of their own accord. An electric current united them
to the harps in the heavenly temple, and they vibrated in exquisite
harmonies the echo of the harmonies above.
And with the heavenly strains, came a voice divine and human, mighty as
the sound of many waters, yet soft and near as a whisper in her ear:
"Here all ruins are repaired, the enemy cannot enter here, but here
thou shalt dwell for ever."