iers enter, Then all the confusion and horror of that
dreadful night come back to him. He hears S. Peter's denial, and marks
his bitter tears. Presently he seems to stand again beneath the Cross,
amid the awful gloom of Calvary, and anon he is leading the Virgin
Mother tenderly to his own home. She has been buried long since in
that very city of Ephesus, but the old days come back to him. He is
running once more, young, and lithe, and active, to the garden
sepulchre, and outrunning the older S. Peter. And in all these visions
of the past, S. John sees one lesson--love, the love of Jesus teaching
men to love each other. Still the beloved Apostle looks back along the
ages, and thinks of that scene on the Mount, when Jesus ascended up,
and appeared for the last time to nearly all eyes but his. He was to
see the Master again, though in a very different place, and under
widely different circumstances. Now his thoughts fly to the lonely,
rock-bound isle of Patmos, whither the Roman tyrant had banished him.
How often he had watched the sun rise and set in the purple sea; how
often in his cavern cell he had pondered over the Master's teaching,
and the lesson of love. And one day he saw a light brighter than the
sun, and a door was opened in Heaven. S. John seemed to be no longer
in lonely Patmos, but amid a great multitude which no man can number,
with whom he was treading the shining streets of the Heavenly city.
His eyes looked on the gates of pearl, and the sea of glass, he
listened to the song of the elders and the angels, and he beheld the
things which shall be hereafter. Once more he looked upon the Master's
Face, and beheld the King in His beauty. And remembering these things,
the old man murmurs to the crowd, "Little children, love one another.
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren." From death unto life! It is a strange expression! We all
know of the passage from life unto death. We have all seen the
loosening of the silver cord, and the breaking of the golden bowl. We
have all marked the fading cheek, the shrinking limbs, the glazing eye,
which mark the passage from life unto death. But that other change
from death unto life cannot be seen, it is the invisible work of the
Holy Spirit. Yet S. John says, we know that we have passed from death
unto life. How? By our fruits. If the love of God is in our hearts,
if we have passed from the death of sin unto the li