Pearl-Maiden eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 486 pages of information about Pearl-Maiden.

Pearl-Maiden eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 486 pages of information about Pearl-Maiden.

Again she saw the sacred height of Moriah, and lo! a Temple stood upon it, a splendid building, but not that which she knew, and in front of this Temple the same black rock.  On the rock, where once the lad had been bound, was an altar, and before the altar a glorious man clad in priestly robes, who offered sacrifice of lambs and oxen and in a sonorous voice gave praise to Jehovah in the presence of a countless host of people.  This she knew was the vision of Solomon the King.

It passed, and lo! by this same black rock stood another man, pale and eager-faced, with piercing eyes, who reproached the worshippers in the Temple because of the wickedness of their hearts, and drove them from before him with a scourge of cords.  This she knew was a vision of Jesus, the Son of Mary, that Messiah Whom she worshipped, for as He drove out the people He prophesied the desolation that should fall upon them, and as they fled they mocked Him.

The picture passed, and again she saw the black rock, but now it lay beneath a gilded dome and light fell upon it through painted windows.  About it moved many priests whose worship was strange to her, and so they seemed to move for ages.  At length the doors of that dome were burst open, and upon the priests rushed fair-faced, stately-looking men, clad in white mail and bearing upon their shields and breastplates the symbol of the Cross.  They slaughtered the votaries of the strange worship, and once more the rock was red with blood.  Now they were gone in turn and other priests moved beneath the dome, but the Cross had vanished thence, and its pinnacles were crowned with crescents.

That vision passed, and there came another of dim, undistinguishable hordes that tore down the crescents and slaughtered the ministers of the strange faith, and gave the domed temple to the flames.

That vision passed, and once more the summit of Mount Moriah was as it had been in the beginning:  the wild olive and the wild fig flourished among its desolate terraces, the wild boar roamed beneath their shade, and there were none to hunt him.  Only the sunlight and the moonlight still beat upon the ancient Rock of Sacrifice.

That vision passed, and lo! around the rock, filling the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the valleys beyond, and the Mount of Olives and the mountains above, yes, and the empty air between earth and sky, further than the eye could reach, stood, rank upon rank, all the countless million millions of mankind, all the millions that had been and were yet to be, gazing, every one of them, anxiously and in utter silence upon the scarred and naked Rock of Sacrifice.  Now upon the rock there grew a glory so bright that at the sight of it all the million of millions abased their eyes.  And from the glory pealed forth a voice of a trumpet, that seemed to say: 

“This is the end and the beginning, all things are accomplished in their order, now is the day of Decision.”

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Project Gutenberg
Pearl-Maiden from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.