before a door hung with a curtain of rich workmanship, torn in the
middle from top to bottom. Through the rent I passed into a stone
cell. In the cell stood a table. On the table was a closed book. Oh
how my heart beat! Never but then have I known the feeling of utter
preciousness in a thing possessed. What doubts and fears would not
this one lovely, oh unutterably beloved volume, lay at rest for
ever! How my eyes would dwell upon every stroke of every letter the
hand of the dearest disciple had formed! Nearly eighteen hundred
years--and there it lay!--and there WAS a man who DID hear the
Master say the words, and did set them down! I stood motionless, and
my soul seemed to wind itself among the leaves, while my body stood
like a pillar of salt, lost in its own gaze. At last, with sudden
daring, I made a step towards the table, and, bending with awe,
stretched out my hand to lay it upon the book. But ere my hand
reached it, another hand, from the opposite side of the table,
appeared upon it--an old, blue-veined, but powerful hand. I looked
up. There stood the beloved disciple! His countenance was as a
mirror which shone back the face of the Master. Slowly he lifted the
book, and turned away. Then first I saw behind him as it were an
altar whereon a fire of wood was burning, and a pang of dismay shot
to my heart, for I knew what he was about to do. He laid the book on
the burning wood, and regarded it with a smile as it shrunk and
shrivelled and smouldered to ashes. Then he turned to me and said,
while a perfect heaven of peace shone in his eyes: 'Son of man, the
Word of God liveth and abideth for ever, not in the volume of the
book, but in the heart of the man that in love obeyeth him. And
therewith I awoke weeping, but with the lesson of my dream."

A deep silence fell on the little company. Then said Wingfold,