Letters

⁴¹ Emerge, I pray you, for a while from your prison-house, and paint before your eyes the reward of your present toil, a reward which “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man.” What will be the glory of that day when Mary, the mother of the Lord, shall come to meet you, accompanied by her virgin choirs! When, the Red Sea past and Pharaoh drowned with his host, Miriam, Aaron's sister, her timbrel in her hand, shall chant to the answering women: “Sing ye unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea.” Then shall Thecla fly with joy to embrace you.

Then shall your Spouse himself come forward and say: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away, for lo! The winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” Then shall the angels say with wonder: “Who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun?” “The daughters shall see you and bless you; yea, the queens shall proclaim and the concubines shall praise you.” And, after these, yet another company of chaste women will meet you. Sarah will come with the wedded; Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, with the widows.

In the one band you will find your natural mother and in the other your spiritual. The one will rejoice in having borne, the other will exult in having taught you. Then truly will the Lord ride upon his ass, and thus enter the heavenly Jerusalem. Then the little ones (of whom, in Isaiah, the Saviour says: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me”) shall lift up palms of victory and shall sing with one voice: “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest.” Then shall the “hundred and forty and four thousand” hold their harps before the throne and before the elders and shall sing the new song.

And no man shall have power to learn that song save those for whom it is appointed. “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb wherever he goes.” As often as this life's idle show tries to charm you; as often as you see in the world some vain pomp, transport yourself in mind to Paradise, essay to be now what you will be hereafter, and you will hear your Spouse say: “Set me as a sunshade in your heart and as a seal upon your arm.” And then, strengthened in body as well as in mind, you, too, will cry aloud and say: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”