Son of the Morning

  “Yes,” said Nathan softly. “I know.”

  “And the Bible is the only tool—and I would say mainly the Gospels, if reading is a chore and your eyes bother you, you know: the Gospels are enough to get you through. There’s other parts that are said to be beautiful, like poetry, and a lot of history in them—and things for scholars and theologians to quibble over, you know—but how important is all that? After all—The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. The Lord doesn’t really require anything more.”

  The child listened closely, and appeared to agree.

  “He never sends us anything beyond our strength,” Reverend Sisley said.

  His wife was said to be several years his senior: white-haired like her husband, but less amiable than he, at times rather waspish, even tearful and petulant (on account of her legs, the pain in her legs: which was much worse in wet weather). She had wanted Opal and Nathan to live with them from the first, but shortly after they moved in she began to pick at the boy (who was always creeping around the house, she said, padding around like a cat, so that her heart practically failed her when he came up behind her and spoke; and his eating habits were so odd—why give up meat, was he a Catholic, and why no milk or eggs, and never anything sweet like cake or pie or cookies or even apple cider?). And she was moody with Opal, who certainly tried her best to be deferential and self-effacing and sisterly. She burst into tears with little provocation, and kept to her room for days at a time, faint of breath, imagining she would die soon and be out of everyone’s way. It hurt her very much that Mrs. Vickery could organize the women’s meetings without any trouble, and take care of most of Reverend Sisley’s mail and financial arrangements, and that she could handle the housekeeping and most of the cooking and even find time to go out and visit the sick, as Mrs. Sisley had once done. It hurt her that people were whispering all sorts of things—that she, the minister’s wife, now had two full-time servants so she could laze in bed all she wished, and that Reverend Sisley had somehow gotten hold of the late Dr. Vickery’s money (a fortune, it was rumored in Marsena: certainly he must have put away thousands of dollars over the years), and was using Nathan Vickery more and more often, being on the edge of senility himself. So she kept to her room, and when she reappeared the three of them pretended to be delighted to see her—as if this wasn’t her own home, where she belonged by rights.

  “Still,” she thought, “we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. That goes without saying.”

  A SLOW SOUNDLESS explosion of light, of sheer dazzling blinding light that obliterated the walls and the ceiling and the floor of the room, and swept Nathanael Vickery away from earth altogether: so You saw fit to manifest Yourself on the eve of the boy’s twelfth birthday.

  He was unable to rejoice in Your magnificence because in his astonishment he had neither breath nor strength. O Lord! Lord God of Hosts! His vision failed and his soul seemed to cringe, to shrink. What was happening? Where would he plunge? In the soul-battering effusion of light there was neither height nor depth, there was nothing to seize, nothing to flatten himself against. You appeared: and the earth fell away.

  He had been fasting for some time. For days. Secretly, for days. He hid himself from the others so they would not interfere—not that they dared interfere with his love for You. He hid himself in preparation for a sermon he was to give in a day or two, under Reverend Sisley’s direction. Hour after hour he studied the Bible, reading even those passages he had memorized years ago, sternly reading and rereading. I am the door. I am the door. His sermon was to be on that subject. And so he studied the Gospel of St. John; and the Book of Revelation; and then he opened the Bible at random, praying for Your guidance, his fingers trembling as if he sensed himself on the brink of an extraordinary experience.

  And so it came about that You manifested Yourself to him for the third time in his life.

  (Of course You dwelt with him at all times, and Jesus was his inseparable companion, advising him, encouraging him, giving him strength to withstand the ignorant taunts of his classmates at the country schoolhouse, and even their physical blows—but the visions You sent him were something else entirely. There was one aspect of God, Nathan believed, that resided in him and was identical with his soul, being of the same substance; but there was another aspect of God, unknown, unknowable, that came upon him from without, swooping down upon him without warning. God in this form was a rare trembling brightness that pierced the eye and snatched away the breath. It did no good to cry for aid, or for mercy, for this God was oblivious of human pain.)

  Christ appeared. His hand was thrust out. For an instant Nathan was too terrified to respond.

  “Nathan,” came the command. “Nathan.”

  The hand was enormous, hard and muscular; the fingers were like claws.

  Blindly he reached out—blindly he took hold of the stranger’s hand.

  Ice stretched to every horizon. What was this place? Creatures were trapped in ice, in solid ice. Creatures with human forms, human features. Who were they? Why were their screams silent? These were sinners who had turned aside from God, Nathan was given to know; these were the souls of the damned. He stared, a spell upon him. He could not have spoken had he wished to. What was this place? Christ’s fingers squeezed his tightly together. The sinners were trapped in ice to their breasts, to their chins, even up to their mouths; it was a coldness ten times colder than any Nathan had known previously. Ah, such cold! Such hurt in every breath! He would have fled, but Christ held him fast. “I am the door,” Christ said softly. “By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved: but if he shall not enter in he shall be damned. He shall be damned.”

  The sinners’ contorted faces were too ugly to contemplate. Nathan shrank away. He hated it that their eyes snatched piteously at his. Did they recognize him? Who were they? Mute, encased in rock, trapped, doomed, damned: he felt a terrible revulsion for them. For it was possible that his soul would slip toward them, weakened by pity, and not even Christ’s flame-like presence would be sufficient to free him.

  And if he saw his Grandfather Vickery among them—!

  “Take me away. Please take me away,” he begged.

  Exulting, Christ led him forward. What was solid earth, solid ice, shattered to a million fragments; Nathan had to shield his eyes.

  A forest, a jungle: steamy hot. At first it appeared to be deserted. The heat was so powerful that Nathan could not gauge it—he felt it as a solid wall slamming against him. What were those creatures? Stooped, misshapen, eyeless . . . ? Christ squeezed his hand so tightly that Nathan winced. It was crucial that he be awake, that he be alert, and not succumb to this terrible heat.

  Vapors rose, like fingers, into the opaque sky. Water easing into steam. Mist. Elsewhere there were pools of seething liquid, flaming like lava, and in these pools (he had to blink droplets of perspiration out of his eyes in order to see clearly) were human forms . . . Some waved their scrawny arms, some lay mute and inert as if dead. They swayed from side to side, whimpering like dogs. “I am the door,” Christ whispered. “I am the door not all would pass through.”

  Nathan’s soul was transfixed with wonder. He did fear Your son, but feared even more any expression of his own weakness. What shame there was in it, and in him! What shame that he should cringe before the bright-dark glowering face of Your son!

  “This is the place of those who sinned with their flesh, and turned away from me,” Christ said.

  Nathan stared. At first he saw nothing—no one. And then he saw a vast crowd, creatures not quite distinct from one another and from the misshapen earth that held them, nearly swallowed up in mists that stung saltlike with heat. These had once been human beings, Nathan was given to know. But they were human beings no longer. They were stunted, deformed creatures, missing parts of bodies. Many were eyeless; in some cases scar tissue had grown unevenly over the empty sockets. Women’s breasts dripped blood. Nathan wanted to shut his eyes, but could not.
He was given to know that he must look: he must learn.

  Ah, such blood! It was unclean, glistening on bellies, on the insides of thighs; droplets were forced out of nipples, causing great pain. Nathan felt the screams of the women though he could not hear them. No! No! Stop! He stared in horror as an enormous black snake, larger than a water moccasin, overtook one of the women and fastened its teeth onto her breast. What a silent convulsive shrieking! What a nightmare!

  Yet Christ would not allow him to fall back.

  It was given him to know that all was well: for these were sinners, each and every one of them was a sinner who had rejected Jesus of Nazareth as his Saviour.

  “For I alone am the door,” Christ said.

  His whisper was loving, ticklish to the ear. Feathery-light. If Nathan burst into laughter, if he began to scream—! But he did not scream. He bent forward to press his burning cheek against Christ’s hand, which was cold and stern. “You alone are the door,” he said.

  In the distance, on all sides, the earth was moonlike, a jagged horizon of craters without vegetation. No life could endure here; yet there were people on all sides, fighting one another even as they gasped for breath. Arms and legs coiled snake-like; heads fought bodies. There were jaws without faces, double rows of teeth that tore and tore and devoured. What a clawing, pummeling, moaning, panting, writhing, shrieking! The air rocked with delirium. Something darted up Nathan’s nose, tickling him outrageously, daring him to laugh aloud or shout or sneeze.

  “You alone are the—”

  Human figures struggled in the mud nearby, with grotesque shapes that must have been wild beasts of some kind—boars or hogs. They thrashed about hopelessly, grunting and sighing. Nathan felt their rage; it communicated itself through the vibrations of the earth, which rose into his body, up into his bowels and heart, sickening him. Not far distant a creature dragged itself off from the others and began to vomit. Black clayey-cold blood, sticky clots of blood—what a horror! Nathan could not help staring. He too began to gag. What if he vomited up his own tissue, his own blood? He tasted something vile, darkly sour, at the very back of his mouth. What if—

  Christ urged him on, now gripping him by the upper arm.

  “There is no help for those whom God has abandoned,” Christ said. “You would do well, Nathan, to consider your own soul. Don’t waste your pity on them. You must keep to the path, Nathan, and never look too closely at what surrounds you. And never doubt! You must keep to the path, Nathan! The path! The path!”

  Something lifted—white and insubstantial as a muslin curtain—and Nathan woke feebly, and then woke again: to find himself outside.

  It was night. Had he been sleep? Had he stumbled from his bed, groggy, half-conscious? He was outside, in a field. Behind a darkened house. But where was Reverend Sisley’s house, where was Nathan’s bed? And the Bible he had been reading . . . ? “The path,” Nathan whispered hoarsely. Christ gripped him still by the upper arm, a presence so close it could not be seen. The grass was wet, Nathan’s bare feet were wet, he began to shiver lightly with the cold. But was it cold? Where did the cold come from? Wildly he woke himself, forcing his consciousness back. If he could keep his eyes open he might not sink into sleep. “The path. Where is the path,” he begged.

  Christ allowed him to see the overgrown elderberry bushes along the fence . . . the rear of the old, partly collapsed carriage house . . . the Bells’ outbuildings not far away. Ah, he was home: safely home: and Grandfather Vickery was in his close-smelling cluttered wonderfully messy office, reading at his desk. And Grandmother Vickery was in the kitchen. In the kitchen? Awaiting him. He was only a child, a very small child. He knew nothing. He had no sermon to preach, there were no frightened faces ringing him around, reaching out to him for help—Pray for me, pray for me—there was no one at all who wept for salvation, no one.

  Yet Christ gripped him tight and would not let him go.

  “All that you have seen, Nathan, will be as nothing compared to the sorrow that will be yours,” Christ whispered, “for you are guilty of the sin of pride. Have you not known? Have you not guessed? For these many months, even for years, you have offended the Lord with your loathsome pride, until your very being is an abomination to Him. For it is said that wickedness shows itself in pride and must be humbled. Have you not known? A wicked person walks as you do, Nathan, with a froward mouth . . . he speaks with his feet, he teaches with his fingers, he knows not the vileness he himself carries. Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually, he soweth discord. Have you not known, Nathan? All these days? All these hours?”

  Nathan’s teeth began to chatter with the cold. He would have lost all strength and sunk to his knees had not Christ held him up.

  “Have you not known? . . . You must only give praise to the Lord, Nathan, all the days of your life, for there is no other wisdom, Nathan. And you must learn humility—you must be humbled this very night. Otherwise calamity will come upon you without warning: suddenly you will be broken without remedy. For there are six things the Lord does hate above all else; yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look . . .”

  Nathan strained to hear Christ’s words. There was a shrill ringing in his ears and his senses reeled and he could look neither up nor down. He was fixed as if in a block of ice.

  Pride.

  Pride?

  “The sin of pride,” Christ said gently.

  Now the strong hands urged him forward. The white veil was ripped away again, and again Nathan was awake, blinking wildly. What place was this, where was he going? Who propelled him onward? The sharp grasses must have hurt his feet but he could feel no pain, no sensation at all. His hair was stirred limply in the breeze. Was it summer, still, or was it suddenly winter? So cold! “You are guilty of the sin of pride,” Christ whispered, His voice nearly inaudible now. “. . . thinking to set yourself apart from your brothers and sisters . . . imagining yourself superior . . . fasting, and prayer, and overzealousness in going about my Father’s business . . . How have you dared set yourself apart from all of humanity, doing such things in the name of the Father, Who knows you not? They who exalt themselves shall be humbled: so it is written, and so it will come to pass. They who exalt themselves will be humbled. And they who humble themselves will be exalted.”

  He stumbled forward. His hands pulled the barbed-wire strands apart. This way? Here? Someone was sobbing aloud in terror.

  On all sides of him the creatures fluttered and clucked and flapped their wings in panic. “Pride,” Christ said, close against his ear. “Pride. Pride. Have you never understood?”

  He had not eaten for so long, now his throat and the back of his mouth were flooded with an acrid, ugly liquid tasting of metal. Like rust, it was. Like black blood. He began to gag, forced himself to swallow it down, and gagged again, his eyes rolling.

  Had anyone seen him come in here? Had anyone been watching?

  Christ gripped him now by the back of his neck. There was no escape. “Your purity is an abomination,” Christ whispered. Ah, what a stench! The odor of chickens: their excrement like dried, clotted paste, and their feathers, and the damp, stale straw in which they nested. There was no escape. He woke continually to the darkened coop, to the squawk and flutter of the chickens, to the taste of vomit in his mouth. He was awake now: this was no dream: the skin that reeked of perspiration was his own, glowing a feeble phosphorescence in the dim light. He stood in his bare feet in a stranger’s chicken coop with one of the creatures flailing crazily about him, caught by its neck and one pumping wing. There was no escape. He was Nathan Vickery, Christ held him close, there could be no escape save through the door. Whose eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. It could not be, Nathan thought, that Christ wished to humiliate him in this way: it could not be that Christ wished to destroy him. Yet it was so. It was happening, he was fully awake now, quivering with hor
ror: it was so. He choked, he gagged. Pride, pride! Nothing but pride! What was the veil that separated him from all of creation except pride? And that pride must be humbled.

  “You must be defiled,” Christ said, “before you can be raised up again. You must be defiled before you can be perfect, even as I am perfect. Do you understand, my child?”

  Nathan held the struggling creature before him. He wished to cry out from the depths of his soul No, I will not! No.

  The darting beak, the tiny mad eyes, the limp scabby comb, the frantic wings: horrible. And the clawing feet. Horrible! Yet he forced its head into his mouth. As Christ gripped him tight, he forced the creature’s head into his mouth, deep into his mouth. It was horrible, horrible. He would vomit up his very soul. His vision seemed dislodged, seared around the edges like a scrap of paper settling upon a fire in the instant before it is consumed. If only it were a dream—! But it was not a dream: he was fully conscious of what he must do.

  “My child . . . ,” Christ whispered.

  III

  In the years that followed, You saw fit in Your infinite wisdom to raise your servant Nathanael Vickery once again, and to endow him not only with life and breath (for after the sacrifice of his pride that June evening the boy remained speechless and only partly conscious for several weeks) but with rare powers of preaching and healing and prophesy. It soon became evident to all who heard him that his ministry would be a great one; that You had blessed him with such powers as would allow him to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every living creature, as Christ did exhort his first disciples.

  Unnaturally silent as Nathan was in his private life, he came into his own whenever he preached or addressed his brothers and sisters in Christ, however small the group. Then he was enlivened, fiery, fierce: his meager voice gathered strength and became rich, brilliantly and throbbingly rich, with an almost painful intensity, so that many of those who heard him preach were moved to ecstasy and to tears by the mere sound of his voice: the sounds of God’s voice as they are uttered by one who has sacrificed himself to God in absolute humility. Lord, Lord—the boy would cry, and it seemed to all who witnessed that a power seized him, literally seized and possessed him, and transported him beyond himself. It was said this power could even be seen if one looked closely enough, or if one were endowed with sensitive eyes: it manifested itself in a luminous glow on the boy’s face and hands. (This unmistakable sign of the Lord’s blessing first appeared when Nathan was fourteen years old, preaching one evening in a small store-front church in Muirkirk, deep in winter, deep in the notorious ten-month lockout of the Muirkirk Textile Company, which was never to be satisfactorily resolved: for the company closed its doors and attempted to declare bankruptcy, and under cover of darkness one night certain of its workers—men and women both, it was said—broke into the old building and smashed the machines and set fires, so that the building was entirely gutted. At the time of Nathan’s visit to the Muirkirk Church of Jesus Christ Risen the factory had been locked against its workers for nearly seven months, and though most of the rather sparse group who came to hear him that freezing night were millworkers and their wives, and the elderly fathers and mothers of these people who assuredly felt great bitterness in their hearts for the owners and were hardened against Christly love and charity and the forgiveness of sins, nevertheless the boy’s impassioned voice and the mesmerizing motions of his small, slender hands startled them into wakefulness, into fear and love of the Lord; and when it became evident to certain of the congregation that the Holy Spirit had descended into him, that their prayer meeting had been blessed by God Himself, there was great excitement—individuals burst into song, into ecstatic prayers, their own faces shining with love of the Lord and with joy in their certainty of His love for them; and it was said that the wood-frame building trembled with the intensity of Nathan Vickery’s voice; and gale-like winds started and stopped and started again; and one by one, as if plucked out of their seats by the Lord Himself, men and women came forward to declare themselves for Christ, to fall to their knees at the boy preacher’s feet, weeping, crying aloud in such voices as were never heard before in Muirkirk or in all of the Eden Valley.)