John Read Online Free

face flushed, and he looks at each. They are a small gathering, chosen, asked from among the others to come to debate the way to truth. They are mostly the younger of the disciples. Their beards have no silver, their faces are unlined. They have come in recent years, many by choice, to be in the company of the Apostle, to await with him the coming. But time has worked on their faith, the nothing that has happened each day since eroding mountains.
    ' "The great day of their wrath. The great day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" ' Matthias continues. 'But tell me, where is this wrath? When is this day? This I ask you. Tell me if you know. Tell if it is only poor Matthias who does not understand. Take him from his ignorance. Is it to come while we sit here on Patmos? Verily, is this the intention of the Divine? Tell me, tell me Baltsaros, Linus, is it the intention that we wait on till old age and weakness come? Is this what you think Cyrus, Auster? Or' — Matthias raises a finger as if to arrest a thought, as if there passes in the air just then a solution hitherto unconsidered — 'might it be, might it be that we are to go forward to meet it? As an army on a plain is emboldened by the approach of another legion, should we not make the great day happen ourselves? Should we not show ourselves willing to the Divine?'
    'It is a vexing question, Matthias,' says the high voice of Phineas.
    Bald-pated fool of a lamb, eyes too close to each other for clear thought.
    'But how can we know?' Phineas whines. 'Only the Apostle has seen the Lord, and he commands we abide here.'
    The others nod and voice agreement.
    Lambs indeed.
    Baltsaros says, 'We are all grieved, Matthias, to hear the news of the apostle Andrew. But his place is assured at the table of our Lord in heaven. His work was complete. In that we can rejoice.'
    'Rejoice because every day we are less, not more?' Matthias arches his eyebrows. 'Truly? Truly? Well, I cannot rejoice. What work for God do we do here? Are we not the same as those dead? What keeps us here in banishment? An edict from Rome? Because if we leave this island we will be persecuted and crucified? Consider this: perhaps this is our destiny, and we hide from it here, are cowards. I do not rejoice in the death of Andrew, I grieve and anger. As should you all.'
    Aware of how incautious are his words, he stops. He must bring the lambs back into safe pasture.
    'Forgive me my weakness, my brothers. Pray with me that I may know the way to truth,' he says, and before them kneels down and bows low his head.
    A brilliant stratagem. As though I ask them to show me the way. These lambs that think they are lions.
    Matthias closes his eyes. The seeding is begun.

4
    And the beast coming up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns, and upon the horns ten diadems. The beast that was like to a leopard, and feet the feet of a bear, and mouth of a lion.
    And the seven vials of the wrath of God. The sore and grievous wound that fell upon the men with the character of the beast. The blood poured into all the sea, wherein every living soul died. The rivers and the fountains made blood. The sun afflicting men with heat and fire so all were scorched and blasphemed. The vial that was poured on the seat of the beast so his kingdom became dark and they gnawed their tongues for pain. The sixth vial that was poured into the river Euphrates and dried up the waters. And from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, three unclean spirits like frogs. Spirits like devils working signs. And the seventh vial poured on the air, and a voice out of the temple saying, 'It is done.' And lightnings and voices and thunders, and a great earthquake, and the great city divided into three parts, and every island fled away and the mountains not found. And falling then the great plague of hail.
    Did I see such things as these?
    Did I?
    Did those words come from me?
    I remember not.
    Was there a vision so