There was no answer. There was no help or healing in the grave, no answer in the darkness, no speech from all that company. They looked backward. And John looked back, seeing no deliverance.
I, John, saw the future, way up in the middle of the air.
Were the lash, the dungeon, and the night for him? And the sea for him? And the grave for him?
I, John, saw a number, way in the middle of the air.
And he struggled to flee—out of this darkness, out of this company—into the land of the living, so high, so far away. Fear was upon him, a more deadly fear than he had ever known, as he turned and turned in the darkness, as he moaned, and stumbled, and crawled through darkness, finding no hand, no voice, finding no door. Who are these? Who are they? They were the despised and rejected, the wretched and the spat upon, the earth’s offscouring; and he was in their company, and they would swallow up his soul. The stripes they had endured would scar his back, their punishment would be his, their portion his, his their humiliation, anguish, chains, their dungeon his, their death his. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep.
And their dread testimony would be his!
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.
And their desolation, his:
In weariness and painfulness in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
And he began to shout for help, seeing before him the lash, the fire, and the depthless water, seeing his head bowed down forever, he, John, the lowest among these lowly. And he looked for his mother, but her eyes were fixed on this dark army—she was claimed by this army. And his father would not help him, his father did not see him, and Roy lay dead.
Then he whispered, not knowing that he whispered: “Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me.”
And a voice, for the first time in all his terrible journey, spoke to John, through the rage and weeping, and fire, and darkness, and flood:
“Yes,” said the voice, “go through. Go through.”
“Lift me up,” whispered John, “lift me up. I can’t go through.”
“Go through,” said the voice, “go through.”
Then there was silence. The murmuring ceased. There was only this trembling beneath him. And he knew there was a light somewhere.
“Go through.”
“Ask Him to take you through.”
But he could never go through this darkness, through this fire and this wrath. He never could go through. His strength was finished, and he could not move. He belonged to the darkness—the darkness from which he had thought to flee had claimed him. And he moaned again, weeping, and lifted up his hands.
“Call on Him. Call on Him.”
“Ask Him to take you through.”
Dust rose again in his nostrils, sharp as the fumes of Hell. And he turned again in the darkness, trying to remember something he had heard, something he had read.
Jesus saves.
And he saw before him the fire, red and gold, and waiting for him—yellow, and red, and gold, and burning in a night eternal, and waiting for him. He must go through this fire, and into this night.
Jesus saves.
Call on Him.
Ask Him to take you through.
He could not call, for his tongue would not unlock, and his heart was silent, and great with fear. In the darkness, how to move?—with death’s ten thousand jaws agape, and waiting in the darkness. On any turning whatsoever the beast may spring—to move in the darkness is to move into the waiting jaws of death. And yet, it came to him that he must move; for there was a light somewhere, and life, and joy, and singing—somewhere, somewhere above him.
And he moaned again: “Oh, Lord, have mercy. Have mercy, Lord.”
There came to him again the communion service at which Elisha had knelt at his father’s feet. Now this service was in a great, high room, a room made golden by the light of the sun; and the room was filled with a multitude of people, all in long, white robes, the women with covered heads. They sat at a long, bare, wooden table. They broke at this table flat, unsalted bread, which was the body of the Lord, and drank from a heavy silver cup the scarlet wine of His blood. Then he saw that they were barefoot, and that their feet were stained with this same blood. And a sound of weeping filled the room as they broke the bread and drank the wine.
Then they rose, to come together over a great basin filled with water. And they divided into four groups, two of women and two of men; and they began, woman before woman, and man before man, to wash each other’s feet. But the blood would not wash off; many washings only turned the crystal water red; and someone cried: “Have you been to the river?”
Then John saw the river, and the multitude was there. And now they had undergone a change: their robes were ragged, and stained with the road they had traveled, and stained with unholy blood; the robes of some barely covered their nakedness; and some indeed were naked. And some stumbled on the smooth stones at the river’s edge, for they were blind; and some crawled with a terrible wailing, for they were lame; some did not cease to pluck at their flesh, which was rotten with running sores. All struggled to get to the river, in a dreadful hardness of heart: the strong struck down the weak, the ragged spat on the naked, the naked cursed the blind, the blind crawled over the lame. And someone cried: “Sinner, do you love my Lord?”
Then John saw the Lord—for a moment only; and the darkness, for a moment only, was filled with a light he could not bear. Then, in a moment, he was set free; his tears sprang as from a fountain; his heart, like a fountain of waters, burst. Then he cried: “Oh, blessed Jesus! Oh, Lord Jesus! Take me through!”
Of tears there was, yes, a very fountain—springing from a depth never sounded before, from depths John had not known were in him. And he wanted to rise up, singing, singing in that great morning, the morning of his new life. Ah, how his tears ran down, how they blessed his soul!—as he felt himself, out of the darkness, and the fire, and the terrors of death, rising upward to meet the saints.
“Oh, yes!” cried the voice of Elisha. “Bless our God forever!”
And a sweetness filled John as he heard this voice, and heard the sound of singing: the singing was for him. For his drifting soul was anchored in the love of God; in the rock that endured forever. The light and the darkness had kissed each other, and were married now, forever, in the life and the vision of John’s soul.
I, John, saw a city, way in the middle of the air,
Waiting, waiting, waiting up there.
He opened his eyes on the morning, and found them, in the light of the morning, rejoicing for him. The trembling he had known in darkness had been the echo of their joyful feet—these feet, bloodstained forever, and washed in many rivers—they moved on the bloody road forever, with no continuing city, but seeking one to come: a city out of time, not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens. No power could hold this army back, no water disperse them, no fire consume them. One day they would compel the earth to heave upward, and surrender the waiting dead. They sang, where the darkness gathered, where the lion waited, where the fire cried, and where blood ran down:
My soul, don’t you be uneasy!
They wandered in the valley forever; and they smote the rock, forever; and the waters sprang, perpetually, in the perpetual desert. They cried unto the Lord forever, and lifted up their eyes forever, they were cast down forever, and He lifted them up forever. No, the fire could not hurt them, and yes, the lion’s jaws were stopped; the serpent was not their master, the grave was not their resting-place, the earth was not their home. Job bore them witness, and Abraham was their father, Moses had elected to suffer with them rather than glory in sin for a season. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had gone before them into the fire, their grief had
been sung by David, and Jeremiah had wept for them. Ezekiel had prophesied upon them, these scattered bones, these slain, and, in the fulness of time, the prophet, John, had come out of the wilderness, crying that the promise was for them. They were encompassed with a very cloud of witnesses: Judas, who had betrayed the Lord; Thomas, who had doubted Him; Peter, who had trembled at the crowing of a cock; Stephen, who had been stoned; Paul, who had been bound; the blind man crying in the dusty road, the dead man rising from the grave. And they looked unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of their faith, running with patience the race He had set before them; they endured the cross, and they despised the shame, and waited to join Him, one day, in glory, at the right hand of the Father.
My soul! don’t you be uneasy!
Jesus going to make up my dying bed!
“Rise up, rise up, Brother Johnny, and talk about the Lord’s deliverance.”
It was Elisha who had spoken; he stood just above John, smiling; and behind him were the saints—Praying Mother Washington, and Sister McCandless, and Sister Price. Behind these, he saw his mother, and his aunt; his father, for the moment, was hidden from his view.
“Amen!” cried Sister McCandless, “rise up, and praise the Lord!”
He tried to speak, and could not, for the joy that rang in him this morning. He smiled up at Elisha, and his tears ran down; and Sister McCandless began to sing:
“Lord, I ain’t
No stranger now!”
“Rise up, Johnny,” said Elisha, again. “Are you saved, boy?”
“Yes,” said John, “oh, yes!” And the words came upward, it seemed, of themselves, in the new voice God had given him. Elisha stretched out his hand, and John took the hand, and stood—so suddenly, and so strangely, and with such wonder!—once more on his feet.
“Lord, I ain’t
No stranger now!”
Yes, the night had passed, the powers of darkness had been beaten back. He moved among the saints, he, John, who had come home, who was one of their company now; weeping, he yet could find no words to speak of his great gladness; and he scarcely knew how he moved, for his hands were new, and his feet were new, and he moved in a new and Heaven-bright air. Praying Mother Washington took him in her arms, and kissed him, and their tears, his tears and the tears of the old, black woman, mingled. “God bless you, son. Run on, honey, and don’t get weary!”
“Lord, I been introduced
To the Father and the Son,
And I ain’t
No stranger now!”
Yet, as he moved among them, their hands touching, and tears falling, and the music rising—as though he moved down a great hall, full of a splendid company—something began to knock in that listening, astonished, newborn, and fragile heart of his; something recalling the terrors of the night, which were not finished, his heart seemed to say; which, in this company, were now to begin. And, while his heart was speaking, he found himself before his mother. Her face was full of tears, and for a long while they looked at each other, saying nothing. And once again, he tried to read the mystery of that face—which, as it had never before been so bright and pained with love, had never seemed before so far from him, so wholly in communion with a life beyond his life. He wanted to comfort her, but the night had given him no language, no second sight, no power to see into the heart of any other. He knew only—and now, looking at his mother, he knew that he could never tell it—that the heart was a fearful place. She kissed him, and she said: “I’m mighty proud, Johnny. You keep the faith. I’m going to be praying for you till the Lord puts me in my grave.”
Then he stood before his father. In the moment that he forced himself to raise his eyes and look into his father’s face, he felt in himself a stiffening, and a panic, and a blind rebellion, and a hope for peace. The tears still on his face, and smiling still, he said: “Praise the Lord.”
“Praise the Lord,” said his father. He did not move to touch him, did not kiss him, did not smile. They stood before each other in silence, while the saints rejoiced; and John struggled to speak the authoritative, the living word that would conquer the great division between his father and himself. But it did not come, the living word; in the silence something died in John, and something came alive. It came to him that he must testify: his tongue only could bear witness to the wonders he had seen. And he remembered, suddenly, the text of a sermon he had once heard his father preach. And he opened his mouth, feeling, as he watched his father, the darkness roar behind him, and the very earth beneath him seem to shake; yet he gave to his father their common testimony. “I’m saved,” he said, “and I know I’m saved.” And then, as his father did not speak, he repeated his father’s text: “My witness is in Heaven and my record is on high.”
“It come from your mouth,” said his father then. “I want to see you live it. It’s more than a notion.”
“I’m going to pray God,” said John—and his voice shook, whether with joy or grief he could not say—“to keep me, and make me strong … to stand … to stand against the enemy … and against everything and everybody … that wants to cut down my soul.”
Then his tears came down again, like a wall between him and his father. His Aunt Florence came and took him in her arms. Her eyes were dry, and her face was old in the savage, morning light. But her voice, when she spoke, was gentler than he had ever known it to be before.
“You fight the good fight,” she said, “you hear? Don’t you get weary, and don’t you get scared. Because I know the Lord’s done laid His hands on you.”
“Yes,” he said, weeping, “yes. I’m going to serve the Lord.”
“Amen!” cried Elisha. “Bless our God!” The filthy streets rang with the early-morning light as they came out of the temple.
They were all there, save young Ella Mae, who had departed while John was still on the floor—she had a bad cold, said Praying Mother Washington, and needed to have her rest. Now, in three groups, they walked the long, gray, silent avenue: Praying Mother Washington with Elizabeth and Sister McCandless and Sister Price, and before them Gabriel and Florence, and Elisha and John ahead.
“You know, the Lord is a wonder,” said the praying mother. “Don’t you know, all this week He just burdened my soul, and kept me a-praying and a-weeping before Him? Look like I just couldn’t get no ease nohow—and I know He had me a-tarrying for that boy’s soul.”
“Well, amen,” said Sister Price. “Look like the Lord just wanted this church to rock. You remember how He spoke through Sister McCandless Friday night, and told us to pray, and He’d work a mighty wonder in our midst? And He done moved—hallelujah—He done troubled everybody’s mind.”
“I just tell you,” said Sister McCandless, “all you got to do is listen to the Lord; He’ll lead you right every time; He’ll move every time. Can’t nobody tell me my God ain’t real.”
“And you see the way the Lord worked with young Elisha there?” said Praying Mother Washington, with a calm, sweet smile. “Had that boy down there on the floor a-prophesying in tongues, amen, just the very minute before Johnny fell out a-screaming, and a-crying before the Lord. Look like the Lord was using Elisha to say: ‘It’s time, boy, come on home.’ ”
“Well, He is a wonder,” said Sister Price. “And Johnny’s got two brothers now.”
Elizabeth said nothing. She walked with her head bowed, hands clasped lightly before her. Sister Price turned to look at her, and smiled.
“I know,” she said, “you’s a mighty happy woman this morning.”
Elizabeth smiled and raised her head, but did not look directly at Sister Price. She looked ahead, down the long avenue, where Gabriel walked with Florence, where John walked with Elisha.
“Yes,” she said, at last, “I been praying. And I ain’t stopped praying yet.”
“Yes, Lord,” said Sister Price, “can’t none of us stop praying till we see His blessed face.”
“But I bet you didn’t never think,” said Sister McCandless, with a laugh, “that little
Johnny was going to jump up so soon, and get religion. Bless our God!”
“The Lord’s going to bless that boy, you mark my words,” said Praying Mother Washington.
“Shake hands with the preacher, Johnny.”
“Got a man in the Bible, son, who liked music, too. And he got to dancing one day before the Lord. You reckon you going to dance before the Lord one of these days?”
“Yes, Lord,” said Sister Price, “the Lord done raised you up a holy son. He going to comfort your gray hairs.”
Elizabeth found that her tears were falling, slowly, bitterly, in the morning light. “I pray the Lord,” she said, “to bear him up on every side.”
“Yes,” said Sister McCandless, gravely, “it’s more than a notion. The Devil rises on every hand.”
Then, in silence, they came to the wide crossing where the streetcar line ran. A lean cat stalked the gutter and fled as they approached; turned to watch them, with yellow, malevolent eyes, from the ambush of a garbage can. A gray bird flew above them, above the electric wires for the streetcar line, and perched on the metal cornice of a roof. Then, far down the avenue, they heard a siren, and the clanging of a bell, and looked up to see the ambulance speed past them on the way to the hospital that was near the church.
Go Tell It on the Mountain Page 22
