he gate if he has not fallen over a
precipice, he said, and a few minutes after he caught sight of Timothy
waiting for him. Paul opened his arms to him. Thoughtest that I was lost
to thee for ever, Timothy? God whispered in my ears, Timothy answered,
that he would bring thee back safely, and the ship is already in offing.
It would be well to go on board now, for at daybreak we weigh anchor.
Thou'lt sleep better on board. And Paul, who was too weary even to
answer, allowed himself to be led. And, too weary to sleep, he lay
waking often out of shallow sleeps. He could hear Timothy breathing by
his side, and when he raised his eyes he saw the stars that were to
guide them along the coasts; but the beauty of the stars could not blot
out of his mind the shepherd's face: and Paul's thoughts murmured, he
who believed himself the Messiah and still thinks he is Jesus of
Nazareth which was raised by his Father from the dead. Yet without his
help I should not have reached Caesarea. It then seemed to Paul that the
shepherd was an angel in disguise sent to his aid, or a madman. A madman
with a strange light in his eyes, he continued, and fell to thinking if
the voice that spoke out of the cloud bore any likeness to the voice
that had compelled his attention for so long a term on the hillside. But
a bodily voice, he said, cannot resemble a spiritual voice, and it is
enough that the Lord Jesus spoke to me, and that his voice has abided in
me and become my voice. It is his voice that is now calling me to Rome,
and it is his voice that I shall hear when my life is over, saying:
Paul, I have long waited for thee; come unto me, faithful servant, and
receive in me thy gain and the fruit of all thy labour. He repeated the
words so loudly that Timothy awoke, and at the sight of the young man's
face the present sank out of sight and he was again in Lystra, and on
looking into the young man's eyes he knew that Timothy would remind him
always of the woman in Lystra whom he would never see again. Of what art
thou thinking, Paul? The voice seemed to come from the ends of the
earth, but it came from Timothy's lips. Of Lystra, Timothy, that we
shall never see again nor any of the people we have ever known. We are
leaving our country and our kindred. But remember, Timothy, that it is
God that calls thee Homeward. And they sat talking in the soft starlight
of what had befallen them when they separated in the darkness. Timothy
told that he remembered th