"highest of all earthly" it is a promise, and to those who have been
it is a memory and a possession. The Greek monks say that at the
sepulchre a fire bursts out of its own account each Easter Eve, and
there is at least a truth of symbolism in their miracle. An old bishop
and saint was once asked to give sight to a blind woman. He had
performed no miracles in his life, yet he promised to pray for her.
And whilst he knelt in church praying, the candles which were unlit
burst of themselves into flame. The woman at that moment also received
her sight and went home praising God. It is something like that which
happens when the pilgrim kneels on Easter Night. Candles unlit in the
temple of his soul burst into flame, and by their light new pictures
are seen. The part of him that was blind and craved sight gains open
eyes at that moment, and that which seemed impossible is accomplished.

IV

And I, to use the metaphor of the unvisited island, had in a dream
crossed the ocean, had become, through the fulfilling of a rite, more
bound to the life which is beyond. Henceforth I have a more credible
promise and a more substantial hope.

But what then? The journey is ended, the gleam of the vision fades,
and we all return to the life we came from. We descend from what the
pilgrims call the highest holy place on earth and get back to the
ordinary level of life. How can we go back and live the dull round
again? Shall we not be as Lazarus is depicted in Browning's story of
him, spoiled for earth, having seen heaven? The Russian at home calls
the returned pilgrim _polu-svatoe_, a half-saint: does that perhaps
mean that life is spoilt for him?

Some hundreds of aged pilgrims die every year in Lent; they fall
dead on the long tramps in Galilee on the way to Nazareth. Many pass
peacefully away in Jerusalem itself without even seeing Easter there.
They are accounted happy. To be buried at Jerusalem is considered an
especially sweet thing, and it is indeed very good for these aged ones
that the symbol and that which it symbolised should coincide, and that
for them the journey to Jerusalem the earthly should be so obviously
and materially a big step towards Jerusalem the golden. It would have
been sad in a way for such old folk to return once more across the
ocean to the old, somewhat irrelevant life of Mother Russia. But what
of the young who must of necessity go back?

Once Easter was over it was marvellous how eager we were to get