Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/386

378 When I thought on these things, I arose in sore extremity nigh unto despair, and went up to the house-top. Above the mountains of Moab, to the east, there was a faint token of dawn. I thought of the coming day, and I loathed it; for without Jesus the light seemed unto me as darkness. Moreover when I strove to pray, Satan tempted me very sorely, so that I could not pray: for I said, "Behold I am without Jesus: but God without Jesus is to me as no God." Then fell I flat upon my face and wrestled with Satan in prayer, and I besought the Lord again and again that He would give Jesus back to us, yea, though it were but to look on him for one moment, that we might be assured that all was well with him. How long I prayed I know not, but it seemed to me many hours; and sometimes I stood in my praying and watched the dawn growing brighter; and even as the dawn grew, my fears and doubts grew with it; but at other times I lay prostrate and shut out the light. So at last the sky began to brighten towards sunrise; and still I was crying unto the Lord from the depths, according as it is written, "I wait for the Lord; my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning, more, I say, than they that watch for the morning."

Now while I lay grovelling in the very deepest of the depths, beseeching the Lord to destroy me if I might not have peace, behold, a sound as of many feet below, without the house, and then a knocking, exceeding loud; and one asked from within, "Who is there?" And the answer came piercing the air, "He is risen! He is risen! Jesus is risen from the dead!" Now at first I thought that the voice was the voice of an angel; but when I considered, and heard how answer was made, and the door forthwith opened, and a sound as of feet entering, then