John came forward again with an anxious countenance. “Alas!” said he, “the old man has rapidly changed. He fell into a soft slumber an hour ago, but he is now plainly dying. I knew he was very ill, for he has raved all day about his children and some magicians who wish to destroy them.” At these words a fearful tremor seized me. I could not speak. I sprang past the young man, and in a moment was kneeling at the side of my father! I seized his withered hand and covered it with kisses. “My father! my father! Do you not know your son, your only son?” The young hermit looked on in tears. The old man slowly opened his eyes and cast a bewildered look, first at me, and then at John. “Yes—you are angels,” he said, “who have come to welcome my spirit into paradise.” He breathed heavily. I sank down weeping. John came forward with a little basin of water. “There is no time to be lost,” said he in a low tone. “Do you believe in God, and in Moses his lawgiver, and in the prophets his servants?” “I do! I do!” said the old man, eagerly. “Do you repent of your sins, and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you?” “I do! and God be merciful to a miserable sinner!” “Then I baptize you with water, the emblem of purification,—and in the name of the Lord, the only God, into his spiritual Church and into the hope of immortal life.” Thus saying, he sprinkled some water on the old man’s forehead. His own face shone with a meek and holy radiance. My father closed his eyes and seemed to sleep. Suddenly he started, frowning, as if some great pain had changed the current of his thought. “Tell my son to beware of his uncle. He is a magician.” “Here is your son!” I exclaimed, eagerly; “here is your son! Oh, speak to me, my father!” He did not notice my grief; but, pointing slowly to John the Baptist, he said, solemnly: “Behold the prophet of God!” He then looked fixedly upward; and as I followed his glance to the roof of the cave, his spirit passed away beyond the blue dome, beyond the stars and the sun, beyond the entire realm of nature, into the paradise of Moses and the prophets. I spent the night in prayer and tears by my father’s dead body. Occasionally the young prophet broke in upon the stillness of the air with his silvery voice, chanting the sweet verses of Scripture. I was sorely tempted to rebel against the providence of God, which permitted such a good man as my father to be so cruelly dealt with. The presence, however, of the young prophet, was in itself a sermon, a blessing, a help to resignation. One could not be skeptical or even critical in his luminous atmosphere of peace and love. I reflected that there were many great mysteries which my youthful and inexperienced mind could not at present comprehend, and returning faith assuaged the grief it could not remove.