English literature -- Scottish authors; Scottish literature
From one man only, on Iona itself, I have heard any allusion to the
prophecy as to the Saviour who shall yet come: and he in part was
obscure, and confused the advent of Mary into the spiritual world with
the possible coming again to earth of Mary, as another Redeemer, or with
a descending of the Divine Womanhood upon the human heart as a universal
spirit descending upon awaiting souls. But in intimate remembrance I
recall the words and faith of one or two whom I loved well. Nor must I
forget that my old nurse, Barabal, used to sing a strange "oran," to the
effect that when St. Bride came again to Iona it would be to bind the
hair and wash the feet of the Bride of Christ.
One of those to whom I allude was a young Hebridean priest, who died in
Venice, after troubled years, whose bitterest vicissitude was the
clouding of his soul's hope by the wings of a strange multitude of
dreams--one of whom and whose end I have elsewhere written: and he told
me once how, "as our forefathers and elders believed and still believe,
that Holy Spirit shall come again which once was mortally born among us
as the Son of God, but, then, shall be the Daughter of God. The Divine
Spirit shall come again as a Woman. Then for the first time the world
will know peace." And when I asked him if it were not prophesied that
the Woman is to be born in Iona, he said that if this prophecy had been
made it was doubtless of an Iona that was symbolic, but that this was a
matter of no moment, for She would rise suddenly in many hearts, and
have her habitation among dreams and hopes. The other who spoke to me of
this Woman who is to save was an old fisherman of a remote island of the
Hebrides, and one to whom I owe more than to any other spiritual
influence in my childhood, for it was he who opened to me the three
gates of Beauty. Once this old man, Seumas Macleod, took me with him to
a lonely haven in the rocks, and held me on his knee as we sat watching
the sun sink and the moon climb out of the eastern wave. I saw no one,
but abruptly he rose and put me from him, and bowed his grey head as he
knelt before one who suddenly was standing in that place. I asked
eagerly who it was. He told me that it was an Angel. Later, I learned (I
remember my disappointment that the beautiful vision was not winged with
great white wings) that the Angel was one soft flame of pure white, and
that below the soles of his feet were curling scarlet flames. He had
come in answer to the old man's prayer. He had come to say that we could
not see the Divine One whom we awaited. "But you will yet see that Holy
Beauty," said the Angel, and Seumas believed, and I too believed, and
believe. He took my hand, and I knelt beside him, and he bade me repeat
the words he said. And that was how I first prayed to Her who shall yet
be the Balm of the World.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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