HOW SEVEN YEARS AFTER THE MYSTIC YEAR ST. FRIEND AND AVANEL READ FROM A COPY OF THE GOLDEN BOOK AND HOW HE TELLS HIS VISION THAT CAME THE DAY THE BOOK FIRST APPEARED. ON OTHER DAYS THE LADY AVANEL SOWS THE THISTLE OF DREAMS AND THE APPLE AMARANTH SEEDS AND THE ACORNS OF EZEKIEL AND THE SEEDS OF THE GOLDEN RAIN TREE AND THEREBY COME NEW VISIONS AND TEACHINGS AND MAGIC WORKS.  
Of the Singapore adventure, there is a song to be sung, some day, but we cannot, by taking thought, sing of battles. The song of battle comes when we least expect it, long after or long before the event that is so moving to the heart.
But Singapore is indeed overthrown and for two seasons the young men and maidens have been back from the Asiatic war front. To some of them, to many, The Golden Book came before they left Springfield. To others it appeared after the last battle, hovering above the trenches at midnight and there were songs in the air calling them home. Or 306they found it suddenly in their hands in camp shelters, and long litanies and proclamations of the New Springfield and the New Earth flashed upon their souls and burned eternal record there.
It is a gorgeous first of March afternoon and the wind has abated for a few hours, and a few buds are out in Washington Park and we are hoping that frost will not nip them in this exceedingly premature spring. The lotus pond is still empty and leaden. It flowers only in the height of July but we look to it in hope and with remembrance of other lotus days.
Avanel and I and St. Friend are in the Washington Park Pavilion. The precocious spring is in the blood of the ancient saint. He is the youngest of us, the gayest. Avanel is speaking of that morning in front of the blacksmith shop when the great Book fluttered into her arms. “In the fire flaming from the words of that book, I found power to go out and fight for the International Flag, and make that the vengeance for the death of my father.”
Now I draw from my coat pocket a tiny duplicate of the book, such as is now in the hands of practically every Springfield citizen, printed by Josephine Windom and Horace 307Andrews. As we three loaf in the pavilion: St. Friend, Avanel and myself, and look at the leaden lotus pond, St. Friend reads aloud the familiar opening sentences of St. Scribe of the Shrines, who wrote the book in Heaven:—
“I have been long in the jungles of the Celestial Zion, speculating on how the ruined mansions here, and how the earth itself, might be rebuilt. Yet the true Heaven lies in a single flower, and more and more my speculations turn on how my own city, Springfield, may be rebuilt.”
Then St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, at our urging, reads on and on. The volume tells, for instance, how Heaven became a jungle within the lifetime of an ordinary man. The book contains a sermon, which our saint reads to us, on: “Your great great grandson’s neighbors.” It is a volume no more consecutive than the Koran. Each dream is written down once for all as it came to the tranced soul of St. Scribe, as he bent over the page, with his terrible pen in his hand.
With endless reiteration the book denounces the diabolical works of the Singaporian sect and their conspiring against world peace. It pronounces a blessing on the predestined victorious armies of the World 308Government and prophecies the triumph of their splendid flag.
Moreover, St. Friend reads, not only many of these things, but the sermon on “The Rhythm of the Heart,” and the homily upon “The Good and Evil of Beauty.” He reads the exhortation for “The Young Musician who has not learned to Pray,” and the one for “The Young Politician who has not learned to Pray,” and like discourses for many other occupations.
And then Avanel and I take turns reading on and on to him through the specific directions for the founding of the schools of the Young Prophets, and the discourse on the horror of the angels at all the World Wars, and the tale of how the angels went out to redeem the stars from war by surrendering themselves to crucifixion on millions of crosses on millions of suns and stars and planets, and thus within the lifetime of the generation now on earth, Heaven was left a jungle. This is followed by an exhortation to make Springfield a city “worthy of the blood of the crucified poured down upon it.”
But its powers are not directly in its interminable discourses. Always it seems to be a person, not a book, and so, on this afternoon.
309April 10, 2025:—Again it is a goodly afternoon, and we are still hopeful for these precocious buds. As we sit in the sun in the Washington Park Pavilion, Saint Friend, the Giver of Bread, tells us of the visions that came seven years ago.
“I remember the Halloween of 2018, and the next few days, as no other period in my life. I was in the Cathedral all the night, praying before the Image of St. Scribe of the Shrines. And toward morning it took on the appearance of breathing human flesh, but was Hunter Kelly of long ago, in the hunter’s cap and deerskin dress, such as he wore when he came to Illinois two centuries ago.”
And so Hunter Kelly, St. Scribe of the Shrines, made me forget all else, telling me stories of the tomorrow of Illinois and giving clear prophecies of the tomorrow of the Cathedral, in the city and the nation and the world. He spoke of saints of the pattern of Abraham Lincoln, and Johnny Appleseed, foreordained to live and breathe beneath our Cathedral roof, before the ever living presence on the altar. Then he gave me the joy of confession, and seemed to be St. Scribe, the master of my youth. Then all was darkness and sleep.
“In the early morning I woke from my 310trance and found myself lying on the floor of the Cathedral. The Image of Hunter Kelly-St. Scribe was gone from the niche.
“In the late morning, when I found myself reading his Golden Book to the people, it seemed as though I had known its every word for infinite years.
“I read on and on. When I closed the book and dismissed the people, they went out singing through the streets ‘Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.’
“As I stood alone in the church, a vision of the war came to me.
“The angel of the Cathedral came down from the carved niche near the roof. By many signs she was, indeed, the angel of Illinois. The stone was transformed into a presence, delicate as the milkweed silk, ruddy as the sunrise. Her hair was the hue of red corn. Her wind blown mantle was the color of ripe wheat. Her wings were like those of the white eagle. Her eyes were dark as the deep-digged mine. Her smile was the beginning of visions.
“Circling her temple was an opalescent crown, twenty white stars, with the twenty-first over the forehead, with the red blood of Hunter Kelly in the heart’s core of it.
“Above her head appeared a great hand, swinging a censer through the roof and 311walls of the building. The Angel of the Cathedral said to me, as she stood beside me:—‘This is the Censer of Change. A great change is coming to Illinois and the Capital of Illinois.’
“The smoke poured out and filled the streets. It penetrated every grove of Springfield. It beat in the blood of every living creature.
“The Angel of Illinois said:—‘This is the Incense of Civic Genius. The city shall be barren no longer but bring forth.’
“Then through the roof, as though there were a censer higher than the first, clouds of many colors descended. These became gorgeous cloud-winged............