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THE LOVE LETTERS 
 OF ST. JOHN 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS 
 OF ST. JOHN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 I917 
 

 COPYRIGHT I917 BY 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 OCT 23 1917 
 
 PRINTED IN AMERICA 
 
 ©CI,A476683 
 
 IvO t • 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The winter of 18 — found me in a little 
 village in the mountains of northern Tus- 
 cany. I had gone there to meditate and to 
 work. In my wanderings through the hills 
 I often met an old priest bound on some 
 visit to distant members of his flock. He 
 usually seemed deep in thought, though 
 when I greeted him he would raise his eyes 
 and give me a smile that was like a benedic- 
 tion, full of peace and love. 
 
 One afternoon our ways lay in the same 
 direction and as we neared his cottage he 
 asked me to share his evening meal. We 
 talked far into the night, and that was the 
 beginning of a long and intimate compan- 
 ionship by his fireside. 
 
 In all our intercourse he told me nothing of 
 himself. Our talk was chiefly of the things 
 of the Spirit and was of such absorbing 
 
 6 
 
6 FOREWORD 
 
 interest — so deeply had he penetrated to the 
 heart of hfe — that I did not realize until too 
 late that in learning to know the soul of my 
 friend I had forgotten that the story of his 
 outward life might also hold a message of 
 human value. What force had forged the 
 chain of circumstances that had hidden such 
 a man in this meagre mountain village? 
 Where had he acquired his learning and rich 
 culture, his knowledge of the world, his in- 
 sight into human nature? And what fur- 
 nace heat of suffering had burned away the 
 alloy of self and left this finest gold — the 
 gold of an overwhelming and unwavering 
 love embracing every living thing? The 
 face of Life has held a deeper significance 
 for me, an added glory, since the lips of that 
 gentle, wise old man taught me to see. 
 
 One morning they came hurriedly for me 
 — my friend had received his last summons. 
 As I entered the room where he lay it seemed 
 like the tlireshold of another world. His 
 face was illumined with a gladness and peace 
 
FOREWORD 7 
 
 from within which seemed to fill the simple 
 place with light. 
 
 Looking into my eyes as I stood by his 
 bedside he asked me to open a closet by 
 the stone fireplace and bring him a pack- 
 age. It seemed to have lain there many 
 years. 
 
 "This holds," he said, as I placed it beside 
 him, and his hand, uncertain in its weakness, 
 touched it with a yet unmistakable affec- 
 tion, even reverence, "this holds some letters 
 that were given me long ago — to give to the 
 world. Take them — and do with them as 
 you will. They teach a great lesson — the 
 
 one we both know — so well ." There 
 
 was a long silence, for his strength was 
 failing fast. Then he said: 
 
 "I always meant to give them to the world 
 — but the time did not seem ripe. You will 
 know — for the love that is in these is in you 
 — you will understand — you will make it 
 manifest " 
 
 He did not speak again, but with that 
 
8 FOREWORD 
 
 peace still in his face we waited together — 
 till he passed beyond. . . . 
 
 As I took up the sacred task of transcrib- 
 ing the letters, it was as though my friend 
 had come back to aid me, so clearly were his 
 thoughts and the thought of him interwoven 
 with the teachings I found there. Again 
 awakened an inspiring sense of a noble 
 presence — of strength, purity, a prescience 
 of the infinite power of love — that love which 
 John taught is the whole law for all the 
 worlds, and which, if we but understood it, 
 would bring us into blessedness and peace. 
 For there would seem to be many paths to 
 peace, and "many mansions in my Father's 
 house." 
 
 As my work went on, I marvelled to find 
 in it, as it were, the roots of much that has 
 been fruitful of dissension in the centuries 
 since — of much that is familiar to us in cur- 
 rent thought. It may be, indeed, that the 
 time is ripe. . . . 
 
FOREWORD 9 
 
 It may be that the vision of the truth made 
 flesh that fired the soul of him whom Jesus 
 loved has since become so dimmed by inven- 
 tions of men, so overlaid with doctrines and 
 dogmas and the silt of human prejudices, 
 that these old letters must now be brought to 
 light to give once more the simple message 
 of "that which was from the beginning," 
 "the perfect love that casteth out all fear." 
 
 Or it may be that the letters were written 
 by some unknown hand, or under the influ- 
 ence of some teacher long forgotten. What 
 does it matter? They voice our common 
 need, the Spirit's fruit of human love. 
 
 May these voices, long since stilled, wake 
 again some soul to the joy of that peace that 
 passeth understanding, et tui nomine, O 
 Domine, dant gloriam, 
 
 M. /. A. 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS 
 OF ST. JOHN 
 
 THE SOWIi^^G 
 
 JOHN, my friend. How wonderful was 
 our morning together — like the first new 
 morning of the world! You have taught 
 me a new beauty in life — taught me, who 
 until that morning believed no beauty new. 
 When you left me I longed for you again — 
 wanted to lie down in your arms like a little 
 child, and rest. And I think that is what I 
 ought to have done if we all lived as we 
 should — if we were of that truth you have 
 told me of, that would make us free. 
 
 You fill the great spaces of my life and I 
 thank the gods for that. I thank them daily 
 that they sent me to you, for you have 
 
 brought blessing into my life. Is it possible 
 
 11 
 
12 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 that even in that book of remembrance in 
 your heaven it is written into how many- 
 lives your hving has brought strength and 
 
 joy? 
 
 The things I am learning from you, my 
 kind, wise friend, seem not so strange to me 
 now. They come more gently, as it were. 
 At first they were like a stream of water 
 from some high, unseen fountain. Now 
 they come sweet and warm and living like 
 the flow of milk from the breast, and I draw 
 it in and am strong. And I am also glad. 
 
 When you come again there is somewhat 
 I must tell you of my life before I knew you. 
 Will you then love me less, my friend? 
 Will I seem to you a different woman from 
 the one you know now? 
 
 May the gods bless you and yours. I 
 long to know of somewhat I might do for 
 those who are dear to you. I love them all 
 — all your dearest, even Anna, and all your 
 friends, and I would fain serve them with my 
 love. Antione. 
 
IF I could love you less, Antione, because 
 of anything you had done, then am I one 
 who loved you little. Tell me all your heart 
 desires to tell me. In love as well as in truth 
 we are always free. 
 
 To me Eternal Life and the love of the 
 Father have been manifested in the flesh. I 
 have heard, I have seen, I have handled with 
 my hands, and what I have told you is what 
 I know, that you may know that you have 
 my love, for the love that I have for you, 
 Antione, is truly of the Father. 
 
 The pure in heart see God in every man. 
 In whatsoever face they look they see 
 the eyes of Christ. He said: "Whoso 
 loveth much, to him is much forgiven." 
 There is no fear in love. One day when he 
 was teaching in the temple the scribes and 
 Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in 
 adultery, but they could not persuade him of 
 
 13 
 
14 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 any sin in her. More than one of them told 
 him of her deeds and repeated to him the law 
 of Moses and the way of the fathers with 
 such an one. Yet he but looked at them 
 sorrowfully. At the woman who knelt near 
 him, weeping, he did not in anywise look. 
 And while we waited nearby and they grew 
 vehement because he said no word, he 
 stooped down and wrote with his finger in 
 the sand. And this is what he wrote : 
 
 "Of old time the Sons of God went in unto 
 the daughters of men. Even so now. Only 
 the Soul that requireth the things of this 
 world is an adulterous soul, and is already 
 condemned. 
 
 "What shall it profit a man if he gain all 
 things and all power, if he lose his love for 
 man? In every man desire lies asleep. 
 And God is in every man both to will and to 
 do of his good pleasure. 
 
 "Judge not, therefore, lest you condemn 
 God in condemning men. The sins of men 
 are also in the plan of God. 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 15 
 
 '*God reads the heart." 
 
 And beginning with the eldest, they went 
 out one by one. 
 
 Those are hidden sayings. We cannot 
 hear them now, but the Holy Spirit that 
 shall come into the world shall teach us all 
 things and shall bear witness to them. 
 
 They are pure, Antione, whose eye is 
 single, who have one simple will; that is to 
 say, all they are pure who are loving. If our 
 soul sees only lovingness our whole body 
 shall be full of light so we shall shine with 
 the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
 Love in the face of Jesus Christ. Love is 
 agreement because it is unity. Paul says 
 that though one give his body to be burned 
 yet has not love, his sacrifice is nothing and 
 he is become as a rattling cymbal and jarring 
 brass. Whoso has looked into the face of 
 the Christ knows of a surety the love that is 
 from everlasting with the Father. I love 
 you, Antione. 
 
YOUR wonderful letter, John! I want 
 that love you tell me of, that leaves no 
 room for fear. I need it — I need you to 
 teach it to me. I long for you, my friend. 
 I long to see your face. I fear I shall begin 
 to hate those Christians who fill your 
 thoughts and all your days, and keep you 
 from me. 
 
 I follow you everywhere, in my heart. 
 As I sit here to-night, writing this, I long to 
 know where you are and what are your 
 labors. Ai-e you speaking to a great crowd 
 in some market place to persuade them to 
 the standard of Jesus ? Or are you gathered 
 in a place apart with a few who also knew 
 him, talking of the days when you walked 
 together in Galilee? Or are you alone, my 
 dear, dear friend, alone and weary and haply 
 with naught wherewith to satisfy your 
 hunger and nowhere to lay your head? It 
 
 16 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 17 
 
 tears my heart to think of your ofttimes 
 loneliness and need, your hurried journeys, 
 your wanderings in rough places, the mobs 
 and disorders of those Jews I My dear, dear 
 friend, do you know what it would mean to 
 me if any evil should befall you? But I 
 must not trouble you with my fears, I must 
 not add to your burdens. I will try to be 
 happy as you bid me, happy in your love, my 
 wonderful friend, as you are happy in the 
 love of your god. 
 
 To-day I went with Xenia to hsten to the 
 Grand chorus which is part of the festival 
 to our god Dionysus — a thousand voices in 
 harmony with the ring of cymbals in pa^an 
 after psean of joy rose to the blue sky; the 
 fragrance of flowers filled the warm air and 
 garlands of flowers, like rainbows, spanned 
 the sunht, tree-arched distances. Through 
 it all your name sang in my heart; like a 
 cord of gold the thought of you hnked all 
 the light and color in feast before my eyes. 
 Then out of the melodies of sound far and 
 
18 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 near, a voice, divinely sweet, seemed to whis- 
 per to me "What joy hast thou, Earthborn, 
 to lay upon this altar of my day?" And my 
 heart sang in answer : "The love that John 
 has waked in my soul is the greatest joy my 
 life has ever known." 
 
 And it seemed, dear one, that in that 
 moment I laid my love for you in the hand of 
 the great world god, and that my god and 
 your god were the same. 
 
 Antione. 
 
You will be glad, Antione, to know that 
 your dear letter gave me much joy. 
 Your God and my God indeed are one, for 
 only by the power of the Holy Spirit, which 
 is the indwelling love, can any be born either 
 in the Spirit or in the flesh. Jesus said that 
 God is love and love is God and there is 
 naught but love. And there is no other 
 name than love, Antione, given under heaven 
 or among men, whereby we may be saved. 
 Beloved, it is possible to the soul to be 
 happy in any condition. If we be not 
 happy, then are we striving to do what God 
 has not given us to do — to bring to pass that 
 for which the time is not yet ripe and we are 
 grieved when our striving fails. But we, 
 and haply those whom we would serve, 
 would be yet more greatly grieved had it not 
 failed. For God's thoughts are not as our 
 
 19 
 
20 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 thoughts and the love of God makes reckon- 
 ings of that of which we can not know. 
 
 Be glad for me, Antione, for my work 
 prospers, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. 
 I am not distressed either in body or in mind 
 except, haply, as I feel your fears for me. 
 Do not grieve me thus, Antione. I would 
 have you always with that smile in your eyes 
 and the sun in your hair as I saw you last. 
 For it rejoices me to think of you so. What 
 if I die ? It might even be that thus I would 
 be nearer you and would never leave you. 
 Death is naught, but as a step to be taken 
 joyfully in its time as our steps upon the 
 grass at the sound of song. 
 
 ISTor am I distant from you, Beloved. I 
 am with you when you do not dream it. 
 And I will be with you yet again and more 
 nearly, that the knowledge of my presence 
 may never thereafter leave you. 
 
 Philip's little boy is at play near me and 
 has asked of me why I looked up at the light 
 so long a time. I told him I was thinking 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 21 
 
 of what more I would write and he said: 
 'I think you might write a kiss.' I greatly 
 love this little son of Philip. 
 
 John. 
 
1HAVE carried your letter on my heart, 
 John, my wonderful friend, my Well 
 of Refreshment! It has lain there hke a 
 thing alive, a warm, glowing thing throb- 
 bing with the thoughts of your heart. Al- 
 most I think I know the meaning of that 
 love of yours in which there is no fear. I 
 am no longer afraid to tell you of my life. 
 I will not wait for your coming but will tell 
 you now by letter, so that when you come to 
 me again you may already know all. 
 
 I was an only child — my mother died of 
 my birth — and my father, who was a man of 
 wealth and highly esteemed for his wisdom 
 and ability in public affairs, became devoted 
 to the philosopher Arules and at length per- 
 suaded him to come and live in our home 
 with the understanding that he would oc- 
 casionally give me instruction. I was about 
 fifteen at the time. 
 
 22 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 23 
 
 My childhood had been a lonely one, be- 
 ing greatly circumscribed, as is the custom 
 of our people. I longed constantly for 
 those to whom I might talk, of whom I might 
 ask questions — I longed to hear, to see, to 
 understand. I had carried the mystic box 
 in procession and had ground cakes in com- 
 pany with other young girls for our patron 
 goddess, but these were almost the only oc- 
 casions on which I had been allowed to go 
 beyond the walls of my father's house. My 
 father was very kind but he was much con- 
 cerned with public matters and had neither 
 time nor inclination to attend upon me. He 
 had great confidence in his slaves and in my 
 old nurse who had been with me since my 
 birth, and he considered that through them 
 all reasonable requirements were provided 
 for me. 
 
 It was adjudged a daring innovation when 
 it became known among his friends that he 
 intended to have me instructed by a philos- 
 opher. 
 
24 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 Hardly had a year passed before I learned 
 to love Arules. Our lives had gradually be- 
 come so intimately entwined that I knew 
 not at the time how great a part of my own 
 life his had become. I remember that as I 
 passed his chamber I would touch lovingly 
 the latch of the door his hand had touched; 
 his papers, his garments, his favorite seat in 
 the court, every thing associated with him 
 became almost sacred to me, as a part of his 
 dear self. 
 
 He taught me that the purpose of life is 
 growth. The union of souls, he said, should 
 raise us to higher things. Marriage must 
 not be considered merely as an escape from 
 loneliness and limitations by the one and the 
 acquisition of a constant ministrant to ma- 
 terial needs by the other. It should be en- 
 tered not as a remedy for poverty of soul, 
 but in conscious strength and joy and lavish- 
 ness of life. He held that neither state nor 
 priest had any right to sanction or to forbid 
 the union of two souls. More especially 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 25 
 
 was it unreasonable, even hypocritical, for 
 one who did not subscribe to tenets of state 
 or priesthood to allow the supervision of 
 either. And he insisted that two persons 
 should live together only as long as they 
 loved each other. 
 
 His deep learning, the calm sureness of 
 his convictions fascinated me. We talked 
 frequently on the subject in the absence of 
 my nurse and considered the matter from 
 every aspect. He was kind and patient 
 with my fears. I was indeed very fearful, 
 for you know that the feeling of our people 
 is strong against any laxness among women, 
 and toward one who has been known to 
 transgress custom almost any insult or in- 
 dignity short of bodily injury is allowed. I 
 knew that my father's position would render 
 even a slight transgression of convention 
 doubly heinous in the eyes of all who knew 
 me, for you know it is a saying with our peo- 
 ple that the woman most to be commended is 
 she of whom least is said, either good or bad. 
 
26 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 Arules was entirely willing to acknowledge 
 our union among our friends or at a meeting 
 of friends gathered together for that pur- 
 pose; but he would not, even for my sake, 
 violate his principles by submitting to con- 
 vention for convention's sake. He would 
 willingly wait until I might arrive at his 
 point of view and he made it a point of honor 
 that we should not live together until I was 
 fully convinced of the righteousness of the 
 action. 
 
 It was just at this time, when I was di- 
 vided thus between my passionate love for 
 Arules and my fear of the certain censure 
 and ostracism of all about me, that my 
 father was thrown from a chariot and so 
 seriously injured that any excitement or 
 shock might have proved fatal. And 
 shortly after weighty matters entailed by 
 the responsibility of a family estate 
 required Amies' immediate presence in 
 Corinth for an indefinite time. So I 
 at last consented to a secret union until 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 27 
 
 such time as my father should be strong 
 enough to hear of it. 
 
 Scarcely a week after my lover's depar- 
 ture my father died suddenly, and before a 
 month had passed I received word that 
 Arules had been stricken with the plague. 
 I flew to Corinth — to find him dead! 
 
 My agony was too great for tears. For a 
 time Euneo, my good old nurse who had 
 travelled with me, even despaired of my re- 
 gaining my reason. In my desolation, 
 after I at length began to pick up the threads 
 of my life, my one comfort was that I was to 
 become a mother. Yet I was in a strange 
 city, without friends, my condition a badge 
 of shame. I shrank from every one, but 
 never for an instant did I regret loving 
 Arules. I was not able to make the journey 
 to Athens so I awaited my time at Corinth. 
 
 From the moment of her birth my little 
 one has been to me a joy and consolation and 
 the source of my greatest strength. When 
 she was seven years old I returned to Athens 
 
28 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 with her and took up my abode again in my 
 father's house. I was wealthy and I dehb- 
 erately rejected the narrow hfe of women of 
 my class, and at length my freedom of life 
 was such that I came to be classed with the 
 hetaerae.^ 
 
 1 Hetaera: A female friend; later one of the assertors 
 of women's right to education and culture, whose lives were 
 often above reproach, and of whom Aspasia is the type. 
 The Greeks, generally speaking, looked upon marriage 
 merely as a means of producing citizens for the state, the 
 education of women being almost neglected. Even private 
 hetaerae were not mere prostitutes, but acted as flute or 
 cithara players, and as dancers, and were, as such, fre- 
 quently engaged to add to the splendor of family sacrifices, 
 or to enliven or heighten the pleasure of men at their 
 symposia. Most of these hetaerae not only took the great- 
 est care to preserve their beauty and to acquire accomplish- 
 ments, but they paid considerable attention to the cultiva- 
 tion of their minds. The Arcadian Lastneneia was a disci- 
 ple of Plato and Leontion was a disciple of Epicurus. 
 
 It is even said of Aspasia that she instructed Socrates 
 and Pericles. Whatever we may think of the historical 
 truth of these and similar reports, they are of importance 
 to the historian, inasmuch as they show in what light these 
 hetaerae were looked upon by the ancients. It seems to have 
 been especially owing to their superiority in intellectual 
 cultivation over the female citizens that men preferred their 
 society and conversation to that of citizens and wives; and 
 that some hetaerae, such as Aspasia, Lais, Phryne, formed 
 connections with the most eminent men of their age and 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 29 
 
 My greatest desire has been to advance 
 the independence and education of women 
 in Athens and that Xenia may have a full 
 and free and noble life. To this end I have 
 allowed her to be my constant companion 
 and to meet all my friends. She is worthy 
 of all the liberty I can bestow upon her. 
 Weakness is not her heritage. I look into 
 the clear eyes of my precious little one and 
 I read there the strength and courage of a 
 fearless woman heart. I want her to be free 
 to love the man who can wake the noblest 
 love of her soul, and to choose the father of 
 her child. I have offered up the sacrifice 
 of my suffering in the cause of the freedom 
 of women as you have dedicated your life to 
 the truth that Jesus taught. 
 
 It has been said that Arules deceived me. 
 My contradiction is the life I have since led 
 
 acquired considerable influence over their contemporaries. 
 Women, however, of tlie intellect and character of Aspasia 
 were exceptions — even Athenian citizens did not scruple to 
 introduce their wives and daughters to her circles that they 
 might learn there the secret by which they might gain and 
 preserve the affection of their husbands. 
 
80 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 — intellectual Athens knows what it has 
 been. But even if he did, what then? The 
 depth of experience I have sounded, the dif- 
 ficulties I have encountered, the criticism, 
 the contumely, have but strengthened my 
 soul and cleared my vision. 
 
 You may already from unfriendly lips 
 have heard somewhat of my story. I have 
 now told it to you, freely and without reserve. 
 If you now no longer care to see me — if I 
 have seen you for the last time, then — Oh, I 
 dare not think of it! But whatever your 
 judgment may be, I know, dear friend, that 
 it will be just and there will be at least the 
 joy of an unquenchable love for you 
 throughout such life as the gods have allotted 
 to me. To let you go would be terrible, but 
 it would be impossible to live a life of deceit 
 before your eyes. 
 
1H AVE kept your letter by me for a day 
 and a night, Antione, that I might read 
 it at a more quiet time. And now the time 
 is lacking to write you before the messenger 
 must depart who will bear this to you, with 
 other letters and salutations to those over 
 whom my heart yearns, for they are but as 
 little children in knowledge, and because of 
 the strange teachings that have of late been 
 brought to their ears many have been 
 offended and are, as it were, without a home. 
 Jesus' teaching was only "That ye love." If 
 we love we are one with him ; if we love not 
 we have no part in him. 
 
 It behooves us who have known him face 
 to face to comfort those who are weak, for 
 the time seems near when many will fall 
 away because of persecutions. Those in 
 Jerusalem are fleeing to Pella. I have word 
 of Paul in chains and in sore straits. Of 
 
 31 
 
32 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 Onesimus I know not, nor of Peter. On a 
 certain day Peter said to me: "The future 
 is coming down on us with so great swiftness 
 I care not what Caesar may do." All look 
 to him as to a father, and the courage and 
 fire of his love have burned out the fear of 
 many who faltered. I trust indeed that 
 Peter may be kept in safety for the upbuild- 
 ing of the church. Yet the Father knows 
 best what tool to keep and what to lay aside. 
 The messenger waits. Farewell, Antione. 
 
DEAREST always, I have read your let- 
 ter many times. And I seem to have 
 lived many years since I read it first. I 
 know now that you have never loved me. I 
 laid my hfe and my heart bare before you. 
 If you had ever loved me you would at such 
 a time have given me assurance of it — some 
 word to stay my confidence and heal my 
 hurt. 
 
 You have dedicated your life to those 
 Christians and have little care for any others 
 in need. I thought your love was wide and 
 all-embracing. I thought that even if you 
 did not love me greatly, you did indeed care 
 for me truly. And yet, when now I have 
 told you of my life, you are cold to me and 
 show plainly that you have no real care for 
 any but those Christians. Even such as but 
 call themselves by that name, though you 
 
 33 
 
34 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 know them faint-hearted and pitiably weak, 
 are more dear to you than I who have laid at 
 your feet the innermost confidence of my 
 life and the treasure of my very soul. 
 
 You have never loved me and my love for 
 you might as well have been poured upon the 
 sand of the desert. I turned from marriage 
 with a man who loved me, to you, a man who 
 did not love me. Of my love for you, long 
 before I ever talked with you, even from that 
 first day that I saw you with the wood- 
 gatherers beyond the city, I have told you. 
 And you have been first — you have been 
 alone — in my heart since that day. Yet it 
 is as nothing to you! Until I told you in 
 words, you did not even know that I loved 
 you! You have said that you love me, but 
 you did not mean it. You do not even know 
 what love means. You have deceived your- 
 self but I will not be deceived, I will face 
 this thing in my own heart and with you. I 
 am no coward. I see now plainly that you 
 have never loved me. For in my need, when 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 85 
 
 I have reached out to you without reserve 
 and trusted you with my all, you have no 
 word for me but of some disturbance at Jeru- 
 salem! What is that to me? Or of those 
 who teach false doctrines and are weak and 
 fearful — what have I to do with such as 
 these? To them you write many letters, to 
 them you give love without stint. For me 
 you have nothing. 
 
 You have joyed in my beauty perhaps. I 
 know that I am beautiful. I know that I am 
 unusual, intense; with great capacity for 
 suffering as for loving — capacities that your 
 nature is too cold to comprehend. And you 
 have watched me, perchance, as might some 
 philosopher an animal at the sacrifices, or the 
 pantomime of one of an alien people. You 
 have found interest in the mere spectacle of 
 my living — perhaps you have even been 
 somewhat flattered by my love for you, the 
 while I have been as one writhing under the 
 knife of torture! 
 
 And I have loved you so! With a love 
 
36 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 that illumined and transformed all my 
 nature, so that I longed to give all and would 
 ask nothing. Such love is a consecration, 
 whether it last for a day or for a lifetime. 
 But it can not be that you have ever known 
 such love. You are cold. You are remote, 
 and not to be touched with any feeling for 
 my pain. 
 
 I have no heart to write more. I am as 
 one for whom all joy of hfe has been blotted 
 out. 
 
 A. 
 
I FORGET all my pride and my pain, 
 dear friend, in the fear that some evil 
 may have befallen you. It is now a month 
 and seven days since I sent my letter to you 
 and there is yet no word from you. Philip 
 also has been here and has no report of you. 
 And there are other friends who wait anx- 
 iously for some news of your work and your 
 welfare. Can you not send us but a word, 
 that we may rest in the assurance that all is 
 well with you? 
 
 Antione. 
 
 37 
 
IT is now two months and a day, my dear, 
 dear friend, since I who love you have 
 heard of how you fare or even where you are. 
 
 I suffer in my need for some news of you, 
 John. No hour since your last letter to me 
 first lay open in my hands has been free from 
 pain — it is as if I had sounded every note in 
 the whole gamut of human suffering — but 
 now my anxiety for your welfare, your 
 safety, has swallowed up all else and I long 
 for nothing as I do to have some word from 
 you. 
 
 I send these letters to you by whatever 
 merchant or traveller I hear may be jour- 
 neying toward Pergamos but I do not know 
 whether they will ever find you or whether 
 you are not even now in some distant place. 
 If I have no word from you shortly at least 
 through some of your friends, I will send a 
 
 38 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 39 
 
 letter by the most trusted of the slaves my 
 father gave me. I can not bear this longer ; 
 I must know somewhat of you, John, for oh, 
 my wonderful friend and teacher, I love you, 
 love you, and it matters no longer to me 
 whether you love me or not. I can not live 
 without you and this great wall of silence 
 between us is breaking my heart. I have no 
 longer any pride, I have nothing, I know 
 nothing, but that I love thee, thou wonder- 
 ful Thought, that I have no longer any life 
 apart from my love for thee! 
 
 Antione. 
 
 The occasional use of Thee and Thou possibly points to 
 a transition of these letters through some other language. — 
 Ed. 
 
ANTIONE, Antione, how could you so 
 distrust me? Did I not tell you even 
 beforehand that no word or deed of yours 
 could change my love for you? Then when 
 your long letter came, telling me of your 
 early life, what more was there that I could 
 say to you? It was as nothing — where you 
 lived with Arules, or how, if you but loved 
 him. Perhaps I might have said this again 
 in my letter to you — yet to what purpose, 
 since you did surely know it and did also 
 know that there is no law but love? Why 
 should we waste words, Beloved, upon that 
 which is past and has value only as it has a 
 measure of love, and, to that measure, is 
 understood already of me and of you, and 
 is justified and perfect before him who so 
 loved us that he sent his only begotten son 
 that we may know that he that dwelleth in 
 love dwelleth in God and God in him. 
 
 40 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 41 
 
 Antione, whoso has looked in the Divine 
 Face knows this surely, that God is love and 
 every one that loves is born of God. You 
 are strong because you can love greatly, and 
 you have therefore less need of me than those 
 who love but little and hence are faint- 
 hearted and full of fear. I write unto them 
 lest they fall by the way and attain not unto 
 the joy of fellowship with the Father. 
 Would you that I leave them to perish be- 
 cause they are weak? Jesus did not so. It 
 is to these least among his brethren that my 
 love goes out as would yours to any who 
 looked to you for succor. 
 
 You are strong, Antione, and I have faith 
 in your strength, because I have faith in your 
 love. The time of my return is near at hand 
 and I will see you shortly. 
 
 John. 
 
JOHN, John, almost you persuade me 
 that this love of which you tell me that 
 it casts out all fear — is more to be desired 
 than all things else beside. Your letter 
 brought such comfort to my heart, and joy 
 unspeakable that I am to see you. I feel 
 that I must come to you, wherever you may 
 be, thou more than lover and brother and 
 friend to me, if thou dost not speedily come 
 to mel 
 
 A. 
 
 42 
 
SINCE that wonderful hour when, in 
 thine arms, John, my beloved, I gave 
 myself to the luxury of giving, thou hast 
 filled me with love for all the world. My 
 heart can not hold such a flood of ecstasy — 
 it must overflow to all that touch my life. 
 My only desire is for greater capacity to love 
 the dearest of all on the earth! My one 
 sorrow is that even in giving you all, I have 
 yet so little to give you. 
 
 I know that you do not love me as I love 
 you, but this troubles me no longer. You 
 do indeed love me but with a love that is 
 different, strange, unlike that of any man I 
 ever knew. But I would rather have this 
 love of my Beloved, than that of all the 
 world of men beside. 
 
 You satisfy the highest outreach and 
 yearning of my soul, you answer the hum- 
 
 43 
 
44 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 blest need of my nature, you fill my whole 
 being. My love for you, dear one, is as an 
 ever lengthening change of sweet equalities, 
 an endless chain of sweeter contradictions. 
 It is a mystery that envelopes me, a mystic 
 light that penetrates to the innermost secrets 
 of my soul. It is to know that if I spent 
 with you my mortal and immortal Hves I 
 could never be satiated, yet that the bliss of 
 one hour with you would glorify eternity. 
 
 In my love for thee to-day, thou Soul of 
 Love, the gods themselves must know an 
 added joy, and the sun a new radiance! 
 Long ago you wrote me that you would one 
 day be with me in such wise that the knowl- 
 edge of your presence would never there- 
 after leave me. And now it is even so. The 
 *'Dear Presence" is what I name to myself 
 the embrace of your soul in your absence — a 
 closer, sweeter embrace than I knew even 
 when with you face to face. The air about 
 me is instinct with your spirit, and my spirit 
 becomes radiant, vibrating at the touch of 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 45 
 
 your wonderful vitality. I forget my lone- 
 liness and longing for you — all the pain and 
 weariness of other years; I feel again the 
 throbbing of your great heart upon my 
 heart. I drink my fill of my well of refresh- 
 ment and lose all the littleness of my sep- 
 arate life in the greatness, the joy of the 
 Dear Presence that lies constantly close to 
 my soul. 
 
 I lived a long life, a new life, in those hours 
 I spent with you. And the dear things you 
 said to me — deep things and wonderful, 
 sweet things and tender — come back to me 
 now and again like a fragrance. Those 
 precious moments with you, dear heart, were 
 like a string of pearls about my forehead, 
 around my breasts, a girdle encircling my 
 waist, and yet all too short! I would have 
 lavish ropes of them to bind me everywhere 
 about and sweep the hem of my garment ! 
 
 I am like one who having had a wonderful 
 dream or vision that has changed in some 
 subtle way all the values and relations of life 
 
46 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 and made the whole world new, yet lacks the 
 full interpretation of it and desires above all 
 things to learn the perfect, hidden meaning 
 it may hold. For what you did show me of 
 your love was a vision and a revelation to me 
 — you revealed me to myself and shared with 
 me somewhat of your own radiant spirit. 
 
 I had heard of you in the beginning from 
 those who listened to you speaking in the 
 market places and in the courts, as a wild 
 dreamer and iconoclast ; from others as a man 
 of such mild speech that those who listened 
 thought you mocked them as being but chil- 
 dren before you. But when I heard you for 
 myself, then I knew. My spirit in that 
 instant knew in yours its creator 1 Your 
 gentleness and childlikeness woke again in 
 me the little child that lives forever at the 
 heart of even the most earth- worn of us, your 
 force and fire found their way to the very 
 roots of my being. It was as though I had 
 been seeking you all my life. And now that 
 I have found you at last, oh dearer than life 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 47 
 
 to me, I can never more lose youl For it is 
 not your love for me but mine for you that 
 will bind you closer than breath to my being 
 forever ! 
 
 O, I could write my heart out thus to you 
 endlessly — the Dear Presence seems nearer 
 as I write! But I must weary you with my 
 song of love, love, only love. Tell me, 
 Beloved, could my loving ever weary you? 
 Would you that I should hide my joy of you 
 in my own heart only? You who are so 
 pitiful to all who reach out to you in their 
 need — it is a deep need of mine to tell you 
 of my love — be patient with my longing for 
 you, let me be one of the httle children of 
 your love. 
 
 Antione. 
 
ANTIONE, my Heart! Who am I 
 that you should bring to me such 
 treasure of your love? Your love, nor the 
 song of your love, can never weary me. I 
 rejoice to know that you can love so greatly. 
 Loving is the beginning of wisdom and the 
 fulfillment and bringing to an end of law. 
 We understand nothing except in so much 
 as we love, because by love does the mind of 
 God enter into the minds of men. 
 
 Yet is love one thing and the one beloved 
 somewhat other, and we must keep ourselves 
 from idols. But if we love the more greatly 
 and not the more narrowly, when we look 
 into the eyes of our beloved, our idol, then let 
 us look until we see there even the eyes of 
 Christ. For he said that where even two are 
 joined together in the name of love, there he 
 abides also to work his good pleasure with 
 
 48 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 49 
 
 them and among men, for wherever there is a 
 soul that loves,where two are joined together, 
 there also the Father appears to us, and there 
 is the habitation of God. 
 
 The narrow love, that which desires in 
 retm^n love for the self, which considers self 
 and the things of self and them that minister 
 to the self more than it considers any others, 
 this love brings but pain and leaves the soul 
 without content. But when the vision 
 comes, and that larger truth that makes free 
 the soul, we care not for ourselves nor those 
 near to us in kin or in affection more than for 
 any other that has need, and we then have 
 done with disquiet and with grief. It is this 
 larger love that leads unto the peace of God 
 which passes understanding and this is a 
 peace which the world of material things can 
 neither give nor take away. 
 
 The time will come, Antione, that the dear 
 love you now give to me you will give in like 
 measure to all the world. That is the 
 greatest blessing and the deepest joy, and 
 
50 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 therefore I wish it for you, and therein I 
 wish for you, Beloved One, that perfect 
 peace of God. 
 
 John. 
 
LIFE of my life ! I know no name more 
 fitting by which to salute you, dearest I 
 Can it indeed be that I will ever love any 
 other on the earth as I now love you, John? 
 You are very wise, dear heart, but I think in 
 this you have somewhat erred. Yet let it be 
 
 so — only I know that I can never love you 
 lessl 
 
 You are like glistening snow on a moun- 
 tain top, in the dazzling beauty of your 
 spirit, in your aloofness, in the calm, poised, 
 impersonal strength of your attitude toward 
 this love that sways and lashes my whole 
 being into white-hot life. My life to-day 
 seems one passion of desire that craves from 
 you an answering life of burning kisses — an 
 ecstacy that longs ceaselessly, achingly, for 
 the uttermost communion. 
 
 You do not feel this. I know that you do 
 not. Yet you seem to have some still more 
 
 51 
 
52 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 wonderful joy that includes and transcends 
 mine. I know well now why the master you 
 love so loyally, loved you above all others. 
 You are filled to overflowing and lifted up 
 with love to draw all hearts to you ! It may 
 be that some day you will see into heaven 
 and tell us of the love made perfect there — 
 I can imagine you far away in some lonely 
 isle, lost in the beauty of your vision! 
 
 But perhaps, if a vision of perfect love 
 became permanent it might cause one to lose 
 one's balance for this world — as the Latin 
 has it, eoc statio — a standing out and above 
 all things we know as fixed. You know 
 Eros drove Psyche with the gadfly of desire 
 — but you will say that is because her love 
 was limited to one. Could you ever have 
 known, I wonder, that love that is such 
 terrible pain to a woman — that aches, fam- 
 ishedly, for union with the one she loves? 
 Could any woman ever grow to realize that 
 impersonal, super-personal love of yours 
 that draws me to you irresistibly, that com- 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 53 
 
 forts and calms me unspeakably, and yet is 
 my despair! 
 
 Yet I am happier in love with a zealot 
 fighting to vindicate his strange beliefs than 
 I should be as the wife of Xanthus, the writer 
 of words, words, words, immortal as his 
 words have made him. Every drop of your 
 blood is Jewish; I am Greek in every fibre 
 of my being; yet I rejoice in your work, your 
 spirit, your ideals, even when I do not quite 
 comprehend them. It is as if my love for 
 you melted the difficulties and shone upon 
 the dark places and brought us even nearer 
 than abstract understanding ever could. So 
 complete is my trust in you that even if I 
 saw you do what is evil it would be impossi- 
 ble for me to believe my own eyes. I often 
 wonder how it is that any can resist you — 
 how it can be possible that even one in a 
 crowd of people that listens to your voice — 
 can yet lift up his voice against you. Such 
 an one must indeed be possessed of a devil! 
 You have so swayed my life and brought my 
 
54 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 whole being under your power — and I am 
 no weakling — it seems that even though you 
 preach such a new, strange truth, none could 
 long withstand you. 
 
 Oh, my wonderful Love, teach me always ! 
 Teach me more fully, more deeply — it is not 
 that I would draw you down to me, but that 
 I would rise to you! At all cost I must be 
 yet nearer to you I 
 
 Antione. 
 
You shall indeed be nearer to me, An- 
 tione, dear love; you will grow ever 
 closer with the growing of your love; you 
 will be closest to me when your love is 
 greatest. 
 
 Those who do not love enough to under- 
 stand are not therefore possessed of devils — 
 they are only still as little children in the 
 truth and hence to be loved the more. And 
 yet even devils are not to go unloved. They 
 also serve. I did not always know this. 
 When Jesus cast the seven devils out of the 
 Magdalene I prayed him to send them 
 speedily to their own place of torment but 
 he said, *'Think you that these devils are not 
 also under authority? The Father hath 
 need of them in this world and when their 
 work is well finished he will take them unto 
 himself." There is no place in this world 
 
 55 
 
56 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 or in any other, Antione, where love is not 
 at home. 
 
 I would not have you name the truth of 
 Jesus a new, strange truth. Beloved, for it is 
 not new, but has been from the beginning. 
 By it were the worlds fashioned, and without 
 it was not anything made that was made. 
 For the truth of Jesus, the Word that he 
 spake unto us, the God that he showed and 
 declared unto us, is only Love. There is no 
 other power and this only is the life of every 
 living thing. It is the Word that was made 
 flesh and dwelt among us. It is the bread 
 of life, the only door into the Sheepfold, the 
 only rock on which to build,, the only way of 
 salvation for the world. 
 
 One eventide, when we had come with him 
 to the hills above Bethany, we were weary, 
 for we had come by the ford of Bethabara, 
 a long journey, and it was yet far to the 
 home of Mary. We had with us a little 
 bread and he would that we rest there for the 
 night and on the morrow go down into the 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 57 
 
 town. And after we had eaten he tarried 
 yet with us, speaking of that which had been 
 by the way, and of one who had disputed 
 with him that only by searching into the 
 hidden things of the law can men become 
 acceptable unto God, and by striving in 
 sacrifices and in worship, attain to him. 
 
 And he said, "A certain king builded a 
 temple in a marsh, and because the stones of 
 it were great they sank into the mire and the 
 temple fell, and with it were the workmen 
 also swallowed up. And again the king 
 builded upon the ruins thereof, and this 
 temple also sank and the mire was raised up 
 over all that place. When the king there- 
 fore saw that the last state was worse than 
 the first, he cast into the marshy place a 
 living seed and the seed grew and became a 
 great tree so that the whole place was dried 
 up by reason of the roots of the tree; and 
 under its shadow, behold there was the new 
 temple of God." 
 
 And one of the twelve asked him of the 
 
58 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 parable and he answered: "The marsh is 
 the wickedness of the world, which is division 
 and hatred and all uncharitableness, and the 
 stones of the temple are sacrifices and gifts, 
 but the seed is love and from it groweth the 
 kingdom of God. Verily, I say unto you 
 that this seed when it springeth up to heaven 
 shall bring forth a new earth, meet for right- 
 eousness." 
 
 Antione, it is with this love that I labor. 
 It is because I know and am assured that 
 naught can stand before the coming of the 
 Lord Jesus, who is the love of God made 
 flesh, that I preach this truth. If we say 
 we love God and love not men, we lie. We 
 can not know the love of God except we 
 know the love of man. For this reason was 
 the Word, which is love, made flesh, that he 
 might be even as other men dwelling amongst 
 us. 
 
 I speak to you of that which is in my heart, 
 Antione, because it is a joy to me that you 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 59 
 
 find so great treasure in loving, for even in 
 like measure must your whole life be en- 
 larged. 
 
 John. 
 
THE growing vision of thy love, John, 
 my Star and my Sun, melts all the 
 hardness and pride of my natm^e. It en- 
 larges my horizon and enriches everj^ per- 
 ception. It makes every happiness, even 
 the least, seem as a fragrant rainbowed joy, 
 new-born from the dawn of the gods. My 
 heart can not hold so much, but floods run 
 over the brim ! 
 
 Until I knew this deepest love for you I 
 think I never saw the depth of sadness in the 
 eyes of those who pass in the streets, for not 
 all the suffering I had fathomed had given 
 me such insight into human hearts, into the 
 wilderness of mortal pain, as has your love 
 — and my love for you ! 
 
 I never found such sheer delight in the 
 sunlight and shadow flecking Xenia's hair, 
 as she sits there now in the court with Pas- 
 
 60 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 61 
 
 idea, spinning. And this tall white lily in 
 its slender vase on the table beside me — even 
 its beauty seems to share somewhat of the 
 radiance of the Dear Presence that enfolds 
 me as I write. 
 
 When I gathered my flowers this morning 
 before the sun had touched the dial, this per- 
 fect blossom suddenly unfolded itself to me 
 as I stood near it. It gave me such joy! I 
 held it to my heart and loved it. Almost it 
 seemed to speak to me and look into my eyes. 
 
 Last night a flute player passed near, 
 along the street called Hestia, playing softly 
 in the moonlight and now and again pausing 
 to sing the words — a song I knew in my 
 childhood. At length he stopped imder my 
 window and the words came clearly to me as 
 I sat by the fountain in the court. And they 
 seemed to span the years — to thread the 
 years of days that lie between that yester- 
 day and this to-day, as pearls are strung 
 upon a silken strand — and it seemed to me 
 in that moment that all of my life had been 
 
62 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 but as a path that led me to you, a prepara- 
 tion for you, a making ready as a chalice is 
 shaped and graven for a special use — for 
 the wine of your Olympian gift! 
 
 And suddenly I was glad again, glad for 
 everything, even the pain; it has all been as 
 fuel to feed the quenchless fire of my love for 
 you! You would say, rather, it has but 
 made me a fitter instrument for the service 
 of others and that this is the true goal. It 
 may be that you are right. I do not know. 
 I only know I love thee, love thee with my 
 whole being, O thou who art blessed with the 
 breath of the gods ! 
 
 Somewhat you have shared with me your 
 abiding realization of a god all lovingkind- 
 ness, who sorrows in our sorrow and allows 
 pain only because we could not have feeling 
 and experience without it. Hitherto the 
 saying of the cynics — "Zeus and Fate, to 
 whom mankind are equally dear" — has been 
 constantly on my lips. But you are so filled, 
 as it were, with the knowledge of your god 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 63 
 
 that those who are near to you must, per- 
 force, know something of him, and those who 
 love you learn unconsciously to love him in 
 you. 
 
 Often when I ask you questions your 
 spoken answer does not satisfy me fully, but 
 later — alone with the Dear Presence — the 
 deeper meaning comes to me. And fre- 
 quently your own words come back to me — 
 after intervening days of distracting activ- 
 ity and the blurring confusion of many in- 
 fluences about me — like the first strong lines 
 of some overwritten scroll, indelible beneath 
 the surface scrawls. 
 
 Sometimes I think my days are far too 
 full — I have no time in which to know my- 
 self, no room in which to grow. I have 
 drawn to me in earlier years many persons 
 and influences that of late I seem to have 
 outgrown. In the light of the vision you 
 have given me, much that I thought of ad- 
 vantage to me and to be desired, now appears 
 inconsiderable, even cumbersome. And the 
 
64 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 dust of the skeleton of yesterday clogs the 
 nostrils of to-day's new being. So many of 
 my days now seem to me little more than 
 a maelstrom of petty, useless doings. I 
 would measure my living now by the new 
 standard you have shown me, yet I do not 
 know how to begin. 
 
 Do you understand how I feel about this ? 
 Can you tell me what to do? You always 
 understand me. I am always absolutely 
 myself when I am with you. More than 
 any man I have ever known, you seem to see 
 into the hearts of women. Can it be that 
 you were indeed a woman in some incarna- 
 tion? 
 
 Come to me again, come to me, O thou 
 light that shines upon the throne of the gods ! 
 that I may grow like unto thee, and, even as 
 the flowers in the sunlight, may unfold in 
 the joy of thy presence! 
 
 Antione. 
 
YOUR letter gave me joy, Antione. 
 It brought a vision of you to me — 
 your bright hair, the hly beside you, the sun- 
 hght, the fountain, Xenia and the other 
 children. Your home is to me also a home, 
 Antione. It has been great happiness to 
 me. Yet it has no less been a joy to me 
 that, even as Jesus, I likewise have not had 
 where to lay my head and have slept, even 
 as he did, beneath the stars, by the wayside, 
 on the mountain-top, in the desert. 
 
 One day at even, as we sat near the bank 
 of a little stream where we had stopped to 
 quench our thirst, he took in his hand a lily 
 and spake to us of himself, that he was as 
 one of the wild flowers of that valley, un- 
 noticed of the multitude, but a healing to the 
 eyes of those whose hearts are opened to him. 
 The lilies of the wayside show forth the 
 beauty of holiness and give praise to him 
 
 65 
 
66 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 who gave them life, by manifesting his love 
 in their growth. Men see not their use, yet 
 they also wait upon the Lord. Thus he 
 spake unto us and mine eyes were opened so 
 that since that day my heart yearns in love 
 toward every living thing, even the grass, 
 for it also after its kind doth blossom and 
 bring forth fruit in the love of God the Fa- 
 ther, as the leaf of every tree draws higher 
 up the life of God. 
 
 It matters not, Antione, whether we say 
 that suffering opens the door to love, or to 
 service, for they are one. He who loves 
 greatly is that living sacrifice that above all 
 things is acceptable to God. Love is a flame 
 that both lights and warms, and in so doing 
 serves. Love is born of happiness and also 
 of suffering, and all things are born of love, 
 even that joy that naught else can give and 
 naught can take away. 
 
 There is a baptism of pain. I remember 
 how that when Lazarus was dead and his 
 sisters came out to meet us Martha came 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 67 
 
 first, and Jesus kissed her and talked with 
 her because she was strong, and he said unto 
 her that if one but love, though he be dead 
 yet shall he live again. But Jesus loved 
 Mary, and when she was come he spoke no 
 word to her and gave her no kiss, but as they 
 walked he went near unto her and took her 
 by the hand and it was as if virtue passed 
 from him to her, for he suffered with her and 
 wept, and in that hour she was born again 
 and baptized of tears and of the Spirit into 
 eternal life. 
 
 It may indeed be that your time is cum- 
 bered with that which is not of love. Do 
 not give to others of your time or of your 
 self that which you do not in your heart 
 greatly desire to give. If we do only those 
 things that we love to do, our love and joy 
 will increase with our doing. So is love a 
 fulfihnent of the purpose of the law. Even 
 if in this way we err, we need not sorrow for 
 these errors; they too will fulfil themselves 
 and bear fruit of love because the seed of 
 
68 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 them was sown in love. In my life I have 
 made many and great errors, but there is no 
 one of them that I repent me of, for through 
 them I comprehend the more, and therefore 
 serve more wisely. When you come to 
 know of a truth, Antione, that God is in 
 you to will and to do of his good pleasure, 
 you know thereby that what pleases you to 
 do is the will of God. Only unloving sac- 
 rifice is grievous. The burden of love is 
 light and its yoke is easy and brings neither 
 strain nor pain. The natural desire of him 
 whose eye is single is divine. To turn away 
 from this is not acceptable to God. 
 
 Philemon has told me of your care of the 
 needy in their distress, and it rejoices my 
 heart. I love thee, Antione. 
 
 John. 
 
THY dear letter, John, has shed upon my 
 home, my liHes, all these simple things 
 thine eyes have rested on and thy thought 
 noted, as it were a radiant, special blessing, 
 and has thus set them, glorified, apart from 
 every other thing! 
 
 My love for you has set me, too, apart, as 
 one who must give royally because of this 
 great gift to herself — the gift of your hal- 
 lowing love that I have as a crown upon my 
 head! 
 
 When this last letter came to me from 
 you, I laid between my breasts the roll that 
 could not feel and I loved the mere uncon- 
 scious touch of what your hand had handled. 
 Sometimes the coming of a letter from you 
 makes me faint. I put it in my bosom and 
 force myself to complete whatever I am en- 
 gaged upon, and all the while the blood from 
 out my heart beats up to throat and cheek 
 
 69 
 
70 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 as if clamoring for this message from thine 
 own heart to it! Oh John, John, will you 
 not write me indeed a love letter — one from 
 your very heart to my heart that hungers 
 for it? 
 
 When lone was here I read from your let- 
 ter to her, wherein you speak of being made 
 strong through suffering, and that it is pos- 
 sible, despite whatever pain, yet to have joy. 
 This is a dark saying to one of tender years 
 and taught to believe that happiness is the 
 favor of the gods. To such an one, sorrow 
 must needs seem rather as a form of con- 
 demnation. 
 
 It must be as the cynics say, that our be- 
 liefs are sprung from out our sore neces- 
 sities. Perhaps the mind that could not 
 face undaunted those depths of human pain, 
 framed, as a drug to dull his mental anguish, 
 a philosophy built upon faith in the be- 
 neficence of pain. It would seem a grue- 
 some faith — life but a long road of suffering 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 71 
 
 drowned in death, and beauty a thing of no 
 avail ! 
 
 Poor, sorrowful lone ! I feel almost that 
 she must adjudge me stupid, brutal, when I 
 would strive to comfort her, for full well do 
 I know, as she knows, what her future holds 
 — she may not even walk upon the street 
 without fear of insult, nor put her foot upon 
 the temple steps without danger of bodily 
 injury. 
 
 It is hard to see such suffering as hers, 
 though one may know it to be indeed the 
 birth-pangs of a soul. 
 
 Yet when I think of your calm, strong 
 face, dear Herald of Peace to my heart ! and 
 remember all of sorrow and of grief your life 
 has known, I am soothed and somewhat com- 
 forted and made strong. But, apart from 
 you, all things seem only an endless, un- 
 fathomable maze. 
 
 I am yours, always yours, 
 
 Antione. 
 
ANTIONE : lone has been also in my 
 heart, as you have been, in all your lov- 
 ing service to her. I am with you in your 
 labors as you are with me in mine, as it were 
 in some measure speaking also through me in 
 the streets and in my letters to the churches. 
 I in you and you in me, Antione, that we 
 may be one indeed in him who is one with the 
 Father. And the Father knows when you 
 need a love letter, and will send you one by 
 my hand or perhaps in that of some other 
 messenger. Some of my love letters to you 
 were written by the hand of Arules ; to others 
 there have been signed other names. But be 
 assured, Antione, that all true love letters 
 come from the same Hand, for the source of 
 love is One. 
 
 Because we are all of one flesh, therefore 
 while we live we must also suffer ; for it is our 
 oneness with all others that is proven to us by 
 
 72 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 73 
 
 one pain and that even as they, we also must 
 feel with them to the uttermost. Had we no 
 pain, though in a world of pain, then were 
 we dead indeed, buried among the living. 
 
 We learn likewise by our pleasures, and 
 it may be even more than by our pain, as 
 do also little children. But if we will not 
 learn in pleasure, then must we be taught 
 through pain. Unless we become as little 
 children, we can in no wise enter the king- 
 dom of heaven, which is love. Little chil- 
 dren dehght in the outpouring of their love 
 and are therefore filled with joy. They 
 take no thought for the morrow for they 
 know of a truth that sufficient unto the day 
 is the good thereof. They have no care, they 
 do not strive; the joy that is within their 
 hearts makes itself manifest even in their 
 dancing footsteps, and when they sleep they 
 also smile for happiness. 
 
 We have no need to strive nor take 
 thought in care for ourselves or for others, 
 for even as over little children, so is love over 
 
74 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 all our ways. The Father worketh hitherto, 
 even before we were born into the world, and 
 we know he would in no wise find himself 
 without an instrument to do his will should 
 we this day leave off from serving him. 
 
 It is Love in the stars of heaven that keep 
 them in their courses, it is Love in the grass 
 and lilies of the field that makes them draw 
 drink and nourishment from the earth, that 
 makes the crystal cleave always in accord- 
 ance with its own desire, that keeps the 
 breast warm, the eye moist. If all things 
 created were not God, then would God 
 weary in the ordering of them. Would it 
 not weary you to keep your body in its own 
 order, to take thought to make the nostrils 
 breathe, the heart beat, the joints supply 
 that which gives ease to their action? Yet 
 because throughout your body is but one 
 life, and that is your own life, all these things 
 are thereby ordered without your thought, 
 as are likewise all things made by the love 
 of God, without which was not anything 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 75 
 
 made that was made. It is written "I said 
 ye are Gods and every one of you shall be 
 called the children of God." 
 
 In the beginning was the Word of love 
 and the Word was made flesh. It is this 
 love that gives life and makes our bodies 
 warm, that makes our breasts to heave and 
 our joints to act as is needful for their use. 
 And where there is love there is, therefore, 
 no need for striving or for care. 
 
 Likewise throughout all things that God 
 hath created. The fibres of your flesh, An- 
 tione, are as the sands of the sea for multi- 
 tude, yet is there any one of them that you 
 can prick with a needle and have no knowl- 
 edge of it? Likewise there is not a hair of 
 your head, nor a weed of the field, nor a fowl 
 of the air, that is a stranger to the love of 
 God, and each one is guided by his love in 
 all its ways unto the perfect fulfilment of 
 his love for all. 
 
 As the strength flows swiftly into the 
 raised arm of the workman, where is the 
 
76 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 greater need for strength, though he gives 
 no command nor does he strive and cry for 
 this, so also unto the least of his little ones 
 does the love of God, of its own accord and 
 without taking of thought, bring unto those 
 who serve what is needful for their service, 
 unto those who love that for which the love 
 of their souls hath need. For unto all 
 things comes that which is their own, by the 
 law of the outworking of the love of God, 
 than which there is no other law. And if it 
 seems otherwise with us, and that we do not 
 have our own when we yet long for it and 
 sorely desire it, then is it of a certainty that 
 the time is not ripe, we do not yet need this 
 thing nor would we really profit by it. For 
 God's arm is not shortened, neither is he 
 slack or slow to understand, and to the love 
 of God are all desires of our hearts laid bare. 
 That which we desire in love, doth he also 
 desire, for it is he that loveth and worketh 
 in us. But we know that our wisdom does 
 not attain unto the measure of his wisdom, 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 77 
 
 therefore must we abide in his love, until 
 we know the working of his wisdom for us 
 and in us. 
 
 The one commandment that Jesus gave 
 us is to love; not only to love one another, he 
 denied that, saying, *'If ye love them that 
 love you, what thank have ye? do not sinners 
 also the same?" As you love lone, your 
 thought therefore devises service for her, 
 seeking no return. And this is well because 
 it is born of love. But you do not need 
 therefore to be distressed lest pain come to 
 her from others, nor strive to order all her 
 days that they be free from pain. If in the 
 outworking of the love of God it is ordered 
 that pain shall come to her, then would you 
 be working against God and not lovingly if 
 you rob her of that gift of grief. 
 
 I am with thee, Antione, and my love is 
 
 always about thee, as the mountains are 
 
 round about Jerusalem. 
 
 John. 
 
JOHN! My heart is full of joy since 
 Philip has told me that your labors in 
 Parthia are near an end and that you then 
 purpose to come again for a little space to 
 those who have waited long, so long, to see 
 your face! 
 
 I was thinking that I might even have to 
 become miserable or hungry or in some wise 
 greatly unfortunate to share any more in 
 the love of him whose chief care is those for 
 whom none other cares. It is now more 
 than four months since any here have seen 
 you, yet I hear from Prochorus of your con- 
 stant work among the needy ! 
 
 Oh, Source of all my Joy and very 
 Breath of life to me, do you not know that I 
 also am needy? You have taught me to 
 need you — to want you above all else. You 
 tarry there to feed the hungry. But am I 
 
 78 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 79 
 
 not likewise hungry? Come and feed me 
 also, for my whole being is parched with 
 thirst for you. 
 
 A. 
 
WHEN you left me last night, John, 
 Answerer of my every need! I was 
 filled with a deep, quiet peace. I had given 
 and taken — given of myself to the uttermost 
 and taken of you to my fill. I was at rest 
 — satisfied. 
 
 You reach the deep-hidden mother fount 
 in me; the tears of mother-love spring in 
 me at your gentle touch. The crowning 
 joy of my life would be that I might have a 
 child conceived in your embrace — that I 
 might know the bliss of clasping your little 
 one to my breast. There are some things in 
 this world that are of such absolute value in 
 themselves that no price is too great to be 
 paid for them. 
 
 Your presence is with me still, your face 
 bending over me — the face of a god ! When 
 I waked this morning and opened my eyes 
 to the sky, it was into your eyes that I looked. 
 
 80 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 81 
 
 The thought of you is always my first 
 thought, as it is my last thought and the 
 burden of all my dreams! 
 
 Every hungry longing of my heart seemed 
 to reach its zenith of realization just in the 
 joy of your presence last night. Your 
 touch filled me with content. But when I 
 remembered this to-day it seemed to me that 
 I had been selfish, in that I was willing to 
 take of your treasure endlessly, just for the 
 joy of the taking! But I am ambitious for 
 you, also, and I long that the world may 
 know your great heart as I know it, and that 
 your epistles may be known and read 
 throughout the world! 
 
 Poor lone has been with me this morn- 
 ing. I prayed that I might say the right 
 word to her, that I might give her in some 
 measure of that peace that you have given 
 to me. I took her in my arms — these arms 
 that yours have encircled. I pressed her 
 hand in mine and laid it against my cheek — 
 my hand that still thrills with the touch of 
 
82 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 your own upon it — my cheek that reddens 
 and pales at the mere thought of you! 
 
 If she has gained succor, it is you who 
 have succored her through me. I feel I 
 must spend lavishly, splendidly, the riches 
 your love has bestowed upon me. If I 
 should even try to keep them for myself my 
 heart would burst with its fulness! 
 
 My love for you is the gift of the gods to 
 me! It is my great life-work just to love 
 you, and tune my life and every life that 
 touches mine to your measure of loving! 
 And though I may have to pay for my 
 height of joy with an equal depth of pain — 
 it is worth this also — worthy any price! 
 
 A. 
 
ANTIONE, beloved. I am moved to 
 write to you, for to-day my soul is filled 
 with joy. I would have your joy hkewise 
 full that our fellowship may be complete. 
 For I am assured of a truth that joy is the 
 natural life of man, for love is of God in 
 whom we live, and we know that we have 
 passed from death unto life, because we love. 
 
 lone's trouble is ours, as the pain of a 
 hand or a foot is the pain of the whole body. 
 We are members one of another. How can 
 we comfort one part alone? How can we 
 say we have the love of God in us unless we 
 likewise trust him with those whom we love? 
 
 I trust that I shall shortly see you face 
 to face. 
 
 John. 
 
JOHN: I have become entangled in a 
 discussion with HeHodorus as to certain 
 problems of good and evil. I repeated to 
 him also somewhat that you have said to me 
 of these matters, but I have insufficient 
 knowledge of your doctrine. 
 
 If you do not see wickedness, but rather 
 only error, is it that through ignorance one 
 may, as it were, for a time fail to reach the 
 mark set for him? Tell me then by what 
 standard you judge what is right in our re- 
 lations to men, and in action. 
 
 Heliodorus returns in the evening to con- 
 tinue our conversation. My slave will 
 await your answer. 
 
 A. 
 
 84 
 
ANTIONE: When we love, we desire 
 to do yet more than the law could re- 
 quire of us. Hence is love the fulfilment of 
 the purpose of the law, and also makes an 
 end of the law. 
 
 It is better that we ask of ourselves not 
 "Is it right?" but "Is it loving?" 
 
 John. 
 
 85 
 
WHY, oh why, should it be that you are 
 not with me to-night — the last night, 
 John, and you away in conference with your 
 friends and I here alone and so pitifully 
 longing for you I 
 
 I know they need your counsel. I would 
 not send you this letter until their need of 
 you is filled. I write to ease my own pain. 
 O the letters and letters I write to you and 
 never sendl Xenia says I write continu- 
 ally. Yet I write to no one but you. O for 
 one hour with you before you leave me 
 alone! 
 
 Antione. 
 
 86 
 
THE HARVEST 
 
 EVEN as when in your letter, Antione, 
 you cried out that I had forgotten to 
 come to you, albeit it was the last night be- 
 fore my departure on my long journey, so 
 do those who are faint-hearted fear that evil 
 will befall them on every hand. 
 
 When I did come to you in the late watches 
 of the night, you doubted that it was in- 
 deed I. Fear had outrun even the percep- 
 tions of love. Yet when you heard my 
 voice, when my hand rested upon your hand, 
 when I made myself known to you beyond 
 peradventure, then your fear faded away 
 and could no more return because you 
 leaned upon my breast and needed not the 
 assurance of any, nor that any should testify 
 of me. 
 
 Even so, Antione, have I leaned upon the 
 
 87 
 
88 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 bosom of him whom I loved, his sayings sank 
 into my ears, his spirit entered into my 
 spirit, the word that was made flesh became 
 bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, and 
 I thereby became one with him as he is one 
 with the Father. For this reason I am as- 
 sured that the Holy Spirit cometh not by 
 doctrine but only by love. 
 
 Jesus said it must needs be that offences 
 come, for great love is born of hardship and 
 sore trial and even of the enmity of those 
 we love. And they through whom offence 
 cometh reap their own harvest of woe, even 
 as Jesus also said and charged us that we 
 therefore regard such an one with the greater 
 love, in like measure with the woe that his 
 service of offence has meted out to him. 
 
 God requireth naught of us but that we 
 love. They who go about preaching other 
 doctrines, and saying Lo here or Lo there 
 is the way of salvation, do but darken the 
 truth that Jesus the Christ lived in our 
 midst and deny also the word of him that 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 89 
 
 sent him. These are Anti-Christ, who would 
 lead astray if it were possible even the elect. 
 Antione, it is because thou art filled with 
 love, and therefore thy whole body is filled 
 with light, as of the sun, that I dehght in my 
 love for thee! Yet more would those who 
 know not love delight in thy abundance, be- 
 cause they have the greater need. I would 
 that thou couldst give thyself unto them 
 even as unto me. For so shalt thou attain 
 unto yet more abundant life. 
 
 John. 
 
1AM again depressed and full of fears 
 to-night, dear heart. Johnl If only 
 I might know for one moment the touch of 
 your hand on my brow! I am restless and 
 my head is hot. My way led me through 
 that part of the city in which there is much 
 fever when I went to-day to find poor lone. 
 She is ill and can not even be moved that 
 she may be brought to my house. Ah, her 
 love, her little hour of love, has brought to 
 her a lifetime of suffering. And the child — 
 I dare not even think how it may be with the 
 child — it might be well that it should die 
 before it is born. I read your letter to her 
 — I have read many of your letters to her. 
 Love comforts her, as your love calms and 
 uplifts me now to write to you — to talk to 
 you thus even across this distance that di- 
 vides us. Help me, John; send some word 
 of your love to me, upon this wind that 
 
 90 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 91 
 
 breathes upon my cheek, this wind that 
 blows up to me from the sea where you 
 abide. Or have you akeady departed to an- 
 other place to preach ? It is now many days 
 since I have had any tidings from you. 
 
 Antionb. 
 
ANTIONE, when I was with you by 
 the fountain, and Pasclea's mother 
 brought to you her httle one, but a few 
 months old, crying with pain, and you 
 encircled him with your arms, and breathed 
 above him words of love, and also distilled for 
 him soothing herbs until he was at peace and 
 slept, and smiled in his sleep, yet perchance 
 the little one did not know of your love, but 
 only of pain and then release from pain. 
 
 Even so we, lone, and they that suffer by 
 reason of fever and all who know not the 
 fulness of love, know much pain and some- 
 times a happiness which is release from 
 pain for a little time ; but not until we have 
 grown into the knowledge of such love as 
 was revealed to us in Jesus the Christ, can 
 we attain to that joy that takes no heed of 
 pain. When I was with you upon the hills, 
 
 92 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 93 
 
 and in the darkness you trod upon a stone, 
 yet in my arms you knew no pain, and when 
 you returned home and there saw the blood 
 upon your sandals and your clothing, and 
 the deep wound in your flesh, you marvelled 
 that you had known it not. 
 
 Even so, Antione, does the love of God, 
 as I have seen it in the face of Jesus and as 
 I have received it into my spirit, as it were 
 the life of my flesh while I lay upon his 
 breast — in like manner does love fill us and 
 enfold us and possess our minds and souls 
 that we know not pain save as the greater 
 pressure of his love. 
 
 Antione, it is with this love that I love 
 thee, and when I am also most near to thee 
 I yearn over thee in spirit that thou maj^st 
 know it in its fulness, for this is the great 
 gift of God, this is Emmanuel, God with us, 
 even as was made manifest to us in the life of 
 Jesus while he yet dwelt amongst us. 
 
 We are made in the image of God, that 
 is in the image of love, and the whole king- 
 
94 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 dom of heaven is within everyone of us and 
 we show it forth to the uttermost. 
 
 It is written; "He that beheveth shall 
 not make haste," and also: "I charge you, 
 O ye daughters, that ye awake not love until 
 it chooses," for God is content that all things 
 abide by the slow order of their ripening. 
 We can till a rosebush but we can not till a 
 rose. The blossoming of a rose is according 
 to its own law of unfolding; so also is the 
 way of the spirit. God, only, knoweth their 
 hearts. Wherefore it behooveth none of us 
 to say of such an one that he is slack, or of 
 another, that he is evil, for in so doing we 
 judge not such an one, but even the ways 
 of God. 
 
 There be those who preach and give much 
 labor to teaching and to training those who 
 will also preach and stand fast in the faith. 
 Yet these nevertheless fall away from the 
 truth or rise up to darken the word of Jesus 
 with vain teachings of philosophy. Where- 
 fore what does any preaching profit if it 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 95 
 
 enter only into the mind of a man? For the 
 mind of man is given to change and subject 
 to persuasion. It is only when love pos- 
 sesses the spirit that a man walks in the clear 
 light of day and needs not that any should 
 bear witness to him. 
 
 I would that all might learn even as did 
 Mary, who forsook all things to sit con- 
 tinually at the feet of Jesus, and as also did 
 he whom Jesus set as a Httle child in our 
 midst to dwell with us in our journeys, and 
 did carry in his arms when we walked in 
 rough places, so that he also knew, without 
 teaching by word of mouth, the love that 
 dwelt in him whom the Father sent, which 
 same love the youth also showeth forth now 
 unto those over whom he is appointed as 
 shepherd at Antioch. 
 
 I would that all might learn even as did I 
 also when I leaned on the bosom of Jesus, 
 for thus only is knowledge of love perfected 
 to the end that it can not be shaken. I 
 would gather into my arms all who hunger 
 
96 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 for life and thirst for love, and thus show 
 forth to them the bounty that is in the bosom 
 of the Father. My heart yearns over those 
 who wither in ignorance of the love of God 
 and of the continual refreshment of oneness 
 with him. 
 
 Antione, thou art strong, thou hast tasted 
 this love, but there are those who are careful 
 and troubled about many things, and who 
 are heavy laden and labor for that which 
 satisfieth not. It is with such as these that 
 I would dwell in fulness of the love of Jesus 
 until the desert of their hearts doth blossom 
 as a rose in the light of the Sun. I love thee, 
 Antione, but thou dost not need my love as 
 do those who are barren of love. 
 
 John. 
 
IV/r Y heart has been singing for joy 
 It J. throughout this day, John, Blessed, 
 Beloved. I have carried the letter Tim- 
 otheus brought from you close to my heart 
 since morning and a flood of love and sweet- 
 ness flowed from it through all my being. 
 
 If you were here I would kiss your eyes, 
 your hands, your hps, in this ecstasy of 
 tenderness that possesses me as I write! 
 And I know that you are glad, dear one, for 
 all your strength and quietness — perhaps 
 even because of this calm, still, adamantine 
 quality in your nature that draws me irresist- 
 ibly hke the mystery of sea-depths and the 
 matchless beauty of mighty snow-topped 
 hills — you are glad that I thus shower on 
 you all the wealth of my loving, just loving 
 you! You joy in the beautiful pearls of 
 love I lay in your hands, you let them lie 
 there, sweetly accepted and reverenced. 
 
 I glory in your love, for you take me as 
 
 97 
 
98 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 you take all who touch your life — upward. 
 And I love you so completely, engulfingly, 
 I sometimes feel, in rare, high moments, in 
 some exalted, glorified way, that I am all 
 that you are, and that all I see in you I am. 
 For you see in me only my oneness with you 
 and with him whom you call the Father. 
 
 When you touch my hair caressingly and 
 take my face between your hands and look 
 deep into my eyes and kiss me, once and then 
 again, yet I know it is only in an ineffable 
 tenderness that flows from you to all living 
 things. You accept all my loving in that 
 gentle, affectionate way of yours that is not 
 love, but just a perfect, tender kindness that 
 would take the whole world close — close to 
 your heart ! 
 
 You put your arms about me with a gentle 
 protection that brings happy tears to my 
 eyes, for within your arms nothing but good 
 can come near to me. Yet I know that you 
 would give in like measure to any human 
 creature. 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 99 
 
 When I ran so joyously into your arms 
 that last time you were here, and covered 
 your face with kisses, and you laughed back 
 at me a little, for that one moment we were 
 almost as boy and girl together! 
 
 No other gift Zeus holds in his hand is so 
 sweet as this ecstasy throbbing and thrilling 
 through every vein and nerve even to my 
 soul! The essence of life and joy in just 
 loving! Did you never know this purest 
 happiness? Or have you forgotten it? It 
 can not be wholly alien to you, since you can 
 thus bring it to birth and call it out in me. 
 I think I had not known what love could 
 mean had I not known you. For the love 
 of a girl is not as the love of a woman. We 
 have a saying, "No thunders herald the gods' 
 greatest gifts." When I went with those 
 who had heard rumors of the strange man 
 who healed the sick but would take no price 
 for it, who shared his bread with the wood- 
 gatherers and talked with them as brothers, 
 I thought to find amusement for my dulness. 
 
100 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 I found, withal, one who has interpreted and 
 made fruitful my whole life ! 
 
 Still art thou to me in many things a 
 mystery, Beloved of my soul. I feel but as 
 a little child sometimes, beneath thy calm, 
 deep gaze. Yet is thy least affection 
 sweeter to me than the whole love of any 
 other man ! I know now a secret of the gods 
 and why it is they are so loath to bestow the 
 gift of perfect love upon mankind. All 
 other boons may be at will recalled — all 
 grace of beauty, vigor, joy, and lastly life 
 itself. But love once given is no longer 
 theirs ! The gods may give but can not take 
 again this their supremest gift to us of earth ! 
 
 John, thou blest of gods and men, thus 
 hast thou blessed my life ! 
 
 Antione. 
 
YOUR love rejoices me, Antione, not in 
 that it is given to me but chiefly that 
 it enriches your own life. Even as you lose 
 all thought of self in your love for me, so 
 also will you lose all knowledge of self and 
 of separateness in fulness of love. 
 
 It is to this end that I labor with those who 
 are yet alien to love; that the light of un- 
 derstanding may by some means dispel their 
 darkness. 
 
 It is true, Antione, even as experience of 
 life has made plain to you, that love is the 
 essence of life and therefore in no wise under 
 command, nor subject to the will of man. 
 Neither can it be turned away, as it were 
 that which had not been, when once it has 
 sprung up within the heart. Thus it is that 
 you say "the gods can give but may not take 
 again." 
 
 I know that in the beginning was the tree 
 
 101 
 
102 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 of knowledge of good and evil set before the 
 eyes of men, and also the tree of life. This 
 is to say, first the tree of discernment and of 
 power to choose, and then the tree of decision 
 and of eternal choice. The fruit of the tree 
 of knowledge and discernment is action, 
 whereby shall come experience and there- 
 fore understanding of love. If, then, 
 having experience of love, a man with inten- 
 tion shall choose to know yet larger love, and 
 is not fearful but of good courage to bear 
 what travail the birth of this new life may 
 perchance hold for him, then has he eaten 
 of the tree of life, and for himself has chosen 
 that better part which shall never be taken 
 away from him, even the gift of eternal life 
 which Cometh through fulness of love. 
 
 It is written that God had forbidden man 
 to eat of the tree of knowledge and of the 
 tree of life ; but this being interpreted signi- 
 fies not that man should never eat thereof, 
 but that such experience is, as it were, 
 reserved, that a man may give pause and 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 103 
 
 consider within himself whether he indeed 
 desires this larger experience and is able to 
 be baptized with this baptism from above 
 into eternal life. 
 
 He that shall eat of the tree of knowledge 
 shall come into understanding of love 
 through experience of hfe in the flesh. 
 Knowledge without love is dead, as is also 
 faith that is not born of love. The pool of 
 Siloam healed him who stepped down into 
 it only when the angel of love had stirred the 
 waters. Faith cometh through love. There- 
 fore did Jesus say, "Believe me for the very 
 works' sake; believe the Word which is the 
 Spirit shown forth in the love made manifest 
 to men." 
 
 It was by reason of her great love for him 
 that Mary, his mother and mine, beheved 
 even from the beginning that he was not as 
 other men, and before he had yet done any 
 miracle she had faith in the power of his 
 word and said unto them that served, "What- 
 soever he saith unto you, do it." If we love. 
 
104 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 then do we see clearly the angel that dwelleth 
 within every man, and then do we also dwell 
 always in the glory and radiance of love. 
 
 John. 
 
IT would have given you joy, My Dear 
 One, to see Xenia dancing with me this 
 moment about the fountain! You who so 
 greatly love the hght-heartedness of little 
 children, John, and all the beauty of this 
 radiant world, even to that of the wayside 
 blossom, yet do you turn your back upon it 
 all and labor ceaselessly with those who are 
 despised and poor and have naught of joy 
 or comeliness to give you ! Can not this love 
 that has so filled your soul be sometimes 
 shared with those who might give somewhat 
 of love in return, and even somewhat of com- 
 fort for thy days of toil? 
 
 Hehodorus speaks of the wretchedness of 
 this world and of the joys of another that 
 may be found beyond the grave. But I do 
 not like such speaking. The religion of the 
 Greek is that of joy. To be happy is to 
 assure our gods that we thank them for the 
 
 105 
 
106 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 past and trust them for the future. We lay 
 our live joys on their altars; they have no 
 pleasure in things that have died. And they 
 give back to us again our joys, trebled. 
 Only a sick eye sees this world as sickly. 
 The strong, healthy soul is glad, even in 
 buffetting and distress which are but as a 
 bout with the gods who play their games 
 only with those they would greatly honor. 
 
 To please the gods in drinking and eating 
 is to make beautiful the banquet and to feast 
 and laugh before their altars. To please the 
 gods in labors is to do these with a gladness 
 as of the very members of the soul ; to live life 
 hour by hour to the perfect uttermost as if 
 indeed there were no other hour to come. 
 
 You have sometimes told me that the joy 
 I find in simple things refreshes your weari- 
 ness and that you like to be near to little 
 children because they have no care nor any 
 fear. And yet you spend your days among 
 the careworn and the fearful ! Ah, Beloved, 
 why will you not leave these for a little time 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 107 
 
 and come and joy with me? I need you 
 now I I need to know the touch of your dear 
 hand to make complete the perfect beauty of 
 this fair Spring day! Do you, too, feel 
 somewhat of the joy of this season, where 
 you toil among the far people of the hills 
 — the song of the warm earth, the fine de- 
 light of all things growing, becoming, the 
 paean of the rising of the waters? 
 
 Oh, come to me, Light of my life, cool 
 Brook in the desert of my days! that we 
 D^^y joy together in these simple, lovely 
 things ! On such a day as this all earth must 
 yield one joy! The sunlight covers every 
 living thing, as it were the great yellow robe 
 of Athene, on her holiday. The lilies nod 
 together and flutter in the wind like the 
 white sails of the boats at the harbor town 
 below. My heart itself would spread the 
 feast were you but here, Beloved! 
 
 I sometimes feel as I did when, a very 
 little girl, I would say, "Thank you, Apollo," 
 on the morning of a perfect holiday. I 
 
108 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 think throughout my life my every sense has 
 been as a fine subtle chord on which the 
 cadences and harmonies of all that is, make 
 music for my soul. I joy in so slight a thing 
 as the breath of the wind upon my skin. I 
 love my body. It brings me such rare joys 
 in its manifold living. O dear one, if you 
 would but sometimes care for that splendid 
 body the gods have likewise given to you! 
 You should take thought for it and rest it — 
 perhaps lie as the Hons do for hours in the 
 sun until every fibre is filled with the warmth 
 of the gods ! Surely Zeus is of all beings the 
 most joyful. And you have told me that 
 Jesus entered into the joy of his friends and 
 the happiness of little children. And you, 
 dear love, your whole being is instinct with a 
 deep inner happiness that as it were shines 
 out from you into the very hearts of all you 
 touch. 
 
 Oh come to me, Life of my life, or I shall 
 die, even in the midst of my joy, for very 
 hunger for thee I 
 
 Antione. 
 
IF I am ever weary, Antione, it is not by- 
 reason of labor, but because I see many 
 who thirst and hunger for the Word of life 
 yet do so few attain to the full measure of 
 the joy of that Word. 
 
 When I lay my head on a dear breast, or 
 write in love to give joy to one who has caDed 
 out this love, or even stand aside that the 
 wind of adversity that is the breath of God, 
 or the touch of pain that is but the pressure 
 of the loving God, may reach unto those 
 whom he would draw yet closer to himself; 
 when I look into the eyes of them that laugh 
 with happiness or of them that weep, I see 
 only him who by his knowledge of all joy and 
 all sorrow, knew also the perf ectness of love. 
 
 For he taught us that the flesh doth also 
 minister unto the spirit and it is thus that 
 we, as it were, redeem our flesh. Not by 
 the death of the flesh, nor mortification of 
 
 109 
 
110 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 the love of the flesh, but by greater Ufe, 
 which cometh by greater love, are we born 
 again into the new life which is of the Spirit. 
 This is that breath of love that God in the 
 beginning breathed into the nostrils of man 
 so that he became One living Soul, and when 
 the appointed time was come he sent his son 
 also that we might through him know life 
 and love and know it more abundantly. 
 
 This is the truth that shall make us free. 
 Yet when Jesus would tell it to them that 
 came to him from the scribes and Pharisees 
 they imputed to him sin and said that he had 
 a devil and was mad. 
 
 Yet is it even thus, Antione, that all men 
 must become perfected through all expe- 
 rience of life to the end that we come into 
 the knowledge of our oneness. Wherefore 
 should we love greatly and receive unto our- 
 selves the love of all who would give love 
 unto us, for in like measure do w^e receive 
 also him who manifested unto us the Father, 
 who himself is love. 
 
 John. 
 
JOHN, my wonderful, all-wise friend, 
 how I long to look into your eyes 
 to-night, to ask counsel of your great heart, 
 to share the illumination of your love I 
 
 You remember Heliodorus, the sculptor? 
 He has sent his slave to ask permission to see 
 me to-night. I am strangely moved by this 
 word from him to-day, yet I can give no 
 reason for the feeling that I have. It is but 
 a few days since he was here ; he stood in the 
 court in the sunlight, tall and straight like 
 Apollo — you know how beautiful he is, how 
 vital, you too felt the charm of his spirit and 
 the force of his brilliant mind. He has a 
 great influence over me. My whole soul so 
 loves what is beautiful 
 
 Heliodorus understands women as few 
 
 men do. His simplest courtesies are as 
 
 from courtier to a queen; his reverence makes 
 
 one regal. Even as I sat beside you the 
 
 111 
 
112 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 evening he was here I felt the compelling 
 influence of his glorious vitality, the power 
 of his vigorous beauty, and he knows always 
 in some subtle way how to bring to fine ex- 
 pression the best that is in my mind. 
 
 Beloved! It is now almost dawn. He- 
 liodorus has but just left me. My heart 
 turns to you as to one who can interpret all 
 things and who can never misunderstand. 
 For I doubt that I at all times understand 
 myself. And for this last night I know no 
 interpretation. 
 
 When Heliodorus came to me I was tran- 
 scribing some lines of Aristophanes for a 
 friend — "For my part, I now affirm in 
 reference to all human beings, both men and 
 women, that our race would become happy 
 if we were able to carry out our love per- 
 fectly, and each one were to obtain his own 
 special beloved, thus returning to his original 
 nature." Heliodorus glanced over my writ- 
 ing, and we talked a little of that belief that 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 113 
 
 the gods cleave in two every soul they 
 fashion and with closed eyes cast to the wild 
 earthwinds of circumstance these halves 
 charged with prenatal burning desire each 
 for the other. We talked of our unplumbed 
 human instincts that give rise to our many 
 faiths, of the limitations of circumstance, of 
 art in life. 
 
 Our conversation grew more personal, 
 more intimate. We had gone out into the 
 court and the moonlight was filtering softly 
 through the oleandars above us. Helio- 
 dorus' hand touched mine — it seemed so 
 natural that my own should rest there in his. 
 He told me how he had loved me all these 
 years, how he had followed the course of my 
 life with increasing pride in my strength and 
 courage, and that now he was at last free to 
 ask me for his wife. He was so splendid, 
 dear, as he stood before me there in the 
 softened light, I — loved him! 
 
 All these years he has strewn my way with 
 flowers. In my loneliness, long before I 
 
114. THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 knew you, it was he who comforted me and 
 in the greater loneliness of your long 
 absences you know that he has been my con- 
 stant friend, tireless in his effort to make me 
 happy. 
 
 As he talked of his love, his voice low with 
 emotion, as he pictured the joy of perfect 
 union, the ineffable sweetness of love, I felt 
 that I fell in love anew with — Lovel That 
 is the way with us women, we love Love. 
 For a woman does not fall in love with a 
 man, but with the Love he idealizes for her. 
 
 And as I looked into that noble face so 
 close to my own, that moment my nature 
 answered the cry of his nature to me. I 
 wanted to lose myself in that wealth of his 
 emotion; I found myself, as it were, in him; 
 I saw in his love, my love for you expressing 
 itself. I saw you in him and myself in you 
 and him in me ! 
 
 And I was to him as I would be to you. 
 And in that hour I felt nearer to all that is 
 beautiful and sacred in the world. 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 115 
 
 If you were here with me now, Beloved, I 
 could look into your eyes and say that there 
 h^s been naught of evil done to you or to 
 myself. 
 
 I am laying bare my soul before you now, 
 dear one, to give you, while yet the radiance 
 of love is in my heart, the fragrance of that 
 wondrous hour which still enfolds me. 
 
 You are so close to me now, my perfect 
 one — so doubly, trebly dear! I lay my 
 hands in yours, I look into your eyes — never 
 have I known the Dear Presence more near 
 my heart! I know that you understand — 
 from this baptism of love with Hehodorus 
 to-night I come again to you, dear one, and 
 you welcome me into your arms. 
 
 I have been sitting in the court in the rare, 
 perfect, pearly light of coming day. I ques- 
 tioned myself as to why it is that I can not 
 bring myself to live with Heliodorus as his 
 wife, since he loves me enough thus to forfeit 
 his citizenship for me. I accept his love 
 
116 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 gladly, and my love goes out to him in 
 return. Yet I can not find in my heart the 
 desire to take that step that would lay under 
 my heart another life — that would again fill 
 my arms with the ineffable sweetness of 
 motherhood. ... It must be in this, I think, 
 that the secret of my whole womanhood 
 lies. . . . 
 
 Many men have loved me, dear. And 
 because I and all women are in love with 
 Love my heart has answered many times, as 
 I have already told you. I would take 
 gladly of the flood of love that has poured 
 into my life, and would become, myself, a 
 part of it. Yet always there seemed some- 
 thing closer to me than myself that made me 
 hesitate. Do you know what I mean? Ah, 
 Beloved, I know by the tenderness in your 
 eyes that you understand! And this makes 
 it easier for me to tell you now what it has 
 always before seemed impossible that words 
 should hold. . . . 
 
 When each dear friend learned to love me. 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 117 
 
 with a closer and sweeter love than friend- 
 ship knows, and I was ready in my heart to 
 receive the glorious gift of love, this Some- 
 thing has become more vital and has 
 wrapped me about, taken possession of me. 
 I caught as it were a glimpse of a new spirit 
 reaching out to me from the land of unborn 
 souls. . . . And in the very flower and 
 consummation of my love I have hes- 
 itated. ... As I looked in the eyes of 
 one close friend . . . one lover . . . after 
 another, I have questioned my soul. . . . 
 "Would you have your little one like him?" 
 Then, dear, there was no doubt about the 
 answer. 
 
 And even so all through the years of my 
 womanhood, Beloved, have two invisible, 
 tiny hands kept me loving, in the midst of 
 whatever bitter experience, till at last the 
 little unborn, unseen being reached out its 
 sweet, small hands ... to you, and wanted 
 to express a body and a soul and a hfe like 
 
118 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 yours ! It was then that I knew that I was 
 free to love you with my whole being, that 
 between us a divine life could come into ex- 
 pression, a little new life like my beloved 
 Xenia and like you could bud and blossom 
 perfectly because of our own perfect joy 
 together. 
 
 It is to you that I belong. Giver and 
 Nurturer of the breath of the gods within me 
 — not to Heliodorus nor any other man in 
 all the world. But I know, even in the hour 
 of my supremest joy with you I know, that 
 you can never in like measure belong to me. 
 And yet in the blackest moment of that 
 loneliness with which such knowledge some- 
 times sears my heart, even so am I happier 
 as but the least among thy friends, than 
 enthroned above all women in the love of 
 other men. 
 
 Oh, John, thou for whom my heart cries 
 out thus ceaselessly! What is it in but the 
 light of thine eyes that in this wise dims every 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 119 
 
 other radiance for me? Or is it the strange 
 light in thy soul? I do not know. I only 
 know thou art not as any other man and that 
 I love thee, love thee I 
 
 A. 
 
MY dear one: There is a union of the 
 body and there is likewise a union of 
 the heart and mind. Also there is a deep 
 communion of the soul, which hath been ours, 
 Antione, and will be yet again and in greater 
 measure. 
 
 John. 
 
 120 
 
IT is now nearly five months since I have 
 seen thy face, John, for whom I con- 
 tinually long! Though the daily joy of 
 living can not be wholly dimmed, yet have 
 there been hom-s when the world seemed 
 empty and bereft and my need of you was 
 such that I could only cast myself upon my 
 couch and weep — an agony of tears ! Even 
 Xenia could not comfort me. In my sleep 
 I would still sob for you, just for the touch 
 of your dear, strong hands ! 
 
 O it must be that when I reach out to you, 
 long for you, you respond in like measure! 
 It must be then that you are really here by 
 my side, with your arms about me, when I 
 thus so hunger for your arms ! Do you not 
 feel my presence, the thrill of my hands, as 
 I caress your hair? I kiss your forehead, 
 your eyes, those wonderful eyes, so full of 
 fire and of love, so keen with the power that 
 
 121 
 
122 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 speaks through them, so tender with the 
 thoughts that are too deep for words! I 
 draw your dear head down until it rests upon 
 my bosom. My hands touch softly the 
 strong chin and find their way to the broad 
 shoulders, the virile, unbowed neck, the dear, 
 protecting arms ! I feel the wonderful heart- 
 beats that I know are singing in time with 
 my own, O Beloved! Do you not feel the 
 flow of tenderness for you in my very finger- 
 tips as they reach out to you? The same 
 dear feeling is throbbing throughout my 
 blood, is radiant from my whole body, you- 
 ward ! 
 
 Do you remember when you came to me, 
 to my summer home in the hills? We stood 
 on the shore and watched the sun as it sank 
 behind the mountain and cast long bars of 
 quivering shadows across the darkening 
 water at our feet? Your nearness had 
 attuned me afresh to the beauty about me; 
 the humming of the insects in the busy work 
 of their tiny lives was like soft music, the 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 123 
 
 nestward fluttering of the birds above us in 
 the oUves, the fragrance of dew-filled flowers, 
 the sounds of toiling men, softened by dis- 
 tance down the valley— all blended in a 
 perfect harmony to which my whole being 
 rhythmed. The mountains towered beyond 
 us on the farther shore and you told me of 
 the psahns you used to sing on the yearly 
 pilgrimages. I loved that one — "As the 
 Mountains are Round about Jerusalem." 
 I loved to hear you talk of that first time you 
 saw Jerusalem, when you were a child of 
 ten or twelve, and how wonderful it looked 
 to you after the long journey over the moun- 
 tains and through the valleys of the Jordan. 
 I am glad you have had friends among the 
 Greeks all your Hfe. I am sure that because 
 of that I seemed less a stranger to you from 
 the first. 
 
 I loved to hear you talk of the synagogue 
 school where you went as a little boy — you 
 can not know, I think, how I dwell on these 
 pictures of your childhood — and where 
 
124 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 Caiaphas used to talk to you and keep you 
 with him so long that your teachers feared 
 you would fall short in your studies ! They 
 must have loved you, too — perhaps they 
 were somewhat jealous of Caiaphas. I 
 loved to have you talk to me of your mother, 
 and of all that passed in your father's house 
 on the quiet bay, sheltered by the hills above, 
 where you used to sing — "I will lift up mine 
 Eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my 
 help." Always the sight of the hills seems 
 to take you back to those dear days of your 
 childhood and I love to hear you talk of 
 them. 
 
 I was very happy that evening. It 
 seemed as if some great spirit of love en- 
 veloped me as I lay beside you on the grass. 
 I am sure that "the Father" j^ou talk to me 
 about was joying in our joy there under the 
 stars, was moved in himself by this love he 
 had given us, and that he understood. 
 You and I and the Father — we three 
 together. . . . 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 125 
 
 It is now late and I am alone. I have 
 dismissed Xanthus, who seemed stupid and 
 selfish to-night. Many men are thus stupid 
 in their attitude toward women, trying to 
 influence them through their senses rather 
 than their imagination, their inspirations. 
 Yet Xanthus is kind. He would do any 
 service for me in a time of trouble and he has 
 been so good to poor lone. For this reason 
 I tried to be patient with him and I repeated 
 to myself that when he had at last gone I 
 would reward myself for my patience by 
 writing a little more to you — as one promises 
 sweetmeats to a child after medicine ! 
 
 I have been thinking of that last night 
 before you left, when I pleaded so to travel 
 with you in your work. As you stood there, 
 looking down into my eyes, I hardly dared 
 to breathe, for I knew you were weighing 
 every reason and holding your dear heart in 
 rein. Your thought of me shone in your 
 eyes, but you were thinking also, and chiefly, 
 of your work — the work that Jesus had given 
 
126 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 you to do, and even when you knew at last 
 what your answer must be I could see that 
 it was hard for you to tell me, fearing it 
 would wound me. 
 
 When you took my face between your 
 hands and kissed me I knew that you had to 
 deny me! I understood, and did not mis- 
 understand. I knew that I would have been 
 a hindrance to you. It would indeed have 
 been impossible to take a woman with you on 
 your hurried journeys. But oh, my Love, 
 these terrible absences, these long, long 
 months without you. How much longer 
 will it yet be before I again see you! 
 
IT is well to want some things deeply, 
 Antione, my dear one, for then do we in 
 some measure sound the love of God toward 
 us. 
 
 It is when we yearn in hunger of heart 
 that Love doth in some wise most richly 
 reveal itself unto us. You beheve, Antione, 
 that you hunger for my presence. But it is 
 for the fulness of love that you yearn, even 
 for the love of All that Is. It is by reason of 
 the fulness of love that we have known in one 
 another, Antione, that you thus hunger for 
 that perfect love which is everlasting life. 
 There is no other life, neither is there any 
 joy nor any salvation, save as we grow into 
 the fulness of Love. 
 
 John. 
 
 127 
 
I MUST write you, John, of how I felt at 
 the Agape yesterday, with your eyes 
 upon me! Yet am I glad that I was there. 
 
 For a long time afterward I was convinced 
 that I could never tell you of it. But when 
 I had slept, with the new morning came the 
 clearer light and I knew then that I must tell 
 you everything before I could know again 
 the closest touch of the Dear Presence about 
 me. 
 
 You have talked so much to me of Mary. 
 I think you can not know quite how often 
 you have spoken of her to me — of the work 
 she is doing, the friends she has gathered 
 about her, the beauty of her life. You 
 pointed her out to me as we entered yester- 
 day, then you left me and went to her and 
 talked with her. There was something in 
 your way of speaking, something in your 
 face as you bent above her, that held my 
 attention. Then, like a flash — I knew! 
 
 128 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 129 
 
 The hot tears blinded my eyes. My lips 
 were parched, my own breath choked me. 
 My soul cried out in agony to the gods — "I 
 have lost him, lost him!" I seemed to live 
 years before a voice said: 
 
 "Let us pray." 
 And because those about me did so, I fell on 
 my knees — and prayed and prayed in a half 
 wild, heart-broken way, until at length 
 through the chaos of my emotion a voice 
 sounded in the stillness of that great room: 
 "Wherefore I say unto you, love." 
 
 I threw back my head in angry, impotent 
 misery, and your eyes caught mine and held 
 them with that unwavering, penetrating 
 look that seems always to touch the very core 
 of my being in loving understanding. Your 
 wonderful eyes, Beloved! The power of 
 their gentleness, the sweetness of their 
 sympathy! They spoke to me and I knew 
 that you understood. You fathomed my 
 agony as your eyes still held mine and while 
 I knelt there among the friends before you. 
 
laO THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 and reached out to you in my sore need, there 
 was no censure in your look, no pity to 
 humble me — only love! Till at length the 
 storm of terrible suffering was passed and 
 the remembrance of your truth and strength 
 and unwavering love seemed to fill me with 
 a pm-er peace than I had ever known. 
 
 The people rose from their knees and 
 Mary turned and laid her hand on your arm 
 and looked into your face. And when she 
 spoke your face broke into a smile of under- 
 standing sympathy, and I saw again your 
 eyes, illumined now with loving friendship 
 for her. Her face was very sweet and pure 
 and gentle, as I saw it upturned to yours. 
 Your transforming love seemed to make her 
 beautiful — must needs indeed have made her 
 in some measure like you 1 
 
 Your face and hers were before my eyes 
 throughout the night. I suffered, John. 
 You know that I suffered. Yet has my love 
 triumphed — your love, the love that you 
 waked in me. I love you so, dear one, that 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 131 
 
 I am willing — I am glad that a woman has 
 been able to create in you that sweetness and 
 tenderness of joy in just loving! Even in 
 my pain of loneliness and heart hungriness 
 to-day, still am I glad — for you, that you 
 have indeed known that uttermost sweet 
 tenderness that it is, simply to love! Just 
 to love, love, love! 
 
 Your friend Jesus, who knew all suffering, 
 would not wish me not to love you, but to 
 love you only with a love that leaves you 
 always free. I am beginning to understand 
 something of your devotion to your crucified 
 teacher and your zeal for the work he laid 
 upon you — you have helped me to under- 
 stand through your own love which his great 
 love had waked. It is your happiness and 
 it shall be mine also, that you live — and even 
 die, if need be! — in that loving kinship of 
 work that I saw among those at the Agape, 
 with friends dear to you by reason of a thou- 
 sand precious memories of those three years 
 together of which you speak so often. 
 
132 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 If you feel it best for this work that is so 
 close to your heart, stay here, dear love and 
 do not come to Athens ! I would not hinder 
 you. I think it would hurt me more to feel 
 that I was a burden to you than to bear again 
 the lonehness and hunger of those long, long 
 absences. I love you more than hfe — love 
 you so utterly that I can do what is more 
 cruel and terrible than death to me — I can 
 let you go ! I dread — oh how I dread, dear 
 heart — those bleak, barren, endless days 
 without you ! Yet I would not keep you to 
 your hurt. . . . 
 
 Forgive me. I mean to be so strong, 
 dearest, so brave to endure — as you would 
 have me. . . . 
 
 I was writing when I heard your step, 
 dear love, and I hid this letter. 
 
 I hold now in my heart how you came to 
 my house after the conference was over, and 
 I drew my fingers softly through your hair 
 and about your forehead and kissed your 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 133 
 
 dear eyes, closed, as you lay on the couch, 
 resting. For you were tired though you 
 would not speak of it, and I could see that I 
 soothed you and that made me glad. 
 
 There was no word of the day's experience 
 between us. There was no need of words. 
 
 I return to-morrow and will leave this 
 letter for you, so that you may decide in 
 my absence whether it is best for your work 
 that we should separate. 
 
 Oh John, my beloved! My whole being 
 reaches out to you ! How can I let you go I 
 
 It was with this thought that I clung to 
 you at parting. Was it, dear love, was it 
 indeed for the last time? . . . 
 
 John, my Beloved, Messenger of peace, 
 Mountain of the gods that is forever 
 crowned with light ! While I tarried here in 
 sadness, and the thought of what might be 
 your answer to my letter concerning Mary 
 and the Agape stalked before my eyes like a 
 spectre, even then were you journeying 
 
134 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 hither to comfort me, and my sorrow was 
 forgotten and drowned in joy at the somid 
 of your step upon the stones! At your 
 touch all my fear vanished ; enfolded in your 
 arms the path before me seemed again 
 lighted by the sun. Is it indeed that we 
 women, as also our own little ones, learn only 
 from the loving arms about us? 
 
 Ah, dear one, the perfect joy of those 
 hours of communion with you! There was 
 no thought hid from you. You sounded the 
 depths. Freely as I reveal myself to you 
 when I write, yet are there innermost things 
 that, as you know full well, can be drawn 
 from me only by your lips. Your body is 
 as a living shrine for me. 
 
 When I am with thee thus, bathed in thy 
 love, filled with thy presence, I love as widely 
 as dost thou, and none escape the largess of 
 my love! I could not grudge to any soul a 
 share in such deep joy as then is mine ! But 
 when thou art far from me, O Sun of all my 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 135 
 
 days, then is it that in my hunger for thee I 
 would be even niggardly with thee, I would 
 give no crumb of thee to any I 
 
 O come to me again, thou Ocean of de- 
 light, and fill me with that perfect peace with 
 which thou art so filled ! 
 
 Three hours last night, and I craved the 
 whole night long! It was as if I had begged 
 of you a bright gold piece, O Master among 
 men, and you put me off with copper ! Yet 
 was even that so precious to me, Giver of 
 endless joy! that as I held it in my breast 
 throughout the night and till the morning 
 came, it seemed to me to be indeed a shining 
 thing and even as gold itself ! 
 
 You have created in me that which seeks 
 its maker ceaselessly! You who are indeed 
 a physician of the Soul, tell me how I may 
 still this continual heartache and hunger and 
 longing for your presence! 
 
 My love for you is as it were the gods 
 themselves within me exulting in their 
 
136 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 power! Is it indeed as you have told me, 
 that loving is and must ever be its own ful- 
 filment ? 
 
 Xenia would have me say to thee that she 
 is lonely without her "dear comrade." 
 
 Antione. 
 
LOVE is its own fulfilment, Antione, and 
 the fulfilment of all things. And 
 Love is the only physician of the Soul. 
 
 Of Xenia I delight to hear. She also is 
 my own child, though not after the flesh. 
 Every child that is born of love is hkewise 
 the child of my love and of your love, 
 Antione. And every birth is like the glory 
 of creation whereof Jesus spake when he 
 said, *'Ye must be born again." And thus 
 it is even as he also said : "I will come again, 
 not in one woman but by all women." 
 
 Mary, his mother whom he gave unto me 
 to be also my mother, went, even until she 
 could no longer journey, on pilgrimages to 
 Bethlehem; as she had been wont aforetime, 
 according to the custom of our people, to go 
 up to Jerusalem. 
 
 For those who go to worship at Jerusalem 
 the city is made holy because of the temple 
 
 137 
 
138 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 that is builded therein. Even so for Mary- 
 was Bethlehem made holy because it was 
 there that the temple of his body was made 
 manifest unto her. For in every child the 
 mother is born again after the flesh, so also in 
 her love for the child is she born again into 
 everlasting life. For every child born of 
 love is as it were a fragment of the eternal 
 life that comes through love. 
 I love thee, Antione. 
 
 John. 
 
THIS morning Xenia seemed somewhat 
 listless, and in searching for a simple 
 herb to give her I mistook for the one I 
 wanted another that was a deadly poison, 
 and not until I had crushed and moistened 
 it did I see my error. In another moment 
 I would have put it to her lips ! 
 
 The mixture fell from my hands and I 
 sank upon the stones of the court crying, 
 "Oh, John, John!" Xenia bent over me 
 and I told her what I had done. Even the 
 sound of your name had calmed me some- 
 what and she comforted me and bade me 
 laugh, even as she did, also, that no harm had 
 been done to her. My precious little one! 
 Had any evil come-to her through me I could 
 not bear another day of life! I tremble as 
 I write. 
 
 I am depressed to-day. I suffer through 
 all the joy of loving you because you are so 
 
 139 
 
140 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 far away and in such constant danger. 
 Timotheus told me you were white and 
 weary when he saw you, and I hear now a 
 rumor that you have gone out alone into the 
 great forest to seek out the bands of robbers 
 and wild hill people. Oh, my Beloved, if 
 any harm should come to you my heart 
 would break! The mere thought of it 
 makes me faint! For myself I have cour- 
 age, I am strong — but for you . . . 
 
 Dear, I broke down, I could not see to 
 write, for weeping — my longing for you, my 
 fears for your safety. 
 
 O treasure of my heart! you are needed 
 of the world, and in this and in other 
 lands there are great minds to whom your 
 message must be given, men who would 
 know your worth — why do you spend your- 
 self upon those barbarians! Philip, too, 
 grieves that you will be thus rash. O forget 
 not how many here long for you and count 
 even a word from you as precious! 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 141 
 
 I have read your letter to the churches, 
 John; it moved me greatly that you should 
 have so taken thought that I might share it, 
 even as did your friends in the work. I 
 kept it by me for another day and read it yet 
 again. And much that I read sank into my 
 heart and thus likewise deep into my un- 
 derstanding. Yet always I comprehend 
 the more clearly what I hear from thine own 
 lips. It is then as if thy heart spoke even to 
 my heart without need of words. 
 
 Antione. 
 
ANTIONE, Anna has been grieved be- 
 cause of my friendship for you and the 
 letters I have written to you. I have told 
 her, as you knew that I would, all that she 
 has asked of me. She fears confusion and 
 entanglement in the future, and she is pained 
 that I should ask your help in any part of 
 my work. She is sore at heart because of 
 the thought that her own help has not been 
 sufficient for me. 
 
 I have comforted her somewhat, for she is 
 but as a little sister who must be borne in 
 arms over the rough places, but my own 
 heart is heavy that it is no longer possible 
 for you to go with me on the voyage. I 
 must therefore again travel alone without 
 the comfort and inspiration that your help 
 has been to me. I am grieved for this, for I 
 have leaned upon you, Antione, and have 
 taken joy and rest in your love. 
 
 142 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 143 
 
 Yet is Anna near to my heart by reason 
 of her presence with me all these years, and 
 more so in that she is not yet strong and of 
 courage as art thou, dear one ! Neither has 
 she learned that love that takes no heed of 
 self. Therefore am I tender with her that 
 she may come into the knowledge of such 
 love, and having told her of my great love 
 for thee, yet do I regard her weakness as 
 does the husbandman the new leaf upon 
 the bursting seed, rather than the branches 
 of some great full-grown tree. 
 
 Yet am I grieved, Antione, for thou are 
 dear to me. I can not write a long letter to 
 thee now, but I will see thee yet once again 
 before I set sail. 
 
 John. 
 
1HAVE held so long the thought of 
 Anna as one with you and like you — as 
 it seems impossible that she should not be, 
 living daily in the light and warmth of your 
 presence as she does, John, my dear one, in 
 whom my soul delights! It is hard for me 
 to comprehend that she can grudge me this 
 least share of you that has been mine ! You 
 have been with me so little I Out of all the 
 time I have known you so few days — hours 
 — have been given wholly to me! I have 
 gone with others to hear you preach, I have 
 been with you in public places, but oh so 
 pitifully few have been those times when you 
 have been wholly mine — so few, so far be- 
 tween, and short! 
 
 And must even these be taken from me? 
 John, how can she be so hard! If she could 
 only know how I need you, the pain of 
 aching loneliness without you! She could 
 
 144 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 145 
 
 not then be selfish with you ! I have learned 
 to love Mary — she is so gentle and so full 
 of love I could not help loving her ! I could 
 love Anna also if she would but let me. 
 Why will she not let me, John? I have 
 rejoiced in your happiness together, I have 
 honored her in my heart as though your 
 nearness to her made for her a crown, I have 
 blessed her for the blessing she could bring 
 to your life. Why can she not also be glad 
 because of the little I might do to make 
 smooth the rough way you must tread? 
 Why can she not spare me, out of the ful- 
 ness of her long years with you, enough to 
 stay a little this terrible hunger for you? I 
 would be satisfied with even crumbs! I am 
 not jealous, dear; I am only — starved! 
 
 But I would not cause Anna any pain — 
 that would but add to the burdens that you 
 carry. If you should even leave the decision 
 with me, still I think I could not find any 
 willingness to do aught that would bring her 
 suffering. And oh. Beloved, I would make 
 
146 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 any sacrifice rather than bring suffering to 
 you! 
 
 I have probed deeper in the days that have 
 passed since your letter came to me. 
 Deeper than the pain, deeper than any pain 
 that could come to me, life of my life, creator 
 of all that I am ! Deeper than all else is this 
 great love you have waked within me! 
 
 Antione. 
 
ANTIONE, my heart ! Jesus knew also 
 the uttermost of anguish, until his 
 soul cried out, "Father, if it be possible, let 
 this cup pass from me." 
 
 Yet, had it passed, we had not known the 
 fulness of love, and the word that he made 
 manifest unto us had come short of its fulfil- 
 ment, for he said: "When I am lifted up 
 with love I will draw all men unto me." 
 
 As we likewise know sorrow and pain our 
 love shall also work the will of him that sent 
 us, for God doth not suffer the travail of any 
 soul in vain. 
 
 Antione, my love, I suffer with thee. 
 
 John. 
 
 147 
 
1HAD counted the cost of the truth 
 that I spoke when I said that there is 
 no sacrifice I would not make for you, John, 
 my beloved. There is nothing in all the 
 world that I desire as I desire your joy. I 
 find my joy only in your own. You may 
 ask of me all things, all things. 
 
 I do not yet comprehend the full import 
 of your letter, but there is a weight in my 
 breast, a dull ache like a dead thing bound 
 there. Yet it is needful that you should tell 
 me plainly and fully what you would have 
 me do. It will be my joy to follow your 
 wish to the uttermost. I have courage, I am 
 strong. And I will understand. I am 
 assured that you know already that I will 
 indeed understand whatever your love would 
 ask of me. 
 
 Antione. 
 
 148 
 
ANTIONE! God does not give often, 
 nor to many, such love as thine I 
 Alone in the dark through all last night 
 thou wert in my thoughts. Thou wert with 
 me. And now I write to thee as seems most 
 loving, for there is no other good but love. 
 
 I am with thee always and in my love for 
 thee there is no variableness. 
 
 John. 
 
 Yes — not to see, neither to write to each 
 other— that is what I must needs say unto 
 thee now. 
 
 My heart is torn that I must give thee, 
 
 also, pain. 
 
 140 
 
DEARER than life to me! Must it 
 indeed be that I may not even write 
 to you I Nor will you write again to me! 
 My foreboding had been that you would 
 write that we must not again see each other. 
 But oh, my Beloved, not even to have word 
 of you, some message from you ! 
 
 It is terrible, cruel — yet even in the blind 
 agony of my pain I see the beauty of that 
 strength and vision that has made it possible 
 for you to strike such a blow. Because of 
 this I can never doubt your love for me. 
 
 It shall be as you say — and yet — it will 
 not be true that I do not see you. I shall 
 see you always, always. I think it may be 
 now that the Dear Presence will never leave 
 me. 
 
 And when you think of me, I shall be 
 there with you — waiting beside you. And 
 so I shall be happy. 
 
 150 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 151 
 
 I have kept this letter by me for more than 
 a day. I have an increasing premonition of 
 some evil befalling my little one. John, my 
 more than friend, I know you will never for- 
 get that night we talked together of Xenia's 
 future — and of another, doubly dear to us, 
 yet whom we do not know. I hold in my 
 heart the love you then showed me in your 
 own heart toward Xenia. It comforts me 
 unspeakably that if the gods will that I be 
 taken away, she will be then as your own, 
 one of the little children of our love. I will 
 be happy in the thought that you, her "dear 
 comrade," will be her constant friend and 
 teacher, and I pray Zeus that she may learn 
 from you of that great love wherewith you 
 have brought blessing to me. 
 
 Antione. 
 
WHY, oh why, my dear, dear comrade, 
 if miracles are true, why could you 
 not have come before it is too late ! Mother 
 is dead! 
 
 She had been to a meeting of the Agape, 
 and on her way home was taken by the 
 soldiers and brought before the magistrate. 
 He asked her if she were one of the 
 sect called Christians. She answered. No. 
 Then he asked her if she had been at their 
 meetings. She refused to answer, so they 
 took her away to prison. 
 
 Through Marcus, the guard, who is se- 
 cretly a Christian, I was allowed to see her. 
 I begged and besought her to say that she 
 was not at their meetings, but she refused 
 and refused, through all my pleadings, to 
 speak anything but the truth. 
 
 Then I wept. I strove so hard, oH, so 
 hard, not to weep at parting with her. She 
 was trying to be so brave! 
 
 152 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 153 
 
 The next day she was taken again before 
 the magistrate, yet she still refused to answer 
 as they bid. Then they scourged her with 
 whips until strips of flesh fell from her back 
 and she was covered with blood. I covered 
 my eyes and wept until I could not see for 
 weeping. 
 
 Again they questioned her, and she 
 acknowledged that she had been to the 
 Agape, but she denied that she was a disciple 
 of the Christians. Then the magistrate 
 said, "Give me the names of those who were 
 with you there," but she refused, saying: 
 "I love the followers of Jesus." 
 
 Then I was brought before the magistrate 
 and they forced my mother to stand near me 
 while they beat me cruelly before her eyes. 
 I could hear her dear voice between the 
 blows — "Be brave, Xenia, my darling," she 
 cried. "Be strong. Remember your com- 
 rade!" 
 
 They stopped beating me, and for a 
 moment there was silence in the hall. I saw 
 
154 THE LOVE LETTERS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 my mother reach out her arms as if to greet 
 some one, though there was no one near her. 
 Then — she fell! O my mother! The sun 
 is blotted out from the sky over all the earth! 
 
 I fly to-night to Africa with Heliodorus 
 and lone, and Euneo who will bring you 
 this. You will come to me even there, as 
 you promised? 
 
 But why, oh why, my beloved comrade, if 
 miracles are indeed true, why did you not 
 help me before it was too late! 
 
 Xenia. 
 
XENIA, my comrade, my little one! 
 Thy mother did not bear witness by 
 her words that she was with us, yet the deeds 
 that sprang from the love of her heart bore 
 witness, and she is with us now indeed. 
 
 The Spirit of thy mother is about thee, 
 Xenia, and will always be near to thee and 
 to me, even nearer than in life, for it is the 
 same spirit that is in thee. 
 
 Euneo will tell thee all — I can write 
 but little, so that she may hide it in her 
 clothing. The soldiers are seeking me. 
 But my time is not yet and I will yet come 
 to thee, beloved child, and we will comfort 
 each other and talk together of the joy of thy 
 mother's life, which is also thy life, for it is 
 because of thy mother's great love that thou 
 also art one of us. For greater love hath no 
 man than this, that he lay down his life for 
 those who are only his friends. 
 
 John. 
 
 155 
 
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