When he next looked, the vision was gone.
Only a few light clouds ruffled the southern horizon.
He sank back on the sands in an ecstasy.

His Witness had come--not as he thought it would, in a moment of spiritual uplift; but when he had been sunk by his own sin to fearful depths.

Nor had it brought any message of glory for himself, of gifts or powers.

Only the mission of suffering and service and suffering again at the end.

But it was enough.
How long he lay in the joy of the realisation he never knew, but sleep or faintness at last overcame him.
He was revived by the sharp chill of night, and sat up to find his mind clear, alert, and active with new purposes.