For that Saviour they waited many hundreds of years.

Oftentimes one would appear whom they took for Him, but they were deceived.

And when at last the real Saviour, the real, mighty Saviour appeared, they did not recognise Him.

For He was different from what they had imagined.
Shall I try to tell how it happened, just as my mother used to tell me, her little boy, the story on winter evenings?
Shall I recite it to myself like one who desires to wake himself at midnight before the Lord comes?
Shall I, who am without learning, search in my poor confused head for the fragments that have remained in it?
So much has been lost in the wear and tear of the world, and yet since it has grown so dark with me something flashes out, and shines forth on high, like some starry crown in the night! Shall I invoke the holy figures that they may stand by me through the anguish of my last days, that they may surround me with their glad eternal light, and let no spirit of despair come near me ?--The path between the walls of this cruel fortress is narrow, and through it only a feeble light penetrates to me.
As God wills.

I am grateful for and content with the pale reflection of the sky that comes to me from the holy east through the cracks in the wall.