By Rebecca Springer Originally titled  "Intra Muros" Published 1922

"Within the Gates"    Meeting the Master (cont.)     As I stood watching the Savior's fast receding figure, passing beneath the flower laden trees, I saw two beautiful young girls approaching the way He went. With arms intertwined they came, sweet Mary Bates and Mae Camden. When they saw the Master, with a glad cry they flew to Him, and as He joyously extended a hand to each, they turned, each clinging to His hand, one upon either side, accompanied Him on His way, looking up trustfully into His face as He talked with them and apparently conversing with Him in happy freedom. I saw His face from time to time in profile as He turned and looked down lovingly, first upon one, then the other lovely upturned face, and I thought, "That is the way He would have us be with Him, really like children with a beloved elder brother."         I watched them till the trees hid them from my sight and I passed softly through the house to the beautiful entrance at the rear. Just before I reached the door I met my friend Mrs. Wickham. Before I could speak she said, "I know all about it. Do not try to speak; I know your heart is full, I will see you very soon. There, go," and she nudged me gently to the door.         How my heart blessed her, for it indeed seemed sacrilege to try to talk on ordinary topics after this blessed experience. I did not follow the walk but went across the flowery turf beneath the trees until I reached home. I found my brother sitting upon the veranda, and as I ascended the steps he arose to meet me. When he looked up into my face, he took both my hands into his for an instant, and simply said, very gently, "Ah, I see. You have been with the Master!" and stepped aside almost reverently for me to enter the house. I hastened to my room, and dropping the draperies behind me at the door, I threw myself upon the couch, and with closed eyes lived over every instant I had spent in that hallowed presence. I recalled every word and tone of the Savior's voice and fastened the instructions He had given me indelibly upon my memory. I seemed to have been lifted to a higher plane of existence, to have drunk deeper draughts from the fountain of all good since I had met, "Him whom my soul loveth." It was a long, blessed communion that I held thus with my own soul on that hallowed day.         When at last I arose, the soft golden twilight was about me, and I knelt by my couch to offer my first prayer in Heaven. Up to this point my life had been a constant thanksgiving; there seemed to be no room for petition. Now as I knelt, all I could utter over and over was, "I thank Thee, blessed Father, I thank Thee, I thank Thee!"         When at last I descended the stairs, I found my brother standing in the great flower room. "Oh what a life! What a divine life!" I whispered to him.         "You are only in the first pages of its record," he said. "Its blessedness must be gradually unfolded to us, or we could not, even here, bear its dazzling glory."

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