New Jerusalem
His children waited for him.
John Matthews stood in the antechamber, looking at the door which led out to the balcony. From that balcony, he would look down on one of the many courtyards of the palace temple and see the throngs of faithful Zeonese gathered to hear his words. Most of them lived in or near the capital city of New Jerusalem, but for each of these public appearances a number of lucky or well-connected Zeonese from other parts of the Kingdom were given transport to the capital to see the Father in person. To look upon the Father of the Kingdom was an honor that all faithful and true people of Mount Zeon desired deep in their hearts. The Father ruled them, yes, but he provided for them. It was by the will of the Father that they received food to fill their bellies. It had been the Prophet Matthias, the first Father and founder of the Kingdom, who had lifted the peasants of Mount Zeon out of their ignorance and brought them into the light of the True Spirit. Matthias and his sons ruled the only bastion of truly free men on Earth. Surrounded by the forces of the devil, who used his feminine agents to enslave the spirits of men, the Kingdom of Mount Zeon stood firm. Here men could serve the role that the Lord God had intended, as fathers of their families who ruled supreme in the household. Here in Mount Zeon, women were in their proper place: submissive and subservient to their fathers and husbands.
Father John regarded himself in a full-length mirror set into the wall. His tall, thin frame was clothed in the finest garments: a green military frock coat, lined in white silk and sporting buttons of shined brass. Green pants of the same shade ended just below the knee, where they disappeared into impeccably shined black wellington-style boots. Once he put on the crimson sash that hung near the door, he would be fully dressed as the King and Father of Mount Zeon. His people would see him, and through him they would understand all the glory of the Kingdom. They needed the reminder. Hard times, lean times, had begun to creep over Mount Zeon. The recent harvests had been poor. The Kingdom strived to be self-sufficient, but its autarky always sat on a knife edge. If harvests did not improve soon, then the specter of famine would darken the horizons. The last great famine had forced his predecessor, Joshua, to make a humiliating deal with the mock-men of Astoria and Parina, who wished to see the men of Mount Zeon condemned to slavery under the whips of the woman devils. Father John would not submit to that same indignity. Another solution would be found.
He walked to the wall and picked up the sash. It was a brilliant crimson, with twelve golden tassels representing the ancient tribes of Israel, the first people chosen by the Lord to carry His message to the world. That had been before the Long Tribulation, when God abandoned his children to test their faith, and permitted the Devil to sow his evil among the land. Matthias, Prophet of the God of the Jews, had ended the Tribulation and proved that real men still walked the earth. John slowly, lovingly, placed the sash across his chest and adjusted it until it was perfectly centered and correctly aligned. He took a deep breath and walked to the door, then nodded to the petite black woman standing at a sort of military parade rest. Verity Wagenen, his loyal aide, turned the doorknob and opened the door to the balcony. Light flooded in through the new opening, but Father John did not blink or shield his eyes as he walked out into the hot summer air of a New Jerusalem afternoon. The roars of the crowd reached his ears before he had gotten close enough to the edge to see the teeming mass below. They chanted his name, shouting “Father John!” with a religious fervor so intense it could ignite dry kindling. He stood on the balcony, basking in the adoration of the crowds.
“My children!”
The crowd let out one final roar, the people basking in his acknowledgement of them as he basked in their professions of love and loyalty.
“My children, months ago we were tested. We faced a legion of enemies, the infidel servants of the devil and his apostate puppets. They sought to destroy us! They sought to put the blinders of ignorance and the chains of slavery back upon you. They sought to snuff out the single bastion of the True Spirit on this earth. In our moment of trial, did we falter? Did we succumb to the powers of darkness?”
The crowd howled out “No!” in a single voice, loud enough to drown out a thousand guns firing at once.
“We have emerged from the shadow of treachery and invasion. The Kingdom remains! The legacy of the Prophet Matthias remains!”
The crowd cheered wildly. Father John let them show their zeal, and only after a long moment did he raise his hands for quiet and begin the prayers which the crowd had gathered to hear.
Our Lord in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom has come.
Thy will is done on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Preserve us from temptation, and deliver us from the evil ones.
For this kingdom, and its power, and its glory, is yours forever.
Amen.
Thy kingdom has come.
Thy will is done on Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Preserve us from temptation, and deliver us from the evil ones.
For this kingdom, and its power, and its glory, is yours forever.
Amen.
On the Shore of Little Galilee
Musical Inspiration
He walked naked before the Lord.
The lake had been named for the place where Jesus Christ, one of the last Prophets sent by the Lord before He made His deal with the Devil and abandoned the faithful to test them, had lived and preached. It was some distance from New Argyle, the city where the Prophet Matthias had received his own enlightenment. It was in the waters of Little Galilee that Mathias had immersed his first disciples, washing away theirs sins and their false baptisms and christening them as children of the True Spirit of the Lord. Now the lake was a place of retreat for the Kingdom’s rulers. Father John went here to commune with the Lord, as his predecessors had done.
His skin was not bare: he wore a simple shirt and pants, and a pair of sandals. But he was fully bare before the Lord God, fully open to whatever message the Father of all humanity wished to deliver unto him. The skies were dark with clouds, and a strong wind whipped his shoulder-length hair around his head. It was likely to rain soon. It had been a wet summer in Mount Zeon: some areas of the country had been flooded, which had further disrupted harvests. The Lord was testing his children once again. He had sent the Parinans as a scourge, to humble the Kingdom and to expose the apostasy that rotted in some parts of the land. Now he sent rain and heat and other scourges, to make full Zeonese bellies feel the pang of hunger once again. The Lord was steeling the people of Mount Zeon for some great trial, that much was clear. To forge a blade of the strongest steel, all the impurities had to be removed. The iron must be tempered and strengthened.
As waves crashed against the rocky shore, Father John approached the site where he would commune with the Lord. He drew a small container from the pocket of his pants and clicked open the metal tin. From inside, he drew a single small pill and placed it delicately on his tongue. With a smooth gulp, he swallowed the capsule. It would take effect in a few minutes. Time enough to walk the rest of the distance to the small patch of worn grass, facing the lake shore. Time enough for the storm, the expression of the fury and the power of the Lord, to fully manifest before him. Father John knelt in the same place and closed his eyes, muttering prayers as he felt the fiery poison rush outward from his chest, inflaming his limbs and then racing into his head. When the fire in his skull blazed fully to life, he opened his eyes and beheld the Truth.
Before him was the Lord, a figure of storm clouds wreathed in the armor of a warrior. The Lord God not as the Finneyites saw Him, as this gentle womanlike coward, but as the Father of all who had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and cast the Israelites into the desert when they doubted His power. The truth of the Lord. The cloud figure strode forward, raising a sword of lightning against the Devil. The lightning sword came down as light flashed brilliant white. Father John saw Cain and Abel, watched Cain strike his brother down. The tides of the lake rose suddenly the devoured the scene, then rose higher and higher until they reached to the heavens. Father John wept, as he had before, in the face of the Truth and its terrifying, awful power.
When he awoke, laying in the patch of grass by Little Galilee, his body was slick with sweat. Dirt and blades of grass clung to his legs when he stood up, shaky at first, and began the walk back. He had seen the Truth, and he knew now what was to be done. The Lord had made His will clear to his most faithful servant.
Prophet’s Retreat
“So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence…”
Isaiah Smith nodded, recognizing the line from Genesis. He understood that Father John wanted him to finish the passage.
“…and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.”
“Tell me Isaiah,” Father John said from where he was standing, looking out the window of the large study. “Do you think we are in Eden, or Nod?”
Isaiah didn’t understand the question. It seemed an obvious answer. “Surely, Father, if anywhere on earth can be said to be the new Eden, this is it.”
Prophet’s Retreat had been built shortly after the establishment of the Kingdom, as a place where Matthias traveled to receive further instructions from the Lord and to speak in confidence with his trusted disciples. The successors to Matthias had continued to use the isolated rural villa for those same purposes. From the large window, Father John could see the now calm lake, though not the spot where he had received his enlightenment the night before. Trees stretched towards the horizon, though not as far as the eye could see. In the distance one could make out the skyline, such as it was, of New Argyle.
“I have been granted the wisdom to see otherwise,” John replied. “For we have among us those who would be like Cain, and flee from their sins into other lands. Do you remember what happened to the boat which Jonah tried to take to Tarshish?”
Another easy question.
“Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.”
“Exactly!” Father John crossed to where Isaiah was sitting in a few long strides, one finger raised in sharp punctuation. “There are those who have fled from sin, from the rightful punishment of the Lord, and they have tried to hide among the faithful here. And for this, the Lord has sent us trials. He has taken away our bread, and made great storms come down upon us. I have been granted this Truth.”
Isaiah Smith was not frightened by the intensity of the other man, but he seemed to shrink in the close presence of the Father of the Kingdom. “Who are these people, Father?”
“The Brazuelans,” Father John announced. “We welcomed them, as Egypt welcomed Joseph. But now they spread among us, gaining wealth and land, and they threaten us from within. We must humble them, as the Lord humbled Israel by placing it under the yoke of Egypt. They say the words of the faith but do not believe them. They must be made to understand.”
Father John looked at Isaiah for the first time. “Do you understand, my child? What must be done?”
Isaiah Smith nodded. “Yes, Father. It will be done.”
World Press Agency: Observers concerned about possible ethnic cleansing in Mount Zeon
International human rights watchdog groups have begun raising the alarm about reports that the reclusive Kingdom of Mount Zeon has begun a campaign targeting immigrants from its neighbor, the Republic of Brazuela. While the closed nature of Zeonese society makes it difficult to confirm the accuracy of reports, sufficient evidence has been obtained to suggest that Zeonese government forces are performing mass sweeps in major cities. Some reports have suggested that young children have been separated from their parents. One international human rights organization claims to have reliable information that property and assets owned by Brazuelans are being confiscated by the government.
Mount Zeon’s government, which is led by the self-styled “Father of the Kingdom” John Matthews and is organized on the basis of an extreme offshoot of Christianity, has made no public comment about the scale or purpose of the raids as of yet. Until now, Mount Zeon had been relatively welcoming of Brazuelan immigrants, who flocked to Mount Zeon to get away from sparse economic opportunities and political instability in their home country.
The Human Dignity Project, an NGO focused on international human rights, has warned that this could be the first phase of a campaign aimed at cleansing Mount Zeon of all inhabitants perceived as “foreign.”
