372 NEW ATLANTIS. 



Finger and a true Miracle ; and forasmuch as we learn 

 in our books that thou never workest miracles but to 

 a divine and excellent end, (for the laws of nature are 

 thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not but upon 

 great cause,) we most humbly beseech thee to prosper 

 this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and 

 use of it in mercy ; which thou dost in some part se 

 cretly promise by sending it unto us. 



&quot; When he had made his prayer, he presently found 

 the boat he was in moveable and unbound ; whereas 

 all the rest remained still fast ; and taking that for an 

 assurance of leave to approach, he caused the boat to 

 be softly and with silence rowed towards the pillar. 

 But ere he came near it, the pillar and cross of light 

 brake up, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a fir 

 mament of many stars ; which also vanished soon after, 

 and there was nothing left to be seen but a small ark 

 or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, 

 though it swam. And in the fore-end of it, which was 

 towards him, grew a small green branch of palm ; and 

 when the wise man had taken it with all reverence into 

 his boat, it opened of itself, and there were found in it 

 a Book and a Letter ; both written in fine parchment, 

 and wrapped in sindons of linen. The Book contained 

 all the canonical books of the Old and New Testa 

 ment, according as you have them, (for we know well 

 what the Churches with you receive) ; and the Apoc 

 alypse itself, 1 and some other books of the New Testa 

 ment which were not at that time written, were never 

 theless in the Book. And for the Letter, it was in 

 these words: 



1 The original has a semicolon after &quot; itself,&quot; which would seem to con 

 nect this clause with the last. But the translation (Apocalypsis ipsa) shows 

 that it was meant to be the beginning of a new sentence. 



