Silas' Reflections on the Midnight Hour

After a period, the blows stopped. I don’t know which was worse, the anticipation of the blow or how I felt after it stopped. Slowly, my mind began to focus back in this world and I realized we were being taken to the prison. Every nerve in my body pulsed with pain. I kept shaking my head hoping to refocus my vision. I heard them talking around me, but my thoughts were not lucid yet and I could not tell you where they were. I remember coming to as my face hit the ground. Overwhelmed by the stench of human waste my thoughts cleared quite quickly as that scent reached the inner recesses of my brain. My body racked with heaving so intensely I did not know where the pain was worse. Finally, squinting through throbbing eyes I saw Paul on the ground next to me just starting to come to as well. Blood crusted dirt caked his body. Discerning where his wounds began was impossible. He was one raw mess. I then heard the jailer shout at the guard, “Take extra precautions with these two!” I remember thinking. What kind of precautions? I heard him coming before I saw him. The ground rumbled under his weight. He grabbed both of us simultaneously, lifted us by our arms and dragged us down a long descending corridor that went deeper and deeper into the recesses of the earth. He was a large man and he smelled of sweat and dirt. Firelights hung on the wall on the path he carried us. The shadows the light created made the place appear eerie and gloomy. Men in stocks lined the path moaning and reaching with their fingers hoping to grasp a hold of the life above. He threw us before the stockade— a large piece of wood the length of a man. The width ran the length of a foot and as thick as a man’s fist with two holes for the feet to be inserted. It split lengthwise down the middle so he could lock our feet in. He enclosed it around our ankles and then took leather straps and secured the enclosure. I expected him to whip us with the straps, so I braced for more blows only to hear his feet retreat. As he left, I realized he had not put our hands and necks in the stockade and this gave me some relief. I don’t know if my back could take the bending over with all the wounds still so fresh from the flogging. I looked over at Paul and he looked at me and we both fell into prayer. It was all we knew to do. Our voices lifted up to Heaven the cries of our hearts. We confessed the mighty miracles of the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. As our voices carried, throughout the tavern within the earth every ear could hear our cry. Our cry was not of our agony or of our pain, but of the glory of the LORD and His strength. How His strong arm carries His children and avenges him against his enemy. How he brings salvation to those who need it. Slowly as we became one voice in the midnight hour our prayers turned into songs. We began to sing the hymns of our faith and our souls were soothed and our voices carried to the highest heights as we contemplated our GOD and King.” Not a body in the room moved. Excerpt from REDEEMED TO PRAISE p. 159-160.