{"product_id":"2940014763738","title":"With a Little Help","description":"Prologue\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTime is the warp of the tapestry which is life. It is eternal,\u003cbr\u003econstant, unchanging. But the woof is gathered together from the\u003cbr\u003efour corners of the earth and the twenty-eight seas and out of the\u003cbr\u003eair and the minds of men by that master artist, Fate, as she weaves\u003cbr\u003ethe design that is never finished.\u003cbr\u003eA thread from here, a thread from there, another from out of the\u003cbr\u003epast that has waited years for the companion thread without which\u003cbr\u003ethe picture must be incomplete.\u003cbr\u003eBut Fate is patient. She waits a hundred or a thousand years to\u003cbr\u003ebring together two strands of thread whose union is essential to\u003cbr\u003ethe fabrication of her tapestry, to the composition of the design\u003cbr\u003ethat was without beginning and is without end.\u003cbr\u003eA matter of some one thousand eight hundred sixty-five years ago\u003cbr\u003e(scholars do not agree as to the exact year), Paul of Tarsus\u003cbr\u003esuffered martyrdom at Rome.\u003cbr\u003eThat a tragedy so remote should seriously affect the lives and\u003cbr\u003edestinies of an English aviatrix and an American professor of\u003cbr\u003egeology, neither of whom was conscious of the existence of the\u003cbr\u003eother at the time this narrative begins—when it does begin, which\u003cbr\u003eis not yet, since Paul of Tarsus is merely by way of prologue—may\u003cbr\u003eseem remarkable to us, but not to Fate, who has been patiently\u003cbr\u003ewaiting these nearly two thousand years for these very events I am\u003cbr\u003eabout to chronicle.\u003cbr\u003eBut there is a link between Paul and these two young people. It\u003cbr\u003eis Angustus the Ephesian. Angustus was a young man of moods and\u003cbr\u003eepilepsy, a nephew of the house of Onesiphorus. Numbered was he\u003cbr\u003eamong the early converts to the new faith when Paul of Tarsus first\u003cbr\u003evisited the ancient Ionian city of Ephesus.\u003cbr\u003eInclined to fanaticism, from early childhood an epileptic, and\u003cbr\u003eworshipping the apostle as the representative of the Master of\u003cbr\u003eearth, it is not strange that news of the martyrdom of Paul should\u003cbr\u003ehave so affected Angustus as to seriously imperil his mental\u003cbr\u003ebalance.\u003cbr\u003eConjuring delusions of persecution, he fled Ephesus, taking ship\u003cbr\u003efor Alexandria; and here we might leave him, wrapped in his robe,\u003cbr\u003ehuddled, sick and frightened, on the deck of the little vessel,\u003cbr\u003ewere it not for the fact that at the Island of Rhodus, where the\u003cbr\u003eship touched, Angustus, going ashore, acquired in some manner\u003cbr\u003e(whether by conversion or purchase we know not) a fair haired slave\u003cbr\u003egirl from some far northern barbarian tribe.\u003cbr\u003eAnd here we bid Angustus and the days of the Caesars adieu, and\u003cbr\u003enot without some regrets upon my part for I can well imagine\u003cbr\u003eadventure, if not romance, in the flight of Angustus and the fair\u003cbr\u003ehaired slave girl down into Africa from the storied port of\u003cbr\u003eAlexandria, through Memphis and Thebae into the great unknown.","brand":"Andrew eBooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083984453872,"sku":"2940014763738","price":1.25,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014763738_p0.jpg?v=1763615385","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014763738","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}