It must be to any man a terrible thing to find himself in wild pain, with no God of whom to entreat that his soul may not faint within him; but to a man who can think as well as feel, it were a more terrible thing still, to find himself afloat on the tide of a lovely passion, with no God to whom to cry, accountable to Himself for that which He has made.  Will any man who has ever cast more than a glance into the mysteries of his being, dare think himself sufficient to the ruling of his nature?  And if he rule it not, what shall he be but the sport of the demons that will ride its tempests, that will rouse and torment its ocean?  What help then is there?  What high-hearted man would consent to be possessed and sweetly ruled by the loveliest of angels?  Truly it were but a daintier madness.  Come thou, holy Love, father of my spirit, nearer to the unknown deeper me than my consciousness is to its known self, possess me utterly, for thou art more me than I am myself.  Rule thou.  Then first I rule.  Shadow me from the too radiant splendors of thy own creative thought.  Folded in thy calm, I shall love, and not die.  And ye, women, be the daughters of Him from whose heart came your mothers; be the saviours of men, and neither their torment nor their prey!

CHAPTER VII.

THE PULPIT.

Before morning it rained hard again; but it cleared at sunrise, and the first day of the week found the world new-washed.  Glaston slept longer than usual, however, for all the shine, and in the mounting sun looked dead and deserted.  There were no gay shop-windows to reflect his beams, or fill them with rainbow colors.  There were no carriages or carts, and only, for a few moments, one rider.  That was Paul Faber again, on Ruber now, aglow in the morning.  There were no children playing yet about the streets or lanes; but the cries of some came at intervals from unseen chambers, as the Sunday soap stung their eyes, or the Sunday comb tore their matted locks.

As Faber rode out of his stable-yard, Wingfold took his hat from its peg, to walk through his churchyard.  He lived almost in the churchyard, for, happily, since his marriage the rectory had lost its tenants, and Mr. Bevis had allowed him to occupy it, in lieu of part of his salary.  It was not yet church-time by hours, but he had a custom of going every Sunday morning, in the fine weather, quite early, to sit for an hour or two alone in the pulpit, amidst the absolute solitude and silence of the great church.  It was a door, he said, through which a man who could not go to Horeb, might enter and find the power that dwells on mountain-tops and in desert places.