leaves behind her the imprint of her white, pure feet.  When she has passed away men flock around and cry, ‘See!  See!’ Sometimes God holds her still in sight,—­a figure to whose feet creep Forms and Species of Animality to be shown their way.  She wafts the light exhaling from her hair, and they see; she speaks, and they hear.  ‘A miracle!’ they cry.  Often she triumphs in the name of God; frightened men deny her and put her to death; smiling, she lays down her sword and goes to the stake, having saved the Peoples.  How many a pardoned Angel has passed from martyrdom to heaven!  Sinai, Golgotha are not in this place nor in that; Angels are crucified in every place, in every sphere.  Sighs pierce to God from the whole universe.  This earth on which we live is but a single sheaf of the great harvest; humanity is but a species in the vast garden where the flowers of heaven are cultivated.  Everywhere God is like unto Himself, and everywhere, by prayer, it is easy to reach Him.”

With these words, which fell from the lips of another Hagar in the wilderness, burning the souls of the hearers as the live coal of the word inflamed Isaiah, this mysterious being paused as though to gather some remaining strength.  Wilfrid and Minna dared not speak.  Suddenly HE lifted himself up to die:—­

“Soul of all things, oh my God, thou whom I love for Thyself!  Thou, Judge and Father, receive a love which has no limit.  Give me of thine essence and thy faculties that I be wholly thine!  Take me, that I no longer be myself!  Am I not purified? then cast me back into the furnace!  If I be not yet proved in the fire, make me some nurturing ploughshare, or the Sword of victory!  Grant me a glorious martyrdom in which to proclaim thy Word!  Rejected, I will bless thy justice.  But if excess of love may win in a moment that which hard and patient labor cannot attain, then bear me upward in thy chariot of fire!  Grant me triumph, or further trial, still will I bless thee!  To suffer for thee, is not that to triumph?  Take me, seize me, bear me away! nay, if thou wilt, reject me!  Thou art He who can do no evil.  Ah!” he cried, after a pause, “the bonds are breaking.

“Spirits of the pure, ye sacred flock, come forth from the hidden places, come on the surface of the luminous waves!  The hour now is; come, assemble!  Let us sing at the gates of the Sanctuary; our songs shall drive away the final clouds.  With one accord let us hail the Dawn of the Eternal Day.  Behold the rising of the one True Light!  Ah, why may I not take with me these my friends!  Farewell, poor earth, Farewell!”

CHAPTER VII

THE ASSUMPTION

The last psalm was uttered neither by word, look, nor gesture, nor by any of those signs which men employ to communicate their thoughts, but as the soul speaks to itself; for at the moment when Seraphita revealed herself in her true nature, her thoughts were no longer enslaved by human words.  The violence of that last prayer had burst her bonds.  Her soul, like a white dove, remained for an instant poised above the body whose exhausted substances were about to be annihilated.