“There were some mountains in the distance, and he went towards them.  While climbing up their sides, the sky, which had been bright blue, now became overcast.  Black, thick clouds quickly gathered, till day seemed turned into night.  Then there shot through the darkness a swift, bright flash, lighting everything up for a moment, then leaving all darker than before.  He had not recovered from his astonishment when he heard a sudden crash, as if the mountain were splitting into pieces, followed by a long deep roll of boundless sound.  Again and again he saw the lightning’s flash and heard the thunder’s roar.  Then the raging ceased, the blue sky began to re-appear, the sun shone through the rain-drops, and on the departing clouds he saw an arch of many colours, beautiful in form and brilliancy—­the lovely rainbow.  He gazed at it with strange new feelings till it all melted away.

“At night he always returned to his cell.  This night, however, he was so full of the wondrous scene he had witnessed on the mountain that he stayed out of doors, walking up and down his familiar garden path with downcast eyes.  He was deep in thought, when at last he raised his eyes, and instead of a clear sky he saw tiny points of light shining through the gray twilight.  As the darkness deepened he saw myriads and myriads of these bright points—­the stars.  He wondered at the mystery.

“He now began to meet with beings like himself, at first one or two, then many more.  He found the difference in human beings was very great indeed.  Some of them kindly came to him, and told him many things about the world in which he now daily lived.  They taught him how to read books in which was written the wisdom of men who had lived long ago.  Here was a new, wide opening, as he looked back into the past, into the times so very far away.  But the books were not all old; some were written by living men, into which they had put their choicest thoughts, and they gave him an insight into the best part of a man—­his soul and mind.  Others told him of the wonderful discoveries made by clever men.  They brought him a telescope, to look through to the stars at night; which stars, they told him, were other worlds, and that this little world where he lived was but a speck compared with the rest of creation.  In looking through the telescope he saw into great depths—­stars beyond stars, in number far exceeding his powers of thought.  They showed him a microscope; and in looking through it he saw undreamt-of beauty in familiar flowers and insects, and in all natural objects.  They told him of the useful and beautiful things that men had found under the ground—­coal, metals, and precious stones.  Some of these they showed him when polished;—­the diamond, which seemed to have taken the rainbow to itself and given it back in a flash, now of pure, now of many-coloured light; the delicate opal, which looked like a rainbow vanishing; the red ruby, the green emerald, the violet amethyst, the clear crystal, and