fire glowed in his eyes—­“that the slave, too, has a soul, in which the same feelings stir as in your own.  You never think how a proud man may feel whose arm you brand, and whose very breath of life is indignity; or what a slave thinks who is spurned by his master’s foot, though noble blood may run in his veins.  All living things, even the plants in the garden, have a right to happiness, and only develop fully in freedom, and under loving care; and yet one half of mankind robs the other half of this right.  The sum total of suffering and sorrow to which Fate had doomed the race is recklessly multiplied and increased by the guilt of men themselves.  But the cry of the poor and wretched has gone up to heaven, and now that the fullness of time is come, ‘Thus far, and no farther,’ is the word.  No wild revolutionary has been endowed with a giant’s strength to burst the bonds of the victims asunder.  No, the Creator and Preserver of the world sent his Son to redeem the poor in spirit, and, above all, the brethren and the sisters who are weary and heavy laden.  The magical word which shall break the bars of the prisons where the chains of the slaves are heard is Love. . . .  But you, Melissa, can but half comprehend all this,” he added, interrupting the ardent flow of his enthusiastic speech.  “You can not understand it all.  For you, too, child, the fullness of time is coming; for you, too, freeborn though you are, are, I know, one of the heavy laden who patiently suffer the burden laid upon you.  You too—­But keep close to me; we shall find it difficult to get through this throng.”

It was, in fact, no easy matter to get across the crowd which was pouring noisily down the street of Hermes, into which this narrow way led.  How ever, they achieved it, and when Melissa had recovered her breath in a quiet lane in Rhakotis, she turned to her companion again with the question, “And when do you suppose that your predictions will be fulfilled?”

“As soon as the breeze blows which shall shake the overripe fruit from the tree.  It may be tomorrow, or not yet, according to the long-suffering of the Most High.  But the entire collapse of the world in which we have been living is as certain to come as that you are walking here with me!”

Melissa walked on with a quaking heart, as she heard her friend’s tone of conviction; he, however, was aware that the inmost meaning of his words was sealed to her.  To his inquiry, whether she could not rejoice in the coming of the glorious time in store for redeemed humanity, she answered, tremulously: 

“All you hope for is glorious, no doubt, but what shall lead to it must be a terror to all.  Were you told of the kingdom of which you speak by an oracle, or is it only a picture drawn by your imagination, a vision, and the offspring of your soul’s desire?”

“Neither,” said Andreas, decidedly; and he went on in a louder voice:  “I know it by revelation.  Believe me, child, it is as certainly true as that the sun will set this night.  The gates of the heavenly Jerusalem stand open, and if you, too, would fain be blessed—­But more of this later.  Here we are at our journey’s end.”