treasure of Holy Scripture. And yet the poet might, perhaps, have borne with even the immense stupidity of the sermon, if he could have seen a single face that seemed to question its doctrines. But the satisfaction and enjoyment of the congregation was even more irritating than the blatant dogmatism of the preacher. To the hearers the sermon contained the one truth, apart from which there was no salvation. As they heard about their own election and the world's condemnation, as they drank in every word as the dew of Hermon, the men snuffed with comfort, the women purred and twirled their thumbs in contentment, the whole congregation rocked in satisfaction on their seats, keeping measure to the rising periods of the discourse. At last, the poet tells us, he could bear it no longer :

'Twas too provoking!

My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it,
So, saying, like Eve when she plucked the apple,
I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,
I flung myself out of the little chapel.

II.

As he flung himself out upon the common, there was a lull in the storm; the moon shone through rifts of the clouds, and the calmness and glory of nature was a refreshing contrast to the hot chapel, the noisy preacher and the dirty congregation. A mood of peace and thankfulness descended upon the poet's soul. He was grateful that his religion was so much superior to the vulgar creed of that narrow sect. In a beautiful meditation he tells us how, from childhood, Nature had been the temple where he had worshipped the power

and love of God. It is through love that man shares the divine life. If God were only powerful, then the meanest creature with one spark of love would be diviner than its Creator.

For the loving worm within its clod,
Were diviner than a loveless god

Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.

And since the All-powerful is the All-loving, there is not a need of human nature that God does not provide for; and there must be, therefore, an immortal life to complete the broken lives of men on earth. Pondering these things, his mind is carried along a tide of joy. He thanks God for this lofty faith, this spiritual religion, this perfect trust. As he reflects how earth's shadows will at last dissolve before heaven's glories, he cries :

And I shall behold Thee, face to face,

O God, and in Thy light retrace

How in all I loved here, still wast thou;

Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,

I shall find as able to satiate

The love, Thy gift, as my spirit's wonder

Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,

With this sky of Thine, that I now walk under,

And glory in Thee for, as I gaze

Thus, thus! Oh! let men keep their ways
Of seeking Thee in a narrow shrine-

Be this my way! And this is mine.

With that thought, he lifts his eyes to the moonlit sky,and lo! a wondrous sign, which seems to be a revelation of God to his rapt soul. A glorious Lunar Rainbow is stretched across the heavens in awful beauty. It seems to his excited mind to be the herald of some sublime

manifestation of the unseen God. The veiled and hidden love, which he has reverenced all his life, is coming forth into visible form to crown and bless his faithful soul! That rainbow is the pathway along which shall travel some radiant Presence. He waits in awe, saying to himself:

Oh! whose foot shall I see emerge,

Whose, from the straining topmost dark,

On to the keystone of the arc ?

He feels that God and his own soul are coming into contact. Oh that he could remain for ever here; in reverent boldness he cries :

Appear!

Good were it to be ever here.

If thou wilt, let me build to Thee

Service tabernacles Three,
Where, forever in thy presence,
In ecstatic acquiescence,

Far alike from thriftless learning
And ignorance's undiscerning,
I may worship and remain !

Then the glory burst into unutterable splendour, it filled his brain, it blazed forth and seemed to stream in a winding path, like a trailing garment of light, along the ground before him; and as his eyes followed the mazy folds of serpentining glory, he looked up with sudden terror, and lo! Christ was there.

He was there,

He himself with his human air.
On the narrow pathway, just before,
I saw the back of Him, no more-
He had left the chapel, then, as I!

That majestic vision of the Christ moving before him with the shining vesture,-how it aroused new thoughts in the poet's mind! He had been so impatient with the noise and vulgarity of the little chapel, and yet Christ was there in divine love and infinite pitifulness. He had been boasting that the God he worshipped in the temple of nature was so far removed above the narrow shrines of men, and now the Universe can give no grander revelation than this vision of the Christ who will consecrate the humblest sanctuary with his presence. I remembered, He did say

Doubtless, that, to this world's end,

Where two or three should meet and pray,
He would be in the midst, their friend :
Certainly He was with them there.

Then he felt ashamed of his spiritual pride. It seemed to him that Christ turned away his face because he had despised his friends, who, in their own way, were meeting together in his name. In an agony of desire, he reaches forward, and seizes the hem of Christ's shining garment, and he cries :

:

But all I felt there, right or wrong,
What is it to Thee, who curest sinning?
Am I not weak as Thou art strong?

I have looked to Thee from the beginning,
Straight up to Thee through all the world
Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled
To nothingness on either side:

And since the time Thou wast descried,
Spite of the weak heart, so have I

Lived ever, and so fain would die,
Living and dying, Thee before!
But if Thou leavest me-

By this prayer of agony the heart of Christ is moved; he looks at his disciple clasping his raiment's hem; the whole Face turns upon the man who falls prone, stretched upon the ground, saturate with brightness.

III.

Then it seemed to him as though he was caught up into the folds of Christ's garment. He is swept away whither he knows not; he only knows that the Master has not deserted him; he is not only permitted to touch the raiment's hem, he is gathered up and made safe in the vesture's amplitude. And now there returns something of the old spiritual pride. After all, Christ himself acknowledges that his spiritual faith is the best way; he is free from the foolish superstitions by which men seek to worship God; while others are groping their way, he is gathered into the very folds of the vesture of Incarnate Love. While he thus congratulates himself, he little knows whither Christ is leading him. He thought he was soaring aloft into the empyrean of a