en beyond Time and
Matter, it finds then no more ends nor bounds to stop its swift and
restless motion. It may then fly upwards from one heaven to another,
till it be beyond all orbe of Finite Being, swallowed up in the
boundless Abyss of Divinity, [Greek: hyperano tes ousias], beyond all
that which darker thoughts are wont to represent under the Idea of
Essence. This is that [Greek: theion skotos] which the Areopagite speaks
of, which the higher our Minds soare into, the more incomprehensible
they find it. Those dismall apprehensions which pinion the Souls of men
to mortality, churlishly check and starve that noble life thereof, which
would alwaies be rising upwards, and spread it self in a free heaven:
and when once the Soul hath shaken off these, when it is once able to
look through a grave, and see beyond death, it finds a vast Immensity of
Being opening it self more and more before it, and the ineffable light
and beauty thereof shining more and more into it.

_Select Discourses of John Smith, the
Cambridge Platonist, 1660._

MAD SHEPHERDS

_AND OTHER HUMAN STUDIES_

SHOEMAKER HANKIN

Among the four hundred human beings who peopled our parish there were
two notable men and one highly gifted woman. All three are dead, and lie
buried in the churchyard of the village where they lived. Their graves
form a group--unsung by any poet, but worthy to be counted among the
resting-places of the mighty.

The woman was Mrs. Abel, the Rector's wife. None of us knew her
origin--I doubt if she knew it herself: beyond her husband and children,
assignable relatives she had none.

"Sie war nicht in dem Tal geboren,
Man wusste nicht woher sie kam."

Her husband met her many years ago at a foreign watering-place, and
married her there after a week's acquaintance--much to the scandal of
his family, for the lady was an actress not unknown to fame. Their only
consolation was that she had a considerable fortune--the fruit of her
professional work.

In all relevant particulars this strange venture had proved a huge
success. To leave the fever of the stage for the quiet life of the
village had been to Mrs. Abel like the escape of a soul from the flames
of purgatory. She had rightly discerned that the Rev. Edward Abel was a
man of large heart, high character, and excellent wit--partly clergyman,
but mostly man. He, on his part, valued his wife, and his judgment was
backed by every humble soul in the v