imit
to the weight already crushing me. The guilt of life upon life, the
surges of an unfathomable ocean of crime were to roll in eternal
progress over my head. Immortality on earth!

Overwhelmed with despair, I rushed through Jerusalem, crowded with
millions come to the Passover, and made my way through the Gate of Zion
to the open country and the mountains that were before me, like a
barrier shutting out the living world. There, as I lay in an agony of
fear, my soul seemed to be whirled on the wind into the bosom of a
thundercloud. I felt the weight of the rolling vapours. I saw a blaze. I
was stunned by a roar that shook the firmament.

When I recovered it was to hear the trumpet which proclaims that the
first daily sacrifice is to be offered. I was a priest; this day's
service fell to me; I dared not shrink from the duty which appalled me!
Humanity drove me first to my home, where to my unspeakable relief I
found my wife and child happy and unharmed; then I went to the Temple,
and began my solemn duties. I was at the altar, the Levite at my side
holding the lamb, when suddenly in rushed the high priest, his face
buried in the folds of his cloak, and, grasping the head of the lamb, he
snatched the knife from the Levite, plunged it into the animal's throat,
and ran with bloody hands and echoing groans to the porch of the Holy
House. I hastened up the steps after him, and entered the sanctuary.
But--what I saw there I have no power to tell. Words were not made to
utter it. Before me moved things mightier than of mortal vision,
thronging shapes of terror, mysterious grandeur, essential power,
embodied prophecy. On the pavement lay the high priest, his lips
strained wide, his whole frame rigid and cold as a corpse. And the Veil
was rent in twain!

Fleeing from the Temple, I came into a world of black men. The sun,
which I had seen like a fiery buckler hanging over the city, was utterly
gone. As I looked into this unnatural night, the thought smote me that I
had brought this judgment on the Holy City, and I formed the
determination to fly from my priesthood, my kindred, and my country, and
to bear my doom in some barren wilderness.

I ran from the Temple, where priests clung together in pale terror,
found my wife and child, and bore them away through the panic-stricken
city. As we journeyed a yell of universal terror made me turn my eyes to
Jerusalem. A large sphere of fire shot through the heavens, casting a
pallid