faith came back to them. It
was as if the Lord had come back. In a real sense He had come back.
He was present in His servant the Prince. The people beheld the form
of the Son of God going about their streets doing good. They saw the
old miracles. The blind saw, the deaf heard God, as in the days when
Jesus was in the flesh. Even death was conquered before their eyes. A
real gleam of heaven is falling this evening on the once-darkened
village. The evil things that infested its life have been cast out and
a new heaven and a new earth have come to it. It is the Golden Age
come down to them from God.

"In his great task the dear Prince died. Our hearts are heavy for that
we shall see his face no more. But count it not strange that he died,
or that this trial should have descended on our King and us. It is the
rule in the kingdom of the Lord. Whoever will bring the Golden Age
where sin is, must himself lay down his life. For those peasants, as
Christ for all mankind, the Prince laid down his life."

The people listened till the Councillor reached these words, then, as
by one impulse, they rose and burst into a grand doxology. Then a
company of torch-bearers entered. Then, the children took up their
place at the head of the coffin and began again to sing. The bearers
lifted the coffin. The King and Faith and the two Princes followed;
after them the peasants from the village, then the chief nobles and the
people, and in this order the coffin was carried to the place of the
dead.

In the course of years the wise Pakronus died, and Yestergold became
King. He made his brother Prime Minister. And the two brothers became
really what their father called them when boys--"Captains of the Golden
Age." In everything that was for the good of the people, they took the
lead. They were Captains in every battle with sin and misery. What
Goldenday did for the plague-stricken village, they strove to do for
the whole kingdom. Their Sister Faith gave herself to the building and
care of schools and hospitals. And the time in which those three lived
is described in all the histories of that kingdom as a Golden Age.

It is told by travelers who have visited the Royal city, that a statue
of the Prince Goldenday stands above the old gateway of the Abbey, and
that there are written below it the words:

"TO-DAY IF YE WILL HEAR HIS VOICE."

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

AS TOLD BY MARY SEYMOUR.

In the beautiful Ita