t of my wisdom, the tower of ivory in
which I have shut up my purity. I place myself in your spotless hands, I
beseech you to take me, to cover me with a corner of your veil, to
hide me beneath your innocence, behind the hallowed rampart of your
garment--so that no fleshly breath may reach me. I need you, I die
without you, I shall feel for ever parted from you, if you do not bear
me away in your helpful arms, far hence into the glowing whiteness
wherein you dwell. O Mary, conceived without sin, annihilate me in the
depths of the immaculate snow that falls from your every limb. You are
the miracle of eternal chastity. Your race has sprung from a very beam
of grace, like some wondrous tree unsown by any germ. Your son, Jesus,
was born of the breath of God; you yourself were born without defilement
of your mother's womb, and I would believe that this virginity goes back
thus from age to age in endless unwittingness of flesh. Oh! to live, to
grow up outside the pale of the senses! Oh! to perpetuate life solely by
the contact of a celestial kiss!'

This despairing appeal, this cry of purified longing, calmed the young
priest's fears. The Virgin--wholly white, with eyes turned heavenward,
appeared to smile more tenderly with her thin red lips. And in a
softened voice he went on:

'I should like to be a child once more. I should like to be always a
child, walking in the shadow of your gown. When I was quite little, I
clasped my hands when I uttered the name of Mary. My cradle was
white, my body was white, my every thought was white. I could see you
distinctly, I could hear you calling me, I went towards you in the light
of a smile over scattered rose-petals. And nought else did I feel or
think, I lived but just enough to be a flower at your feet. No one
should grow up. You would have around you none but fair young heads, a
crowd of children who would love you with pure hands, unsullied lips,
tender limbs, stainless as if fresh from a bath of milk. To kiss a
child's cheek is to kiss its soul. A child alone can say your name
without befouling it. In later years our lips grow tainted and reek of
our passions. Even I, who love you so much, and have given myself to
you, I dare not at all times call on you, for I would not let you
come in contact with the impurities of my manhood. I have prayed and
chastised my flesh, I have slept in your keeping, and lived in chastity;
and yet I weep to see that I am not yet dead enough to this w