her_. See that thy sceptre lie heavy on his head.
Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him in his
darkness. Banish the frailties of hope--wither the relentings
of love--scorch the fountains of tears: curse him as only thou
canst curse. So shall he be accomplished in the furnace--so
shall he see the things that ought _not_ to be seen--sights
that are abominable, and secrets that are unutterable. So shall
he read elder truths, sad truths, grand truths, fearful truths.
So shall he rise again _before_ he dies. And so shall our
commission be accomplished which from God we had--to plague his
heart until we had unfolded the capacities of his spirit."[15]

THE APPARITION OF THE BROCKEN.

Ascend with me on this dazzling Whitsunday the Brocken of North Germany.
The dawn opened in cloudless beauty; it is a dawn of bridal June; but,
as the hours advance, her youngest sister April, that sometimes cares
little for racing across both frontiers of May, frets the bridal lady's
sunny temper with sallies of wheeling and careering showers--flying and
pursuing, opening, and closing, hiding and restoring. On such a morning,
and reaching the summits of the forest-mountain about sunrise, we shall
have one chance the more for seeing the famous Spectre of the
Brocken.[16] Who and what is he? He is a solitary apparition, in the
sense of loving solitude; else he is not always solitary in his personal
manifestations, but on proper occasions has been known to unmask a
strength quite sufficient to alarm those who had been insulting him.

Now, in order to test the nature of this mysterious apparition, we will
try two or three experiments upon him. What we fear, and with some
reason, is, that as he lived so many ages with foul Pagan sorcerers, and
witnessed so many centuries of dark idolatries, his heart may have been
corrupted; and that even now his faith may be wavering or impure. We
will try.

Make the sign of the cross, and observe whether he repeats it, (as, on
Whitsunday,[17] he surely ought to do.) Look! he _does_ repeat it; but
the driving showers perplex the images, and _that_, perhaps, it is which
gives him the air of one who acts reluctantly or evasively. Now, again,
the sun shines more brightly, and the showers have swept off like
squadrons of cavalry to the rear. We will try him again.

Pluck an anemone, one of these many anemones which once was called the
sorcerer's flowe