r,[18] and bore a part perhaps in his horrid ritual of
fear; carry it to that stone which mimics the outline of a heathen
altar, and once was called the sorcerer's altar[18]; then, bending your
knee, and raising your right hand to God, say,--"Father, which art in
heaven--this lovely anemone, that once glorified the worship of fear,
has travelled back into thy fold; this altar, which once reeked with
bloody rites to Cortho, has long been rebaptized into thy holy service.
The darkness is gone--the cruelty is gone which the darkness bred; the
moans have passed away which the victims uttered; the cloud has vanished
which once sate continually upon their graves--cloud of protestation
that ascended for ever to thy throne from the tears of the defenceless,
and the anger of the just. And lo! I thy servant, with this dark
phantom, whom, for one hour on this thy festival of Pentecost, I make
_my_ servant, render thee united worship in this thy recovered temple."

Look, now! the apparition plucks an anemone, and places it on an altar;
he also bends his knee, he also raises his right hand to God. Dumb he
is; but sometimes the dumb serve God acceptably. Yet still it occurs to
you, that perhaps on this high festival of the Christian Church, he may
be overruled by supernatural influence into confession of his homage,
having so often been made to bow and bend his knee at murderous rites.
In a service of religion he may be timid. Let us try him, therefore,
with an earthly passion, where he will have no bias either from favour
or from fear.

If, then, once in childhood you suffered an affliction that was
ineffable; If once, when powerless to face such an enemy, you were
summoned to fight with the tiger that couches within the separations of
the grave; in that case, after the example of Judaea (on the Roman
coins)--sitting under her palm-tree to weep, but sitting with her head
veiled--do you also veil your head. Many years are passed away since
then; and you were a little ignorant thing at that time, hardly above
six years old; or perhaps (if you durst tell all the truth) not quite so
much. But your heart was deeper than the Danube; and, as was your love,
so was your grief. Many years are gone since that darkness settled on
your head; many summers, many winters; yet still its shadows wheel round
upon you at intervals, like these April showers upon this glory of
bridal June. Therefore now, on this dovelike morning of Pentecost, do
you vei