w only that which their nature, sustained by the
strength of the _spirit_, permitted them to see; they heard that only
which they were able to hear.

And yet, though thus protected, they shuddered when the Voice of the
anguished soul broke forth above them--the prayer of the _Spirit_
awaiting Life and imploring it with a cry.

That cry froze them to the very marrow of their bones.

The _Spirit_ knocked at the _sacred portal_. "What wilt thou?" answered
a _choir_, whose question echoed among the worlds. "To go to God." "Hast
thou conquered?" "I have conquered the flesh through abstinence, I
have conquered false knowledge by humility, I have conquered pride by
charity, I have conquered the earth by love; I have paid my dues by
suffering, I am purified in the fires of faith, I have longed for Life
by prayer: I wait in adoration, and I am resigned."

No answer came.

"God's will be done!" answered the _Spirit_, believing that he was about
to be rejected.

His tears flowed and fell like dew upon the heads of the two kneeling
witnesses, who trembled before the justice of God.

Suddenly the trumpets sounded,--the last trumpets of Victory won by the
_Angel_ in this last trial. The reverberation passed through space
as sound through its echo, filling it, and shaking the universe which
Wilfrid and Minna felt like an atom beneath their feet. They trembled
under an anguish caused by the dread of the mystery about to be
accomplished.

A great movement took place, as though the Eternal Legions, putting
themselves in motion, were passing upward in spiral columns. The worlds
revolved like clouds driven by a furious wind. It was all rapid.

Suddenly the veils were rent away. They saw on high as it were a star,
incomparably more lustrous than the most luminous of material stars,
which detached itself, and fell like a thunderbolt, dazzling as
lightning. Its passage paled the faces of the pair, who thought it to be
_the Light_ Itself.

It was the Messenger of good tidings, the plume of whose helmet was a
flame of Life.

Behind him lay the swath of his way gleaming with a flood of the lights
through which he passed.

He bore a palm and a sword. He touched the _Spirit_ with the palm, and
the _Spirit_ was transfigured. Its white wings noiselessly unfolded.

This communication of _the Light_, changing the _Spirit_ into a _Seraph_
and clothing it with a glorious form, a celestial armor, poured down
such effulgent rays that the