y grew so proud that they forgot everything but
themselves. They ceased to remember how they were created, and they
cared no more to offer praises to their little sun that through me gave
them light and heat. But because something of my essence still was in
them, they always instinctively sought to worship a superior creature
to themselves; and puzzling themselves in their folly, they made
hideous images of wood and clay, unlike anything in heaven or earth,
and offered sacrifices and prayer to these lifeless puppets instead of
to me. Then I turned away my eyes in sorrow and pity, but never in
anger; for I could not be wrathful with these children of my own
creation. And when I thus turned away my eyes, all manner of evil came
upon the once fair scene--pestilence and storm, disease and vice. A
dark shadow stole between my little world and me--the shadow of the
people's own wickedness. And as every delicate fibre of my spiritual
being repelled evil by the necessity of the pure light in which I dwelt
serene. I waited patiently for the mists to clear, so that I might
again behold the beauty of my garden. Suddenly a soft clamour smote
upon my sense of hearing, and a slender stream of light, like a
connecting ray, seemed to be flung upwards through the darkness that
hid me from the people I had created and loved. I knew the sound--it
was the mingled music of the prayers of children. An infinite pity and
pleasure touched me, my being thrilled with love and tenderness; and
yielding to these little ones who asked me for protection, I turned my
eyes again towards the garden I had designed for fairness and pleasure.
But alas! how changed it had become! No longer fresh and sweet, the
people had turned it into a wilderness; they had divided it into small
portions, and in so doing had divided themselves into separate
companies called nations, all of whom fought with each other fiercely
for their different little parterres or flower-beds. Some haggled and
talked incessantly over the mere possession of a stone which they
called a rock; others busied themselves in digging a little yellow
metal out of the earth, which, when once obtained, seemed to make the
owners of it mad, for they straightway forgot everything else. As I
looked, the darkness between me and my creation grew denser, and was
only pierced at last by those long wide shafts of radiance caused by
the innocent prayers of those who still remembered me. And I was full
of regret,