me not to disperse into
nothingness these children of my fancy, some of whom yet love and trust
to me for safety. Let me strive once more to bring them out of their
darkness into the light--to bring them to the happiness I designed them
to enjoy. They have not all forgotten me--let me give them more time
for thought and recollection!"

Again the great voice shook the air:

"They love darkness rather than light; they love the perishable earth
of which they are in part composed, better than the germ of immortality
with which they were in the beginning endowed. This garden of thine is
but a caprice of thy intelligence; the creatures that inhabit it are
soulless and unworthy, and are an offence to that indestructible
radiance of which thou art one ray. Therefore I say unto thee
again--DESTROY!"

My yearning love grew stronger, and I pleaded with renewed force.

"Oh, thou Unseen Glory!" I cried; "thou who hast filled me with this
emotion of love and pity which permeates and supports my existence, how
canst thou bid me take this sudden revenge upon my frail creation! No
caprice was it that caused me to design it; nothing but a thought of
love and a desire of beauty. Even yet I will fulfil my plan--even yet
shall these erring children of mine return to me in time, with
patience. While one of them still lifts a hand in prayer to me, or
gratitude, I cannot destroy! Bid me rather sink into the darkness of
the uttermost deep of shadow; only let me save these feeble little ones
from destruction!"

The voice replied not. A flashing opal brilliancy shot across the light
in which I rested, and I beheld an Angel, grand, lofty, majestic, with
a countenance in which shone the lustre of a myriad summer mornings.

"Spirit that art escaped from the Sorrowful Star," it said in accents
clear and sonorous, "wouldst thou indeed be content to suffer the loss
of heavenly joy and peace, in order to rescue thy perishing creation?"

"I would!" I answered; "if I understood death, I would die to save one
of those frail creatures, who seek to know me and yet cannot find me
through the darkness they have brought upon themselves."

"To die," said the Angel, "to understand death, thou wouldst need to
become one of them, to take upon thyself their form--to imprison all
that brilliancy of which thou art now composed, into a mean and common
case of clay; and even if thou couldst accomplish this, would thy
children know thee or receive thee?"

"Na