y, but if I could suffer shame by them," I cried impetuously, "I
could not suffer sin. My being would be incapable of error, and I would
show these creatures of mine the bliss of purity, the joy of wisdom,
the ecstasy of light, the certainty of immortality, if they followed
me. And then I would die to show them death is easy, and that in dying
they would come to me and find their happiness for ever!"

The stature of the Angel grew more lofty and magnificent, and its
star-like eyes flashed fire.

"Then, oh thou wanderer from the Earth!" it said, "understandest thou
not the Christ?"

A deep awe trembled through me. Meanwhile the garden I had thought a
world appeared to roll up like a cloudy scroll, and vanished, and I
knew that it had been a vision, and no more.

"Oh doubting and foolish Spirit!" went on the Angel--"thou who art but
one point of living light in the Supreme Radiance, even THOU wouldst
consent to immure thyself in the darkness of mortality for sake of thy
fancied creation! Even THOU wouldst submit to suffer and to die, in
order to show the frail children of thy dream a purely sinless and
spiritual example! Even THOU hast had the courage to plead with the One
All-Sufficing Voice against the destruction of what to thee was but a
mirage floating in this ether! Even THOU hast had love, forgiveness,
pity! Even THOU wouldst be willing to dwell among the creatures of thy
fancy as one of them, knowing in thy inner self that by so doing, thy
spiritual presence would have marked thy little world for ever as
sanctified and impossible to destroy. Even THOU wouldst sacrifice a
glory to answer a child's prayer--even thou wouldst have patience! And
yet thou hast dared to deny to God those attributes which thou thyself
dost possess--He is so great and vast--thou so small and slight! For
the love thou feelest throbbing through thy being, He is the very
commencement and perfection of all love; if thou hast pity, He has ten
thousand times more pity; if THOU canst forgive, remember that from Him
flows all thy power of forgiveness! There is nothing thou canst do,
even at the highest height of spiritual perfection, that He cannot
surpass by a thousand million fold! Neither shalt thou refuse to
believe that He can also suffer. Know that nothing is more godlike than
unselfish sorrow--and the grief of the Creator over one erring human
soul is as vast as He Himself is vast. Why wouldst thou make of Him a
being destitute of the b