ities, and powers are among them, yet all are equal. Each one
has a different duty to perform, yet all their labours are lofty. But
what a fate is ours on this low earth! For, from the cradle to the
grave, we are watched by these spiritual spectators--watched with
unflinching interest, unhesitating regard. O Angelic Spirits, what is
there in the poor and shabby spectacle of human life to attract your
mighty Intelligences? Sorrow, sin, pride, shame, ambition, failure,
obstinacy, ignorance, selfishness, forgetfulness--enough to make ye
veil your radiant faces in unpierceable clouds to hide forever the
sight of so much crime and misery. Yet if there be the faintest,
feeblest effort in our souls to answer to the call of your voices, to
rise above the earth by force of the same will that pervades your
destinies, how the sound of great rejoicing permeates those wide
continents ye inhabit, like a wave of thunderous music; and ye are
glad, Blessed Spirits!--glad with a gladness beyond that of your own
lives, to feel and to know that some vestige, however fragile, is
spared from the general wreck of selfish and unbelieving Humanity.
Truly we work under the shadow of a "cloud of Witnesses." Disperse,
disperse, O dense yet brilliant multitudes! turn away from me your
burning, truthful, immutable eyes, filled with that look of divine,
perpetual regret and pity! Lo, how unworthy am I to behold your glory!
and yet I must see and know and love you all, while the mad blind world
rushes on to its own destruction, and none can avert its doom.'"

Here Amy threw down the book with a sort of contempt, and said to me:

"If you are going to muddle your mind with the ravings of a lunatic,
you are not what I took you for. Why, it's regular spiritualism!
Kingdoms of the air indeed! And his cloud of witnesses! Rubbish!"

"He quotes the CLOUD OF WITNESSES from St. Paul," I remarked.

"More shame for him!" replied my friend, with the usual inconsistent
indignation that good Protestants invariably display when their pet
corn, the Bible, is accidentally trodden on. "It has been very well
said that the devil can quote Scripture, and this musician (a good job
he IS dead, I'm sure) is perfectly blasphemous to quote the Testament
in support of his ridiculous ideas! St. Paul did not mean by 'a cloud
of witnesses,' a lot of 'air multitudes' and 'burning, immutable eyes,'
and all that nonsense."

"Well, what DID he mean?" I gently persisted.

"Oh, he