how long it was before the circling observant
consciousness, the flow of slow images, the vibration of particular
thoughts, ceased and stilled as a pool rocks quietly to peace after the
dropped stone has long lain still. But it came at last--that superb
tranquillity, possible only when the senses are physically awake, with
which God, perhaps once in a lifetime, rewards the aspiring trustful
soul--that point of complete rest in the heart of the Fount of all
existence with which one day He will reward eternally the spirits of His
children. There was no thought in him of articulating this experience,
of analysing its elements, or fingering this or that strain of ecstatic
joy. The time for self-regarding was passed. It was enough that the
experience was there, although he was not even self-reflective enough to
tell himself so. He had passed from that circle whence the soul looks
within, from that circle, too, whence it looks upon objective glory, to
that very centre where it reposes--and the first sign to him that time
had passed was the murmur of words, heard distinctly and understood,
although with that apartness with which a drowsy man perceives a message
from without--heard as through a veil through which nothing but thinnest
essence could transpire.

_Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum.... The Spirit of the Lord hath
fulfilled all things, alleluia: and that which contains all things hath
knowledge of the voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia._

_Exsurgat Deus_ (and the voice rose ever so slightly). "_Let God arise
and let His enemies be scattered; and let them who hate Him flee before
His face._"

_Gloria Patri...._

Then he raised his heavy head; and a phantom figure stood there in red
vestments, seeming to float rather than to stand, with thin hands
outstretched, and white cap on white hair seen in the gleam of the
steady candle-flames; another, also in white, kneeled on the step....

_Kyrie eleison ... Gloria in excelsis Deo ..._ those things passed like
a shadow-show, with movements and rustlings, but he perceived rather the
light which cast them. He heard _Deus qui in hodierna die ..._ but his
passive mind gave no pulse of reflex action, no stir of understanding
until these words. _Cum complerentur dies Pentecostes...._

"_When the day of Pentecost was fully come, all the disciples were with
one accord in the same place; and there came from heaven suddenly a
sound, as of a mighty wind approaching, and it