th great gates of massive steel with bars of the thickness of a
mast, rising to the very clouds, and so close that between them was
just a glimpse of a crystal grotto, on whose shining walls were
figured many white-clad forms with faces radiant with joy. When I
stood before the gate my heart and my soul were so full of rapture and
longing that I forgot. And there stood at the gate two mighty angels
with sweeping wings, and, oh! so stern of countenance. They held each
in one hand a flaming sword, and in the other the latchet, which moved
to and fro at their lightest touch. Nearer were figures all draped in
black, with heads covered so that only the eyes were seen, and they
handed to each who came white garments such as the angels wear. A low
murmur came that told that all should put on their own robes, and
without soil, or the angels would not pass them in, but would smite
them down with the flaming swords. I was eager to don my own garment,
and hurriedly threw it over me and stepped swiftly to the gate; but it
moved not, and the angels, loosing the latchet, pointed to my dress, I
looked down, and was aghast, for the whole robe was smeared with
blood. My hands were red; they glittered with the blood that dripped
from them as on that day by the river bank. And then the angels raised
their flaming swords to smite me down, and the horror was complete--I
awoke. Again, and again, and again, that awful dream comes to me. I
never learn from the experience, I never remember, but at the
beginning the hope is ever there to make the end more appalling; and I
know that the dream does not come out of the common darkness where the
dreams abide, but that it is sent from God as a punishment! Never,
never shall I be able to pass the gate, for the soil on the angel
garments must ever come from these bloody hands!'

I listened as in a spell as Jacob Settle spoke. There was something so
far away in the tone of his voice--something so dreamy and mystic in
the eyes that looked as if through me at some spirit beyond--something
so lofty in his very diction and in such marked contrast to his
workworn clothes and his poor surroundings that I wondered if the
whole thing were not a dream.

We were both silent for a long time. I kept looking at the man before
me in growing wonderment. Now that his confession had been made, his
soul, which had been crushed to the very earth, seemed to leap back
again to uprightness with some resilient force. I suppo