and the blue water and the sunshine were so beautifully real and true that except for their deep-reaching, passionate tenderness human strength could not endure them. There were lanes of climbing vines and white violets. Was it my fancy that brought their thin fragrance to me over piles of billowy clouds? There was something there that was old—old as the race. Those green valleys were the same as when the mists first lifted from the earth. As I looked my life stood still. My soul shivered faintly. As I looked I felt nearer, my God, to thee—though I have no God and everything is away from me, nothing tender comes to me.
Still it was nearer, my God, to thee.
A voice came out of the far, far distant ages and said very gently: "All these shadows are falling in vain. You are blinded and bewildered in the darkness—the darkness is deep—deep. There is not one dim ray of light.
