in a generation; for their greatness is great capacity, and that of woe as well as bliss, and of sin as well as goodness; and then, in their wrestles with doubt and despair, they can be but little helped by others. Over one sinner ending his sinfulness, there is joy in heaven; and there is more than that over one with whom mortality is ending, some greater soul, that has been more greatly tried, a man, after all his wrongs, with a heart of love, and eyes of faith, — and, besides, who has the peace of God in his mind, and on his lips words that men are the better for. You look doubtingly; but it is of yourself that I have been speaking, Torquato.

TASSO.

Of me! O, of me!

SPIRIT.

Have you never considered what the way of Providence is with the souls of men, though you are yourself one of its greater agents? Life is a lesson from God; but the meaning of it is what men have to be taught by one another, the child by its parent, and the young man by his elders. Nature is God about you. It is a great truth; but most men see only as much of it as is shown them. And who are they that show it? The poets who are raised up from time to time. As, age after age, men have their understandings enlarged, there are those born who can speak the

greater thoughts that are wanted, and who, by saying what they feel themselves, make others feel more nobly. These are the interpreters of God to man; and some of them have been known as theologians, and some as philosophers, and some as poets, and some as prophets. And, Torquato, you yourself are one among them. Yes, among souls, your spiritual estate is become like a principality and a power.

TASSO.

I become a power among spirits! Then it is by suffering I have grown strong. And God be thanked I did suffer. O ye years of agony ! By I was set apart from among men ; but it was for my consecration. My baptism of fire! blessed for ever and ever be the season of it! What!

you

Do I Can it be? It is. onora. My life, my love! ra; give me your hand.

Yes, it is
Your hand, Leono-
O, I cannot feel it!

But your presence I do feel; into my soul I feel it, and so strangely, so blessedly! But why have not I known you before, though always my spirit has trembled in me? Tell me, dearest Leonora, why have not I known you sooner?

SPIRIT.

You would not have known me now, but for your greater faith. The more God is believed in, the better his ministers are known. You have understood pain and misfortune as having been

sent to you from God; and so all other messengers are easy for you to recognize. And so it is that I have been known to you, Torquato, — my Torquato.

TASSO.

Gone! She is gone; and how suddenly! Gone into heaven she is, for I saw her enter; and as she went in, she smiled and pointed with her hand. And as I looked, I saw spirits standing together, cherubim and seraphim, the spirits of love and of understanding, and some with palms in their hands, like martyrs. And there was one like Dante; and still his look is thoughtful, but happy also, and like the face of one who sees into some mystery of God, how joyful it is. The brightness in which those spirits stood together was like twilight to the infinite splendor beyond. It was as though they were waiting there for some soul freshly coming out of this dark earth. And it was for me perhaps, -0, perhaps for me! Come over me, death! thou delicious change! For thou art immortality, and heaven, and sight of Leonora. Ay, she, -0, she has gone through this change that is changing me! And through her, death is grown sweet; for it is to where she is that my spirit is being drawn. Ah, Leonora! I do not see her. But she is in God, and so am I, and my death will be through God. Yes! blessed be the God who is

in her, and in me, and in our love for one another! He is in all things, and in death. And so, as the eyes of a believer open, all things grow beautiful, very beautiful, and death becomes divine.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

"O dreary life!" we cry, "O dreary life!"

And still the generations of the birds

Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land: savannah swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife,
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show above the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!

Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these ;-
But so much patience as a blade of
grass
Grows by, contented, through the heat and cold.

E. B. BROWNING.

AUBIN.

O THIS Westerly wind and sunshine! How the white clouds drive, and the poplar-leaves glance and rustle! Every breath is health this morning. So lofty and so blue the sky is, and such fresh thoughts one has in looking up at it. It is poetry and religion to be in the open air to-day; is it not? It is as though God were abroad. What am I saying? As though the Divinity were not omnipresent, and present always and everywhere alike! I mean, this morning feels as Eden may have felt, when, in the cool of the day, Adam became sensible of the Lord God's presence among the trees.