INTERLUDE.

A STRAIN of music closed the tale,
A low, monotonous, funeral wail,
That with its cadence, wild and sweet,
Made the long Saga more complete.

"Thank God," the Theologian said, "The reign of violence is dead, Or dying surely from the world; While Love triumphant reigns instead, And in a brighter sky o'erhead

His blessed banners are unfurled.

And most of all thank God for this:

The war and waste of clashing creeds
Now end in words, and not in deeds,
And no one suffers loss, or bleeds,
For thoughts that men call heresies.

8

"I stand without here in the porch,

I hear the bell's melodious din,

I hear the organ peal within,

I hear the prayer, with words that scorch
Like sparks from an inverted torch,
I hear the sermon upon sin,

With threatenings of the last account.

And all, translated in the air,

Reach me but as our dear Lord's Prayer,

And as the Sermon on the Mount.

"Must it be Calvin, and not Christ?
Must it be Athanasian creeds,

Or holy water, books, and beads?
Must struggling souls remain content
With councils and decrecs of Trent?
And can it be enough for these

The Christian Church the year embalms
With evergreens and boughs of palms,
And fills the air with litanies?

"I know that yonder Pharisee

Thanks God that he is not like me;
In my humiliation dressed,

I only stand and beat my breast,
And pray for human charity.

"Not to one church alone, but seven, The voice prophetic spake from heaven ; And unto each the promise came, Diversified, but still the same;

For him that overcometh are

The new name written on the stone,

The raiment white, the crown, the throne,

And I will give him the Morning Star!

"Ah! to how many Faith has been
No evidence of things unseen,

But a dim shadow, that recasts
The creed of the Phantasiasts,

For whom no Man of Sorrows died,

For whom the Tragedy Divine

Was but a symbol and a sign,

And Christ a phantom crucified!

"For others a diviner creed

Is living in the life they lead.
The passing of their beautiful feet
Blesses the pavement of the street,
And all their looks and words repeat
Old Fuller's saying, wise and sweet,
Not as a vulture, but a dove,

The Holy Ghost came from above.

"And this brings back to me a tale
So sad the hearer well may quail,
And question if such things can be;
Yet in the chronicles of Spain

Down the dark pages runs this stain,
And naught can wash them white again,
So fearful is the tragedy."

THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE.

TORQUEMADA.

In the heroic days when Ferdinand
And Isabella ruled the Spanish land,
And Torquemada, with his subtle brain,
Ruled them, as Grand Inquisitor of Spain,
In a great castle near Valladolid,

Moated and high and by fair woodlands hid,
There dwelt, as from the chronicles we learn,
An old Hidalgo proud and taciturn,

Whose name has perished, with his towers of

stone,

And all his actions save this one alone;
This one, so terrible, perhaps 't were best
If it, too, were forgotten with the rest;
Unless, perchance, our eyes can see therein.