ictly, an emotion. This
emotion is so single and absorbing that there is some gleam of it in
each varying view, and every sentiment is warm with it, however the
flame may lurk as beneath a crust of lava. Only from a richly gifted
mind, and a heart whose longings no fullness of mortal affection has
power to permanently appease, could these aspirations issue. It is the
tender complaint and patient hope of one whom the earth, and all that
is therein, cannot satisfy. Moreover, so pure and irrepressible is the
natural desire of the heart, so does it color and constitute all
the dream of Paradise, that the divinest Hope not only thrills and
palpitates with Love's ripest imaginings, but puts on nuptial robes.
Touchingly she pictures herself as "The Mystic Spouse,--her that cometh
up from the wilderness, leaning upon the arm of her Beloved,--and we
shall see that she, like her Lord, is wounded in her heart, her hands,
and her feet." Though sowing in such still remembered pain, she yet
reaps with unspeakable joy. She has now the full assurance that the
mystic and immortal embrace is for her, and in the fulness of her heart
cries, "When were Love's arms stretched so wide as upon the Cross?"

It is in keeping with such an aspiration that this and kindred natures
should perceive in Christianity the sacred mystery from which is to be
drawn, in the world to come, the full fruition of the tenderest and
most vital impulse of the human heart, and therefore to be most fitly
meditated and vividly anticipated in cloistered seclusion. Throughout
their revelations there is a yearning for Infinite Love; and ardent
receptivity is regarded as the true condition for the conception and
enjoyment of religion. It is clear that they have a passion, sublimated
and glorified indeed, but still a passion, for Christ. This is the
mightiest impulse to that exaltation of His person against which the
calm and consummate reasoner contends in vain. Truly we are fearfully
and wonderfully made! The soul is touched with the strong necessity of
loving; and its power becomes intense and inappeasable in proportion to
the capacity of the heart; and yet some of the greatest of those have
reposed so supremely in the innate and ineffable Ideal that to the
uninitiated they have seemed in their serenity as pulseless as pearls.
Through this sublime influence lovely women have become nuns, and
have lived and died saints, that they might continually indulge and
constantly c