nd. The stars said, "Welcome," and the hills, "All is
well."

Mother Earth was lying out in more than starlight--but not asleep. She
was laughing, wise, sweet in eternal youth. Always she had been dear to
him, this Flesh Mother. Her storms and terrors she had shown, but never
harmed him. He loved her, sea and mountain and plain--_God-Mother_ and
the Kashmir border--the highway ride with the lustrous lady and its
sunshine--the path through the wood.... What a boy and girl they had
been! How he had loved her--and the day--how he had suffered for it!

And now Bedient knelt upon the stones, uplifted his hands to the
starlight, and cried in a low voice: "God bless Beth Truba, and help me
to bless her at every turning of her life! God bless Beth Truba for the
sensitizing sorrow she gave me, without which this hour could not have
been revealed to me!"

... He seemed to be leaping from crest to crest in an ocean of
happiness.... Some glorious magnetic Presence strode beside him. The
night quivered with mighty energies--strange brightenings flashed
before his eyes. He wanted nothing--but to give.... All was clear to
him. Immortality was here and now: This life but a hut upon the
headland of interminable continents, yet as much a part of immortality,
as the life of the star-clothed Master who blinded Saul on the road to
Damascus.

What a symphony--the flower, the star, the drop of rain, the rose, the
child, the harvest, the voice of love, the soul of Woman,--all from the
Luminary, God,--all His immortal symphony.

He was filled with light--as a still, clear harbor at high noon--gems
and treasure-horns flashing in the depths. He _realized_ God. This was
a ray of God that penetrated him--the spiritual essence "all science
transcending."

With joy, a sentence he had once heard returned, "Prayer is not
catching God's attention, but permitting him to hold ours!"... Faith
and truth are one; Faith is the scaffolding in which the structure of
Truth is builded; that which is Faith to us, is Truth to the angels....
As never before, he realized that wisdom comes from the inner light of
man, and not from the comprehension of externals.... He knew now the
meaning of ecstasy on the faces of the dying, and remembered with
confusion and alarm that men of this day were afraid of Death!... How
much more should they fear birth--birth, the ordeal of the soul--the
putting on of flesh. Great souls put on flesh to hasten the way of
their young