se. The better a genus is fitted for variability
in the conformation of its individuals, the higher is the rank it
is entitled to hold in the graduated series of creatures capable of
development; and it is precisely that wonderful many-sidedness of his
inner life, and of its outward manifestation, which assigns to man his
superiority over all other animated beings.

Some few of our qualities and activities can be fitly symbolized in
allegorical fashion by animals; thus, courage finds an emblem in the
lion, gentleness in the dove, but the perfect human form has satisfied
a thousand generations, and will satisfy a thousand more, when we desire
to reduce the divinity to a sensible image, for, in truth, our heart
is as surely capable of comprehending "God in us,"--that is in our
feelings--as our intellect is capable of comprehending His outward
manifestation in the universe.

Every characteristic of every finite being is to be found again in man,
and no characteristic that we can attribute to the Most High is foreign
to our own soul, which, in like manner, is infinite and immeasurable,
for it can extend its investigating feelers to the very utmost boundary
of space and time. Hence, the roads which are open to the soul, are
numberless as those of the divinity. Often they seem strange, but the
initiated very well know that these roads are in accordance to fixed
laws, and that even the most exceptional emotions of the soul may be
traced back to causes which were capable of giving rise to them and to
no others.

Blows hurt, disgrace is a burden, and unjust punishment embitters the
heart, but Paulus' soul had sought and found a way to which these simple
propositions did not apply.

He had been ill-used and contemned, and, though perfectly innocent, ere
he left the oasis he was condemned to the severest penance. As soon as
the bishop had heard from Petrus of all that had happened in his
house, he had sent for Paulus, and as he could answer nothing to the
accusation, he had expelled him from his flock--to which the anchorites
belonged--forbidden him to visit the church on week-days, and declared
that this his sentence should be publicly proclaimed before the
assembled congregation of the believers.

And how did this affect Paulus as he climbed the mountain, lonely and
proscribed?

A fisherman from the little seaport of Pharan, who met him half-way and
exchanged a greeting with him, thought to himself as he looked after
him