aters. And then, at the very moment of calm and peace, the
seventh seal is opened,--and nothing follows! the very angels of heaven
seem to stand with closed eyes, compressed lips, and beating heart,
waiting for what shall be.

And then at last the visions come crowding before the gaze again--the
seven trumpets are sounded, the bitter, burning stars fall, the locusts
swarm out from the smoking pit, and death and woe begin their work;
till at last the book is delivered to the prophet, and his heart is
filled with the sweetness of the truth.

I have no desire to trace the precise significance of these things. I
do not wish that these tapestries of wrought mysteries should be
suspended upon the walls of history. I do not think that they can be
so suspended; nor have I the least hope that these strange sights, so
full both of brightness and of horror, should ever be seen by mortal
eye. But that a human soul should have lost itself in these august
dreams, that the book of visions should have been thus strangely
guarded through the ages, and at last, clothed in the sweet cadences of
our English tongue, should be read in our ears, till the words are
soaked through and through with rich wonder and tender
associations--that is, I think, a very wonderful and divine thing. The
lives of all men that have an inner eye for beauty are full of such
mysteries, and surely there is no one, of those that strive to pierce
below the dark experiences of life, who is not aware, as he reckons
back the days of his life, of hours when the seals of the book have
been opened. It has been so, I know, in my own life. Sometimes, at
the rending of the seal, a gracious thing has gone forth, bearing
victory and prosperity. Sometimes a dark figure has ridden away,
changing the very face of the earth for a season. Sometimes a thunder
of dismay has followed, or a vision of sweet peace and comfort; and
sometimes one has assuredly known that a seal has been broken, to be
followed by a silence in heaven and earth.

And thus these solemn and mournful visions retain a great hold over the
mind; it is, with myself, partly the childish associations of wonder
and delight. One recurred so eagerly to the book, because, instead of
mere thought and argument, earthly events, wars and dynasties, here was
a gallery of mysterious pictures, things seen out of the body, scenes
of bright colour and monstrous forms, enacted on the stage of heaven.
That is entrancing