st away
The sins of the world!
And givest--and givest
Eternal life!"

"I cannot sing that pretty song," said my boy sadly. "There is nobody
to teach me. Father, I wish you _were_ a learned man!"

Now, this smote me to the heart, so that I would even have lifted my
voice and sought to join the chant, for the child's sake, and to
comfort him; but when I would have done so, behold, I could not lift my
soul; it resisted me like a weight too heavy for my lips; for, in this
land, song never rises higher than the level of the soul; there are
fine laws governing this fact whose nature I may not explain, and could
not at that time even understand, but of the fact itself I testify.

"Alas, alas, my son!" I said, "would God I were!"

Now suddenly, while I was conversing with my child, I perceived a stir
among the people, as if they moved to greet some person who was
advancing toward them. I looked in the direction whither all eyes were
turned; but I saw nothing to account for the excitement. While I stood
gazing and wondering, at one movement, as if it were by one heart-heat,
the great throng bowed their heads. Some object, some Presence of
which I could not catch a glimpse, had entered among them. Whispers
ran from lip to lip. I heard men say that He was here, that He was
there, that He was yonder, that He had passed them, that He touched
them.

"He blesseth me!" they murmured.

"And me! And me!"

"Oh, even me!"

I heard low cries of delight and sobs of moving tenderness. I heard
strange, wistful words from the disabled of soul who were among
us,--pleadings for I knew not what, offered to I knew not whom. I
heard words of sorrow and words of utter love, and I saw signs of
shame, and looks of rapture, and attitudes of peace and eager hope. I
saw men kneeling in reverence. I saw them prostrate in petition. I
saw them as if they were clinging affectionately to hands that they
kissed and wept upon. I saw them bowed as one bows before the act of
benediction.

These things I perceived, but alas, I could perceive no more. What
went I out, with the heavenly, happy people, for to see?

Naught, God help me, worse than naught; for mine eyes were holden.

Dark amid that spiritual vision, I stood stricken. Alone in all that
blessedness, was I bereft?

Whom, for very rapture, did they melt to welcome? Whom greeted they,
with that great wave of love, so annihilating to their consciousness of
themselves