ast,
And plunged in thought again.'"

The lad had a sympathetic voice; and there was a curious, pathetic
thrill in the tones of it as he went on to describe the result of that
awful musing--the new-born joy awakening in the East--the victorious
West veiling her eagles and snapping her sword before this strange new
worship of the Child--

"And centuries came, and ran their course,
And, unspent all that time,
Still, still went forth that Child's dear force,
And still was at its prime."

But now--in these later days around us!--

"Now he is dead! Far hence He lies
In the lorn Syrian town;
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down."

The great divine wave had spent itself. But were we to sit supinely
by--this was what he asked, though not precisely in these consecutive
words, for sometimes he walked to and fro in his eagerness, and
sometimes he ate a bit of bread, or sat down opposite his friend for the
purpose of better confronting him--to wait for that distant and
mysterious East to send us another revelation? Not so. Let the
proud-spirited and courageous West, that had learned the teachings of
Christianity but never yet applied them--let the powerful West establish
a faith of her own: a faith in the future of humanity itself--a faith in
future of recompense and atonement to the vast multitudes of mankind who
had toiled so long and so grievously--a faith demanding instant action
and endeavor and self-sacrifice from those who would be its first
apostles.

"The complaining millions of men
Darken in labor and pain."

And why should not this Christianity, that had so long been used to gild
the thrones of kings and glorify the ceremonies of priests--that had so
long been monopolized by the rich and the great and the strong, whom its
Founder despised and denounced--why should it not at length come to the
help of those myriads of the poor and the weak and the suffering whose
cry for help had been for so many centuries disregarded? Here was work
for the idle, hope for the hopeless, a faith for them who were perishing
for want of a faith.

"You say all this is vague--a vision--a sentiment?" he said, talking in
the same eager way. "Then that is my fault. I cannot explain it all to
you in a few words. But do not run away with the notion that it is mere
words--a St. Simonian dream of perfectibility, or anything like that. It
is practica