thitherward; for he who just now paced
the solitary glade--none other than the chosen leader of God's host,
the majestic lawgiver, the meekest and the mightiest of all created
beings--he likewise wends his way to these attractive tents. With him
enters Aaron, a venerable man, with hoary beard and flowing white
robes; and follow him a majestic-looking female who was wont to lead
the solemn dance--Miriam the sister of Aaron; and a youth of heroic
bearing, in the springtime of that life whose maturity was spent in
leading the chosen race to conquest in the promised land.

With proud and pleased humility did the fair inmates of those tents,
the most accomplished of Israel's daughters, display to their
illustrious visitors the "fine needlework" to which their time and
talents had been for a long season devoted, and which was now on the
eve of completion. The "holy garments" which God had commanded to be
made "for glory and for beauty;" the pomegranates on the hem of the
high priest's robe, wrought in blue and purple and scarlet; the
flowers on his "girdle of needlework," glowing as in life; the border
on the ephod, in which every varied colour was shaded off into a rich
and delicate tracery of gold; and above all, that exquisite work, the
most beautiful of all their productions--the veil which separated the
"Holy of Holies," the place where the Most High vouchsafed his
especial presence, where none but the high priest might presume to
enter, and he but once a year, from the remaining portions of the
Tabernacle. This beautiful hanging was of fine white linen, but the
original fabric was hardly discernible amid the gorgeous tracery with
which it was inwrought. The whole surface was covered with a profusion
of flowers, intermixed with fanciful devices of every sort, except
such as might represent the forms of animals--these were rigidly
excluded. Cherubims seemed to be hovering around and grasping its
gorgeous folds; and if tradition and history be to be credited, this
drapery merited, if ever the production of the needle did merit, the
epithet which English talent has since rendered classical,
"_Needlework Sublime_."

Long, despite the advancing shades of evening, would the visitors have
lingered untired to comment upon this beautiful production, but one
said, "Behold!" and immediately all, following the direction of his
outstretched arm, looked towards the Tabernacle. There a thin spiral
flame is seen to gleam palely throug