I would seek Thee in these forms, and in proportion
as they reveal Thee, they teach me to go beyond themselves.
I would learn from them all, looking only to Thee! But let me
set no limits from the past, to my own soul, or to any soul.

'Ages may not produce one worthy to loose the shoes of
the Prophet of Nazareth; yet there will surely be another
manifestation of that Word which was in the beginning. And all
future manifestations will come, like Christianity, "not to
destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil." The very
greatness of this manifestation demands a greater. As an
Abraham called for a Moses, and a Moses for a David, so does
Christ for another Ideal. We want a life more complete and
various than that of Christ. We have had a Messiah to teach
and reconcile; let us now have a Man to live out all the
symbolical forms of human life, with the calm beauty of a
Greek God, with the deep consciousness of a Moses, with the
holy love and purity of Jesus.'

X.

SELF-SOVEREIGNTY.

* * * * *

To one studying the signs of the times, it was quite instructive to
watch the moods of a mind so sensitive as Margaret's; for her delicate
meter indicated in advance each coming change in the air-currents of
thought. But I was chiefly interested in the processes whereby she was
gaining harmony and unity. The more one studied her, the more plainly
he saw that her peculiar power was the result of fresh, fervent,
exhaustless, and indomitable affections. The emotive force in her,
indeed, was immense in volume, and most various in tendency; and it
was wonderful to observe the outward equability of one inwardly so
impassioned.

This was, in fact, the first problem to be solved in gaining
real knowledge of her commanding character: "How did a person,
by constitution so impetuous, become so habitually serene?"
In temperament Margaret seemed a Bacchante,[A] prompt for wild
excitement, and fearless to tread by night the mountain forest, with
song and dance of delirious mirth; yet constantly she wore the laurel
in token of purification, and, with water from fresh fountains,
cleansed the statue of Minerva. Stagnancy and torpor were intolerable
to her free and elastic impulses; a brilliant fancy threw over each
place and incident Arcadian splendor; and eager desire, with energetic
purposes, filled her with the consciousness of larg