nts about him, on a wide deck
laid down with scarlet, its prow crowned by the silver cross--a
silent watching figure, with a splendour of romance about him
more suggestive even than the material glory that showed his
newly won dignity.

There was not a soul there in those astounding crowds, whether
among those who, hanging here between heaven and earth, awaited
for the ceremonial reception, the coming of him who was Vicar of
one and Lord of the other, or even among those incalculable
multitudes beneath, who packed the streets, crowded the flat roofs
and looked from every window. It was this man, they knew, this
tiny red figure, sitting solitary and motionless, who scarcely
three months before had stood before the revolutionary Council of
Berlin, of his own will and choice--who had gone there and faced
what seemed a certain death, for love of the old man whose body
now lay beneath the high-altar of the tremendous cathedral
beneath, and to whose office and honours he had succeeded, and for
the sake of the message he had carried. It was this man, alone of
the whole Christian world, who after looking into the face of
death, not for himself only, but for one who was dearer to him and
to that Christian world than life itself, had seen in one moment
the last storm roll away from human history for ever; who had seen
with his own eyes, Christ in His Vicar--_Princeps gloriosus_ come
at last--take the power and reign.

He too was conscious of all this, at least subconsciously, as he
sat motionless, a figure carved in ivory, a man who had found
peace at last. Here, in the contemplating brain, as with his eyes
he looked over the vast city of London, enormous and exquisite
beyond the dreams of either the reformers or the artists of a
century ago, seen as through the crystal of the summer air, as he
lifted his eyes now and again to the solemn barges opposite with
all that that dignity meant; above all as he looked down that
immeasurable line, that roadway of a god, along which presently
at least the Vicar of a God should come--all this and a thousand
memories more--memories of events such as few experience in a
lifetime, crowded into twelve months--passed in endless defile,
coherent and consistent at last under the pointing finger of Him
who had directed and evolved them all.

* * * * *

First, then, he saw himself, a child in knowledge, beginning life
at a point where many leave it off, plunged into a world that was