evergreens were
scattered among the lights which burned around it; and May knew that
some young virgin had gone to her espousals in the kingdom of the LAMB.
Half of the coffin-lid was turned back, and as she looked more
attentively on the marble features, turned to strange and marvellous
beauty by the great mystery--death--she recognized them. They belonged
to a poor crippled girl, who had suffered from her childhood with an
incurable disease, and who had been almost dependent on the alms of the
faithful for her daily support.

"What a change for thee, poor Magdalen!" whispered May, as she gazed
down through her tears. "I look on the pale vestment of clay in which
you suffered, and know that for you the awful mystery is solved.
Thorns no more wound your heart; poverty and disease have done their
worst; while far up, beyond the power of earth and evil, your destiny
is accomplished. A poor mendicant no longer, the King of glory himself
ushered you into the unrevealed splendors of that region which mortal
eye hath never seen. You have beheld the glorious face of the sacred
humanity of Jesus Christ; your eyes have seen the Queen of heaven; and
the veiled vision of the Eternal Father has greeted you. Oh, what
cheer! Oh, what hope, to make joyful the purifying sufferings of
purgatory! _and now_, on your altar, Jesus, the high-priest and
powerful Lord, full of clement mercy and majestic power, offers himself
for thy speedy liberation and admission into the beatific vision. Oh,
Magdalen! how art thou exalted! how beyond all imperial splendor and
royal power art thou lifted up!"

And while the divine mystery approached its consummation, still upward
arose the voice of the church in plaintive chants, interceding for the
departed, who, in the "_suffering church_" rejoiced with a mournful
rapture amidst its patient agony which would ere long be exchanged from
dreary Calvary to an eternal Thabor. But now the awful moment arrived;
the Lord Jesus had come; and although they saw him veiled under the
form of bread, they knew HE was there; they _felt_ that august presence
thrilling down like a still, small voice, into their souls, _It is I_;
and the aspirations of that kneeling crowd went forth in solemn
adoration; and returning sweetness filled each devout mind with
benediction, which flowing thence again to its divine source, offered
worthy homage to the LAMB. A ray of wintry sunlight stole through a
curtained window near t