icate, and should, indeed, absolutely refrain from entering
churches.

It was the vision of an inspired soul, or of a diseased mind--for the
two extremes may meet. A pure religion, based upon the direct
communion of man's spirit with God, free from false and artificial
piety, having no churches or ceremonies, but exhaling the sentiment of
brotherly love--what a "vision splendid" is this, so often sought but
never yet attained!

In the age preceding the birth of Christ many of the finer spirits were
already rebelling, like Sister Helen, against the use of agents between
the human soul and God. Simeon the Just, Hillel, Jesus, son of Sirach,
and many others, like Isaiah of old, besought men to cease importuning
God with offerings of incense and the blood of rams. "What is needed,"
they said, "is to have a pure heart and to love virtue." No one,
however, succeeded in formulating this teaching in so sublime a fashion
as Christ Himself. For what is pure Christianity, as revealed by Him,
if not the divine aspiration towards Heaven of all men as brothers,
without fetters of creed and dogma, and without intermediaries?

In the name of the Divine Messenger, Sister Helen protested against the
errors of men. She reproached them with their sins and their mistakes.
But though the same teachings eighteen centuries before had brought
about a moral renaissance, repeated by Helen they only caused untold
miseries to descend upon her head. Driven from the Church and
threatened with a prison-cell, her heart grew bitter within her, and
her once pure spirit was clouded over.

A vision came to her, in which she learnt that the end of the world was
drawing near, Anti-Christ having already made his appearance.

"We must prepare for the Last Judgment," she declared. "All family
life must be renounced, wives must leave their husbands, sisters their
brothers, and children their parents. The Day of God is at hand!"

After being expelled from the convent, the beautiful Helen--for she was
beautiful when she first gave herself to God--carried her sacred
message to the simple-minded peasants. By them she was understood and
venerated, and their admiration filled her with ecstasy.

Two priests and several other nuns were attracted by the reports of her
sanctity, and came to join her. She still repeated that Anti-Christ
was already upon earth, and that the end was near. One day she saw him
face to face and tried to kill him, for the glor