ye progress in wisdom and in
good; yet, will they never gain a fixed beatitude. Know, then, oh
mortal Mardian! that when translated hither, thou wilt but put off
lowly temporal pinings, for angel and eternal aspirations. Start not:
thy human joy hath here no place: no name.

"Still, I mournful mused; then said:--'Many Mardians live, who have no
aptitude for Mardian lives of thought: how then endure more earnest,
everlasting, meditations?'

"'Such have their place,' I heard.

"'Then low I moaned, 'And what, oh! guide! of those who, living
thoughtless lives of sin, die unregenerate; no service done to Oro or
to Mardian?'

"'They, too, have their place,' I heard; 'but 'tis not here. And
Mardian! know, that as your Mardian lives are long preserved through
strict obedience to the organic law, so are your spiritual lives
prolonged by fast keeping of the law of mind. Sin is death.'

"'Ah, then,' yet lower moan made I; 'and why create the germs that sin
and suffer, but to perish?'

"'That,' breathed my guide; 'is the last mystery which underlieth all
the rest. Archangel may not fathom it; that makes of Oro the
everlasting mystery he is; that to divulge, were to make equal to
himself in knowledge all the souls that are; that mystery Oro guards;
and none but him may know.'

"Alas! were it recalled, no words have I to tell of all that now my
guide discoursed, concerning things unsearchable to us. My sixth sense
which he opened, sleeps again, with all the wisdom that it gained.

"Time passed; it seemed a moment, might have been an age; when from
high in the golden haze that canopied this heaven, another angel came;
its vans like East and West; a sunrise one, sunset the other. As
silver-fish in vases, so, in his azure eyes swam tears unshed.

"Quick my guide close nested me; through its veins the waning light
throbbed hard.

"'Oh, spirit! archangel! god! whate'er thou art,' it breathed; 'leave
me: I am but blessed, not glorified.'

"So saying, as down from doves, from its wings dropped sounds. Still
nesting me, it crouched its plumes.

"Then, in a snow of softest syllables, thus breathed the greater and
more beautiful:--'From far away, in fields beyond thy ken, I heard thy
fond discourse with this lone Mardian. It pleased me well; for thy
humility was manifeat; no arrogance of knowing. Come _thou_ and learn
new things.'

"And straight it overarched us with its plumes; which, then, down-
sweeping, bore us up to regi