alf-stifled shriek--some sobbed--and a
loud hysterical laugh from one overcome with terror sounded ghastly
between the deepest of all dread repose--that which separates one peal
from another, when the flash and the roar are as one, and the thick air
smells of sulphur. The body feels its mortal nature, and shrinks as if
about to be withered into nothing. Now the muttering thunder seems to
have changed its place to some distant cloud--now, as if returning to
blast those whom it had spared, waxes louder and fiercer than
before--till the Great Tree that shelters the house is shivered with a
noise like the masts of a ship carried away by the board. "Look, father,
look--see yonder is an Angel all in white, descending from heaven!" said
little Alice, who had already been almost in the attitude of prayer, and
now clasped her hands together, and steadfastly, and without fear of the
lightning, eyed the sky. "One of God's Holy Angels--one of those who
sing before the Lamb!" And with an inspired rapture the fair child
sprung to her feet. "See ye her not--see ye her not--father--mother! Lo!
she beckons to me with a palm in her hand, like one of the palms in that
picture in our Bible, when our Saviour is entering into Jerusalem! There
she comes, nearer and nearer the earth--Oh! pity, forgive, and have
mercy on me, thou most beautiful of all the Angels--even for His name's
sake." All eyes were turned towards the black heavens, and then to the
raving child. Her mother clasped her to her bosom, afraid that terror
had turned her brain--and her father going to the door, surveyed an
ampler space of the sky. She flew to his side, and clinging to him
again, exclaimed in a wild outcry, "On her forehead a star! on her
forehead a star! And oh! on what lovely wings she is floating away, away
into eternity! The Angel, father, is calling me by my Christian name,
and I must no more abide on earth; but, touching the hem of her garment,
be wafted away to heaven!" Sudden as a bird let loose from the hand,
darted the maiden from her father's bosom, and with her face upward to
the skies, pursued her flight. Young and old left the house, and at that
moment the forked lightning came from the crashing cloud, and struck the
whole tenement into ruins. Not a hair on any head was singed; and with
one accord the people fell down upon their knees. From the eyes of the
child, the Angel, or Vision of the Angel, had disappeared; but on her
return to heaven, the Celes