, no hell. Here our souls are
confined, cribbed, and overladen--borne down by the heavy flesh by which
they are, for the time, polluted; but the soul that has winged its
flight from clay is, I think, not one jot more pure, more bright, or
more perfect, than those within ourselves. Can they be made
subservient, say you! Yes, they can; they can be forced, when mortals
possess the means and power. The evil-inclined may be forced to good,
as well as to evil. It is not the good and perfect spirits that we
subject by art, but those that are inclined to wrong. It is over them
that mortals have the power. Our arts have no power over the perfect
spirits, but over those which are ever working evil, and which are bound
to obey and do good, if those who master them require it."

"You still resort to forbidden arts, Amine. Is that right?"

"Right! If we have power given to us, it is right to use it."

"Yes, most certainly, for good; but not for evil."

"Mortals in power, possessing nothing but what is mundane, are
answerable for the use of that power; so those gifted by superior means
are answerable as they employ those means. Does the God above make a
flower to grow, intending that it should not be gathered! No! neither
does he allow supernatural aid to be given, if he did not intend that
mortals should avail themselves of it."

As Amine's eyes beamed upon Philip's, he could not for the moment subdue
the idea rising in his mind, that she was not like other mortals; and he
calmly observed, "Am I sure, Amine, that I am wedded to one mortal as
myself?"

"Yes! yes! Philip, compose yourself, I am but mortal; would to Heaven I
were not. Would to Heaven I were one of those who could hover over you,
watch you in all your perils, save and protect you in this your mad
career but I am but a poor weak woman, whose heart beats fondly,
devotedly for you--who for you would dare all and everything--who,
changed in her nature, has become courageous and daring from her love--
and who rejects all creeds which would prevent her from calling upon
heaven, or earth, or hell, to assist her in retaining with her her
soul's existence!"

"Nay! nay! Amine,--say not you reject the creed. Does not this,"--and
Philip pulled from his bosom the holy relic,--"does not this, and the
message sent by it, prove our creed is true?"

"I have thought much of it, Philip. At first it startled me almost into
a belief; but even your own priests helped