wn angel.

NATHAN.

Recha were worthy of so blest a sight.
And would not see in him a fairer form
Than he would see in her.

RECHA (_smiling_).

Whom would you flatter--
The angel, dearest father, or yourself?

NATHAN.

And yet methinks, dear Recha, if a man--
Just such a man as Nature daily fashions--
Had rendered you this service, he had been
A very angel to you.

RECHA.

But he was
No angel of that stamp, but true and real.
And have I not full often heard you say
'Tis possible that angels may exist?
And how God still works miracles for those
Who love Him? And I love Him dearly, father.

NATHAN.

And He loves you; and 'tis for such as you
That He from all eternity has wrought
Such ceaseless wonders daily.

RECHA.

How I love
To hear you thus discourse!

NATHAN.

Well, though it sound
A thing but natural and common-place
That you should by a Templar have been saved,
Is it the less a miracle for that?
The greatest of all miracles seems this:
That real wonders, genuine miracles,
Can seem and grow so commonplace to us.
Without this universal miracle,
Those others would scarce strike a thinking man,
Awaking wonder but in children's minds,
Who love to stare at strange, unusual things,
And hunt for novelty.

DAJA.

Why will you thus
With airy subtleties perplex her mind,
Already overheated?

NATHAN.

Silence, Daja!
And was it then no miracle that Recha
Should be indebted for her life to one
Whom no small miracle preserved himself?
Who ever heard before, that Saladin
Pardoned a Templar? that a Templar asked it--
Hoped it--or for his ransom offered more
Than his own sword--belt, or at most his dagger?

RECHA.

That argues for me, father! All this proves
That my preserver was no Templar knight,
But only seemed so. If no captive Templar
Has e'er come hith