to one day reach that
journey's end; to be one day perfect; to be absolutely conformed in
mind and will to that most sacred of realities--the moral law.

It was this new vision which dawned on his soul, when the face and form
of his much-loved friend was taken away, and filled him with a profound
calm as the inevitable hour drew near.

I can no longer
But die rejoicing,
For through the magic
Of Him, the Mighty,
Who taught me in childhood
There on the borders
Of boundless ocean,
And all but in Heaven,
Hovers the gleam.

In the old days long past, when, tormented with doubts, embittered by
disappointment, he would fain be rid of his burden, the voice of the
Master kept ever repeating:--

"Follow the gleam".

And so he followed--followed it through life, over the wide earth,
until the land's end was reached. But even then the Spirit did not
forsake him. The "gleam" still shone like a star in the deepening sky,
till it stood at length over the waters at the gates of the great bar
that led out into the Infinite. And last of all, the "call," clear and
unmistakable; and there sure enough, waiting beyond the bar, was the
"Pilot," the Master of the gleam, "ready to receive the soul".[1]

[1] Jean Valjean's death in _Les Miserables_.

XV.

"THE UNKNOWN GOD."

The God on whom I ever gaze,
The God I never once behold;
Above the cloud, beneath the clod,
The Unknown God, the Unknown God."
--WILLIAM WATSON.

One great function of poetry is to keep open the road which leads from
the seen to the unseen world, and as the last echoes of this noble poem
die away, it would seem as though a door had been opened in heaven and
an unearthly vision had been revealed to our wondering eyes. It is as
though some strange inspiration had fallen upon one suddenly, like that
which the seer in the Apocalypse felt when he said, "And immediately I
was in the spirit". The truth is we have been led into the invisible
world, we have gained with the poet "a sense of God". The strange,
undefinable attraction of the infinite is upon us.

Perhaps we have not yet learnt how strong that fascination is; how that
it is not only the source of that inner light which we see reflected in
the countenance of the philosopher and saint, but that it is powerful
to arrest the attention of men who are for ever saying that no such
reality exists, or, that even if it does, man need no more concern
himself