conscience in a
smooth, unresisting world, becomes an enchaining conversation, an
all-narrating fable. In the fields and halls of this old world lives
the poet, and virtue is the spirit of his earthly acts and influences;
and as this is the indwelling divinity among men, the marvellous reflex
of the higher world, so also is Fable. How safely can the poet now
follow the guidance of his inspiration, or if he possesses a lofty,
transcendent sense, follow higher essences, and submit to his calling
with child-like humility. The higher voice of the universe also speaks
within him, and cries with enchanting words to kindlier and more
familiar worlds. As religion is related to virtue, so is inspiration to
mythology; and as the history of revelation is treasured in sacred
writings, so the life of a higher world expresses itself in mythology
in manifold ways, in poems of wonderful origin. Fable and history
sustain to each other the most intimate relations, through paths the
most intricate, and disguises the most extraordinary; and the Bible and
mythology are constellations of one orbit."

"What you say is perfectly true," said Sylvester; "and now you can
probably comprehend that all nature subsists by the spirit of virtue
alone, and must ever become more permanent. It is the all-inflaming,
the all-quickening light in the embrace of earth. From the firmament,
that lofty dome of the starry realm, down to the ruffling carpet of the
varied meadow, all things will be sustained by it, united to us and
made comprehensible; and by it the unknown course of infinite nature's
history will be conducted to its consummation."

"Yes; and you have often as beautifully shown, before now, the
connexion between virtue and religion. Everything, which experience and
earthly activity embrace, forms the province of Conscience, which
unites this world with higher worlds. With a loftier sense religion
appears, and what formerly seemed an incomprehensible necessity of our
inmost nature, a universal law without any definite intent, now becomes
a wonderful, domestic, infinitely varied, and satisfying world, an
inconceivably interior communion of all the spiritual with God, and a
perceptible, hallowing presence of the only One, or of his Will, of his
Love in our deepest self."

"The innocence of your heart," Sylvester replied, "makes you a prophet.
All things will be revealed to you, and for you the world and its
history will be transformed into holy wri