heart; I desire to keep thy soul in mine; thy will is mine; I will do

whatsoever thou biddest me. Since I cannot obtain thee, I will keep
thy will and all the thoughts that thou hast given me. If I may not

unite myself with thee except by the power of my spirit, I will cling
to thee in soul as the flame to what it laps. Speak!"

"Angel!" exclaimed the mysterious being, enfolding them both in one
glance, as it were with an azure mantle, "Heaven shall by thine

heritage!"
Silence fell among them after these words, which sounded in the souls

of the man and of the woman like the first notes of some celestial
harmony.

"If you would teach your feet to tread the Path to heaven, know that
the way is hard at first," said the weary sufferer; "God wills that

you shall seek Him for Himself. In that sense, He is jealous; He
demands your whole self. But when you have given Him yourself, never,

never will He abandon you. I leave with you the keys of the kingdom of
His Light, where evermore you shall dwell in the bosom of the Father,

in the heart of the Bridegroom. No sentinels guard the approaches, you
may enter where you will; His palaces, His treasures, His sceptre, all

are free. 'Take them!' He says. But--you must WILL to go there. Like
one preparing for a journey, a man must leave his home, renounce his

projects, bid farewell to friends, to father, mother, sister, even to
the helpless brother who cries after him,--yes, farewell to them

eternally; you will no more return than did the martyrs on their way
to the stake. You must strip yourself of every sentiment, of

everything to which man clings. Unless you do this you are but half-
hearted in your enterprise.

"Do for God what you do for your ambitious projects, what you do in
consecrating yourself to Art, what you have done when you loved a

human creature or sought some secret of human science. Is not God the
whole of science, the all of love, the source of poetry? Surely His

riches are worthy of being coveted! His treasure is inexhaustible, His
poem infinite, His love immutable, His science sure and darkened by no

mysteries. Be anxious for nothing, He will give you all. Yes, in His
heart are treasures with which the petty joys you lose on earth are

not to be compared. What I tell you is true; you shall possess His
power; you may use it as you would use the gifts of lover or mistress.

Alas! men doubt, they lack faith, and will, and persistence. If some
set their feet in the path, they look behind them and presently turn

back. Few decide between the two extremes,--to go or stay, heaven or
the mire. All hesitate. Weakness leads astray, passion allures into

dangerous paths, vice becomes habitual, man flounders in the mud and
makes no progress towards a better state.

"All human beings go through a previous life in the sphere of
Instinct, where they are brought to see the worthlessness of earthly

treasures, to amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who
can tell how many times the human being lives in the sphere of

Instinct before he is prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions,
where thought expends itself on erring science, where mind wearies at

last of human language? for, when Matter is exhausted, Spirit enters.
Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he

can be brought to understand the value of that silence and solitude
whose starry plains are but the vestibule of Spiritual Worlds? He

feels his way amid the void, makes trial of nothingness, and then at
last his eyes revert upon the Path. Then follow other existences,--all

to be lived to reach the place where Light effulgent shines. Death is
the post-house of the journey. A lifetime may be needed merely to gain

the virtues which annul the errors of man's preceding life. First
comes the life of suffering, whose tortures create a thirst for love.

Next the life of love and devotion to the creature, teaching devotion
to the Creator,--a life where the virtues of love, its martyrdoms, its

joys followed by sorrows, its angelic hopes, its patience, its
resignation, excite an appetite for things divine. Then follows the

life which seeks in silence the traces of the Word; in which the soul
grows humble and charitable. Next the life of longing; and lastly, the

life of prayer. In that is the noonday sun; there are the flowers,
there the harvest!

"The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the
invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others,--

existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no memory
for spiritual things. Thought alone holds the tradition of the bygone

life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret
source of human genius. Some receive the gift of form, some the gift

of numbers, others the gift of harmony. All these gifts are steps of
progress in the Path of Light. Yes, he who possesses a single one of

them touches at that point the Infinite. Earth has divided the Word--
of which I here reveal some syllables--into particles, she has reduced

it to dust and has scattered it through her works, her dogmas, her
poems. If some impalpable grain shines like a diamond in a human work,

men cry: 'How grand! how true! how glorious!' That fragment vibrates
in their souls and wakes a presentiment of heaven: to some, a melody

that weans from earth; to others, the solitude that draws to God. To
all, whatsoever sends us back upon ourselves, whatsoever strikes us

down and crushes us, lifts or abases us,--THAT is but a syllable of
the Divine Word.

"When a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will
follow surely. One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one

suffering endured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are
forever changed. All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by

walking straight before us. When the happy day arrives in which you
set your feet upon the Path and begin your pilgrimage, the world will

know nothing of it; earth no longer understands you; you no longer
understand each other. Men who attain a knowledge of these things, who

lisp a few syllables of the Word, often have not where to lay their
head; hunted like beasts they perish on the scaffold, to the joy of

assembled peoples, while Angels open to them the gates of heaven.
Therefore, your destiny is a secret between yourself and God, just as

love is a secret between two hearts. You may be the buried treasure,
trodden under the feet of men thirsting for gold yet all-unknowing

that you are there beneath them.
"Henceforth your existence becomes a thing of ceaseless activity; each

act has a meaning which connects you with God, just as in love your
actions and your thoughts are filled with the loved one. But love and

its joys, love and its pleasures limited by the senses, are but the
imperfect image of the love which unites you to your celestial Spouse.

All earthly joy is mixed with anguish, with discontent. If love ought
not to pall then death should end it while its flame is high, so that

we see no ashes. But in God our wretchedness becomes delight, joy
lives upon itself and multiplies, and grows, and has no limit. In the

Earthly life our fleeting love is ended by tribulation; in the
Spiritual life the tribulations of a day end in joys unending. The

soul is ceaselessly joyful. We feel God with us, in us; He gives a
sacred savor to all things; He shines in the soul; He imparts to us

His sweetness; He stills our interest in the world viewed for
ourselves; He quickens our interest in it viewed for His sake, and

grants us the exercise of His power upon it. In His name we do the
works which He inspires, we act for Him, we have no self except in

Him, we love His creatures with undying love, we dry their tears and
long to bring them unto Him, as a loving woman longs to see the

inhabitants of earth obey her well-beloved.
"The final life, the fruition of all other lives, to which the powers

of the soul have tended, and whose merits open the Sacred Portals to
perfected man, is the life of Prayer. Who can make you comprehend the

grandeur, the majesty, the might of Prayer? May my voice, these words
of mine, ring in your hearts and change them. Be now, here, what you

may be after cruel trial! There are privileged beings, Prophets,
Seers, Messengers, and Martyrs, all those who suffer for the Word and

who proclaim it; such souls spring at a bound across the human sphere
and rise at once to Prayer. So, too, with those whose souls receive

the fire of Faith. Be one of those brave souls! God welcomes boldness.
He loves to be taken by violence; He will never reject those who force

their way to Him. Know this! desire, the torrent of your will, is so
all-powerful that a single emission of it, made with force, can obtain

all; a single cry, uttered under the pressure of Faith, suffices. Be
one of such beings, full of force, of will, of love! Be conquerors on

the earth! Let the hunger and thirst of God possess you. Fly to Him as
the hart panting for the water-brooks. Desire shall lend you its

wings; tears, those blossoms of repentance, shall be the celestial
baptism from which your nature will issue purified. Cast yourself on

the breast of the stream in Prayer! Silence and meditation are the
means of following the Way. God reveals Himself, unfailingly, to the

solitary, thoughtful seeker.
"It is thus that the separation takes place between Matter, which so