sorrow,--such as might have shone in the orbs of the angel who enforced
upon Adam the sentence of expulsion from Paradise, and who, while
sharing the exile's grief, beheld in the remote horizon, far beyond the
tangled wilderness of Earth, another gate, wide opening to welcome him
to the Immortal Land. She was silent for a little time, and then she
murmured, lingering gently on the words, 'No, it must not be. We are,
indeed, inalienably one, in a nearer and dearer sense than can be
expressed by any transient symbol. Let us not seek to quit the
spiritual sphere in which we have long dwelt and communed together, for
one liable to discord and misinterpretation. I have an irresistible
impression that my life here will be very brief. While I remain, come
to me when you will, let me be the Egeria of your hours of leisure, and
a consoler in your cares,--but let us await, for another and a higher
life, the more perfect consummation of our love. For, oh, believe, as I
believe, faith is no mockery, nor is the heart's prophecy a lie. We
were not born to be the dupes of dreams or the sport of chance. The
voice which whispered to me long ago the promise fulfilled in this hour
tells me that in a bright Hereafter we shall find compensation for
every sorrow, reality for every ideal, and that there at last shall be
resolved in luminous perception the veiled and troubled mystery of
PRESENCE!'"


* * * * *

CHIEFLY ABOUT WAR-MATTERS.

BY A PEACEABLE MAN.