servant, and had presumed to hear them himself, as it were Achimaas the
son of Sadoc. [I supposed that this obscure reference is to 2 Kings
xviii. 19.] And more than that, that he had presumed in thinking that he
could be such a man as our Lord would call to such an office. He had set
himself, it appeared, far above his fellows in even listening to our
Saviour's voice; he should rather have cried with saint Peter, _Exi a me
quia homo peccator sum Domine_. ["Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
O Lord" (Luke v. 8.)]

It was this sin that had driven him from God's Presence. Our Lord had
bestowed on him wonderful gifts of grace. He had visited him as He
visits few others and had led him in the Way of Union, and he had
followed, triumphing in this, giving God the glory in words only, until
he had fallen as it seemed from the height of presumption to the depth
of despair, and lay here now, excluded from the Majesty that he desired.

* * * * *

Now, here is a very wonderful thing, and I know not if I can make it
clear.

You understand, my children, a little of what I heard from Master
Richard's lips--of what it was that he suffered. But although all this
was upon him, he perceived afterwards, though not at the time, that
there was something in him that had not yielded to the agony. His body
was broken, and his mind amazed, and his soul obscured in this _Night_,
yet there was one power more, that we name the Will (and that is the
very essence of man, by which he shall be judged), that had not yet sunk
or cried out that it was so as the fiend suggested.