with frescoes, and I heard them echo with entrancing music. Myriads of
human creatures flocked to these great buildings, swarming about them
like ants on an ant-heap. Some were eager to rescue books from
oblivion or to copy manuscripts, others were helping the poor, but
nearly all were studying. Up above this countless multitude rose giant
statues that they had erected in their midst, and by the gleams of a
strange light from some luminary as powerful as the sun, I read the
inscriptions on the bases of the statues--Science, History,
Literature.

The light died out. Again I faced the young girl. Gradually she
slipped into the dreary sheath, into the ragged cere-cloths, and
became an aged woman again. Her familiar brought her a little dust,
and she stirred it into the ashes of her chafing-dish, for the weather
was cold and stormy; and then he lighted for her, whose palaces had
been lit with thousands of wax-tapers, a little cresset, that she
might see to read her prayers through the hours of night.

"There is no faith left in the earth! . . ." she said.

In such a perilous plight did I behold the fairest and the greatest,
the truest and most life-giving of all Powers.



"Wake up, sir, the doors are just about to be shut," said a hoarse
voice. I turned and beheld the beadle's ugly countenance; the man was
shaking me by the arm, and the cathedral lay wrapped in shadows as a
man is wrapped in his cloak.