alive to every pang and sorrow which can torture mortals, rejoicing with
them, and taking upon Himself unspeakable humiliation, suffering, and
death, with a stricken, bleeding, and yet self-devoting heart, for pure
love of the wretched race to which He could stoop from His glory. Yes,
this Christ could be his Redeemer too. The Almighty Lord had become his
perfect and most loving friend, his glorious, but lenient and tender
brother, to whom he could gladly give his whole heart, who understood
everything, who was ready to forgive everything--even all that was
seething in his aching heart which longed for purification--and all
because He once had suffered as a man suffers.

For the first time he, the Jacobite, dared to confess so much to himself;
and not solely for Paula's sake. A violent clanging on a cracked metal
plate roused him from his meditations by its harsh clamor; the sacrament
of the Last Supper was about to be administered: the invariable
conclusion of the Jacobite service. The bishop came forth from behind
the screen of the inner sanctuary, poured some wine into a silver cup and
crumbled into it two little cakes stamped with the Coptic cross. Of this
mixture he first partook, and then gave it in a spoon to each member of
the congregation who came up to receive it. Orion approached after two
elders of the Church. Finally the priest rinsed out the cup, and drained
the very washings, that no drop of the saving liquid should be lost.

How high had Orion's heart throbbed when, as a youth, he had been
admitted for the first time to this most sacred of all Christian
privileges! He was instructed in its deep and glorious symbolism, and
had often felt the purifying, saving, and refreshing effect of the
sacrament, strengthening him in all goodness, when he had partaken of it
with his parents and brothers. Hand-in-hand, they had gone home feeling
as if newly robed in body and soul and more closely bound together than