THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.

"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit
the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein,--sea, earth, air,
stars, trees, moral creatures,--yea, whatsoever there is we do not
see,--angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes
it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He
anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause
it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart,
overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to
myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide,
and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He
who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it
knows Eternity! O--Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth!
Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things
good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the
worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its
place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!--how high art
Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never
departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee."
--AUGUSTINE'S Soliloquies, Book VII.

The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,--