"It is a beautiful choral, but it does not suit a gay social circle," said Cornelia, evidently deeply moved. She had felt that her voice grew tremulous during the recital, and thought herself obliged to apologize. "The profound melancholy of that sublime death overwhelms me in those few lines. They conjure up the whole picture of the saddest hour earth has ever known, and I cannot refrain from tears." "While you spoke I saw only the angels who were weeping there," whispered _Heinrich_, gazing at her with delight, "and yet your trembling voice touched me strangely. Who gave you this prophetic inspiration, which, after the lapse of centuries, feels agonies perhaps never endured? All the sufferings of Christ were mirrored in your eyes." "Oh, who could help feeling them?" replied Cornelia. "Who that truly entered into them could help being thrilled with the deepest grief? What a sacrifice, to make himself the bleeding example of his teachings! What a love, which devotes itself to secure the happiness of a world! When I read the history of the passion, it seems as if I had a thousand hearts, so keenly, so painfully, do I feel the death-agony of the One Heart that bore in itself the sorrows of all, suffered for all, bled for all, loved all,--even those who betrayed it,--and was understood and valued by so few. I see him turn pale, and feel how Mary counts his last sighs and dies ten deaths with him. The breezes pause in their course and are silent: the clouded sky bends heavily towards the earth; all creation is frozen with terror, and listens for the fearful moment when the God-man shall die,--when the monstrous murder of the Guiltless One shall be completed. And now he bends his head, and all is over. It is done, and the long-repressed woe breaks forth. The storm rages over the earth, rends the veil, bursts the false temple. The world groans; and the Lord himself, touched even in his unapproachable divinity, extends his arms to his beloved Son to receive him to his heart. Oh, my friend, who can read or hear this story without being moved to the very depths of his soul? Even if you deny this great event and prove that it never existed, and even reveal who invented it,--who subjected a world to the might of this thought,--he too was inspired by a higher power,--he too came from God and has performed a miracle; a miracle that no one can deny, for it uplifts itself in gigantic structures of stone in every land; it stamps its impress upon every grave; it receives the new-born infant with a holy ordinance; it is the last consolation of the dying; nay, at this very moment it fills your own breast with silent veneration: I can see it in you."