"God speaks to Al-Kyris!" and as the Prophet enunciated these words with majestic emphasis a visible thrill ran through the hushed assemblage.. "God saith: Get thee up, O thou City of Pleasure, from thy couch of sweet wantonness,--get thee up, gird thee with fire, and flee into the desert of forgotten things! For thou art become a blot on the fairness of My world, and a shame to the brightness of My Heaven!--thy rulers are corrupt,--thy teachers are proud of heart and narrow in judgment,--thy young men and maidens go astray and follow each after their own vain opinions,--in thy great temples and holy places Falsehood abides, and Vice holds court in thy glorious palaces. Wherefore because thou hast neither sought nor served Me, and because thou hast set up gold as thy god, and a multitude of riches as thy chief good, lo! now mine eyes have grown weary of beholding thee, and I will descend upon thee suddenly and destroy thee, even as a hill of sand is destroyed by the whirlwind,--and thou shalt be known in the land of My creatures no more! Woe to thee that thou hast taken pride in thy wisdom and learning, for therein lies thy much wickedness! If thou wert truly wise thou wouldst have found Me,--if thou wert nobly learned thou wouldst have understood My laws,--but thou art proved altogether gross, foolish, and incapable,--and the studies whereof thou hast boasted, the writings of thy wise men, the charts of sea and land, the maps of thy chief astronomers, the engraved tablets of learning, in gold, in silver, in ivory, in stone, thy chronicles of battle and conquest, the documents of thine explorers in far countries, the engines of thine invention whereby thou dost press the lightning into thy service, and make the air respond to the messages of thy kings and councillors,--all these shall be thrust away into an everlasting silence, and no man hereafter shall be able to declare that such things have ever been!" Here the speaker paused,--and Theos, surveying the vast listening crowds, fancied they looked like an audience of moveless ghosts rather than human beings,--so still, so pallid, so grave were they, one and all. Khosrul continued in softer, more melancholy accents, that, while plaintive, were still singularly impressive.