Who to his own hurt speaks the truth, he tells The Mystic Speech that pious rite excels. Rude orisons of alien He will bless If they are offered but in faithfulness.'" "It is good," said Bertram, "modes of worship are many, faiths are nearly as various as the temperaments of mankind, but virtue is one. No universal intuition prompts to a form of ritual as acceptable to God, but the moral sense of all the race points unswervingly to the pole-star of the soul--Truth, another name for Purity. "Many," he continued, "have been the self-ordained guides of the human conscience, blind leaders of the blind, would-be saviours of the world! Why should a mazed wandering soul be so eager to summon followers, so ready to point the way? What strange prompting of love or daring is here? It surely is not from desire of applause that men seek the leadership on the road to heaven, for what man so decried in the history of the world as he who arrogates to himself the place and name of Priest? And yet priest and poet are akin. The man who seeks the place of mediator and interpreter betwixt his fellows and the Unknowable must needs be an idealist, and if he deal with illusion who so unfortunate as he?" They halted that night where two streams met. Bathed in moonlight it was a scene of great beauty and repose, a confluence of the beatitudes of earth and air. Peace filled their souls so that they perceived the unexpressive adoration of the river, and the trees, and the solemn moonlight. It was such an hour as makes poets of men, and Atma raised his head and spoke: "At tranquil eve is proper time for prayer, When winds are fair, And gracious shadows 'mong the myrtles move. The list'ning eve it was ordained for prayer. By the soft murmur of thy cooing dove Teach me to love; Grant that thy starry front fill my death's night With joyful light; And hushed as on this bank the violet's close Be my repose. Abide Love, Happiness, and Peace till shining morn From the same birth that gave the past be borne." Bertram: "Fair are these hillside haunts at even calm, And sweet the fragrance of each flowery spray. Dew of the Spirit, fall in heavenly balm Upon my slumbers; bounteous Lord, I pray, Like one who sang thy praise in other way, Bless Thou the wicked, for the Good, I know, Are blessed already, blessed they come and go." CHAPTER XIII.