Now the man wist not where it was the angel would take him nor what he would show him there. And when they came the angel shaded the man’s eyes with his wing, and when he moved it the man saw somewhat on the earth before them. For God had given it to that angel to unclothe a human soul; to take from it all those outward attributes of form, and colour, and age, and sex, whereby one man is known from among his fellows and is marked off from the rest, and the soul lay before them, bare, as a man turning his eye inwards beholds himself. They saw its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it; they saw its youth when the dew was melting, and the creature raised its Lilliputian mouth to drink from a cup too large for it, and they saw how the water spilt; they saw its hopes that were never realized; they saw its hours of intellectual blindness, men call sin; they saw its hours of all-radiating insight, which men call righteousness; they saw its hour of strength, when it leaped to its feet crying, “I am omnipotent;” its hour of weakness, when it fell to the earth and grasped dust only; they saw what it might have been, but never would be. The man bent forward. And the angel said, “What is it?” He answered, “It is I! it is myself!” And he went forward as if he would have lain his heart against it; but the angel held him back and covered his eyes. Now God had given power to the angel further to unclothe that soul, to take from it all those outward attributes of time and place and circumstance whereby the individual life is marked off from the life of the whole. Again the angel uncovered the man’s eyes, and he looked. He saw before him that which in its tiny drop reflects the whole universe; he saw that which marks within itself the step of the furthest star, and tells how the crystal grows under ground where no eye has seen it; that which is where the germ in the egg stirs; which moves the outstretched fingers of the little newborn babe, and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing upward; which moves where the jelly-fish sail alone on the sunny seas, and is where the lichens form on the mountains’ rocks. And the man looked. And the angel touched him. But the man bowed his head and shuddered. He whispered--“It is God!” And the angel re-covered the man’s eyes. And when he uncovered them there was one walking from them a little way off;--for the angel had re-clothed the soul in its outward form and vesture--and the man knew who it was. And the angel said, “Do you know him?” And the man said, “I know him,” and he looked after the figure. And the angel said, “Have you forgiven him?” But the man said, “How beautiful my brother is!” And the angel looked into the man’s eyes, and he shaded his own face with his wing from the light. He laughed softly and went up to God. But the men were together on earth. I awoke.