And Futtey Sing trembled as they drew nigh to the porch of his temple; and the light which gleamed through the silvery veil of Truth fell on the types of his prayers. Lo! death had breathed on the birds whose plumage looked so bright from afar! Stiff and cold, with ruffled feathers, they lay on the marble! A few, but a few, with some feeble show of life, fluttered their pinions and rose for a little way from earth, then sank down again as though these pinions were of lead! And many others were already corrupted by decay, so that the Rajah shrank from the touch of them as from pollution! "Are these, then, thy merits!" exclaimed Truth; "thy lifeless prayers that rise not to Heaven--the prayers which thou fearest to examine! Here is the form, but where is the life--the outside show, but the spirit is wanting! Thou hast never uttered one real and acceptable prayer, for the first petition that can rise as on an eagle’s wing from guilty man to his Creator is the petition for mercy--the first cry that brings down a blessing is the cry, ’God be merciful to me a sinner!’" The Rajah bowed his head and was silent "Let us return into the Temple of the Heart," said Truth. "But a small portion of it can be seen by thee: it has deep recesses, which can never be explored but by the eye of Omniscience; yet mayst thou learn something by the quest." Then reluctantly, yet drawn on by invisible power, Futtey Sing re-entered through the porch of the temple. The place seemed strangely changed, as places do change in dreams. The gold on the pillars was dim, the silver was tarnished and blackened; where jewels had shone there were spots, and spots upon the pavement of marble. "What are these spots?" cried the Rajah; "I behold them wherever I turn my eye, staining the wall, specking the floor, numerous as a flight of locusts, which darken the earth as with a cloud!" "These are the evil words of thy lips," replied Truth; "every day has added to the number, and well mayst thou compare them to locusts, whose myriads blacken the plain. Thou hast deemed that a word once spoken hath passed away from thee for ever, because thou seest not its shape on the air, nor its shadow on the ground; but every one is remembered and recorded. Each hasty word of anger has fallen like a red drop, not to be washed away; every word of profanity or pride like a black drop, whose stain lies deep on the soul; nay, every idle and foolish word hath left its mark--and who, O Futtey Sing! shall number them?" Then the Rajah started and trembled. "What are these unclean birds," he cried, "that swoop round my head, filling the air with the rustle of their flight; and these winged reptiles and creeping ones that cross my path, unsightly and loathsome to behold?"