"Bring lights," said Lorenzo to a girl who appeared as the song concluded; and he sighed as if some sweet dream had been broken and passed away. "Oh! music--music such as that is indeed divine." "Ay," answered the singer "music is divine and so is poetry--so sculpture, painting, architecture. Every art, every science that raises man from his primitive brutality has a portion of divinity about it; for it elevates toward the Creator. Christ has said, 'Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect;' and though we cannot reach perfection, we may strain for it. "Nor, as some have supposed, do the arts render effeminate. They may soften the manners, as the old Roman says, but not the character. On the contrary, all that tends to exercise tends to strengthen. It is idleness, it is luxury which enfeebles. Athens in her highest pride of art was in her highest pride of power, and her artists learned by the pencil or the chisel to put on the buckler and to grasp the sword. And what does the combination of art and science do? What has it done, and what will it not do?" He gazed up for a moment like one inspired, and then added, "God knows, for in extent and majesty the results are beyond even our dreams. But I ever see the times afar when the yet undeveloped powers of man and nature shall work miracles--when mountains shall be moved or forced from side to side to smooth the path of our race, and bring nation closer to nation--when the very elements shall become subservient to the will of man, and when the energies of his nature, directed by science, shall no longer be squandered in war and bloodshed, but shall render war impossible, and bloodshed, under whatever name, a crime. "Oh peace, how beautiful art thou! Oh goodness, how wide and comprehensive ought to be thy reign! Angel of love, thou art the seraphim nearest to the throne of God! So help me Heaven, I would not kill the smallest bird that flutters from spray to spray, nor tread upon a beetle in my path!" There was something so exquisitely sweet in his voice, so sublime in his look, so marvellously graceful in his manner, that the two young lovers, while they gazed and listened, could almost have fancied him the angel of love whom he apostrophized. They sat silent when he paused, listening eagerly for more; but when he began to speak again, all was changed except that captivating power which seemed to command the assent or overrule the judgment of all who heard him. His mood was now changed, and nothing could be more light and playful than his talk, till the door was opened and another mood came over him.