While the whole community quivered with inward jubilance, two momentary dangers threatened it: it might take some time to recover its equilibrium; and its thoughts and interests, narrowed by the necessity of defence against this threat from below, might be long in rising to the true cosmic level. Some exceptional stimulus was needed to raise their lives and aims, some appeal to the spirit, which would set them free from the trammels of earth and all deteriorative excitement. Such liberation had been by no means uncommon in their past, but no occasion for it had occurred since I had entered on my novitiate, except in the case of individuals and families; then I had been too busy with my training or too distant from the household concerned to notice it. Now it was to be a national purification of the nature, and I was to share in it. Would this be a religious ceremony, a day of humiliation and prayer, such as I had often witnessed in my old home after great national disasters or during plague or famine? I had seen no churches or temples, no signs of religious service, no acts of private worship. I had never heard anyone speak of gods or priests or expiations. Was this at last to be the revelation of the inner shrine, into which I had never been able to penetrate? I had not long to wait for the solution of my problems. Purposes here moved to conclusions with lightning swiftness, and when one impulse stirred the people, there was needed no heralding to mass them in the desired place. I found myself drawn with my proparents and Thyriel and her household towards a massive building that stood upon a peak far up the slopes of Lilaroma. There was no need of road or steps to it; wings made the wide air the highway. Yet were there great terraces ramparting the sides of the peak, and from the highest seawards there was a marvellous flight of steps which, when the clouds hid Lilaroma, seemed to lead up into heaven. I had often seen the edifice gleam high in the setting sun, yet there were so many temple-like structures on the shoulders and peaks of the giant mountain that it had ceased to excite inquiry. Now as we flew towards it its titanic proportions and jewelled beauty seemed to dominate all the lower world. The building, the most striking that I had ever seen, raised an enormous circular dome of crystal to the sky, and around this were innumerable smaller structures, which elsewhere would have bulked huge to the eye. As we drew nearer, I saw that each crystal cupola, instead of crouching low upon the terrace as I had thought at first, rose upon a lofty and massive tower of great strength. What I had taken for smaller and higher terraces and bastions were the walls of towers and square citadels that seemed built to outlast the wars of Titans. Solid lava they were of extraordinary thickness. There was nothing here of that slenderness and delicacy which had made me compare their other buildings to lace-work. The terraces and flight of steps I had