“No, brother! Right-reason, and Alma, are the same; else Alma, not reason, would we reject. The Master’s great command is Love; and here do all things wise, and all things good, unite. Love is all in all. The more we love, the more we know; and so reversed. Oro we love; this isle; and our wide arms embrace all Mardi like its reef. How can we err, thus feeling? We hear loved Alma’s pleading, prompting voice, in every breeze, in every leaf; we see his earnest eye in every star and flower.” “Poetry!” cried Yoomy; “and poetry is truth! He stirs me.” “When Alma dwelt in Mardi, ’twas with the poor and friendless. He fed the famishing; he healed the sick; he bound up wounds. For every precept that he spoke, he did ten thousand mercies. And Alma is our loved example.” “Sure, all this is in the histories!” said Mohi, starting. “But not alone to poor and friendless, did Alma wend his charitable way. From lowly places, he looked up; and long invoked great chieftains in their state; and told them all their pride was vanity; and bade them ask their souls. ‘In _me_,’ he cried, ‘is that heart of mild content, which in vain ye seek in rank and title. I am Love: love ye then me.’” “Cease, cease, old man!” cried Media; “thou movest me beyond my seeming. What thoughts are these? Have done! Wouldst thou unking me?” “Alma is for all; for high and low. Like heaven’s own breeze, he lifts the lily from its lowly stem, and sweeps, reviving, through the palmy groves. High thoughts he gives the sage, and humble trust the simple. Be the measure what it may, his grace doth fill it to the brim. He lays the lashings of the soul’s wild aspirations after things unseen; oil he poureth on the waters; and stars come out of night’s black concave at his great command. In him is hope for all; for all, unbounded joys. Fast locked in his loved clasp, no doubts dismay. He opes the eye of faith and shuts the eye of fear. He is all we pray for, and beyond; all, that in the wildest hour of ecstasy, rapt fancy paints in bright Auroras upon the soul’s wide, boundless Orient!” “Oh, Alma, Alma! prince divine!” cried Babbalanja, sinking on his knees—“in _thee_, at last, I find repose. Hope perches in my heart a dove;—a thousand rays illume;—all Heaven’s a sun. Gone, gone! are all distracting doubts. Love and Alma now prevail. I see with other eyes:—Are these my hands? What wild, wild dreams were mine;—I have been mad. Some things there are, we must not think of. Beyond one obvious mark, all human lore is vain. Where have I lived till now? Had dark Maramma’s zealot tribe but murmured to me as this old man, long since had I, been wise! Reason no longer domineers; but still doth speak. All I have said ere this, that wars with Alma’s precepts, I here recant. Here I kneel, and own great Oro and his sovereign son.” “And here another kneels and prays,” cried Yoomy. “In Alma all my dreams are found, my inner longings for the Love supreme, that prompts my every verse. Summer is in my soul.”