“‘Then low I moaned, ‘And what, oh! guide! of those who, living thoughtless lives of sin, die unregenerate; no service done to Oro or to Mardian?’ “‘They, too, have their place,’ I heard; ‘but ’tis not here. And Mardian! know, that as your Mardian lives are long preserved through strict obedience to the organic law, so are your spiritual lives prolonged by fast keeping of the law of mind. Sin is death.’ “‘Ah, then,’ yet lower moan made I; ‘and why create the germs that sin and suffer, but to perish?’ “‘That,’ breathed my guide; ‘is the last mystery which underlieth all the rest. Archangel may not fathom it; that makes of Oro the everlasting mystery he is; that to divulge, were to make equal to himself in knowledge all the souls that are; that mystery Oro guards; and none but him may know.’ “Alas! were it recalled, no words have I to tell of all that now my guide discoursed, concerning things unsearchable to us. My sixth sense which he opened, sleeps again, with all the wisdom that it gained. “Time passed; it seemed a moment, might have been an age; when from high in the golden haze that canopied this heaven, another angel came; its vans like East and West; a sunrise one, sunset the other. As silver-fish in vases, so, in his azure eyes swam tears unshed. “Quick my guide close nested me; through its veins the waning light throbbed hard. “‘Oh, spirit! archangel! god! whate’er thou art,’ it breathed; ‘leave me: I am but blessed, not glorified.’ “So saying, as down from doves, from its wings dropped sounds. Still nesting me, it crouched its plumes. “Then, in a snow of softest syllables, thus breathed the greater and more beautiful:—‘From far away, in fields beyond thy ken, I heard thy fond discourse with this lone Mardian. It pleased me well; for thy humility was manifeat; no arrogance of knowing. Come _thou_ and learn new things.’ “And straight it overarched us with its plumes; which, then, down- sweeping, bore us up to regions where my first guide had sunk, but for the power that buoyed us, trembling, both. “My eyes did wane, like moons eclipsed in overwhelming dawns: such radiance was around; such vermeil light, born of no sun, but pervading all the scene. Transparent, fleck-less, calm, all glowed one flame. “Then said the greater guide This is the night of all ye here behold— its day ye could not bide. Your utmost heaven is far below.’ “Abashed, smote down, I, quaking, upward gazed; where, to and fro, the spirits sailed, like broad-winged crimson-dyed flamingos, spiraling in sunset-clouds. But a sadness glorified, deep-fringed their mystic temples, crowned with weeping halos, bird-like, floating o’er them, whereso’er they roamed. “Sights and odors blended. As when new-morning winds, in summer’s prime, blow down from hanging gardens, wafting sweets that never pall; so, from those flowery pinions, at every motion, came a flood of fragrance.