Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And Thou hast made him: Thou art just. Thus were "the wild and wandering cries, confusions of a wasted youth" forgotten in the song of adoration, which is in reality the epilogue of the elegiac drama. We can almost imagine its coming after the closing glory of the bridal hymn which sings to its last note of God:-- That God which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off Divine event, To which the whole creation moves. A wedding on earth--that of his sister--is thus for him the symbol of that love eternal which moves all things: _Amor che tutto muove_, of Dante's peerless song. That light of love once seen anew he never lost. As life declined it grew in intensity: brighter and more reassuring than ever did it glow as the darkness of earth began to close round him. It was borne in upon him with a depth of conviction too deep for utterance that death was but a fact, like any other in our many-sided life, that it was but a momentary occurrence, in no wise impeding that progress of the individual spirit in that path which has been with philosophic accuracy described by the Hebrew psalmist as "the way everlasting". The most perfect prayer is that: "Lead me in the ever-lasting way," for it is the destiny of man to one day reach that journey's end; to be one day perfect; to be absolutely conformed in mind and will to that most sacred of realities--the moral law. It was this new vision which dawned on his soul, when the face and form of his much-loved friend was taken away, and filled him with a profound calm as the inevitable hour drew near. I can no longer But die rejoicing, For through the magic Of Him, the Mighty, Who taught me in childhood There on the borders Of boundless ocean, And all but in Heaven, Hovers the gleam. In the old days long past, when, tormented with doubts, embittered by disappointment, he would fain be rid of his burden, the voice of the Master kept ever repeating:-- "Follow the gleam". And so he followed--followed it through life, over the wide earth, until the land's end was reached. But even then the Spirit did not forsake him. The "gleam" still shone like a star in the deepening sky, till it stood at length over the waters at the gates of the great bar that led out into the Infinite. And last of all, the "call," clear and unmistakable; and there sure enough, waiting beyond the bar, was the "Pilot," the Master of the gleam, "ready to receive the soul".[1] [1] Jean Valjean's death in _Les Miserables_. XV. "THE UNKNOWN GOD." The God on whom I ever gaze, The God I never once behold; Above the cloud, beneath the clod, The Unknown God, the Unknown God." --WILLIAM WATSON.