Accordingly, my dear Raphael, love is the ladder by which we climb up to likeness to God. Unconsciously to ourselves, without laying claim to it, we aim at this. Lifeless masses are we, when we hate; Gods, when we cling; in love to one another, Rejoicing in the gentle bond of love. Upwards this divinest impulse holdeth sway Through the thousandfold degrees of creation Of countless spirits who did not create. Arm-in-arm, higher and still higher, From the savage to the Grecian seer, Who is linked to the last seraph of the ring, We turn, of one mind, in the same magic dance, Till measure, and e'en time itself, Sink at death in the boundless, glowing sea. Friendless was the great world's blaster; And feeling this, he made the spirit world Blessed mirrors of his own blessedness! And though the Highest found no equal, Yet infinitude foams upward unto Him From the vast basin of creation's realm. Love is, Raphael, the great secret that can restore the dishonored king of gold from the flat, unprofitable chalk; that can save the eternal from the temporal and transient, and the great oracle of duration from the consuming conflagration of time. What does all that has been said amount to? If we perceive excellence, it is ours. Let us become intimate with the high ideal unit, and we shall be drawn to one another in brotherly love. If we plant beauty and joy we shall reap beauty and joy. If we think clearly we shall love ardently. "Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect," says the Founder of our Faith. Weak human nature turned pale at this command, therefore He explained himself in clearer terms: "Love one another!" Wisdom, with thy sunlike look, Awful goddess! turn thee back, And give way to Love; Who before thee went, with hero heart, Up the steep and stormy path To the Godhead's very throne; Who, unveiling the Holiest, Showed to thee Elysium Through the vaulted sepulchre. Did it not invite us in? Could we reach immortality-- Or could we seek the spirit Without Love, the spirit's master? Love, Love leadeth only to Nature's Father, Only love the spirits.