"It seemed that I was walking hurriedly along a winding path, though for what purpose, or whither, I thus hastened was hidden. On my left, through its setting of ferns and pleasant flowers, there flowed a stream, the waters of which cast back many fair reflections; yet so great was my wish to gain some unknown object, that I was scarcely conscious of the beauty around. As I turned a corner, however, I saw across my path an object lying, and coming nearer found it to be a woman; the face turned upwards bore all the traces of degradation which dissipation and misery had engraved upon the image of one who in youth might have been beautiful. My feelings, supersensitive to the slightest coarseness, revolted at the spectacle before me, and crushing through the undergrowth which grew beside my path, I strove to avoid getting in closer contact with it, but I had not gone many paces forward before I became hopelessly entangled. Then looking round I noticed an old man standing near, who it seemed must have followed me unobserved. His hair was of silvery whiteness, and though his face was lined with age, each furrow seemed but the imprint of an habitual expression of kindliness. He might have stood as a sculptor’s model for love that has outlived passion. "’Why have you wandered from the path?’ he said. ’It is not possible for man to reach the place whither you are bound save by the way appointed.’ "’But,’ I answered, ’He who called me is pure, and in the footpath lies that which is abhorrent both to my Master and to me.’ "’Who then is thy master?’ he asked. "Then I looked at him in surprise and said-- "’We have but one Master; He who ruleth all things, and is Father of all.’ "’And it is one of His beloved children,’ he said, ’from whom you turn aside, and her weakness and your strength are of His ordering; and you whom He has made on a different, though no higher plan, turn in pride from your sister who has been placed in the path so that your strength may support her weakness.’ "’Now,’ I replied, ’you speak blasphemy, for God is not the Father of sin, and what is sinful is unpleasing in His sight.’ "Then my companion, looking fixedly at me, said-- "’There is no sin. Viewed from the eye of wisdom and holiness there is one law--Love; one path--Order; and one state--Happiness. Man is permitted to dream of freedom, which he calls life; is allowed to dip into the darkness, and, for the moment, to imagine discord exists, that when he shall awaken his joy may be exceeding joyful. It has been left to man to give names to nothing and to fight the phantoms of negation; when his sleep shall be broken the former things will have passed away. Follow me.’