Glorious the Northern lights astream; Glorious the song when God’s the theme; Glorious the thunder’s roar; Glorious hosannas from the den; Glorious the catholic amen; Glorious the martyr’s gore: Glorious, more glorious is the crown Of Him that brought salvation down, By meekness called thy son; Thou that stupendous truth believed, And now the matchless deed’s achieved, DETERMINED, DARED, and DONE. The music shuddering, fell into silence. She remained rapt in ecstasy long after the last notes subsided, and until Raymond, laying his hand softly on her head, said, “Hagar! this will not do, love; you excite yourself too much—the action is too high—your system is getting to be all blood—fever—fire.” “Oh! is it not grand, this song? Does any psalm of David transcend it; does any hymn of Watts come up to it?” “It is grand, sublime, stunning—and I do not like to be stunned, you know, love! Besides, I am afraid you are not very far from the state and fate of its author, wild Hagar! wild in your love, wild in your worship, and wild in your devotions, as once in your mad revels. Will you never grow tame? Never, I believe unless your heart be broken.” “And must the poor heart be knocked on the head, before it can behave itself to please people? That was the song of boding ever sung to me by Sophie and by Emily, when I grew too happy to contain myself. Now, why must my heart be broken? What harm has it done that it must be broken? The Lord will not break it, I feel sure; nay, if my fellow creatures in their error break it, my Father will bind it up again. But now, then, dear Raymond, what does it all mean?” “It means, Hagar, that by a happy exemption from illness, grief, or temptation, in fact from all the common miseries of human nature, you have grown arrogant in your joy, and hence your jubilant spirit.” “_Have_ I been so exempted! ‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness;’ but I will not recall past human wrongs, in the midst of present Divine blessings.” “Your past wrongs, like your present blessings, are greatly exaggerated by imagination, Hagar—but here is supper,” said he, arising and giving her his arm, just as the crimson curtains were noiselessly withdrawn from the arch, displaying the glittering service awaiting them. This was the last day of Hagar’s Worship of Joy. The Baptism of Grief—the Worship of Sorrow—did she dream that such could be? CHAPTER XXVIII. CLOUDS. “Life treads on life, and heart on heart, We press too close in church and mart, To keep a dream or grave apart.” ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.