“To retrieve this ruin of the once blessed Soul—to clear away, from around her, the clouds of earth, and, restoring her lost wings(5), facilitate their return to Heaven—such,” said the reverend man, “is the great task of our religion, and such the triumph of those divine Mysteries, in which the life and essence of our religion lie. However sunk and changed and clouded may be the Spirit, as long as a single trace of her original light remains, there is yet hope that——” Here his voice was interrupted by a strain of mournful music, of which the low, distant breathings had been, for some minutes, heard, but which now gained upon the ear too thrillingly to let it listen to any more earthly sound. A faint light, too, at that instant broke through the valley,—and I could perceive, not far from the spot where we sat, a female figure, veiled, and crouching to earth, as if subdued by sorrow, or under the influence of shame. The light, by which I saw her, was from a pale, moon‐like meteor, which had formed itself in the air as the music approached, and shed over the rocks and the lake a glimmer as cold as that by which the Dead, in their own realm, gaze on each other. The music, too, which appeared to rise directly out of the lake, and to come full of the breath of its dark waters, spoke a despondency in every note which no language could express;—and, as I listened to its tones, and looked upon that fallen Spirit, (for such, the holy man whispered, was the form before us,) so entirely did the illusion of the scene take possession of me, that, with breathless anxiety, I waited the result. Nor had I gazed long before that form rose slowly from its drooping position;—the air around it grew bright, and the pale meteor overhead assumed a more cheerful and living light. The veil, which had before shrouded the face of the figure, became gradually transparent, and the features, one by one, disclosed themselves through it. Having tremblingly watched the progress of the apparition, I now started from my seat, and half exclaimed, “It is she!” In another minute, this veil had, like a thin mist, melted away, and the young Priestess of the Moon stood, for the third time, revealed before my eyes. To rush instantly towards her was my first impulse—but the arm of the Priest held me firmly back. The fresh light, which had begun to flow in from all sides, collected itself in a glory round the spot where she stood. Instead of melancholy music, strains of the most exalted rapture were heard; and the young maiden, buoyant as the inhabitants of the fairy orb, amid a blaze of light like that which fell upon her in the Temple, ascended into the air.