But in the moment of my exultation I was stricken. He who had refused an hour of life to the victim was, in terrible retribution, condemned to know the misery of life interminable. I heard through all the voices of Jerusalem--I should have heard through all the thunders of heaven, the calm, low voice, "Tarry thou till I come!" I felt at once my fate. I sprang away through the shouting hosts as if the avenging angel waved his sword above my head. I was never to know the shelter of the grave! Immortality on earth! The perpetual compulsion of existence in a world made for change! I was to survive my country. Wife, child, friend, even to the last being with whom my heart could imagine a human bond, were to perish in my sight. I was to know no limit to the weight already crushing me. The guilt of life upon life, the surges of an unfathomable ocean of crime were to roll in eternal progress over my head. Immortality on earth! Overwhelmed with despair, I rushed through Jerusalem, crowded with millions come to the Passover, and made my way through the Gate of Zion to the open country and the mountains that were before me, like a barrier shutting out the living world. There, as I lay in an agony of fear, my soul seemed to be whirled on the wind into the bosom of a thundercloud. I felt the weight of the rolling vapours. I saw a blaze. I was stunned by a roar that shook the firmament. When I recovered it was to hear the trumpet which proclaims that the first daily sacrifice is to be offered. I was a priest; this day's service fell to me; I dared not shrink from the duty which appalled me! Humanity drove me first to my home, where to my unspeakable relief I found my wife and child happy and unharmed; then I went to the Temple, and began my solemn duties. I was at the altar, the Levite at my side holding the lamb, when suddenly in rushed the high priest, his face buried in the folds of his cloak, and, grasping the head of the lamb, he snatched the knife from the Levite, plunged it into the animal's throat, and ran with bloody hands and echoing groans to the porch of the Holy House. I hastened up the steps after him, and entered the sanctuary. But--what I saw there I have no power to tell. Words were not made to utter it. Before me moved things mightier than of mortal vision, thronging shapes of terror, mysterious grandeur, essential power, embodied prophecy. On the pavement lay the high priest, his lips strained wide, his whole frame rigid and cold as a corpse. And the Veil was rent in twain! Fleeing from the Temple, I came into a world of black men. The sun, which I had seen like a fiery buckler hanging over the city, was utterly gone. As I looked into this unnatural night, the thought smote me that I had brought this judgment on the Holy City, and I formed the determination to fly from my priesthood, my kindred, and my country, and to bear my doom in some barren wilderness.