"I looked up at the chosen congregation that surrounded the preacher, and was wonderfully struck with the charming grace of one youthful face, which with its soft, gentle lines contrasted pleasantly with the Paraclete's sharp features. Was it a girl or a young married woman? The whole figure was full of girlish charm, yet a girl would hardly have ventured into such a district. A transfiguring breath of enthusiasm lay upon those noble features, large deep blue eyes gazed up at the preacher with such trust, such confidence; it was as if the faith of an entire devoted congregation were reflected in the glance of those eyes. I looked again and ever again in that direction; I followed all her movements with unwavering glances; she stood up, she walked to and fro, apparently eagerly occupied with arrangements to render the preacher's pulpit a more worthy one; she brought a cushion and placed it upon the balustrade, she brought milk and fruit, for the minister scorned any other nourishment--yes, she brought a footstool for his feet. "This servile occupation which she devoted to the mysterious man displeased me, but all the movements of her slender form were full of such winning grace, and made an enrapturing impression upon me. "I felt as if the divinity had been found for that altar which already for long I had erected to 'woman,' and the dense clouds of tobacco appeared to me to be the ambrosial firmament which hovers above a Madonna. "The preacher rose, and silence suddenly reigned in the assembly hitherto so noisy. "What he spoke was marvellous, but it attracted me; it was not the old story that has so often been promulgated from a pulpit lulling all to sleep, they were new doctrines, even although in the old garment. Was my youthful dream of founding a new religion called into life by this enthusiast? "He did not speak like other men of views and convictions, nor like the teachers of the Divine Word, of a traditionary faith. Everything had been experienced inwardly by himself, he was a new mediator between God and man. He had discovered the origin of all being, the two original powers of creation, out of which all life flowed. The one was water: plants draw their nourishment out of moisture, and every young shoot is rich in this primordial power; but the other which gives form is light, is warmth; those are the two original beings, the female and the male which are necessarily and closely wedded.