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A dark shadow stole between my little world and me--the shadow of the people's oickedness And as every delicate fibre ofrepelled evil by the necessity of the pure light in which I dwelt serene I waited patiently for the ain behold the beauty of arden Suddenly a soft cla, and a slender strea upwards through the darkness that hid me from the people I had created and loved I knew the sound--it was the led music of the prayers of children An infinite pity and pleasure touchedto these little ones who asked arden I had designed for fairness and pleasure

But alas! how changed it had becoer fresh and sweet, the people had turned it into a wilderness; they had divided it into s had divided themselves into separate coht with each other fiercely for their different little parterres or flower-beds Soled and talked incessantly over the mere possession of a stone which they called a rock; others busied the a little yellow metal out of the earth, which, when once obtained, seeot everything else As I looked, the darkness between rew denser, and was only pierced at last by those long wide shafts of radiance caused by the innocent prayers of those who still reret, for I sawhither and thither, restless and dissatisfied, perplexed by their own errors, and caring nothing for the love I bore thean to question why they had been created, forgetting coned by me for happiness, love and wisdo to see that where there is light there is also darkness, and that darkness is the rival force of the Universe, whence cometh silently the Unnamable Oblivion of Souls They could not see, my self-willed children, that they had of their own desire sought the darkness and found it; and now, because it glooht where still I was loving and striving to attract them still Yet it was not all darkness, and I knew that even what there was ht be repelled and cleared away if only my people would turn towards me once more