Had not she, Edris, consigned him to his "own disdain, Athwart the raptures of a visioned bliss?" Ay! truly and deservedly!--and this disdain of himself had now reached its culminating point,--namely, that he did not consider himself worthy of her love,--or worthy to do aught than sink again into far spaces of darkness and perpetually retrospective Memory, there to explore the uttermost depths of anguish, and count up his errors one by one from the very beginning of life, in every separate phase he had passed through, till he had penitently striven his best to atone for them all! Christ had atoned! yes,--but was it not almost base on his part to shield himself with that Divine Light and do nothing further? He could not yet thoroughly grasp the amazing truth that ONE ABSOLUTELY PURE act of faith in Christ, blots out Past Sin forever,--it seemed too marvellous and great a boon!
When he retired to rest that night he was fully and firmly PREPARED TO DIE. With this expectation upon him he was nevertheless happy and tranquil. The line--"Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings" haunted him, and he repeated it over and over again without knowing why. Wings! the brilliant shafts of radiance that part angels from mortals,--wings, that, after all, are not really wings, but lambent rays of living lightning, of which neither painter nor poet has any true conception, . . long, dazzling rays such as encircled God's maiden, Edris, with an arch of roseate effulgence, so that the very air was sunset-colored in the splendor of her presence! How if she were a wingless angel,-- made woman?
"Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings!" And with the name of his angel-love upon his lips he closed his eyes and sank into a deep and dreamless slumber.