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of him a woman who threw out a dark, gloomy, and adverse sphere, which he instantly interpreted as a case of obsession. The occasion demanded a judicious procedure. The woman was a sister of much influence, whom he must not offend. So with diplomatic courtesy, he requested her to exchange seats with some one farther away, which he felt would be a more harmonious adjustment of individual spheres, and better adapted to serve in a manner analogus to a spiritual circle. The change was therefore made with commendable grace. Then the house became a Pentecost, and the spirit was poured out upon the people as with " tongues of fire."

"If you pause in the City of Trouble,
Or wait in the Valley of Tears,
Be patient; the train will move onward,
And rush down the track of the years.
Whatever the place is you seek for,
Whatever your aim or your quest,
You shall come at last with rejoicing
To the beautiful City of Rest.

"You shall store all your baggage of worries,
You shall feel perfect peace in this realm;
You shall sail with old friends on fair waters,
With joy and delight at the helm.

You shall wander in cool, fragrant gardens
With those who have loved you the best,
And the hopes that were lost in life's journey
You shall find in the City of Rest."

XXIV

QUEEN OF MORN

"Were once our beings blent and intertwining,
And for that glory still my heart is pining;
Knew we the light of some refulgent sun
When once our souls were one?

"Round us in waters of delight forever
Ravishingly flowed the heavenly nectar river;
We were masters of the seal of things
And where truth in her ever-living springs
Quivered our glancing wings.

"Weep for the god-like life we lost afar
That thou and I its scattered fragments are
And still the unconquered yearning we retain,
Sigh to renew the long and vanished reign
And grow divine again."

Schiller.

There is an inner sanctuary in the human heart which is too sacred for even the most intimate friend to penetrate,a sanctuary which never reveals aught of its precious secrets to the most delicate questioning of one's most confiding associates. We occasionally see a prominent public character moving among his fellows with equipoise, holding to a settled purpose, who labors with unwearied diligence, maintaining a uniform and calm severity, always patient, never complaining, yet sharing his sympathies with his fellows; and we marvel what power it is by which he is borne onward and held upward in those trying labors which must be wrought out in contact with a critical and capricious public.

We have seen hearts that readily respond to other people's sorrows, hearts full of compassionate sympathy for the lives that are called to suffer; who treat others with delicate and tender courtesies, yet who are self-contained, never leaning upon their friends; discreetly silent in regard to their own sorrows, yet full of kind offices and replete with loving counsels to such as reach out pleading hands for assistance.

These general statements are especially applicable to the hero of this narrative. There is some secret locked in his breast which he has never revealed to us. If not a puzzle to himself, he is at times to others. We suspect that he visits some sacred shrine, upon which he places his heart offerings, thereby keeping the altar fires burning brightly; and mayhap this will explain that cheerful serenity for which his life thus far has been noted. Moreover, we shall find in this secret whatever it is a reason for the comparative indifference with which he has uniformly met the multitudinous appeals to his affections by women who regard him with a sort of ideal worship. This indifference is all the more surprising, since he is by no means lacking in emotional tenderness. His nature is at once sensitive, warm, ardent, and spontaneous. Why should he keep his inner life a sealed book when so many are knocking at his soul doors? The answer doubtless is in the fact that he, too, has an ideal, and that ideal is on the other side," in the person of a member of his spirit band the "Queen of Morn." Her earth name was Madame Elizabeth, and she was the sister of Louis XVI of France. We simply infer this, for we are not aware that he ever lisped such a conviction in the ears of any mortal.

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The verses from Schiller at the head of this chapter suggest how this ideal has taken shape in the mind of our brother, and what a source of inspiration it must have been in the prosecution of his life work. Then we recall his firm belief in the soul's pre-existence - a belief which carries with it the implication that the soul was not only dual in its primal state, but likewise that the dual units will meet and resume their union when the final purpose of the earthly pilgrimages has

been achieved. Has not our brother long been aware that such a prospective consummation awaits him? And does that not account for the attitude of quiet reserve his friends have uniformly remarked in his demeanor? Only the choice and rare souls know the joy of that deep-toned music which is pitched to the minor key. Those who seemingly walk in melancholy solitude, oft have a richer life, and experience a deeper joy than any who indulge in noisy demonstrations of an exuberant surface feeling.

Mr. Peebles never unveiled to us the secret hidden in his interesting editorial in The Banner of Light, entitled, "The Two Star-Sisters of France." It is another witness to the truth of our forecast. He outlines the history of Ernest Renan and his sister Henriette, and Louis XVI and his sister "Madame Elizabeth.” Henriette accompanied Ernest and his wife on his scientific mission into ancient Phoenicia, where brother and sister were both seized with a malignant fever.

"They were two souls warm with harmonious thought, and hearts beating as one. She went with him on to the loftiest pinnacles of Lebanon's mountains, and across the desert sands that line the Jordan, exchanging ideas with him, and living his very life.

"A French writer says, 'Notwithstanding her delicate health, she traveled to average eight leagues a day, being both a sort of private secretary who divined her brother's thoughts, and a sister of charity who watched with angelic tenderness over a precious existence, which she justly considered as the effulgent glory of her family and her name.' Though these long, tiresome journeys greatly fatigued her, she continued to assist her brother in writing 'The Life of Jesus,' till she felt the approaches of malignant fever. The symptoms grew worse; she was dangerous: yet her courage, for a brother's sake, seemed to defy the death-angel's touch. Ernest, hastening from Le Caton' with the surgeon, fell dangerously ill with the same fever. There they lay, brother and sister, sick and alone in a foreign land, the brother summoning all his

energies to minister to his sister; the sister hiding ner agony, concealing her sufferings, and struggling against the fever that was burning to her being's core, to watch by her brother's sick pillow. They fought death together, fought for each other, fought till they became unconscious. The sister awoke in heaven. Owing to Renan's robust constitution he survived; and, coming to consciousness, his first incoherent words were, 'Where's my sister?' The tearful eye of the surgeon told the story! Here my pen may drop. A recent writer of France says, 'Hunting in a friend's library, I came upon a pamphlet whose every line drew a tear. I know nothing more touching, sadder, or more beautiful, than the masterpiece of a great thinker who bids a last farewell to a noble soul,'- that a sister!'

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In telling this touching story, Mr. Peebles evidently intends to compare himself in thought to Renan, traveling in quest of truth, his sister, his angel-guide, who passed on before him, long before him, but, returning, found his heart beating with her own the same musical concord; and "lo! she is by his side, traveling with him to the land of Adonis, near the holy Byblus and the sacred waters where the women of the ancient mysteries came to mingle their tears, to rest in the bosom of God."

The second star of France is Madame Elizabeth, “Queen of Morn," the harbinger of Mr. Peebles's pilgrimage over this strange world of ours.

"The Queen of Morn," and "The Spiritual Pilgrim!" this relation is the enchantment of the life he lives, this the soul of experiences, that threads life's silver chords round the world whither he goes, this the "Chain of Pearls that blossoms ever upon his bosom to make his pilgrimage beautiful and fragrant with a love that descends from heaven. We must let him tell the story of Madame Elizabeth, as gleaned from the history he found in that antiquarian library in Boston:

"Just prior to the stormy days of the Revolution, there arose in the French firmament another star, shedding a silvery radiance over the royal family and the entire kingdom of

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