“Poor Ichabod, if thou hadst no soul, thy clingings and yearnings would bind me to thee faithfully. Thou hast tried to give me charge over that that is immortal. A Higher Being has it in loving trust; were it not so, I’d turn in dread from thy confiding!”
“Is mine so bad a soul, master?”
“Indeed, no. Its preciousness to Him that created it, is what would make me dread its partial custody.”
“Thou’lt help me, master, now?”
“For three objects I’ll willingly die; my mother; our lady, and the soul of one who abandons himself, as thou, to my poor pilotage.”
“Then, thou strangely lovest me. Oh, this but more persuades me that thy faith is right; it makes thee so good to a stranger, a slave, a hated Jew!”
“But then we are so apart and so unlike each other!”
“No, Jew, I want to show that humanity is one. The very creed I’m trying to teach thee and would fain have all thy race, ay, all mankind fully understand, is full of love, joy, peace. These follow it as naturally as the flower the stem, the humming the flying wing made to fly and be musical.”
“Oh, my dear light, with thee I’m in joy and wilderment. Thy presence seems to bring me hosts of crowned truths, all seeking to enter my being. I feel like a tired runner ready to faint when thou’rt absent, but when thou talkest the tired runner is plunged into a cooling ocean, whose circling waves, as it were charged with the stimulus of tempered lightnings, glowing with a million rainbows, overwhelm, lift up and rest him. I’m floating thereon now!”