Several passages omitted
“When Jesus of Nazareth died, the Christ Spirit which was in him returned to us from whom it passed. It entered into us and brought us more in sympathy with Man, to understand him better, feel his suffering and temptation, a thing before almost unknown to us except in the abstract theory. But his soul was a thing as other souls, the seed properly sown from which mankind may rise to heaven. So his soul entered into the body of the spiritual father who had ever stood by him in silence, waiting the last sad gasp of pain. And now you see him, the heavenly likeness of that earthly substance, glorified and beautified and turned to God.
“And she, the Virgin Mother, still returns to hell, and when she carries souls away with her endows them with what graces lie in her power, which then is very feeble. And now they can no more suspect her, for the great seed has gone forth and returned, whatever its effects have been and are upon the earth.
“And now I have told you the story of the earth’s evolution as truthfully and as shortly as I can. To show you how it sprang from evil and not from good, to show how it was born in blind mystery and chains, the sport and cruel pastime of the Godhead, a mixture of jest and warfare, an intertwining of truth and error, so interlaced that each was truth and no truth, error and no error at a time. I could tell you more, but time is quickly gone and we must go. You have listened patiently. Would that others would do so too.” And here he ceased.
I had listened as one in an enchanted forest. Round us as he spoke the soft faint light had drawn as in a circle, its outer rims spreading in varied colours far out among the trees. From the deep lake near by came the legend song of the dying swan, filling the air with sadness. At times the nightingale warbled rich and full and then was silent, and the owl ever sent its eerie cry down the glades, sad and lonely, yet with no harsh note to break the saddened charm.
And so we went away, back through the forest to the silent city, and though it was night, and Nature’s darkness closed around it, I had never seen a more dazzling sight.
CHAPTER VIII
Next day I went to visit a painter, Adrian, and he took me to an inner studio where he kept some of his favourite works, and at last he stayed before a white curtain, soft as velvet and as pure as mountain mist, and drew it gently backward.
“This is my masterpiece,” said he, and stepped back smiling gravely.