of the Passover, and drank from their festal wine-cup. [5]

This, however, is not the cup to which I call your at-

tention,—even the cup of martyrdom: wherein Spirit

and matter, good and evil, seem to grapple, and the

human struggles against the divine, up to a point of

discovery; namely, the impotence of evil, and the om- [10]

nipotence of good, as divinely attested. Anciently, the

blood of martyrs was believed to be the seed of the Church.

Stalled theocracy would make this fatal doctrine just

and sovereign, even a divine decree, a law of Love! That