All blessed promise! Shall it be fulfilled,
Tho’ the eye glazes and the sense is still’d?
Shall that fair Shape which beckon’d with bright hand
Out of the Mirage of a Heavenly Land,
Fade to a cloud that moves with blighting breath
Over the ever-troublous sea of Death?
Ah no; for on the crown of Zion’s Hill,
Cloth’d on with peace, the fair Shape beckons still!
The New Crusade.
It was a curious sensation for Ambrose Bradley, after bitter experience of a somewhat ignominious persecution, to find himself all at once—by a mere shuffle of the cards, as it were—one of the most popular persons in all Bohemia; I say Bohemia advisedly, for of course that greater world of fashion and religion, which Bohemia merely fringes, regarded the New Church and its pastor with supreme indifference.