“I read on and on. When I closed the book and dismissed the people, they went out singing through the streets ‘Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.’
“As I stood alone in the church, a vision of the war came to me.
“The angel of the Cathedral came down from the carved niche near the roof. By many signs she was, indeed, the angel of Illinois. The stone was transformed into a presence, delicate as the milkweed silk, ruddy as the sunrise. Her hair was the hue of red corn. Her wind blown mantle was the color of ripe wheat. Her wings were like those of the white eagle. Her eyes were dark as the deep-digged mine. Her smile was the beginning of visions.
“Circling her temple was an opalescent crown, twenty white stars, with the twenty-first over the forehead, with the red blood of Hunter Kelly in the heart’s core of it.
“Above her head appeared a great hand, swinging a censer through the roof and walls of the building. The Angel of the Cathedral said to me, as she stood beside me:—‘This is the Censer of Change. A great change is coming to Illinois and the Capital of Illinois.’
“The smoke poured out and filled the streets. It penetrated every grove of Springfield. It beat in the blood of every living creature.
“The Angel of Illinois said:—‘This is the Incense of Civic Genius. The city shall be barren no longer but bring forth.’
“Then through the roof, as though there were a censer higher than the first, clouds of many colors descended. These became gorgeous cloud-winged children in wonderful, gleaming silks, flying through the walls. And in the same stream Gothic grotesques walked and crawled down the aisles and out into the streets, all singing: ‘Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.’
“The angel of the Cathedral said: ‘These are the children of the New Time and their playmates, the beasts of Innocent Fancy.’
“Then the dusty stone cherubim and seraphim that stood by the pillars of the church, with their dusty cold trumpets, took on life. They blew a long awakening cry. Every note was a delicate and heart-shaking surprise. Then from above the high altar, from a fire which burned round the Host on the altar, there came soldiers of Heaven, in very ancient armor, but with newly pierced hands.