"My lord, may I venture to ask of you, do you believe, as some do, that Chione is in possession of a truth she dare not declare? that some divine hand is pressing down within her the word that is panting for expression? Is Chione bewitched?"
"She is suffering from a supernatural influence, that is certain."
"And can you deliver her? Why else did she send me to you?"
"If she so will, she may be delivered; but the supernatural Word she cannot speak has been offended; the sacrifice he demands is great; will she make it?"
"If in her power, I think she will. She is a mystery to me, as all life seems to be. What is that Word Chione has offended? how did she offend? what must she do to appease the divine wrath?"
"My child," said the old Areopagite solemnly, "truth is not a plaything wherewith to amuse the intellect, not a toy to while away a tedious hour with. Truth is the manifestation of the eternal harmonies, those harmonies which man has interfered with, into which he has introduced a discord, the discord of sin. The humility of man, the recognition of sin, such a recognition as brings the voluntary humiliation of self, must precede his admission to the kingdom where those harmonies are restored. The vainglory of philosophy, the pride of science, however correct may be their surmises, are without life. They can neither restore these harmonies, nor catch a glimpse of the glory of that eternal comprehensive Unity, in which all beauty, melody, and good reside; that eternal idea of which matter is the varied type. A type now deranged by man's act so hopelessly, that human power is utterly inadequate to its restoration."
"But the restorer comes; the expectation of nations points to this," said Lotis; "and that expectation is everywhere; in India as in Cathay, in Greece and among the barbarians."
"The deliverer is come already," said Dionysius.
"Then why is he not proclaimed? Is this the unspoken word that Chione might not utter? Why, if the deliverer is here, is he not announced?"
"Because, before the disorder of exterior things can be remedied, the interior remedy must be applied to the soul. Exterior forms obey the interior impulse. Man is lord of matter, and man's disordered soul reflects itself upon the material subject to him. The disorder manifest throughout exterior creation will be remedied when the disordered spirit of man is healed. Therefore is it that, now that the restorer is come, he is not recognized; for he insists on the purification of the spirit, on the annihilation of selfishness, on the necessity of being reunited in spirit with the essential good as a precursor of other renovations. That done, exterior good follows as of course."