Benediction.
"We go so far, and with so much trouble, to obtain the blessings of certain holy persons, and of the holy father the pope; yet here is the Lord of saints, and the God of whom Pius IX. is only the vicegerent, and we cannot intermit our socialities or forego our ease to receive his blessing!"
E. A. S.
The Invitation.
The balmy May is breathing on the air,
The rich, red sun sinks slowly down the west.
Come forth, dear soul, and be an honored guest:
One doth invite thee to his house all fair;
One great and good, this eve, doth wait thee there.
Nay, nay, not that dear friend whose hand hath prest
So oft thy own; not any ruler blest.
Of happiest clime: a nobler friendship share.
Ah! no; no poet doth such kindness move;
No wise, nor good, nor grand, nor holy, whom
The race reveres: a better friend would prove
His love; a greater asks thee to his home.
Within the tabernacle of his love,
The Lord of heaven awaits thee: wilt thou come?
Nellie Netterville; Or, One Of The Transplanted.
Chapter IX.
To this proposition Nellie joyfully assented, and he led the way accordingly up a rocky path winding westward toward the cliffs. Once or twice he turned as if to give her aid, but Nellie skipped like a young kid from rock to rock, exulting in her independence; and, finding that she declined assistance, he went on in silence until they reached a point among the cliffs, high enough to give them a full sea view toward the west.
The Atlantic lay beneath them, rolling in its mighty volume of deep waters, and dashing them against the cliffs below with the strength and calmness of a sleepy giant. Nellie had often seen the sea, that narrow strip of water, namely, which separated her own birth-home from the birth-place of her kindred; but of the mighty ocean, with its thousand voices coming up from the deep caves below, its murmurings and whisperings, its infinite variety of tints and aspects, its lights and shadows, its clear green depths and crystal purity, such as no smaller sheet of water can ever boast of, she had never even dreamed before; and as her eye roamed over the smooth expanse until it reached that uttermost point where sea and sky seem to blend together, a sense of vastness and power fell upon her soul which almost oppressed her. For a few minutes Roger watched her as she stood there in hushed and breathless admiration, but just as the silence was beginning to be oppressive he broke in by saying, softly, "Yes, yes! it is all bright, and smooth, and shining now; but I have stood here on an autumn evening, and watched it when it was black and swollen, brimful beneath the coming storm—when the wind seemed almost a living power—a thing to be seen as well as felt—as it swept over that mighty mass of waters, mingling its hoarse voice with theirs, and forcing on their waves, as a general forces on his troops, until it dashed them in a very frenzy of fruitless valor against the beetling cliffs beneath us. And, in truth, I almost prefer it in those moods," he added, like one thinking his own thoughts aloud; "for then it looks simply like what it is, a huge monster ever greedy for its prey, whereas, now, in this lazy sunshine, it seems to me nothing more or less than a great smiling treachery, wooing its victims toward it, only that it may afterward the more thoroughly engulf them."