Page:Man — Fragments of Forgotten History.djvu/16

xii repose of the restful landscape? Sailing like a mass of darkness in the serene sea of moonlight, the Himalayan eagle startles the tremulous shades of night and wakens echoes from every glen and crag. But more piercing by far is the cry of despair borne by the western breeze from the unfortunate victims, naked and famishing among the crumbling ruins of Creed and Thought. The streams of sound swept by confused and indistinct; but the cries of the soul always wing their way to other souls, whose doors are not barred nor their casements closed. Loud above the rest was heard the clear voice of great hearts that knock at the gates of self-crowned princes of thought, in vain attempt to raise an echo, and are thrown back upon the black rock of despair to wait for the ravenous jaws of the dragon of spiritual death.

Amidst the psychic war of elements and the devouring earthquake of the mind, like a streak of silver light there flashed in the student's mind the voice of his master:―

"Go, be true to thy pledge to manhood; westward lies thy path. Take this mutileted scroll, an unknown, though kindred spirit will bring the missing fragments, and then will be revealed to thee things which thou hast till now sought in vain. Take no thought for the morrow nor tarry here a single day; thy path of duty leads to the West." . . ..

Far, far away in the New World, in the city of the rising sun there waited a solitary soul which seemed to have dropped from some other sphere and lost its way in a strange land. Its cry of help was heard and the words wrung from it by doubt