the world, and no one is excluded.'

"I followed the workman's invitation, and also went to the house inside which the procession had disappeared. As it moved farther on, it had increased like a caravan. Porters and sailors had joined it. They filled a large room, evidently a dancing saloon. Above, on the gallery, where at other times the musicians would be, the 'Paraclete' had taken up his position; beside him sat his male and female companions.

"Who were the young women who went so dauntlessly into this district of the lowest inhabitants, whose rudeness is usually avoided by all of refined bringing up? Great must be their attachment to the prophet, and the might of their faith, that enabled them to bid defiance to the wild noise and to the odours of tobacco. Yet, in the latter, they seemed only to perceive clouds of incense, which ascended to do homage to the High Priest. Did they believe those times to be returned when prophets moved amongst the lowly people, who alone possessed appreciation of the seed that was scattered amongst them?

"I looked up at the chosen congregation that surrounded the preacher, and was wonderfully struck with the charming grace of one youthful face, which with its soft, gentle lines contrasted pleasantly with the Paraclete's sharp features. Was it a girl or a young married woman? The whole figure was full of girlish charm, yet a girl would hardly have ventured into such a district. A transfiguring breath of enthusiasm lay upon those noble features, large deep blue eyes gazed up at the preacher with such trust, such confidence; it was as if the faith of an entire devoted congregation were reflected in the glance of those eyes. I looked again and ever again in that direction; I followed all her movements with unwavering glances; she stood up, she walked to and fro, apparently eagerly occupied with arrangements to render the preacher's pulpit a more worthy one; she brought a cushion and placed it upon the balustrade, she brought milk and fruit, for the minister scorned any other nourishment--yes, she brought a footstool for his feet.

"This servile occupation which she devoted to the mysterious man displeased me, but all the movements of her slender form were full of such winning grace, and made an enrapturing impression upon me.

"I felt as if the divinity had been found for that altar which already for long I had erected to 'woman,' and the dense clouds of tobacco appeared to me to be the ambrosial firmament which hovers above a Madonna.

"The preacher rose, and silence suddenly reigned in the assembly hitherto so noisy.

"What he spoke was marvellous, but it attracted me; it was not the old story that has so often been promulgated from a pulpit lulling all to sleep, they were new doctrines, even although in the old garment. Was my youthful dream of founding a new religion called into life by this enthusiast?

"He did not speak like other men of views and convictions, nor like the teachers of the Divine Word, of a traditionary faith. Everything had been experienced inwardly by himself, he was a new mediator between God and man. He had discovered the origin of all being, the two original powers of creation, out of which all life flowed. The one was water: plants draw their nourishment out of moisture, and every young shoot is rich in this primordial power; but the other which gives form is light, is warmth; those are the two original beings, the female and the male which are necessarily and closely wedded.

"And with glowing fantasy the apostle described how the serpent of light pants for the water of darkness, how seven-armed with thousandfold arteries of rays it pours itself into the depths where the element, dark as night, waits to receive it. They were poetical visions in apocalyptic pictures; the people listened devoutly to the incomprehensible, which, however, led a succession of gay, misty pictures before their mental vision. The prophet himself spoke with tongues of fire, and with the dauntlessness of a man in whom Heaven had deposited the jewels of its revelations as in a sacred shrine. All the time he stroked his long beard, divided it, and put it together again, yet all was done with dignity and with self-complacency.

"When he sat down he refreshed himself with the milk which his graceful companion handed to him.

"Two or three times more he rose, when the spirit moved him, and immediately ceased the wild tumult, the buzz of voices at his feet.

"It might be about midnight when he retired with his companions. One of these was evidently a minister whom the ladies had joined. The young beauty passed close by me; was I mistaken, or did she smile pleasantly at me? And was this smile one of approval of my demeanour and appearance, or of pleasure that a young student also--for the Albertus on my cap showed that I attended the Albertina--should have joined the pious congregation that sat at the feet of the Heaven-sent preacher? Never to be forgotten was the gracious smile, the nobility of form and feature, the deep large eye.

"Like a dream, that beautiful woman glided past me, and years should elapse ere I saw her again.

"I was too shy, too modest to ask about her; I should have expected to destroy the dreamlike charm of that vision by any enquiries; yet whenever afterwards I read the works of the poets, when Shakespeare's, Goethe's, and Schiller's female figures stood before my mind, they invariably borrowed her features. With such deep-blue eyes, Ophelia scattered abroad her flowers, plucked to pieces, Juliet gazed upon her Romeo, Gretchen lay upon her knees before the mater dolorosa. Woman since then appeared more beautiful to me, but also loftier and more unapproachable.

"Meanwhile I made enquiries about the new 'Paraclete' and learned much of his life and doings; how he had wandered through Germany preaching the Gospel of light and water, had here found enthusiastic disciples, there was greeted with scorn, thrown down stairs, yes, had even been locked up in a mad house.

"I also learned, when on one occasion I returned to the town after the vacations, that the new Noah's ark had been released from the slip-way, but had stranded against the first pillar of the bridge and been capsized. The faith which could remove mountains was not able to bring that ark into the sea.

"There it lay broken, ruined, and the jeers of the children of this world exhausted themselves upon the evil which had befallen the sacred 'Swan.' All promises had been brought to shame!

"Just as sadly fared the prophet himself; he had so often announced that he could not die, because he had once already been dead and now lived the life of one who was regenerated; yet despite such announcement his eyes were closed soon after that mishap.

"It was an unimportant piece of news for all my friends, it went to my heart. I thought of the tears which that fair one who was bound to him with such touching devotion, might have shed at the news of his death--and tears rose to my eyes also."

CHAPTER II.

THE NOVICE.

"Two or three years might have passed since that evening; I was by that time one of those young officials, whose knowledge, learned in the lecture-room, had melted away by monotonous practice, when one day an old respected aunt invited me to tea.

"She had only recently moved into the town from her estate; I had seen little of her during my life, and had not the remotest idea of being her heir, although I was one of her nearest