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MARIA FELICIA

preventing you from becoming a priest,” he muttered, with an effort to smile. The smile, however, was not successful, for it failed to conceal his agitation as he had intended it should. Andrew did not hear; he had turned his eyes to that infinite space into whose depths the harper only a few moments before had been sending such mournful, longing sighs. He was burying himself in his thoughts and clothing them with words as he had always done in his solitude.

“Before time began to be measured in this world, a spirit, as has been recorded, hovered over the dark waters. To him the darkness was pitiful and sad, and he said: ‘Be light, as I am.’ The words fell into the bosom of the inanimate deep like a drop of life, a germ of will, a spark of knowledge; the lifeless matter began to move, the elements to divide; and again they sought each other, combined, coalesced, formed bodies; and then, consolidated, they began to travel through boundless space in the forms of sun, moon and stars; each in its orbit, according to its pur-