Fiercely he took his bow and strode out muttering to himself, "If he were not, she would love me!" He planned no deed of sin, for he was tossed on too violent a whirlpool of passion to purpose anything. Without design, he took the path to the patriarch's. Midway he met the lovers in their joy. His brain reeled with madness at the sight; his fingers clutched a shaft; it was the work of an instant, it quivered in his brother's heart. He came then and gazed upon the dying. He watched the oozing life-blood as it flowed slowly from the wound, and as the last thick drop fell out, and the eye with its death-glare rolled back into its socket, he wept not, but beheld with unutterable remorse the work of his passion. The fair girl knelt beside the dead in silent grief, then, turning to Maholah, reproached him not, but in pity of heart spoke words of comfort to him as to one who was unfortunate. Men came and asked him what it meant; but he answered not. They spoke kindly to him, for it was the first murder they had ever known, and they could not understand it; he heeded them not. In silent sadness they bore the dead away, and as the sun went down, Maholah in his misery lay down to rest.

Troubled sleep came upon him. Darkness passed before him formless and shadowy, and in its midst was a spot of red. It changed, yet he saw not how, and there was a form; but what it was he perceived not, and in the form was still the spot of red. It changed again, it was like the image of a man-the spot of red became a ghastly wound, and there was a hollow voice, "Thou art cursed with knowledge!" Maholah awoke, for he had dreamed.

He slept again. He was wandering at night under the black sky of God. There were no clouds; yet the moon and stars had vanished, and darkness, like the curtain of the Pit, was stretched above him. He gazed-there was a stain of blood on that fierce blackness, and from it came a voice that sunk into his soul, "Thou art cursed with knowledge !"

Once more he seemed to sleep. He stood by the bank of a river. As he beheld, the waters became blood. They poured forth thick and fast from a yawning cave. The earth drank up the river; the yawning cave became like flesh when it is mangled; and he heard in the gurgling sound of the blood, "Thou art cursed with knowledge."

He awoke then, and started from his bed. It was a dream of the night; but it opened upon him like a reality, and he felt that it would be fearfully accomplished.

Morning dawned, and with it came a burning thirst for knowledge,

a joyless passion for learning, ever to be acquired with toil, yet ever unsatisfying. And he first perceived that all men were ignorant, and that their ignorance was bliss. Then did he hate the knowledge to which he was cursed, yet craved it still with a morbid unsatisfied longing, as one who is driven by Destiny and drawn by passion towards what he cannot love yet needs must get.

He went out among men. In their ignorance they slew him not, for the nature of justice and retribution they had never had occasion to know. They looked upon and pitied him as unfortunate, and it was his curse to comprehend his guilt and not to die for it. He could have met the wrath of man; but their pity for his dreadful crime he could not bear; so he fled there haunts and sought the wildernesses of solitude. But his curse followed him there. He discovered the hole of the serpent, dragged out its slimy occupant, counted its glistening scales, and gazed curiously into the charm of its eye; but the forked tongue was still, the envenomed fang did not do its office-he was cursed to live and know.

He sought the cave of the lion, wreathed his fingers in his tawny mane, and smote his jaws together like thunder. But the lion tore him not; the royal beast shrunk timidly away, for the knowledge to which he was doomed was not yet complete.

And Maholah went forth on the world to meet his curse. He discovered the nature of every plant and its hidden uses, and the order of matter rebuked him for the violation of great and holy Order in the soul. He learned the songs of all birds and gave them their various names; but there was not a chord in his heart to vibrate to their sweet melodies, and in the remorseful soul there was no place for music. He descended to the ocean-caves and trod their pale pearl-shell floors; he explored those darker caverns where the slimy sea-monsters crawl sleepily, and plucked the green sea-weed which grows there. Sometimes he climbed the highest mountains, and standing on their summits while the lightnings played and the storms rolled beneath him, discoursed to his own spirit, of Nature and her wonderous elements. He went out and read the stars, he saw recorded there the destiny of man even to the end of time; and as he traced in their mystic characters the effects of his own single act of guilt, he shut his eyes and cried to them in his agony; but they answered him only in the music of the spheres, and as he heard, it grated harsher on his soul than the jarring crash of systems.

He retired within himself and sought the knowledge of mind and

of spirit; but he recoiled from the vileness and sin which he found there. He saw how he had marred the bright image of his maker, and had stained its purity and deformed its loveliness by crime. He saw how what was made for peace and joy he had transformed into the seat of despair. Truly he was cursed with knowledge, for the remembrance of his former ignorance and purity, contrasted with his present wisdom and guilt, was insupportable. He knew not then that he could hate, for he had never been angry. He knew not how to be selfish, for he had always loved his fellows. But now he had learned it all too well, and it was his curse.

Thus century after century did he live in solitude and in amassing knowledge. At length he sought the society of men. They gave him a hearty welcome, yea, reverenced him because he was learned. He knew all things on the earth and under the earth, and the starry heavens he read as one reads from a book a tale with which he is familiar. But it was his curse to know these things, for they brought him the knowledge of virtue and of vice, and he learned fearfully well how keenly a sensitive mind may suffer-how as it opens and expands with wisdom it becomes still more susceptible of remorse and anguish.

Men thought Maholah happy for his great knowledge, and they brought their children to him that he might teach them. How he shrunk from it! But they would not be denied, and it was the bitterest pang of his curse that he must train up the opening mind of youth and fill them with thoughts in their developement-thoughts which he knew would make them like himself, miserable and wretched. And he saw in their young minds the germs of evil and unhappiness which he found in himself. He marked their progress, and read in their developement the ruin and extinction of his race. He beheld the workings of selfishness, and jealousy and hate, and traced them to their results. He saw how man would rise against man in war; how the strong would rule the weak with the rod of oppression; and he foresaw the last man of his race standing alone in the desolate earth, and with a groan which echoed through the awful silence like the last knell of humanity, fall into a half-dug grave and die! And he was the cause of it! His sin had engendered the sin of the western world. From his wisdom sprung all that knowledge whose developement was to be so fearful a curse. He knew it felt it, and it scorched his very brain to think of it. Could he live and continue to realize so horrible a fact? He could and did. Centuries of life

were yet before him, and he spent them all cursed by knowledge. Old men died about him, while the young grew up a violent wicked race, and anarchy and crime prevailed. But Maholah ever grew wiser and unhappier, unsympathizing with men, and joyless.

One night he went forth alone in his own dark thoughts, and strode upon the sea-shore. He climbed to the summit of a lofty rock and cried in his agony unto the mighty Deep. He knew too well the fearful scene of the morrow; and as he heard a muttered roaring in the ocean-caves, he felt that it was his sin which should make it leap from its bed and swallow up a world. He stretched out his arm to the sea and bade it come and put an end to his torments: "Thou had'st rocked in thine awful cradle forever, had not Maholah lived and sinned. Come thou Great Avenger, come to the guilty first. Receive me to thine everlasting bosom !"

A dark form seemed to fall through the air. The sea murmured as it took him in, and Maholah with his sin and his "Curse of Knowledge" was no more.

Then the Ocean rose and did its work. And when that race of men were all destroyed, there was a bright Bow on the eastern cloud, and knowledge thenceforth ceased to be a curse. RALPH.

BIRTH OF TIME.

Before Time began there was Eternity. No suns blazed; no orbs rolled; everywhere was an awful vacuity-a black, silent, bottomless space-chasm, where Infinity slept dreamless, and Silence floated on its raven wing tireless forever. Being was not, save God, and He was everywhere. Higher than infinite space extends, there was God. Lower down than the pillars of Immensity are sunk were the omnipresent foot-prints. Broader than the span of Extension was the presence of the Uncreated Alone. But there was no bottom found for Being to rest on, and there was not a Sun to cast the shadow of Darkness.

Then God spoke out from his sublime loneliness. Raven-winged Silence flew up affrighted. Dreamless Infinity woke shivering from his sleep. With the calmness of Omnipotence God said, "Let time be born!" and while hollow space was listening, Eternity was conscious of its child. Then spake the Infinite Father, "Let Time bear record of Creation, and when all shall be finished, let it return again and be lost in Eternity!" Z A. Z.

THE MISSION OF THE GREAT.

Lobiell

Great men are great suns. They send forth a light and a warmth which wake a world to life and energetic action. They are the truest heroes who live to guide man to a happy destiny. Whatever be a man's pursuit in life, if he but direct others in his teachings, to their true life-work, and lead them to do it nobly, he treads in a path of true glory. Hence the philosopher and the theologian, the poet and the historian, the painter and the popular divine are all acting a part not inglorious, while they grasp and picture truth, to stir up men to deeds of virtue.

Alexander was not such a hero when he rode to glory through scenes of blood. Brutus was not a heaven-approved man when he buried deep his dagger in Cæsar's bosom. Napoleon was not a son to cheer the heart of the world when he bathed in crimson a whole continent. But Socrates, while he exposed the errors of the Sophists; Virgil, while he sung deeds of superhuman valor; Chaucer, while he pictured out life and nature-was doing something for the lasting benefit of mankind; they were truly great. It is a false idea, that unless man is engaged in some project to secure the immediate perfection of the race, in all that constitutes their true nobility, he is living for no good. He may even then be laying the foundations on which others shall erect a majestic pyramid of noble deeds, whose top shall be encircled with the bow of promise to a wretched world. It is the silent stream no less than the roaring torrent which helps to fill the deep, dark chambers of the mighty ocean. Homer was not living in vain when he sung his immortal song. His was the work of fashioning the minds of thousands by turning their thoughts to acts of the truest heroism; greatness was his theme, and as he sung his charming numbers, he was commencing an era in the history of the human race. And did he do nothing worthy of man when he guided the minds of Eschylus and Sophocles, Theocritus and Virgil, Seneca and Horace, Dante and Milton, and a whole world of mind, to a clear conception of the beautiful in nature and in art,-inspiring them with a heroic determination to seek out what is so high