traced the sudden inspirations of movements, such as we lately feel, not all due to the abrupt descent into our midst of a new messenger, for the elder Brothers work with law and foresee when nature, time, and the awakening souls of men will aid them.  Much may now be done.  On whosoever accepts, acknowledges and does the will of the Light in these awakenings the die and image of divinity is more firmly set, his thought grows more consciously into the being of the presiding god.  Yet not while seeking for ourselves can we lay hold of final truths, for then what we perceive we retain but in thought and memory.  The Highest is a motion, a breath.  We become it only in the imparting.  It is in all, for all and goes out to all.  It will not be restrained in a narrow basin, but through the free-giver it freely flows.  There are throngs innumerable who await this gift.  Can we let this most ancient light which again returns to us be felt by them only as a vague emotion, a little peace of uncertain duration, a passing sweetness of the heart?  Can we not do something to allay the sorrow of the world?  My brothers, the time of opportunity has come.  One day in the long-marshaled line of endless days has dawned for our race, and the buried treasure-houses in the bosom of the deep have been opened to endow it with more light, to fill it with more power.  The divine ascetics stand with torches lit before the temple of wisdom.  Those who are nigh them have caught the fire and offer to us in turn to light the torch, the blazing torch of soul.  Let us accept the gift and pass it on, pointing out the prime givers.  We shall see in time the eager races of men starting on their pilgrimage of return and facing the light.  So in the mystical past the call of light was seen on the sacred hills; the rays were spread and gathered; and returning with them the initiate-children were buried in the Father-Flame.

—­June 15, 1896

The Childhood of Apollo

It was long ago, so long that only the spirit of earth remembers truly.  The old shepherd Tithonius sat before the door of his hut waiting for his grandson to return.  He watched with drowsy eyes the eve gather, and the woods and mountains grow dark over the isles—­ the isles of ancient Greece.  It was Greece before its day of beauty, and day was never lovelier.  The cloudy blossoms of smoke curling upward from the valley sparkled a while high up in the sunlit air, a vague memorial of the world of men below.  From that too the colour vanished, and those other lights began to shine which to some are the only lights of day.  The skies dropped close upon the mountains and the silver seas, like a vast face brooding with intentness; there was enchantment, mystery, and a living motion in its depths, the presence of all-pervading Zeus enfolding his starry children with the dark radiance of aether.

“Ah!” murmured the old man, looking upward, “once it was living; once it spoke to me.  It speaks not now, but it speaks to others I know—­to the child who looks and longs and trembles in the dewy night.  Why does he linger now?  He is beyond his hour.  Ah, there now are his footsteps!”