Thursday night came again, and I, filled with the expectation of meeting Iole, once more passed the doorkeeper. I had again dressed myself as a monk, but contrary to the usual garb, had taken the orange robes of the Buddhist. Some slight accident with my driver had made me somewhat late, and I found I was the last one to enter, the guard closing the outer doors as I passed. As I appeared before the inner guards, the woman said something to the patriarch in Sanskrit, with which I was comparatively familiar. The words were not distinct enough, however, for me to catch their meaning. Presenting my card, they bowed in acknowledgment, and the woman arose and accompanied me into the white room at the right. Motioning me to a seat she took one just in front of me. For several minutes we sat facing each other in silence, her piercing eyes never leaving my face. Presently the patriarch entered. A fear commenced to steal over me; what had I done? Then a conviction of purity came to me, and I grew firm and strong. Reaching out her hand the woman said: "Let me see your palm." Ah! I thought, they are going to check my horoscope by the science of chiromancy. Leaning over my hand she gazed at it long and intently; then taking my other palm, she pressed the palms together, straightened them out and seemed to compare them with great care. Then with a peculiar instrument, not unlike a compass, she gauged the length of my thumb and finger joints; then, having taken a measurement as though The patriarch, who had noted down each item, now put up his book, and as she dropped my hand pointed to a door at the side of the room and said: "You may pass." As I arose to leave the room, the woman said: "Brother, guard well your heart, your greatest strength and yet your greatest weakness. It must be controlled, otherwise your mind will be unsteady. Allow not thoughts of pleasure, brief and short, to keep you from wisdom that leads to the Eternal. Now enter!" "The Buddha was no heathen, nun, he taught the morals of thy Christ and three of the grandest doctrines that ever man has taught." "Ah! since when? what were they, monk?" "Since five hundred years before thy Christ Buddha and his true disciples have taught the doctrine of Enlightenment, Law, and Evolution, to perfection." "What! enlightenment in that benighted country?" she said mockingly, apparently in an altogether different mood this evening. "How long benighted? Only since the sword of Allah usurped the throne; only since the British Christians robbed and plundered; only since the iron rule of might has usurped Buddha's teaching of gentleness and right." While my garments were assumed this speech was not, and, as I finished, she answered: "Thou hast most firmly-set convictions, monk; what of the Law?" "The law that every cause has its effect which again reacts upon its cause; and that all things upon the earth are bound by this eternal law, immutable and certain." "The materialistic evolution of the West—no. Mind cannot come from cold, dead matter; life cannot come from lifeless form; but the endless evolution or unfoldment through manifestation of an invisible and all-pervading Essence—yes." "But the Buddhist is an atheist." "Not so; thy priest has taught thee wrong. The Eastern idea of God, I must confess, is very different from that held in the West; no form-clothed personality can they conceive as present everywhere, but an infinite and all-pervading Brahma they do proclaim." "Well, we will not quarrel, Christ and Buddha both were good; and this is very serious conversation for a ball-room." Speaking this with her usual tenderness, she took my arm. "Shall we not relieve our minds by participation in the dance?" I ventured, as the music struck up a waltz, and I remembered I had never danced with her. "To think," she answered, "that monk and nun should dance. No mind can dwell on serious thoughts that drifts thus to the frivolous." "Not so," I answered; "the master minds can dwell on different things at different times; but others mix all things at all times, which brings "You reason with wisdom, monk, and, listening to you, the nun, against her rules, will dance." Ah, hitherto a formal handclasp, now like a fairy on my arm! Could this be the peasant girl? Ah, no! There she had by power of will kept soul restrained; here she was her real self, her heart alive with fire. Now her head leans on my shoulder; now I feel her beating heart. Souls attuned to subtle music blend in unison on earth. Oh, happiness! what joy! Our souls are one. What! The music ceased already? how short! How delusive is that thing called time! She was the first to return to consciousness. For the time she had given herself to me, but now, again individualized and separate, she spoke: "Come, my monk, we must waste no more time, but get to our studies." "Waste time!" I protested, as we started toward the study door. "Yes, waste time," she answered cruelly, and then added earnestly: "That was but a temporary union; there is a union which is eternal." We had now entered the study-room, and, to my surprise, she took a seat in front of me and asked: "What have you been thinking of since last we met?" "A very poor subject for thought," she answered; and before I could reply continued: "You spoke with wisdom prior to the dance; is it a fact that you can concentrate and control your mind?" "I had attained some success in that line prior to our meeting," I answered honestly, trying to draw her into the channel of my thoughts. "Then you have not been so successful since meeting me?" "I must confess I have not," I answered, hesitatingly. "Then I have exercised a bad influence on you, have I?" There was a tone of sadness in her voice, and I quickly answered: "No, no bad influence, only my heart has become stronger than my head. My love has become master. Iole, my long-lost love, I love you." I stretched forth my hands, and, with heart on fire with love would have caressed her, but with a look that almost consumed my soul she motioned me back, and with a voice most wonderfully under control, answered: "Have all thy past existences been for naught? Has all the pain and suffering we have endured been productive of no results? Must we, bound down by earth desires, still dwell in this She leaned forward as she spoke, her veil thrown aside, and her expressive brown eyes were luminous with a spiritual fire. Far from repelling me her words entranced, while they held me checked in action as I answered: "Thou hast recalled the memory of my love for thee in times gone by, and that, added to the present, only makes it stronger; but know, my soul, this love is pure, and what can claim superiority to love, pure love?" "Love, so long as tinctured by a thought of self, cannot be absolutely pure; pure love is universal and includes all things, forgetting self. What dost thou love? my soul or body?" "Thy soul; I have no thought of body." "Dost thou realize the meaning of those words? if so, there may be hope on higher planes of love." I realize the meaning; I love thy soul." "Canst thou love with all sense of body absent?" "It is possible; it is a fact. We can love in mind, in soul, in spirit; and the highest love of earthly unions is but a dim foretaste of this grand love. Know you mot the meaning of true love?" "Tell me, my sister; your words uplift me to a higher world of love." "Then know, what few men know, that every man is complete within himself, and nothing is there lacking if he will but search the depths. Love is but the soul's desire for a portion of itself which it has lost, and without which its joy is incomplete. Think not the soul cannot lose a portion of itself; it can. That which we possess yet are not conscious of, is lost, latent as it were, present but unmanifest. Now the perfect being is fully self-conscious of all his parts and attributes, and perfection must be our end and aim. Know that thou art in me and I in thee; and through you I become self-conscious of thyself in me, and through me thou becomest self-conscious of myself in thee. This is the 'Virgin Marriage.' This the meeting of the bride and bridegroom, and the only marriage known in heaven." She paused; what strange ecstasy her words brought to my soul. How grand and noble' how For several moments we sat gazing at each other in silence, drinking through our eyes each other's souls. She broke the silence with a sigh of joy, and said: "Long have I waited for this moment, love! long have I mourned for thee and waited in a robe of black! Now will we go on together, crowned with the virgin purity that entitles us to light." "Oh! sister soul, how kind of thee to wait for me who from sinful dues was yet not free." She only smiled happily in answer, but her features spoke volumes. "Brother," at last she said, and I never heard that word sound so sweet before, "we have tasted of the joy that belongs to the perfectly pure; now we must once more descend to the world and do "I am ready and attentive, sister," I answered, now having all emotions under control. "Then the first thing for you to do is to obtain complete mastery over your mind. I know your body, so far as willful acts are concerned, is controlled, otherwise you would not be here. But know that before you can proceed farther you must control your very thoughts, for every thought you think forms corresponding conditions in your mind and body. Thoughts are more powerful and potent than acts. Acts are but the expression of thoughts. Thoughts come first, we are built up of our thoughts; and we are surrounded by invisible powers and potencies created and given strength by the thoughts we think. It behooves you, therefore, to become able to guard the temple of your mind and keep therefrom all things impure. With this control of thoughts you must cultivate the power of concentration; you must be able to set your mind upon a single thing or idea, and hold it there to the exclusion of every other. In this manner your mind becomes identified with the essence of the thing upon which you think, and real knowledge comes. Some secret rules for your assistance in this practice will be given. Now, further, you must control your heart and master all emotions, for here "With all my heart and soul," I answered, to this abrupt question. "Then you must be ready to sacrifice that love," she said, with a vehemence that startled me. "Is that your command?" I asked, not fully under control when such a vital issue was at stake. "It is necessary and for your good," she answered. "Then I will; but tell me, what can demand so great a sacrifice as this?" "Humanity and truth," she answered; "these have nothing before them and everything must be sacrificed upon their altar." "But what if I love you as an embodiment of these?" "Then beware; only the less advanced have need of forms to aid them to conceive universals or abstractions, and the personified is often taken for that which it represents. The untrained mind is weak, and no doubt is aided in its upward evolution by forms and symbols upon which to concentrate its thoughts. And you, to-night, dressed as Oriental monk, must know that this is the object of the idols of the East; only childlike minds mistake their meaning. Then recall that great man, Jesus, who has been confounded by his followers with the Universal Christ whichLOVE.
