night of the grand ball of the season, as she entered the room, in pearl moire, with pearlcolored crape over-dress, looped with white flowers, all eyes paid homage to her loveliness, but in the absence of of a certain pair of clear grey eyes, all other glances seemed meaningless to her. Looking around involuntarily to see if she could not meet that gaze which had, unconsciously to herself, grown so dear to her, she discovered Mr. Colston seated in a bow-window with the blonde, who looked radiant in the flush of early womanhood and happiness. Her eyes were cast down, her cheeks suffused with a deep blush, as she nervously picked to pieces a flower she held in her hand And her friend, how noble he looked as he stood there gazing down on her with a glance half smiling, half earnest! A revelation, a double revelation, fell on Alice at this instant, with keen anguish. She loved this friend. Her tardy love had come at last, strong and deep-too late, and he loved another. What tremendous power there is in the social drill, that while such a tumult was going on in Alice's bosom, she stood outwardly calm, apparently listening to the gentleman beside her and throwing in suitable interjections in reply to his questions.

Oh, how bitterly did she weep over her madness and folly, when alone that night! What anguish pierced her when she remembered how carelessly she had thrown away the noblest gift ever in her reach, a love that she would, now give her life to possess. To be yearning for a love that had once been in her reach and refused, this intensified her unhappiness.

Perhaps her friends thought her pale and wearied appearance the next day, was due to the excitement and fatigue of the ball. They said so, and she let the assertion pass uncontradicted, for she was resolved that death itself should not draw her secret from her. However she felt it too severe an ordeal to meet him daily and hourly, feeling as she did, and hearing of the indisposition of a member of her family, she took the opportunity to leave the sea-shore, where she had known the keenest pain as well as the sweetest pleasure she had ever felt.

She

She did not act like a weak, foolish girl, but like a brave, sensible woman. went home and tried, oh, so hard, to take up the thread of home life and duty. "I will not pine away," she said. "I will try to do my work in life, although the sweetest thread in life is not for me, although my life will creep along on broken wing, instead of soaring aloft in hope and joy," and so she struggled, though often amid weariness and discouragement, to interest herself in others, and to carry sunshine into other lives, seeking thus to forget the incompleteness of her own. Her young friends began to say that she was growing blasée, as her light heartedness was gone, and they knew not how else to account for the change in her, not dreaming of the regret and pain rankling at her heart. It would have been hard enough to bear if her life had been marred by some one else, but to think that she had done it herself, that was "a sorrow's crown of sorrow'' Gradually however, a sweet patience stole into her soul, and she went calmly along her path, though her life seemed to her like "the valley of the many colored grasses" after all the scarlet flowers had perished, and all the scarlet birds flown

away.

When October came she yielded to Mrs. Murray's entreaties to spend the month with her, although she experienced feelings of mingled pain and pleasure in visiting the old familiar haunts, peopled with memories now so fraught with significance and preciousness. She moved like one in a dream, living over the past, and recalling with gnawing regret the happiness once placed within her reach. Thus nearly the whole month of October sped by, and a few days before her return, Mrs. Murray came in, holding wedding cards in her hand.

"We are all invited to a wedding," said she.

"Indeed," said Alice, and who is going to be married?"

"Fanny Colston, to my surprise, for she is very young, and though I knew she was engaged, I did not think she would be married for a year to come."

Alice did not ask a question, but Mrs.

Murray went on in answer to her thoughts. Beverly is coming on to the wedding, though it is very inconvenient for him to leave his practice, but his sister made such a point of it that he could not refuse."

The struggles of months were almost undone when Alice heard this. Her whole soul was shaken, reason was unheeded, and its voice drowned in the tumult of joy at the thought of so soon seeing the beloved one again, and in a way so unsought, so unexpected by her. Nevertheless she preserved a calm exterior, being a woman of much self-control, and being resolved to guard every word, tone and look from betraying her secret.

Two days later, she heard his voice in the hall, as she came in from a walk to which the lovely Indian summer had tempted her. With her flushed cheeks and dark hair ornamented with autumn leaves and berries, she presented a pleasant picture to the eyes, and the meeting which she had dreaded almost as much as longed for, passed off gracefully. As Beverly rose to leave, he asked Mrs. Murray's sons,-two lads of eighteen and sixteenif they would not like to go shooting with him, in a field a mile or two from the house where partridges were said to abound, to which proposition they gladly agreed. As the sun was sinking in the west, their sister Ellen Murray remarked, "I know the sportsmen are turning their faces homeward, for they are near enough for me to hear their guns. Suppose we walk down the road and meet them."

They had not gone half a mile before they came in sight of the sportsmen in a field divided from the roads by a rail fence. Ellen's youngest brother was a little ahead of the others, and when he saw his sister and cousin, he sprang over the fence to join them. His gun struck against a rail, the load went off, and Beverly fell to the ground. It was impossible to tell the extent of his injuries at first, for the blood flowed freely from the wound, and he lay motionless, they knew not whether swooning or dead. It would seem that the same shot had pierced Alice, for at the instant he fell, she sank down deadly white, with a cry of terrible anguish. But when they

had staunched the wound, and applied restoratives which they obtained from a neighbor close at hand, breath and consciousness came back to him. When the light came back to those eyes which Alice had believed to be closed forever in death, an irrepressible joy shone in her face, a strange, unmistakable look that never shines in a woman's face save for one human being. It was not the friendly gladness and relief that beamed in the faces of the rest. It was not the frantic delight of the lad who feared he had killed him; no, it was different from all this, it was far sweeter and lovelier. No words can picture it. It overflowed from the fulness of her soul. In this supreme moment of deep and solemn joy, the mask dropped from her ace, she forgot every thing on earth, in the bliss at seeing the beloved one rescued from the jaws of death. The last thing that had flashed before Beverly's eyes before he sank into unconsciousness, was Alice's face, white with deadly woe. The last sound that had rung in his ears was her cry of despair, and when he returned to life, that strange, beautiful look on her face came to complete the revelation. That look set him to wondering and dreaming. It went with him through all his illness, which was long and tedious, for he had sustained a severe and painful flesh wound. En passant, we may observe that he would never again go shooting with lads. During his illness, he had full opportunity to review his whole past life, as he was for a time withdrawn from the current of activity. His thoughts reverted strongly to his early youth, and its love romance, which, though it had been long dormant, had yet a little germ of life which commenced to spring up again, under the conviction which he could not repress, that Alice loved him. A vain or shallow man would have been inflated, but so honorable, high-toned and noble was Beverly, that such feelings had no place in his nature. There was no new love standing in the way of the old, for the blonde whom Alice had supposed to be her successful rival, was the affianced of Beverley's most intimate friend, and he, being in the confidence of both parties, would often talk to the young lady about

violence it was thought, could the false religion of Mahomet have been enabled to so completely triumph over the true religion of Jesus as to supplant it in the place of its nativity and throughout the Eastern world. Of late years, however, the tendency has been to discredit this explanation, to sneer at it as the easy means which Christian bigotry has taken to explain a fact very discreditable to its own faith. Islam triumphed, we are told, through its own inherent energy, and not on account of the valor and discipline of its soldiery. It was the victory of a living idea over dead dogmas, of an earnest faith in the one God and his righteousness, over the barren subtilties and empty ritualism of Eastern Christianity. To us the true explanation lies between these two, in fact, is a combination of them both. Beyond a doubt, the rapid spread of Mahometanism was very largely due to the compulsion of brute force. According to the evidence of its own historians, the new faith was generally met with the most bitter and determined opposition; and it was finally established in the conquered countries only by the aid of a minute and tyrannous system of military espionage which was often prolonged through generations before its objects were completely gained. And yet it is equally clear that this fierce proselytism of the sword was greatly aided by the moral and intellectual condition of the conquered peoples. The whole of Western and Central Asia was then in a state of religious ferment; the old systems, whether Christian or Pagan, were falling into decay; the people were becoming critical and restless; everywhere there was the seething of dissent, doubt and vague aspiration after more perfect

ideals. Never had there been a crisis so favorable for the reception of a new religion; and of this crisis, the Arabian conquerors were most fortunate in being able to take the advantage.

At any rate, by fair means or foul, Islam was sweeping all before it. Old things were passing away. Dynasties, states, religions, were toppling into ruins before the advance of this new power, which moved on as swiftly and relentlessly as the waves of an earthquake. In a single century the

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Arabians had conquered or them selves an empire wider than that which Rome had gained in eight hundred years. Almost in a moment, Bagdad-a city matchless in power and magnificence-had risen as the spiritual and political centre of the new order of things. The career of Islam had been a forced march which had surprised the world. Nothing that we read about in the "Arabian Nights" can surpass the swift victories, the sudden changes, the marvellous things that happened in these Arabian days.

Naturally this quick rush of events had added to the ferment of the times. Outwardly, it had enforced order and homogeneity; within, things were seething as never before. To the Asiatics, aroused from the lethargy of centuries, nothing now seemed impossible. Startled by the sudden collapse of religious systems which they had been taught to believe eternal, converted to a new faith by the fierce logic of the sword, they were in the mood for heresies and religious revolutions. Every. one was on the alert for new changes and upheavals. Why should not there come some new prophet endowed with even greater wisdom than Mohammed, who with all his sagacity and power of inspiration had forgotten or neglected to name the line of succession to the primacy of Islam, and through this oversight had plunged the great empire in countless revolutions, and irretrievable disorder? The Koran might be the word of God; but why not some new and richer revelation supplementing the bald, monotonous monotheism of the Koranic gospel which for the most part, had contended itself with prohibitions and denials, and left in obscurity that world of marvel and mystery which Asiatic faith believed to be everywhere present? Such questions, we can readily imagine, were being asked every hour and in every part of the empire of the Caliphs. At least it is certain that it was an age of wide-spread and deep-seated intellectual disquiet. The traditions of the old religions were still reacting upon the new faith that had supplanted them. Heresies were springing up, one after the other in quick succession. Religious eccentricities, of every kind, were in full bloom throughout the Ilamite world.

In this age of intellectual chaos, Mokanna, or Hasham bin Hekim, first appeared upon the stage of action. Of his life, before he assumed the rôle of prophet, but little can be said. We only know that he was born, of no very lofty parentage, in the district of Merv, a part of the province of Khorassan; and that, entering upon military life, he rose to the rank of general in the army of the famous Ebu Muslim. Under the leadership of that valiant prince, he must have participated in many of the most stirring scenes of Mahometan conquest; he witnessed the swift advance of the new power as it pushed itself far into the depth of Central Asia; he must have himself assisted in the establishment of much that he afterwards made so tremendous an effort to overthrow. That during this time he was no unworthy nor dishonored soldier, would seem to be shown by the reverence which he ever afterwards displayed toward his former leader. Ebu Muslim was always one of the chief demigods in the Pantheon of the new religion. Or rather, he was one in that grand series of divine manifestations that began with Adam and Abraham, and ended with Mokanna. Disappointed and inefficient subordinates, who have deserted one sphere for another, are not apt thus to regard their former chiefs; this soldierly enthusiasm, this absurdly intensified reverence for his old leader, is at least one pleasing trait in the character of a man whom the world has thought to be wholly bad.

In fact, it was not until after the death of Ebu Muslim, that Mokanna found courage to forsake the career of a soldier for the solemn and tragic mission of a prophet. Already his imagination may have been heated by the romance of military life in those days; intoxicated by the rapid rush of victories and revolutions that attended the Islamite movement, he may already have begun to indulge in his wild dreams, of a new religion. But so long as his leader lived, the instincts of a soldier kept this prophetic fever in check. He was content to dream without attempting to act. But when Ebu Muslim died, the last retaining influence was removed; and Mokanna at

once came forward with his proclamation of reform and deliverance for the world.

The general impulse that had urged him forward to this enterprise, is easily understood and has already been fore-shadowed. His brain was inflamed by the splendid succes of Islam; at the same time, he saw that the new yoke lay heavily upon millions who had accepted the Koran at the point of the sword and stood ready to throw off their allegiance at the first promise of a deliverer. But, beyond this general impulse, what special ideas were controlling him, what intellectual and moral aspirations he was striving to embody in his gospel of reform-it is difficult to say. Mokanna left behind no authoritative exposition of his faith; and the teachings ascribed to him by the Mohammedan historians are evidently the pure inventions of malice, or else such gross caricatures as hostile theologians are apt to make of doctrines which they neither appreciate nor understand. We are in the dark, then, so far as any positive knowledge is concerned. At the same time, there are some leading indications which serve to show the general drift of his system. Mokanna, we judge, was very largely under the influence of the old beliefs which the Koran had supplanted. He was no re-actionist; he did not propose to patch up old creeds or to galvanize dead systems of faith. And still the ancient culture had made a strong impression upon him. While framing a new religion, he was unconsciously mastered by certain religious instincts, sentiments, aspirations, which had ruled Asiatic life from time immemorial, and which now the armies of Islam were striving to trample under foot.

A proof of that, we have in his doctrine of the incarnation. Whatever else is doubtful, this is certain; Mokanna proclaimed that in some sense or other he was God. He was not merely a prophet, a spokesman, a representative of the Most High; he was an actual manifestation and a living embodiment of the Infinite; he was the last in a long line of Divine Incarnations which began with Adam and included Abraham, Moses, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed and even Ebu Muslim. In