"
"I fully believe it possible," I said. "Yonder old Safe, if rumor says
true, holds many mystic signals which the past and present could address
only to the future,--signs meaningless, no doubt, to you or me, but
which the freemasonry of higher intelligence shall render plain in the
time hereafter."
"And what if I had come," exclaimed Clifton, eagerly,--"what if I had
come to add to those deposits which are not for this time, but which may
be for other times? What blame to me, if I am here to do this? Should we
common men, who find a life full of active duties presented to our
acceptance,--should such as we, I say, receive this world as a pageant
before which we must sit down and evolve a doctrine? The conceit of
external education is at present too strong to acknowledge a divine
element radiating from the depths of the soul, and finding in the mind
only an awkward and imperfect instrument. Any extravagance is now
tolerated, but an extravagance of spirituality; and we find altogether
wanting the perception, that, rising from the gross symbols of language,
can know the subtile and precious emotion which in a more advanced state
of being those symbols might suggest.
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