I am the Angel who saved thee beneath the Castle of Belial,
and who showed thee the vanity and madness of all the earth, the City of
Destruction and the splendor of Emmanuel's City; and again have I come at
his bidding to show thee greater things, because thou art seeking to make
good use of what thou hast seen erstwhile." "How can it be, Lord," asked
I, "that your glorious highness, guardian of kings and kingdoms, does
condescend to associate with carrion such as I?" "Ah," said he, "in our
sight a beggar's virtue is more than a king's majesty. What if I am
greater than all the kings of earth, and supreme to many of the countless
lords of heaven? Yet, since our eternal Sovereign vouchsafed to take
upon Himself such unutterable humiliation--put on one of your bodies,
lived in your midst, and died to save you, how dare I deem it otherwise
than too sublime for my office to serve thee and the meanest of men, who
are so high in my Master's favor? Hence, spirit, cast off thine earthy
mould!" he cried, gazing upwards: and at the word, I beheld him fall
free of all bodily form, and snatch me up to the vault of heaven, through
the region of thunder and lightning, and all the glowing armouries of the
empyrean; higher, immeasureably higher than I had previously been with
him, and where the earth appeared scarcely wider than a stack-yard.
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