His doubts, his passion, his self-
reproaches, danced like demons before his distracted brain. The
troubled, stormy thoughts of his distraught mind merged insensibly
into prayers. He put aside the clothing and showed to the Virgin Mother
his wounded breast, scarred and bleeding. He looked into her face with
murmured words of contrition, of imploring, of faith. A gracious sense
of her womanly pity, of her heavenly tenderness, stole soothingly over
him. He seemed almost to feel cool hands on his hot forehead; it was as
if in a moment more the heavens might open and grant to him the
beatific vision. There came over him a wave of joy which was beyond
words. The longing of his soul for the woman he loved was merged in the
desire of his heart which yearned toward the blessed Virgin Mother. His
prayers became more glowing, more ecstatic, until in a rapture of
adoration, of bliss, of passion, he fell prostrate before the divine
image, crying out with all his soul:--
"Thou ever blessed one! To thee I give myself! 'O thou, to the arch of
whose eyebrow the new moon is a slave,' receive me, save me!"
He had no sense of incongruity to make the phrase unseemly or
ludicrous.
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