had made a glory of the Cross of Death, now, with a smile of victory, gave poor Humanity the gift of everlasting Life! The grateful skies brightened above Him,—earth exhaled its choicest odors through every little pulsing leaf and scented herb and tree; Nature exulted in the touch of things eternal,—and the dim pearly light of the gradually breaking morn fell on all things with a greater purity, a brighter blessedness than ever had invested it before. The man Crucified and Risen, now manifested in Himself the mystic mingling of God in humanity; and taught that for the powers of the Soul set free from sin, there is no limit, no vanquishment, no end! No more eternal partings for those who on the earth should learn to love each other,—no more the withering hopelessness of despair,—the only "death" now possible to redeemed mortality being "the bondage of sin" voluntarily entered into and preferred by the unbelieving. And from this self-wrought, self-chosen doom not even a God can save!"
This appeals fully to the poetic imagination, and
it seems to quicken a kind of personal interest as
to the marvelous mystery of that stupendous occasion.
Marie Corelli's Christ embodies much of the human—the human that is divinely magnetic, almost, if not quite, undefinable, yet not exclusive, not idolatrous, but simply and gently human. The creation of the character of Jesus of Nazareth possesses no atom of bigotry. It teaches love and does not seek to embitter hate. The aura of the master
