Could
I doubt that this must be the Soldan, whose rank was well known
to me, as he often visited my cell to converse on the revolutions
of the heavenly bodies? Again, the lights of the firmament
proclaimed that this prince, the husband of Edith Plantagenet,
should be a Christian; and I--weak and wild interpreter!--argued
thence the conversion of the noble Saladin, whose good qualities
seemed often to incline him towards the better faith. The sense
of my weakness hath humbled me to the dust; but in the dust I
have found comfort! I have not read aright the fate of others--
who can assure me but that I may have miscalculated mine own?
God will not have us break into His council-house, or spy out His
hidden mysteries. We must wait His time with watching and
prayer--with fear and with hope. I came hither the stern seer
--the proud prophet--skilled, as I thought, to instruct princes,
and gifted even with supernatural powers, but burdened with a
weight which I deemed no shoulders but mine could have borne.
But my bands have been broken! I go hence humble in mine
ignorance, penitent--and not hopeless.
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