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After the Resurrection, the Jews accused Joseph of stealing Christ's body, so he was thrown into prison and only liberated after forty years, though the time seemed to him but a few days. He had taken the Holy Cup to share his confinement, and it furnished meat for his body and consolation to his soul, and so happy was he in its company that he did not perceive the flight of time.

Joseph afterwards came to England, bearing with him the spear that pierced the Saviour's side, as well as the sacred vessel, and for many generations some one of his descendants had been appointed keeper of the precious relicssome stainless soul serving God and his fellow men in purity and self-sacrifice. In whatever country the Holy Cup happened to be, there blessings multiplied. All who even looked on it were blessed for evermore, and pilgrims came from near and far to view it, and receive the favors it dispensed.

But, at length, its guardianship came to a king not quite so good as those who went before, and one day, when an evil thought passed through his mind, lo! the spear of itself fell from its resting-place and inflicted a wound so deep that no skill could heal it. The chalice then vanished from mortal sight. From time to time, though, it revealed itself in visions to saintly persons, and it was foretold that the cup should again dwell among men when a blameless knight should come, and that it would be he who should heal the sinning king.

So all good knights of the time spent their days riding from place to place, seeking opportunity to do deeds of mercy, of bravery, and of holiness, each hoping thus to make himself God's instrument and win the reward of the "Holy Grail."

It was the custom for all the company of the Round Table to assemble at Penticost, and it befell on a certain eve of the feast that as they sat together, an

old hermit, low-bowed and closely veiled, entered the hall, leading a beautiful youth. Although not yet above his fourteenth year, the form of the youth was so noble and his face so full of the promise of high manhood, an inexplicable sense of joy filled all present.

"King Arthur," said the hermit, "behold, I bring ye a new knight for the Table Round. He is of the kindred of Joseph of Arimathea. Many wonders have been foretold of him. He shall rank the first of your chivalry, and shall achieve the marvel for which ye all have yearned."

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Suddenly, through an silence, there came a soft, rushing sound, as though millions upon millions of angels filled the room. Unseen hands gently drew aside the draperies which had hitherto concealed the first honored place of the Round Table, revealing to the spell-bound company letters of resplendent light, wherein all read: "Here is the seat of Galahad."

Taking the youth by the hand, the king conducted him to the place, and great was the rejoicing at the glory come to the Round Table.

Then, without warning, a rumbling and crackling as of thunder filled the air. The roof seemed riven-splintered-and a strange darkness fell. All at once a light flashed out, seven times clearer than that of day, and a sweet odor as of all delightful spicery penetrated the room. Down one long beam of light floated a luminous cloud, and beneath it was a silken covering of white, through which was discerned a goblet, giving out a soft, rosy glow from its contents. The face of each knight was so transfigured with beauty that his fellows did not know him. Each bared his head in reverence, for all seemed to know it was the Holy Grail that was passing.

When it had floated out of the room and the hush was over, the king knelt to give thanks for what they had witnessed.

Each knight in turn was questioned as to how the Vision had seemed to him, and when all had testified, Sir Percivale and Sir Bors stood up, and on their cross-shaped hilts they sware that for a year and a day they would give themselves to deeds of valor and of virtue, in the hope of again beholding the blessed Sight. But Galahad, extending his arms and making his body in shape like a cross, vowed the vow that by night and by day, while life should last, he would follow the Vision throughout the world, come flood or come fire!

And the morrow saw the three starting on their quest, each taking a different. direction.

One night during his travels, Galahad rested at an abbey, where he learned that a wonderful shield had been kept for hundreds of years, awaiting the coming of a blameless knight. The shield had been warned to all men except to him of divine appointment, and the many who had tried to bear it had been either slain or maimed, as was foretold should be the case till the shield should come by its true owner.

On hearing these traditions, Galahad spent the entire night in prayer, beseeching that he might be made worthy to wear the precious shield. Then, with the fire of hope in his heart, he begged to see it. It was of virgin white with a cross of red over its entire length. It had belonged to King Evelake, with whom Joseph of Arimathea had lived many happy years. Joseph had helped this king conquer his enemies, and had also brought him to a knowledge of the true faith. The two loved each other dearly, and when Joseph was dying, Evelake begged him to leave some token of himself for remembrance. So Joseph bade the king bring his shield, and with his own holy blood Joseph smeared it in the shape of a cross, saying that in that sign the bearer of the shield should ever conquer. Only one chosen of God might

wear it without coming to harm, and. that one should be of his own lineage. Here in this abbey the shield had waited all these centuries. As Galahad lifted it to his shoulder, his fingers were icy and trembling and his brow was dank with sweaty drops, but straightway-it seemed to him his strength was that of ten! His courage and his hope were now redoubled, and, blessing his fortune, he once more took up his journey.

Some months afterwards, night overtook him at a hermit's hut, and while he lay sleeping there, he heard a knock at his door, and the voice of a maiden called, "Awake, Sir Knight, and follow me; a mission true now waits for thee!" It was not the part of a good knight to question commands; so, offering the adventure to God, he donned his scarlet robe and mounted his snow-white charger to do the maiden's bidding. Many silent leagues they rode in the frosty, star-lit night-the hush unbroken except for the clang of steely hoofson and on-swift as the arrow flies before the wind, without rest or change, until they reached the sea. Here they found Percivale and Bors. Great was the joy which each knight felt at meeting the others, and the three went over all that had been adventured since their parting. Percivale and Bors had suffered much travail and sorrow in their search, and many a glittering will o' the wisp they had followed. But their zeal had availed them nothing, and they had been commanded to seek no furtherjust to wait in patience what should come to them.

Soon, the maiden spoke in this wise: "Percivale," she said, "I am your sister, although you have never seen me before. The Holy Grail has directed me to come to your assistance." Then she showed them a great, jewel-set sword, most cunningly made, and richer by far than their eyes had ever rested upon. It was half-drawn from its sheath, and

its well-wrought blade flashed in the morning sun. But the hempen girdle from which it hung was mean, and looked too weak to hold it. "This sword is for God's Chosen One," she said. "It belonged to King David, and is the sharpest and surest ever held by knight. Solomon wanted his own wife to make a girdle for it, but she hung it to this one of hemp, saying that one day a young and beautiful maiden would make another of something very, very dear to her. When that time came, the maiden would give both sword and girdle to the one peerless knight of the world." From a casket, she then took a broad band of gleaming gold, soft and strong, within which was woven a crimson grail in a silver beam. "It is my own hair," she said. "It hung to my feet, and once I loved it better than anything else in the world. In the lonely vigils of my convent cell I often saw the Holy Grail, and each time the wonder came to me it seemed borne in upon me that it was I who must make this girdle." So saying, she bound it about Galahad. "Now, I have nothing more to live for, and care not how soon death may call. The hour is at hand for the curing of the sinnerking, Amfortas. Long years has his pain-rent body craved for death's release. That prayer is heard, and his flame of life is fast burning to the socket. Eagerly he awaits your coming and the promise that it brings. You must go at once to his court. There you will find the Holy Grail, which it is ordained that you shall bear to the holy city of Sarras."

"And as she spoke

She sent her deathless passion in her eyes

Thro' him and made him hers and laid her mind

On him, and he believed in her belief."

After a long journey the knights reached Amfortas. He seemed to know why they had come, and begged them

to lose no time in attending to his wound, for he longed for death's sweet solace.

Even as he spoke, a door opened, and in flew a little dove, bearing a golden censer which filled the air with its fragrant incense. Many angels floated in, some with lighted tapers, one with a blood-dripping spear, and then another carrying the Holy Grail, still shrouded in its pall of snow-white samite. All the angels knelt with bended heads and folded hands before it. Last of all came an old Bishop, whom they knew for Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea. He, too, knelt, and a prayerful silence fell over all. Then an angel laid the blood-dripping spear in Galahad's hand, commanding him to wet his finger in the blood and touch it to the king's wound. Galahad did as he was directed, likewise anointing the sinner's eyes and each of his other senses, and in the name of Him Crucified bade the chastened soul depart in peace.

"Now is your work here accomplished," said the Bishop. "To-morrow the Holy Grail will leave this land forever. At the sea-coast the vessel waits."

On the morrow they found the vessel, and an angel, bearing the shrouded Grail, sat in the helm. Their ship moved. with magic swiftness, and towards the end of the day they reached Sarras.

When the king of that city learned that the Holy Grail had come to his kingdom, and of the noble youth who invited people to the blessings of the Cup, he was full of dismay, and he had the three knights imprisoned. Yet they were very happy even there, since they who live by the Holy Grail have that which can procure, as well as increase, all happiness.

It was not many months, however, before the persecutor fell ill, and being about to die, he endeavored to make amends by ordering the release of the knights. Seeing the joy this give his

people, he decided to leave the throne. to young Galahad. Amid much rejoicing, the boy-knight was crowned, and very soon he had a beautiful temple erected to receive the Grail. Peace and prosperity, health and happiness, and all good things now filled the land.

Late one evening when Galahad and Percivale and Bors went up to the temple to pray, they found there Joseph of Arimathea, surrounded by legions of shining angels. The Holy Grail was no longer covered, but burned redder than any rose-blood-red in its golden cup, and a halo more glorious than all the sunsets encircled it. Soft music of heavenly peacefulness murmured through the air. Sweet savors were penetrating everywhere. Percivale and Bors closed their eyes against the dazzling splendor and hushed their breath for ecstacy. But, as the trumpet thrilled a wild triumphant note and cymbal and psaltery crashed in a tumult of sweet sound, it seemed to both the knights as though angel voices had bidden them to look; and, lifting their eyes, they beheld their Galahad clothed in incomparable light-sainted as it were in the

flesh-his flame-colored robe now white and glistening as the dawn. Then they saw the Holy Grail slowly lift up, and Joseph, and Galahad, and all the Shining Ones ascend with it, far, far up to where the heavenly gates unbarred, and for one never-to-be-forgotten moment, the city of High God they beheld unveiled!

Although Percivale and Bors lamented long over the loss of their friend, they could not help rejoicing that he should never again be separated from the Joy in which he had so long lived and moved.

Percivale could never forget the wonderful Vision that had been permitted to him-sleeping or waking it lived with him; and, as the mind takes shape and color from that upon which it dwells, Percivale could find pleasure only in pursuit of spiritual things. Therefore he quitted the world for the monastery, to give himself to the silent life of prayer. Here in penance he spent a year, then joined Galahad; but Bors returned to King Arthur's realm to relate to the court the wonderful story of the finding of the Holy Grail.

Winter Magic

By Edwin Carlile Litsey

A sullen sky thick-piled with clouds of wrath; White-sheeted lowlands frozen still with cold; Sleet-covered trees bare in the North wind's path; Close-huddled sheep safe in the sheltered fold.

Sombre and grim the forest giants stand,

Forbidding in their awful, icy might;
On Nature's breast a mailed and armored band,
Untouched by but the slightest ray of light.

The portals in the western sky swing wide,
The glory of the sunlight speeds afar;

The forest blossoms in that golden tide,

And on each twig there glows a silver star!

0

By L. M. P.

T was a copy of the "Magnificat" framed in an inimitable Cinque Cento frame. It hung where the light fell strongest, in one of the gloomy rooms of the Casa San Domenico..

"It saved Nera Ubbriachi from a great crime," piped the old woman, blinking, "in the Cinque Cento."

Two women were walking to and fro upon the terrace of Casa San Domenico. Florence lay below. Sunlight was on the Beloved City, won, lost, regained in a never-ending struggle. Guelph and Ghibelline fought for her now, heedless of her death-throes and the famine in her streets. Buonarotti's forts on the opposite San Miniato hill, the distant San Giorgio, defended her; beyond them, the German and the Papal armies encompassed her about. She was in the direst straits and dying fast. Florentines mourned Ferucci, iron-hearted Ferucci, and looked askance on the procrastination of Malatesta Baglioni. A blow-and he would have had all starving Florence at his back; but he chose to stay inert before the enemy without the walls— watching-waiting, for what? Some

dying, starving wretches ended their miserable existences but yesterday for shrieking "Traitor!" after Malatesta on the Ponte Vecchio, and screaming for Geronimo Casella, the son of a peasant, to lead them.

We see these two women gazing over the dying city, where the grey haze, her shroud, hung on tower and roof, and blended in the distance into one with the olive groves; the younger, tall, dark, with a glint of red in her thick, brown

hair which she might have inherited. from her Venetian mother. Thin was she and pale, clad in a long, flowing, brown garment, worn bare in many places, which twenty years before might have clothed a ragged beggar-not such a patrician beauty as Nera Ubbriachi. The other woman, short, darker, better clad, maybe, with a keener hankering after the frivolous fashions of the Cinque Cento, with its tabs and slashings and puffings, but Monna Teresa had that same air of lean dryness in her middleaged face. Nera Ubbriachi was speaking-slowly, distinctly, with a certain. impassivity, too studied to be natural.

"Nera!" A faint gasp interrupted her. Monna Teresa had clasped her hands upon her breast-they were trembling.

"You think it strange, without doubt!" It was a curious tone, a mingling of pity with some bitter amusement.

"Strange! What a word! Buon Dio! Can you be jesting?"

"Jesting!" Her face, her voice, relaxed for a moment, then regained what they had lost.

"It is Satan's work." Monna Teresa made a sign of the cross and kissed her thumb. "Anima Santa! Do you know-"

"Rude, rough, uncouth, you can teach me nothing of him that I do not know." "Nera!"

"Let us understand one another." Her face, quite calm, was turned towards the city. "When my father first presented him to me I asked myself: 'Who is this lout they are bringing in?' He betrayed no pleasure at the presentation; within the moment, he had turned his back to me and swore at a dog which

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