For who could tell when the old
man's incoherent muttering would break into the clear speech
of one of those Heavenly Visitants who, in the early days,
had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for some divine
and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure channels
of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,--
but through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William,
who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community,
the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire,
and when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered
back into some dim depths of personality, and he moaned
and muttered, using awful names with babbling freedom,
Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness
for a _"thus saith the Lord,"_ which should enflame the gray
embers of Shakerism and give light to the whole world!
When Nathan talked of these things he would add, with a sigh,
that he hoped some day William would be inspired to tell them something
more of Sister Lydia: "Once William said, 'Coming, coming.'
_I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought it was Athalia;
it was just before she came." Brother Nathan sighed.
"I wish it had meant Lydy," he said, simply.
If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so.
And, indeed, he said very little upon any subject;
Brother Nathan did most of the talking.
"I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty,"
he told Lewis; "that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us.
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