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And in the great hour, whatever his past hours have been, consecrate to duty or to ease, to the loftiest or to the least-erected aims, whether he is borne on triumphant to the dread pause, the vigil which is the night after a battle, or falling he sinks by a fatal touch, and the noise of victory is hushed in the coming of the great silence, and the darkness swoons around him, and the cry "Press on!" stirs no pulsation any longer in that great hour he is lifted to the heights of the highest, the prophet's rapt vision, the poet's moment of serenest inspiration, or what else magnifies or makes approximate to the Divine this mortal life of ours.
A very mean idol-worship, too, unrelieved by awe and reverence, a selfish, earthward-looking devotion to the "least-erected spirit that fell from paradise." I grow weary of seeing man and mechanism reduced to a common level, moved by the same impulse, answering to the same bell-call. A nightmare of materialism broods over all.
The Desert Pandemonium has finally its riches, its jewels, and its treasures, such as Mammon, "the least-erected spirit," discovered and "led them on" to, in the deeps of hell. We may now transcribe the description of Milton's Pandemonium, the great ingredient of contrast being light and splendour amidst the "darkness visible" of the regions of perdition.
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