This is a vision that came to one, watching, and that others may be aided by it as he was, it is recorded here.
He knelt in the Holy of Holies of a Temple, where there were flowers and perfumes and beautiful objects, strains of distant music, harmonious, divine, and tinted lights from jeweled windows. Dim and shaded was the place, making all mysterious and more delicious still.
A long, long while he knelt there, in an ecstasy of adoration, his soul filled with the wonder and joy of it. But lo! he looked up, and all this had vanished. It was cold and empty and full of grey light, and the pain of the revelation was overwhelming. He fought and struggled but in vain, and after a while, seeing it was useless, he got up and went out.
On the Temple steps he met an old friend, smiling kindly and affectionately, and saying, "You have been a long while, I have been waiting." The friend did not see his tears, nor notice how bowed he was with suffering. "Come," he said, "we will go together."
So they went away together, but always on his heart lay the pain with crushing weight, and day by day he went back to the desolate Temple to pray and try to understand.
Once, as he knelt there in the cold and barrenness, he heard a Voice; and after that each time the Voice grew stronger and sweeter, always soothing and comforting, and gradually filling him with all the old joy, only fuller, deeper, more intense.
One day he said, "It is only a Voice, it has no form." And the answer came. "Surely, how could there be form here?" Then he said, "I used to think there was form." "That was your fancy and ignorance," was the reply.
Then he cried out "Is there always to be pain!" and the answer came softly, softly, "Yea, until the lesson is learned."
He wept bitterly but through his tears came a great strength, and by and by he understood.