Slowly and gorgeously the sun had continued to wane in the horizon until
he was now lost to view. As his last rays sunk behind the distant
hills, the stranger started from his reverie and approached the
landholder, pointing with his staff towards the fast-fading brightness
of the western sky.
'Probus,' said he, in a low, melancholy voice, 'as I looked on that
sunset I thought on the condition of the Church.'
'I see little in the Church to think of, or in the sunset to observe,'
replied his companion.
'How pure, how vivid,' murmured the other, scarcely heeding the
landholder's remark,' was the light which that sun cast upon this earth
at our feet! How nobly for a time its brightness triumphed over the
shadows around; and yet, in spite of the promise of that radiance, how
swiftly did it fade ere long in its conflict with the gloom--how
thoroughly, even now, has it departed from the earth, and withdrawn the
beauty of its glory from the heavens! Already the shadows are
lengthening around us, and shrouding in their darkness every object in
the Place.
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