Then would come the ragged edge of a cloud, brightened
throughout with sunshine, passing and changing quickly,--not that the
divine smile was not always the same, but continually variable through
the medium of earthly influences. The great slanting beam of sunshine
was visible all the way down to the pavement, falling upon motes of dust,
or a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the shadow. Insects were
playing to and fro in the beam, high up toward the opening. There is a
wonderful charm in the naturalness of all this, and one might fancy a
swarm of cherubs coming down through the opening and sporting in the
broad ray, to gladden the faith of worshippers on the pavement beneath;
or angels bearing prayers upward, or bringing down responses to them,
visible with dim brightness as they pass through the pathway of heaven's
radiance, even the many hues of their wings discernible by a trusting
eye; though, as they pass into the shadow, they vanish like the motes.
So the sunbeam would represent those rays of divine intelligence which
enable us to see wonders and to know that they are natural things.
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