In the solitude of his prison, the ideal forms of beauty and sublimity, which had long flitted before him vaguely, like the vision of the Temanite, took shape and coloring; and he was endowed with power to reduce them to order, and arrange them in harmonious groupings.

His powerful imagination, no longer self-tormenting, but under the direction of reason and grace, expanded his narrow cell into a vast theatre, lighted up for the display of its wonders.

To this creative faculty of his mind might have been aptly applied the language which George Wither, a contemporary prisoner, addressed to his Muse:-- "The dull loneness, the black shade Which these hanging vaults have made, The rude portals that give light More to terror than delight; This my chamber of neglect, Walled about with disrespect,-- From all these, and this dull air, A fit object for despair, She hath taught me by her might, To draw comfort and delight." That stony cell of his was to him like the rock of Padan-aram to the wandering Patriarch.

He saw angels ascending and descending.

The House Beautiful rose up before him, and its holy sisterhood welcomed him.