It was all rapid.
Suddenly the veils were rent away.

They saw on high as it were a star, incomparably more lustrous than the most luminous of material stars, which detached itself, and fell like a thunderbolt, dazzling as lightning.

Its passage paled the faces of the pair, who thought it to be _the Light_ Itself.
It was the Messenger of good tidings, the plume of whose helmet was a flame of Life.
Behind him lay the swath of his way gleaming with a flood of the lights through which he passed.
He bore a palm and a sword.

He touched the _Spirit_ with the palm, and the _Spirit_ was transfigured.

Its white wings noiselessly unfolded.
This communication of _the Light_, changing the _Spirit_ into a _Seraph_ and clothing it with a glorious form, a celestial armor, poured down such effulgent rays that the two Seers were paralyzed.
Like the three apostles to whom Jesus showed himself, they felt the dead weight of their bodies which denied them a complete and cloudless intuition of _the Word_ and _the True Life_.
They comprehended the nakedness of their souls; they were able to measure the poverty of their light by comparing it--a humbling task--with the halo of the _Seraph_.
A passionate desire to plunge back into the mire of earth and suffer trial took possession of them,--trial through which they might victoriously utter at the _sacred gates_ the words of that radiant _Seraph_.
The _Seraph_ knelt before the _Sanctuary_, beholding it, at last, face to face; and he said, raising his hands thitherward, "Grant that these two may have further sight; they will love the Lord and proclaim His word." At this prayer a veil fell.