ng for the revelation of that will;
but my days have been mournful, because my search failed. I solicited
direction: I turned on every side where glimmerings of light could be
discovered. I have not been wholly uninformed; but my knowledge has
always stopped short of certainty. Dissatisfaction has insinuated
itself into all my thoughts. My purposes have been pure; my wishes
indefatigable; but not till lately were these purposes thoroughly
accomplished, and these wishes fully gratified.

"I thank thee, my father, for thy bounty; that thou didst not ask a less
sacrifice than this; that thou placedst me in a condition to testify my
submission to thy will! What have I withheld which it was thy pleasure
to exact? Now may I, with dauntless and erect eye, claim my reward,
since I have given thee the treasure of my soul.

"I was at my own house: it was late in the evening: my sister had gone
to the city, but proposed to return. It was in expectation of her return
that my wife and I delayed going to bed beyond the usual hour; the rest
of the family, however, were retired.

"My mind was contemplative and calm; not wholly devoid of apprehension
on account of my sister's safety. Recent events, not easily explained,
had suggested the existence of some danger; but this danger was
without a distinct form in our imagination, and scarcely ruffled our
tranquillity.

"Time passed, and my sister did not arrive; her house is at some
distance from mine, and though her arrangements had been made with a
view to residing with us, it was possible that, through forgetfulness,
or the occurrence of unforeseen emergencies, she had returned to her own
dwelling.

"Hence it was conceived proper that I should ascertain the truth by
going thither. I went. On my way my mind was full of these ideas
which related to my intellectual condition. In the torrent of fervid
conceptions, I lost sight of my purpose. Some times I stood still;
some times I wandered from my path, and experienced some difficulty, on
recovering from my fit of musing, to regain it.

"The series of my thoughts is easily traced. At first every vein beat
with raptures known only to the man whose parental and conjugal love
is without limits, and the cup of whose desires, immense as it is,
overflows with gratification. I know not why emotions that were
perpetual visitants should now have recurred with unusual energy. The
transition was not new from sensations of joy to a consciousness o