ur mother' as to a
mortal creature--'will you extricate her?' 'Yes.' 'And her extrication
is to be a certainty to me, that this has really happened?' 'Yes.' 'But
answer me one other question!' I said, in an agony of entreaty lest it
should leave me. 'What is the True religion?' As it paused a moment
without replying, I said--Good God in such an agony of haste, lest it
should go away!--'You think, as I do, that the Form of religion does not
so greatly matter, if we try to do good? or,' I said, observing that it
still hesitated, and was moved with the greatest compassion for me,
'perhaps the Roman Catholic is the best? perhaps it makes one think of
God oftener, and believe in him more steadily?' 'For _you_,' said the
Spirit, full of such heavenly tenderness for me, that I felt as if my
heart would break; 'for _you_, it is the best!' Then I awoke, with the
tears running down my face, and myself in exactly the condition of the
dream. It was just dawn. I called up Kate, and repeated it three or four
times over, that I might not unconsciously make it plainer or stronger
afterwards. It was exactly this. Free from all hurry, nonsense, or
confusion, whatever. Now, the strings I can gather up, leading to this,
were three. The first you know, from the main subject of my last letter.
The second was, that there is a great altar in our bed-room, at which
some family who once inhabited this palace had mass performed in old
time: and I had observed within myself, before going to bed, that there
was a mark in the wall, above the sanctuary, where a religious picture
used to be; and I had wondered within myself what the subject might have
been, _and what the face was like_. Thirdly, I had been listening to the
convent bells (which ring at intervals in the night), and so had
thought, no doubt, of Roman Catholic services. And yet, for all this,
put the case of that wish being fulfilled by any agency in which I had
no hand; and I wonder whether I should regard it as a dream, or an
actual Vision!" It was perhaps natural that he should omit, from his own
considerations awakened by the dream, the very first that would have
risen in any mind to which his was intimately known--that it strengthens
other evidences, of which there are many in his life, of his not having
escaped those trying regions of reflection which most men of thought and
all men of genius have at some time to pass through. In such disturbing
fancies during the next year or two, I