d, and looked up wildly. I was afraid I might have to encounter
another scene like that I had witnessed on the occasion of my last
departure. I therefore hurried away, giving her no time to reply,
where conversation was apparently useless. My intention was to try and
devise some means of introducing a person into the house--though
against the determined will of the father--to guard him and assist the
daughter; but that could only be done through the medium of the
messenger who went between me and the young woman.

When I had got some distance from the house, I could not resist the
feeling that on the occasion of my prior visit compelled me to look
back upon this miserable dwelling. I had seen diseases of all kinds
grinding the feelings of unhappy man; but in the worst of them there
is some principle, either of resistance or resignation, that comes to
the aid of the sufferer, and enables him to pass the ordeal, whether
for life or death. The duty he is called upon to perform is to
_bear_; for no man I ever yet saw on a sick-bed can get quit of the
thought--however much he may try to philosophise about physical
causes, or to conceal his sense of a divine influence--that he is
placed there by a superior Hand _for the very purpose of suffering_,
with a view to some end that is veiled from his eye. Every pang,
therefore, that is borne carries with it, or leaves after it, some
feeling of necessity to _bear_, and a satisfaction of having endured,
and to a certain extent obeyed, the behest of Him that sent it. In
many, this feeling is strong and decided, yielding comfort and
consolation when no other power could have any effect; and though in
others it may be less discernible--being often denied by the patients
themselves, and attempted to be laughed at and scorned--it is, I
assert, still there, silently working its progress in the heart, and
spreading its balm even against the sufferer's own rebellious will.
But the case of the suicide is left purposely by Him against whose law
and authority the unholy purpose is directed, in a solitary condition
of unmitigated horror; for the desire to get quit of pain--the
inheritance of mortals--is itself the very exclusion of that
resignation which is its legitimate antidote, while the devoted
victim, obeying a necessity that forces him to eschew a misery he is
not noble-minded enough to bear, not only has _no good_ in view, but
is conscious that he is flying _from_ evil, _through_ evil, _