d the light of the
Church."

There is a touch of unconscious humor in the final paragraph which
clamored for quotation. But it was plainly written in profound
earnest.

"Thursday, April 20.--My soul is disquieted, my heart aches. . .
Tears flow from my eyes involuntarily. My soul is grieved--for what?
Yesterday, as I was praying, the thought flashed across my mind,
Where is God? Is He not here? Why prayest thou as if He were at a
great distance from thee? Think of it. Where canst thou place Him--in
what locality? Is He not here in thy midst? Is His presence not
nearest of all to thee? Oh, think of it! God is here. . . .

"Am I impious to say that the language used in Scripture for Christ's
expresses the thoughts of my soul? Oh, could we but understand that
the kingdom of heaven is always _at hand_ to the discerner, and that
God calls upon all to 'Repent, for ye shall not all disappear until
it shall open. This generation shall not pass away.'"

Then follows a page of philosophizing on time and eternity, immensity
and space, and "monads who may develop or fulfil their destiny in
other worlds than this," a reminiscence, perhaps, of the lectures on
such topics at which Mr. Curtis says Isaac used to "look in," hoping
to "find an answer to his questions." Such speculations are a trait
throughout the diary, though they are everywhere subordinate to the
practical ends which dominantly interest him. A day or two later
comes a passage, already given in a preceding chapter, in reference
to certain prophetic dreams which it has been given him to see
realized. And at once this follows:

"April 24, Noon.--The Catholic Church alone seems to satisfy my
wants, my faith, life, soul. These may be baseless fabrics, chimeras
dire, or what you please. I may be laboring under a delusion. Yet my
soul is Catholic, and that faith responds to my soul in its religious
aspirations and its longings. I have not wished to make myself
Catholic, but that answers on all sides to the wants of my soul. It
is so rich, so full. One is in harmony all over--in unison with
heaven, with the present, living in the natural body, and the past,
who have changed. There is a solidarity between them through the
Church. I do not feel controversial. My soul is filled."

From this point he speedily recedes. By the next day he is "lost
almost in the flesh"; "fallen into an identity with my body," and
notes that for some time he has "done little in study, but feel