existence;
--whether, as the Pantheist declares, the universe itself be God,--
ever making, never made,--the product of an evolution of an infinite
series of 'antecedents' and 'consequents'; a God of which--for I
cannot say of whom--you and I are bits; perishable fragments of a
Divinity, itself imperishable only because there will always be bits
of it to perish;--whether, even upon some such supposition, this
conscious existence of ours is to be renewed; and, if under what
conditions; or whether, when we have finished our little day, no
other dawn is to break upon our night;--whether the vale, vale in
eternum vale, is really the proper utterance of a breaking heart as it
closes the sepulchre on the object of its love."

His voice faltered; and I was confirmed in my suspicions, that some
deep, secret sorrow had had to do with his morbid state of mind. In
a moment, he resumed:--

"These are the questions, and others like the them, which I have
vainly toiled to solve. I, like you, have been rudely driven out
of my old beliefs; my early Christian faith has given way to doubt;
the little hut on the mountain-side, in which I thought to dwell in
pastoral simplicity, has been scattered to the tempest, and I am
turned out to the blast without a shelter. I have wandered long and
far, but have not found that rest which you tell me is to be obtained.
As I examine all other theories, they seem, to me, pressed by at
least equal difficulties with that I have abandoned. I cannot make
myself contented, as others do, with believing nothing, and yet I
have nothing to believe; I have wrestled long and hard with my
Titan foes,--but not successfully. I have turned to every quarter
of the universe in vain; I have interrogated my own soul, but it
answers not; I have gazed upon nature, but its many voices speak no
articulate language to me; and, more especially, when I gaze upon
the bright page of the midnight heavens, those orbs gleam upon
me with so cold a light, and amidst so portentous a silence, that
I am, with Pascal, terrified at the spectacle of the infinite
solitudes,--'de ces espaces infinis.' I declare to you that I know
nothing in nature so beautiful or so terrible as those mute oracles."

"They are indeed mute," said Fellowes; "but not so that still voice
which whispers its oracles within. You have but to look inwards, and
you may see, by the direct gaze of 'the spiritual faculty,' bright
and clear, those great 'intuitions' of