brighten or graven at your bidding; to know that the sources of
human passion and human emotion gush at the word of the speaker, as the
stream from the riven rock; to feel that the thought that thrills through
a thousand hearers has its impulse from you and throbs back to you the
fuller from a thousand heart-beats; is there any joy in life more
brilliant than this, fuller of passionate triumph, and of the very
essence of intellectual delight?

My pen was busy, and a second pamphlet, dealing with the Johannine
gospel, was written and sent up to Mr. Scott under the same conditions of
anonymity as before, for it was seen that my authorship could in nowise
be suspected, and Mr. Scott paid me for my work. I had also made a
collection of Theistic, but non-Christian, hymns, with a view of meeting
a want felt by Mr. Voysey's congregation at St. George's Hall, and this
was lying idle, while it might be utilised. So it was suggested that I
should take up again my correspondence with Mr. and Mrs. Voysey, and glad
enough was I to do so. During this time my health was rapidly failing,
and in the summer of 1873 it broke down completely. At last I went up to
London to consult a physician, and was told I was suffering from general
nervous exhaustion, which, was accompanied by much disturbance of the
functions of the heart. "There is no organic disease yet," said Dr.
Sibson, "but there soon will be, unless you can completely change your
manner of life." Such a change was not possible, and I grew rapidly
worse. The same bad adviser who had before raised the difficulty of "what
will Society say?" again interfered, and urged that pressure should be
put on me to compel me at least to conform to the outward ceremonies of
the Church, and to attend the Holy Communion. This I was resolved not to
do, whatever might be the result of my "obstinacy ", and the result was
not long in coming.

I had been with the children to Southsea, to see if the change would
restore my shattered health, and stayed in town with my mother on my
return under Dr. Sibson's care. Very skilful and very good to me was Dr.
Sibson, giving me for almost nothing all the wealthiest could have bought
with their gold, but he could not remove all then in my life which made
the re-acquiring of health impossible. What the doctor could not do,
however, others did. It was resolved that I should either resume
attendance at the Communion, or should not return home; hypocrisy or
expulsi