the impulse which leads him to believe that, in
addressing a Deity, he is addressing a tender, compassionate, benignant
Father, and in that obedience shall obtain beneficial results. If that
impulse be an illusion, then we must say that Heaven governs the earth
by a lie; and that is impossible, because, reasoning by analogy, all
Nature is truthful,--that is, Nature gives to no species instincts
or impulses which are not of service to it. Should I not be a shallow
physician if, where I find in the human organization a principle or
a property so general that I must believe it normal to the healthful
conditions of that organization, I should refuse to admit that Nature
intended it for use? Reasoning by all analogy, must I not say the
habitual neglect of its use must more or less injure the harmonious
well-being of the whole human system? I could have much to add upon
the point in dispute by which the creed implied in your question would
enthrall the Divine mercy by the necessities of its Divine wisdom, and
substitute for a benignant Deity a relentless Fate. But here I should
exceed my province. I am no theologian. Enough for me that in all
my afflictions, all my perplexities, an impulse, that I obey as an
instinct, moves me at once to prayer. Do I find by experience that the
prayer is heard, that the affliction is removed, the doubt is solved?
That, indeed, would be presumptuous to say. But it is not presumptuous
to think that by the efficacy of prayer my heart becomes more fortified
against the sorrow, and my reason more serene amidst the doubt."

I listened, and ceased to argue. I felt as if in that solitude, and
in the pause of my wonted mental occupations, my intellect was growing
languid, and its old weapons rusting in disuse. My pride took alarm. I
had so from my boyhood cherished the idea of fame, and so glorified the
search after knowledge, that I recoiled in dismay from the thought that
I had relinquished knowledge, and cut myself off from fame. I resolved
to resume my once favourite philosophical pursuits, re-examine and
complete the Work to which I had once committed my hopes of renown; and,
simultaneously, a restless desire seized me to communicate, though but
at brief intervals, with other minds than those immediately within my
reach,--minds fresh from the old world, and reviving the memories of
its vivid civilization. Emigrants frequently passed my doors, but I had
hitherto shrunk from tendering the hospitalit