sequent exhaustion which he had undergone conjoined with his previous weakness, rendered doubly necessary. The MSS. were severally entitled the "Chastened Spirit," and "Perkins' dream." I here produce them without further apology. CHAPTER XV. THE CHASTENED SPIRIT. “Die Sonne tönt, nach alter Weise, Ihr Anblick giebt den Engeln Stärke, "SINCE ever I can recollect, silken pinions fell adown my shoulders; I moved to the sound of music, and inhaled the ether of the heavens. I was innocent—I was happy-I was free. But time with unerring flight rolled on; the clang of the circling spheres sounded throughout the universe; the burning suns maintained their ceaseless whirl, and new thoughts, feelings and aspirations beset me. Ten thousand thousand years passed away, and still I was youngyoung as a spirit-young as regarded the infinite, inexhaustible lapse of eternity. "I knew the course of the planets; I had tracked the comets into farthermost thule; and with tireless pinions, had accompanied their thither and hither flight. I pondered on the productions of the Almighty; I knew the peoples, the races, and the languages of the nations of every sphere-countless as the atoms of life diffused through infinite space. I had es sayed to reckon the innumerable stars of God; I had dived into the depths of infinity—east, west, north, south-into the exalted zenith and profound nadir; I had alike winged my flight. "I proceeded in each direction with a speed whose quickness would mock vision to behold, till my immortal purpose flagged before the insuperable difficulties of the task. I fain would have spanned God's creation in its vastness— in its length its breadth its height its depth; but however far I penetrated, I still found light, and life, and form, and intelligence. I thought to have reached the outermost range of being; to have compassed time, and space, and eternity; but I was mistaken. If the abysses of immensity presented any limit, it was not for me to reach their boundaries, though I had sped with speed beyond the speed of light, and proceeded with unfaltering purpose, till convinced at last of its impracticability. I would set limits forsooth, to the universe-adapt it to my slender, yet, ambitious conceptions, and say, this is the length, and breadth, and the heighth, and the depth thereof. But it might not be; the prodigious whole was beyond my feeble grasp. Was there even any limit, I asked myself in half-frightened accents-or was there any among the angels of God, however high and exalted, who had fathomed - who could fathom it? My own experience had declared it impossible; and what I had found So, I ventured to think no spirit, save one-the High, the Ineffable, could comprehend. "Foiled in one attempt, I was prepared to try another. If the boundaries of these mighty regions be inaccessible even with a spirit's purpose and power, may I not succeed in other directions? Might I not plumb the nature of the thinking principle-the manner of its evolution and being might I not reckon the elements and their combinations-might I not trace out and unravel the intricacies of life, the habits, the powers, and the springs of action of the different creations of the animated world? - "I set myself to work; I laboured with unwavering toil, to develop the conditions of thought, the nature and essence of the thinking principle. With time and patience I succeeded in ascertaining the character, and to a great ex |