"Hush! hush!' said he; I have told you that this is useless. I begged you to come to me, not as a clergyman, but a friend, who knows the world; spare, therefore, my feelings and your own labour. You would harrow my mind with the vengeance of an offended God. I tell you at once, that in that God I do not believe.' on 66 Seeing me shudder still more at this, he went "Let me, however, explain. I am not such a fool as to think that we made ourselves, or that we were made by chance. But that we are to live again, be rewarded or punished, or that we do anything more than fill up, like other brutes, the place designed for us in the creation, whatever the end of that design, has long by me been decided in the negative. The piety and atonement, therefore, which you were going to set before me, as a motive to my confession, has no share in it; it is sheer disdain of the hypocrisy I have practised, which has made me thus immolate myself. I have worshipped an idol, for which I sacrificed all selfesteem, all quiet of heart, all real interest; and, I may say, all health. This burning cheek; this hectic that consumes me; my withered brow, my faultering tongue, my whirling brain, prove it too fatally. Can I do otherwise than dash this idol to pieces, as I now do, by these disclosures? No! No! If false pride led me perpetually wrong, true pride shall, for once, put me in the right. The only amends a hypocrite can make for having affronted the world by living in deceit, is to confess his hypocrisy, and submit to his shame. Yes! It is but right that everybody should know I am a rascal.' "Here he absolutely trembled with the distress of the conflict; and his agony was so great, that I feared immediate exhaustion. Indeed, he could not go on; and after having just kept his shattered frame from sinking, he said he would retire till better able to resume the conference. I left him with feelings which you may easily imagine. The interview gave me food for thought, and will for the rest of my life." SECTION XXX. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. "Oh! thou eternal mover of the heavens, "THE next morning, Miserandus forestalled our meeting by coming to me, and in this very room resumed the terrible interest of our preceding conversation. When I asked him how he found himself, he answered-better, though one day nearer his inevitable end; but better,' said he, because I think I have done right in confiding what I have to you; but as to comfort-it is as far off as ever, nor have I any prospect but to despair and die.' "Do not say so," I answered; "if you will only divest yourself of the prejudices which seem VOL. III. L to have clouded your reason as well as your hope, and which, I fain would believe, are the chief causes of your despair-you-” 66 6 You would still talk to me of a hereafter, and of a future judgment,' said he. Oh, God! what is that but to confirm despair, annihilation bliss!" and make "Not so," said I; "if you would only look at the consolations of religion, as well as the fears which it undoubtedly inspires. We are mercifully (oh! how mercifully!) promised everything upon true repentance; and that you are in the right road to it, I cannot help hoping. Your present agony, frightful as it is to yourself and to me, demonstrates it. I implore you, therefore, for your soul's peace, in this its last struggle, to embrace the offers of a pardoning, though offended Maker, and to profit by the light which, spite of your asserted disbelief, seems breaking in upon you." "I have no light!' replied he, moodily, yet with a deep sigh, and clasping his hands together, as if they were bound by fetters. "Say not so again," I replied; "this very dejection, this remorse, this voluntary though late retribution by a confession,-the last thing to be expected from a hardened man;-all this shows a mind on which good seed has been sown, and which yet may come to fruit." 6 ""Tis too late,' said he, in a tone of agony, yet mixed with fierceness; but were it not, you are wrong in thinking my confession arises from remorse, still more from fear. I have no fear, and certainly no hope. These both belong to the living, not to the dead.' "This is dreadful," said I. "Far from it,' he replied; it is even comfortable to those who have passed a life of wrong doing, such as mine. But comfort does not, I own, stand for argument: my opinions are deeper founded. Why, I would ask, are we to live again, any more than the brutes we affect to despise; ourselves, in many things, the greater brutes? Reason gives no clue to this: reason, that convinces, in one way or other, in all other things!' "I agree to that," said I; "but you forget the light of the Gospel, the best gift of all, and given expressly because Reason, as you say, suffices not for conviction." "He seemed touched, and striking his forehead, exclaimed, Ha! if this were so!' then striding up and down the gallery, he gave way to an agitation which I watched, hoping it might lead to better |