I have, however, been restrained from this and every thing, by doubts of another nature."

"I beseech you explain," said Evelyn.

46 Briefly then, I suspected my own motives might not be so sincere as yet they must be, before even the Heaven I aim at here below should be mine, if really I could gain it."

"And this," added he, after a pause, "is one, the strongest reason, for my thinking myself not yet in a condition to make the very few communications I have for you."

"Still, and always honourable," exclaimed Evelyn, fervently; "but I beseech you explain even here (and I know no place more appropriate out of our own England), explain here and at once to what point you have attained, and what is still in doubt."

"Alas!" returned Tremaine, "I have the misery of not knowing, as far as reasoning and principles are concerned, whether I have gained any thing. But honestly can I aver, that the feeling of religion, which I had so long allowed to be stifled in me, because, as I thought, not supported by reason-this feeling has returned, and I own deliciously. It has often expanded my very heart."

"It is worth a universe," cried Evelyn, "and transcends all the philosophising and all the systems that ever drove poor reason mad. For, say what the most orthodox may, of the proofs from argument and

controversy, one spark of genuine pious gratitude and reverence to God the Creator and dispenser of all good, one spark of this, arising in the heart, as a mere feeling, without a proof beside, is worth a thousand-fold more than the most perfect cold conviction that any metaphysician could be satisfied with."

"Is that your creed ??' asked 'Tremaine.

"It is. I have always held it, always clung to it, and think the poor Indian who sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind,' happier than he, who arrives at the same truth after the most refined and happy deductions of reasoning."

Tremaine paused a few minutes, then observed, “I believe, nay I am sure you are right as to the effect. The feeling was once mine, but in early, very early youth. It was reasoning, reasoning that could not satisfy me, but brought all into doubt; it was this that deprived me so long of this precious feeling."

"But it is restored!" exclaimed Evelyn.

"It is, in a degree; nor can I ever now contemplate the face of happy nature, under whatever form it may come before me, whether animate or inanimate, without feeling, and delightfully too, the beauties and beneficence of its Author. But though I do not, as formerly, overwhelm myself with unfathomable calculations upon his design, or upon

our place in the order of things, I am still tormented by the inextricable difficulties drawn from the existence of evil, and the seeming want of a moral Providence. But my religion would be one of obedience, resignation, and gratitude, were there no other." "Good!" said Evelyn; " but may we not add also, one of confidence and hope hereafter ?"

;

"I wish I could say so," answered Tremaine ; "but to this, alas! I have not advanced. The theories, indeed, of Democritus, Lucretius, and Spinoza, Hobbs, and all the Academics, were never very influential in making my mind the sea of doubt it sometimes has been, even as to the universe; for they tread on atheism-from which I have been always exempt. But though exempt, as to the existence and general power of a Creator, they have puzzled me sometimes as to particulars even in physics, until I found it necessary to begin anew with the new philosophy; and, glad I am to say, that the fallacies of Lucretius and Des Cartes have completely melted away before the warm sun of Newton, and his illustrious school. Safely, therefore, I can assert, that I am as alive as you would have me, in regard to the existence and power of God-to the glowing im. agery of your beautiful Psalm :

'Whither shall I go then, from thy presence?

If I climb up into heaven, thou art there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also."

"This is as I would have it," said Evelyn.

"But truth compels me to confess," added Tremaine," that I am not yet able to go on with this too flattering, too soothing, as well as beautiful language:

'If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.'

"Alas!" said Evelyn, "how much is my hope cast down. You believe not yet, then, that the hand of Providence leads us?".

"I do not say so," answered Tremaine. "I say, rather, that I believe in it most entirely in the natural world, but am not so confident as to the moral. But even were I as fully persuaded of His perpetual and obvious interference, as the Jews themselves were throughout their history, shall I own to you another rock against which I have long been beating myself? Providence, as to this world, by no means implies the existence of another, but rather the contrary; and all my doubts as to the nature of the soul, or as to materialism and immaterialism, would by no means be relieved, even were my difficulties, as to the moral government of the world, completely cleared up."

"We are in a sad wide sea indeed," said Evelyn, mournfully:"how different is this from your open.

ing!"

"Do not, however, misunderstand me," returned Tremaine. "Though my doubts are by no means settled, meditation and study, and guides whom I had but too much slighted, have let in much light upon a mind, not only dark in itself, but dark from its own wilfulness. To have unsettled wrong, is surely a step, and not an inconsiderable one, towards settling right. Above all, it is not to you I need say that these very difficulties are themselves one of the foundations of revelation."

66 'My dear friend," cried Evelyn, in a tone of joy, amounting to elation, "if you have advanced thus far, great indeed has been your progress. May God bless the work!"

66

Stop," interrupted Tremaine, "nor misconstrue me on the other side. The darkness I was in, and which, though less gloomy, I still want your help to dispel for ever, was so thick, so impenetrable, that no revelation could pierce it. It rendered all effort useless, because, while it existed, it was inconsistent with the truths which you say come from God. Now all of you agree that even the omnipotence of God is not equal to establish a contradiction."

"Undoubtedly," said Evelyn.

"Then, to me, revelation once appeared a contradiction to what I believed, both with respect to Providence, and to the soul. I have allowed I am much shaken: help me finally to destroy my opinions,