hear him say, ’It was indeed a temptation; amidst numberless blessings denied to others, I yet gave you, too, your trial;—­the questionable talent of an inquisitive intellect, and leisure to use or abuse it.  Tempted to absolute doubt, you would not succumb to it; you would not be so inconsistent here as to relinquish those maxims on which I compelled you to act in every other case in life, nor deny to me the confidence which you granted to every common friend!  Warned by the very misery which was sent to caution you that in that direction lay death, you struggled against the incursions of your subtle foes, and you overcame.  Welcome, child of clay! welcome to that world in which there is no more night!’”

We had been talking on till long past midnight; and the lamp suddenly warned us that its light was just expiring.  Harrington took off the shade, and was about to light a candle by the dying flame, when it went out.  “It matters not,” he said, “I have the means of kindling a light close at hand.”  “Let it alone,” said I, rising, and gently laying my hand on his arm, and speaking in a low voice, but with much earnestness; “this darkness is an emblem of our present life.  You cannot see me, but you hear my voice and feel the touch of my hand.  For any thing you know, I may be seized with a sudden fit of insanity.  I may be about to stab you in this darkness; such things have been.  You have lost, with the light, more than half the indications of affection which that would disclose.  But you trust to the probable; your pulse does not beat any the quicker, nor do your nerves tremble.  You may have similar, nay, how much stronger proofs (if you will) of the confidence with which you may trust God, and Him, the compassionate One, “whom he hath sent,” in spite of all the gloom in which this life is involved.  That certainty for which you have just now asked will only be granted when the darkness is passed away; and then you will ’rejoice in the light of his countenance.’  And, further,” I continued, “there is yet one thing which I wish to say to you; and I feel as if I could say it better in this darkness; for I will not venture to say that I should not manifest more feeling than is consistent in a hard-hearted metaphysician.  Yes! it is on the side of feeling that I would also address you.  You will say, feeling is not argument?  No; but is man all reason?  I firmly believe, indeed, that man is not called upon to do any thing for which his reason does not tell him that he has sufficient evidence; but a part of that very evidence is often the dictate of feeling; and genuine reason will listen to the heart, as not always, nor perhaps more frequently than otherwise, a suspicious pleader.  If, as Pascal says so truly, it sometimes has its reasons which the reason cannot comprehend, it has also its reasons which the reason thoroughly understands.