“It does, indeed,” said Fellowes.

“Could you always realize it, my friend?” said Harrington.

“Nay, I was once a firm believer in the current orthodoxy, as you well know.”

“Now you see with very different eyes.  You can say, with the man in the Gospel, ’This I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

“I can.”

“And you attribute this happy change of sentiment to the perusal of those writings of Mr. Newman from which you think that I also might derive similar benefits?”

“I do.”

“It appears, then, that to you, at least, my friend, it is possible that there may be a book-revelation of ‘moral and spiritual truth’ of the highest possible significance and value, although you do not consider the book to be divine; now, if so, I fancy many will be again inclined to say, that what Mr. Newman has done in your case, God might easily do, if he pleased, for mankind in general; and with this advantage, that He would not include in the same book which revealed truth to the mind, and rectified its errors, an assurance that any such book-revelation was impossible.”

“But, my ingenious friend.” cried Fellowes, with some warmth, “you are inferring a little too fast for the premises.  I do not admit that Mr. Newman or any other spiritualist has revealed to me any truth, but only that he has been the instrument of giving shape and distinct consciousness to what was, in fact, uttered in the secret oracles of my own bosom before; and, as I believe, is uttered also in the hearts of all other men.”

“I fear your distinction is practically without a difference.  It will certainly not avail us.  You say you were once in no distinct conscious possession of that system of spiritual truth which you now hold; on the contrary, that you believed a very different system; that the change by which you were brought into your present condition of mind —­out of darkness into light—­out of error into truth—­has been produced chiefly by Mr. Newman’s deeply instructive volumes.  If so, one will be apt to argue that a book-revelation may be of the very utmost use and benefit to mankind in general,—­if only by making that which would else be inarticulate mutter of the internal oracle distinct and clear; and that if God would but give such a book, the same value at least might attach to it as to a book of Mr. Newman’s.  It little matters to this argument, the question of the possibility, value, or utility of an external revelation,—­whether the truths it is to communicate be absolutely unknown till it reveals them only not known, which you confess was your own case.  If your natural taper of illumination is stuck into a dark lantern, and its light only can flash upon the soul when some Mr. Newman kindly lifts up the slide for you; or if your internal oracle, like a ghost, will not speak till it is spoken to; or, like a dumb demon, awaits to find a voice, and confess itself to be what it is at the summons of