primeval foundation questions began her speculative career.  In the solitude of her own soul she struggled bravely and earnestly to answer those “dread questions, which, like swords of flaming fire, tokens of imprisonment, encompass man on earth.”  Of course mystery triumphed.  Panting for the truth, she pored over her Bible, supposing that here, at least, all clouds would melt away; but here, too, some inexplicable passages confronted her.  Physically, morally, and mentally she found the world warring.  To reconcile these antagonisms with the conditions and requirements of Holy Writ, she now most faithfully set to work.  Ah, proudly aspiring soul!  How many earnest thinkers had essayed the same mighty task, and died under the intolerable burden?  Unluckily for her, there was no one to direct or assist her.  She scrupulously endeavored to conceal her doubts and questions from her guardian.  Poor child? she fancied she concealed them so effectually from his knowledge; while he silently noted the march of skepticism in her nature.  There were dim, puzzling passages of Scripture which she studied on her knees; now trying to comprehend them, and now beseeching the Source of all knowledge to enlighten her.  But, as has happened to numberless others, there was seemingly no assistance given.  The clouds grew denser and darker, and, like the “cry of strong swimmers in their agony,” her prayers had gone up to the Throne of Grace.  Sometimes she was tempted to go to the minister of the church where she sat Sunday after Sunday, and beg him to explain the mysteries to her.  But the pompous austerity of his manners repelled her whenever she thought of broaching the subject, and gradually she saw that she must work out her own problems.  Thus, from week to week and month to month, she toiled on, with a slowly dying faith, constantly clambering over obstacles which seemed to stand between her trust and revelation.  It was no longer study for the sake of erudition; these riddles involved all that she prized in Time and Eternity, and she grasped books of every description with the eagerness of a famishing nature.  What dire chance threw into her hands such works as Emerson’s, Carlyle’s, and Goethe’s?  Like the waves of the clear, sunny sea, they only increased her thirst to madness.  Her burning lips were ever at these fountains; and, in her reckless eagerness, she plunged into the gulf of German speculation.  Here she believed that she had indeed found the “true processes,” and, with renewed zest, continued the work of questioning.  At this stage of the conflict the pestilential scourge was laid upon the city, and she paused from her metaphysical toil to close glazed eyes and shroud soulless clay.  In the awful hush of those hours of watching she looked calmly for some solution, and longed for the unquestioning faith of early years.  But these influences passed without aiding her in the least, and, with rekindled ardor, she went back to her false prophets.  In addition, ethnology beckoned her on to conclusions