in precisely the same state.  Both had fallen in the path, and stiffened under the terrible power of the climate.  It was not without difficulty that Roswell reached the wreck, and reported what he had seen.  Even this terrible admonition did not change Daggett’s purpose.  He had begun to burn his vessel, for there was now no alternative; but he was doing it on a system which, as he explained it to Roswell, was not only to leave him materials with which to construct a smaller craft in the spring, but which would allow of his inhabiting the steerage and cabin as long as he pleased.

In some respects the wreck certainly had its advantages over the house.  There was more room for exercise, the caverns of the ice being extensive, while they completely excluded the wind, which was now the great danger of the season.  It was doubtless owing to the wind that Macy and his companion had perished.  As the spring approached, these winds increased in violence; though there had been slight symptoms of their coming more blandly, even at the time when their colder currents were really frightful.

A whole month succeeded this visit of Roswell’s, during which there was no intercourse.  It was September, the March of the antarctic circle, and the weather had been terrific during most of the period.  It was during these terrible four weeks that Roswell completed his examination of the all-important subject Mary had marked out for him, and which Stimson had so earnestly and so often placed before his mind.  The sudden fate of Macy and his companion, the condition of his crew, and all the serious circumstances with which he was surrounded, conspired to predispose him to inquiry; and what was equally important in such an investigation, to humility.  Man is a very different being in high prosperity from what he becomes when the blows of an evil fortune, or the visitations of Divine Providence alight upon him.  The skepticism of Roswell was more the result of human pride, of confidence in himself, than in any precept derived from others, or of any deep reasoning process whatever.  He conceived that the theory of the incarnation of the Son of God was opposed to philosophy and experience, it is true; and, thus far, he may be said to have reasoned in the matter, though it was in his own way, and with a very contracted view of the subject; but pride had much more to do with even this conclusion, than a knowledge of physics or philosophy.  It did not comport with the respect he entertained for his own powers, to lend his faith to an account that conflicted with so many of the opinions he had formed on evidence and practice.  Credulous women might have their convictions on the truth of this history, but it was not necessary for men to be as easily duped.  There was something even amiable and attractive in this weakness of the other sex, that would ill comport, however, with the greater sternness of masculine judgment.  Roswell, as he once told Stimson, hesitated to believe