As the last words of his strange narration fell from Clifton’s lips, he bowed his head and was greatly agitated.  The vast theologic conception over which he had so long brooded, instead of lifting him on high, had crushed him to the earth.  His moral consciousness had demanded a satisfaction which he lacked integrity of purpose to pursue and challenge.  A fixed conviction of the dreariest pessimism would have been better for this man than the lofty uncertainty which had tortured his days; for in the belief that one may neither struggle nor aspire there is a certain practical drift.  But how shall he do any good who bears about him a quick conscience, a skeptical understanding, sensitive religious affections, and a feeble will?  Charles Clifton had neither the leisure, nor possibly the application, to follow the creeping advances of systematic knowledge.  He had listened to a fatal persuasion, and at the same time had sought to satisfy contradictory principles of the human mind.  The kindest thing I could do for him was soon perceived.

“Reverend Sir,” I said, “you must permit me to advise you.  It is now six o’clock.  In an hour the early train leaves for Foxden.  You must take it and return home.  Any further vacuum in your daily employment will produce a crushing pressure from without that might endanger reason itself.  I solemnly promise to deposit this manuscript in the Mather Safe,—­nay, I will not leave town until the President and Treasurer have met me this afternoon according to your agreement.  I pledge you my honor that the parchment shall be consigned to its resting-place with every necessary formality.”

My companion gazed long upon vacancy before returning any answer.  He strove to dispel the cloud-pageantry which had sailed above him in shapeless beauty.  He walked up and down the chamber, paused, threw open the window, and looked upon the street below.  I felt that every petty detail of man’s daily craft struck outlines of painful vividness upon the morbid sensibility of his condition.  Finally he spoke to this effect:  —­

“A grief has been lessened in giving it words.  My deepest and most solitary moments have been revealed to human sympathy, and the relief is great.  It may be that I have been created to some wholesome end,—­that some truth may shine before the world through what seems the failure of my life.  I will return at once to the sphere of the senses:  it is, as you say, all that is left me.  Let who will inquire into the significance and purpose of the Universe; it is for me to work in the bondage of the flesh, to be the humble tool of the age in which my lot is cast.”

Yet it was not easy to induce the clergyman to commit to my care the conclusion of the enterprise which had brought him to town.  His peculiar nervous temperament foretold a thousand accidents that might befall the precious legacy of his friend.  It was only by addressing his reason in repeated arguments, and by solemnly asseverating my entire fidelity, that I induced him to yield.