“Tuesday, April 18.—­I confess that either the Church is not sufficient for my wants or I have not seen it in its glory.  I hope it may be the latter.  I do not want to say it, but I must own that it fills me no more.  I contemplate it, I look at it, I comprehend it.  It does not lead me to aspire.  I feel that either it has nothing to give, or that what it has is not that for which my soul is aching.  I know it can be said in reply that I cannot know what the Church has until I am in communion with it; that it satisfies natures greater than mine; that it is the true life of the world; that there is no true spirituality outside of it, and that before I can judge it rightly my life must be equal to it in purity and elevation.  Much more might be said.  But, after all, what is it?  The Catholic shows up the Anglican; the Anglican retorts with an accusation of corruption, and even a want of purity; the Protestant, the Presbyterian, claim their own mission at the expense of consistency and good logic. . . .

“The whole fact, I suppose, is that if there is anything in Succession, Tradition, Infallibility, Church organism and form, it is in the Catholic Church, and our business will be to stop this controversy and call an Ecumenical Council which shall settle these matters according to the Bible, Tradition, and the light of the Church.”

There is a touch of unconscious humor in the final paragraph which clamored for quotation.  But it was plainly written in profound earnest.

“Thursday, April 20.—­My soul is disquieted, my heart aches. . .  Tears flow from my eyes involuntarily.  My soul is grieved—­for what?  Yesterday, as I was praying, the thought flashed across my mind, Where is God?  Is He not here?  Why prayest thou as if He were at a great distance from thee?  Think of it.  Where canst thou place Him—­in what locality?  Is He not here in thy midst?  Is His presence not nearest of all to thee?  Oh, think of it!  God is here. . . .

“Am I impious to say that the language used in Scripture for Christ’s expresses the thoughts of my soul?  Oh, could we but understand that the kingdom of heaven is always at hand to the discerner, and that God calls upon all to ’Repent, for ye shall not all disappear until it shall open.  This generation shall not pass away.’”

Then follows a page of philosophizing on time and eternity, immensity and space, and “monads who may develop or fulfil their destiny in other worlds than this,” a reminiscence, perhaps, of the lectures on such topics at which Mr. Curtis says Isaac used to “look in,” hoping to “find an answer to his questions.”  Such speculations are a trait throughout the diary, though they are everywhere subordinate to the practical ends which dominantly interest him.  A day or two later comes a passage, already given in a preceding chapter, in reference to certain prophetic dreams which it has been given him to see realized.  And at once this follows: