apparently antagonistic to the revealed system, and the stony face of geology seemed radiant with characters of light, which she might decipher and find some security in.  From Dr. Asbury’s extensive collection she snatched treatise after treatise.  The sages of geology talked of the pre-Adamic eras, and of man’s ending the slowly forged chain, of which the radiata form the lowest link; and then she was told that in those pre-Adamic ages paleontologists find no trace whatever of that golden time when the vast animal creation lived in harmony and bloodshed was unknown; ergo, man’s fall in Eden had no agency in bringing death into the world; ergo, that chapter in Genesis need puzzle her no more.

Finally, she learned that she was the crowning intelligence in the vast progression; that she would ultimately become part of Deity.  “The long ascending line, from dead matter to man, had been a progress Godward, and the next advance would unite creation and Creator in one person.”  With all her aspirations she had never dreamed of such a future as was here promised her.  To-night she was closely following that most anomalous of all guides, “Herr Teufelsdrockh.”  Urged on by the same “unrest,” she was stumbling along dim, devious paths, while from every side whispers came to her:  “Nature is one:  she is your mother, and divine:  she is God!  The ‘living garment of God.’” Through the “everlasting No,” and the “everlasting Yea,” she groped her way, darkly, tremblingly, waiting for the day-star of Truth to dawn; but, at last, when she fancied she saw the first rays silvering the night, and looked up hopefully, it proved one of many ignes-fatui which had flashed across her path, and she saw that it was Goethe, uplifted as the prophet of the genuine religion.  The book fell from her nerveless fingers; she closed her eyes, and groaned.  It was all “confusion, worse confounded.”  She could not for her life have told what she believed, much less what she did not believe.  The landmarks of earlier years were swept away; the beacon light of Calvary had sunk below her horizon.  A howling chaos seemed about to ingulf her.  At that moment she would gladly have sought assistance from her guardian; but how could she approach him after their last interview?  The friendly face and cordial kindness of Dr. Asbury flashed upon her memory, and she resolved to confide her doubts and difficulties to him, hoping to obtain from his clear and matured judgment some clew which might enable her to emerge from the labyrinth that involved her.  She knelt and tried to pray.  To what did she, on bended knees, send up passionate supplications?  To nature? to heroes?  These were the new deities.  She could not pray; all grew dark; she pressed her hands to her throbbing brain, striving to clear away the mists.  “Sartor” had effectually blindfolded her, and she threw herself down to sleep with a shivering dread, as of a young child separated from its mother, and wailing in some starless desert.