its secret chambers; yet, all untutored, the exhausted bird sought safety in the incomprehensible, and was saved.  As to the mysteries of revelation and inspiration, why, I meet mysteries, turn which way I will.  Man, earth, time, eternity, God, are all inscrutable mysteries My own soul is a mystery unto itself, and so long as I am impotent to fathom its depths, how shall I hope to unfold the secrets of the universe?”

She had rejected Christian theism, because she could not understand how God had created the universe out of nothing.  True, “with God, all things are possible”; but she could not understand this creation out of nothing, and therefore would not believe it.  Yet (oh, inconsistency of human reasoning!) she had believed that the universe created laws; that matter gradually created mind.  This was the inevitable result of pantheism; for, according to geology, there was a primeval period when neither vegetable nor animal life existed; when the earth was a huge mass of inorganic matter.  Of two incomprehensibilities, which was the most plausible?  To-night this question recurred to her mind with irresistible force, and, as her eyes wandered over the volumes she had so long consulted, she exclaimed: 

“Oh, philosophy! thou hast mocked my hungry soul; thy gilded fruits have crumbled to ashes in my grasp.  In lieu of the holy faith of my girlhood, thou hast given me but dim, doubtful conjecture, cold metaphysical abstractions, intangible shadows, that flit along my path, and lure me on to deeper morasses.  Oh, what is the shadow of death, in comparison with the starless night which has fallen upon me, even in the morning of my life!  My God, save me!  Give me light!  Of myself I can know nothing!”

Her proud intellect was humbled, and, falling on her knees, for the first time in many months, a sobbing prayer went up to the throne of the living God; while the vast clockwork of stars looked in on a pale brow and lips, where heavy drops of moisture glistened.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Four years had passed since Eugene Graham returned to his home, after his severe illness, and now, as he sits alone in his library, with a bundle of legal documents before him, it is not difficult to perceive that his promise has been held sacred.  Through the suggestion of Mr. Lindsay, and the persuasions of Beulah, he had closely applied himself to the study of law immediately after his recovery.  Hopeless of happiness in his home, ambition became the ruling passion, and scourged him on to unceasing exertion.  The aspirations of his boyhood revived; the memory of his humiliating course goaded him to cover the past with the garlands of fame; and consciousness of unusual talents assured him of final success.  Mr. Graham no longer opposed the design as formerly, but facilitated its execution to the utmost of his ability.  Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that earnest application soon procured his