“What are you thinking of?” said he, passing his hand over her head caressingly.

“Thinking of my life—­of the bygone years of struggle.”

“They are past, and can trouble you no more.  ’Let the dead past bury its dead!’”

“No; my past can never die.  I ponder it often, and it does me good; strengthens me, by keeping me humble.  I was just thinking of the dreary, desolate days and nights I passed, searching for a true philosophy and going further astray with every effort.  I was so proud of my intellect; put so much faith in my own powers; it was no wonder I was so benighted.”

“Where is your old worship of genius?” asked her husband, watching her curiously.

“I have not lost it all.  I hope I never shall.  Human genius has accomplished a vast deal for man’s temporal existence.  The physical sciences have been wheeled forward in the march of mind, and man’s earthly path gemmed with all that a merely sensual nature could desire.  But, looking aside from these channels, what has it effected for philosophy, that great burden, which constantly recalls the fabled labors of Sisyphus and the Danaides?  Since the rising of Bethlehem’s star, in the cloudy sky of polytheism, what has human genius discovered of God, eternity, destiny?  Metaphysicians build gorgeous cloud palaces, but the soul cannot dwell in their cold, misty atmosphere.  Antiquarians wrangle and write; Egypt’s moldering monuments are raked from their desert graves, and made the theme of scientific debate; but has all this learned disputation contributed one iota to clear the thorny way of strict morality?  Put the Bible out of sight, and how much will human intellect discover concerning our origin-our ultimate destiny?  In the morning of time sages handled these vital questions, and died, not one step nearer the truth than when they began.  Now, our philosophers struggle, earnestly and honestly, to make plain the same inscrutable mysteries.  Yes; blot out the records of Moses, and we would grope in starless night; for, notwithstanding the many priceless blessings it has discovered for man, the torch of science will never pierce and illumine the recesses over which Almighty God has hung his veil.  Here we see, indeed, as ‘through a glass, darkly.’  Yet I believe the day is already dawning when scientific data will not only cease to be antagonistic to Scriptural accounts, but will deepen the impress of Divinity on the pages of Holy Writ; when ’the torch shall be taken out of the hand of the infidel, and set to burn in the temple of the living God’; when Science and Religion shall link hands.  I revere the lonely thinkers to whom the world is indebted for its great inventions.  I honor the tireless laborers who toil in laboratories; who sweep midnight skies in search of new worlds; who unheave primeval rocks, hunting for footsteps of Deity; and I believe that every scientific fact will ultimately prove but another lamp planted along the path which leads to a knowledge