an hereafter: add too, the poison drops of some deistical friends!-enough-thou knowest what I mean-I was neither deist, nor а believer; but a confusion of both—a chaos! In the midst of all this I was attacked with typhus; and was given up by Dr. C— and the surgeon-and, what is singular, instead of delirium befriending me to allay the dreadful calls and craving of anticipation and hope, the fever gave a rarifaction and extension to them beyond philosophy-beyond poetrybeyond man!-I was fixed on the launch of futurity-half on earth, and half some-whereelse! The almost detached soul now gazed upon earth-now, upon the " darkness visible" void, which was filled with flitting somethings ―hopes like distant comets in giddy chaseno sun-no moon-no fixed stars. Dark uncertain forms passed in the foreground (not of hell!) but nothing that I could identify myself with. It was a fearful time thou mayest suppose! I would have given a world of Jerusalems for one fixed light! Our Rabbis came to see me; and after a five days controversy and research into prophecy (with a mind predetermined or pre-occupied against) convic tion began to come. dawned in the dark chaos-nearer, and nearer; the halo of his eye blazing the darkness off. His now embodied form, replete in the vast and sublime combination of its attributes, sat on his throne of light, looking-mercy—compassion-peace-upon my tired soul! I became strong in joy; and would rather have departed in that extacy, than have returned to earth to suffer what I now suffer. The revealed God now But to convince thee of the necessity of a revealed, over the dark confusion of natural religion, I will relate a circumstance which will prove to thee, on entirely natural principles, the impossibility of the mind willing or conceiving annihilation, or non-existence; or of having any fixed tangible or definable hope without revelation. Prior to conviction I would not could not die! I made my will and arranged for my funeral. The situation for my coffin in the burial ground was a thing of vital consequence to me-to be near the surfaceto have light-to see passers by—to be as far from the other skeletons as possible, since I must be doomed to tenant a form like their's. And lastly, a desire to have my coffin-lid un screwed, for liberty, though I felt ashamed to express that desire. With all the other desires that influence me on earth-loves-friendships -hopes, and the desire of perfectibility: but then the bones were there; until "God spoke" and thought-or soul-was unembodied-and made it "Eternal, boundless, undecayed, This principle is applicable to all, and I challenge the world of atheism to disprove its universality of action—no never. There is an inward something that will for ever make a being of consciousness: call it hope or anticipation-no matter! And should that said something not grasp at things beyond this earth, why it will turn Pythagorean, and dream itself into its favorite animal, walk in its own skeleton, or live in its own progeny, and wander in the leading strings of something to the rim of endlessness. The Goth will have his visions of a future, and hunt, and drink; the Mahometan his harem in the skies; Virgil his elysium of war, poetry and law; and Plato, that most sublimated of the natural religionists, a craving after perfectibility somewhere, with Cicero, Aristotle, Xenophon, and a hundred more. But revelation comes with its palpable identities, to concentrate and condense the immortal vapour, and to give it rest in sublimated essence, in a tangible heaven of ideality. Social action, too, would stagnate without the hope of futurity, in some shape, for we see the mere hope of reward for virtue on earth, to the great herd of mankind, quite inadequate to tempt them to perform it, or to bear a small, present, self-evil for a great, ultimate, general or self-good. As to atheism, in my opinion, it is a nonentity-not because it is good, or evil, or frightful, or pleasing, but merely because we cannot will it. The pride of argument may make a man speak it and a habit of conquest over the ignorant (for most arguers take care to chuse an inferior opponent) may make a man doubt for a moment that immortality which nature had before told him was a truth; but the latent principle of anticipation-hope-will return in the calm of reflection, and whisper of eternity. Man may fancy for a moment the most absurd impossibilities, but nature will shake him to the truth again. I am just off to Loch Duic with the man and his wife who are going to sacrament twenty miles. We have breakfasted on hot whey, and "barley scons" (cake); no very substantial food to travel on thou wilt say; add to that, shattered feet and legs, and thou wilt pity me. Farewell, old woman, and may thy soul find a cleaner hut in heaven, farewell till Here am I again my friend, at a strange lonely Highland hut, in this glen of glens Annymullock, where lives the fox and cat-hunter of the district, with a pack of lurchers and terriers real originals the terriers are quite antiques, with long bodies, bandy turnspit forelegs, and monstrous wolf snouts, with fiery tan strong hair; they are true to the letter and would nose Sir Harry himself. Here, too, are some skins, and a stuffed wild cat, which measures five feet from tip to tail, more like a tiger than a cat, and alive, would kill an English ram single handed in two minutes. I do not now wonder at their horrid howlings last night. They are a great enemy to sheep |