ght by which I
could walk, I found it served but to the raising of another question,
'What is the fear of the Lord, and what is evil in this particular case?'
And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas proved to be but a case of
_ignotum per ignotius_.

"If Satan himself is at times transformed into an angel of light, are not
angels of light sometimes transformed into the likeness of Satan? If the
devil is not so black as he is painted, is God always so white? And is
there not another place in which it is said, 'The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom,' as though it were not the last word upon the
subject? If a man should not do evil that good may come, so neither
should he do good that evil may come; and though it were good for me to
speak out, should I not do better by refraining?

"Such were the lawless and uncertain thoughts that tortured me very
cruelly, so that I did what I had not done for many a long year--I prayed
for guidance. 'Shew me Thy will, O Lord,' I cried in great distress,
'and strengthen me to do it when Thou hast shewn it me.' But there was
no answer. Instinct tore me one way and reason another. Whereon I
settled that I would obey the reason with which God had endowed me,
unless the instinct He had also given me should thrash it out of me. I
could get no further than this, that the Lord hath mercy on whom He will
have mercy, and whom He willeth He hardeneth; and again I prayed that I
might be among those on whom He would shew His mercy.

"This was the strongest internal conflict that I ever remember to have
felt, and it was at the end of it that I perceived the first, but as yet
very faint, symptoms of that sickness from which I shall not recover.
Whether this be a token of mercy or no, my Father which is in heaven
knows, but I know not."

From what my father afterwards told me, I do not think the above
reflections had engrossed him for more than three or four minutes; the
giddiness which had for some seconds compelled him to lay hold of the
first thing he could catch at in order to avoid falling, passed away
without leaving a trace behind it, and his path seemed to become
comfortably clear before him. He settled it that the proper thing to do
would be to buy some food, start back at once while his permit was still
valid, help himself to the property which he had sold the Professors,
leaving the Erewhonians to wrestle as they best might with the lot that
it had pleased Heaven to