.

Let us judge, extracting portions from them at will.

The first, dated months back, began thus: "You will perhaps marvel, my
dear Miss Rothesay, that I should write to you, when for some time we
have met so rarely, and then apparently like ordinary acquaintance. Yet,
who should have a better right than we to call each other _friends_? And
like a friend you acted, when you consented that there should be between
us for a time this total silence on the subject which first bound us
together by a tie which we can neither of us break if we would. Alas!
sometimes I could almost curse the weakness which had given you--a
woman--to hold my secret in your hands. And yet so gently, so nobly
have you held it, that I could kneel and bless you. You see I can write
earnestly, though I speak so coldly."

"I told you, after that day when we two were alone with death (the
words are harsh, I know, but I have no smooth tongue), I told you that
I desired entire silence for weeks, perhaps months. I must 'commune with
my own heart and be still.' I must wrestle with this darkness alone. You
assented; you forced on me no long argumentative homilies--you preached
to me solely with your life, the pure beautiful life of a Christian
woman. Sometimes I tried to read carefully the morality of Jesus, which
I, and sceptics worse than I, must allow to be perfect of its kind, and
it struck me how nearly you approached to that divine life which I had
thought impossible to be realised."

"I have advanced thus far into my solemn seeking. I have learned to see
the revelation--imputedly divine--clear and distinct from the mass of
modern creeds with which it has been overladen. I have begun to read the
book on which--as you truly say--every form of religion is founded.
I try to read with my own eyes, putting aside all received
interpretations, earnestly desiring to cast from my soul all
long-gathered prejudices, and to bring it, naked and clear, to meet the
souls of those who are said to have written by divine inspiration."

"The book is a marvellous book. The history of all ages can scarcely
show its parallel. What diversity, yet what unity! The stream seems
to flow through all ages, catching the lights and shadows of different
periods, and of various human minds. Yet it is one and the same
stream---pure and shining as truth. Is it truth?--is it divine?"

"I will confess, candidly, that if the scheme of a worlds history with
reference to its Creator,