"Law,"--how ready to explain away the inexplicable! Up to this point
death had struck me as a most unfortunate phenomenon. Its personal
disabilities I found it easy to attribute to some natural law with
which my previous education had left me unfamiliar. Now, standing
baffled there in that incredible manner half of tragedy, half of the
absurd,--even the petty element of the undignified in the position
adding to my distress,--a houseless, homeless, outcast spirit, struck
still in the heart of that great town, where in hundreds of homes was
weeping for me, where I was beloved and honoured and bemoaned, and
where my own wife at that hour broke her heart with sorrow for me and
for the manner of my parting from her,--then and there to be beaten
back, and battered down, and tossed like an atom in some primeval
flood, whithersoever I would not,--what a situation was this!

Now, indeed, I think for the first time, my soul lifted itself, as a
sick man lifts himself upon his elbows, in his painful bed. Now,
flashing straight back upon the outburst of my defiance and despair,
like the reflex action of a strong muscle, there came into my mind, if
not into my heart, these impulsive and entreating words:--

"What art Thou, who dost withstand me? I am a dead and helpless man.
What wouldst Thou with me? Where gainest Thou Thy force upon me? Art
Thou verily that ancient Myth which we were wont to call Almighty God?"

Simultaneously with the utterance of these words that blast of Will to
which I have referred fell heavily upon me. A Power not myself
overshadowed me and did environ me. Guided whithersoever I would not,
I passed forth upon errands all unknown to me, rebelling and obeying as
I went.

"I am become what we used to call a spirit," I thought, bitterly, "and
this is what it means. Better might one become a molecule, for those,
at least, obey the laws of the universe, and do not suffer."

Now, as I took my course, it being ordered on me, it led me past the
door of a certain open church, whence the sound of singing issued. The
finest choir in the city, famous far and near, were practising for the
Sunday service, and singing like the sons of God, indeed, as I passed
by. With the love of the scientific temperament for harmony alert in
me, I lingered to listen to the anthem which these singers were
rendering in their customary great manner. With the instinct of the
musically educated, I felt pleasure in this singing