mpt to transfer
them. I was controlled by a force not my own. The shadow of a mysterious
power was over me. The mists of sentimental pantheism were left far
below the clear-cut summits whither the reader was invited to ascend.
There was an interpretation of Revelation far more removed from the
apparent letter than that of Swedenborg. Here was reaffirmed (though for
a widely different purpose) what the Romish Church has ever
declared,--that the Scriptures, recording spiritual truth, cannot be
comprehensible to the natural understanding,--that, while the Sacred
Writings contain a natural letter, it can be translated into spiritual
verity only by a few exceptional men. If this scheme of philosophy was
an idealism, it nevertheless manifested itself through the plainest
realities. The solution of the problem seemed to come not from one
point, but from all points. Certainly there was a tendency towards the
supersensible; but this direction was taken through stern grappling with
the actual. At one time I struggled against the august spirit that was
borne in upon me; at another, I was utterly subdued by the lofty
enthusiasm of the writer,--something within me capable of absolute
cognition seemed responding to his appeals. But the pith and vitality of
this marvel could be recognized only by long experience. And here the
student was required to stake his soul upon a perilous cast. For, if not
pursued and fathomed to full satisfaction, this view of things would be
disturbing, paralyzing. With any half-acceptance a man might scarcely
live. It must fashion the mind as an artist fashions the passive metals
into a musical instrument, and then every event in time might touch it
to exquisite harmony. But the more ravishing the beauty which seemed
offered through perfect realization of this knowledge, the more
blighting would be its effects, if entertained in the spirit of a
selfish dilettanteism. For in certain passages were breathed faint
suggestions, that moral codes held sacred by the people could not bind
the initiated,--nay, that what seemed most evil might be so explained as
to become wholly legitimate to the elect.

It was far into the night. I had gone over about a third of the
manuscript. Sharp questions assailed my ears. Was I bound to jeopard
all the common good of life for the chance of--just failing to know
existence from a higher plane? Could I ascend so far above the frailties
of average men as to receive in purity and in