was summoned to his bedside.

The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the
heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary
symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found relief
from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but to-night
this had been attempted in vain.

As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and
although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite
at ease.

"I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer
to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal
impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and
surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on the
topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that there has always
existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a vague
half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment at no
time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to do.
All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more
sceptical than before. I had been advised to study Cousin. I studied
him in his own works as well as in those of his European and American
echoes. The 'Charles Elwood' of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed
in my hands. I read it with profound attention. Throughout I found it
logical, but the portions which were not _merely_ logical were unhappily
the initial arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In his
summing up it seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even
succeeded in convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his
beginning, like the government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in
perceiving that if man is to be intellectually convinced of his own
immortality, he will never be so convinced by the mere abstractions
which have been so long the fashion of the moralists of England, of
France, and of Germany. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no
hold on the mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded,
will always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things. The
will may assent--the soul--the intellect, never.

"I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually
believed. But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the
feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence of
reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. I am
enable