the ethereal spark with every stroke--Lumley Ferrers was just the man to
resist the imagination, and convince the reason, of Maltravers; and the
moment the matter came to argument, the cure was soon completed: for,
however we may darken and puzzle ourselves with fancies and visions,
and the ingenuities of fanatical mysticism, no man can mathematically or
syllogistically contend that the world which a God made, and a Saviour
visited, was designed to be damned.

And Ernest Maltravers one night softly stole to his room and opened the
New Testament, and read its heavenly moralities with purged eyes; and
when he had done, he fell upon his knees, and prayed the Almighty
to pardon the ungrateful heart that, worse than the Atheist's, had
confessed His existence, but denied His goodness. His sleep was sweet
and his dreams were cheerful. Did he rise to find that the penitence
which had shaken his reason would henceforth suffice to save his life
from all error? Alas! remorse overstrained has too often reactions as
dangerous; and homely Luther says well, that "the mind, like the drunken
peasant on horseback, when propped on the one side, nods and falls on
the other."--All that can be said is, that there are certain crises in
life which leave us long weaker; from which the system recovers with
frequent revulsion and weary relapse,--but from which, looking back,
after years have passed on, we date the foundation of strength or the
cure of disease. It is not to mean souls that creation is darkened by a
fear of the anger of Heaven.

CHAPTER XVII.

"There are times when we are diverted out of errors, but could
not be preached out of them.--There are practitioners who can cure
us of one disorder, though, in ordinary cases, they be but poor
physicians--nay, dangerous quacks."-STEPHEN MONTAGUE.

LUMLEY FERRERS had one rule in life; and it was this: to make all things
and all persons subservient to himself. And Ferrers now intended to go
abroad for some years. He wanted a companion, for he disliked solitude:
besides, a companion shared the expenses; and a man of eight hundred a
year, who desires all the luxuries of life, does not despise a partner
in the taxes to be paid for them. Ferrers, at this period, rather liked
Ernest than not: it was convenient to choose friends from those richer
than himself, and he resolved, when he first came to Temple Grove, that
Ernest should be his travelling companion. This resolution formed,