utterly impossible to
abstract and concentrate one's thoughts, while at the mercy of every
intruder, and fevered and fretful by every disturbance. Men early and
long accustomed to mingle such reflections with the avocations of courts
and cities have grown callous to these interruptions, and it has been in
the very heart of the multitude that the profoundest speculations have
been cherished and produced; but I was not of this mould. The world,
which before had been distasteful, now grew insufferable; I longed for
some seclusion, some utter solitude, some quiet and unpenetrated nook,
that I might give my undivided mind to the knowledge of these things,
and build the tower of divine reasonings by which I might ascend to
heaven. It was at this time, and in the midst of my fiercest internal
conflict, that the great Czar died, and I was suddenly recalled to
Russia.

"Now," I said, when I heard of my release, "now shall my wishes be
fulfilled!"

I sent to Bezoni. He came, but he refused, as indeed he had for some
time done, to speak to me further upon the question which so wildly
engrossed me. "I forgive you," said I, when we parted, "I forgive you
for all that you have cost me: I feel that the moment is now at hand
when my faith shall frame a weapon wherewith to triumph over yours!"

Father in Heaven! thanks be to Thee that my doubts were at last removed,
and the cloud rolled away from my soul.

Bezoni embraced me, and wept over me. "All good men," said he, "have a
mighty interest in your success; for me there is nothing dark, even in
the mute grave, if it covers the ashes of one who has loved and served
his brethren, and done, with a wilful heart, no living creature wrong."

Soon afterwards the Italian lost his life in attending the victims of a
fearful and contagious disease, whom even the regular practitioners of
the healing art hesitated to visit.

At this moment I am, in the strictest acceptation of the words, a
believer and a Christian. I have neither anxiety nor doubt upon the
noblest and the most comforting of all creeds, and I am grateful, among
the other blessings which faith has brought me,--I am grateful that
it has brought me CHARITY! Dark to all human beings was Bezoni's
doctrine,--dark, above all, to those who have mourned on earth; so
withering to all the hopes which cling the most enduringly to the
heart was his unhappy creed that he who knows how inseparably,
though insensibly, our moral legislation