th which it has pleased our great Author
to glorify this mortal life.

CHAPTER IX.

WHICH TREATS OF THINGS SEEN.

As, for example, the breakfast. It is six o'clock,--the hired men and
oxen are gone,--the breakfast-table stands before the open kitchen-door,
snowy with its fresh cloth, the old silver coffee-pot steaming up a
refreshing perfume,--and the Doctor sits on one side, sipping his coffee
and looking across the table at Mary, who is innocently pleased at
the kindly beaming in his placid blue eyes,--and Aunt Katy Scudder
discourses of housekeeping, and fancies something must have disturbed
the rising of the cream, as it is not so thick and yellow as wont.

Now the Doctor, it is to be confessed, was apt to fall into a way
of looking at people such as pertains to philosophers and scholars
generally, that is, as if he were looking through them into the
infinite,--in which case, his gaze became so earnest and intent that it
would quite embarrass an uninitiated person; but Mary, being used to
this style of contemplation, was only quietly amused, and waited till
some great thought should loom up before his mental vision,--in which
case, she hoped to hear from him.

The good man swallowed his first cup of coffee and spoke:--

"In the Millennium, I suppose, there will be such a fulness and plenty
of all the necessaries and conveniences of life, that it will not be
necessary for men and women to spend the greater part of their lives in
labor in order to procure a living. It will not be necessary for each
one to labor more than two or three hours a day,--not more than will
conduce to health of body and vigor of mind; and the rest of their time
they will spend in reading and conversation, and such exercises as
are necessary and proper to improve their minds and make progress in
knowledge."

New England presents probably the only example of a successful
commonwealth founded on a theory, as a distinct experiment in the
problem of society. It was for this reason that the minds of its great
thinkers dwelt so much on the final solution of that problem in this
world. The fact of a future Millennium was a favorite doctrine of the
great leading theologians of New England, and Dr. H. dwelt upon it with
a peculiar partiality. Indeed, it was the solace and refuge of his soul,
when oppressed with the discouragements which always attend things
actual, to dwell upon and draw out in detail the splendors of this
perfect future w