ulsive twitching of the patient's features, just
as when a weeping one is enlivened by a cheerful thought and would fain
smile, but cannot.

Eberhard attempted to trace letters on the coverlet, but Gunther found
it difficult to decipher them.

The sick man pointed to a table on which there lay books and
manuscripts. Gunther brought several of them, but none was the right
one. At last he brought a little manuscript book, the cover of which
was inscribed with the title, "Self-redemption." The sick man seemed
pleased, as if welcoming a fortunate occurrence.

"You wrote this yourself. Shall I read some of it to you?"

Eberhard nodded assent. Gunther sat down by the bed and read:

"May this serve to enlighten me on the day and in the hour when my mind
becomes obscured.

"I have been much given to introspection. I have endeavored to study
myself, without regard to the outward conditions of time, standpoint,
or circumstance. I perceive it, but, as yet, I cannot grasp it. It is a
dew-drop shut up in the heart of a rock.

"There are moments when I am fully up to the ideal I have formed for
myself, but there are many more when I am merely the caricature of my
better self. How am I to form a conception of my actual self? What am
I?

"I perceive that I am a something belonging to the universe and to
eternity.

"During the blessed moments, sometimes drawn out into hours, in which I
realize this conception, there is naught but life for me--no such thing
as death, either for me or the world.

"In my dying hour, I should like to be as clearly conscious as I now am
that I am in God, and that God is in me.

"Religion may claim warmth of feeling and glory of imagination as her
portion. We, on the other hand, have attained to that clear vision
which includes both feeling and imagination.

"In troubled, restless days, when I endeavored to grasp the Infinite, I
felt as if melting away, vanishing, disappearing. I longed to know:
What is God?

"And now I possess our master's answer: Although we cannot picture God
to ourselves, yet we have a clear idea or conception of Him.

"For us, the old commandment: 'Thou shalt not make unto thyself any
image of God,' signifies _thou canst_ not make to thyself any image of
God. Every image is finite; the idea of God is that of infinity.

"Spinoza teaches that we must regard ourselves as a part of God--

"While endeavoring to grasp the idea of the whole, I came to understand
what is mea