with a due proportion of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do
good, and did not imagine that I should ever have the power.

"'One day as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I
felt in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the
southern mountains, and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the
hurry of my imagination I commanded rain to fall; and by comparing
the time of my command with that of the inundation, I found that
the clouds had listened to my lips.'

"'Might not some other cause,' said I, 'produce this concurrence?
The Nile does not always rise on the same day.'

"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, 'that such objections
could escape me. I reasoned long against my own conviction, and
laboured against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes
suspected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart
this secret but to a man like you, capable of distinguishing the
wonderful from the impossible, and the incredible from the false.'

"'Why, sir,' said I, 'do you call that incredible which you know,
or think you know, to be true?'

"'Because,' said he, 'I cannot prove it by any external evidence;
and I know too well the laws of demonstration to think that my
conviction ought to influence another, who cannot, like me, be
conscious of its force. I therefore shall not attempt to gain
credit by disputation. It is sufficient that I feel this power
that I have long possessed, and every day exerted it. But the life
of man is short; the infirmities of age increase upon me, and the