his one idea like an iron flail. In a word, there were a thousand
shapes of good and evil, faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense,
--a most incongruous throng.

Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conservative, unless he
abjured his fellowship with man, could hardly have helped throbbing
in sympathy with the spirit that pervaded these innumerable
theorists. It was good for the man of unquickened heart to listen
even to their folly. Far down beyond the fathom of the intellect
the soul acknowledged that all these varying and conflicting
developments of humanity were united in one sentiment. Be the
individual theory as wild as fancy could make it, still the wiser
spirit would recognize the struggle of the race after a better and
purer life than had yet been realized on earth. My faith revived
even while I rejected all their schemes. It could not be that the
world should continue forever what it has been; a soil where
Happiness is so rare a flower and Virtue so often a blighted fruit;
a battle-field where the good principle, with its shield flung above
its head, can hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse
influences. In the enthusiasm of such thoughts I gazed through one
of the pictured windows, and, behold! the whole external world was
tinged with the dimly glorious aspect that is peculiar to the Hall
of Fantasy, insomuch that it seemed practicable at that very instant
to realize some plan for the perfection of mankind. But, alas! if
reformers would understand the sphere in which their lot is cast
they must cease to look through pictured windows. Yet they not only
use this medium, but mistake it for the whitest sunshine.

"Come," said I to my friend, starting from a deep revery, "let us
hasten hence, or I shall be tempted to make a theory, after which