source of human consolation was closed, others were still open. If the
transports of the husband were no more, the feelings of
the father had still scope for exercise. When remembrance of their
mother should excite too keen a pang, I would look upon my children and
be comforted.

"While I revolved these things new warmth flowed in upon my heart. I was
wrong. These feelings were the growth of selfishness. Of this I was not
aware; and, to dispel the mist that obscured my perceptions, a new light
and a new mandate were necessary.

"From these thoughts I was recalled by a ray which was shot into the
room. A voice spoke like that I had before heard: 'Thou hast done well;
but all is not done--the sacrifice is incomplete--thy children must be
offered--they must perish with their mother!'"

The misguided man obeys the voice; his children are destroyed in their
bloom and innocent beauty. He is arrested, tried for murder, and
acquitted as insane. The light breaks in upon him at last; he discovers
the imposture which has controlled him; and, made desperate by the full
consciousness of his folly and crime, ends the terrible drama by suicide.

Wieland is not a pleasant book. In one respect it resembles the modern
tale of Wuthering Heights: it has great strength and power, but no
beauty. Unlike that, however, it has an important and salutary moral. It
is a warning to all who tamper with the mind and rashly experiment upon
its religious element. As such, its perusal by the sectarian zealots of
all classes would perhaps be quite as profitable as much of their present
studies.